kerry lobel | living water

Tina Fey for Vice President?

In the case of Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, truth is stranger than fiction. On television, both McCain and Palin would play hapless candidates in a race for president. The only problem? No one would believe it.

Now is the Time to Resist Wall Street's Shock Doctrine

I cannot believe that the same Bush Administration that got us into this economic mess now wants complete authority to get us out.

Naomi Klein's post today on Huffington Post bears a full reprint here:

I wrote The Shock Doctrine in the hopes that it would make us all better prepared for the next big shock. Well, that shock has certainly arrived, along with gloves-off attempts to use it to push through radical pro-corporate policies (which of course will further enrich the very players who created the market crisis in the first place...).

The best summary of how the right plans to use the economic crisis to push through their policy wish list comes from Former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich. On Sunday, Gingrich laid out 18 policy prescriptions for Congress to take in order to "return to a Reagan-Thatcher policy of economic growth through fundamental reforms." In the midst of this economic crisis, he is actually demanding the repeal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which would lead to further deregulation of the financial industry. Gingrich is also calling for reforming the education system to allow "competition" (a.k.a. vouchers), strengthening border enforcement, cutting corporate taxes and his signature move: allowing offshore drilling.

It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the right's ability to use this crisis -- created by deregulation and privatization -- to demand more of the same. Don't forget that Newt Gingrich's 527 organization, American Solutions for Winning the Future, is still riding the wave of success from its offshore drilling campaign, "Drill Here, Drill Now!" Just four months ago, offshore drilling was not even on the political radar and now the U.S. House of Representatives has passed supportive legislation. Gingrich is holding an event this Saturday, September 27 that will be broadcast on satellite television to shore up public support for these controversial policies.

What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" - even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis. Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant.

Who speaks for the poor?

In her Nation article, New Orleans: The City That Won't Be Ignored, Naomi Klein argues that Hurricane Gustav has helped John McCain's bid for the White House because Barack Obama has run away from New Orleans since the start of his campaign.

Klein writes "that In the combination of New Orleans and hurricanes, we have the most powerful argument possible for the necessity of "change." It's all there: gaping inequality, deep racism, crumbling public infrastructure, global warming, rampant corruption, the Blackwater-ization of the public sector. And none of it is in the past tense. In New Orleans whole neighborhoods have gone to seed, Charity Hospital remains shuttered, public housing has been deliberately destroyed--and the levee system is still far from repaired."

With John Edwards in hiding during this political season, we have lost one national voice for the poor. As we count down to November 4, will we hear our Democratic ticket speak to the hopes and aspirations of the poor in New Orleans or Pescadero or Chicago?

Waiting for the Bride

I loved this entry from a blog in the Washington Post yesterday.

In the front row at the Xcel Energy Center, Michigan delegates Shirley Nagel and Nancy Cassis leaned into the aisle, scanned the stage and waited. Past 10 p.m. and still no sign.

Where was she, already?

It felt, Nagel said, like waiting for the appearance of a bride.

Nagel, a retired schoolteacher from Detroit, had anticipated few events as eagerly as she did Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's speech Wednesday night. Ever since Sen. John McCain named her his running mate Friday, Nagel had watched clips of Palin on television, read stories about her in the newspaper, and learned enough about her family -- the new baby, the pregnant daughter, the daughter's boyfriend -- to feel, Nagel said, "like we've known each other for 20 years." All that remained, she said, was a formal introduction.

"You judge a book by its cover, and we've been waiting for that chance with her," said Nagel, dressed in a hockey jersey like the rest of the Michigan delegation. "We want to see how tall she is, if she wears heels, how she wears her hair. That's stuff us Republican women need to know."

Go Gloria

I loved this article by Gloria Steinem. I wonder when we'll see the photo op with John MCain holding Trig Palin.