A message from my buddy Barack

I received an e-mail from my personal friend Barack Obama this morning:

Patrick --

Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign.

We're doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, but with you -- with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. And that kind of campaign takes time to build.

So even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today.

We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made -- and make more -- we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.

My pal Barack goes on to share a slick, substance-free video featuring Alice from Michigan and Ed from North Carolina and Gladys from Nevada and Katherine from Colorado and Young Mike from New York and someone playing with a Nintendo DS. These folks are heard saying things like, “The campaign needs to reflect changes we’ve seen in the last two and a half years” and “We’re not leaving it up to chance” and “It’s an election we’ll have to win” and “I can’t not be involved - there’s just too much that’s fundamentally important that’s going on” and “I don’t agree with Obama on everything, but I respect him and I trust him.” The video – which opened with a calming farm scene, then a church, then a nice quiet street with an American flag adorning one house and blowing in the breeze – ends with the tagline, “It begins with us.”

Here's my response:

Hey, Barack:

Um, no offense, brother, but I’m not sure it begins with me. I appreciate the chummy e-mail and the obviously expensive and focus-grouped but vacuous campaign video but I don’t really feel like you listen to me. As I’ve shared with you before:

You escalated the unwinnable war in Afghanistan rather than ending it. You promised to end the Iraq war but 50,000 troops are still there as “advisors.” And you just authorized military action in Libya against the evil dictator to whom you were eager to sell arms as recently as March of 2009.

You’re not doing anything to help Private Bradley Manning, the 23-year-old U.S. Army soldier from Oklahoma arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of passing classified information to WikiLeaks. Manning is in "maximum custody” at a Marine Corps Brig at Quantico, Virginia. In fact, you apparently condone his mistreatment, saying at a recent press conference that the Pentagon assured you the terms of Manning's confinement "are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards." Barack, your own State Department spokesman, Philip Crowley, said Manning's treatment was "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid" and then resigned.

You appointed Timothy Geithner, a stooge from Wall Street, as your Treasury Secretary. And Geithner opposes Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor and bailout oversight expert who's been pushing for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

You reneged on your promises to close Guantanamo Bay and march with union members when their right to organize was threatened.

You reportedly told congressional Democrats to leave Senator Whore Lieberman (I-CT) alone and not strip him of his committee chairmanship even though he actively campaigned for your opponent and throws stones at you at every opportunity.

You kept the civil liberties-stripping Patriot Act in place. You refused to fight for the public option and allowed a health care "reform" measure to pass that, while politically groundbreaking, is essentially a boon to the insurance industry. And you betrayed your vow to end Dubya's tax cuts for the wealthy by agreeing with greedy Republicans on a "temporary" two-year extension of all cuts in order to obtain a measly 13-month extension of unemployment benefits.

I know you’ve achieved some things and you’re better than that idiot Dennis Kucinich and probably anyone else from the left who might be foolish enough to take you on in the primary. But I had such high hopes for change when you were campaigning and then won. And you’ve let me down again and again ever since. I just can’t get excited about working my derriere off to re-elect the lesser of two evils.

Your amigo,

Patrick

One of my Facebook friends wrote on my wall, “You know, I really like President Obama, but I can't help but wonder if it's not the right time for his ideas and strategy. Would the Dems be better with someone else leading the fight?” I hate to admit it, but I don’t think it matters anymore.

Nessun Dorma (Pavarotti, NY 1980)

I lied about poetry

Remember when I said I wouldn't be posting poetry on this blog? I lied. If you're looking for a cool poetry blog, you should visit Clutching at Straws. But I've decided to feature a poem I like each Sunday, starting with something I ran across in the March 2011 issue of my favorite magazine, The Sun:

Marginalia
Paul Hostovsky

This book I'm reading now my mother read
and loved. You can get this close to the dead
and no closer. I like to imagine her smiling
or sighing over a passage. I wonder what
she said about this book when she got to the last
sentence. And if there was anyone there to listen.
I wasn't. There. Or listening. Away at college,
I wasn't reading either, though I was allegedly
majoring in English literature. Mostly I was making
love, or trying to. And drinking and smoking and feeling
existential. When she called, I talked little, half
listened, scribbling on the wall beside the pay phone.

