From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

There’s two points you make here that I kind of have a problem with:
While yes, I agree that media coverage of obama was extensive and favorable, I wouldn’t cite the number of good stories about him and the number bad stories about mccain as being indicative of that. For example, you could make the same case for oj simpson: there’s more negative coverage about him than good. But that’s bc he’s a fuck up, not bc there’s necessarily a bias against him.
If you compare the 2 campaigns, obama’s was much better run than mccain’s, less snafu’s (‘the foundation’s of our economy are strong’, ‘I don’t know how many homes I own’, the palin vp pick) and less shake up (changing campaign strategists and strategy, unable to stay on message).
Keep in mind, mccain was the underdog from even the primaries, so negative or unfavorable coverage came from his own party as well. Whereas, there was strong support for both hillary and obama from the onset, both history making candidates, the first lady becoming the first woman president; an african american child (and a REAL AFRICAN american, not just “black”) raised by middle american whites becoming the first afro-prez.
These are powerful narratives that embody the american dream, that capture our attention, that makes us feel good about ourselves and the country we live in. They symbolize the very ideals of democracy, prosperity, freedom and hope we are trying to “spread” throughout the world, ie the middle east.
As I said in my last email, news is entertainment, and what’s more thrilling than watching the american dream come alive right before our eyes?
Now, for your other points about health care and education. I’m not entirely for socialized medicine, but the idea of creating a greater “pool” of insured for more bargaining power, which in turn could lead to lower health care and prescription drug costs, is not necessarily wrong. For me, there’s something wrong with the way health insurance works here. now this is not an argument for socialized medicine and not what obama wants either: if you can afford your own, great; he’s more interested in covering those who can’t afford it, which I support.
And as for education, you didn’t support bush’s no child left behind act, that imposed standardized testing without any goverment funding to enact it? From a pedagogical perspective, there are all sorts of problems with standardized testing with a population as diverse as ours: a school is supposed to meet the needs of its locality. For example, in an area that’s densely populated with immigrants, more funding should be allocated to speech and language training/acquisition. This might not be the case for rural america.
But with the imposition of the nclb act and the lack of funding, the focus is placed instead on passing the test, meeting a government standard (which isn’t a govt standard btw, the content is decided by private corps, not educators), and you know as well as I do, passing a test and actually learning something are 2 totally different things.
I’m not entirely against some sort of standardization, after all, as citizens we need some sort of “common knowledge” and skill set: math, science, the ability to read and write, these are extremely important things to know in order to survive period. And while bloomberg touts how scores have improved in nyc, maritza has pointed out to me that the tests have also gotten easier to pass.
There’s a guy, richard scholes, who’s focused on the changing role colleges have played in furthering capiltalism. He points out how more people enter the job market, the qualifications for a particular job have gotten more specific and more difficult to attain while the salary for those jobs stays the same. There’s an expectation for a greater investment on the part of the student for the same job for the same amount of pay. He argues that instead of giving a student a well rounded education, colleges have become vocational schools. Students are not being taught to think for themselves, rather how to best serve the interests of potential employers.
Now, again, in order to survive in this country, this HAS to happen, and is emblematic of a much larger set of problems about the relationship we have with global capitalism in general. These are, of course, very knotty issues and difficult, I think, to address at a federal level, although I also believe that serving only the needs of the local populace is wrong as well and does our children a great disservice.
So while you and I argue these points, it’s only because we’re reasonably intelligent, rational human beings. We also have other interests besides our careers: we have creative outlets and curious minds. This is not bc we were just born that way: we were exposed. We’ve seen things, we’ve done things and have allowed ourselves to continue to learn to grow. I think education plays a tremendous role in that. It’s something I want my kids to embrace, to never stop thinking or questioning, to be alert and attentive, to expose themselves to as many things as possible before they get locked into whatever shitty career path that’s been left for them.

