Notes from Camp Obama, Homeless Edition

 By Anonymous

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“Over there.”

“That? It’s the old Minuteman Missile Site.”

“The what?”

“Well, one of them.”

In my travels, I’ve been surprised to stumble over so many relics of the Cold War, former missile sites being among them. These entrails of our empire are no less stunning than the Assyrian walls reconstructed for our delectation at the New York Metropolitan Museum. The terrifying detail of the human-headed winged lion that was lamassu was designed to reinforce the power of the Assyrian state upon the visiting delegate. The smooth surfaces around the old missile sites are even more awesome than lamassu in their blandness and uniformity – all the power lies in their stunning technology, and not in the fearful imagination of the visitor to Assyria. 

I’ve been thinking about the Cold War, having come of age in its late evening shadow. The ICBM was first developed decades before I was born, but the arms race was raging as I entered high school. 

Camp Obama (the homeless, hitchhiking version of it®) has afforded me the opportunity to encounter no small number of Cold War missile system veterans, and I’m struck by how their work on these systems affected them spiritually and psychologically. Sitting in the cabs of their trucks, or huddling over cups of coffee at the modern-day equivalent of the diner (Starbucks), they’ve told me in whispered voices their accounts of the most banal tasks at various missile sites, and I’m no less skeptical than I was in hearing out MacNamara’s late-life confessions. 

They're sly, these men: they know that I know that they know what they're trying to do with these stories. ("What's a feint? What's a left hook off the jab? What's an opening? What's doing one thing and saying another?" -Jose Torres in Oates' On Boxing.)

But their hands have liver spots. They’re growing frail. For whatever meaningless reason, no one will call them the greatest generation. (And the greatest generation of what, Tom Brokaw? Of all historical time? What makes the sacrifice of U.S. WWII veterans greater than the abject misery endured by those miserable but fearless women soldiers at Stalingrad?)

Frailty. The other sin after poverty. I’ve been thinking about how much I’ve relied on my physical endurance, without realizing that such endurance is nearly a pure product of the Cold War itself. Even though most of us never even made it to State, let alone Nationals, there wasn’t a practice or coaching session that wasn’t in overbuilt reaction to what our jr. high and high school coaches thought the Soviets would send to the Olympics. 

(Coach: "how many lanes are there on the track?" You: "There's only one lane, coach. The winning lane." I was not in the winning lane. But as I later learned, neither were those who were in the winning lane.)

I’ve often regretted this time wasted. We could have been reading Flaubert. But the missile sites, and the men’s stories, jolt me back to the weird reality, and unreality, of all that occurred during the Cold War. The veterans have been explaining the technology of the war that I slumbered through in high school, exhausted from training.

Whatever became of our star athletes? Our soldiers? What happened to THEIR soldiers? I usually think of the Cold War as the “small wars” that took place outside our country, in which some of my family fought. Only through Camp Obama (the homeless, hitchhiking version of it®) have I begun to realize that the war was here, too, in smaller, less noticeable ways.

The veteran who once manned the data station for one of the early east coast missile systems told me he was terrified all through the cold war. He’s an old man now, unafraid to express his fears. In fact, I suspect he’s afraid NOT to express his fears. If his fears were irrational (which they weren’t) then the war was for naught. All of it. But the Soviet threat was, sadly, real. 

Still, was there another way we could have met the threat? Besides all this metal and radiation? (The birds, they tell me, would drop out of the sky because of the radiation emitted by our acquisition data systems. Proud raptors fried mid-air at thousands of times the radiation of your microwave.) 

There must have been. MacNamara says that we only survived the Cuban Missile Crisis because a former ambassador to the Soviet Union dropped by a critical Kennedy administration meeting. This ambassador stated that he didn’t believe Kruschev had any interest in ending the world, and that all we needed to do was to create a face-saving way out for him. 

We did. 

It’s a miracle. 

We did. 

What other miracles are we capable of?

