GOP Pushing 'Buyers Remorse' on Voters

Photo: Fox Smear at Work

Obama
At Risk,
Part 2

By Tom Hayden
Progressives for Obama


"The most that can be expected at this stage are November electoral mandates for peace and a speedy withdrawal from both American and Iraqi voters. This will not be easy, despite the peace majorities entrenched in both countries. In the meantime, Congressional debate over the secret US-Iraq "status of forces" agreement will keep the issues front-and-center.

If Barack Obama goes through with his high-risk plan to visit Iraq [and Afghanistan], he may be confronted by US military commanders and Iraqi leaders questioning his 16-month timetable as naive and threatening to national security. On the other hand, Obama risks demoralization within his electoral base if he wavers on basics.

Meanwhile, in John McCain, the hawks have found the perfect iconic candidate for keeping the Iraq war alive through the present depths of its democratic legitimacy crisis. McCain's election would serve the interests of the Pentagon, revive the neo-conservative era, and further deepen the conflict between democracy and empire."

-- Tom Hayden, The Huffington Post, July 12.

I don’t want to "pile on" along with those already complaining about Obama’s "move to the center." But I am concerned that some people might be in denial about his failure to gain traction in the polls even as McCain seems to flounder on.

There always are explanations – it’s summer, polls fluctuate, etc.


But I think the Obama campaign may be falling into the Rove game plan. Besides the hard-core 40 percent who never will vote for Obama, the Republicans only need to reinforce and deepen the doubt among another ten percent about who Obama is and what he stands for.

There are many ways to move to the center which are consistent with Obama’s promise to change the frozen categories of partisan politics. For example, he could strongly support start-up businesses and individual entrepreneurs in all sorts of ways. But seeming to reverse himself so significantly on the electronic surveillance bill sent a different message, that he’s not the candidate he promised to be.

It’s possible to argue that he’s been slipping ever since the late stages of the Democratic primary campaign, but I won’t go there. Certainly the promise of spending money and campaigning in 50 states may be seen as hubris, once the realities of the fierce two-party competition sink in.

And then there’s Iraq, always Iraq. Taking Sen. Hagel to Baghdad with him is certainly a good move, but the place is not exactly a controlled environment for presidential events. If anyone controls the scene, it’s the Pentagon, White House, and the al-Maliki government, and they’re not going to do him any favors. The same is true of Afghanistan. For that matter, even his plans for Germany have been rattled by partisan politics. It’s hard to see the upside of these high-risk, high-wire events when he could be campaigning in, say, Colorado and New Mexico. Images of Obama as a global "leader" may be of some value, but they don’t connect with Middle Americans who wonder why he says Sioux Falls instead of Sioux Rapids, or why he was surprised that Pittsburg has a nice river and mountains.

It will be hard to avoid criticism of Obama’s Iraq withdrawal plan from the very "commanders on the ground" he says he wants to listen to. They, the Pentagon, the White House and the mainstream media will tell him the plan is unrealistic and destabilizing. If that happens, will Obama publicly reject what they say, be protected by Hagel, or issue a "refinement" of his policy that stirs up the whole anti-war movement?

As far as I can tell, his three compelling arguments with McCain, in addition to "change", are:

* End the War: ending the Iraq War through diplomacy and troop withdrawals, versus McCain’s policy of winning miitarily and retaining an army of permanent occupation;

* Economic Growth: redirecting Iraq spending and ending Bush’s tax breaks to invest in health care and public works projects, and re-regulating out-0f-control financial markets and war contractors to stabilize and improve the economy, versus McCain’s tax cuts, threats to Social Security, and reluctance to regulate.

* Protect the environment instead of doing favors for the big oil companies, with a massive focus on "green jobs" in conservation and sustainable energy projects, versus McCain’s deference to oil company priorities


To get there requires delivering on two other Obama themes: mobilizing the public to participate creatively and actively more than they ever have, and thwarting the hordes of fossilized lobbyists in Washington.

Isn’t that the substance that brought Obama this far, and that he himself symbolizes in his personal story? That message is backed by the voluntary and fragile faith of millions of Americans. Yes, Americans want a certain level of pragmatism and deal-making, but it that’s all they wanted they would have chosen someone other than Barack Obama, and still may.

The unusual quality of Obama’s campaign is that it rests on a fleeting "audacity of hope", not on the institutional machinery of traditional politics. The Republicans and the media, in different ways and for different reasons, will do everything possible to throw Obama off that focus. They want to instill a sense of buyer’s remorse. It can happen very quickly, hardly noticeable at first, but becomes irreversible when the image solidifies.

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2008 Voting: Take Nothing for Granted

Photo: Getting Youth Registered

Voter Protection
and Our Legacy
of Election Fraud

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
BlackCommentator.com

I asked a good friend what I should write about for BlackCommentator.com this week. Without missing a beat she said: "Write about what I am working on!" I looked at her and asked what that was. Her response: "Voter protection."

Elections in the USA have rarely been clean. Electoral theft is not new. Infamous big city machines were known for throwing elections one way or the other. The 1960 Presidential election has always been shrouded in some degree of mystery, particularly with regard to the voting results from Illinois. African Americans, Chicanos and Asians have had plenty of experience with electoral fraud, having been effectively denied the right to vote for most of the period since the end of Reconstruction (1877).


Yet, in the period particularly since the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965) and the Watergate infamy (1973-74), an assumption emerged in Mainstream America that elections were, for the most part, honest and on the up and up.

Then came the November 2000 elections.

There were several things that were striking about the November 2000 elections. One was the audacity on the part of the Bush forces, dramatized in the recent HBO film, Recount. Their arrogance and boldness completely took the Gore campaign, as well as many pro-democracy groups, entirely off guard. While the Bush campaign was prepared to agitate, including through demonstrations, on behalf of their candidate, the Gore forces were paralyzed. Staff and volunteers linked to organized labor mobilized to go to Florida, but found themselves doing little more than taking affidavits from individuals who alleged that they had been deprived of their democratic rights.

The tactics that were used in both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections by Bush-aligned forces were quite amazing. Black voters, for instance, found themselves eliminated from the voting rolls. As reported by the journalist Greg Palast, letters were sent to the home addresses of Black active duty military service personnel who, if they did not respond, had their votes challenged. This last point is remarkable since it was the votes of those who were literally in the line of fire who were being denied their right to have their votes counted.

Added to this has been the introduction of computer screen voting. Described as making the system more efficient, the lack of hardcopy proof of voting along with numerous examples of computer glitches (and possible computer tampering) raises further questions as to whether the right to vote is being eroded.

Thus, the irony is that we have witnessed a Presidential administration that has heralded the right to democratic elections overseas (even if all they have been concerned with is that there is more than one party in the race rather than whether there has been genuine democracy), yet tactics have been implemented which they have not challenged (if not outright encouraged), that deprive entire sections of the US population of their right to vote.

The awareness of the shenanigans of the 2000 and 2004 elections has led to a very broad-based mobilization around what is being called "Voter Protection." Unions, community-based organizations, and other non-profits have enlisted in this battle, one which starts with increasing public awareness of the dangers of voter disenfranchisement.

Further involvement in this work is of great importance, and is often missed when the focus of our electoral discussions are on the candidates alone. The political Right, fearing a loss by McCain, will do all that it can to suppress the Black vote, the Latino vote (except among Cuban Americans), older citizen vote and the youth vote. It will more than likely do this through a shrewd combination of propaganda aimed at defaming Senator Obama and encouraging fear as to who he actually is (i.e., the false allegations that he is a Muslim; does not do the Pledge of Allegiance; is actually not a US citizen), as well as through the tried and true tactics of the 2000 and 2004 elections.

With regard to outright voter suppression, for example, volunteers will be needed at all poll sites to ensure that there is no voter intimidation or misinformation. This is a lot more than traditional voter registration/education and Get Out The Vote (GOTV). It is really a democracy mobilization.

In November 2000 I was deployed by the AFL-CIO to Florida for several days following the election. I watched and listened as reports came in regarding spontaneous demonstrations taking place in various parts of the state by disenfranchised voters; voters who WANTED their votes counted. I watched and listened as affidavits were completed. I watched and listened as the Bush forces made it appear that they were the righteous and that Gore was the spoiler. I watched and listened as the Gore campaign and its allies completely caved in.

