"McCain Loses Hastily Convened Fourth Presidential Debate With Lifesize Cardboard Obama"

reads the title of this masterful blog post. Thanks to TPM for the great catch!

* * *

And don't miss the real Obama with what sometimes looks like a Lifesize Cardboard McCain. If somehow Obama does not win the presidency, he has real potential as a comedian!

Rubbernecking the Economy

What is it about a wreck that requires us all to look?

I always watch the crash of the Dow, the rising numbers of foreclosures, the increase in unemployment, the horribly nasty implosion of McPain, even the paths of hurricanes toward our homes, with great despair...



yes...

but, strangely enough, also with a secret shameful hope for the worst. There is some vicarious pleasure in watching a disaster unfold. Even during the collapse of the Twin Towers and during Katrina, I was shocked to realize that some part of me was almost wanting these events to be stunning and awesome and terrible.

What is it in me that craves this kind of display? Sometimes I wonder if at root these awful feelings is the same thing that makes so many people want to believe in an all-powerful god. We want something more powerful than we are, something that can destroy the world, something strong enough to clear the slate and make us start anew.

Yikes.

To Everything, There is a Season

...and it is now our turn.



This is a photo of a victory garden in front of San Francisco's City Hall, taken in 1943.

Sound like an outdated idea? Think again. Slow Food has created it anew.

Food security in this time of economic fragility is becoming an increasingly important issue. It is time now to take the Victory Garden beyond the SF City Hall--to our own yards, and also to the White House.

Did you see Michael Pollan's marvelous and detailed article in the New York Times?

Here is some of what he said:

When Eleanor Roosevelt did something similar in 1943, she helped start a Victory Garden movement that ended up making a substantial contribution to feeding the nation in wartime.... By the end of the war, more than 20 million home gardens were supplying 40 percent of the produce consumed in America.

The president should throw his support behind a new Victory Garden movement, this one seeking “victory” over three critical challenges we face today: high food prices, poor diets and a sedentary population. Eating from this, the shortest food chain of all, offers anyone with a patch of land a way to reduce their fossil-fuel consumption and help fight climate change. (We should offer grants to cities to build allotment gardens for people without access to land.)

Just as important, Victory Gardens offer a way to enlist Americans, in body as well as mind, in the work of feeding themselves and changing the food system — something more ennobling, surely, than merely asking them to shop a little differently.

...As deeply as Americans feel about their lawns, the agrarian ideal runs deeper still, and making this particular plot of American land productive, especially if the First Family gets out there and pulls weeds now and again, will provide an image even more stirring than that of a pretty lawn: the image of stewardship of the land, of self-reliance and of making the most of local sunlight to feed one’s family and community. The fact that surplus produce from the South Lawn Victory Garden (and there will be literally tons of it) will be offered to regional food banks will make its own eloquent statement.

* * *

I love this photo-shopped pic of Pollan, courtesy of Kitchen Gardeners International:

The City that Care Forgot

I just returned from a long weekend in New Orleans where I was attending my favorite annual conference. I spent much of my time there going to sessions where scholars presented their preliminary works, touring the exhibit of academic books, and spending time with old friends from graduate school and new friends from all over the country.

I did get out to explore New Orleans a bit. I have not been to the city since right before Katrina hit and I was stunned at how much even the touristy areas are still suffering from that hurricane and others:



My father and brother, also academic historians, attend this same conference. Every year is a family reunion. This time we got together for an absolutely delicious meal at one of my favorite restaurants. Delicious. If you are ever in New Orleans, try it for brunch. (Go on a gorgeously sunny day and sit in the courtyard.)



Walking back from the restaurant to the conference hotel, I stopped in at the French Quarter's local yarn shop:



In this store, you can never forget where you are. I love going in shops that sell locally-dyed fiber or the yarns of local spinners, giving them a real sense of place. While the Quarter Stitch has mostly national commercial yarns, the whole store nevertheless embodies the spirit of New Orleans--the magic of Mardi Gras, the glitz of colors and textures and shine. Lots of fun, even for this Plain Jane.

