Romney Etch-a-Sketch

Another week without an original posting, sorry everyone. But my 10 day stretch of madness is nearly over and I should have two new postings next week.

I did want to pass along one link from last night's Rachel Maddow Show. I usually find the first segment of her show the hardest to get through. For the past months it seems she's always leading with 'here's what's dumb about the Republican Presidential Nomination' today. Though there's certainly plenty of stupid to go around, its hardly necessary that someone with such fantastic ideas on social spending, infrastructure, civil rights... basically everything (let's face is, she's a genius) spend so much time paying attention to the Republican clown car. I'll more into this in a post at some point.


However, last night's Rachel Maddow show ran a story on the newest 'gaffe' (which, in this nominating cycle, really do seem more like Freudian slips) from the Romney campaign. She is absolutely right to point out that this one is different. The idea that the Romney campaign would be so brazen as to admit that their entire plan is to try and forget about everything R-Money has said in the past 6 months to 6 years shows the candidate's base immorality and utter disdain for the American people. And I believe it is this particular character trait that the Obama campaign must attack in the general election. If George W. Bush could paint a decorated war veteran and public servant as a coward, surely Obama can paint the (true to life) picture of the Recreant Romney.

Check it out: Etch-a-Sketch

A few recommendations

I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to post for the past week or so. My theatrical-life has switched into high gear, but I should ideally have enough time to get out at least one posting next week. I've got a few things swimming up in my head.

But, I wanted to share two interviews I've heard on two of my favorite blogs / programs over the course of the past week.

The first is an interview on the Majority Report with Richard Kahlenberg on why he believes that the right to Unionize should be a civil right. If you're like me and have always wanted someone to really the philosophical rational behind Unions... this is perfect. If you're more informed than me, as some of you no doubt are, I'm sure it will provide new context for some of your believes. And if you know nothing about Unions... really listen to it. Kahlenberg also presents a fantastic example of how to push progressive causes working within the confines of the structures of the American government. Its a fantastic interview and one of the best I've heard on the Majority Report for a while (which is high praise, not a backhanded complement). You can find it here

The second is from The David Pakman Show (which has just gone from 2 shows a week to 4, including an international thursday show, which I'm very excited about). On Tuesday, David aired an interview that he did with Neil deGrasse Tyson on the future of space exploration. Not only does Tyson provide a more plausible, palatable, and Progressive path into space than Newt Gingrich's Moon Base / 51st State, but he also provides a compelling argument as to why science (and by extension of that, space exploration) has been under attack and what we can do about it. You can find it here

So really, watch / listen to these clips. They're both from great shows (which everyone should try and catch every so often... and donate to if you can).

Against Centrism

The idea of centrism has been under attack for the better part of the Obama presidency. From the Right this has manifested through electoral politics. The attacks on women, unions, minorities, elderly, students, the poor, etc. have predominantly come from newly elected more hard-core conservatives. These are not your father's Republicans, they're your great-grandfather's. On the left we are not seeing the same type of electoral shift. Instead, the changes have come on a more sociological level with the ongoing Occupy protests as well as the growth of groups like Anonymous and Wikileaks. The country is becoming more polarized. People who believed they had no interest in politics are starting to pay attention and realize that not only do they have opinions, they usually tend to have strong opinions. The idea that a knowledgeable electorate living in such turbulent period would favor centrist policies is absurd.

After all what are centrist policies? There is a different centrism and bipartisanship. Issues like having a police force, a national highway system, schools: these are not centrist issues, they are bipartisan issues. There may be a multiplicity of opinions on how such edifices of society should be run, but, by and large, their existence is supported across the board. Even if the centrist becomes a champion of, say, public works, and does not prove that politician to be a centrist, simply a pragmatist.

What defines a centrist is having an opinion on hot button issues that is moderately palatable to everybody. Centrists, by and large, do not believe in gay marriage, but they're willing to give some rights to homosexuals. They tend to support the idea of having access to healthcare, but see far too many problems to truly implementing a universal system in our country. They tend to speak against the horrors of war, but usually vote to pass every new military funding bill. Mistakenly labeled as flip floppers, all they really are are pen pushers. They're in the business of maintaining the status quo. Period. 

Last week famed centrist Olympia Snowe threw up her hands and declared that there was too much partisanship in Washington for her to run for reelection. And certainly the partisanship particular from the Republican side certainly has attributed the deadlock in our nations capital. But I would argue that it is simply weak leadership, from both sides of the aisle, that is causing this debacle. After all, perhaps the 2 most successful and celebrated presence of the last century, FDR on the Left and Ronald Reagan on the Right had a vision not of managing our country but re-imagining it. In our electoral politics there is now a clear right-wing. There is quite a clear center (center right). We must elect Progressives who present not simply a buffer to the onslaught from the right but true alternatives.