I am not going through that again. We must provide the support for voters to ensure that their votes are counted, but if there is further theft it is not permissible to accept that the election was stolen fair and square. The tables will need to be turned.

[ http://blackcommentator.com/285/285_aw_voter_protection.html For more information on voter protection, see: www.vote411.org ] [BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a a founder of 'Progressives for Obama' and Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of the just released book, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA.]

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Obama and Voters of Two Outlooks

Photo: George Lakoff


The Mind
and the
Obama Magic

[This very interesting piece misses one point. Obama has a number of long-held positions beyond the usual progressive camp simply because he has always held them --CarlD]

By George Lakoff
UC Berkeley

July 6, 2008 - Barack Obama should not move, or even appear to be moving, toward right-wing views on issues -- even with nuanced escape clauses. Arianna Huffington, Paul Krugman, and the NY Times Editorial Page all agree, for various reasons. I agree as well, for many of the same reasons, as well as important reasons that go beyond even excellent political commentary. My reasons have to do with results in the cognitive and brain sciences, as discussed in my recent book, The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st Century Politics with an 18th Century Brain.

But before I get into the details, it is important to get a sense of why Obama might be "moving to the Right." There are at least three possibilities. The first is for political expediency. The second is to reassure voters that he is a responsible leader, not a crazy radical. The third is that he thinks that nuanced positions don't have the effect of the moving to the right.


Let's start with the first possibility -- expediency, the one assumed by most observers.

The Political Expediency Argument

The usual political wisdom is (1) voters vote on the basis of positions on issues, (2) there is a left-to-right spectrum of voters defined by positions on issues, (3) most voters are in the "center." Polls are constructed to appear consistent with this tri-partite hypothesis. The Dick Morris strategy, based on this hypothesis, says: if a Democrat moves the Right, he will get more votes because he will "take away" the other side's issues. If Obama and his advisors believe this, then the more they more to the Right, the bigger their win should be. But all three hypotheses are false, and so is the conclusion based on it.

First, voters mostly vote not on the details of positions on issues, but on five aspects of what might be called "character," as Richard Wirthlin discovered in the 1980 Reagan campaign. They are Values (What are the ethical principles that form the basis of your politics?); Authenticity (Do you say what you believe?); Communication (Do you connect with voters and inspire them?); Judgment; Trust; and Identity (If you share voters' values, connect with them, tell them the truth effectively while inspiring trust, then they will identify with you -- and they will voter for you. Positions on issues matter when they come to stand symbolically for values. Reagan and George W. Bush understood this. Carter, Mondale, Gore, and Kerry did not. And in the primaries. Hillary Clinton did not get it (she focused on policy, while Obama and McCain focused more on character, on who he was).

Values, authenticity, communication, judgment, and trust are not irrational reasons for voting for a president, even over positions on specific issues. The reason is that situations change, and what you rationally wind up depending on are just those virtues.

Obama introduced himself to the primary voters not as a policy wonk, but as a person of character, who announced his values, said what he believed (no pussyfooting), communicated beautifully and powerfully, and gave examples of his good judgment -- he was someone you could trust and identify with. That was a major part of the Obama magic. If Obama even appears to adopt Right-wing views for the sake of getting more votes, he will appear to be giving up on his values, renouncing his authenticity and believability, clouding his judgment, and raising questions about whether he can be trusted. The Obama magic will be in danger of fading.

Let us now turn to the second reason. There are two major modes of thought in American politics -- conservative and progressive, what I've called "strict" and "nurturant." We all grow up with brains exposed to both and capable of using both, but usually in different areas of life. Some people are conservative on foreign policy and progressive on domestic policy, or conservative on economic issues and progressive on social issues -- or the reverse. There is no left-to-right linear spectrum; all kinds of combinations occur. I've called such folks "biconceptuals." Brainwise, they show a common situation called "mutual inhibition," where two modes of thought are possible but the activation of one inhibits the other. The more you activate a conservative mode of thought, the more you inhibit the progressive mode of thought -- and the more likely it is that the conservative mode of thought will spread to other issues.

Interestingly, many people who call themselves "conservatives" actually think like progressives on a range of issue areas. For example, many "conservatives" love the land as much as any environmentalist; want to live in communities where people care about each other, that is, have social not just individual responsibility; live progressive business principles of honestly, care for their employees, and care for the public; and have progressive religious values: helping the poor, caring for the sick, being good stewards of the God's creation, turning the other cheek. One view of "bipartisanship" for progressives is finding self-described conservatives and independents who have such progressive values and working with them on that basis. That's what Obama did when he went to Rick Warren's megachurch and it is his strategy in Project Joshua. Note that this is the opposite of the form of bipartisanship that involves really adopting right-wing values, or even appearing to. What this bipartisan strategy does, from the brain's viewpoint, is to activate the progressive mode of thought in the brains of conservatives, and thus tends to inhibit conservative thought.

But the form of bipartisanship that involves adopting, or appearing to adopt, right-wing views has the opposite effect. It strengthens conservative thought in the brains on those biconceptuals and weakens progressive thought. In short, it actually helps conservatives. Rather than "taking arguments away from them" it strengthens their basic values and hence all their arguments. It give conservatives more reason, not less, for voting for conservatives.

If Obama adopts, or appears to adopt, right-wing positions, he may still win, since McCain is such a weak candidate. But it will hurt Democrats running for office all up and down the ticket, since it will strengthen general conservative positions on all issues and hence work in the favor of conservative candidates.

As has often been said, if you are a conservative, why vote for the progressive spouting conservative views when you can vote for a real conservative?

In short, if Obama adopts, or appears to adopt, rightwing views, he will not only hurt himself, but also hurt other Democrats.

The Responsibility Position

Suppose that Obama's motivation is not political expediency, but rather an attempt to counter both rightwing and centrist stereotypes of progressives as being irresponsible.

Adopting, or appearing to adopt, rightwing positions is not going to work, and will only hurt, for reasons given above. What is the alternative?

In The Audacity of Hope, Obama portrays what I would call progressive ideals as simply American ideals, and he continued that account throughout the primary campaign. I think it is a correct account. And I think it is the key to uniting the country without adopting rightwing views. From this perspective, responsibility and the strength and judgment to act responsibly works with empathy (caring about other people) to define the basic American ideals: freedom, fairness, equality, opportunity, and so on. One can speak from this perspective of "full responsibility" both social and individual as central to the American vision, and they say what it means to be both responsible and committed to American ideals in each issue area. Moving to rightwing views, and abandoning American ideals, is never necessary to win.

The Nuanced Policy Position

It is possible to add nuance to a policy to make it look like you are moving to the right without actually doing so in policy terms. This can seem to do double duty, avoiding criticisms without making really substantive changes. It is an illusion.

When Obama ran for Senator in Illinois he had to at least appear to support Illinois industries -- coal, ethanol, and nuclear energy. He has used nuanced escape clauses, such as if it turns out to be economically feasible, while aware that sequestered coal, corn ethanol, and nuclear could not be economically feasible. Is this good politics? It may have been for a new senator, but it is not for a president. The reason again is that doing so activates a conservative mode of thought and inhibits a progressive mode of thought, making the move to real alternative energy that much harder.

Positions like this depend on a deep mistake about policy. There are two aspects to policy: cognitive and material. Material policy is about the nuts and bolts, how things are to work in the world. Cognitive policy is about what the public has to have in its brain/mind in order to fully support the right material policies. Coal, nuclear energy, and ethanol are policy disasters, and even giving them support with nuanced escape clauses hurts the possibility of real energy reform, but it activates, and hence strengthens, the conservative modes of thought that lie behind those proposals.

The bottom line: A nuanced policy that looks like a rightward move has the cognitive effect of a rightward move. Cognitive effects matter awfully in presidential campaigns.

Can You Avoid Attacks?

No. No matter how many rightwing views you move toward, you will be viciously attacked as too liberal, as influenced by radicals, as inexperienced, as unpatriotic, as all words and no content. Stick to your core values. Be yourself. Voters will respect you.

