How Dare He?!?

Now I'm angry. I get that McCain doesn't do email, doesn't know what the internet is, probably thinks computers are still made out of vacuum tubes. But how dare he walk all over this institution, basically taking a dump on it and everyone who actually uses the world wide web and enjoys the opportunity to use it?

New policy from the McCain campaign: Spam the internet. He is paying his supporters with rewards points if they go on to websites, Democrat or Republican or neutral, and post McCain talking points. They don't identify themselves as with the campaign; they just post it under their own names. They don't put in their own views per se; they cut and paste from the campaign talking points. They don't post something germane to the article they are commenting on; they just post whatever they want. In all cases these are unethical practices, or rather, violations of netiquette. Yes, such a thing exists. It has existed from when the internet was first formed, back in the 1960s, long before there was a web. It has been built up over the years, but the basics have not changed. You do not spam. You do not troll. You do not pretend that you are an individual when you actually represent a corporation.

Why do we have these guidelines? After all, the beauty of the internet and it's subsidiary web is that there is no enforcement, so the guidelines aren't enforced. The internet is the purest form of anarchy ever invented, and inherently anti-corporation. It is individuals, not big government, or big business. We do this because we are a community, here on the world wide web, centered around one issue. We disagree on everything. Except that we like to use the web, and want to keep on using it. Anything that infringes with the free use of the web (like Google helping the Chinese censor the web) is frowned on, is considered the worst of violations. Spam hinders the web. Yes, people do it. Every society has its gutter scum, its riff-raff, its lowest of the low. And every time they do it, it makes it harder to use the internet. It slows down processing speed, but more than that, people don't like spam. They don't like hearing random expressions that have nothing to do with what they are looking at. They don't like to be taken advantage of. They don't like a company- or a campaign- coming along to pretend it is one thing when it is another. And since people don't have to be online, when they run into more and more of what they don't like, they come online less and less. And since the internet is anti-corporation but the epitome of cooperation, fewer people means far less enjoyment for us all.

The Straight Talk Express is now anything but. It is the equivalent of the Truth Division in 1984. It is encouraging people to pretend that their ideas came from themselves, instead of a campaign.

I welcome any Republican or Fascist to post here. Just two guidelines. Keep it civil. And make sure it's your own thoughts, and not a "ctrl c ctrl v" from a campaign. I get that McCain is more comfortable with telegraphs than with the internet. But don't you dare come and infringe on my right to enjoy the internet.

Do you remember when the environment was a going concern?

Ah, halcyon days. When we cared about the environment. When we were concerned about Global Warming. When we didn't want another Hurricane Katrina, and we cared about New Orleans.

Now it would seem that the majority of Americans are in favor of off-shore oil drilling. We are in favor of it, evidently, so that we can fix the energy crisis by becoming energy independent. These are the buzz words these days.

Evidently, it is a good thing to be energy independent- to not rely on other countries for energy. This way, we will become more isolated from the rest of the world. We can become more elitist, more parochial, more isolationist. This will likely help the rest of the world like us more. It will also keep more of our money in our hands, and continue the unfavorable trade imbalance begun in the early 1800s, where the wealthiest countries take from the poorest countries of the world. For Venezuela and Yemen should be put to shame for hoping that their oil reserves might help the general populace.

We need to drill because we need oil. We need the psychological support of pretending that oil reserves are going to last forever. We need to be able to pretend that the reserves that are present on America's coasts are more than a drop in the bucket. We need to be able to pretend that that oil is a renewable resource. (Of course, it is. Just over the course of 100s of millions of years, when a lot more animals and plants die and decompose and become oil. And our current environmental policy is actually well structured to increase oil supplies dramatically in 300 million years, at the rate that we are killing off other species.)

We need a way out of this mess. We need to pretend that new oil drilling will produce a drop in prices now, or at least ten years from now. We need to pretend that that future drop in prices will be more than a few cents, more than offset by the increase in inflation. We need to pretend that oil companies aren't using all of their allotted prospecting areas, and need another bailout from the federal government.

