The Monster Bash
With the results of the Wyoming caucuses now in, the difference today between Obama and Clinton is reported to be 142 delegates. The best guess is that neither candidate will garner enough in the remaining contests to go into this summer’s convention with the nomination assured.
So Hillary has recently tended to go maniacally negative. And – I hope you agree with me – Barack is looking more and more “presidential” all the time.
You had probably long-ago guessed that my candidate was John Edwards. Yes, I voted for him here in the California primary, even though by that time he had decided to call it quits. Edwards was the one that I was most drawn to: I want someone in the White House whom I can trust.
I’ll vote Democratic in November. That’s a given. And I so dearly want a candidate to vote for.
Obama is now that person. Regardless of where he stands on the issues, I see a person who is intelligent, articulate, level-headed, and honest-to-god leadership material. In Barack, I believe we have someone who has the potential to actually unite this country.
Obama is against the war. He’ll get us out – somehow. I really don’t care about the fine-print differences in the proposed healthcare plans. I trust that he’ll gather other smart people around him and lead us out of this recession.
And that he’ll inspire a sense of pride in being an American, for a change.
Should Hillary win the nomination, come November I’ll hold my nose and vote (not for her, but) against McCain. I submit that Obama’s recently-departed foreign-policy advisor Samantha Power was correct when she labeled Hillary a “monster.” Too bad she (Power) had to lose her job over such an obvious (though “negative”) truth.
It’s Hillary who is not presidential material. She is not a person to trust. It’s Hillary to watch your back for.
I choose Obama.
Soundtrack Suggestion
I’m a young soul in this very strange world hoping I could learn a bit about what is true and fake.
But why all this hate?
Try to communicate.
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make.
(“New Soul” -- Yael Naim)
The Fifth Anniversary is Nigh
For the last two years I’ve written about, and posted photographs from, the peace demonstrations I’ve attended. As we are all too-well-aware, “W” first lied to us, then took us to war with Iraq in March of 2003. Every year since then we’ve taken to the streets during this month to mark the tragic anniversary.
In 2006, I participated in the event in Portland, OR…the largest gathering of anti-war folk that I’ve ever been a part of. Last year, I traveled from my temporary residence in Roseburg, OR, to march in San Francisco.
As no mass weekend demonstration is apparently taking place in San Fran this year (mid-week activities are planned), I am going to attend the Big Peace March in downtown San Rafael, CA (the county seat of Marin).
Please join me, if you can, on Saturday, March 15.
Soundtrack Suggestion
Now I’ve been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be, something good has begun
Oh I’ve been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be, some day it’s going to come
Cause out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country, come take me home again
(“Peace Train” – Cat Stevens)
So, Here’s the Kicker
This week’s, perhaps this year’s, winner for the “head-up-your-butt” award is (drum roll, please): the State of Oregon. The evidence to support this distinction is, simply put, overwhelming.
To wit, I received a check in the mail last Wednesday. My dubiously-named “kicker” (tax-refund) arrived because, as you may or may not know, Oregon’s state constitution requires that when there is at least a two percent difference between the final revenue forecast for the biennium and the actual end of the biennium revenue, the surplus must be returned to the taxpayers.
Yes, that’s right, when there’s a difference between the forecast (the amount of revenue that is predicted; calculated in an entirely suspect and error-prone process) and actual revenue, taxpayers get rewarded. They call the refund a “kicker.”
Like a kick in the head, I guess.
This stupid, stupid, insanely-stupid law (!), the only one of its kind in the nation, was created in 1979 and added to the constitution in 2000. And 2007 is now the eighth time Oregonians have received their precious “kicker.” This year, on August 31, when the final revenue forecast was released, there was determined to be a $1.071 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) budget surplus. So, back it all goes to the citizens: to each of us who paid Oregon income tax for 2006, we receive 18.62% of it back.
This means 1.6 million Oregonians will receive checks just as the holidays arrive, with refunds averaging $600. My check, which appeared entirely unexpectedly (since I’ve not been following the news up there), came to $1,066.34.
Huge. Sigh.
Now, don’t get me wrong…really, I’m not totally nuts. I reluctantly admit that I’m going to be cashing it. The deal is, I didn’t want this friggin’ thing in the first place!
Consider this. Oregon’s budget has been in disarray for years. Perhaps forever. The tax structure in the state is a joke with no punchline. (Oregon, along with Alaska, Delaware, Montana, and New Hampshire are the five states with no sales tax.) I believe the anti-tax sentiment in the state to be a contagious, progressive, and ultimately-fatal disease. (Nine sales-tax initiatives have appeared on state ballots; all have been turned down. The most recent one, in 1993, was defeated by a 78 percent majority.) Although much of Bill Clinton’s (“It’s the economy, stupid”) Nineties were relatively stable and prosperous for Oregon (thereby masking the true and inevitable impact of 1990’s Measure 5), certainly since the turn of this century, there have been desperately-difficult financial times. State agencies have been in a state of constant crisis. To issue refund checks instead of creating a robust rainy-day fund (which does not exist), or, say, re-investing some of those dollars in the Oregon University System (or the Community Colleges, or the State Police, or the Oregon Health Plan, or the State Parks, the list goes on and on...), is complete and total folly.
I’m embarrassed for you, Oregon. For your lack of foresight and practicality. For your fiscally-irresponsible and tax-averse ways. For the selfishness and self-centeredness of your citizens.
This law, and this behavior, are a disgrace. You can do better.
