Sea Change?

A recent post is full of comments to and from SeaSpray, a valued and long-time commenter. She and I started our online relationship on Surgeonsblog, where I concluded she was a thoughtful and genuine person. She is. So it's become some sort of a mission to try to get through to her; I don't know why, it just has. Based on prior discussions, I figured she wasn't the typical screamer. So here's my final attempt, on which I embark fully aware it'll change nothing.

SeaSpray, I get that people don't like President Obama, and that there are plenty of reasons to disagree with his policies. But neither you, nor people of the teabag persuasion, seem to want to nor are able to address their objections based on policy or on conservative principles. You -- and they -- perseverate on the stuff that people want you to, in order to get you -- successfully, as you've admitted -- to ignore the effects of their policies. Lately I've been posting about the few true conservatives who've been expressing their disappointment in their party, as they see it becoming unhinged, rigid, and unhelpful. I'd hoped you might be able to see it, too.

As I've written over and over, this country needs two opposing parties; it improves both of them, it leads to finding solutions that aren't too over one edge or another. I want there to be a strong conservative party; but that also means one that's willing to come together when needed, and to propose solutions that haven't already been shown to fail, time and again. Solutions about which they don't feel compelled to lie.

I guess I could repeat all the ways in which your party has become dangerous; but since I have already, many times, there's no real point. I wish, though, that you could step outside yourself and have a look at the points you keep making: the New Black Panther Party; Joe Biden gets a pass; unfair media; racism; whispering to Putin (it was Medvedev, actually, and what he said was that after the election he'd be able to take up arms control more easily. A political truism. And treaties have to be ratified. Even if he agreed to send all our missiles to Russia wrapped in flowers and candy, with GPS coordinates of your house attached, the senate has to approve it.)

You buy the lies about Obama and Israel, evidently. And you repeat the RWS™ upside-downer that Obama is divisive, ignoring the fact that from day one your party lined up against him, even as Eric Cantor said Rs had had more face time with Obama in six weeks than they'd had with Bush in eight years, and that teabaggers, who now control your party, claim he's unAmerican. Let alone not born here. Hates America, says Rush. Wants to destroy it. And still Obama says he believes they'll work with him. "Oh yeah??" answer the Rs. Who's dividing whom?

You actively don't talk about the economic impact of cutting taxes even further on the wealthy in ways that will raise them on the middle class, increasing military spending and, if they do as they claim they'll do, balancing the budget. The only way it'd work is to eliminate virtually all domestic spending. It's true: practically every analysis has said so. (And they've also said it's still impossible to achieve balance!) I've provided links in the past. Do I need to again, or would it make a difference?

We've become cynical enough about politics to consider some amount of lying and spin to be normal. You might recall I've criticized Obama for some of his ads, and when Alan Grayson went over the line, I wrote that I hoped he'd lose (which he did), even though he was one of the most effective liberal voices in Congress. But the lies of Romney and Ryan are beyond the pail, and they've based their whole campaign on them. When a writer for Fox "news" even says so, you know it's something to consider. If I re-listed the lies, would you care? Do you prefer to believe Obama apologizes for America, hates capitalism, gutted welfare reform, etc, etc, so you don't have to consider the good things he's done? Just as Karl Rove hopes.

Do you wish the auto industry had gone under? Can you look at this graph and believe the stimulus had no effect? Do you think it might be worthwhile to understand the origin of our deficits and debt? Are you unhappy that Obama has killed more terrorists than Bush ever dreamed (including you-know-who)? Is that why you think he'd ready to sell out America? Have you decided Romney's health plan in Massachusetts, which is working, and which differs from Obamacare mainly in that Obama gave other states latitude to try other approaches, was a bad thing? Do you think we should still be in Iraq? Do you believe that returning the wealthy to tax rates under Clinton, when the country was flourishing, is anti-capitalist, or might you be able to see it as a way to balance the budget while still paying for such things as education, first responders, roads, consumer protection, health care...? Is it socialism or Marxism to recognize that capitalism needs government to survive? Are you aware that Obama has proposed significant spending cuts, too, but in a balanced way that doesn't rob the future?