But the greatest make-believe that we require is that there is no environmental crisis. That there is no Global Warming. That Katrina never happened. All we have to do is say it three times and click our hands, and the world is black and liquid again, without giant killer storms, intense heat and permanent dust bowls, rising sea levels and countries disappearing, and 100s of millions of people made refugees.

In all the talk about how Americans want oil drilling, no one- not the press, not McCain, not Obama- is talking about how dangerous it is to continue oil drilling at all. Yes, we need oil to run cars and make plastics. But our goal should be the removal of any need for it at all. Practically, we will be forced into this in about twenty years, as oil reserves dwindle completely. Environmentally, we can't wait that long, because Global Warming's tipping point is now. This isn't some left-wing-environmental-freak thing. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) It's the issue that people are dying, and will die, in dramatic, horrifying numbers, if we do not stop Global Warming now.

That's incorrect. They will die, in horrifying numbers, no matter what we do. We have a choice, however, of stopping a logarithmic escalation of those numbers. Good on you, Obama, for rejecting the failed policies of oil drilling, and offering a $7,000 rebate to new hybrid purchasers. But let us remind the voters, America, and the world that this is this is a matter of stopping the failed policies of the last 100 years, destroying our home. This is a matter of life and death, without hyperbole.

What Happened to Africa?

Obama is very cool. I support him because of his experience. For the first time, he has the experience of growing up overseas. For the first time since the days of Thomas Jefferson, he has a parent from another country. For the first time, that country is Africa. No one can match that.

So, what happened to Africa? In this election cycle, about that continent, I have heard . . . nothing. I've heard a lot about Europe, and the Middle East, and a bit about South America. And that's as it should be. But Africa is a country in great need, and usually ignored by this nation. I kind of thought that we would hear more about it with a President who is half-African. Not half African-American; rather, half-African.

I don't think Obama needs to worry about white voters or the electorate in general turning on him if he discusses Africa. Maybe if that was all he focused on, or if he focused on it too much. But the occasional mention would not injure, and would greatly help us in remembering the Forgotten Continent, where there is today so much misery. Barack Obama, where is your Africa Policy Statement?

Why We Don't Want an Old Guy

Paris Hilton's ad brought this to mind. There has been this stigma against bringing up McCain's age in this campaign, as if the issue was the same as racism, or sexism. It's not. Someone who's white can do just as good of a job at being President as someone who's black. A man can be just as good at leading the nation as a woman. The same does not apply for someone who's elderly.

Potentially, they can be just as good. But let us consider the last rather youth-challenged President that we had. Many people loved Reagan. (This is a liberal blog. Do not be surprised that I was not one of them.) But Reagan had a regular ploy with the press. He would pretend not to remember things. Not to remember nearly everything. That allowed him to get away with the Iran-Contra affair, where, in the early Clinton years, we learned that the Reagan-Bush administration was actually culpable.

Now, it is possible that he actually didn't remember. For tragically, as we all know, Reagan was afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease shortly after he left office. Looking back, most experts feel that it was actually setting in in the final years of Reagan's second administration. Perhaps it was some sort of judgment of God, where if you lie enough about forgetting, God allows you to be in the state of forgetting; perhaps in truth he wasn't forgetting, but was afflicted by a disease.

This is not to say, of course, that McCain will lie to us, or will get Alzheimer's Disease, or simply forget a lot. But it is to say what doctors and scientist's well know- with age, the chances of getting a debilitating illness dramatically increase, and the older you are, the more those odds increase. And with extreme age, the odds of getting Alzheimer's are much higher than with someone who is younger. Unfortunately, as with Reagan, we will not necessarily know that the disease has set in, and there is no constitutional provision for removing someone from office with the beginnings of dementia. And already, we see signs of McCain stumbling over his words. Maybe he's just a bad speaker. Maybe not. Do we want to risk it?

