Nashville debate

I’m just not seeing the change to believe in.

Yes, during the debate, it became more clear that there is a difference between Obama and McCain. But the differences are in things which hardly matter: domestic policies. Let’s look at:

Tax policy. Yes, it’s true that McCain wants to lower taxes even further for the rich. With a slumping economy, even more people would get caught in the Alternative Minimum Tax and end up paying more. But I can’t worry about that; such plans would never survive in Congress. And for the same reason, Obama’s promises on taxes (cuts for the people making under $200,000; more taxes on people making over $250,000) simply can’t be kept. Obama could campaign on a promise to give every new baby a chocolate éclair, and why not? Congress would end up crafting some compromise with a far less progressive profile, and Obama will shrug, say it’s out of his hands, and it’s the best that could be come up with. So, don’t vote for the guy who promises to lower your taxes – he’s not a dictator, he can’t deliver.

The same goes for health care. Clearly, Obama has a more sane set of suggestions than McCain, even as his proposal falls far short of H.R. 676, which establishes a single-payer health care system in the US and effectively puts health insurers out of business. It doesn’t matter; anyone who lived through the Clinton “plan” in the 1990s can tell you that. On top of that difficulty, Obama and McCain just voted for a massive transfer of wealth to Wall Street, which will constrain what help they can provide to ordinary citizens; expect to see Obama’s proposed expansion of eligibility for federal health insurance go away first.

On issues where the President actually has a lot of latitude, they differ far less. Both would rush troops to Israel were it attacked. Both want to add the Ukraine and Georgia to NATO, effectively forcing our troops there as well in case of a conflict with Russia. Both would violate the sovereignty of any country which may be rumoured to house “terrorists”, including Osama bin Laden. And both speak of “killing” bin Laden, instead of bringing him and his ilk to justice. Such bloodthirsty rhetoric from the two men who would lead a nation built on the concept of laws and justice, where civilized people are glad the Wild West no longer exists.

So, where’s the change we can believe in? In areas where he can’t unilaterally deliver. Don’t be fooled.

Party National Conventions

In response to the article here.

Holding pens for protesters and “free speech zones” far away from the national convention are not consistent with the values of the democracy we’re trying to preserve. Peaceful protesters and persons with messages inconsistent with the event should not be removed from the scene. I find it absurd that the judiciary routinely strikes down campaign reform as infringing on the “free speech rights” of contributors; and yet, when we see people trying to exercise the actual rights to speech and assembly, we seem to collectively think infringing on their rights is fine.

I’m sympathetic to the needs of host cities to maintain order. Protests exhibiting the violence of the late 1960s, in so far as they were instigated by the protesters not the police, are not acceptable. Police should show restraint when performing crowd control; as long as speech is peaceful it should be allowed. When protesters instigate violence (against persons or property) they should be removed and charged with the appropriate misdemeanors or felonies.

I find it embarrassing that the Democratic Party in particular is resorting to these police-state tactics, and I certainly won’t send them any contributions until they desist from and denounce these types of crowd control. A pox on your house! It’s emblematic of the desire of politicians of both parties to avoid any real debate of the issues; they can’t handle protesters because they’re unprepared to answer their concerns, and they won’t debate any other legitimate Presidential candidates because they’re afraid “third party” candidates will make it clear that there are significant similarities between the candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties.

In addition – the press should eschew their complicity in the whole affair by making a point of reporting on the protest area conditions, and by giving voice to the protesters, thus negating the effectiveness of the attempted exile. If you tune in over the next few weeks to the political conventions, please make a point of also discovering coverage of the protests; consider http://www.democracynow.org or http://www.indymedia.org as sources.