we need change, but will we get it?

from Neoliberalism and Bottom-Line Morality -  Notes on Greenspan, Rubin, and the Party of Davos:

From the Reagan era onward I have been impressed with how regularly liberal and left-leaning economists I knew, who went to work in industry and finance, very soon became pro-business, anti-labor, and politically right wing. I think that what got to them was not only the impact of association with businesspeople, but the fact that business profitability became central to their own performance. As business economists, wage increases would seem bad—as encroaching on that profitability and threatening inflation and business growth (and stock prices). Tough environmental rules would also hamper profitability; their relaxation by law or friendly (non-)enforcement would enhance it. It was therefore easy to slide into what we may call “bottom-line morality,” with positions on key issues dictated by prospective bottom line effects, but of course rationalized with an ideology that made this all benevolent—in the long run—and made these bottom-line moralists into Good Samaritans as they collected their fat salaries and bonuses while the vast majority waited for trickle-down.

Getting back to Greenspan morality, it is clear from both his Ayn Rand contributions and his writings and public pronouncements of the past 20 years that he views untrammeled capitalism as a “superlatively moral system” not because of businesspeople’s benevolence but because market operations in business’s self-interest will protect consumers—business will not take on undue risk because that would eventually harm their own welfare. Regulation is thus unnecessary and positively damaging by its arbitrariness and bureaucratic bungling.

we’ve seen how well this played out in the banking industry.  :|  greenspan was ardently supported by robert rubin and larry summers… both now parts of the obama administration.

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008,obama December 19, 2008 @ 04:45 am

it’s a start…

The greatest favor the white race did Obama this year may have been to stay home. That’s a far cry from Martin Luther King’s dream, but it’s a start.

read What We Didn’t Overcome On Election Day

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,racism,elections2008,bigotry,obama December 18, 2008 @ 11:19 am

a brighter day has come

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008,obama November 06, 2008 @ 10:01 am

h-town all stars rep obama

The H-Town All Stars don’t only want you to vote Tuesday—they want you to cast a ballot for the right man. So goes Obama ‘08, a new tune featuring local rappers Bun B, Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Cory Mo and Trae.

listen here:

go vote.

Blogged, Just for Fun, music, Current Events, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: music,politics,elections2008,obama,mp3s November 04, 2008 @ 06:23 am

yes, we can

though i don’t often agree with andrew sullivan, he has gotten this right:

If I were to give one reason why I believe electing Barack Obama is essential tomorrow, it would be an end to this dark, lawless period in American constitutional government. The domestic cultural and political reasons for an Obama presidency remain as strong as they were when I wrote “Goodbye To All That” over a year ago. His ability to get us past the culture war has been proven in this campaign, in the generation now coming of age that will elect him if they turn out, in Obama’s staggering ability not to take the bait.

Unlike McCain, Obama has never wavered on torture or habeas corpus or on keeping the executive branch under the law. His deep understanding and awareness of the Constitution eclipses McCain’s. Coming from the opposing party, he will also be able to restore confidence that what lies within America’s secret government - the one constructed by Bush and Cheney beyond any accountability, law or morality - will be ended or cleaned up. He can restore critically needed trust again - and force the Democratic party to take responsibility for a war which we all need to own, and take responsibility for, again.

The truth is: we are in a war for the future of human civilization. We are fighting for a world in which destructive technology need not collide with fierce religious fundamentalism to annihilate us all; for a world in which dialogue across cultures and religions and regions (even within America) is essential if we are to survive. We need to win the argument in the developing world; we need to reach out and persuade the Muslim middle - especially the next generation in Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Western Europe - about the virtues of democracy and constitutionalism. We cannot do that if we trash our own values ourselves. It is self-defeating. We cannot be a beacon to the world until we have reformed ourselves. In this war, we are also fighting for an America that does not lose its soul in fighting our enemy. Just because we are fighting evil does not mean we cannot ourselves succumb to it. That is what my Christian faith teaches me - that no nation has a monopoly on virtue, and that every generation has to earn its own integrity. I fear and believe we have given away far too much - and that, while this loss is permanent, it can nonetheless be mitigated by a new start, a new direction, a new statement that the America the world once knew and loved is back.

It will not be easy. The world will soon remember why it resents America as well as loves it. But until this unlikely fellow with the funny ears and strange name and exotic biography emerged on the scene, I had begun to wonder if it was possible at all. I had almost given up hope, and he helped restore it. That is what is stirring out there; and although you are welcome to mock me for it, I remain unashamed. As someone once said, in the unlikely story of America, there is never anything false about hope. Obama, moreover, seems to bring out the best in people, and the calmest, and the sanest. He seems to me to have a blend of Midwestern good sense, an intuitive understanding of the developing world that is as much our future now as theirs’, an analyst’s mind and a poet’s tongue. He is human. He is flawed. He will make mistakes. His passivity and ambiguity are sometimes weaknesses as well as strengths.

But there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.

And the world needs that America now as much as it ever has. Can we start that healing, that rebirth, tomorrow?

Yes. We. Can.

i’m not nearly that nationalistic; however, i do believe that america should strive to restore the dignity, decency and hope lost during these past 8 years.  we should strive to do ~better than that~.  we ~need~ change and, without hope, there can be no change.  when the highest office in the nation has been achieved by someone once completely locked out of the process, it instills hope in the minds of the children watching this election.  it makes the world just that much bigger for them and, this time, for all the right reasons (no C student, obama).

“rosa sat so martin could walk.  martin walked so obama could run.  obama runs so our children can fly.”

go vote.

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008,obama November 04, 2008 @ 05:36 am