(Ed. Note:  The author, a professional writer, was evicted from her apartment this summer when the owners decided to rehab the building into condos for millionaires. She is among the increasing  middle class homeless population which doesn't fit the preconception of homeless people: alcoholics, drug addicts or the mentally ill. (See her comments under the Occupation of Wall Street post, below).   According to the National Law Center on Poverty and Homelessness, not only do many homeless people work --  very few of them rely on public assistance.  Not a few of them, like "Anonymous" belong to the transitionally homeless category  -- she has been "sleeping rough" for only a few months,  has a (dwindling) bank account, a cell phone,  continues to go on job interviews, and even has speaking engagements lined up.  Nobody in her immediate circle of professional colleagues or family members knows she is homeless.  I am only the third person she has told.  Knowing this woman, she will survive this.  Knowing this woman, I will no longer take for granted that the well-dressed people I meet necessarily have roofs over their heads).

Obambaid

So now with Obama's numbers in the toilet and a few Democratic stalwarts saying maybe a primary challenge might not be so crazy after all, and James Carville telling him to panic, the president hoisted himself up and went all populist this morning. It's a mere 14 months to Election Day, and it must be time to throw out not only some progressive crumbs, but whole slices of bread.


But did a military band really have to play "Stars and Stripes Forever" at this hybrid of a policy speech/campaign rally?  And what about that part where Obama says he will veto any cuts to Medicare and Medicaid UNLESS he gets his Buffett Tax on Millionaires too?  How about he will veto any cuts to Medicare, period? How about getting rid of the Homeland Security boondoggle? In other words, hold the TSA gropers hostage instead of the dying old ladies they torture!

The reviews of today's speech are mixed between those who feel it's too little, too late and a big fat fake, to those who are experiencing renewed hope that our beleaguered president has finally grown a spine, has drawn a line in the sand and thrown down the gauntlet and is fighting for the people.  I tend to go along with the former.  Obama should be leaving the deficit out of it. He should be leaving the social safety net out of it.  He should be calling for higher taxes in order to create jobs, period. Working people will bring down the deficit once they're allowed to work. I am glad the congressional progressive caucus is taking note of the presidential stealth attack on the New Deal.
It took me awhile to finally figure this quid pro quo out. At first you think he's vowing to protect Medicare and Medicaid. But what he's really setting up is a perverse inverted hostage situation. He may as well have snarled: "If you want your Death Panel, Republicans, gimme the money. Otherwise I won't stiff Grandma." Or, he is the kidnapper who calls the parents and promises he will keep the kids alive and well unless the parents pay the ransom.

He reminds me of Martin Sheen and two of his famous political roles. There's the heroic, humanistic and pragmatic president in "West Wing."  That's the one the White House wants us to see.  Then there's the sinister, bellicose, fake populist future president in Stephen King's "The Dead Zone".  At best, Obama is simply being disingenuous in offering up the poor and the sick and the old as payment in kind for the rich people paying more taxes. He knows nothing will pass, so he might as well squeeze in his austerity bona fides while he's at it. At worst, he is among the most corrupt presidents we have ever had. Killing us softly with his smile.

It gets worse. The New York Times reports that Budget Director Jacob Lew is bragging that far from this being a Class War, there is pain enough for everybody. Medicare deductibles will go up. Homebound elderly people receiving visiting nurse services will have to fork over a co-pay for each visit. Payments to teaching hospitals and rural hospitals will be reduced. This should make the wealthy feel so much better, knowing that disabled and impoverished widows will not be receiving all that self-indulgent treatment on the backs of Lloyd Blankfein and most of the millionaire politicians in Congress.  The budget, by the way, also lowers veterans' benefits, but in no way affects the health or retirement packages of the President and Congress. 

The mainstream media are, however, willing stenographers of the narrative du jour. MSNBC is jubilant, while Fox is pouting. Today, the triple play theme is: "The Republicans are Screaming Class Warfare!", "The President Finds His Mojo!", and "Chuck 'I Wanna Be Majority Leader' Schumer Says Happy Days Are Here Again." 