Vaginal Probes are not the Enemy

Since my post last Thursday a number of seemingly positive steps towards changing some of the bills restricting women's rights throughout this country. Virginia's transvaginal ultrasound bill has been scuppered and a near-identicle one in Alabama is becoming derailed as well. This reads as a clear example of over-reach. The Right clearly believed that the time was ripe for this regressive legislation and they pushed and pushed and pushed until they pushed just a little bit too far. The forced vaginal probing, which commentators in the media have been trying to get around saying for the better part of two weeks now, was just a step too far for the American populous and media to take. And we may have defeated them. It is highly likely that the next drafts of all of these bills will mandate the much less physically intrusive abdominal ultrasound rather than its vaginal cousin. And all across America, people are hailing this as a great victory.

It is not. The true problem with the original bills is not the type of probe, it is the idea of a government mandate for any kind of medically unnecessary procedure. Lets be very clear about this. All of these laws require, as part of any pre-op for an abortion, that the doctor is forced to perform an entirely separate procedure. This procedure is not medical but political. It is a government mandated shaming device. It is the probing and not the probe that is the problem. Whether the Right likes it or not, access to abortions is fully legal in our country. It is nothing short of revolting that these 'small government conservatives' are so willing to put aside their problems with government whenever it comes to cutting back the rights of women (or minorities, or the elderly, or the poor...really everybody apart from the rich).

And let's also not forget about the rights of the doctor here. After all, these bills all require the complete obedience not only of the pregnant women but of their doctors. After all, carrying out a procedure that is only designed to shame a patient seems to go against the oath to do no harm. Furthermore, the people who choose to become abortion providers, often risking their lives to do so, are being forced to act on the behalf not of their patients but on the behalf of the crazed protestors who throw things at their windows and threaten their lives. On the behalf regressive religious leaders who would condemn a twelve year old girl to bear her father's child. And on behalf of the handful of old white men writing these laws who view the people they are supposed to be representing as willful children, not Democratic citizens. They are the enemy. And we must not shy away from that declaration.

The problem with making birth control a 'women's' issue

So far, rhetoric from the Right in 2012 has been hearkening back to 1912 (or far earlier), particularly on the issues surrounding contraception, abortion, and women's rights. From forced vaginal ultrasounds to personhood amendments to attacks on contraception from the pill to condoms it seems as though Republicans are trying to shrink government to be smaller simply so that it can fit in the vaginas of America's women. This is not a question of religious rights. Its a question of human rights. It is unfathomable that the right to legal medical procedures and legal contraceptive devices should be taken away simply because of the outdated moral beliefs of your employer.

Much of the public outcry (which, by the way, has come from the Right, Left, and shadowy Center) has been very productive. Without any kind of election, public outcry has led to some positive changes in State and Federal Governments as well as in the private sector. The fight is certainly not won, but there have been many positive developments.

However, one particular piece of that outcry has worried me. All over the social media platforms I subscribe to are calls from women that men should stop talking about this issue, that men have no right to weigh in on this discussion, that unless you are shaped exactly like them, your voice is not welcome in the discussion. In one way, I understand these feelings. The fat old white men who rule our country have gone out of their way to make sure that women are not included in the conversation. The fact that Congress' most recent panel on birth control and contraception included no women is a travesty. Women should be playing as promenent a role in this discussion at the governmental level as they are on facebook or the twitterverse. Pregnancy, abortion, access to contraception... these are all incredibly important issues for women.

But that does not mean that men have no right to weigh in on these issues. On a personal level, these are male issues as well. I may not have to carry a baby inside of me but I certainly would prefer tools to help me decide when I want to be a father.

However, on a more general level, this is not simple an issue of women's rights. It is an issue of human rights. The idea of baring someone from the conversation simply because they supposedly cannot understand the issue because of their particular life experiences is a dangerous one. Turn it around and it is this kind of moral relativism that allows us to wash our hands of helping those who look or behave differently from us, those who live in different parts of the world, those who have led lives we can hardly imagine. I certainly hope I will never be able to truly relate to the life of say, a child soldier, but I feel perfectly justified in saying that what was done to him was wrong and that steps must be taken to try to ensure that nobody need suffer as he did.

The point of Democratic argument is to present differences of opinion and decide on the correct course of action. Many issues Progressives hold dear may not be able to garner the support of the majority of Americans quite yet... but I do not believe this is one of them. Trying to bar male voices from the argument will simply alienate friends and silence some fantastic advocates. This is a basic issue of human rights, and it is one that the bigots will find themselves on the wrong end of.