Culture Wars

One of the things that made the presidential campaign so vitriolic this year was the craving of pro-life, evangelical, and other right-wing conservatives for a president who would push the conservative social agenda. They hoped that John McCain would appoint ultra-conservative justices to the Supreme Court and thereby create a right-wing majority that could reverse Roe v. Wade and other hated decisions.

One can tell from comments in the newspapers that the election of Barack Obama came as a bitter disappointment to these Republicans. Obama will most likely do the opposite of what these conservatives desire. Nevertheless, they seem to feel that the election was not a total loss. They point to the vote that passed Proposition 8 in California (banning same-sex marriage) and similar propositions in Arizona, Florida, and Arkansas, as evidence of right-wing vitality. It was, however, hardly a landslide. Forty eight percent of the people in California, and similar percentages in the other states, voted against such propositions.

Now everybody is speculating about what kind of Republican Party will emerge from the devastation of this election. Will the party slide further to the right, or will it consolidate into a fiscally conservative party that avoids right-wing ideology in favor of promoting smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending?.

I suspect that the thrust of the party will be more toward the kind of ideological conservatism represented by the so-called “Religious Right.” If that is the program for the next four years, I doubt that the Republicans will win many elections. This country is simply not that conservative. While the passing of Proposition 8 was a great disappointment for liberals, they can take heart in the fact that the percentage of people who support the right to same-sex marriage is growing. In a poll taken after the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the right of gay couples to marry, 53% percent of Connecticut residents supported the ruling. Other polls have shown that a majority of the people in America oppose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution forbidding same-sex marriage.

Right-wingers might say that the passage of Proposition 8 and other states’ propositions shows that the only reason Barack Obama got elected was because of the bad economy, but there were other votes in which liberalism triumphed. In California, voters rejected a proposition that would have required doctors to notify parents before performing abortions on minors. In South Dakota, voters rejected a ballot measure to outlaw abortions except in cases of rape, incest, and threat to a woman’s health.

Over the years polls have shown that a majority of Americans consider themselves to be pro-choice on abortion. A recent Gallup poll found that 61% of Americans oppose a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions. In the presidential election, there was a sharp difference between Barack Obama and John McCain on abortion. McCain said he would favor repeal of Roe v. Wade, while Obama said he favored freedom of choice. Despite the frantic efforts of pro-life people to elect McCain, Obama won handily. It wasn’t just because of the economy. Obama’s positions on social issues appealed to the majority of Americans.

Now that he has been elected president, Barack Obama will certainly reverse many of the backward positions of the Bush Administration. I believe that he will appoint Supreme Court Justices who support the constitutional right to privacy upon which the decisions in Roe v. Wade and Lawrence v. Texas (striking down Texas sodomy law) are based. He will surely reverse Bush’s executive orders on subjects such as limiting funding for stem-cell research and the granting of new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds.

Obama has said that he will support sex education that includes information about contraception. He will also expand access to contraception by young people. He has announced that he will sign the Freedom of Choice Act which reverses numerous federal laws restricting abortion. I am sure that he will also stand-up for the separation of church and state. Thank heaven for the election of Barack Obama.

Educating Sarah

There has been considerable talk about whether Governor Sarah Palin will become a new leader of the Republican Party. She did provide a spark to the McCain campaign and showed herself to be a highly attractive and gifted public speaker. Although some say she hurt McCain’s chances, I feel that she probably helped energize the Republican base of conservatives and the evangelicals.

In an interview with Greta Van Susteren, Palin indicated that she would be open to running for president in 2012. She said: “If there is an open door for me somewhere—this is what I always pray—don’t let me miss the open door…. Show me where the open door is, even if it’s cracked open a little bit, maybe I’ll plow right on through that.”

So the question remains, should Palin now become leader of the Republicans? Should she be seriously considered as a candidate for president in 2012? The answer is, probably not. There is a lot of evidence that Sarah Palin is a woefully uneducated person. It is true that America should be open to leadership by all kinds of people from all walks of life. But do we really want to be lead by a person who, by most definitions, has barely enough knowledge to be mayor of Wasilla?

During the campaign we got some hints of the rift that developed between Palin and the people who ran the McCain campaign. These people leaked word that Palin was a “diva” or a “whack-job.” But they did not give very much detail. Since the election, we have gotten more information from McCain aides about the split. Carl Cameron of Fox News reported that the McCain Campaign advisors felt that Sarah Palin lacked the degree of knowledge necessary to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

According to Cameron, although she is governor of a state that abuts Canada, Palin did not know what countries were in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement (Canada, the U.S., and Mexico). This kind of ignorance would be excusable in an ordinary person, but we want our leaders to be smarter than the average jerk.