War - The Temptations

Operation “Let’s Pay Lip Service to Vietnam Vets for a Day”

I was only six years old on March 31, 1968 when Lyndon Johnson told the nation that he would not seek or accept the nomination of his party for another term as president. I was told he had expanded our country’s involvement in the Vietnam War which was going horribly and he figured he didn’t have a chance at being re-elected so he threw in the towel – his final preemptive strike, if you will.

I remember the iconic, Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked, holding out her arms and screaming after being caught in a South Vietnamese napalm attack. This was on June 8, 1972, and I was 10.

I was 13 when Saigon fell in April of 1975. I remember the photo of CIA employees – not US embassy employees, as people originally thought – being evacuated from a rooftop by helicopter.

I remember learning about the Gulf of Tonkin (the non-attack that President Johnson used to mislead the American people and gain support for the war) and the Tet Offensive (a widespread, coordinated and shocking attack on US and South Vietnamese forces that, while ultimately foiled, was somewhat of a political victory for the North Vietnamese) and the Mai Lai massacre (the mass murder on March 16, 1968 of between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians – mostly women, children and babies, and old people – by the US Army).

I remember how horrified I felt when I first learned that we sprayed 20 million gallons of poisonous Agent Orange over six million acres in Southeast Asia between 1961 and 1967. The U.S. Veterans Administration has listed prostate cancer, respiratory cancers, multiple myeloma, diabetes, soft tissue sarcoma, spina bifida and other severe ailments in children of veterans exposed to Agent Orange. As of 2006, the Vietnamese government estimates there are over four million victims of dioxin poisoning in Vietnam.

I remember the aftereffects of Vietnam: how soldiers came home suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and couldn’t find work or places to live. Rather than being cheered and thanked and welcomed home, they were booed and shunned and spat upon. People screamed, “Baby killer!” and demonized and heckled them. Barack Obama has called the treatment of returning Vietnam veterans “a national disgrace.”

And I remember visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC sometime in the 1980s and being moved to tears by all the names. Over nine million people served in Vietnam and more than 58,000 lost their lives or are missing in action. (Michigan sent more than 400,000 to Vietnam, and my state lost 2,654 men.)

Maybe someone else remembers what was accomplished in Vietnam from 1959 to 1975 because I don’t.

Rather than learning from history, politicians keep repeating it. St. Ronnie of Reagan’s 1983 invasion of the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada was hilariously nicknamed “Operation Urgent Fury.” The Persian Gulf War, commonly known as “Operation Desert Storm,” took place in 1990 and 1991. We waged war in Somalia from 1992 to 1995. “Operation Enduring Freedom” began in 2001 with the bombing of Al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan. The Iraq war, known as “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” officially took place from 2003 to 2010, although 50,000 US troops are still there as “advisors.” US “anti-terrorism activities” (whatever that means) were underway in Georgia, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Eritrea in 2004. And let’s not forget our recent foray into Libyan airspace, known as “Operation Odyssey Dawn.”

It’s never too late to learn from our mistakes. Or is it?

My friend Randall Glumm told me that Congress just passed a bill designating March 30, 2011 as “Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day.” Better thirty-six years late than never, huh?




Sources: Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, CBS News, New York Daily News

Donny Hathaway - The Ghetto

Who influences state government for us?

I was talking with a friend about how Michigan needs a credible think tank that speaks for the left and rivals the ultraconservative, Midland-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy in influence and effectiveness. I’m no expert on state policy research firms but I can’t think of anything that comes close to garnering the type of attention and funding that the Mackinac Center draws.

Thank goodness for Google.

The Mackinac Center – which claims to be “advancing liberty and prosperity” and laughably bills itself as a “nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions” – has received a lot of attention recently for making a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to find out what Michigan’s university labor studies departments are saying about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R-Douche) and his attack on collective bargaining.