* * *

My annual southern history conference has been held in New Orleans very regularly since the 1930s. Every time I come to the city for this meeting, I feel saturated by the ghosts of the past all around me and moved by the immediate relevance of history in our present lives. This year seemed especially resonant with these thoughts. There were sessions on the destruction and the rebuilding of New Orleans, conversations about race and politics and poverty, songs about anger and despair.

There were also talks about glimpses of that well-handled, smooth-hewn stone of hope--the one we are all searching for.

A Place to Change (Clothes)

Knits faster than a speeding Metro train!

Strong enough to write her dissertation while breastfeeding!

More melancholy than your average endangered species!

and

Able to prepare a complete meal from her tiny backyard garden!

She's a recycler!
She's a composter!
She's the Green Raven!

* * *

Thanks to the inspiration of three wonderful women, I have entered the Green Phone Booth and discovered my inner superhero. Enjoy our community blog where the Bulk, Olive S. Oyl, the masked Green Bean, and my own alter ego the Green Raven don capes and plan how we can save world.

Our introduction is up now and we'll start posting daily on October 20th. You can put us on speed dial right away!

* * *

When you take a turn in your own phone booth and morph into your personal superhero self, who do you become? And what are your special superhero talents?

A Time of Renewal

For Jews around the world, Yom Kippur falls at the end of a month of contemplating our sins during the year and then apologizing to each other, to ourselves, and (at least metaphorically) to God.

This is the time of year when I put down all the guilt I have about all the mistakes I make in my life. My load is light. I walk into a new year, unburdened by my past and facing the new year full of fresh potential. I'm always amazed at how strong I feel during these moments. My needs seem small. My ability to do for others is magnified.

This year, I think of JFK's famous line:

Ask not what your country can do for you--
Ask what you can do for your country."
--John F. Kennedy, 1961

* * *

In the first debate when Jim Lehrer asked the presidential candidates what they would have to give up in the face of economic crisis and the costly rescue plan, both candidates shied away from any real answer. Obama said something might have to be delayed. McCain said there were some cuts we could make that we should make anyway.

Neither candidate seemed to have the nerve to address the actual belt-tightening Americans are having to do--and the increases in that belt-tightening that are ahead of us.

Both candidates failed to understand that the call to sacrifice--if it is worded correctly--can signify both great strength as a leader and great respect for the citizens of the country.

We often think of America as a country of people who absolutely cannot accept a call for sacrifice. As Cheney crystallized, "The American way of life is non-negotiable!"

Perhaps there is some truth in this. Although he did not word it elegantly, sacrifice is exactly what Biden stated when he asked those with more than they need to be patriotic ...time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut." The Republicans and many Americans just seemed to laugh off these comments as yet another Biden gaffe.

But sacrifice and responsibility are words with deep resonance for almost all Americans.

Sacrifice for the greater good is at the core of Christianity, the religion of the majority of US citizens. Judaism does not orient itself around the concept of sacrifice, but both responsibility for the community and the healing of the world are central ideas to the faith. Almost all world religions teach some kind of similar lesson. And even for those of us who do not feel personally called by God to religion, we have grown up with the golden rule--and the heroic models of a generation who sacrificed during the Great Depression and the WWII era in order to give more to their country and their communities.

A member of that "greatest generation"spoke up during the town hall debate. She asked (via email): "Since World War II, we have never been asked to sacrifice anything to help our country, except the blood of our heroic men and women. As president, what sacrifices -- sacrifices will you ask every American to make to help restore the American dream and to get out of the economic morass that we're now in?"

McCain answered that he would "ask the American people to understand that there are some programs that we may have to eliminate,"mostly those that are not working anyway.

But Obama, finally, started channeling JFK. Here is his answer:

You know, a lot of you remember the tragedy of 9/11 and where you were on that day and, you know, how all of the country was ready to come together and make enormous changes to make us not only safer, but to make us a better country and a more unified country.