Apparently, in a debate that took place when she was running for office in Alaska, Palin said that Creationism should be taught in the schools along with Evolution. Combine this with her interest in banning books from the library and you have someone who, in my opinion, is intellectually challenged.

McCain people say that it was a nightmare for her campaign staff to deal with Palin. She refused preparation help for her interview with Katie Couric, and then blamed her staff when the interview was a disaster. Fox News reported that after the Couric interview, Palin turned nasty with her staff and began to accuse them of mishandling her. Palin would view press clippings about herself in the morning and throw "tantrums" over the negative coverage. There were times when she would be so nasty and angry that her staff was reduced to tears.

According to Newsweek, Palin's shopping spree was more extensive than previously reported. McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. In the beginning, one senior aide told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and three more for the campaign. Instead, Palin began buying clothes, shoes, luggage, jewelry and accessories for herself and her family from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband and children. An angry McCain aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast.”

Some people feel that she can become a better-educated person if she runs for the Senate or takes the Senate seat of Ted Stevens. They say that she can pick-up the kind of knowledge of government, politics, world affairs, geography, and economics necessary to present herself as a viable candidate for president. I doubt it. She is forty-four years old. If she has not become a well-educated person by now, I doubt she will become one in the next four years.

The Spoils of Victory

Now that Barack Obama and the Democrats have resoundingly defeated John McCain and the Republicans, there will be much talk about uniting the nation and bringing people together. That is all well and good, but I believe that the campaign will have been for naught if the Democrats do not take advantage of this opportunity to enact some desperately needed legislation.

President-elect Obama has made clear that he considers the economy to be issue number one. Lame-duck Bush has indicated that he might veto an economic stimulus package during the coming months. If Congress and Bush have not already done so by the time Obama takes office, he will have to submit and Congress will have to enact a massive economic stimulus package, including the extension of unemployment benefits, aide to the states, and public works projects.

We need a mammoth program to repair and rebuild our infrastructure. This will provide needed jobs and get America working again. As Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, has said: in times like this it is necessary for the government to spend substantial amounts of money even if it means large deficits.

The next thing that needs to be done is the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. This will not end the war against terror, but it will lower the cost in lives and money of that war. We will have to redirect some of the troops to Afghanistan where our real enemies are located. That should have been done long ago.

Frankly, I do not care whether conservatives consider health care legislation to be socialistic. This country has suffered for too long with an inadequate health care system. It is time to provide universal health insurance. The program announced by Barack Obama may be adequate, but I hope Democratic members of Congress can convince him to create one that is more like the single-payer system used by European countries. There should be mandatory health insurance for all Americans, not just children. Moreover, Congress must abolish the Medicare Part D drug program, a boondoggle for the Pharmaceutical and Insurance industries, and enact a program for seniors that covers all prescription medications as part of Medicare.

Congress needs to eliminate both tax breaks for oil companies and tax loopholes for rich corporations. We need to tax the windfall profits of oil companies, and thereby force them to invest their profits in alternative sources of energy. We need to repeal the tax breaks given by Bush to wealthy Americans and provide tax relief for the middle class. Moreover, Congress should provide tax relief for companies creating jobs in America.

Congress needs to protect America from the rapacious oil and gas industries and permanently prevent oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge as well as in additional offshore areas and in the 360,000 acres of public land recently opened by Bush for drilling in Utah. In addition, Congress should mandate that the oil companies begin drilling in the millions of acres where they already have leases--or lose those leases. Congress should also pass legislation supporting and encouraging companies engaged in alternative energy exploration and development. Such legislation could create many thousands of new jobs.

Bush and his head-in-the-sand Republicans have ignored the coming calamity of global warming for far too long. Democrats, aided by responsible Republicans, must now enact legislation to save our planet from disaster. We need laws that compel the big industries beloved by Bush to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. We need laws that compel auto manufacturers to lower carbon emissions and increase gas efficiency. And we need to sign the Koyoto Accord and other accords in order to bring the United States into line with foreign countries in the fight against global warming.

President Obama should also take this country out of the dark ages by reversing many of Bush’s executive orders, including rules regarding governmental investment in stem-cell research. Further, Congress should protect poor people from freezing to death this winter by promptly renewing and increasing funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

There are other programs which need to be enacted. During the past few years, President Bush and the Republicans in Congress were able to stifle these initiatives with vetoes and endless filibusters, but after January 20th it should be possible to go forward. Unity is a fine thing, but we have waited too long for Congress to get going.