Elections

I can't believe I'm doing this, writing about elections on election day.  I've avoided just about all election coverage I could.  No, I didn't watch any of the debates.  Why would I want to see someone I would like to do better, and another that just about makes me sick to watch, when I knew I was voting for not-that-guy?  (Though I was particularly proud of my book groupies who wanted to come to the October book group and also wanted to watch one of those debates, and someone shared that it would be on hulu, so they all came to the book group and learned how to find it on hulu.)

So no, I don't know what inspiring things Obama has been saying, things that I now would not entirely trust. I hold a little hope that if he does win, that is if the election isn't stolen from him, that he could bring about some more of the changes he promised last time, such as withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and bring about more substantial change to the changes he has made, such a more universal health care. (now I better finish before it is all decided before our polls close here in Oregon)

What I really came here to say is that I've been enjoying reading John Adams by David McCullough for our November book group during this election season.  While people I know have been grousing about our lack of true democracy in our nation on Facebook, I've been reading about the birth of our nation.

At home, [Adams] filled pages of his journal with observations on government and freedom, “notes for an oration at Braintree,” as he labeled them, though the oration appears never to have been delivered. Government is nothing more than the combined force of society, or the united power of the multitude, for the peace, order, safety, good and happiness of the people. . . . There is no king or queen bee distinguished from all others, by size or figure or beauty and variety of colors, in the human hive. No man has yet produced any revelation from heaven in his favor, any divine communication to govern his fellow men. Nature throws us all into the world equal and alike. . . . The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people. As long as knowledge and virtue are diffused generally among the body of a nation, it is impossible they should be enslaved. . . . Ambition is one of the more ungovernable passions of the human heart. The love of power is insatiable and uncontrollable. . . . There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.   Part I, Chapter One, Section II, p. 55

 One of those friends asked why someone would want to become president, as they clearly age 20 years while in office, and yet, they turn around and do it again.  Talk ensued of attraction to power, of narcissism, etc.  Our manner of elections encourage this at almost all levels.  If a person enters the political arena from ideals, and a pretty good moral compass, it is difficult to retain authenticity and honor.  Good people often don't wish to taint their own moral ground by getting involved in politics. They effect change close to home, in non-governmental ways.

I got involved in the peace efforts thinking I acted not politically, but from the heart.  I felt a visceral response to someone calling it political action, but I had to realize, that is what taking it to the streets is.  It is political to vote. It is political to withhold a vote.  It is political to speak up about how the system stinks.  It is political to organize a permitted rally and march.  As soon as I have an intent to change someone's mind about how this society works together, it is political, no matter that it comes from the deepest faith in love from my heart.  In this we are all thrust "into the world equal and alike."

As I read McCullough's book, I am admiring John Adams because he did not get into politics for personal power. It is clear he got involved due to love of his homeland.  He did things he did not want to do, such as act as a Minister in Europe, first in France, then to the Dutch, then in Britain.  He was seven years away from his beloved wife, who finally joined him after her first dreaded Atlantic voyage. He did this to his own financial detriment, and often wasn't even thanked by the congress. His political action was from his heart.

I would like to have some choice. I would like to feel I live in a true democracy. We need to find a more effective way for our nation to reflect the "united power of the multitude." We need:

1. Election day to be a national holiday. (duh)
2. We need to consider individual voters innocent of fraud until proven guilty...so all those laws that prevent individuals from voting need to be rescinded, such as having to prove themselves with ID.
3. We need to have equal access.  Thus there has to be enough places and equipment so people don't have to wait to vote, or have to prove they have the right to vote, or have to lose a job to take the time to vote.  People need to be able to register the same day they wish to vote.
4. We need to prevent election tampering, and that means getting corporations with agendas out of the business.  It is currently much easier for one person to affect wide ranges of votes with a single machine, than it is for one voter to do something fraudulent.
5. We need to have a choice, and by that I mean we need to be able to vote for more than two nominally polarized candidates. We need preferential or ranked choice voting, or instant run-off voting.  Or something as democratic.  So I could vote for my true choice, as well as vote for not-that-guy. I could vote for the woman who is not paid for by the corporations.

Have I forgotten something?  Please add to my list.

Mad Lib Myth Creations

My first thought on hearing about the attempted bombing of Portland's living room was 'I wonder how much of this was the boy's idea, and how much the FBI's idea?  My next, he must be mentally ill.  I first learned of this via the Mayor's blog post via his Facebook feed.  At least his headline made clear from the beginning that people were never actually under any real threat: The bomb was a fake but the suspect thought it was real.

