Much has been said this week about Doris Kearns Goodwin's brilliant book Team of Rivals at a time when all the tradmed wants to talk about drama between Obama and the Clintons. Last night, Hillary did what she had to do to try to put that to rest. She was on message (even if some of that message was self-centered) and she talked about the same middle class folks she championed during the campaign. Thus, it seemed that Obama's biggest rival turned into an ally. But, for obvious reasons, little is being said of Obama's other rival: John Edwards. And while, in my opinion, Edwards has no place at this convention, the message he championed during his campaign most certainly does.
Kos's pin that he is wearing at the DNC, "Ask me how many houses I own," got my mind wandering off track...as usual. How many houses do you own? Do you own seven, eight? You say you don't need seven or eight houses? Well even if you think you don't need them perhaps you might like them.
Forging onward with my continuing attempts to apply my bent psychological views to things cultural and political, let's take a look at the underclass (most of us) and our uncomfortable relationship to wealth. Here, I am taking McCain's criteria of $5,000,000 of net worth as the demarcation line for wealth. There are at least two emotions that form the core for most of us have-not Americans' attitudes toward wealth--envy and hope.
I'm thinking that if the Obama campaign goes much farther with pursuing the "out-of-touchness" and ostentatiousness of McCain's wealth it may well backfire, at least on a subconscious level, and become a positive for McCain.
More psychobabble on McCain, Obama and wealth below.
"We are not asking for a lot, just a little bit to advance forward."
That is what University of California San Diego Senior Custodian Maria Moreno told the Facing Poverty at UC camera as she stood in front of UCSD Medical Center CEO Richard Liekweg’s house - a house that Maria thought was a palace.
It was clear that Maria would view Liekweg’s sprawling ranch house on a hill in La Jolla as a palace when just a few hours earlier Facing Poverty at UC joined Maria and CA State Senator Christine Kehoe at Maria’s home - one bedroom and a small kitchen and bathroom on the back of her landlord’s house in San Diego’s Barrio Logan neighborhood. Maria, her son and granddaughter share one bedroom - sleeping on bunk beds - because that is all that she can afford after working at UCSD for ten years.
Joe Biden is an excellent person to reassure weary voters that Barack Obama will not be raising taxes for most Americans. With an annual income of $185,700, Joe Biden will not have a tax increase under Barack Obama's plan.
I think that the campaign should take advantage of highlighting Biden's relatively modest income. And a good way of demonstrating that average Americans can still strive to make good incomes and live a very good life (as Biden does), yet still not fall into that elite group of individuals who will see a tax increase.
I transferred into a four-year college from community colleges in 2007, out of a desire to get my bachelor's degree and prove myself as a part of society. I liked college well enough (though I had a quite memorably assholish teacher at one point, which I'll reference in another diary about how the "cheaper" places to live are almost invariably the most conservative), and I once looked forward to graduating.
Unfortunately, I'm never going to get that degree, and as of next week I'm likely leaving even the community college I've registered for classes at as of yet to work two jobs just to survive.
No, I didn't become mentally ill, and no, I didn't just get sick of it all and leave to intentionally become yet another of society's bottomfeeders chasing after peeps I know I'll likely never have.
I am not about to rehash a certain subject that has gotten 712 diaries over the last three weeks, but the one thing we did learn is just because a source had a bad reputation, doesn't mean everything coming from it is bogus. Many people know "The Onion" as satire, well it's trying to change.
They realize that the big money is in regular newspapers that people rely on for the straight scoop on the world. So I will share their effort to finally get serious by stealing carefully excerpting some of the words of this article using rigorous principles of fair use that my attornies advise me are well within my rights under Section 7.3 of the U.S. Copyright Act.
The election of Providence Mayor David Cicilline in 2002 was a changing of the guard in Renaissance City politics. Indeed, while Cicilline was settling into – and removing his predecessor’s wet bar from – the mayor’s office, the former mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci was being removed to federal prison to serve a five-year sentence for racketeering.
Dedicated individuals in the nonprofit sector have the programs that our government should be carrying forward to help our troubled vets today and produce fewer wounded vets tomorrow. Building Veterans Villages helps vets erase post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and build their lives. Fielding 21 million Americans under the American World Service Corps will eliminate creating future PTSD wounded vets and build stronger lives for all who serve and are served. Visit www.VeteransVillage.org and www.WorldServiceCorps.us to learn more.