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

There’s two points you make here that I kind of have a problem with:
While yes, I agree that media coverage of obama was extensive and favorable, I wouldn’t cite the number of good stories about him and the number bad stories about mccain as being indicative of that. For example, you could make the same case for oj simpson: there’s more negative coverage about him than good. But that’s bc he’s a fuck up, not bc there’s necessarily a bias against him.
If you compare the 2 campaigns, obama’s was much better run than mccain’s, less snafu’s (‘the foundation’s of our economy are strong’, ‘I don’t know how many homes I own’, the palin vp pick) and less shake up (changing campaign strategists and strategy, unable to stay on message).
Keep in mind, mccain was the underdog from even the primaries, so negative or unfavorable coverage came from his own party as well. Whereas, there was strong support for both hillary and obama from the onset, both history making candidates, the first lady becoming the first woman president; an african american child (and a REAL AFRICAN american, not just “black”) raised by middle american whites becoming the first afro-prez.
These are powerful narratives that embody the american dream, that capture our attention, that makes us feel good about ourselves and the country we live in. They symbolize the very ideals of democracy, prosperity, freedom and hope we are trying to “spread” throughout the world, ie the middle east.
As I said in my last email, news is entertainment, and what’s more thrilling than watching the american dream come alive right before our eyes?
Now, for your other points about health care and education. I’m not entirely for socialized medicine, but the idea of creating a greater “pool” of insured for more bargaining power, which in turn could lead to lower health care and prescription drug costs, is not necessarily wrong. For me, there’s something wrong with the way health insurance works here. now this is not an argument for socialized medicine and not what obama wants either: if you can afford your own, great; he’s more interested in covering those who can’t afford it, which I support.
And as for education, you didn’t support bush’s no child left behind act, that imposed standardized testing without any goverment funding to enact it? From a pedagogical perspective, there are all sorts of problems with standardized testing with a population as diverse as ours: a school is supposed to meet the needs of its locality. For example, in an area that’s densely populated with immigrants, more funding should be allocated to speech and language training/acquisition. This might not be the case for rural america.
But with the imposition of the nclb act and the lack of funding, the focus is placed instead on passing the test, meeting a government standard (which isn’t a govt standard btw, the content is decided by private corps, not educators), and you know as well as I do, passing a test and actually learning something are 2 totally different things.
I’m not entirely against some sort of standardization, after all, as citizens we need some sort of “common knowledge” and skill set: math, science, the ability to read and write, these are extremely important things to know in order to survive period. And while bloomberg touts how scores have improved in nyc, maritza has pointed out to me that the tests have also gotten easier to pass.
There’s a guy, richard scholes, who’s focused on the changing role colleges have played in furthering capiltalism. He points out how more people enter the job market, the qualifications for a particular job have gotten more specific and more difficult to attain while the salary for those jobs stays the same. There’s an expectation for a greater investment on the part of the student for the same job for the same amount of pay. He argues that instead of giving a student a well rounded education, colleges have become vocational schools. Students are not being taught to think for themselves, rather how to best serve the interests of potential employers.
Now, again, in order to survive in this country, this HAS to happen, and is emblematic of a much larger set of problems about the relationship we have with global capitalism in general. These are, of course, very knotty issues and difficult, I think, to address at a federal level, although I also believe that serving only the needs of the local populace is wrong as well and does our children a great disservice.
So while you and I argue these points, it’s only because we’re reasonably intelligent, rational human beings. We also have other interests besides our careers: we have creative outlets and curious minds. This is not bc we were just born that way: we were exposed. We’ve seen things, we’ve done things and have allowed ourselves to continue to learn to grow. I think education plays a tremendous role in that. It’s something I want my kids to embrace, to never stop thinking or questioning, to be alert and attentive, to expose themselves to as many things as possible before they get locked into whatever shitty career path that’s been left for them.

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

On that last bit, you are very much on the mark: historically, this country has done better economically with a dem prez and a repub congress. So having both branches of govt being dem is not a good thing, in my opinion.
As for the media, and I think I’ve already mentioned this, I find them totally gross: I find myself often screaming at the screen. In the end, they are a business like any other, and to keep things “entertaining” they try to create these sweeping dramas that completely over simplify the issues.
The nite that hillary was supposed to give her speech during the dnc, cnn spent the entire day talking abt the angry hillary supporters, the enraged hillary supporters: all this without fucking interviewing one, without putting on one face to match the coverage (which is what good journalism is supposed to do).
Then hillary spoke and after some commentary, they go in the crowd and find an “unconvinced” hillary supporter, who, guess what, was not only a woman but black too. See the potential for drama there? And this woman was going on and on about how obama had a lot of work left to earn her vote, she might not even vote, saying this with tears in her eyes. Then boom, straight to commercial. Did they return and interview a hillary supporter that would now support obama? No, of course not. That’s due diligence, that wouldve been good journalism but a horrible cliffhanger. Better to leave us wondering, leave us in suspense.
It’s disgusting.

