7 7 7

this bill as bad as it is is needed, where will the money come from to have Obama's progressive agenda implimented?

 When you win, sometimes you lose too. We will win but our nation is losing so much now and will continue to do so as the transition takes place.

I remember many many moons ago I hit my first Royal Flush on poker machine. It only took about 2 weeks before I had gambled it away. It was a lesson. This is a lesson too & I am having more fun and getting more satisfaction from this campaign than anything I have ever done.                  

Alberto Giordano, Have I told you how much I love you lately? Your words truly inspire!

I work at a company with significant interest in the gold market. We're having a HUGE party tomorrow. Come on, $1000/oz!

I gotta give it to the House Repubs for political theater. I think I detect the hand of Gingrich behind it all. F'ing idiotic-brilliant as usual, Newtster.

Pelosi shoulda known better than to trust those clowns. Bad on her. Ditto for McCain. He thought he was a player. He's just an expendable low value chip on the table. To right, Al.

Obama and the movement behind him are heading with increased velocity toward November victory, but the 7 7 7 "jackpot" that the movement takes home - filled with counterfeit slugs amidst the shards of gold that will still have to be panned and forged into value - means that the campaign doesn't end - can't end - on November 4.

Ugh. You said it. The s*** they pulled on Clinton will look like Kindygarden play by the time BHO's first term gets started. Am I paranoid to say we could be heading into Allende territory?

Maybe. But they said I was paranoid about Echelon, too; and then warrantless wiretapping went public.

 

 

It's even more important now that we do what we need to in order to fix the middle class. Ezra Klein spoke of this today, and so did Larry Summers, to whom he linked in this post:

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=09&year=2008&...

 An excerpt:

A recession creates a straightforward Keynesian case for increased investment. When natural economic demand slackens, the need for public investment to kickstart the economy increases. Meanwhile, short-term problems do not obviate long-term threats. The looming dangers posed by health costs, global warming, etc, will not pause to politely wait out our recession. Most everyone knows that. But there's no doubt that if Obama -- or McCain -- is elected, that House Republicans and others opposed to action on these issues will pretend that the bailout somehow extinguishes our ability to act, and reduces the urgency of the problems. They will be lying.

 

Read the entire post and I think you'll see what he means.

Al, good line about fighting "as if you are 777 points down." You are right, and we can't leave anything to chance. Through this entire season I have been privately satisfied that the national polls remained close but as long as they did, because that meant that us Obama supporters would never rest.  If Obama drifted up to a lead of 8-10 and stayed there, maybe some would not have made as many phone calls or decided to watch football rather than canvas on Sunday afternoons.  I know that a month to go is a long time, but even my GOP friends are losing hope as they cringe at both Palin and McCain's recent respective performances. 

 

OT, but the McCain/Palin joint interview with Couric looked so uncomfortable.  Why'd they go back to Couric? Palin looked like a truant student who was forced to return to the principal's office with her Dad in tow.

 

Meanwhile, Barack was on fire in Fredericksburg in the rain. Awesome imagery.

 

 

Jason - I would never share a foxhole with Lawrence Summers either. And as we're enjoying Homecoming Week in East Lansing, I'll tell you all about it!

Wow. We can be heroes.

I'm reading your words and I'm reminded of the countless nights I have stayed up talking with my husband about the road this country has gone down. So many of us tried to stand up and shout-"wait, that's the wrong way."

Though we both knew this day would come, we did not know when and we certainly did not know how. At times it seemed like the values we stood for, things like hope, truth and empathy were being pushed aside by greed and the sayanddoanythingtogetaheadmentality. So many times I wondered if I would have a chance to become a part of something greater in my lifetime? I stop and think sometimes about how lucky we are at this moment. Though things may be falling down around us, we will soon have a leader-who by his own admission will never be perfect, but will listen to us and partner with us.

Al-this spoke volumes to me and made me cry. Wow.

"And as bizarre as things are about to get, enjoy the moment. They're folding their cards because you built a force they could not stop. And so now they will attempt to destroy the value of what is won: a nation.

But for us, below and to the left, what mattered most was destroyed by them already. And the munitions and work tools that they drop and leave behind as they run for the hills can and will be put to use to build a new society from the ashes of the old."

In a certain way, I almost feel free again Free to let myself believe that come November 4, 2008 tomorrow finally will be a better day....

I've been telling myself I'm paranoid to think that this $700,000,000,000 package is a deliberate attempt to sabotage Obama's ability to govern.  Or to rip every last possible cent from the government for the wealthy before Bush leaves office.  Or both.

So I loved this post.  I may be paranoid, but at least I'm not alone.  :-)

Al, I have to say that of all commentators and activists so far, you have been the most consistently and publicly forward-looking. The life of the nation going forward beyond the election is the long-term game plan, and not many are bothering with it right now. I respect you for this, and best wishes for your dreams and plans in the coming months!

someone... maybe atrios... mentioned the idea of having a "real" democratic bill. One that Dennis, Barney, and my own rep (Tammy Baldwin, who went centrist) could all get behind. I think that there is a legitimate majority waiting to be coalesced. The Obama I know is pretty good at sussing out this kind of thing and putting a name to it... call it the new American majority or something. I think that he can put together a plan that dares the Repubs to come along.

In the meantime, you're right in suggesting we all double down. We have 35 days left or so. Let's take this momentum, build on it, and grow a movement that is sustainable for years beyond.

is not enirely comfortable Al, as you well know. I have a feeling we may get to know a lot more about community organizing. It's a good thing so many are getting well trained.

