For twelve years, I lived in Sunland, in the Verdugo Hills, the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains just north of Los Angeles. It was a white, working-class neighborhood where some folks still kept livestock; some had horses; you could hear roosters in the morning and many of the men had gun racks in their pick-up trucks.
It could be a start -- a clear national rejection of the extreme right-wing brew that has saturated the executive branch for nearly eight years.
What's emerging for Election Day is a common front against the dumbed-down demagoguery that's now epitomized and led by John McCain and Sarah Palin.
A large margin of victory over the McCain-Palin ticket, repudiating what it stands for, is needed -- and absolutely insufficient. It's a start along a long uphill climb to get this country onto a course that approximates sanity.
My column "Lefties for Obama"
evoked a storm of criticism from readers who see no real difference between the
two major parties. "Lefties for Obama: Round
Two," listing a bunch of issues where some real difference seems apparent,
got a somewhat better reception.
Since I see a trend here, and since desperate times call for desperate
appeals, I'm moved to offer one last round of Lefties for Obama.
The old assumptions and paradigms about capitalism and free markets are dead. A new, virulent populism, still inchoate, is slowly and painfully rising to take their place. This populism will determine the future of the country.
Is John McCain stupid, or does he believe
we are? That's the question as he criticizes Barack Obama for allegedly
trying to "redistribute the wealth" with a plan to lower taxes on the
middle class and raise them on the super-rich.
We've all had the experience: you get off the interstate looking for food and are confronted with the choice of food-like commodities at the gas station's convenience store or food-like commodities at one of several fast food joints. It's not what you want to eat but, if you're hungry enough, you'll find the healthiest option among those available.
Sarah Palin wants a shot at the
top. I don't mean Palin for Pres 2008. I mean 2012. She's been tacking
hard to the right, amping up her fiery evangelical credibility factor,
paying homage to those that would back a reaction candidate against a
first-term Obama administration, and drawing differences between
herself and her flagging running mate.
In the midst of the predictable partisan exaggerations, distortions
and occasional lies that close election races generate, ACORN has
become the focus of an extraordinary amount of attention over our
voter-registration program. We submitted nearly 40,000 voter
registration applications in San Diego and throughout California, and
1.3 million nationwide.
We have nothing against voting. We plan to vote in the upcoming
election. Some of our best friends are voters.
But we also believe that we shouldn't make the mistake of
thinking that the most important political moment in our lives comes in the
voting booth. Instead, people should take politics seriously, which means
asking considerably more of ourselves than the typical fixation with electoral
politics.
