Nov
Why Barack Obama Deserves Your Vote
Reblogging my essay on the eve of our election.
I can think of few politicians belonging to one of the two major parties who I’d rather see occupy the Presidency than Mr. Obama. I hate to sound too cynical, but if you refuse to support President Obama because of his shortcomings as a progressive, it is unlikely that you will find anyone to support in a general presidential election for at least the foreseeable future. A protest vote can be a valuable thing but if every vote is a protest, you are not so much participating in your government as incessantly complaining about it. America will get better only if we make tangible efforts to improve it.
This election, I seriously considered voting third party due to my opposition to President Obama’s drone strikes, possible forthcoming war with Iran, assault on medical marijuana dispensaries that comply with state laws, mass deportation of immigrants, and failure to prosecute Wall Street criminals. My alternative choice for President was Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson, but I realized that my support for him was based more on frustration I felt towards Obama and less because a protest vote would actually improve the country. Nonetheless, I donated to Anderson’s ballot access initiative and hope to see his party expand its influence.
It’s regrettable that the Democratic Party, with the election of Bill Clinton, chose to discard certain progressive values, most notably a respect for civil liberties and a restrained foreign policy. There are more than a couple Democrats on my ballot that I will not be voting for this year. Even while supporting the President’s re-election, it will be necessary to ceaselessly pressure Democrats to justify their wayward policies. Let’s not forget this is the same party, by and large, that supported a war with Iraq, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the mass imprisonment of young black men in the name of an absurd “war on drugs.” It’s a deeply flawed party, in many respects divorced from the policies and ethics of some its most celebrated members, among them Robert F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the recently deceased George McGovern.
But as far as Democrats go, Obama is superior to Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and every other candidate who ran against him in the 2008 primary. He is a far better President that George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Thanks to the Obama administration, we exited Iraq within the time frame promised and will exit Afghanistan in the not-too-distant future. We have a President who shapes public opinion by affirming his support for gay Americans and supports legislation to ensure equality for minorities and women. We have tax cuts for working families, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, the body of Osama bin Laden resting on the ocean floor, the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, the reversal of growing unemployment, and the revitalization of the American automotive industry.
While it is important to have reasons to vote for a candidate, it is also necessary to have reasons to vote against the opposition. Mitt Romney’s mantra of “no apology” aptly describes the kind of insensitive, arrogant administration he would likely preside over. 70% of Romney’s foreign policy advisors served in the Bush-Cheney administration (leading me to believe Romney is either more likely or just as likely to launch an unnecessary war with Iran as Obama) and his economic policies are nearly identical to that same debt-inducing regime. Romney won’t bat an eyelash over union busting or the destruction of the welfare system or the elimination of universal health care or the oppression of gay Americans.
If you want to protect workers’ rights, maintain programs for the poor, expand health care coverage, raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and withdraw troops from Afghanistan, then a vote for Obama is the only vote that has any hope of actually accomplishing these goals.
There are Americans out there with no jobs and no education and no money and no hope. Vote for them. Vote for the men and women who, until recently, could not serve in the military without denying who they are. Vote for the working class family, routinely denounced as leeching off government assistance, who longs for an America where they can rise to new heights. Vote for the children being raised in communities with failing schools and soaring crime rates who are ignorantly instructed to fend for themselves in a world they are ill-equipped to navigate.
For those who say a vote for Obama would betray their principles, I ask: what principle could be more sacred than the well-being of your fellow citizens?
Oct
“Baracklava”, a portrait of President Obama made entirely of baklava, from the Gulloglu baklava shop in Istanbul. The shop owner remarked, “Obama’s big ears made it very difficult, but we managed.”
Oct
Why Barack Obama Deserves Your Vote
This election, I seriously considered voting third party due to my opposition to President Obama’s drone strikes, possible forthcoming war with Iran, assault on medical marijuana dispensaries that comply with state laws, mass deportation of immigrants, and failure to prosecute Wall Street criminals. My alternative choice for President was Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson, but I realized that my support for him was based more on frustration I felt towards Obama and less because a protest vote would actually improve the country. Nonetheless, I donated to Anderson’s ballot access initiative and hope to see his party expand its influence.
It’s regrettable that the Democratic Party, with the election of Bill Clinton, chose to discard certain progressive values, most notably a respect for civil liberties and a restrained foreign policy. There are more than a couple Democrats on my ballot that I will not be voting for this year. Even while supporting the President’s re-election, it will be necessary to ceaselessly pressure Democrats to justify their wayward policies. Let’s not forget this is the same party, by and large, that supported a war with Iraq, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and the mass imprisonment of young black men in the name of an absurd “war on drugs.” It’s a deeply flawed party, in many respects divorced from the policies and ethics of some its most celebrated members, among them Robert F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the recently deceased George McGovern.