McCain. He's old. Is he worth the risk?

The Finest Political Ad Ever

We must begin with one of the worst ads of this year. I have to say one of the worst, because McCain has had a string of outright lies recently, most egregiously claiming that Obama did not support US troops, lying that Obama had not visited injured troops because he couldn't bring cameras, when in fact Obama didn't visit them because he didn't want them to use them for political gain. (We now know that, if Obama had visited the troops in Germany, McCain was prepared to launch an ad stating that Obama had used them for political gain.) That commercial claimed that Obama instead went to the gym, and it uses footage of Obama playing basketball with US troops, but conveniently blurs out the troops themselves- a rare hat trick of taking advantage of US troops and Obama at the same time.

One of the other worst ads of the year is one suggesting that Obama isn't ready to lead because he is too popular. I've previously dealt with the blatant racism in this ad, but now want to focus on the use of Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears. The McCain campaign wants to pretend that there is no racist element to combining two young beautiful white women with a black man- as if they are completely ignorant of the history of the South and African-Americans.

It is of course rather ridiculous to suggest that, if someone is popular, we shouldn't elect them. McCain must think you become President by being selected by an elite cabal, rather than a popular vote. He must think that people all over the world are so stupid that they like someone for no reason, and not because they think he would make a good leader. Obama has responded with his own remarks. But I believe Paris Hilton has come up with by far, the finest response, and the finest ad of this political season.

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

The Racism of John McCain

I believe racism is not always against people of colour. I believe it is possible to be racist against someone who is white. I further believe it is possible to be racist against someone who is the same skin colour as yourself, as long as you are attacking a different group, a different ethnicity.

Let us witness the racism of John McCain:

This is not playing the race card because Obama is black. This is racism, because John McCain hates Europeans.

It is clear from McCain's ad that we are supposed to disapprove of Obama because he is loved by 100s of 1000s of Europeans. Sure, McCain could be saying how wonderful it is that Obama is "the biggest celebrity in the world". Somehow, I don't think McCain is saying that. We are treated to an image of 100s of 1000s of Germans, chanting Obama's name, and that is supposed to send a chill down our spine. We are supposed to consider that it is dangerous to elect someone if the whole of Europe is really into him. After all, if the Europeans like him, there must be something wrong with him, right? We can't trust those Europeans to act justly, or make wise decisions. That's why we kicked their asses in that war. (No, not that one- the first one McCain probably remembers, the Revolutionary War.)

Evidently, McCain doesn't see a problem with the world's perception of America at present. He thinks that it's okay that the world generally detests what America is now doing overseas. McCain evidently doesn't feel a need to rehabilitate America's image. That's all that I can conclude, when the subliminal message of a campaign ad is that it is bad to elect someone that the rest of the world loves.

Perhaps you disagree with me that this ad is profoundly disturbing, profoundly racist. Consider if Obama had visited Africa, as he could easily have done, and been greeted by 100s of 1000s of cheering fans, as he would undoubtedly been greeted- albeit probably more than 200,000. Now consider the exact same McCain ad, but with 500,000 Africans. McCain's reasoning is the same in both cases. Only the colour of the faces change. Racism is racism, whether or not the people are a people of colour. Racism is when we insinuate something negative about an entire people group that is not our own, or claim that there is something wrong with them because they are not us.

John McCain, when you say you approve this message, just which message were you approving?

Why the Surge Can't Work

This is not to argue that "the surge" won't work in the future, or wouldn't have worked in the past. It is not to say that the surge doesn't work based on what the results have been so far. It is to say that it fundamentally can't work.

Of course, it hasn't work based on the results so far. It has reduced the number of deaths of US troops, but not the numbers of Iraqi civilians. Iraqis are still fleeing the country, and still dying in great numbers. In areas with high US troop presence like the Green Zone there is safety and reduced deaths. Where there are no troops, where troops have left, the death continues, as does the recruitment drive for al Qai'da. (And the presence of US troops provides the impetus for recruitment.)