And President Bush did some smart things at the outset, but one of the opportunities that was missed was, when he spoke to the American people, he said, "Go out and shop."

That wasn't the kind of call to service that I think the American people were looking for.

And so it's important to understand that the -- I think the American people are hungry for the kind of leadership that is going to tackle these problems not just in government, but outside of government.

Obama did not stop there.

And let's take the example of energy, which we already spoke about. There is going to be the need for each and every one of us to start thinking about how we use energy.

I believe in the need for increased oil production. We're going to have to explore new ways to get more oil, and that includes offshore drilling. It includes telling the oil companies, that currently have 68 million acres that they're not using, that either you use them or you lose them.

We're going to have to develop clean coal technology and safe ways to store nuclear energy.

But each and every one of us can start thinking about how can we save energy in our homes, in our buildings. And one of the things I want to do is make sure that we're providing incentives so that you can buy a fuel efficient car that's made right here in the United States of America, not in Japan or South Korea, making sure that you are able to weatherize your home or make your business more fuel efficient.

And that's going to require effort from each and every one of us.

I have my doubts about drilling and so-called clean coal and the like--but he's saying something here in a very public forum that is seldom expressed these days. Although he's talked a bit about conservation in his written materials and in his campaign stops on the response to the developing energy crisis. I am thrilled to see him do at least a bit of Carter-"put-on-a-sweater"-channeling here.

Obama was not finished.

I think the young people of America are especially interested in how they can serve, and that's one of the reasons why I'm interested in doubling the Peace Corps, making sure that we are creating a volunteer corps all across this country that can be involved in their community, involved in military service, so that military families and our troops are not the only ones bearing the burden of renewing America.

That's something that all of us have to be involved with and that requires some leadership from Washington.

Hear, hear!

Who is Holding this Handbasket?

Sometimes I wonder how long the entire nation--no, our entire world--can be held underwater, all waiting for that moment when we can finally gasp for breath again.

I know I'm inherently a worrier, inherently one who assumes the worst, one inherently prone to depression (the clinical kind, not the financial kind).

But this time, it is not just me.

The economy is collapsing in ways that could be tremendously more relevant than the hit our 401ks may have just taken. (For more information about what I'm referring to, check out Sharon Astyk's amazing new book, Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front.Review coming soon.)

The frustration and anger that the American people are experiencing is making their partisan politics be voiced in derision and hatred, and it is starting to seem really dangerous. I want so much to believe that this kind of talk is just people's anxieties speaking--and that it will go nowhere else. But honestly--I don't have that faith.

It is this kind of talk about hating other people, about killing other people because of their politics, that can lead to Nazism and the like.

And I don't know what to do other than ...

...deal with the real-life SPEWING OF SEWAGE from our basement drain....

Now here's that kind of immediate tangible crisis that I can deal with in my life, if I absolutely must be tested. Let's stick to that. Do you hear me?!

MOM knows best

MOTHERS OPPOSING McCAIN

Happy New Year!

What?!

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."

--proposal by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson

I had qualms before, but this is outrageous. Terrifying.

Shocking

Have you read the amazing, prescient, dense book by Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine? In it she argues that policies that would never be passed during times of calm are often implemented right after natural disasters, wars, or massive economic upheaval.

The author gives abundant details of how unwanted changes can be pushed through fin the immediate aftermath of crises--from the privatization of New Orleans' public schools after Hurricane Katrina to the seizure of wrecked fishing villages by resort developers after the Asian tsunami. She surveys privatization in Chile under Pinochet, post-apartheid South Africa, post-Solidarity Poland, Russia under Yeltsin, China after the Tiananmen Square protests, reconstruction of Iraq after the U.S. invasion, and Israel after 9/11.

Whether the crises are real or invented, plotting leaders use these moments of chaos to their advantage. They adopt programs that would never be democratically accepted by the people. Military coups, violence and force, wars, induced hyperinflation, terrorism, preemptive war, climate disasters all have been cards played by rulers in order for drastic economic policies to be imposed. Nearly always, they are developed in secrecy and implemented too rapidly for citizens to respond.