I had written a response to Paul Krugman's "The Bleeding Cure" column last night before Sousafest (it was not accepted for publication) about how the austerians are bleeding the economy dry. I laid part of the blame at the feet of the abysmal corporate media: 

Until the journalistic class gets over its obsession with “fair and balanced”, the medieval economic austerians will be granted equal time and continuing credence. The media feel compelled to compensate for their nonexistent “liberal bias” with reactionary drivel. The talk shows (you can't call them news) are filled with bipartisan deficit hawks more concerned with the debt than the jobs crisis. The corporate sponsors of these shows invariably include oil companies, drug companies, G.E. -- all with a vested interest in loopholes, free trade and continued control of the government. 

In the bubble of Washington, the conventional wisdom (an oxymoron if there ever was one) dictates that token stimulus spending must always be offset by a gleefully relentless gutting of what’s left of the New Deal. Notwithstanding that his jobs bill is a small step in the right direction, President Obama still finds it necessary to reassure the jittery investor class and “job creators” that every penny spent on jobs will be more than matched by his Grand Bargain of Severe Cuts to programs for the old, young, sick and poor. The headline in Sunday’s Times announced that the president “would ask” millionaires to pay just a tad more so their minimum wage employees won’t feel so bad and maybe re-elect him. Notice the abject, pleading, apologetic tone. Instead of “J’Accuse!” aimed at the banksters, we get “Pretty Please.” Instead of calling for shared prosperity, he harps on shared sacrifice. He just can’t ask good old Uncle Warren Buffett to pay just a tad more without insisting the rest of us share the pain. 

Not only are the people in charge bleeding the country, they’re letting the wounds they create fester, dooming the patient. The bandaids they are applying are simply hiding the results of rampant corruption instead of attacking the source: deregulation, and a permanent war machine -- and money, money, money subsuming our democracy.

Stickin' it To the People!

Economist Robert Reich is not impressed with the Buffett Plan either. In his latest blog post, he writes:

But this is Barack Obama, whose idea of negotiating is to give away half the house before he’s even asked the other side for the bathroom sink.

Apparently Obama will propose that people earning more than $1 million a year pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class earners. That’s aiming mighty low.

Glenn Greenwald is also leery of Obama's true motives, and answers the question why the president is suddenly embracing populism and lefty ideals after three years of showing his base utter contempt: (thanks to Marie Burns for the link),

Some Democrats are honest and cynical enough to acknowledge that Obama is doing all these things purely for political gain and -- because his re-election is their top priority -- to celebrate it even while acknowledging it will never become reality....   I at least appreciate the candor of those...  who acknowledge that this will not become reality and is not even designed to, but celebrate it because it will help Obama get re-elected by making the GOP (rather than him) look like the servants of Wall Street.  It's the ones pretending that this eleventh-hour election-time awakening is reflective of some sort of substantive significance that are hard to bear.

Wall Street "Occupation" Starting Today

Taking their cue from the sidewalk sleepover protest this summer known as "Bloombergville",  thousands of demonstrators are expected to converge in the financial district today for some free-floating street theater in what is being called the Occupation of Wall Street.  It's the latest in a whole series of protests against budget cuts and financial malfeasance -- but this time, the event is getting the attention of the mainstream media.

Do you suppose it's because the whole Arab Spring phenonemon now holds a certain trendy allure for the corporate journalists?  The first Wall Street "Day of Rage" last March sponsored by New Yorkers Against Budget Cuts only got mentioned in a few independent blogs and Al Jazeera, even though it attracted thousands of people.  This time, the anti-consumerism magazine "AdBusters" was doing the (loose) organizing and perhaps is savvier at publicity and use of social media to get the message out... via Twitter and Facebook.