My first concerns were that the facts of this situation might never be truly available to us, it would certainly be distorted in the media to fortify calls for greater security, it would fortify the continued erosion of civil rights, and it would be difficult for this young man to get a fair trial.  More concerns tumbled through my head, like, isn't it convenient that this great threat comes on the heels of several weeks of protest over the implementation of full body scans or full body pat-downs at airports?  No doubt it will be used to shut people up.  And oh yeah, wikileaks has published more embarrassing duplicitous stuff by government officials.  Could this be a wag the dog event?  While the world looks at the US Embassy cables and gets mad, will Americans be caught up in this home terrorist threat?

As the fallout news shakes out, I begin to realize this could have been a very calculated wag the dog event.  Five years ago, thanks to the persistent voices of activists on the street and in city hall, and a rational liberal mayor, Portland said no to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.  No, the city would no longer share its police officers with the FBI in a task force that pushed the limits of civil rights.  Now, the voices are rising for it. Could it be the FBI never forgave Portland for pulling out?  These two news stories are becoming one and the same.

My wish to know more about just what part the FBI played, and what part the young man played, was quickly fulfilled.  At least a couple of friends in my social networks shared the link to the original affidavit.  From this I learned that this seems to be a teenage misanthropic fantasy only allowed to come to apparent fruition through the encouragement of the FBI agents.  Young Mohamed Osman Mohamud allegedly had email contact with someone based in Pakistan that allegedly used coded words regarding his willingness "to prepare for violent jihad."  His attempt to contact a second "Unindicted Associate" failed.  After that, the FBI contacted him, pretending to be a third associate to numbers 1 and 2.  


The undercover FBI agents gave Mohamed several options.  Multiple choice.  I thought, would this boy even have gone this far without those choices made concrete?  Before this, he had vague notions of going to the Middle East, and going to Alaska to earn big money so he could go to the Middle East, but he was unable to do either.  Without the suggestions by the FBI, might someone have noticed he was emotionally disturbed, and got help for him?  What he needed then was compassion.  He certainly needed to be watched carefully, but he didn't need someone to give him a road map to dark fantasy fulfillment.


It seemed to me the agents rounded him into a corner (you can't join up overseas, you're on the no-fly list) and gave him a clear route out to his dark desires.  The affidavit makes this sound so reasonable, like they never led the young man to these choices, that he just stepped in this pile of shit of his own free will.  But I wonder, what kind of body indicators were they giving them as they asked?  What subtle hints in intonation?  Choice number 1 was praying 5 times a day, and number 4 to become "operational."  A young man has finally met his heroes (he thinks) and he wants to impress them, right? 

 
So then, the FBI agents lead him down a path.  They have a blueprint for action, and they tell him what they need to fill in the blanks.  It's like Mad Libs for terrorists.  OK, we need an action.  He comes back with a dramatic one, bomb the tree-lighting crowd in Portland.  Oh, that's good! Now, how do you want to do this?  More dark drama, the more dramatic the better...kill the women and children.  Video games, movies, rap, they all call for the dramatic.  He wants a bomb, a big bomb?  Well, then he needs to buy this stuff. They give him the money for the stuff.  (Only a portion of the supplies actually needed for a bomb.)  They give him the money for a hotel to hide out.  The FBI builds the "bomb."  The FBI provides the van, and the strategic plan.  More blanks for him to fill in: a map with several possibilities for the "bomb"-loaded van to park.  The FBI makes sure the parking spot is available.  He has to drive the van, but he doesn't have to get himself to a remote location.  The FBI can do that.  Final blank to fill in: he must make the phone call to trigger the "bomb".

So the news is that a bomb threat was foiled.  The FBI narrowly prevented a tragedy. "The bottom line of all this is that the FBI saved Portland from a potentially horrendous attack."  No...the bottom line of all this is that we are seeing myths created before our eyes.  There was never a real threat to the festive tree-lighting event in Portland. There was no real bomb threat to be foiled or narrowly prevented.  A young man who had adolescent fantasies of destruction was fed fantasy fulfillment, and given experts, money, and a clutter-free path to give it a form bigger than he'd probably ever imagined on his own.