Update on December 19, 2007:
Here’s something interesting: an article in today’s (December 18, 2007) Oregonian starts out…
A new group, the Revenue Restructuring Task Force, has been charged by the Legislature with studying Oregon’s tax system and submitting recommended policy changes to the 2009 Legislature.
The task force is the result of a bipartisan bill because many of us believe Oregon has the nation’s worst tax structure. And a few of us are convinced that if we don’t have the courage to radically change it soon, Oregon will be forever relegated to economic mediocrity.
For the full essay, by Scott Bruun (a Republican representing West Linn in the Oregon House), click here.
War Is Over! (If You Want It)
What better topic for a Memorial Day entry than the U.S.’s current foreign-policy debacle?
In late March, having participated in a peace demonstration in downtown San Francisco earlier that month, I wrote “Peace Now!” In that entry, I lamented the utter lack of passion evident in the peace movement these days and hypothesized that a big difference of then (Vietnam) vs. now (Iraq) is the absence of a draft.
What explanations are there regarding the American public’s apathetic stance toward this war? For although we’re showing an approval rating of our president at the 30% level (according to the latest CBS News/New York Times polling data), and an approval rating of W’s handling of the war in Iraq at 23%, this fiasco continues to go on and on and on. How can this possibly be? This week, the prez signed a bill authorizing more expenditures for the war after the gutless Democrats caved in and, basically, gave him what he wanted in terms of financing. The insanity continues!
Why can’t we just admit that we’re in another Vietnam and why can’t the American public, obviously and massively against our involvement in Iraq, insist that we be quickly extricated from it? The difference in military conscription policies notwithstanding, I believe that the comparisons are striking between the wars in Vietnam and in Iraq. And that we need to leave this ugly, costly and deadly mistake behind us. Now.
Of course, not everybody out there agrees with me. In response to my aforementioned “Peace Now!” entry, a reader wrote in to criticize my views and take me to task for making any such comparisons. Now, since this respondent chose to send an email rather than post a comment here on the blog, I’ll respect the implicit request for anonymity. However, here is a little bit of what this individual wrote:
Iraq and Vietnam are not the same. Not even close. We could leave Vietnam and not worry about the “enemy” coming to our shores. We leave Iraq ...? And don’t give me that crap about Iraq is not the enemy, or Bush Lied, or any other anti-war slogan. We want to hear a Plan B that we can get behind and support, not mere finger pointing and blaming. This is NOT Bush’s war. This is our war. Backed by majority vote in both Houses, and 14 UN Resolutions. The fact we (and everyone else) had bad intelligence dating back to Clinton’s term does not make Bush a liar. We remember how this war started. It didn’t happen the way some are trying to re-write history…
So, we leave Iraq, do we move those troops back to trying to find bin Laden? Do we bring them home and put them on our borders and at our ports? Or is the plan to do nothing? Just wait to see where they are going to hit us next, and then wing it? We’re not criticizing any of these options right now, we just want to know what is Plan B, if we don’t like Plan A.
Well, dear reader, simply put: you have your head up your butt on this one. It’s not only me but many others out there in the world, most much smarter than I, who are comparing our current involvement in Iraq to the quagmire we found ourselves in during Vietnam.
According to what they’re saying, here are some (a sampling only) of the most obvious similarities…
The lies. The Gulf of Tonkin incident and the subsequent resolution. The certainty about and dangers of WMDs. Both wars started (and continue on) under false pretenses.
The legality. Both wars were/are illegal acts, undertaken absent declarations of war by Congress and unsupported by international law or world opinion.
The locations. We did not understand the cultures (including, and especially, the religion factions in Iraq) — and we neither spoke/speak the languages nor knew/know the lay of the land.
Democracy. Supposedly we fought, and are fighting, to “preserve democracy.” In truth, Vietnam’s elections were staged and controlled by Americans. Iraq has had one election, reportedly casting ballots in order to get the U.S. to leave.
The noble goals. In Vietnam, we had the crusade against communism and, in Iraq, we have the front for the global war on terrorism. Questionable justifications, both.
Prisoner abuse and murder. The torture of Vietnamese prisoners in “tiger cages.” Mi Lai. Abu Graib.
The absence of a front line. In both wars, the “enemy” attacked/attacks anywhere at anytime.
The goal of “-ization.” In Vietnam, we were assured of the ultimate success of Vietnamization: that we could/would leave when the South Vietnamese troops had been sufficiently trained. These days, we’re told that we’ll be able to withdraw when Iraqi troops are able to fight for their own freedom.
Expansion. Although Nixon had a secret plan to end the war, by the spring of 1970 the war had expanded into Laos and Cambodia. Today, we have the troop surge.
The toll on civilians. “These things happen during war”: Here’s a well-known photo from Vietnam. And another (lesser known) one from Iraq.
Of course, there have been many more, and more elegant, comparisons between the two wars. (I’ve included a few references at the end of this article in case you want to do some more reading on this issue.) My point is: we ultimately needed to abandon our involvement in Southeast Asia as our policies had failed miserably and it’s about time we do the same thing with respect to our situation in Iraq.
So, exactly what am I proposing? My one and only Plan A: get the hell out. For example, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has put forth a plan that calls for complete withdrawal (with a timetable of 12-18 months). While I believe that even Edwards’ proposal lacks a certain degree of ambitiousness, I support his specific plan for removing us from this terrible, terrible mistake. Let’s declare peace and leave. Immediately.
Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Photograph by Frank Barratt - Getty Images.