The center uses its website to label those who oppose FOIA requests “enemies of open government.” It refers to “ObamaCare’s litmus test for legislators” and advocates that “illegal strikers be punished.” It boasts a 23-person policy staff, a 12-person professional staff, a 14-person board of directors (none of whom, apparently, would allow their photo to be featured online) and a 56-person “board of scholars,” whatever that is. Interestingly, Russ Harding serves as Director of the Property Rights Network for the center. This is the guy who, as John Engler’s Department of Environmental Quality director from 1995 to 2002, de-emphasized public and environmental health in favor of business and economic growth.

What entities are out there countering the Koch-funded Mackinac Center? I’m not sure there are any.

The Center for Michigan isn’t partisan. In fact, it decries partisanship. A nonprofit “think-and-do” tank founded by Phil Power in early 2006, this center counts the Michigan Truth Squad – which seeks to “blow the whistle on false and misleading political speech” – as one of its projects. The center’s current issues include Governor Snyder’s proposals affecting Michigan’s cities, police and fire, pension and health care costs and legislative redistricting, among others.

There’s Progress Michigan, whose mission is “to provide a strong credible voice that holds public officials and government accountable, assists in the promotion of progressive ideas and uses state-of-the-art, web-based new media to creatively build grassroots support for progressive ideas.” Founded in 2007, it’s headed by former Clean Water Action staffer David Holtz and employs Angela Vasquez-Giroux Wittrock, a personal friend and one of the best writers I know, although I don’t share her love for baseball and am therefore not to be trusted. According to its website, three others round out the staff.

Progress Michigan’s website provides links to stories about the Mackinac Center, social security and the federal deficit and shares information on protecting item pricing (which Rick Snyder has repealed) and supporting clean energy (which is doubtful under this administration). This organization also defends Planned Parenthood and Title X – the federal government program signed into law by Nixon in 1970 that provides access to contraceptive services, supplies and information to low-income folks – and attacks Snyder’s budget proposals as representing value for Michigan’s CEOs, not the rest of us.

The Michigan Prospect for Renewed Citizenship – founded by former state Democratic Party chair, Office of Services to the Aging director and lieutenant governor candidate Libby Maynard – is headed by Lynn Jondahl, a former Democratic state legislator who literally oozes integrity and is one of my all-time favorite public servants. Established in 1992, Michigan Prospect represents "the viewpoints of business, education, labor, law, nonprofit agencies, and the public sector." Its purview includes most issues; its work led to the creation of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

There are other firms that produce reports and try to influence public policy, but I couldn’t find any with a 56-person board of scholars.

Public Policy Associates, headed by Jeff Padden (another former legislator who is a class act), emphasizes research, analysis, data collection, surveying and evaluation. Its areas of expertise include economic development, education and workforce issues, health care and environmental protection.

Public Sector Consultants is “an objective, nonpartisan research firm with expertise in education, health care, energy, and environmental policy.” I’ve worked with PSC staff and applied for a job there once but they wouldn’t even interview me.

With offices in Lansing, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Truscott Rossman describes itself as “Michigan’s premier bipartisan strategic communications firm.” It’s headed by Kelly Rossman-McKinney, a former Blanchard aide, and John Truscott, John Engler’s former press secretary.

A straight lobbying firm, Public Affairs Associates is “one of Michigan's most respected, connected and effective government relations firms, dedicated to providing clients with an experience unsurpassed by any other Michigan lobbying firm.” It’s been around for four decades.

Billing itself as “one of Michigan's top public relations firms, providing clients with proven results in public affairs and strategic communications consulting,” Martin Waymire Advocacy Communications was started by public relations experts Roger Martin and Dave Waymire and is the only firm featuring Riddle, a seven-year-old Belgian Malinois that serves as Canine Executive Officer.

Whaddaya think of that, Mackinac Center? Got any dogs on your staff?

The Center for Michigan says it wants to “cure our unhealthy hyper-partisan political culture and reinvigorate our broken policy apparatus by calling forth a bottom-up, common ground citizens’ agenda for Michigan’s transformation.” I admit I like the sound of this. But I don’t know how you cure hyper-partisanship when there are two radical, extreme conservatives with the deepest of pockets – Charles and David Koch, worth $43 billion – trying to alter the political landscape in their favor. I’m pretty sure the Koch Agenda trumps the Citizens Agenda every time.