The result of these non-democratic interventions is vastly increased inequality. Those with wealth and power benefit from the transformations as their corporations reap the assets. It is those at the bottom and in the middle who are asked to forfeit their freedoms and their livelihoods.

As one reviewer said, "This is the new New Economy: the looting of the public sector through the now tried-and-true methods of disaster capitalism." It is through the policies established in the wake of crises that federal money and authority gets handed to private corporations such as Halliburton and Blackwater, and individual rights and freedoms get muffled and shunted aside.

* * *

Where are we now, with investment banks lying dead around all the empty foreclosed homes and shuttered small businesses?

On the one hand, the motivations of disaster capitalists to move toward a world of uber-capitalism seem to have failed--and failed dramatically. We've seen how dangerous privitization can be in the face of extreme deregulation and lack of oversight.

On the other hand, we are at a moment that much of America is in shock by the loss of their homes, their retirements, their children's college funds, their jobs, and their health care plans--their inability to pay their credit card debt and their student loans--as well as the shock they experience every time they buy groceries or gas. Congress is told that we may be a couple of days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system. Democratic senators Schumer and Dodd suggested that what Secretary Paulson told them was too frightening to repeat, what sounds far worse than the Great Depression. Executives suggest that the crisis will lead to "riots in the streets" or a bloodbath, that it is "a beast of biblical proportions." Newspaper reports suggest that we were 500 trades away from Armageddon. Bloggers suggest this is a fiscal Katrina. The international press is suggesting that the United States itself might default.

Is this not a shock itself?

Could this shock allow the "quick and clean" bill the Paulson wants to pass immediately without discussion?

(Just a thought for some budding politician: oppose this bill now because it may be the next Iraq, and a statement against it could set you up as the next Obama. UPDATE: Someone agrees with me!)

Perhaps the bail-out plan is the only way to answer this crisis. I am no economist.

But every little bit of me resists when those in power tell us to turn off our critical thinking and stop questioning things. They know what is right, they say. They'll take care of us. Don't worry. Be happy. (The fundamentals are strong, right?)

Well, I am worried.

I'm concerned that even relatively conservative commentators are suggesting that capitalism is changed forever. I don't feel comfortable that the industry could control the markets to allow people to bet only that things are going up and not manage their risk with shorts. I feel uneasy that individual Americans, people already struggling to pay their bills and help other suffering people in their communities, are being asked to bail out millionaire corporations. I am disturbed that we are being asked to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the already-enormous national debt.

Maybe this plan is the right answer. I have no idea.

But I know it is wrong to be shocked into doing something without thinking, to be told by our leaders that the truth is too scary for us to hear, to have it suggested that we should contemplate what supports monster corporations rather than what is good for all Americans--including the poor.

Today, Son is off to the Maryland Renaissance Festival with some friends. Although Scottish Day was last weekend, he decided to wear his kilt:



Although there is lots of fantastic food available there, he packed himself a snack in my new bento box.

On the bottom is some homemade pizza with fresh tomatoes, shallots, and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese. On the top is fresh spinach leaves, almonds, and dried cherries, along with a few ABC cookies from Trader Joe's.



Isn't the box perfect for a knitter/spinner?



(Ha! Two hole posts where I have not mentioned He- and She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named!)

Potato, Patahto...

Which wild-and-crazy republican vice presidential candidate was it who corrected a student's spelling of "potato" with "potatoe"?

* * *

We harvested our pathetic little crop of new potatoes:





Although we only got a few potatoes and almost all were tiny, it seemed like utter magic to turn the crate over and discover these gleaming gems!


Next year: sweet potatoes.

Believing

"The reason I'm calm is I have confidence in the American people."
--Barack Obama

Wish I did.

"Fundamentally" Republican?