As you know, I think a lot about language and the meaning of word. Every word has a connotation, and some have a few. The same word might not mean the same thing in one ear as it does in another.
Slurs like n----r, or f----t and others are unspeakable in almost every social setting. But I've discovered there is one slur that you can say almost everywhere -- even among the most liberal crowd of people you could ever hope to meet.
This past week, two Kaiser Health Disparities Reports documented the effects of language and cultural barriers on medical outreach and diagnosis. The first report, on HIV/AIDS in the Texas Hispanic community, referenced a Dallas Morning News story which documented that HIV is being detected later in Texas Hispanics than in other ethnic groups. This increases the risk of spreading the virus and decreases possibilities for treatment. While 24% of the state's HIV-positive blacks and whites are diagnosed with AIDS within a month of testing positive for HIV, this number is 8% higher for Hispanics. Language barriers, limited access to health care, legal issues, and cultural differences are noted among the challenges at the root of this disparity.
A while ago I was in a hotel room at a conference with a person who is particularly bright. I flipped the channels past a news station that was discussing the opulence of Donald Trump's new home. How amazing the marble, granite, and gilding was. Ahhh. My friend said, "Isn't amazing what rich people can do?"
I got the joke. It is pathetic that our culture fixates on, believe it or not, just what can be purchased with money! Evidently, there is a correlation between how much money you have and how amazing your shit is. Research supports this.
The converse is also true. Americans love to fixate on those absurd things that poor people do. And the poorer people get in this country, the harder it is to peel yourself away from programs showing poor people sticking up banks and getting mauled by dogs. They never cease to entertain us! But, there is more and more of this trash, and it highlights a class issue. We laugh at poverty.
Okay, so John Edwards is a creep who slept around on his dying wife, then lied repeatedly to his staff, his supporters, and the press for months. So there's that issue. But you know what really chaps my ass? The fact that Edwards really was nothing more than a goddamned impostor, a slimeball who used the working poor to fuel the career of John Edwards.
The organization, the Center for Promise and Opportunity, raised $1.3 million in 2005, and—unlike a sister charity he created to raise scholarship money for poor students—the main beneficiary of the center’s fund-raising was Mr. Edwards himself, tax filings show...
According to an article in Harpers, now that John Edwards is no longer a viable candidate for president, he has shut down the non-profit organization that was (ostensibly) established to help poor people. The article also points out that the organization seemed to be more about advancing his political aims than helping poor people.
Today is here and yesterday is over. Why am I writing this? Because as a reader and a John Edwards supporter I want to urge you not to change a damn thing about this blog. Why? Because the issues that are so important to us may not be as in focus today if it hadn't been for what John Edwards did throughout the campaign season. I believe this wholeheartedly.
What John did in 2006 has no bearing on Universal Health Care. What happened in 2006 does not make poverty in this County any less of an urgent issue. The corporate media would love to believe that what John did in 2006 would mean one less powerful voice talking about the strangle hold that corporations have on every facet of our lives in this Country.
Nothing can take away from these issues unless we let it happen.
I don't know the first time I heard it. I'm pretty sure it was in a stump speech during the 2004 Presidential campaign. It was the Two Americas speech of John Edwards. It was the first time in my life that I was moved by a contemporary political speech.
And we have much work to do, because the truth is, we still live in a country where there are two different Americas...
... one, for all of those people who have lived the American dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans, everybody else who struggle to make ends meet every single day. It doesn't have to be that way.
Earlier this week, "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric told viewers that the state of California was planning to cut the jobs and wages of state workers. Of the more than 200,000 workers who were to be fired or see their wages reduced, a grand total of zero appeared or were quoted on Couric’s program. No discussion with those workers who are soon to be fired about their probable descent into poverty. No chat with those facing lower wages about what it will be like to struggle among the working poor. Nada.
At the National Women’s Law Center, we have fought stereotypes about women for more than 35 years. Stereotypes that say girls aren’t good at sports and science. That women are better suited to serve coffee than to serve in the military. That women are too emotional to be in positions of power... to name just a few.
As we all know, those stereotypes are ridiculous. But it’s impossible not to notice that there are quite a few points where women and men differ in the poll results we’re releasing today. [There is a key area where women and men have similar views –- Roe v. Wade. Watch a video of Marcia discussing the surprising poll findings around this issue at the end of this post.]