Those are the issues. Romney and Ryan would rather lie about Obama (again: shall I provide lists?) than discuss their plans in any detail; and the Koch brothers, via the RWS™ and superpacs, are paying handsomely for you to be distracted by distortions and falsehoods so you won't notice their self-enriching plans, their plans for their present at the expense of the country's future. Money well spent, evidently.

Like you, I don't care about dogs on roofs or on dinner plates. I don't care that Romney is a Mormon (and although, since we know he's a tax-avoider, I do think it's relevant to know if he's also a tax cheat, I don't care as much about that as the other stuff, either.) I do find very significant that your candidate has changed his mind on every single major political and moral issue this country faces, and I wonder what it takes to influence him nowadays? But, okay. Let's assume his latest positions are his real positions. Like on "Millionaire:" final answer. (You said he's okay with abortion for rape and incest and life of the mother and so are you, but he's also said he'd sign a bill that declares personhood at conception, which would make those exceptions murder. But, okay. No candidate holds every position that a voter wants. [RNC conventioneers, when asked about the conflict between his views and their platform against all abortion, no exceptions, said everyone should be allowed choice on the matter. Ironic, huh?])

In the end, SeaSpray, what we should want from any voter is evidence that the decision is based on reality, on the issues we face. I'd like to believe you've assessed each candidate's positions on the budget, on health care, Social Security, Medicare, education, taxes, military spending, etc, etc, and decided that, on those issues, you prefer Romney, and have specific policy reasons for making your choice. Not based on whether Obama is Kenyan, Muslim, hates America, didn't speak out about a group that contains a handful of people, or based on a literally impossible Foxobeckian fever dream of handing the keys to Putin: based on policy. Based on what he's done and wants to do, versus what Romney and Ryan plan to do. And undo.

I acknowledge a significant problem with that: neither Romney nor Ryan has specified the details of their economic plans. "We'll tell you after we're elected," they say. "We'll close loopholes, but we're not saying which ones or how much revenue it'll gain," they argue. About the only specific is Romney's promise to make defense spending total 4% of GDP (more than the Pentagon wants) which would be a huge increase, despite the fact that we're already spending more than the rest of the world combined, and the fact that aircraft carriers can't stop suitcase bombs.

To me, it's puzzling (to put it mildly) that anyone but a mulitmillionaire could choose to vote for R/R, because everyone else will be adversely affected, and our ability to secure a future will be gone. As a speaker at the DNC said, "Freedom isn't free, but neither is opportunity." And "It's impossible to be pro-business and not be pro-education." The R/R plans are based on short-term gain for those who already gots, and ignore the need to make sure there are funds for future Americans to succeed as well.

Tell me where I'm wrong about that. Or, if you'd rather not, tell yourself. That's all. My vote for Obama is based on the conclusion, supported by experts more expert than I, that R/R plans will devastate the ability to pay for things that I consider vitally important. Is your decision based on the conclusion that they're not important; or is it that you don't care? Or that you think I'm lying?

[Added, after a certain speech: Lemme take a wild guess -- you didn't watch Bill Clinton last night. If you didn't, you should. Do it for yourself. (And give yourself plenty of time: he did go on!) I don't imagine you'll be moved; but do it anyway. And decide if he made sense, if he was credible. Or if you think he lied. And if so, where? Answer his arguments, his elaboration of the last four years: not to me. To yourself. Here it is. The generalities, which you'll hate, quickly give way to specifics you need to consider. Skip ahead to the five minute mark. And if you can't make yourself watch the whole thing, there's a short clip of it here that gives a taste of him addressing the facts.]

Finally: don't take it personally, SeaSpray. I've always liked you; I tried to help back on Surgeonsblog, and I'm trying to help now. But, really, I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to teabaggers everywhere, and I'm perfectly aware they're not listening. Which makes me what?