I admit I thought to myself Why am I immediately suspicious?  This is what people refer to when they say someone like me hates America.  What can I say to them?  I say it is not new to the peace movement that agents will insinuate themselves into a group, look for weaknesses, and wedge the cracks open. They will incite members to plan violence where no motive toward violence existed before.  Because I want my country to live up to its professed ideals, I don't want government-sponsored agent provocateurs doing this kind of thing.  I say I would simply like to know the facts, if it is possible.  The peace movement's greatest weapons are transparency, honesty, and commitment to non-violence.  The weapons of secret agents are isolation of individuals, deceit, and incitements to violence.  I would just like this case to be transparent.  Let's hear those conversations between secret agents and the violent-jihad-bound young man, not just the picked bits chosen to fortify the affidavit and the fears of the masses.

Further reading supports my fears.  Salon shares that the crucial conversation, in which Mohamed chooses from five options, is missing, that there were technical difficulties.  Really? Scarily convenient.  We'll never know how unequivocal he was about it now, will we?  I learn also this Mad Lib for Wanna-Be Terrorists has happened before.  It looks like you could have quite a bit of reading, if you care, at this link to a Truthout story on that.  Indeed, my Portland pacifist friend reminds us that it's not even the first time in Portland that the FBI has cooked up some completely false allegations.

I am not trying to say this is entrapment according to the law; I have no idea.  I was surprised to find from the Salon article that the multiple choice options are to address that very concern, when to me it seems the very options put the ideas into an impressionable young man's head.  But what about the people who will say I am making excuses for terrorists?  I feel sorry for Mohamed Osman Mohamud. It may be he is a dangerous person.  If the cherry-picked statements regarding his wish to kill families and children are to be believed, he is a scary person.  I only hope he gets a fair trial, and I regret that it already appears his case exists to fulfill fears of terrorists and to encourage the loss of civil rights.

Yay!

While some people have taken pains to point out Barack Obama could not be considered the peace candidate, I suspect he made his plans sound more aggressive for the campaign.

It isn't just that this is a historic moment, our voting in a mixed race black candidate...everything I've heard Obama say tells me he could change the way politics is done in this country. Those of us voting for him, not simply against the past regime did so because he avoided divisive rhetoric and conducted a calm and rational campaign. We are so ready for reality-based thinking.

Several times I have heard him say this is about you, and it was clear he meant it. He knew, he knows, what the American people ask of him, and what we have done for him. I read that he had 5 million volunteers. I believe that is unprecedented. Also unprecedented is the multi-layered grassroots nature of his campaign. It had to be so, for him to overcome the many election blocks the Republicans were attempting in key states. People in some states, in Democratic precincts, waited in line for hours to vote. People were indeed turned away as not registered, even though they were. Despite particularly horrendous disenfranchisement in Pennsylvania and Virginia, Barack won there. I'm so happy my worst fears were wrong.

These are my favorite two sentences from his speech tonight. This is what leads me to believe his message of hope and change. So much of the truth has been stolen from us. He will give it back. Our wish for peaceful response has been stolen from us. With this attitude he may give that back too.

We know that the government cannot solve all our problems, but I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you especially when we disagree.

What an incredible difference that will make in this country and in the world.

May the Winner Actually Win

As the Obama campaign has been, as many Democrats have been, I am cautiously optimistic about tomorrow. photo by megpi on flickr

The question, as I've been saying to my friends all along, is not whether he wins, but whether he is allowed to win. The question is whether he is so outrageously popular that he overcomes the fix that has already happened.

Too much has been documented about the fixes of 2000 and 2004. Serious documentation has shown that these elections were stolen, yet it has not been treated seriously by the mainstream media, the Senate, or the House. Already plenty has been documented about election tampering in this election. Oh, and Acorn? A legitimate organization abiding by the rules, turning in questionable registrations. That is what their detractors would have you believe was voter fraud. See this video about that.

All that flack about Acorn committing voter fraud (not)? It's to cover up the rampant voter purging being committed by Republican Secretaries of State in key states. 1 in 5 voters purged in Colorado. 1 in 9 in New Mexico...in San Miguel County, 1 in 5...a county predominantly poor and Hispanic. Coincidence? New ID requirements that will disenfranchise 566,000 voters in Indiana. Who tends not to have ID? First-time voters and the very old. They're trying to block 85,000 new registrants in Florida. These tactics are not class or color-blind. See Greg Palast's article here. The number of voters affected with these many purges could be up to 6 million voters. This could well steal the election, under the guise of rule of law...but targeting populations according to race...and that is illegal. It happened in 2000 and 2004 and so far no one has been convicted.