Why Understanding the Political Mind Matters

Politics looks different from the perspective of the cognitive and brain sciences. That is why I have written The Political Mind. Your arguments change when you start with how the brain and mind really work.

From the brain's perspective, the pragmatic arguments and moral arguments converge: Don't adopt rightwing positions for the sake of political expediency (that will backfire) or to demonstrate responsibility (that too will backfire). The best way to be expedient is to be authentic, stick to your core values, show and discuss responsibility, and thus garner trust. That is how to lead our nation, and to do so responsibly and toward fulfillment of its ideals.

[George Lakoff is the author of The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 20th Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain. He is Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.]

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Obama: Think Windmills on Coal River Mountain

Photo: West Virginia Wind Turbines

New Energy
West Virginia
Can Believe In

By Jeff Biggers
Huffington Post

July 9, 2008 - If Senator Barack Obama ever needs a living symbol of change we can believe in, and a hopeful way to transcend the dirty politics of our failed energy policies, he should go and see the future of renewable energy in the Coal River Valley in West Virginia.

Yes, renewable energy in Appalachia.

Something historic is taking place in West Virginia this summer. Faced with an impending proposal to stripmine over 6,600 acres -- nearly 10 square miles -- in the Coal River Valley, including one of the last great mountains in that range, an extraordinary movement of local residents and coal mining families have come up with a counter proposal for an even more effective wind farm.


Mother Jones, the miners' angel, once declared: "Pray for the dead, and fight like hell for the living."

Having witnessed the destruction of over 470 mountains and their adjacent communities in Appalachia, the Coal River Valley citizens are doing just that. On the frontlines of one of the most tragic environmental and human rights scandals in modern American history, the community-wide Coal River wind advocates have devised a blueprint to get beyond the divisive regional politics and break the stranglehold of King Coal on the central Appalachian economies.

The Coal River Wind Project is the first bottom-up community-based full scale assessment to directly counter the nightmare of mountaintop removal with a renewable energy and economy alternative prior to the actual mining.

We have a choice. It is not simply coal or no coal. Jobs or no jobs. The issue is how do we create jobs and clean energy forever, and begin the transition in Appalachia and America away from dirty coal.

And Barack Obama, and all Americans, have a chance to be part of Coal River Valley's landmark decision for our nation's dependence on renewable or nonrenewable energy sources. Either we continue to hand out permits for mountaintop removal (two permits in this area have already been granted), unleashing millions of tons of explosives, blasting local communities to Kingdom Come, provide less than 200 jobs for 14 years of coal mining, contributing the dirty coal firepower for continued carbon dioxide emissions and global warming, or, we can stake out a third way in renewable energy and economic development.

Consider this: The Coal River Mountain Wind Project would:

-- Create 200 local employment opportunities during construction, and 50 permanent jobs during the life of the wind farm. It takes only 35 years for a wind farm to provide a greater number of one-year jobs than the proposed four surface mines combined.

-- Provide 440MW or enough energy for 150,000 homes -- indefinitely, as well as a sustained tax income that could be used for the construction of new schools for the county.

-- Allow for concurrent uses of the mountain, including harvesting of wild ginseng and valuable forest plants, sustainable forestry, and mountain tourism, as Coal River Mountain is one of West Virginia's finest mountains.

-- Preserve the historic Coal River Mountain heritage, and protect the land and communities from blasting, dusting, poisonous drinking water, increased flooding, damaged homes and personal property, and devastated wildlife habitat.

In 1892, in Barack Obama's adopted city, the Chicago Tribune wrote in an editorial: "How long can the earth sustain life," if we depend on the "wonderful power of coal?" The Tribune editors lambasted Americans for our lack of vision and our lack of energy conservation, and our need to "invent appliances to exhaust with over greater rapidity the hoard of coal." They declared:

"Doubtless the end of the coal, at least as an article of a mighty commerce, will arrive within a period brief in comparison with the ages of human existence. In the history of humanity, from first to last, the few centuries through which we are now passing will stand out prominently as the coal-burning period."

The Tribune editors in 1892 assumed Americans would move beyond coal and onto renewable energy sources.

We may be a hundred years late, but the realities of global warming and climate change, and the brutal process of extracting coal, should remind us that it is not too late for Barack Obama and the rest of the nation to be a part of this exciting new energy future for Appalachia, and the entire country.

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Obama's Task: Stopping War, Seeking Justice

Photo: Zbigniew Bzezinski, Anti-NeoCon Advisor on Getting Out of Iraq

Work In Progess:
Obama's Evolving
Foreign Policy

By Robert Dreyfus
The Nation

Perhaps nowhere else are expectations as high for what an Obama presidency will mean as in foreign policy, where many Americans--and most of the world--are holding their breath awaiting the end of George W. Bush's wrecking-ball approach to world affairs.

In some important areas, Obama would alter or reverse course: he'd draw down forces in Iraq; open talks with adversaries such as Iran, Syria and Cuba; end torture and close Guantánamo; renounce unilateralism and preventive wars; rebuild ties with allies; and re-engage with the Kyoto climate change initiative. He's also pledged to halt the development of and to seek a "world without nuclear weapons."


In sharp contrast to presumptive GOP nominee John McCain, Obama would start to put the threat of terrorism in its proper perspective, elevating the importance of other threats to security, from poverty to pandemic disease to global warming. "He recognizes that there are a lot of problems in the world that merit attention besides the war on terrorism," says Danzig.

But in many respects, Obama seems likely to preside over a restoration of the bipartisan consensus that governed foreign policy during the cold war and the 1990s, updated for a post-9/11 world. That conclusion arises from an in-depth examination of the Illinois senator's views as well as dozens of interviews with foreign policy experts, including lengthy exchanges with the core group of Obama's foreign policy team and other participants in his task forces on the military, Iraq and the Middle East. It's also based on a careful review of speeches and position papers, Obama's 2007 article in Foreign Affairs and a key chapter, "The World Beyond Our Borders," in his book The Audacity of Hope. All this suggests there is a gap between Obama's inspirational speeches and the actual policies he supports. "So far, what you're seeing is rhetoric that we can make bold changes in our foreign policy," says John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. "But when he lays out specifics, it's not as transformational as the rhetoric." Will Marshall, director of the right-leaning Progressive Policy Institute of the Democratic Leadership Council, agrees. "On most of the details, he's aligned with the general Democratic consensus," Marshall says. Says Tom Hayden, the veteran activist and former California state senator, "At best, he will be a gradualist."

Even as he pledges to end the war in Iraq, Obama promises to increase Pentagon spending, boost the size of the Army and Marines, bolster the Special Forces, expand intelligence agencies and maintain the hundreds of US military bases that dot the globe. He supports a muscular multilateralism that includes NATO expansion, and according to the Times of London, his advisers are pushing him to ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in an Obama administration. Though he is against the idea of the United States imposing democracy abroad, Obama does propose a sweeping nation-building and democracy-promotion program, including strengthening the controversial National Endowment for Democracy and constructing a civil-military apparatus that would deploy to rescue and rebuild failed and failing states in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Because Obama has little foreign policy track record, however (he will be leaving soon on a tour of Europe, the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan to burnish his résumé), it's not easy to decipher his views, beyond his rhetoric and the people he's chosen to advise him. Two questions arise. First, is it possible to extricate Obama's views from those of his advisers? Many of the people surrounding him can be categorized as liberal interventionists, Clinton Administration-era veterans who believe that US military power is central to world security and who don't shy away from the use of soft and hard power, including military force, to deal with less than immediate threats to the United States. More recently, Obama's team has seen the addition of Democratic Party stalwarts, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn, the promilitary conservative from Georgia. Progressives who are most hopeful about Obama's foreign policy put their faith in the senator's character and innate instincts and, as Cavanagh says, the likelihood that he "will actually listen to foreign leaders he sees." But a team of advisers has a way of calcifying around a candidate once in office. "You find yourself surrounded by brilliant advisers who go all aflutter if you try to change things," says Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information (CDI).

Second, how much of what Obama is saying is simply what he believes he has to say to get elected? It's possible that Obama's positions on, say, the Israeli-Palestinian question are shaped by his goal of winning the votes of hard-line, pro-Israel Jews, or that his support for expanded military spending is designed to counter expected accusations by McCain that he is an appeasement-minded dilettante who hasn't served in the armed forces. But many of Obama's positions are meticulously detailed and go far beyond what might be needed for political expediency. And even if he is adopting these positions to avoid attacks from the right, it raises questions about his willingness to sacrifice principle for expediency.