All indications are that this day of leaderless, mellow musical rage will be similar to previous demonstrations, but some media (especially right wing media) are forecasting a Marxist bloodbath.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg was on the radio warning that the high youth unemployment rate could lead to riots in the streets -- though he didn't really specify his streets, on this particular day.

The culmination of today's events will be a 3 p.m. rally at Chase Square. According to the website OccupyWallSt, the NYPD is expecting total crowds of about 5000. Participants hope the protests last until December, or at least through Monday, when President Obama is due in town to speak to the U.N. (and raise some bundled Wall Street cash).*

This summer's peaceful encampment ended after a few weeks with the arrests of what were called "The Bloombergville 13" on charges of obstructing traffic.  In New York City, it is legal to sleep on the sidewalks as long as you only take up half the walkway so as not to trip up pedestrians. And despite what the poster above advises, tents are supposedly illegal within the city limits. If you come, bundle up.  The nights are getting nippy in the concrete and steel canyon.




Wall Street Day of Rage, March 2011 (it was peaceful)



* Update: Live feeds and tweets can be found here.http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Eat with Barack and Fight the Attacks!

The title of my latest email from Barack was "Karen, Can We Meet for Dinner?"

 I don't know about you, but this is the first time in my longish life that I have ever opened a dinner invitation only to find out that it's a bait and switch gimmick to win a coveted date with the man of my dreams -- that first I will have to plunk down 15 bucks and even then, I have only a slim chance of winning dinner with Barack. Wow. And they said the Clintons were tacky for renting out the Lincoln Bedroom.


That creepy email went unanswered by me, and,I suspect. by thousands of other disappointed lovesick "folks" who are aghast that Dear Leader would be renting himself out this way -- because today I got a follow-up missive from Campaign Manager Jim Messina, titled "About That Dinner".

Karen --
You got an email from the President a couple days ago, inviting you to sit down to dinner with him.

 (And I didn't even have the decency to RSVP.  How veddy rude).

I know some people might think this is just some kind of trick or something. It's not. 

( Actually, I thought it was totally legit until you brought up the tricky part yourself, you idiot.) 

The fact is that someday soon, four people reading this note right now will be on a plane to have dinner with President Obama in Washington, or Chicago, or wherever he might be that day. 

(It will definitely be in Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina.... or in any battleground state that has a restaurant with a condemned shovel-ready bridge in the background.) 

Think about that for a second. The four people who win will sit down with the President of the United States of America -- not for a two-minute photo-op or a quick meet-and-greet, but for a private meal with face-to-face conversation. That's just not something too many people will ever get to do.

(Ten minutes for a bolted-down meal sounds so pleasant. What if he asks a question and my mouth is full of chili-dogs or whatever folksy food is on the menu?) 

The President obviously has very little time to spend on anything related to the campaign. And this is how he chooses to spend it -- having real, substantive conversations with people like you.

(All those frequent taxpayer-funded Air Force One trips to factories in battleground states have absolutely nothing to do with the campaign.  They are high governance in its purest form.  And speaking of purest, no purists allowed at this meal.  Only centrist pragmatic progressives, preferably from the independent heartland of the polls).

This is really something you should be a part of.

(But I won't be, because the odds of this happening are about on a par with getting on "Dancing With the Stars" or being struck by lightning.) 

Donate $15 today and you'll be automatically entered for the chance to have dinner with President and three other supporters.
Worst-case scenario: you don't get selected.

(Uh-uh. Worst case scenario is one in six Americans now lives in poverty and if selected, couldn't afford a new outfit for the dinner, let alone gas for the trip to the airport.  Let alone the 15 bucks.) 

 But if you donate, you'll have pitched in to support an organization that's funded at the grassroots level by folks across the country -- not Washington lobbyists or special-interest PACs. You'll have given this campaign a boost, however small, to hire organizers, open offices, and build our organization this fall so it's ready for the hard work ahead of us. 

(There are two campaigns: the folk-funded one using unpaid f***ed folk slaves, and the real one, funded by Wall Street and union-busting billionaire hotel chain heiresses from Chicago.)

