Lincoln on His 200th Birthday

Here is my favorite quotation by Abraham Lincoln, the one which I think is most profound and most essential to his legacy and to the rise and fall of democracy:

"As I would not be a slave,

so I would not be a master.

This expresses my idea of democracy.

Whatever differs from this,

to the extent of the difference,

is no democracy."

The Audacity of Greed

People don't work on Wall Street or even generally invest in the stock market to better the conditions of humankind and life on Earth. Investments are not often the stuff of altruism.

Wall Street is about greed, as in "greed is good."

And so what do we expect?

President Obama reprimanded Wall Street scions today for taking $20 billion in bonuses last year, even when there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Of course they would take those bonuses. And run.

It's a money brothel, not a volunteer fire department.

It's a greed machine, not the Peace Corps.

It's: "Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what the American brand (and loop holes) of the "free market" can do for you.

The lion that is the audacity of greed makes the audacity of hope seem like a mouse.

And so, will real change come?

A change of values? Against the grain of human nature?

Stimulus Package

This just in from the Viagra Nation: even the phrase "stimulus package" sounds obscene.

Country and planet seeing some bumps along a stratospheric rise and overly caffeinated course of consumerism?

Look at the short term again. Put it on plastic. Charge it to who knows who?

We want a stimulant? We should take a rest. For three decades and more, we've been shopping in middair with our credit cards falling out of our pockets. It's time we got back down to the ground before everything we know becomes a dustbowl.

"Stimulus package," "stimulus bill," President Obama would rather call it a "recovery bill," but there's a HUGE disconnect here. Recover from what?

What we need to recover FROM is spending and debt, both personal and national -- and to shift the nation's resources from personal gain to public good.

We shopped 'til we dropped. Seems a drop in shopping is the answer. Good for us, good for all. It's not as if we are all really NEEDED. 300 million people in this country?

And so any part of the stimulus package that "puts money in the pockets of ordinary Americans" is not necessarily a good thing. Better to give others jobs or more education, retraining and opportunity to jump back into innovative and improved ways of building a more sustainable culture, a more enlightened nation.

As the president himself said in his inaugural address, "...we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America."

Now "remaking" is a big word. It doesn't mean just repairing and restoring the old status quo. I didn't vote for that. I voted for change. And I want to see the systemic change and the change in emphasis and the change toward the common good in this mega dose of National Viagra.

With Obama at the wheel, I want to see a distinct turn away from 'affluenza' and this consumerist juggernaut. America is either better than this spoiled accumulation of junk, this shopaholic patriotism, this sprawling and selfish paving over of paradise, or it's not.

Obama at the Wheel

The only thing that concerns me so far is that President Obama may move too fast. He may be racing the clock, that 100 day deadline that the media impose.

In the span of about four and a half working days in office (though it seems there was no slowing down this weekend), the president has turned the tide on torture, government jobs and government assistance, public works projects, abortion, lobbyists, diplomacy, governmental transparency, and today, and vehicle emissions.

To be fair, the larger issues of the economy and global climate remain and probably will always remain beyond his ability to turn around. These things are bigger even than any administration.

But what a change a few staffers and the stroke of a pen can make.

A few staffers and the stroke of a pen.

And now for the enforcement and the rallying of public opinion. These are the greatest challenges of any president: to see that his edicts are enforced and to sway enough of the public to champion his causes -- and make his brand of CHANGE the brand of change for the public at large and indeed the dedicated goal of the majority. Can he do this?

GObama.

Clinton Gone, Kennedy Out, Kirsten In

Way back last year, late in the Bush Era, when Caroline Kennedy announced her desire to be the next Senator from New York, I was all excited. But it turns out that excitement was based on an old crush, not current conditions. Kennedy has proved her desires to be pie in the sky. Her resolve started with the romantic aura of 'Camelot reborn' yet ended in mystery and even a bit of political mayhem. In the last month, "Sweet Caroline" has not displayed the steely focus, drive AND decisiveness one needs to be a particularly effective statesman.

These ARE qualities Hillary Clinton has shown from the moment she found out about Monica Lewinsky, and Hillary only built on these strengths during her determined run for the presidency.

Now we have Kirsten Gillibrand, a United States Representative from the Albany area, and good for her. Good for us. This is the right choice after all. A tough campaigner, an impressive fundraiser, a bridge-building "blue dog Democrat," who may catch some flak east of the Hudson and south of Westchester, but who may, in the short term she's got, help bring together more upstate and downstate values.

She'll become known for her defense of gun rights, but you know who else defends gun rights? The American Civil Liberties Union.

Rep. Gillibrand has a 100% voting approval record from the ACLU, and along with some green cred and on the ground experience in Washington, that's good enough in my book.