A great deal of Obama's appeal derives from his optimistic, even idealistic approach to policy-making. Yet his idealism is a two-edged sword. He envisions a world in which the United States helps conquer poverty and disease, and he recognizes that restoring dignity and hope to people in troubled parts of the world will make America safer and more secure. At the same time, some of his more idealistic rhetorical flights echo the sentiments of many neoconservatives and neoliberals, including their tendency to see the world in Manichaean terms. "I dismiss the cynics who say that this new century cannot be another [in which] we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good," Obama proclaimed in an April 2007 address to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. "We must lead the world."

Obama's advisers stress that he believes in the inextricable interdependence of the post-cold war world. In a campaign paper, Obama says, "Leadership in this new era begins with the recognition...[that] the security and well-being of each and every American is tied to the security and well-being of those who live beyond our borders.... It must be about recognizing the inherent equality, dignity, and worth of all people." To fight global poverty, he pledges to double foreign aid to $50 billion a year by 2012, and to make "investments in agriculture, infrastructure, and economic growth" in developing countries. He wants to help establish a "global health infrastructure" by 2020 to combat infectious diseases, a "civilian assistance corps" and a streamlined development agency staffed with a "new cadre of development experts," along with a $2 billion global education fund.

With his Kenyan and Indonesian roots, Obama can credibly claim that he has an inherent understanding of the crushing burden that poverty, disease and lack of clean water and education place on Third World populations. And he has said that such abysmal conditions can make angry, oppressed populations susceptible to the appeal of violent extremists.

But Obama may not realize how US involvement abroad, even when well-intentioned, is perceived on the receiving end as heavy-handed meddling. He and his key advisers have embraced a sweeping plan to promote democracy overseas, rebuild failed and failing states and provide aid to dissidents and democrats from Africa and the Middle East to Russia and China. He pledges to "integrate civilian and military capabilities to promote global democracy and development," including the creation of "Mobile Development Teams (MDTs) that bring together personnel from the military, the Pentagon, the State Department and USAID, fully integrating U.S. government efforts in counter-terror, state-building, and post-conflict operations." He would also "establish an expeditionary capability" for non-Pentagon agencies, including the departments of State, Homeland Security, Justice and Treasury.

Asked which failing states might need attention from Obama, Susan Rice, a former Clinton Administration State Department official who advises the candidate, says, "The list is long. You can start in South Asia and Afghanistan, but there is also Somalia, Yemen, Kenya and the Sahelian countries in Africa." Then, she says, there are countries that, while not yet failing, have weak or poorly formed civil societies. "In countries like Nigeria, where in contrast to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, you are facing a regime that is not strongly averse to political reform, the United States can help to build democratic institutions, a more accountable parliament, a free press and institutions of civil justice."

Even in more resistant countries, such as Egypt and Russia, the United States can still support dissidents and take other pro-democracy steps, says Rice. Asked whether Russia, for instance, would react favorably to such efforts, she says, "No, they would not like it. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing it. And we were doing it, until a little while ago. During the Clinton Administration, there was a much more active democracy promotion effort."

Questions also arise about Obama's attitude toward humanitarian intervention. Several of his advisers, including Rice and Tony Lake, President Clinton's National Security Adviser, are strong advocates of using US military force to intervene in cases of severe violations of human rights, including genocide. In 2006 Rice and Lake wrote a Washington Post op-ed demanding a unilateral US "bombing campaign or naval blockade" and even the deployment of ground forces in Sudan to halt the killing in Darfur, and Obama has called for "enforcing a no-fly zone" there. What does that say about Zimbabwe? Burma? Congo? "There is," says Rice, "no cookie-cutter answer to the question of when a situation reaches the level of outrage that justifies intervention." Of course, the United Nations and other international bodies may not endorse multilateral interventions in regional crises, and although Obama has not gone as far as McCain in calling for the creation of a League of Democracies to bypass the UN in such cases, his campaign is debating the idea, according to insiders. Last year Lake co-chaired the Princeton Project on National Security, whose principal recommendation was to create a Concert of Democracies not unlike McCain's league. The strategists most closely identified with the idea are Robert Kagan, a well-known neoconservative, and Ivo Daalder, a Brookings Institution strategist and Obama adviser, who have co-written such a plan.

Indeed, on the issue of the Defense Department and military spending, Obama cedes no ground to McCain. According to CDI's Wheeler, during his years in the Senate Obama never challenged military spending bills in a significant way.

In the Senate and in his presidential campaign, Obama has supported the addition of 65,000 troops to the Army and 27,000 to the Marines. He backed the latest round of NATO enlargement into Eastern Europe, and according to Denis McDonough, his top adviser on foreign policy, he supports granting Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia; the latter, especially, is considered deeply threatening by the Russian leadership and could undermine negotiations with a resurgent and increasingly self-confident Moscow on a number of critical issues, including Iran and nuclear disarmament. Obama is open to talks that would establish formal ties between NATO, Australia and New Zealand. His call for the expansion of the Special Forces would empower the most aggressively interventionist of the Pentagon's units, and he wants to spend more money on reserve units and the National Guard.

In his Chicago speech last year Obama called for the creation of "a twenty-first-century military to stay on the offensive, from Djibouti to Kandahar." In several areas, Obama has made it clear that he looks forward to bolstering America's capabilities to intervene worldwide. He has called for spending significant new money to add unmanned aerial vehicles to the Air Force, boost electronic warfare capabilities and build more C-17 cargo planes and KC-X refueling aircraft to enhance America's "future ability to extend its global power." Obama also plans to "recapitalize our naval forces" so America can patrol ocean "choke points" to protect oil supplies, and he wants to fund new ships that can "patrol and protect the 'brown' waters of river systems [overseas] and the 'green' waters close to our shores."

Along with his determination to pull combat units out of Iraq, Obama has pledged to beef up the US presence in Afghanistan, promising to add at least two combat brigades to the US-NATO force there. "And that's a floor, not a ceiling," says Rice. He's also said that he'd attack Pakistan unilaterally to take out Al Qaeda-linked forces if there was "actionable intelligence" about their location. It's become part of the Democratic Party catechism to accuse President Bush of letting Al Qaeda off the hook in Afghanistan and Pakistan by sending so many troops to Iraq, as if tens of thousands of soldiers were needed to hunt down bin Laden--and Obama is no exception. Yet escalating America's role in Afghanistan, especially in light of growing tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, could well inflame the violence and undercut Pakistan's ability to deal with the growing Taliban and Al Qaeda presence.

Obama's foreign policy team uniformly dismisses the idea that the Pentagon's bloated budget can be cut, even though, not counting spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, it has nearly doubled since 2000 and is roughly equal to the military spending of all other countries combined. "Are we or are we not relying on the Pentagon for an increased role? Of course we are," says McDonough. "I don't see how, given the challenges we have on the horizon, we can talk about reducing Pentagon spending."

Though Pentagon critics point to the overwhelming supremacy of America's military might, McDonough suggests that, as President, Obama would spend more to prepare for future threats. "What is the long-term horizon? Will there be new [military] peers? What does China look like in twenty-five years?" he asks. Ivo Daalder, who emphasizes that he is not speaking on behalf of the campaign, adds that the United States cannot withdraw forces from Japan, South Korea or elsewhere in Asia because it would unnerve allies by giving the impression that America plans to accommodate China. "We have to reassure our allies that the United States is committed to remaining an Asian power," he says.

Obama's ambitious democracy-promotion schemes and humanitarian intervention posture, not to mention his support for a continued arms buildup, raise the question of whether he understands the political and economic constraints the United States will face in future years. Which raises the question of Iraq: by withdrawing a significant number of troops, the United States can create at least some additional space for action elsewhere. "If we liquidate our presence in Iraq, we free up an enormous amount of our defense expenditures," says Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you don't liquidate the presence in Iraq, at least by twelve to fifteen brigades, your freedom to maneuver is nil."