But the results to date can never justify the increase in US troops. For we should never have been over there to begin with. And not just because this war was wrong. War always means one side loses. Obama seems to have forgotten this, in his support for a surge in Afghanistan. Obama would say that we should not have been there, but we must make the best of it. But the point is that the use of the ways of war is flawed at its core.

Obama seems to have bought into the idea that the use of soldiers, and their increase, is at times justified. He states that things are better, in part because of the increase in US troops, and in part because of agreements with other Iraqi factions. This is admittedly better than the consensus view in America, that the Surge has worked. But it still dramatically misses the main point. Many of us have supported Obama because he was right on the war. He rejected going to war, and he rejected abrogating Congressional rights and duties to declare war. But now he seems to buy into the idea that war itself can work.

For a Christian such as Obama, his Lord has made it clear that war is never an option; we should not resist an evil doer, but should rather love our enemies, and do good to those who hurt us. We do this because we recognize that of God in others, recognizing that all humans are created i the image of God, and therefore are the seat of his Spirit. We can not therefore attack our brother, he who can hold the ever-living God. I recognize that no US President will ever truly follow the guidelines of Jesus Christ. That requires a leader like Ghandi- and Ghandi would never get elected in this country. Yet it remains that it is not just that war is morally bankrupt, but that war does not practically work.

War results in one side losing. It results in vanquishing your enemy. This leads to bitterness, and promises of revenge, and future reprisals by that vanquished enemy. Thus America funds the Shah, the Shah represses his people, and the Ayotollah rises up in revolution. Thus America defends the Afghani people from the Soviet invasion, funding and training Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in the art of war, allowing Osama to rise up against America, requiring America to attack his host country, creating a breeding ground for al Qai'da recruitment, and embittered Taliban to rise up against America.

If some war is immoral, and if some war is impractical for reducing violence, then it remains that more war is also immoral, and impractical. Thus the so-called surge can not, in the long run, succeed. It is wrong to send people overseas to kill others people; it is more wrong to send more people. Violence begets violence, and sending more people to kill more people will lead to more anger and bitterness. Sure, it may not be revealed now. The terrorists may come out of the woodwork after we leave. It may even take a generation. But the more we send more troops over, the greater will be our future problems. This is not unique to Iraq. As goes Iraq, shall go Afghanistan, and any other place a great power sends in occupying forces.

Obama, you have some great ideas about being willing to talk with your enemies, in rejecting gunboat diplomacy and working with the rest of the world in peaceful ways. I call on you to remember these high-minded ideals, and return to a higher way. Do not believe the hopeless mantra of Bush and McCain, that violence works, and the surge has worked. Do not begin your own surge in that quagmire of Afghanistan. Stick to your guns in withdrawing troops in Iraq, as you are, and begin to let the Taliban know of your sincere desire to find common ground with them, to talk to them, to see how we can all get to yes. Your recent prayer at the Wailing Wall demonstrates your deep and abiding humility. Negotiations, as you know, don't require that either side lose, as war always does. Rather, it only requires that one side be willing to be humble enough to talk. Let our nation be great for a new reason. Let us release a new type of shock and awe. Let the world marvel at the humility of the United States of America.

The Hypocrisy of John McCain

When McCain was on his tour of South America, he made a great point of how he would not criticize Obama while McCain was abroad. McCain said that was inappropriate. He felt one should not criticize a President or someone running for President while you are overseas in "time of war", or in a war with metaphor. For McCain, a united front without criticism is true patriotism. It is inappropriate to act the role of maverick while overseas. Therefore, McCain went negative on Obama only while he was on the plane flying down to South America. Evidently that was some sort of difference from being on the ground in South America.

That was McCain when he was overseas. But, though McCain feels agreement is important if he is overseas, evidently this does not apply if the person you are criticizing is overseas. So while Obama is overseas, McCain has been non-stop criticizing Obama, most recently coming close to questioning Obama's patriotism, stating Obama is willing to lose a war to win an election.