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

On that last bit, you are very much on the mark: historically, this country has done better economically with a dem prez and a repub congress. So having both branches of govt being dem is not a good thing, in my opinion.
As for the media, and I think I’ve already mentioned this, I find them totally gross: I find myself often screaming at the screen. In the end, they are a business like any other, and to keep things “entertaining” they try to create these sweeping dramas that completely over simplify the issues.
The nite that hillary was supposed to give her speech during the dnc, cnn spent the entire day talking abt the angry hillary supporters, the enraged hillary supporters: all this without fucking interviewing one, without putting on one face to match the coverage (which is what good journalism is supposed to do).
Then hillary spoke and after some commentary, they go in the crowd and find an “unconvinced” hillary supporter, who, guess what, was not only a woman but black too. See the potential for drama there? And this woman was going on and on about how obama had a lot of work left to earn her vote, she might not even vote, saying this with tears in her eyes. Then boom, straight to commercial. Did they return and interview a hillary supporter that would now support obama? No, of course not. That’s due diligence, that wouldve been good journalism but a horrible cliffhanger. Better to leave us wondering, leave us in suspense.
It’s disgusting.

Sometimes this world can be such an eloquent place but most of the time it’s atrocious: we bumble about. Like what the detective from haggis’ crash says, we have lost the way to reach out to one another and instead we grab, push and shove. And our incapacity doesn’t shock us, doesn’t force us to re-examine ourselves. Rather we blame one another, we gossip, we dig our nails into each other’s weaknesses, we tear the skin searching for bone. I find it so difficult at times to resist the urge to pretend, to be compliant; any step out of character welcomes derision, ridicule, dismissal. I hear the thoughts and opinions from my aunts and uncles about the presidential campaign, the expectations of obama’s presidency, the choice of palin for vp, the disappointment of losing hillary and I am shocked, disappointed and sometimes even surprised. These are not stupid people but they are capable of saying very stupid things. These are not the most open minded people, but they can say things that transcend the bigotry they have grown up with. One uncle said tonight, ok a black president was elected I don’t need to see these people celebrating about it in my face. Mind you, he lives in a very, very white town: black people are not partying on his lawn, he’s talking about the media coverage of harlem. Another uncle, who has very plainly and openly expressed rather racist views, says, I didn’t vote for obama but I’m glad he won I think he would be good for this country.They can surprise you even when you expect otherwise; even when they have disappointed you countless times before.

From: Al
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 2008 21:42:56
To: manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
I agree with you on the large companies- it’s always cheaper for them to pay someone in another country (lower wages, no health insurance, 401k)
The things that scare me are his lack of experience in foreign policy and radical liberal history. I’m not confident that he’s well prepared to be Commander in Chief. Much has been made about him looking to
enact “socialist” policies and while that may be an exaggeration, let’s not ignore his comments about spreading the wealth around. Now I’m hearing about him looking to make changes to 401k rules, limiting the amount you can contribute etc. and reducing choices. In reality, a lot of what he said in the campaign may not be feasible (not enough money thanks to the $700 billion bailout/can he really just start pulling troops out of Iraq/even a Democratic Congress isn’t stupid enough to pass through legislation that would enrage the masses- they are up for re-election in 2 years).
Also, fuck this equality thing. Government programs exist to help those who need it (good) but don’t sit there and say that there’s too much inequality among the people. You and I own homes and make a living because we work for it. We worked through college, have loans and are making our way without anyone helping us. I always remember what you said when I get these calls from people at home looking for contributions to various organizations. “You don’t see me asking for money for the S_______ fund. No one is donating any money to me to help pay my mortgage”. Word.