Obama has declared his intention to withdraw one to two combat brigades each month, starting immediately after his inauguration. But he has deliberately left vague the question of how many might remain as a "residual force," what their missions might be and how long they might stay. Some of his Iraq advisers, such as Colin Kahl of the Center for a New American Security, a centrist think tank, are on record suggesting that a force of 60,000 to 80,000 might remain for at least several years. Others, including Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis of the liberal Center for American Progress, have proposed withdrawing virtually all US forces as quickly as possible. Inside the campaign there is tension between advisers who want to draw a stark contrast with McCain on Iraq and those who'd prefer that Obama tack to the center and blur the differences.

"What that residual force will do and how large it should be is something that he is studiously ambiguous about," says one senior military adviser to Obama. "It might be possible, or it might not be possible, to go through this campaign without resolving that ambiguity." At times, Obama has talked about keeping a "limited number of troops...in Iraq" to battle Al Qaeda-style terrorism, and he's also spoken of an "over-the-horizon force," to be stationed outside Iraq to intervene when needed. According to Kahl, who emphasizes that he is not speaking for Obama, other missions for residual troops would include force protection, such as defending the gigantic new US Embassy in Baghdad, and advising, training and equipping the Iraqi army and police.

Obama's celebrated 2002 speech, in which he called Iraq a "dumb war" and warned that it would destabilize the Middle East and fan the flames of terrorism, was a key reason antiwar Democrats rallied to his side during the primary season. But in the Senate Obama avoided engaging on behalf of the Out of Iraq Caucus in Congress, and he deliberately avoided taking a leadership role. "Obama and his staff weren't very responsive, and on Iraq and Iran they weren't leaders," says Paul Kawika Martin of Peace Action. "He didn't introduce legislation, and they weren't the ones on the floor pushing senators, pushing [majority leader Harry] Reid." When antiwar members of the House reached out to the Senate, Obama demurred. "In that very critical period from January to mid-April 2007, when we were trying to reduce funding for the war, he was very hard to pin down," says a veteran House staffer.

During much of that period, Obama's key staffer was Mark Lippert, a former aide to Senator Patrick Leahy. A Wall Street Journal profile of Lippert last fall portrayed the two men as intimate friends and quoted Obama calling Lippert "one of my favorite people in the world." According to those who've worked closely with Lippert, he is a conservative, cautious centrist who often pulled Obama to the right on Iraq, Iran and the Middle East and who has been a consistent advocate for increased military spending. "Even before Obama announced for the presidency, Lippert wanted Obama to be seen as tough on Iran," says a lobbyist who's worked the Iran issue on Capitol Hill. "He's clearly more hawkish than the senator." A reserve lieutenant and intelligence officer in the Navy SEALs, Lippert took leave from Obama's staff last fall to serve a tour in Iraq, returning in June and rejoining the Obama team.

Obama's declaration that he'd meet with Iran's leaders sets him apart from both Bush and McCain. Obama has been widely praised for insisting on a central role for diplomacy and negotiations, and for supporting the normally less than shocking idea that diplomats sometimes talk to adversaries and enemies.

But Obama has refused to rule out going to war against Iran, in the event that Tehran moves forward with its nuclear program in defiance of international opposition. Even if it was a grudging nod to political expediency, his June 4 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) impressed hawkish Jewish leaders. "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power... everything," he said, adding, "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table." He qualified his willingness to meet with Iran's leaders, saying he'd talk to "the appropriate Iranian leader at a time and place of my choosing if--and only if--it can advance the interests of the United States." Ratcheting up his earlier rhetoric, Obama said that he supported "banning the export of refined petroleum to Iran," which would have a devastating effect on Iran's economy and could lead to a US-enforced naval blockade of Iran. Obama also sided with the White House and the many neoconservatives, including Senator Joseph Lieberman, by saying that the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps "has rightly been labeled a terrorist organization."

Obama's strikingly pro-Israel address to AIPAC included a pledge to provide a $30 billion, ten-year aid package "that will not be tied to any other nation" and that will "ensure Israel's qualitative military advantage." Says a disappointed Palestinian activist who has spoken with Obama in the past, "They apparently have made a stupid political calculation that they have to say these things to be politically competitive in Florida." Among Obama's Middle East advisers, there's not a single boat-rocker. One who did rock the boat was Robert Malley, a member of Bill Clinton's National Security Council who took part in numerous high-level Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the Oslo period and is now an official with the firmly centrist International Crisis Group. After meeting with Hamas officials, Malley was compelled to remove himself from Obama's campaign. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of an organization of liberal American Jews called the J Street Project, established earlier this year to compete with AIPAC, is resigned to hearing hawkish rhetoric from Obama during the campaign. "At the moment, the political space doesn't exist for something else," says Ben-Ami. But he says that many of Obama's Middle East advisers "are in line with the J Street view."

Asked how Obama's policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict would differ from McCain's and Bush's, one of Obama's senior advisers on the Middle East says that "Senator Obama is committed to a much more engaged form of helping Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement," and that he would involve himself "at a presidential level." In addition, the adviser says, Obama would talk to Syria, and he would support the ongoing Israel-Syria negotiations currently sponsored by Turkey's foreign minister. But the Middle East expert wouldn't comment on the wisdom of Bush's stubborn refusal to talk to the late Yasir Arafat, wouldn't criticize the White House's endorsement of Israel's invasion of the West Bank in 2002 and reiterated Obama's support for the overwhelmingly disproportionate Israeli response to Hezbollah's cross-border raid in the summer of 2006, when Israeli bombing of Lebanon killed up to 1,000 civilians.

For many, the most hopeful aspect of an Obama presidency is simply the fresh face of America that he would present to the world. "It could be a game-changer," says Derek Chollet, who advised John Edwards on foreign policy. "Obama will have a lot in the bank, and perhaps the biggest challenge will be managing the expectations that his election would bring about." Joseph Nye, former head of the National Intelligence Council under Clinton, says, "In Europe, there is something close to Obamamania. They're very excited about the idea of Obama in the White House. And that's even more true in Africa and the Middle East." Nye, who has written extensively about what he calls "smart power"--a mix of hard (military) and soft (diplomatic and political) power, adds, "I think Barack Obama would do wonders for America's soft power."

In the so-called "war on terrorism," Obama makes it clear that he intends to capitalize on that good will. "In the first 100 days of my administration, I will travel to a major Islamic forum to deliver an address to redefine our struggle," he said. "I will make it clear that we are not at war with Islam." It's hard to imagine a President McCain taking such a step.

Good will is likely to play an important role in how America re-engages with the world after eight years of Bush's reckless unilateralism. Yet more is required. It remains to be seen whether an Obama administration can articulate a coherent progressive purpose for American foreign policy in the post-Bush era. So far, at least, his team appears to be falling back on the liberal interventionist notions of the 1990s that led us into Iraq and that took life while Washington was under unipolar illusions. Young and without much experience but remarkably astute and empathetic, Obama is a work in progress on national security policy. In the crucible of a tough national election campaign, political calculations will loom large. It is thus all the more important that progressives drive their ideas into the campaign's debates.


[Robert Dreyfuss, a Nation contributing editor, is an investigative journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in politics and national security. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam and is a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones.]

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The Mission: Energy, Health, and No War

Photo: Montana Rally with Crow Tribe

Obama
Talks to
Montana

By Mike Dennison
The Montana Standard

July 5, 2008 - For his first task as president, Barack Obama said Friday he’ll call in the nation’s top military officials and "tell them we have a new mission": End the war in Iraq.

Next on the list is reforming the nation’s health-care system, so everyone in the nation has basic health care and costs are reduced for families and businesses.

And, third, craft a new energy policy that "requires a shift away from the sort of wasteful energy usage of the past, and to develop alternative fuels like solar, wind and biodiesel," Obama said in an interview on his campaign bus near the Montana Tech campus.



Obama, 46, a U.S. senator from Illinois and the presumptive Democratic nominee for president this year, spent the day in Butte, taking in a Fourth of July parade and attending a picnic with hundreds of well-wishers and supporters. But he also took time to chat with local reporters, both on his bus and on the grounds of the World Museum of Mining, standing before a small grove of aspen trees that wavered in the breeze preceding an afternoon thunderstorm.

