Brooklynne and I were invited to an Obama birthday party last night. I dropped by to say hello to some friends, but I didn't stay because Brooklynne and I were exhausted from the past week and it was the kids bedtime. Not to mention that I feel like it is slightly wierd to go to a birthday party of a stranger. I mean, we all feel like we know the guy because he's been plastered on the TV and radio for the past 4-6 years, but really... shouldn't birthday celebrations be reserved for people you know and care for--and people who know and care for us in return?

Anyway, Brooklynne and I had a discussion last night about Obama and whether he has been good for the country or not, whether he deserved our vote next time, and who was causing all the problems in our national government. I still like Obama, though he certainly hasn't changed the atmosphere in Washington the way I was hoping he would. And my question to people who have become disenchanted with the pres is "what's the alternative?" There's no such thing as a moderate Republican anymore; the Tea Party has seen to that. And Democrats are too entrenched in the current regime to offer any fresh options. So the outlook for 2012 is rather uninspiring.

So, the discussion got a little heated--Brooklynne is a little more conservative than I am--but we agreed that, whoever you want to blame, this debt war has shown that there's less and less of a place at the table for purples like us.

 

I am a historian and I used to tell people I wanted to teach. Sometimes when I told people this (especially older people), I would get asked, "you're going to teach the REAL history, right?"

I've often chuckled with Brooklynne about what these people might think is the REAL history.

Now, thank goodness for Mike Huckabee, I have the answer. First, watch the video linked below and then go here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30QDd3ROTkA

I can't wait to get home and clean all those other, biased history books off my bookshelf.

If you didn't catch Obama's policy update on nuclear weapons, it is worth reading about. It's not a radical change by any means, and it seems like an obvious move, but rational and progressive leadership (using the carrot as well as the stick) has not been the halmark of the US international politics recently, so I think this is a step in the right direction.

The Senate is now poised to vote on its version of the healthcare reform bill, and I am fascinated by the incredible differences in opinions about if and how to do it. The factors involved are mind-boggling, but one thing I am sure of is that something definitely needs to be done now, and here is one reason why (via UC-Santa Cruz):

Granted, this chart does not reflect quality of life (which should influence any measure of healthcare worthiness) and the spending numbers probably include elective procedures such as non-essential laser vision surgery or boob jobs, etc. (which would likely skew the US numbers), but still, this seems ridiculous. 

So this is an appeal to congress: please pass something substaintial. When in doubt, err by being more aggressive. Let future congresses fix the cracks or roll back the excesses.

If you want to read about the reform bills, here are some links:

• The full text of the House bill - get comfortable because this baby's almost 2000 pages!
  *** There will be no final text of the Senate bill until it passes a vote ***
• The short summary of the House bill
• A good comparison of the House bill and the likely provisions of the Senate bill

Here are some other ideas that I would have liked to have seen in the bills:

• Penalties on insurers that have a high rate of reversed coverage denials (i.e. if a company repeatedly denies coverage, only to eventually cover claims upon appeal or resubmission)
• Greater incentives for more holistic approaches to medicine
• Cost control ideas ranging from lowering the cost of medical school and malpractice premiums to limiting the cost of essential presciption drugs

I would love to hear your views, especially if you feel strongly that health reform is a bad idea.

I haven't heard or read the transcript of Obama's Peace Prize speech, but I did listen to a commentator talk about it the morning after, and since then, I've been meaning to dig up a copy and read it for myself. The two things that piqued my interest were the commentator's assertion that it was Obama's best speech so far as president, and his analysis of the way the speech was structured as a reply to MLK's Peace Prize speech.

So here are the two speeches. I would love if you read them both and told me what you think. As I said before, I have not read them yet, but I will, and I will post my feelings either in the comments here, or in a separate post later.

MLK-Nobel-Speech.pdf

Obama_Nobel_Speech.pdf

Brooklynne has been neglecting her blog, and I can't wait any longer to share a picture from our election night celebration.

*** Brooklynne caught me posting about this so you will have to wait for her, or I will be sleeping on the couch tonight. ***

Five thoughts from election night:

1. McCain' concession speech was one of the best things I've heard coming out of that man's mouth since his convention bump dissolved and he decided to go negative. The guy is an upright citizen who lost his way for a bit, but I believe he will truely put this election behind him and work constructively with Obama in the future.
2. Elizabeth Doles' concession speech, on the other hand, was nasty and uncalled for. (Kay Hagan got in some digs too, though, characterizing the tone of the entire campaign.)
3. I was hoping to stay up until NC was called, but I ran out of gas at about 1am. When I got up and the state was still too close to call, I was glad I gave up when I did.
4. I hope Obama gets his daughters an airedale.
5. One man does not a nation make. I think Obama knows this, but I'll be interested to see whether Obama can (or even tries) to turn his overwhelming ground game into sustained grassroots community action. That's the only way real change will happen.

I'm also curious to read Voices without Votes to see how the world is reacting.

What was once thought impossible could happen. Obama could win a sweep of states that TWJ cares about: CO, NC, MT. We would be so proud.

I promised some more thoughts in reply to Mark's good questions in the comments of the previous post so if you are interested, click the continue reading link below.

It makes me sad to hear John McCain take up the old flag of redbaiting in the final hours of the election. I read today that McCain is planning to roll out new attacks based on a seven-year-old interview where Obama said that the civil rights movement was not as successful as it could be because it did not bring about "redistributive changes."

Well, I happen to agree with that assessment (and if you want to know why, just ask me for a history lesson). But, what many people aren't going to see this election cycle, is the real redistribution of wealth that has been going on over the last 20 years:

The gap between the wealthy and the poor is growing wider and wider and in the US it is one of the widest gaps among developed western nations. Why does that matter? It means that we also have one of the highest rates of (income) poverty, our society is one of the least upwardly mobile, and it shows that, even if the economy was good like it was for most of the 1990s, it would benefit a small subset of Americans far more than others.

So when Obama talks about spreading the wealth, he's not talking about taking money from one group and giving it to another; he's talking about making the economy work for everybody in a more equal way.

My econ profs warned us of this income gap years ago, but the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development just published a reoprt that shows the problem is getting worse. Here are the links to the OECD report briefing and summary.