Greg Palast doesn't even cover the fix in machines. There have already been reports of machines switching votes from Obama to McCain in front of the voters' eyes. It's also possible to hack into the emailed reported vote tallies. See this article for more on the ways the election has been and can be e-stolen.

My friend Patrick is also cautiously optimistic, and takes comfort in the numbers he awoke with out of a dream: 53-45-2. Wouldn't it be something if those are post-tampered numbers?

I hope that even if he wins, Obama pursues lawsuits in all those places where the votes have been tampered with. I heard the campaign is prepared to send lawyers to polling places where difficulties are experienced, such as long lines or rejected registrations. I hope that is true. People are encouraged to report any voting problems by calling 866-OUR-VOTE, or go here. You can see real time reports at this site. How's this for dirty dealing? Reports from Pennsylvania that people received robocalls telling them to vote on November 5. Or from Florida that they can vote by phone.

May we find out tomorrow we do still live in a democracy.

Health Equity Dialogs

I went to the Report Back sessions resulting from the community dialogs regarding the series Unnatural Causes. Not only was it a report back, we got to vote (15 dots) on those items for action that came out of the dialogs. (I never did end up writing about the final one, but the information was mostly covered in the preceding posts anyway.) The county chair was there. He did raise his hand when they asked "Who saw any of the showings of Unnatural Causes? He said a few words…that he strongly supports the project, that he respected this piece especially (reporting back and getting feedback), and that he saw this as fulfilling a promise. There are two more report back sessions scheduled. (October 11, 28)

They wanted us to know the library has it.

There were 60 screenings, and over 600 people participated. It was often suggested that they continue to do these showings and dialogs. They wanted to increase visibility of the need to work on this issue of equity in health, and these did so. Another of their goals is to advance policy solutions to address health inequities. The report on this will probably be released in December. Oregon is restructuring how Oregonians get health care, and the work of the Health Equity Initiative has had an influence.

I was hoping the summary of the feedback would be on the website, but it doesn't seem to be there.

One of the things they promised they would do is make it as easy as possible for community groups to give showings of the series. I wonder if that could mean that if a community group wanted to use a library meeting room to host showings and dialogs, if this group could use equipment not otherwise available to public groups, such as a DVD projector.

Eastbank Farmers Market

There were many many items we voted on, and it was difficult to vote. Some of my favorites:

• Fund micro-enterprise and entrepreneurial training that could be linked to empowerment and health promotion with various populations.
• Give companies tax credits for having employees volunteer which would help offset costs of events such as Potlucks in the Park, a program serving meals to the homeless
• County programs should establish benchmarks for building community
• Use public service announcements to raise awareness; use public media campaigns
• Improve social fabric, safety, and civic engagement of neighborhoods through creative design of affordable housing and co-location of services; building design that encourages community cohesion
• Ban the marketing and sale of junk food in schools
• Create incentives to increase access to health food in underserved areas; provide incentives for grocers in low-income neighborhoods to have affordable, healthy food
• Create more "one-stop shopping" service centers that include County services
• Work with local farmers to get food to the underserved (I paraphrase)
  

Send a Bodhisattva to the White House?

Everybody's writing about it, blogging about it. So you and I can find it again, here is the video of Barack Obama's speech on race. Here is the transcript. It is being recognized as one for the history books, but on the other hand torn apart by those that would seem unable to do politics any other way.

I have been so turned off by political speech; so much of it is about cutting up and tearing down. This one could be the speech that turns this around. It isn't just about race, but about an even deeper need to change the way we engage in public discourse. It was about refraining from negative soundbites, and seeking instead to accept the humanity found in each of us. He still loves and accepts his former minister, and cannot disown him. No more disowning.

He said:

I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together, unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction — toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

Some may dismiss that at empty rhetoric, but what I hear is the language of peaceful conflict management, and the language from someone who can find a new way of being rather than take sides one way or another, perhaps only in the way a mixed-race child could. He goes on to say, "It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional of candidates. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts — that out of many, we are truly one."

He goes on to analyze the divisive turn that the national discussion has taken, and skillfully says no, I won't disown my family. My family is more than the snippets you get on TV and YouTube. He is refusing to play the pundit game. I've read some comments on news/blogs that he should have shunned, or he should have said more about sexism, or he should have answered questions from the media like all the other candidates do.