Obama said he has a good chance of winning in Montana because people are struggling here and will respond to his message of change and reform, to stop the war in Iraq, to reduce the weight of energy prices and ensure access to public lands. Obama has been polling strongly in several Western states where Democrats traditionally lose in presidential elections, Montana included.

Yet Republicans have signaled they certainly won’t be rolling over in these states, and will go after Obama on at least one issue dear to the hearts of many Montanans: Gun ownership. Earlier this week, the Montana Republican Party called on Obama to "clarify his muddled record on the 2nd Amendment," saying Obama has a record of supporting restrictions on gun ownership. Obama said Friday he believes in "common-sense gun laws" allow law-abiding citizens to purchase and own firearms, including items such as background checks when buying guns.

"There is not a sportsman or hunter in Montana who is a legal possessor of firearms that has anything to worry about from me," he said.

Regarding the war in Iraq, Obama repeated his call for bringing home U.S. troops in a "careful and deliberate fashion," consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On health care, he said he wants a system that regulates insurers more stiffly and helps people who can’t afford health insurance acquire it.

But he’s not in favor of a national, single-payer system like Canada or other countries, that offer the same care for all, usually financed by taxes. "The problem is, we’ve got a legacy of employer-based health care," he said. "People are accustomed to those sorts of arrangements and they’re fearful about what they might have to give up in a transition to a different system."

Obama said his plan works within the system we have now, offering "alternatives" to families who can’t get insurance now and finding ways to lower premiums for all. "And we’ve got to emphasize prevention, which is the most important thing we’ve got to do long-term," he added.

Obama also said his broad base of donors make him the candidate who can stand up to well-heeled special interests who have been controlling policy in the country. The Obama campaign doesn’t accept money from political action committees or from people who are federal registered lobbyists. However, it has accepted tens of millions of dollars from big individual donors connected with insurance, Wall Street investment houses, hedge funds, banks and pharmaceutical companies.

"When we have 1.7 million donors, there is no donor that we’re dependent on, there is no industry that we’re dependent on," he said. "I can say ‘no’ to anybody because I’ve got a broad base of support. "I’ve been able to show independence not only in the past, but will be able to show independence as president."

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No Retreat: If You Want to Win, Stop The War!

Photo: 'Out Now! Antiwar Crowd in Chicago

Barack
at Risk

By Tom Hayden
Progressives for Obama

Call him slippery or nuanced, Barack Obama's core position on Iraq has always been more ambiguous than audacious. Now it is catching up with him as his latest remarks are questioned by the Republicans, the mainstream media, and the antiwar movement. He could put his candidacy at risk if his audacity continues to shrivel.

I first endorsed Obama because of the nature of the movement supporting him, not his particular stands on issues. The excitement among African-Americans and young people, the audacity of their hope, still holds the promise of a new era of social activism. The force of their rising expectations, i believe, could pressure a President Obama in a progressive direction and also energize a new wave of social movements.

And of course, there is the need to end the Republican reign that began with a stolen election followed by eight years of war and torture, corporate gouging, environmental decay, domestic spying and right-wing court appointments, just in case we forget who Obama is running against.




Besides the transforming nature of an African-American presidency, the issue that matters most to me is achieving a peaceful settlement of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - and preventing American escalations in Iran and Latin America. From the beginning, Obama's symbolic 2002 position on Iraq has been very promising, reinforced again and again by his campaign pledge to "end the war" in 2009.

But that pledge also has been laced with loopholes all along, caveats that the mainstream media and his opponents [excepting Bill Richardson] have ignored or avoided until now. As I pointed out in Ending the War in Iraq [2007], Obama's 2002 speech opposed the coming war with Iraq as "dumb", while avoiding what position he would take once the war was underway. Then he wrote of almost changing his position from anti- to pro-war after a trip to Iraq. He never took as forthright a position as Senator Russ Feingold, among others. Then he adopted the safe, nonpartisan formula of the Baker-Hamilton Study Group, which advocated the withdrawal of combat troops while leaving thousands of American counter-terrorism units, advisers and trainers behind.

That would mean at least 50,000 Americans, including back up forces, engaged in counter-insurgency after the withdrawal of combat troops, a contradiction the media and Hillary Clinton failed to explore in the primary debates. To his credit, Obama said that these American units would not become caught up in a lengthy sectarian civil war, leaving the question of their role unanswered.

The most shocking aspect of Samantha Powers' forced resignation earlier this year was not that she called Hillary Clinton a "monster" off-camera, but that she flatly stated that Obama would review his whole position on Iraq once becoming president. Again, no one in the media or rival campaigns questioned whether this assertion by Powers was true. Since Obama credited Powers with helping for months in writing his book, The Audacity of Hope, her comments on his inner thinking should have been pounced upon by the pundits.

Finally, it has taken the pressure of the general election to raise questions about whether his parsed and lawyerly language is empty of credible meaning. Consider carefully his July 4 statements:

The first one, promising a "thorough reassessment" of his Iraq position later this summer:

"I've always said that the pace of our withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability" - two conditions that could justify leaving American troops in combat indefinitely. "And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I'm sure I'll have more information and will continue to refine my policies" - another loophole which could allow the war to drag on.

Then there came the later "clarification":

"Let me be as clear as I can be" [not, "let me be absolutely clear"].

"I intend to end this war." [intention only].

"My first day in office I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war - responsibly, deliberately, but decisively." [ Sounds positive, but "decisively" can mean by military threat in the worst case. And it's pure theatre, borrowed from Clinton, since the plans most likely will be drafted and finalized immediately after the November election.]

"And I have seen no information that contradicts the notion that we can bring our troops out safely at a pace of one or two brigades a month..." [but what if the military commanders on the ground assert that it is too dangerous to pull out those troops?]

Obama's position, which always left a trail of unasked questions, now plants a seed of doubt, justifiably, among the peace bloc of American voters who harbor a legacy of betrayals beginning with Lyndon Johnson's 1064 pledge of "no wider war" through Richard Nixon's "secret plan for peace" to Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal and the deep complicity of Democrats in the evolution of the Iraq War.

It is difficult to understand Obama's motivation. Perhaps it is his lifetime success at straddling positions and disarming potential opponents. Perhaps it is a lawyer's training. Perhaps being surrounded by national security advisers who oppose what they call "precipitous withdrawal", and pragmatic Democrats distinctly uncomfortable with their antiwar roots.

What is clear is that Obama is responsive to pressures from the grass-roots base of a party that is overwhelmingly in favor of a shorter timetable for withdrawal than his, and favoring diplomatic rather than military solutions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At a time that public interest in the war is receeding before economic concerns, it is time for the strongest possible reassertion of voter demands for peace.

The challenge for the peace and justice movement is to avoid falling into Republican divide-and-conquer traps while maintaining a powerful and independent presence in key electoral states, including Congressional battlegrounds, between now and November. There should be at the least:

- A demand that Obama talk to legitimate representatives of the peace movement, not simply hawkish national security advisers.

- A Democratic platform debate and plank that is unequivocal in pledging to end the war and avoid military escalation elsewhere.

- An energized antiwar voter education campaign that builds towards a clear November peace mandate to end the military occupation and shifr to political and diplomatic approraches.

- An organizational strategy to widen the base of the antiwar movement through the presidential campaign in preparation for a massive peace mobilization in early 2009.

Grass-roots people power is the only force that can keep alive the astute sense of pragmatism that led Obama to criticize the coming war in 2002. The stakes are higher now, and the enemies far more shrewd, wishing to rip asunder the Obama coalition. The peace movement assumption should be that there is no one in Obama's inner circle of advisers to be counted on, no mainstream columnist to catch his eye with a persuasive column favoring withdrawal. They never have. Only the voice of the peace voters - and the countless activists who have volunteered on his behalf - can command his attention now.

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Battleground: Steeltowns and Obama

Photo: Old 'Company Store' in Downtown Aliquippa, PA



Aliquippa
is Fired Up,
Ready to Go



By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

You knew something special was happening when the youngest, freshest face in the room got up, took charge and called the meeting to order-"Hello, I'm Scout Sanders, and welcome to the first meeting of Aliquippa for Obama!'