Fair

It's fair in that it's true, and fair in the sense that it could be better. The most important points -- about what's at stake in terms of being able to invest in and have a future -- were nearly throwaway at the end, and need to be hit much harder; specifying the fact that by their own admission (braggadocio, more like) the R plan makes it impossible.

Now It Begins...

(Needles and pinza??? WTF is pinza, and how can I get some?)

Listening, as I just did, to President Obama's kickoff campaign speech, I'm happy to report he hit all the notes that I think needed hitting. (I imagine he got it all from reading this blog.) Because it really is about the starkest choice there could be, and it's no secret (aside from the names of and amounts donated by the billionaires behind the barrage of ads that'll be coming down the pike.) In black and white, Republicans have adopted the phony Ryan budget and their Rominee has signed on with the eagerness of Takeru Kobayashi in front of a plate of hotdogs.

It's clear and undeniable: in the name of not only maintaining but lowering further the already historically low tax rates (okay, they want to raise them on the poorest), they're happy to cut spending on the very things that America needs to sustain itself. So secure they are in their ability to keep their flock in line that they're no longer trying to hide it: we will cut funds for education, housing, for infrastructure, research, for Medicaid, for food stamps, for Planned Parenthood (saving, like, a nickel), for environmental protection; and we will revert to the free-for-all unregulated Wall Street that failed to do anything but make itself rich while driving the country into near-default. And, while pretending voodoo economics will add up this time around, we'll spend even more on defense; because the defense industry helps us buy elections. In the service of which, Rominee has already reassembled all of the disastrous neocon warmongers from the Bush administration to be his advisers!

Has Obama been perfect? Have his programs worked as well as we'd hoped? Far from it. Have Democrats in Congress been disorganized, message-bereft, and as un-unified as Rs have been unified? Does the Pope live in the woods? But have the Rs, from day one, tried to block or water down everything Obama proposed, with the hope -- against the interests of the country for the love of which they claim solitary ownership -- of seeing it fail so they could then (as they're doing) trumpet the failures as Obama's? Did beaks evolve in the Galapagos?

Y'know, I have a reader who lives in New Jersey. A nice lady from all I can tell, honest, sincere, who followed me here from Surgeonsblog where I gave her a little help. We couldn't disagree more, it seems, on matters political and religious. (I really have no desire to change anyone's views on religion, by the way, other than to get them to realize where it belongs, and doesn't, in the order of things political.) When I write stuff like this, I think of her. I think how wonderful it would be -- because I think she's a good person -- if it would make her stop and consider, just for a moment, whether the priorities of her chosen political party have become impossibly skewed toward the advancement of the already-wealthy at the expense of everyone else. (Surveying the swimming pool and golf course of the home at which he was fundraising recently, Rominee said Republicans want everyone to live like this. Or, at least, want everyone to believe that by following the Ryan plan, they might. While ignoring the impossibility, the lie (after all, he wants teachers, cops, firefighters, construction workers, machinists, to make less money) and the irony: sounds like high-rent communism, doesn't it? Among Rominee's lies, it might be the biggest of them all.)

In a democracy, especially one as diverse as ours, you can't get everything you want. You have to compromise, you have to accept that there are others who think differently and who have a point, whose ideas belong on the table along with yours. If there are some people on welfare who shouldn't be; if Medicare spending is too high; if nothing's perfect -- are these things enough to make you choose to vote for a man who'd gut vital domestic spending in order to maintain low tax rates on people of his surpassing wealth, and in order to increase defense spending? Or do you not consider education vital? Or environmental protection? Or women's health? Or help for the needy? Do you actually believe the budget numbers they're pushing, contrary to virtually every legitimate analysis to which they've been subjected? That, magically, it'll suddenly work for the first time in our history? Shall you excuse your choice by buying the constant lies that Barack Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, a socialist, an America-hater, that he's made things worse, all evidence to the contrary?

If all of my ranting into the wind, my stupid belief that it does some good (at least to my own mental health, which is questionable) led to that one person -- that one single person in New Jersey -- stopping for a minute and asking herself those questions, I might think it's been worth it.

Or not.