And best-case scenario, you'll find yourself sitting across the dinner table from President Obama.

(I can think of about a million better case scenarios in my own particular life and in the lives of the American underclass in general, thank you very much).

 So give it a shot -- donate $15 or more today:

Thanks,
Messina

(Why do you always close your emails with just your last name?  There has to be some deep and disturbing psychological explanation for it, and frankly, I don't want to know what it is.)

Reported!  The Evil John Bolton Falsely Accuses Obama of Hating Your Guns.

Speaking of disturbing.... I have been meaning to write about another weird email I got a few days ago from "Messina". It seems he wants folks like me to troll the internets looking for trash talk about Barack and then report back to a very special website to report the trash. It's called AttackWatch.com. and it's filled with scary grainy photos of Obamenemies such as John Bolton, who is spreading the outrageous false rumor that Barack wants to take away everybody's guns!  The horror!  We certainly have to nip that untrue rumor right in the bud, pragmatists!  Because Obama is very much pro-Second Amendment and reneged on his campaign promise to ban assault weapons.  He even wants to keep the clips, because the answer to the Gabby Giffords shooting is that we can all just get along in a bipartisanshippy way.

Next thing you know, some evil Teabagger will be spreading the awful rumor that the Dinner With Barack sweepstakes is a scam.

Panic, Fire, Indict

As I watch the Republican debates, I realize that we are on the brink of a crazy person running our nation. I sit in front of the television and shudder at the thought of one of these creationism-loving, global-warming-denying, immigration-bashing, Social-Security-cutting, clean-air-hating, mortality-fascinated, Wall-Street-protecting Republicans running my country. -- CNN contributor James Carville.

As I saw the clip of James Carville waxing hysterical about the Tea Party candidates, I couldn't help but wonder how he can, in good conscience, draw a paycheck from the same network that "teamed up" with the Tea Party Express to present a travesty of a GOP debate Monday night.  The only thing worse than watching some of the reverential 9/11 coverage on CNN was being subjected to the pre-debate hype. Interspersed with the endless images of collapsing towers, it was a real double dip treat of fear dished out by a cable TV "news" outlet seemingly now vying with Fox for all those Koch Brothers advertising dollars.

In any case, I enjoyed Carville's colorful tirade.  Another quotable quote from his laundry list of advice to Obama:

 Fire somebody. No -- fire a lot of people. This may be news to you but this is not going well. For precedent, see Russian Army 64th division at Stalingrad. There were enough deaths at Stalingrad to make the entire tea party collectively orgasm.

Since the Republicans won the erstwhile solidly Democratic seat of Anthony Weiner the other day, the Democrats are already in full panic throttle.  Did you notice that first thing this morning, the White House suddenly let it be known that Social Security is now off the Grand Bargaining Table?  This, just a day or two after it floated a trial balloon to telegraph that Obama still wanted those benefits cut. It probably had more to do with septuagenarian crooner Pat Boone's Republican robocalls warning NYC voters of Obama's plans for their benefits, and the subsequent Congressional GOP rout, than with any change of heart on the president's part toward the well-being of retirees.  If it's not about his re-election, it doesn't exist.

Now that Obama can no longer take New York for granted, maybe he'll set foot here for a purpose other than collecting millions at the fund-raising dinners of his wealthy bundlers. New York State extends far beyond Manhattan and Westchester. Just ask the drowned communities in the Hudson Valley and Catskills.

But as far as indicting any Wall Street miscreants is concerned, it's not gonna happen. He begged banker tool Timothy Geithner to stay. He just hired banker tool Bill Daley to be his chief of staff. The last thing in the world Obama would ever do would be to dump on his own constituency. 

Hymne a L'Obama

"If you love me, you've got to help me pass this bill." -- Barack Obama, North Carolina speech.

"If the sun should tumble from the sky,
If the sea should suddenly run dry,
If you love me, really love me,
Let it happen, I won't care.