Sanders was a full-time Obama volunteer, a student from the University of Connecticut, and her bright smile and enthusiasm brightened up a room of about 30 residents of Aliquippa and a few other nearby towns. Those who came were all ages, from young teenagers to retired workers in their seventies, a little more than half were African American, about two-thirds were women.


Aliquippa is a severely stressed milltown in Beaver County, Western Pennsylvania. At one time nearly 30,000 people lived here, mostly steelworkers and their families. Now it's down to 12,000, with 6000 low-income African-Americans hanging on in the central area, with the white workers living in the border neighborhoods. The home of Mike Ditka, Tony Dorsett, and other great athletes, it's a tough, no-nonsense place in dire need of a hopeful future. The meeting was in a bright and well-cared-for church-run coffee house, Uncommon Grounds, on the mostly boarded up main street.

"As a young person, I was concerned for my future," Scout explained, "and I saw a lot of social injustice around me. I wanted change, and when I heard about Barack Obama and his programs, I felt he was different, and he offered real hope for change. That's why I'm here, but enough about me. I want to hear why all of you are here."

It was a tried and true opener. One by one, everyone got to know everyone.
Some spoke bitterly about the past and present, but everyone was hopeful for the future and the prospects offered by this election.

"There's a change gonna come," said one young African American woman working a number of part-time jobs. 'You can sense it in the street, you can feel it in the air. Lord knows it's about time." The whole room agreed.

"This young man, Obama, knows about us,' said an older Black man, a former steelworker in the now shutdown mill. 'His first job was being a community organizer among out-of-work steelworkers in Chicago. He knows about us first hand. When have we ever had a candidate like that? McCain? McCain don't know nothing about us. He just hangs out with those who created this mess. We have got to put Obama in the White house, no two ways about it."

A middle-aged white woman from one of the working-class housing 'plans' on the surrounding hills agreed. "I've studied his positions, and they're the best by far,' she said. 'But I've also learned about Michelle. I even read her college thesis. I tell you, she is one smart, strong woman, with a very analytical mind. She will be a powerful partner and help to him, and we need a First Lady like her."

"We know what has to be done," said another older worker. "First, we have to stop this war, because it's ruining everything else. Then we have to start on the country's infrastructure, which is rusting away and falling apart. We can get some mills up again, and start on some alternative energy investments. Then we can get some jobs, some health care, some decent schools."

"Yes, the war and health care," says a women from Ambridge, a neighboring town. She gives everyone a 'Healthcare Not Warfare' single-payer flyer from the local 4th CD Progressive Democrats of America. "and come to our vigil against the war every Saturday at the Beaver Courthouse, 1pm!"

"Obama can't do it alone," added another. "It got to start right here. We got to get some better people in office right here, and then every other level of government, all the way to the top. We know what happens when they're not accountable to us."

Nearly everyone had a sense of history about 2008. "We haven't seen anything like him since Dr. King and Kennedy," one man said. "Both Kennedy's, Bobby, too." Aliquippa, Black and white, still has strong affection for the Kennedy's. One Black woman describes how she met JFK just a block away from the meeting site, and how she tells her children about it.

"We are going to make history," an older Black man says. "I have been waiting for it all my life. We are going to be part of something truly great." One woman nearly brings everyone to tears. "You can see it in the faces of the children-five, ten, thirteen years old. Obama comes on TV and their faces beam, they stop whatever they're doing, and they listen with quiet excitement. They know, they KNOW this is different."

And so it goes, until everyone has had their say. Scout takes charge again, and the other volunteers are passing out lists. "Get out your cell phones. We like to make calls at all these meetings." She gave quick instructions on how these are registered Democrats, and our task is to find out where they stand.

Next is program and organization. "Where are the best places we can register voters?", she shouts. "Giant Eagle, the supermarket," says one. "The San Rocco Italian Festival next month," say another. "That's fine", says one Black man, "but you white folks have to help us out in some of these places." Everyone agrees.

Organization? One guy puts out a plan for running a tight ship, with people responsible for different tasks. Everyone likes it, but wants to think over who does what.

"This is a good start, but there's people who should be here who aren't here yet," says one. "So next time every one bring one, no, bring two!"

They'll meet again in a week, and they leave, fired up. It will be a tight race, with the right wing stirring up racism and religious bigotry. But it looks like McCain is still going to have a tough fight in this neck of the woods.

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Obama vs. McCain on Nukes, Energy Plans

Photo: First US Nuke Plant at Shippingport, Beaver County PA

Obama Urges
Incentives for
Renewables

By Molly Ball
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Obama opposes the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and he used the local issue to slam McCain.

"He wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors when they don't have a plan to store the waste anywhere besides right here," he said.

The federal government, Obama said, should provide incentives for the development of wind, solar and other types of renewable energy.

"But Washington hasn't done that," he said. "What Washington has done is what Washington always does: peddled cheap gimmicks that get politicians through to the next election."



McCain has proposed a $300 million prize for development of battery technology for cars, an idea Obama ridiculed.

"When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn't put a bounty up for some rocket scientist to win," he said. "He put the full resources of the United States government behind the project and called on the ingenuity of the American people."

Obama was also critical of McCain's proposals for a summer holiday from the federal gasoline tax and allowing offshore oil drilling. He noted that McCain had admitted that drilling off America's coasts would have only a "psychological impact" in the immediate term.

"In case you were wondering, in Washington-speak, what that means is, 'It polls well,'" Obama said. "It's an example of how Washington tries to convince you that they've done something to make your life better when they really didn't."

Oil companies, he said, already have drilling rights to millions of acres of federal land, "and yet they haven't touched it," Obama said. "John McCain wants to give them more when they're not using what they already have."

The companies ought to pay a fine on drilling rights they're holding but not using, he said.

In the case of the gasoline -tax holiday, he said that when he supported such a measure in Illinois, oil companies simply pocketed the money to pad their profit margins rather than passing on the savings to consumers.

"These are not serious energy policies," Obama said. "I wish we could wave a magic wand and make gas prices go down, but we can't."

In the near term, Obama proposed a second round of stimulus checks to families and a tax cut for workers to help people deal with rising costs. To help pay for it, he called for a tax on oil companies' profits and closing the "Enron loophole" that allows speculators to drive up oil prices.

Over 10 years, Obama said he would devote $150 billion to alternative energy sources, which he said would create "up to five million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."

Republicans responded to Obama's attacks on their candidate by calling him "the Dr. No of energy policy."

Obama has put forward just one concrete proposal on energy, the stimulus checks combined with taxing oil profits, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said in a conference call with reporters. Meanwhile, he has opposed McCain's many proposals: the gas tax holiday, offshore drilling, more nuclear power and the $300 million prize.

"I am not sure he has done anything other than mirror the inaction of the Democrat majority in the Congress," Burr said.

McCain's economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, defended the concept of offshore drilling's "psychological impact." Futures markets, he said, would respond to the prospect of increased drilling capacity by lowering oil prices right away.

"If the United States makes a strong commitment to additional exploration ... that sends a strong signal to the traders in the market that future supplies will be greater," he said.

After his 14-minute speech, Obama took questions from the audience of about 50 energy workers and conservationists seated in the small conference room at the preserve, which was built to national green building standards of energy efficiency and with sustainable materials.

Local electrician Eddie Gering, 48, thanked Obama for opposing the gasoline-tax holiday, saying he felt the proposal insulted his intelligence as a voter. He wanted to know why nuclear power shouldn't be a bigger part of the nation's energy future.

"The problem that we've got with nuclear energy right now is that we have not figured out how to store the waste in a safe and effective manner," Obama said. "That's why Yucca is such a big issue here in Nevada. The basic theory was, we won't solve the problem, we'll just dump it all in Nevada."

He said he would increase investment in research and development to find a better way to store nuclear material.

"If we can figure that out, then nuclear has some big advantages, the fact that it doesn't produce greenhouse gases being the most important one," he said.

To another question, about government red tape preventing new energy projects from getting off the ground, Obama became philosophical.

"I'm a Democrat, and at times in the past Democrats have gotten so regulation-happy they lose sight of efficiency," he said. "Republicans attack us as wanting government for the sake of government. I want enough government to do what needs to be done, but I also want government to get out of the way where it's blocking progress. I want to streamline government so it's working. I want it to be consumer-friendly."