I admit I'm no professional politician. Maybe I just don't get it. I know, it seems to me that, if it's important not to criticize another American running for President, it is more important to do so when the person criticizing is abroad, then when the criticizer are abroad. Typically that's been the tradition, when the President is abroad, to withhold criticism to some extent. But McCain must know something about the nature of the politics of patriotism that I don't.

But maybe it's just that McCain has flip-flopped on his values since he was in South America a month ago. Or maybe going negative is the only way he's found to remind us that he is still in the race.

There is No "War on Terrorism"

Are our memories truly this short? Have we forgotten how much we laughed at George Bush for mixing his metaphors? A primitive laugh in agony, to be sure, for we recognized the danger in his falsehood. He sought to use the language of the War on Drugs (now largely forgotten), and apply it to terrorism. The problem was, everyone recognized that the War on Drugs was a metaphor. One could only use it in reference to terrorism in the same way. Terrorism is an idea. It is a noun, but not a proper one. It is neither person, nor country, nor organization. It is a concept. One can no more have a war on terrorism than one can have a war on an idea. That is to say, one can do so to the extent that one remembers it is a metaphor.

But the danger remains- if it is truly believed to be an actual war, then George Bush gains great power, for he is a war-time leader. And this is indeed what happened. Though we weren't at war, he was granted the liberty of movement as if we were at war. This liberty given up by the US congress lead directly to the carte blanche ability to invade Afghanistan, and then Iraq. Then we were truly at war- with Afghanistan, and with Iraq. And because of these wars, many 100s of 1000s are dead, and millions made refugees. All because we allowed our leader to mix his metaphors.

Imagine then, my deep and abiding chagrin, to hear my beloved candidate now using the same hated Bushian language, referring to the "War on Terrorism", as he states that Afghanistan is where the front is. No, Obama, and again I say "No!" There is no war on terrorism. There is a war in Iraq, there is a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, but not on terrorism.

Just semantics? No. For witness what the appropriation of Bush-speak is leading Obama into. He is now speaking of the need to Surge in Afghanistan, in order to deal with the Taliban there. He will reduce troops significantly, withdraw completely in 16 months, give or take, in Iraq. But he will increase troops in Afghanistan- for this is the head-point of the War on Terror.

Have we forgotten so easily why we were against Bush's actions in Afghanistan originally? He too quickly was happy to engage in war, without regard to the consequences, in the heat and fury after 9/11. Because he saw 9/11 as an attack on America, rather than the world, as witnessed by the attack on the World Trade Center, Bush ignored the possible cost to human lives, in complete contravening of any semblance of Just War Theory.

We invaded Afghanistan because we were not willing to give negotiations a chance- as many pointed out at the time. (But of course, that's just Saturday Morning Quarterbacking.) We ignored the culture of the peoples because that was inconvenient. Yes, they had Osama bin Laden, and yes, they could have given him up. But in their culture, a person in the country is a guest, and one does not disown their guests. This is a deep and abiding belief in the Middle East- some thing that we should at the very least be familiar with, as it is central to the scriptures of the dominant religion that Western civilization is based upon.

Without this recognition, the story of Lot with his guests makes no sense. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah were exceedingly wicked, and demanded that Lot send out his guests so that the men could rape them. Lot comes out, and tells them this is evil. So far we understand. But then he makes the strangest statement- he offers his own daughters in the place of his guests!

Now we find such a response to Sophie's Choice exceedingly repugnant, and rightfully so. If one had to decide, God forbid, how can one choose against one's own daughters? But one must remember that not all cultures have the same ethics that we do. Indeed, most theologians agree that the sin which Sodom and Gomorrah were published for was not homosexuality, but rather a lack of hospitality, a cardinal sin in the ancient world.