This is not a political blog (although it may have looked like one lately)--but as a professional historian, I could not let this comparison pass:

"The economy is fundamentally sound."
-- President Herbert Hoover, 1931

"The fundamentals of the economy are strong."
-- Presidential Candidate John McCain, 2008

Are we going from Hooverville to McCainville?

Both brought to you by the party that is wrecking America.

Crossing Party Lines

Has everybody seen this one? It definitely put my political anxiety in a better place!

Turning Off:

My parents--two born-and-bread white southerners--morphed into liberals during the Civil Rights Movement. They raised me to value equality and justice. They raised me to believe that to whom much is given, much is required. They raised me to be a left-wing Democrat.

* * *

For all the elections of my voting life, I've said that I might move to Canada if the party I was not supporting (ie, the Republicans) won the election.

Ok, Ok: I know Canada doesn't want to make new citizens of disaffected American voters just on a whim.

Well, I pretty much knew I wasn't even going to try, too. The United States is my home and I honestly cannot imagine just throwing in the towel out of anger that democracy isn't going my way at the moment. That is not what DEMOCRACY is even about. But the idea of turning my back on the whole country sometimes got me through some difficult moments.

* * *

Dukakis, the Democratic candidate when I was in college, lost the presidential election--to my absolute surprise. I was living in a lefty neighborhood in Massachusetts and could not imagine anyone voting for George H.W. Bush.

I did not actually move after the election, of course, and I survived those four years in the United States. I got involved in pacifist organizations and the feminist movement and the queer movement--and my anger turned into motivation for change even if it had to take place outside national politics.

I lived in a lovely lefty-hippie neighborhood in North Carolina when Harvey Gantt ran against *Jesse Helms in 1990. I did not know a single person who supported Helms--and absolutely could not imagine anyone actually voting for Helms. Gantt was smart and progressive and clearly a leader on a path the state should take.

Again, I was wrong. And hey, I did leave North Carolina (albeit for different reasons).

* * *

I didn't move after George W. Bush was appointed president, or even after the second fiasco four years later.

Nevertheless, I have never fully accepted that Bush is actually my president.

(I know that statement will rule out my chances to ever run for office...as if they were not already ruined by my dangerously evil pacifist commitments or my belief in non-chromosome-defined love.)

* * *

I said after McCain was chosen in the Republican primary that even if Obama did not win this election, I could honestly say I would not leave the country and would acknowledge that the guy was actually my president. I mean, I disagree with him an awful lot of the time, but hey...he's not Bush.

But...but...

Well, I guess things have changed.

As I said to my partner David last night, the neo-Con flat-world globalism is troubling. But the paleo-Con flat earth beliefs of right-wing evangelicals are far more disturbing to me.

Palin is a radical conservative of the evangelical stripe.

I have enough trouble dealing with Obama when he starts talking about his beliefs. I honestly don't like the idea that people who feel their religious beliefs are relevant to presidency could become our leaders. I don't like the idea that any core political decisions, from who we define as "enemies" to issues of abortion rights or creationism in the schools, might be made within the framework of an individual's individual beliefs. The lens I want my leaders to look through when making decisions that affect all of us is the lens of humanism: what is best for the people of this country and world, not what the politician says God wants him or her to do.

God gets used an awful lot to justify evil--too often for me to trust God language in politics. Maybe too much for me to trust God language in other places, too.

* * *

I think I've changed my mind. Maybe I will move to Canada.

* * *

I haven't slept enough in nights. I felt like this during the end of both of the previous elections. Is it normal to feel so ill about something as...intangible(?) ...as who wins the presidential election?

I think I need to turn off the radio, turn off the internet, just to preserve my own sanity. I won't be posting for a few days as I take this Luddite holiday.


*When creating the link for Gantt, I discovered that one of Helm's advisors in that awful race-baiting Senate campaign is now, frighteningly, McCain's chief campaign adviser. (Check out the horrifying ideas presented in that last link.)

