Where the Obama campaign needs to go

Be serious! Nobody cares about Hillary's tax returns. Everybody hates having to fill out those forms and cough up the money, which is then promptly wasted on private contractors in Iraq or payments to suit-and-tie "farmers" or raids on medical-marijuana dispensaries. And nobody cares whether or not Hillary lied about NAFTA. She's a politician. Politicians lie. She's also a Clinton.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq, a.k.a. "the Iraq War," is old news, the surge along with paying Iraqis to "be good" has cooled that hellhole a bit, and the whole mess is "over there." What's right here, right now, today, is an economy that's in crisis; a mortgage meltdown that is so bad that entire cities are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy; an unfair and ineffective "health-care" system that siphons money from people's pockets straight to the bottom line of insurance companies; trade policies that result in a $60 Billion MONTHLY trade deficit and continuing job losses. In other words, bread-and-butter issues.

Obama's "Yes We Can" needs to tackle those issues, maybe to simply point out what those billions we're squandering in Iraq could do if applied to our own infrastructure, to a concerted effort toward reindustrialization through solar power, wind power, investments in our own infrastructure, to hefty subsidies for students attending college.

Why is the U.S. so far behind Europe and Japan in rail travel? Why don't we have high-speed maglev service? Why are we not retrofitting the factories now endlessly turning out military vehicles, military equipment, and bombs into building low-emission buses for cheap and efficient public transit? Why are we turning our colleges and universities over to corporations to exploit as research sites? Why are we lagging behind in new technologies that can facilitate business efficiencies such as teleconferencing?

Maybe what Obama needs to do is invite Americans into the conversation. What do Americans want from a real health-care (not health-care "coverage") system? What does small business need from the government? What do small farmers need? How and where can we create the jobs for our willing and eager workers? How do we level the playing field that at this point permits the exploitation of foreign workers and job losses for our own?

Why does the objection that "We can't afford it?" apply to child-health programs, to universal health care, to the rebuilding of New Orleans, to funding of AmTrak, to a decent minimum wage, to after-school programs, to repair and maintenance of our schools, parks, playgrounds, bridges, libraries, hospitals, water and sewer departments – and not to unlimited expenditures on the occupation of a foreign nation that in no way ever posed a serious threat to us?

by L.M. Arndt (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 45 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 8:43:29 PM
 

Some things don't change, some do

Forty years ago this summer, I remember the Catholic Church in Chicago (Halsted, I believe) where you SDSers were in the spotlight. Things are really tamer now, methinks. Talking about tax returns and legislative maneuverings.

One thing remains the same. It's Power, Baby. Not Black. Or even White. But Of The Pocketbook. Al Gore, bless his heart, gave us the deciding vote for NAFTA. At least the Mexicans whom it ran out of Mexico know how to do lawns and plant trees, which is a plus for the environment.

Something good has happened. Hillary graduated from Goldwater cheerleading into bigger jobs. And I don't see much evidence that fathers and sons (call it children and parents) are on opposite side of the fence over a misbegotten incursion. We all can be united at the gas pump. And speaking of 1968, Democrats aren't as befuddled. Best I know, Americans want to get out of Iraq with alacrity and civility, and here at home they'd like to get some attention.

It's amusing that old Hillary is getting comeuppance from an upstart. I guess they both know when it's time to answer a phone. What I'd like to know is whether they're tuned into a bunch of livewires under 30.

by Margaret Bassett (31 articles, 1959 quicklinks, 30 diaries, 1278 comments) on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 9:10:53 PM