If it seems that everything is lost,
I will smile and never count the cost,
If you love me, really love me,
Let it happen, darling, I won't care.

Shall I catch a shooting star?
Shall I bring it where you are?
If you want me to, I will.
You can set me any task.
I'll do anything you ask,
If you'll only love me still". -- Edith Piaf, Hymne a L'Amour

King of Swing (States)

Normally, when  somebody in a frenzy-whipped Obama campaign rally yells out "I love you", the perennial candidate/sometime President replies: "I love you back!"  In this case it was probably too much to expect a response along the lines of "If you love your country, support this bill."  

Unfortunately when we set him any task (like a Public Option, protecting the environment, stopping the wars), he does virtually nothing that we ask.  It does indeed seem that everything is lost, and the cost is all on us.

A Teacher's View

Guest Post by Valerie Long Tweedie

People who buy into the idea of Charter Schools think they will be getting a private school education on the government's dime. They believe that their children will be in a school where the school will pick and choose the students and only the best students will get in - the riff-raff will have to go somewhere else. (Where they don’t specify – but it is the old “not in my backyard scenario.”) The problem of how to educate children with special needs will not be addressed. These are the expensive children to educate so no charter school will want them. I think anyone can see where this is going – “My kid is the only one who is important and to hell with the rest of you.”

This selfish, amoral attitude is the problem with our youth today – and it is equally a problem with the adults. As a nation, we have lost our compassion and our generosity; that belief that I am willing to have a little bit less so that someone else, less fortunate than I, can have a little more.  THAT is what is wrong with our world today - no empathy, no ability to try to walk in someone else’s shoes, no appreciation for the advantages that have been afforded us and a recognition that others are not always equally advantaged. When I talk to conservatives complaining about the welfare state, saying charity is not the government’s job, I always ask them, “How much did you give to charity last year?” They always sputter about sponsoring some child in Mexico and giving to their church. The truth is, there isn’t much “Christian Charity” to be found these days and that is not the fault of the public schools.

I was a teacher in public school in Washington State until five years ago. In days gone by if there was a fight on the playground, we would have a class meeting about it. We would discuss how it happened and look at the situation from all sides. We would discuss what was fair and what was right and sometimes, we would acknowledge that someone behaved badly because (s)he was frustrated and hurt. We would talk about whether letting someone play as opposed to excluding that child was really such a terrible price to pay for having a good learning environment where everyone felt valued. I valorised children who were kind and patient and inclusive. Those kids got leadership positions – because they WERE leaders. These class meetings took time, but educators realised that schools were microcosms of society and the parents, teachers and society as a whole accepted that one of the tenets of public education was to socialise children as preparation for them being contributing members of American society. Looking back, I realise how important these lessons were to instilling democratic values in our students. 

 But in the years leading up to my leaving the States, school was about one thing and one thing only – test scores. Teachers were told on a daily basis how the “schools were failing our students” and what a crappy job teachers were doing. As if all teachers had to do was open up their students' heads and pour in the knowledge. Time for class meetings and “morality” lessons had to be stolen from the curriculum and weren’t considered a good use of class time. Morality and socialising were seen as being in the domain of parents (only) – great if you were blessed with great parents, not so great if you had a dysfunctional family. 

I have taught in high socioeconomic public schools in both the U.S. and Germany and in low socioeconomic public schools in the U.S. And I have taught in private schools all over the world as well - some of them prestigious, some of them low fee parochial. The truth is this: how well children learn and how well they get along with others is heavily influenced by their home environment. If kids are less moral today – more selfish, more inconsiderate, more disrespectful and more focussed on material possessions than they are on their fellow man – that is more a reflection of their families and the values they are being taught at home than it is of the schools they attend. I can tell you, as a teacher, I love having kids in class who are taught to consider someone else and not just themselves. But in our world today, parents are focussed on wanting to make their child feel wonderful and unique, but unfortunately have neglected to teach these same children that others matter just as much as they do.