The Ones I Breathe

Emma's Revolution won't let me forget the raw intensity I felt after 9/11. This song is about memory, about sadness, about justice.


If I Give Your Name

Mi esposa, my wife, worked on the 80th floor
The company had hired illegals before
She got the job by word of mouth
That's the way in the north when you're from the south

They say 3,000 but the counting's not done
Mi esposa está muerta
Three thousand and one


Chorus:
I have no papers, I have no rights
All my days end in sleepless nights
Missing you, silently
If I give your name
Will they come after me?


Mi hermano, my brother, the elevator man
A doctor in our country but you take what you can
I saw the photos in Union Square
But I could not leave his picture there

They say 3,000 but that's not true
Mi hermano no volverá
Three thousand and two


Chorus


Mi hija, my daughter, went in early that day
She had always been that way
Her daughter asks, "Where did she go?"
How to tell her, I don't know

They say 3,000 but that can't be
Perdí a mi hija
Three thousand and three


Chorus


Mi padre, my father, I have no words
I tried to find you when I heard
They gave some ashes to families
But I'll only have the ones I breathe

They say 3,000 there's so many more
Desaparecidos
Three thousand and four


Chorus


Mi esposa, my wife. Will they come after me?
Mi hermano, my brother. Will they come after me?
Mi hija, my daughter. Will they come after me?
Mi padre, my father. If I give your name,
Will they come after me?



--Sandy O & Pat Humphries



(The lyrics are powerful--and so is the music. Go have a listen!)

Congrats to my 9yo son for winning first place in the contest over at Vegan Lunch Box!

Head over to his blog and leave him an encouraging comment. After all, blogging is part of homeschool English this year...

The Power of Community

Last night as I watched the Republican National Convention, I was expecting the Republicans to blast Obama. The Democrats were certainly not easy on McCain. Attacking the opponent is what the campaigns of both the Democrats and the Republicans do, after all.

I assumed they would say that Obama's experience as a community organizer was not preparation to be president. Personally, I disagree. Obama directed an organization that helped community members set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization. Insuring that the citizens of the country receive education, work skills, and affordable decent housing are core responsibilities of our national leadership. However, I can understand how and why the Republicans could arrive at a different opinion.

I was stunned, however, to hear the speakers mock the entire concept of community organizing. Rudy Giuliani spluttered out to a wildly cheering crowd: "He [Obama] worked as a community organizer. What? He worked — I said — I said, OK, OK, maybe this is the first problem on the resume."

Do the Republicans not know what community organizing means?

Community activism is absolutely at the core of participatory democracy. Its goal is to have all members of the community become empowered leaders able to address whatever issues the community faces--massive layoffs and unemployment, lack of public transportation in the face of the high price of gas and cars, foreclosures on homes, the existence of hunger and malnutrition in the face the rising costs of food, high rates of teen pregnancy, rising school drop-out rates and students not being able to afford college, lack of health care, the presence of fear and violence, poverty.

The goal of an organizer is to help the community learn how to respond to its own needs rather than have the government have to shoulder the responsibility. (You'd think the Republicans would support community organizing in greater numbers than Democrats would, wouldn't you?)

Did you know that Obama's community activism took place within the context of a faith-based organization? Wasn't it the Republicans who pushed for faith-based initiatives to restore all the services the government was no longer providing?

I can think of nothing better for the start of one's resume--for a Democratic or a Republican--than spending three years as a community organizer, learning about the real issues real people face. It seems far, far more relevant than being a soldier, no matter how much bravery or responsibility being a soldier might show.

Community organizers learn every day the power of community members to become their own leaders. Rather than political executives doing that job for them, real people act for themselves and learn to change the world. Sometimes community organizers have to give up their own veto in order to do what the entire community thinks is right. Organizers know that their role is to inspire, facilitate, and guide the regular citizens of this country to take the reigns of power and lead America to a better place.


* * *

UPDATE:

Um...McCain just canceled his own scheduled community service for today...

Also: check out this marvelous post about community organizers.