While I wouldn't suggest that most Middle Eastern fathers would make the same choice today, the commitment to hospitality remains just as strong. Despite many statements from cultural experts at the time, Bush ignored their expertise, and pressed ahead. He went to bomb Afghanistan, rather than to have the slow negotiations which would have recognized and honored the Taliban and Afghani's commitment to ethics of hospitality, while moving forward to get them to finally give up Osama bin Laden. Instead of negotiations, Bush went for ultimatums, the only form of talk he appears to understand. He was too eager to grab Osama bin Laden, and so like the proverbial monkey grabbing too strongly, Osama slipped through his fingers.

One can not argue our military approach lead to success, for we still search for him. What it did lead to was countless deaths- American, Afghani, and Afghani civilians. Sure, the repressive regime of the Taliban was removed, but that was never our motivation- and now the Taliban has long returned to their own Surge, reaching levels of control close to what they had before we invaded Afghanistan. Do we want to find Osama, and stop the Taliban today? Or do we want to find a way to change the hearts of Arabs and Muslims, the Taliban and the Iraqi insurgent, so they realize that they should end the killing, that they should fight no more forever? The old failed policy focused on immediate results, and achieved them. It left the long term legacy of failure to us.

The Troop Increase in Iraq has not worked. Sure, American deaths are reduced- as we would expect, when we send more people with guns over there. And Iraqi civilian deaths are up- as we would expect when we send more people with guns over there. So why is Obama proposing that we send more troops to Afghanistan, when such a policy has so abysmally failed in Iraq? This is a candidate who has campaigned as something new, and spoke of talking with world leaders, even our enemies.

So I challenge you, Senator Obama: Do as you said you would. Do something new. Do what we should have done originally in Afghanistan. Go to the Taliban, and begin to talk with them. Negotiate with them. Recognize where they are coming from, and what their needs are. Be bold on our utter rejection of their human rights violations. Be bold on our demand for their help to capture Osama. But do this in negotiation. Sure, it's slower. Sure, it's not sexy Shock and Awe. But it is far more just. It is far more kind. And it is far more likely to achieve our goals.

Why Obama Should Really be Overseas

While it hasn't been done before this election cycle, there are many reasons to travel abroad while you're running for President. McCain went over to Iraq to show people what an expert he was, how he knew about foreign affairs because he'd been a prisoner and had killed people overseas. Unfortunately, he struggled with the difference between Sunni and Shi'i as much as he struggles to remember that Czechoslovakia no longer exists. Now after months of McCain calling Obama to go overseas to learn a thing or two, Obama has also gone to Afghanistan, and soon Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, England, France, and Germany.

When you're running for President, the last thing you want to do is respond to your opponent's criticisms, or even appear like you are doing so. It makes your opponent seem to be in charge of the conversation. This is an especially important point if you are actually a greater expert in the particular field than your opponent.

One of the primary reasons I'm voting for Obama is his vast international experience. Sure, there are plenty of other past nominees who knew about the rest of the world. Obama's the first candidate who's actually lived it. He's the son of Kenyans and grew up overseas in Indonesia and Hawaii- which is part of the US, but the most international of all the states, and only became a state two years before Obama was born. Obama experienced horrific poverty and disease in those around him, growing up in a 2/3rds World country. There's a reason the non-voting rest of the world loves him- they know that, as a Third Culture Kid, he can relate to them. He can relate to them not just as an oppressor or occupying force, but as one who has lived with them, walked with them, eaten their food and lived in their homes.

Obama has absolutely nothing to prove internationally. McCain has everything to prove. Obama has no need to show himself aware of the world and the nuances of foreign affairs, nor answer to the likes of McCain. This is the purpose of his trip: to go out and establish further relationships with the leaders of other countries, and more importantly the peoples, to begin the business of conducting government and reestablishing America's relationships with those overseas. He can begin to model servant leadership by listening to other countries and respecting their point of view and the wisdom they can bring to the table. For we as America don't know everything, and we can't do it on our own.

Or at least, that should be the purpose of his trip. President Obama, it's time to start governing.