I say farewell to the old baggage of Clinton and Kennedy and welcome the fresh young face and future-leaning pragmatism of Kirsten Gillibrand.

Governor Patterson, a bit sloppy in the final rounds, but in the end, a victory.

HeRObama Cans Torture

It's just the day after the day after, and I just got what, for years, I wanted most: an end to torture by the United States, effective immediately.

And this includes, as the Geneva Convention said it should, any life-threatening interrogation tactics. As we would not want our own lives threatened, no matter what, so should we not want anyone to threaten another's life. Perhaps their liberty, yes. To restrain someone and to incarcerate them is humane, but torture never is.

To put it bluntly, anyone who voted to re-elect George W. Bush in 2004, voted not just implicitly but explicitly to allow torture to continue. By then, the widespread use of torture in American-run prisons at home and abroad, far beyond and more secretive than Guantanamo, including top secret CIA "black areas" in undisclosed locations, was well known.

Like war, like any crime of violence, torture is personal. Millions pay (or go into debt) so that others may commit these crimes. They're the professionals; we're just the voters. But that is a cop out. Those who don't make it's absolution a priority are morally suspect.

Thank you, President Obama and ALL who help this change come to be and to stay.

1/20/09 on the Capitol Steps

The big inaugural wrap up in short order:

Dr. Strangelove: Was there in his wheelchair. Talk about stranger than fiction. And not nearly as funny.

President Bush ('til noon): Just wanted to get the heck out of there. Even Dr. Strangelove was glaring at him. At least Obama gave him a hug, two hugs in fact.

Rick Warren: I was squirming through that god stuff and that African-American stuff at the beginning. And, at the end, I was thinking the Lord's Prayer a cheap shot to get the crowd to go along with the ruse. But in the middle, there actually were some good lines, asking for the things for which we might wish to be forgiven. A tall order.

The first thing that really got my attention: Aretha's hat.

The second thing: Aretha's voice.

Joe the VP: nice job on your oath, Joe. You got the job.

John Williams' musical piece: a piece of #%$! At least Aaron Copeland showed respect for the simplicity of the traditional Shaker tune, "Simple Gifts." If it says "simple" in the title, and "simple" is not only the sentiment behind the music but the moral theme of the music and of the religious sect behind its creation, then don't muss it up with layers of a confused cacophony of jumbled riffs and jamming solos. Perhaps the masses were wowed by (or at least respectful of) the two big-name players, but the piece was a travesty. This frazzled, bipolar chamber ditty, I am sure, left Williams fans wondering what it was and left classical aficionados groaning.

The Oath: It's written in the Constitution, but the phrasing (and pauses) are not. Barack jumped the gun, and Roberts took the blame. Even presidents and men in robes are only human, and we got our first reminder of this sad fact two seconds into the oath. Perhaps it's funny now. I hope Leno, Letterman, Steward and SNL can do something with this. I figure we're in for a redo. (But FYI, the O'Man still became president precisely at noon, somewhere toward the end of that mishmash of a musical number, even without the oath.)

The Address: I know he's got the job now, a grave and daunting task, but hey, this guy inspired us with some of the greatest political speeches in years. Why drag us through a short draft of a State of the Union address? Go for the rafters! This is your day. It's not a news day. Give the grim realities a rest, and shoot for the stars. And it doesn't hurt, now that the world is watching, to repeat a dozen of your best lines from the four best speeches you ever gave: your 2004 Democratic Convention speech, your February 2007 campaign announcement speech, your March 2008 Philadelphia speech on race, your 2008 Convention speech and, perhaps best of all, your acceptance speech in Chicago, that electric evening of November 4th.

We might need a serious and supremely aware and capable and tirelessly hard-working president, but to keep our hopes fired up and ready to go, we need more jolts of electricity, and today would have been a good day to make our hair stand on end.

The woman who spoke after the Address: Uh oh. Even with a speech on his B-list, Obama is a hard act to follow, but this was drivel. Poetry, Elizabeth? It didn't sound like poetry. It sounded like a mom at a PTA meeting. Most of the people in the room I was in turned away and stopped watching.

Joseph E. Lowery's Benediction: Could they have chosen a better guy for the job? I say no. He gave us the cadences and the rhyme we were craving by then. Those amens worked for me. Hear, hear!

And Diane: Good job. Your brevity was almost startling in the midst of some of these errant rambles.

Strangest scene: An ex-president's departure aboard Marine One has never seemed so startling. Everyone else could wind down and enjoy the party, but not the ex. Just an hour out of office, Bush was banished, it's as if he was not just going to Texas but was going into exile. The chopper made a slow, sad pass around the capitol, and that was that.

Okay, America, no more pleas for fealty or forgiveness. President says, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." So keep the cannons at bay, and let's come down off this mountain top and get to work. It's time we turned those tanks into tractors.