I am grateful he has done none of that. I think beyond this speech, he has opened a doorway to reframing the way politics is discussed. He has insisted that we treat race, and all of the issues that affect our nation's future, with the compassionate and complex discussion it deserves, not with sound bites. I hope this doorway can remain open. I think he may be the person to do it.

Also, while I listened and watched, I thought that his cadence and delivery reminded me of the sermons in churches of my childhood. The charisma of this man will persuade the heartland, and in the heartland that is all about family, not about divisive politics, religious or otherwise, I think he will have appeal. My mother's husband told me a racist joke, something about a black man trying to find change in the white house, and even while we laughed and said "that's bad," he said, "But you know, I think he's the guy I'm going for." Obama knows how to make people feel accepted, and included, and I think that's because he means it.

He would ask us to do the hard work of repairing our relations, to be willing to accept and build up, not tear down. This is radically different from the conservative thousand points of light, of rewarding those who help others. This is about helping each other, and about changing the very frameworks of our lives so we all can be lifted up. This is the work of a bodhisattva. If Barack Obama is for real, he could be the catalyst that brings this nation out of it's wounded war-mongering, within and abroad. (I add the caveat because I was deceived by Bill Clinton. I still have more to learn before I will trust a pol again.)

Chris Matthews on the Daily Show

The writers' strike has given us all a vacation from new Daily Shows and Colbert Reports. (you don't pronounce the S at the end of that, do you?) That is how I usually get my news. While I'm sure something terrible is happening that I'm missing because of this, it does leave me with an hour less of TV per day. Unless I missed it the first time around.

I missed this one that aired October 2nd, an interview with Hardball's Chris Matthews. It's worth a second view. Jon Stewart tells Chris that his philosophy of life is sad. What is incredibly surreal? Chris is shocked that Jon would actually say that. In Matthews' new book he tells us we would do well to live life like politicians. It will help us get ahead in life. And yes, he means by using duplicity and the narcissistic charms of disingenuousness. And he's shocked that Jon finds that incredibly sad. I love Jon Stewart.

I wasn't the only one who found this noteworthy. So did the Huffington Post. The Post is slightly kinder to Matthews than Stewart. Not so at Raw Story.

Idiotarod, but not in New York

A person on my alumni list shared with us that we could find photos of the Idiotarod at his favorite blog, here. I didn't quite get there, to the photos of the Idiotarod. (I hadn't heard of it before. Somebody else shared the link to this YouTube video.)

Before I saw the giant penis cart of the Idiotarod, I found this story about George W. Bush in a caterpillar factory. It boggles my mind that this person is our selected president. Whether on purpose or inept driving, what kind of person laughs at the frantic scramble of people avoiding crushing by a monster machine? If it was on purpose, that's insane. He's inhuman. My husband said that's a frat boy for you.

I shared with my alumni list that I am so glad we did not have frat boys at St. John's. I was spared that indignity. At least most frat boys grow up.

Holly Bailey, Newsweek blogger, reported this:

"I would suggest moving back," Bush said as he climbed into the cab of a massive D-10 tractor. "I'm about to crank this sucker up." As the engine roared to life, White House staffers tried to steer the press corps to safety, but when the tractor lurched forward, they too were forced to scramble for safety."Get out of the way!" a news photographer yelled. "I think he might run us over!" said another. White House aides tried to herd the reporters the right way without getting run over themselves. Even the Secret Service got involved, as one agent began yelling at reporters to get clear of the tractor. Watching the chaos below, Bush looked out the tractor's window and laughed, steering the massive machine into the spot where most of the press corps had been positioned. The episode lasted about a minute, and Bush was still laughing when he pulled to a stop. He gave reporters a thumbs-up.

Bush devotee commenters on her blog try to say it was just a joke, can't we cry-baby liberals take a joke?

The LA Times version of the story said this:

Before he spoke, Bush stopped at the Sterling Family Restaurant to chat with customers eating breakfast. But he really came alive when, at the end of a tour of the Caterpillar plant's assembly line, he climbed aboard a D10 tractor, a yellow behemoth capable of moving tons of earth to carve out a path for a highway, and told reporters: "I would suggest moving back. I'm about to crank this sucker up."

With that, the machine came to life, and moved forward on its yellow metal treads, until he brought it to a halt about 20 feet down the line and started it on a backward turn. When he climbed down from the cab, the inner boy was shining through and a broad grin crossed his face.

At least the reporter recognizes he's still a boy inside.