Neither are most of us isolationists, expansionists, or completely unaware of our footprint on this globe. We do need, however, leadership that can tap into the altruistic nature most of us seem to possess…

A large majority of Americans feel that US foreign policy should at times serve altruistic purposes independent of US national interests. Americans also feel that US foreign policy should be oriented to the global interest not just the national interest and are highly responsive to arguments that serving the global interest ultimately serves the national interest. Americans show substantial concern for global conditions in a wide range of areas.

^{cross posted at Daily Kos}

While everyone has been focused on the presidential race, I think state and local races are at least as important. Sometimes I think these races are even more important . . .

_{cross-posted at Daily Kos and at Wild Wild Left}

time for some tearing-down-walls

i’ve been reading some of the “other side”

guess what? they’re fucking angry at pretty much the same things we are.

heh. and i’ve been talking to some of them as well.

my aunt said she’s ashamed she voted for bush… TWICE! she says everyone in washington needs to go. she is livid because she thinks the bailout is bailing out the greedy bastards on Wall Street.

and i tell her, yeah! aunt kathy. we need more and better citizen politicians seeking to serve their country, not power.. yeah, she agrees. the whole thing has gone to shit we say in tandem.

and yet. and yet she is going to vote for john mccain because “he is an honorable man.” i kid you not. i spit out my coffee. really.

i tell her: there is a track record. none of it good. on either side. but what makes Obama worth voting for is that we don’t know what he will do. we do know what mccain will do: we’ve just lived through eight years of it. and yet…

and yet. she isolated Clinton for mandating mortgage money be made available for lower income americans so they can afford homes. (poor) people taking mortgages they couldn’t afford. and yet. she does seem to understand that the loans were bad on their face and should have been better regulated. that those at Fannie and Freddie oversold those assets and hid the liabilities. and yet. the victim is again really at the root cause of this. for her.

and yet. she is afraid that an Obama presidency will see the ascendency of people like those black rappers. yeah. she said someone told her some black rappers threatened to jump sarah palin if she comes to new york.

and i try to say to her: aunt kathy, do you think, really think black rappers or poor people caused the financial meltdown in this country? or forced us into an illegal war? the environment? my mind is spinning as i try to control my rising anger at this bias because i know in my heart, she doesn’t see it in herself. she doesn’t hear herself. how can she?

so i begin to realize something. just as i’m about to scream: you’re being lied to, can’t you see how the blame game works… all to get you to VOTE AGAINST YOUR OWN INTERESTS.

no. it hits me hard: she’s not voting against her interests. . . her self. how she thinks about her self and her place in the world. not money or pollution or availability of food. but she is protecting her credibility. it is that self interest that the republicans have learned to exploit.

no matter how badly republicans govern, they understand this: the self image of those they convince to elect them.

not only do we, the left, come into conflict with the political/social points-of-view of the right, but we are perceived (imo) by the them as negatively judgmental of their self view. like we question their integrity of thought… not just their conclusions. like we have made it about smart versus not smart… literary, cultured, art-loving, classical music listening, cocktails at eight versus johnny sixpack and his football and his wife beating and immigrant-hating black-hating god loving.

perhaps that’s why those on the right vote the way they do. because, no matter what common sense may infer, it’s hard to pull the lever for those whom you think are laughing at you… disrespect you.

yeah. maybe they vote a different kind of self interest. and i keep wondering. . . how do we progressives do it better then? i cringe every time i see headlines that scream: PALIN IS STUPID. because, by association, anyone and everyone voting for that ticket must also. be. stupid.

and because it would serve us well to remember simple stuff like this:

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.

^{Albert Einstein, 1954}

My gut reaction to everything I’ve read about this financial markets crash up to the now infamous Paulson Plan has me soooooooooooooooo angry that I just don’t know what to do with myself.

Reading the provisions of this Paulson Plan produced yet another assault of shock and awe from BushCo. And the fucking Democrats? In on it. Fuck!!!!!!!!!

Jay Elias, in his essay, Why All Americans Need To Oppose the Bailout As Currently Proposed points gets right to the heart of this dark plan:

The various merits and demerits of the proposal to create a fund for the acquisition of toxic securities and derivatives by the Federal government compose a huge list.  But one of the key provisions of the bill as currently proposed makes it unpalatable for any reason:

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.

Is this insane? Are they insane? Are the American people, wholesale, so depleted, scared, unable to think that they are going to buy this crap?

That’d be roughly seven hundred billion dollars.

Yeah. $700 billion.

$700,000,000,000. heh.

Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings writes David M. Herszenhorn in the New York Times yesterday.

Or, as Chuck Schumer, Senator from New York State, put it, “When you listened to him (Fed chairman Ben Bernanke) describe it you gulped…History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment.”

Ya think, Senator. Yeah. Like this is a moment.