Thursday, February 21, 2008

Leaning toward unity

I'm liking Obama a whole lot more since I've begun avoiding reading blogs and commentary by his most rabid supporters. I know I'll be happy to support his candidacy, and I'm still hoping that Hillary plays some major role within his campaign as VP or Secretary of State or whatever.

I'm thinking it makes more sense to cast a vote that decides it now rather than continuing the divide on through the long summer months into the convention. I've never seen a whole lot of difference between the two, except with health care. Maybe if Hillary makes a gracious concession, Barack will take a second look at his health plan and find a way to make it universal.

Here in Ohio, times are very tough and getting worse by the minute. Once a thriving state with both industrial and agricultural economies, we are now living on top of a toxic waste land. We breathe in polluted dust that has been layered on over the decades, and we produce agricultural products on depleted land laced with pesticides and other petroleum-based products. The state budget is all about cutting back. There are no steps-forward -- we are always in a reactive mode. It will be interesting to see how Ohio's Democrats eventually choose to vote in this primary season. I wouldn't be surprised if Hillary ekes out a win here. I would hope, if that is the case, that Obama learns from it and gives some focus to the needs of the Rust Belt.

I will continue to keep all options open until polling day, for just as soon as I file a mail-in vote, the candidate I vote for will make some kind of fatal error. Call me cynical, and you have part of it right. But mostly, I want and end to Republican control of this country. May the best person win, and the next best person join in a unified drive to defeat McCain in the fall.

12 comments:

mud_rake said...

I sense the Obama landslide about to occur here in Ohio. Tickets to his appearance were sold out in 3 hours today. People will begin to line up on Sunday at 9 AM for the 4:20 appearance. People are hungry to listen to him.

My blog received 69 hits today [4:45 PM] and 2/3 of them came from a Google search for 'Obama in Toledo.' The headquarters is always jammed each time I go down there. Yard signs go like hotcakes; they can't keep up with buttons and stickers.

It truly is madness in the good sense of the word. Hillary senses it too; I could see it in the debate last night. She knows her days are numbered. I, too, hope that there is unity and that she will have a good spot in a cabinet appointment in his White House.

Village Green said...

Here's to an even more momentous landslide in the fall!

Anonymous said...

A woman atempting to run for president with Obama's credentials would be laughed out the door day one, and day two, would have psychological testing ordered for her.

Anonymous said...

"Here in Ohio, times are very tough and getting worse by the minute. Once a thriving state with both industrial and agricultural economies, we are now living on top of a toxic waste land."

Two famous Ohio Boobs, Boob Taft and Boob Ney, had vastly more to do with this than NAFTA did. Plus they're both Republicans, so you'd think they'd be natural rhetorical targets for anybody who knew anything about the state, it history, or its economics. But what were Obie and Hildy pitching at you in their campaigns? That it's all because of NAFTA, right?
Your own tax policies and labor policies aren't the problem, no no no no, it's them evil furriners stealing your factories, to hear them tell it.
Maybe you believed them, maybe you didn't, but here's the deal. Those factories didn't move to Mexico; they moved to Texas. And here's why:
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/economic_differences_between_texas_and_ohio_illustrate_the_problems_with_li/

Anonymous said...

Yeah, that link was a bit long to fit in this eentsy comment box, eh? Pity.

Village Green said...

Stoop -- you could try tinyurl.com to shorten your links.

Actually, I just heard or read that very few jobs in Ohio were lost due to NAFTA. Dunno if it is true or not and am too tired to remember where I found that source.

The problems with free trade remain exploitation of workers in other countries and environmental concerns.

I'm not so keen on jobs at any cost. Jobs that have some positive value to citizens, yes.

Anonymous said...

"you could try tinyurl.com to shorten your links."

I lack the technological savvy. Here's your chance to educate me.

"Actually, I just heard or read that very few jobs in Ohio were lost due to NAFTA. Dunno if it is true or not ...."

It's true.

"The problems with free trade remain exploitation of workers in other countries and environmental concerns."

The exploitees abroad grow wealthier via free trade. Once they reach a certain level of wealth, they'll start to share your environmental concerns; until then, not.

"I'm not so keen on jobs at any cost. Jobs that have some positive value to citizens, yes."

Having an income is a positive value. Subsistence farmers all over the world would like to see their grandchildren grow up to be cyberpoets and ethnomusicologists.

Anonymous said...

Also, your email link either doesn't work or works in some way that doesn't open an email composition screen.

Anonymous said...

Thanx for the email tutorial; let's see if I grasp it:
http://tinyurl.com/2j64uq

Hmp. So far so good.

Anonymous said...

Well now. When I click on it, nothing, but when I paste it into the navigation window, it takes me someplace. That's normal, right?

Village Green said...

Stoop, capitalism leaves me cold. Seems to me like we need to move beyond it before it kills us all.

I'm reading a book called Affluenza, a disease brought about by excessive consumption. Capitalism is at the root of it -- the need to produce more useless goods to people who really don't need those goods, which eventually end up polluting the air, earth and water in a for-profit landfill directly south of me.

Anonymous said...

>>Stoop, capitalism leaves me cold. Seems to me like we need to move beyond it before it kills us all.<<

If you had a better system to move TO, you’d have a case. On this planet, all the alternatives involve different degrees of authoritarian redistribution, but they compensate for this with lower standards of living. Plus they kill people, en masse.

>>I'm reading a book called Affluenza, a disease brought about by excessive consumption. <<

Billions of people all over the world and especially in the poorest parts of it would swap everything they have (i.e. nearly nothing) to have this “disease.” Only in a society affluent enough to assure shelter and food and transportation and literature and education to almost everyone can this completely effete sort of complaint be made.
Oh yeah, it’s "a disease."
http://tinyurl.com/2g2a5k
or in long form
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/affluvia/#212886

>>Capitalism is at the root of it -<<

And at the root of Capitalism is our fundamental human nature, as hungry, horny, fearful, irritable mammals. And Capitalism in turn is at the root of your ability to own your home, and to choose where that home is. Under competing systems, that ability is restricted or eliminated, for your own good, of course.

>>- the need to produce more useless goods to people who really don't need those goods, which eventually end up polluting the air, earth and water in a for-profit landfill directly south of me.<<

1/
Alternatives to Capitalism are non-polluting? Only the more primitive ones. For them, the landfill and the landscape are the same thing.
Communism produced Chernobyl-quality nuclear powerplants, and their coal-burning plants created enough acid rain to deforest about half of eastern Europe. Plus it killed millions of people on purpose.
Socialism produces all the same stuff as Capitalism, only less of it and not as good. Especially the medical care. Does it produce less pollution? Only in France, where they’ve got nuclear power plants. But we could build those without adopting that system of economics.
Feudalism produces … what? Human lifespans so solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short that nobody could afford to throw away anything, ever.
Tribalism produces … what? Besides desertification in Arizona and N.Africa?
Anarcho-syndicalism produces … what? And when?
What other alternative systems have you got?
2/
Oh, and if you’re unhappy with the way your housing choices have turned out, do you expect you’d be happier with those same choices being made for you?