While he was in town, Obama met briefly with a local family to talk about how his tax plan would affect them, according to the campaign.

Later Tuesday in Los Angeles, Obama raised nearly $5 million at a celebrity-packed fundraiser that was the equivalent of the entertainment industry's coming-out party for the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

"He's my candidate, and I think you have to put your money where your mouth is," said actor Don Cheadle. Actor Dennis Quaid said Obama is "the Superman for everyone."

Obama's campaign refused to say how many millions he and the Democratic National Committee raised at the gala, but Democratic officials put the number at close to $5 million. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the numbers publicly.

Campaign officials severely limited media access to the event at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. No television cameras or photographers were allowed inside.

Obama, who is counting on Hollywood's reliable support for Democrats, appealed to the those in the crowd who might have supported his former foe, Hillary Clinton.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com

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Obama vs. McCain on Infrastructure

Photo: Rusted Railroad Bridge

A Growing
Confluence of
Catastrophes

Milo's 'Janus Outlook'
DailyKOS

July 1, 2008 - You couldn’t be blamed for turning away from this title. After all, you probably read, listen to, or watch the news every day. In the last couple of days we’ve been reminded of more flooding in the Midwest, wildfires in California, the stock market’s continued decline, record prices for crude, the mortgage crisis with Congress tied in knots, and all of that is without mentioning Iraq or Afghanistan.

It seems to me that we are experiencing the first waves of several mini-catastrophes, the confluence of which would constitute a major one. These mini-catastrophes are all inextricably linked: war, a sick national and global economy, global warming, and a collapsing infrastructure.



"History is a race between education and catastrophe." --H.G. Wells


On the off chance that H.G. Wells might be right, education seems to be running a distant second to catastrophe.

First, there is the war. While a significant majority of citizens want the U.S. to get out of Iraq, not to mention wanting an improvement in the economy, Congress is unable or unwilling to use its power to end involvement there. Many in Congress seem out of sync with the country, but maybe they sense that the drive to get out of Iraq is soft. Neither the population at large nor Congress seems to have gotten the message about the impact of the war on the economy.

Second, the war is connected to our current economic crisis. Iraq is the second most expensive war in history, surpassed only by World War II. In their book, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict (March 3, 2008), Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Blimes link war costs to the current economic crisis:

The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit...

That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history.

Third, add global warming to this already toxic economic mix. If the California Air Resources Board is right in the report it issued on Thursday, global warming is adding additional strain to already an over-burdened economy. In 2006 the California legislature passed a law aiming to cut the state’s greenhouse gas emissions 25% by 2020 in order to combat global warming. On Thursday a few details have emerged on how that is going to happen.

Over the next 10 years, it will probably change the kind of car you drive, the kind of fuel you put in it, the amount you pay for electricity, where that electricity comes from, the way you heat or cool your home and how you do business. Among other things, it calls for an ambitious cap-and-trade program involving seven Western states and three Canadian provinces. It calls for more fuel-efficient vehicles, a big hike in wind and solar power, more energy-efficient appliances and stricter building standards, and even sets up a voluntary program to build methane digesters over manure pits at the state's dairies and ranches.

If those measures sound expensive, they are. But if Mary Nichols, chair of the Air Resources Board, is right many of the added costs will be made up by savings they encourage and the economic activity they generate.

Conservatives have largely given up arguing that global warming isn't happening or that it isn't caused by humans, but they persist in claiming that the costs of fighting it aren't worth the benefits. If it makes economic as well as environmental sense to cut carbon, they're left without a plank to stand on.

Nichols’ may be an over-optimistic view about measures that—while the most ambitious in the nation—may be too little too late.

And, last but in no way least, there is our disintegrating infrastructure. The wake up call came in a 2005 report by American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) that graded America’s infrastructure. What constitutes "America’s infrastructure"? Aviation, Bridges, Dams, Drinking Water, Energy, Hazardous Waste, Navigable Waterways, Public Parks and Recreation, Rail, Roads, Schools, Security, Solid Waste, Transit, Waste Water. Quite a list, huh? The average grade was D with no grade above C.

Last January California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican; Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell, a Democrat; and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an Independent came together to form a coalition that will lobby for federal investment in America’s decaying infrastructure. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke for the group:

"We have an infrastructure crisis. Nonstop television showed us in New Orleans when the levees broke, and Minneapolis when the bridge collapsed. But the governors and the mayors of this country every day see at an operational level bridges that are rusting away, and tracks that can't carry high speed trains, and power transmission lines that can't keep up with demand, and airports that need new runways, and water lines that need backup systems, and sewage plants that leak into the rivers and the oceans."

"If we continue to ignore these problems we are going to suffer more collapses, more human tragedies, and more economic pain, and that's just in the short term," Bloomberg said. "Over the long run we really are going to risk losing our place as the world's leading super power."

The pictures of the collapsing levees in the Midwest over the past weeks have made a lot of people aware of the infrastructure crisis. Of course, they were made aware in 1993 when the last floods of this magnitude overwhelmed the levees. Commissions were appointed and studies were done all citing the need to restore the levees. But nothing was done.

The two governors and mayor pointed out that other countries are investing in modern infrastructure.

"China, Japan, India, Dubai, Malaysia, Europe, all of them are investing in modern infrastructure at higher rates that we are here in the United States," the mayor said. "But Congress is setting back and resting on its accomplishments of past generations, our parents' generation. And they can only go on this way for so long before the rest of the world starts to pass us by. And we are here to say we cannot let that happen. We cannot hand our children a country that is crumbling from neglect."

Confirming the lead that other countries are taking, last week, Merrill Lynch raised its annual infrastructure spending estimate for emerging markets by 80% in light of increased government expenditures.

Merrill Lynch has raised its emerging markets infrastructure forecast to $2.25 trillion annually, or 5% of GDP, from $1.25 trillion over the next three years, due to more aggressive government spending programmes and higher analyst estimates.

Infrastructure spending—which Merrill Lynch calls a long-term solution to inflation—is expected to be fuelled by decades of under-investment in power, transportation, and water. Merrill Lynch expects 70% of infrastructure spending to be concentrated in China, the Middle East and Russia.

Joseph Lazzaro looked a the global need to invest in infrastructure. Citing a report, titled, "Infrastructure: A Global Opportunity for Investors" Lazzaro notes

that $41 trillion will be needed to modernize urban water, electricity, and transportation systems globally, during the 2005-2030 period... In the United States, the figure is $1.6 trillion, according to research by the American Society of Civil Engineers. There are two distinct but massive infrastructure tasks: in emerging markets, a massive build-out to support growth; in the United States and the developed world, a focus on repair and replacement, according to U.S. Global Investors.

Where is the money coming from to pay for this? According to Harry Moroz, in his article, "The Age of Infrastructure,"

Senator McCain's infrastructure solution comes as no surprise: eliminate earmarks for pet projects and prioritize spending to identify projects with the greatest infrastructure needs. Senator McCain even blamed the Minnesota bridge collapse on earmarks. Additionally, Senator McCain has not been friendly to Amtrak.

The Senator has been silent about proactive engagement of infrastructure problems during his presidential campaign: his approach utilizes the negative, government waste principles that are aligned with, if more noble than, the current administration's starve-the-beast philosophy.

Senator Obama’s position was set out in a speech at a General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, WI calling

for the creation of a "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank" that would invest $60 billion over 10 years in highways, technology and other projects. It would be an effort, Obama will say, to "rebuild America" and create 2 million jobs in the process.

Obama will say he would pay for the bank by "ending this war in Iraq. It's time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money on putting America back together instead."

Common sense says that we will not be able to undertake the herculean infrastructure tasks without ending the war in Iraq.

The good news about this recovering our infrastructure, said economist David Wang to Lazzaro in April

...the work would create good, largely high-paying jobs, Wang said, another incentive for infrastructure spending. Even better, he says, almost all of the dollars would be based in the United States, not in foreign countries, and recirculate through U.S. towns and counties.

Don't expect to see any start on the infrastructure problems before a new administration takes office. The first step is to see that Obama is elected. The second step is to start the process of getting us out of Iraq. The third step will be to establish the National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank and get to work. In the meantime, we need to be serious about education on these issues.

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