But as far as Democrats go, Obama is superior to Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and every other candidate who ran against him in the 2008 primary. He is a far better President that George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Thanks to the Obama administration, we exited Iraq within the time frame promised and will exit Afghanistan in the not-too-distant future. We have a President who shapes public opinion by affirming his support for gay Americans and supports legislation to ensure equality for minorities and women. We have tax cuts for working families, the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia, the body of Osama bin Laden resting on the ocean floor, the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, the reversal of growing unemployment, and the revitalization of the American automotive industry.
While it is important to have reasons to vote for a candidate, it is also necessary to have reasons to vote against the opposition. Mitt Romney’s mantra of “no apology” aptly describes the kind of insensitive, arrogant administration he would likely preside over. 70% of Romney’s foreign policy advisors served in the Bush-Cheney administration (leading me to believe Romney is either more likely or just as likely to launch an unnecessary war with Iran as Obama) and his economic policies are nearly identical to that same debt-inducing regime. Romney won’t bat an eyelash over union busting or the destruction of the welfare system or the elimination of universal health care or the oppression of gay Americans.
If you want to protect workers’ rights, maintain programs for the poor, expand health care coverage, raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, and withdraw troops from Afghanistan, then a vote for Obama is the only vote that has any hope of actually accomplishing these goals.
There are Americans out there with no jobs and no education and no money and no hope. Vote for them. Vote for the men and women who, until recently, could not serve in the military without denying who they are. Vote for the working class family, routinely denounced as leeching off government assistance, who longs for an America where they can rise to new heights. Vote for the children being raised in communities with failing schools and soaring crime rates who are ignorantly instructed to fend for themselves in a world they are ill-equipped to navigate.
For those who say a vote for Obama would betray their principles, I ask: what principle could be more sacred than the well-being of your fellow citizens?
Oct
Binders Full of Women Tumblr
It exists.
Oct
E-Verify
It’s fun and easy to use like eBay or E-Trade except you lose your job and get deported afterwards.
Oct
Self-Deportation
A strategy that will prove effective if Romney wins and every non-caucasian flees the country.
Oct
Jul
Andrew Sullivan: The Conservative Case For Obama
On almost every front, on almost every issue, in this crisis, Obama is more conservative than Romney.
Obama has sought a modest re-regulation after the chaos of 2008. Romney seeks to do nothing to prevent the next financial panic, and wants to roll back what few rules have been re-imposed. On access to health insurance, Romney wants to return to the free-rider model of the past couple of decades, in which soaring costs are linked with the worst general outcomes in health and wellness in the West. Obama attempted a reform that sought - as Romney did in Massachusetts - to keep the system primarily private, while offering government subsidies to help the working poor stay healthy and stop their ultimate healthcare costs from soaring beyond their (and our collective) reach.
On foreign policy…Obama is even more obviously conservative than Romney. His lesson from the Iraq war was extreme caution in military intervention in the Middle East. Romney’s lesson is that we should launch another religiously polarizing war on Iran to little long-term effect but insuring a permanent war, with incalculable economic consequences. Obama sought to rebalance the US on the global stage by defusing the Bush-Cheney polarization, while still waging a lethal war on al Qaeda. In four years, we have seen the decimation of al Qaeda in Af-Pak, the killing of Osama bin Laden, withdrawal from Iraq and a timeline for leaving Afghanistan.
The reason Romney’s campaign is vague on so many…questions is that it has little to offer on these practical issues but ideological stridency. It is brain-dead. And zombie-conservatism is not conservatism. It is the violent twitching of a political corpse. This election is a chance to bury that corpse and start over. We should be grateful a de facto moderate Republican is president while conservatism has a chance to regroup.
Jul
The President looks pretty gung ho giving this speech in the rain.
May
President Obama awards Bob Dylan the Presidential Medal of Freedom
May
Excerpts from upcoming Obama biography reveal that Barry was a huge stoner
A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning “to smoke marijuana.”
As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called “TA,” short for “total absorption.” To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton’s claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled.
Along with TA, Barry popularized the concept of “roof hits”: when they were chooming in the car all the windows had to be rolled up so no smoke blew out and went to waste; when the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling.
When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning “numbing tobacco”) instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. “Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated,” explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski…
Barry also had a knack for interceptions. When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted “Intercepted!,” and took an extra hit. No one seemed to mind.
In another section of the [senior] yearbook, students were given a block of space to express thanks and define their high school experience. … Nestled below [Obama’s] photographs was one odd line of gratitude: “Thanks Tut, Gramps, Choom Gang, and Ray for all the good times.” … A hippie drug-dealer made his acknowledgments; his own mother did not.
May