There’s quite a lot to parcel out here but what the heck, I’m feeling randy:
George Bush didn’t have any foreign experience either and the executive experience he did have, was running a couple of companies that I believed failed under his tenure. Neither did George Bush have any military experience, but we’ve had no problem with him leading us into a war that never needed to be fought.
Hence the reason for Cheney as VP btw, which if you remember was also the head of his VP committee. Kind of nice to nominate yourself for the position you’ve been asked to approve. Funny how Haliburton, of which Cheney was inimately involved with, has reaped the greatest amount of reward feeding and supplying our troops in iraq and afghanistan. Curious how they can’t account for about 300 million our government, our taxes, gave them, and when pressed, Haliburton threatend to cut off all supplies to our troops.
All this during republican controlled executive and legislative branches of government.
So, while I agree with you that a redistribution of middle class wealth is wrong, I’m not for the continuation of this type of corporate favoritism, bullying, panhandling and manipulation either. And I think this is what obama is referring to about the redistribution of wealth. (And btw, that joe the plumber guy owes back taxes, that fucker hasn’t been paying his fair share for years.)
But I digress.
Now back to the point: mccain’s military experience can be summed up as crashing his plane 3 or 4 times and being quite the drinking maverick while in the navy until he crashed again and was captured. His behavior then, as a pow, was exemplary and commendable. But it’s not indicative of a strategic or diplomatic mind, the kind of qualities you want in a commander and chief. It’s indicative of his stubbornness and pride.
Despite this, despite the fact he returned home a hero, despite the fact that his father and I think grandfather were admirals, the highest position he was told he would attain was rear admiral. Second best, not top: why do you think that is Al? After all the shit he’d been through, and strings that his family could pull for him, why did they tell him that? Because he was not the best soldier, he did not show the qualities to his superiors that the highest position in the Navy required.
And this type of stubbornness and pride cost him the election: it was stupid to pick palin. And the details behind that decision, how he barely knew her, she’d only been governor for 18 months (and don’t give me that shit that she was mayor before that: guiliani, in being mayor of new york city, managed a greater budget and more diverse population than the entire state of alaska-just being a new yorker gives us more foreign policy experience than palin maybe seeing russia on a clear day, but guiliani didn’t get anywhere bc his was pro-choice), that he literally sprung it on her less than a week before the convention, reflect, to me at least, a certain kind of disrespect for the vp position, and a lack of thoughtfulness, if not just plain rashness to do whatever it took to win. She is an evangelical right wing nutjob chosen to rally the neo-cons, the backward social conservatives that got bush elected twice.
Biden was brought on the ticket to balance it, just like cheney was brought on for bush. Mccain didn’t balance it, he tipped it over into the garbage.
Personally, I’m not worried about terrorism and this may sound really fucked up, but if should something happen in ny again, like a nuke, we’re dead on the island anyway. But really, what’s the likelihood of that happening? I mean, do you really feel safer with minimum wage workers checking your bags at the airport or shooing you away when you’re waiting to pick up someone? I don’t bc these people are not professionals, these guys couldn’t take me down if I went on a rampage, as a matter of fact, do they even have guns? So nothing has changed to make me feel safer. Nothing at all. Instead we’re spending 10 billion on a month in a country that’s got a 79 billion surplus. In a country that has reneged on the deal that gave first bids to american oil companies to its oil fields and is instead negotiating with russia and france.
My immediate concern is the economy bc that’s an immediate threat, that’s citigroup cutting 11000 jobs in one fell swoop in one day. that’s me losing my house, my kids losing their home. and on that mccain was not talking to me at all. Just corporate tax cuts and drill more, that’s it. Sure he eventually jumped on the green wagon, but did you watch the rnc? Did you see the signs, hear the chant? Even palin, that idiot who doesn’t know her elbow from her ass, cheering them on. That did nothing for me. Even the most liberal estimates forecast that the cost of finding and refining oil would become impossible to justify in 60 years time, even with drilling in anwr (most agree on the 40 year mark, we’d still be kicking). Sure, who gives a shit right, we’d be dead and our kids middle aged. But can you imagine what gas would cost by the time we get there? Did you see what happened this summer? It’s finally calmed down but that was sure as shit a wake up call.
So, for me, obama’s commitment to green technology and alternative fuels, as well as the need for greater transparency within the market, is what sold me. more government support for alternative fuels and energy leads to more companies, more companies, more offices, more offices, more networks… See where I am going with this for me personally? Both you and I and your wife, as well as mine have quite a hike to work: there has to be some sort of competition to oil, some sort of incentive to bring fuel costs down. We need to get off oil.
And, btw, I read this research paper, not article mind you, an economic research paper with footnotes and citations and everything that pointed out that corporations have been skirting paying their fair share of taxes for years through tax shelters and outsourcing EVEN AS CORPORATE TAXES WERE BEING CONSISTENTLY CUT FOR THE LAST 50 YEARS (from 50% after WW2 to 35% in 2003).
This leads back to my initial response to you, this government is in the pocket of big business while we’re caught in its fly and being zipped up right over its fat smelly dick.