In the meantime, yes it will be some kind of fun "chasing them into the hills."

I just wanted to thank you, Al, for finally opening my eyes to the big picture.  This election and the Obama campaign have consumed my attention for over a year now--far longer than I maintain most interests--and I've been walking around with the vague notion that, come Nov. 5 and until Jan. 20, I would gradually lose interest and life would return to normal.

But I have dreamed of an improved country--a more perfect union--and, thankfully, this post has made me realize that the movement is bigger than one election.  It cannot stop in November, or in January, or in any coming month and year...nor can my committment.  So thank you for all your hard work and valuable insight, and thank you for helping me realize the greater demands of true patriotism.

this bill as bad as it is is needed, where will the money come from to have Obama's progressive agenda implimented?

It was after a crazy drive over the dustroads of Kabul that I finally sat down with Malalai Joya - a meeting I wanted very much and that took lots of last minute changes and safety measures to get. Outside were scary looking men with turbans and very big rifles - her security staff - standing guard and inside food was served while she told me that this wasn't about more money perse: "We'll rebuild our country with our bare hands". For that, security would be needed but she thought it equally or even more important that those who had raped and looted the country - the warlords - would not be allowed to be recycled in democracy as a guise to continue keeping the nation in a perpetual state of failure.

If I understand Al and others correctly, something similar is happening in the US; those who now "run for the hills" are trying to create a hollow state in which they can have it their way even if they're not governing. And this is why this campaign has to continue after Nov 4: Unlike Afghanistan, you're holding the advantage. This movement the Obama campaign has ignited is too well organized to allow America to be turned into an even bigger lawless looters paradise. Remember that this campaign is not about Obama, it's about you (or us, or we, depending on where you place Dutchmen in Panama and I have to admit that at times I feel a kind of useless here). No matter through what kind of glasses you look at it - shock doctrine, Karl Marx, the Bolivarian revolution - this is the moment to seize and make that country yours, not Obama's. I recall that Al, on the former home of this blog, wrote something about how the flame of community organizing had moved South and now comes back North. Look at what happened next in the South; for example in Bolivia or just yesterday in Ecuador. I don't think there will be any sitting back and wait for the progressive agenda to be implemented. You'll have to do it yourselves, and with your bare hands.

 

The financial blogs like Calculated Risk are on fire, posts flying as the bloggers follow the money down the rathole.

There is a glimmer of consensus that the best use of the 700 billion would be to feed it into the system at the grassroots. This is to say, get it to the source of the problem, underwater home owners, so that it rejuvenates all these dessicated bonds.

The Paulson/Bush idea of a top down money dump on the culprits who crafted the mess is near suicidal. Paulson wants to do insane pet tricks like eliminating the mark to market requirement and this is making financially astute types apoplectic.

Mark to market means you figure out what the toxic paper is really worth and sell it for that even if it's 3 cents on the dollar.It is a foundation stone of the entire system. Paulson wants to dodge it and uphold the current fantasy status quo of 'Mark to model' or 'its worth what we imagine it's worth'. Oh that'll work.

The dead bill was loaded with nutty egregious aspects like that one and it suggests Paulson/Bush really do want to kick the problem down the road after throwing some lipstick on it.

The pigmen really have blown it. To see monstrosities like Goldman Sachs throw in the towel and run to the comparative safety of regular banking is the end of an era dominated by these marginally regulated and reckless investment banks. Now all the major ones are either dead or going for a structural makeover.

This won't be solved in the 35 days before election nor in the year or so after. Thank heavens Obama showed up as the Clintons would have made a hash of things. The big dawg Bill, is a contributing player  to this mess with his failed and cynical triangulation that turned the Democratic Party into GOP lite.

Hi All

In the midst of all this drama, be sure and check out Chris Rock's interview on Larry King this past weekend.  It's on Jack and Jill Politics.  We could use some comic relief although like always Chris adds interesting social commentary. 

Marvin Gaye's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner is pretty good too.

Be safe Al.  Parts of Pa can be dangerous for people like you :)

 

 

 

The way I see it, this nation still has tremendous resources. We still have the ability to right this ship. What's missing has been the will. And behind that, what's been missing is leadership. A tremendous opportunity was blown when 9/11 came and went with nothing more than an exhortation to shop and consume for the good of the nation.

Life is not perfect. I do not believe in utopian states. We will always have problems. Yet, a demographer once told me, about 15 years ago, that the U.S. will eventually be what he called a social welfare state. Like the states one sees in Europe. Even though it seemed a conservative time, growing ever more conserative, he made this prediction based on our demographics. Older populations demand certain services he argued.

It could be that we're seeing the birth pains associated with that shift. Those on the right are doing their best to thwart the possibility. But the more people are pushed toward the edge and over, the more the constituency for real change builds.

Yet it's like plate tectonics. These forces of change are subteranian. They build and build and build until one day something slips and then everything shifts across a fault line. Then suddenly, after years of seeming stability, there's a new landscape.

A new political landscape is coming. Al is right that it's up to us to be vigilent in order to help shape and maintain that landscape. There are forever self centered people who want to bend things to their advantage. (Thus, no utopias.)

Here's an interesting take on the financial crisis:

http://jaydiatribe.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-dows-drop-may-save-us.html

Also, thanks to the person who posted the link to Robert Reich's blog (or a link to something else that linked to the blog). Reich's blog is the most hopeful thing I've seen yet, and I like the idea of "only" committing 150 billion initially.

And to all who have provided such great stories from your canvassing - your stories have lifted me up.  Thank you!

Thank you for the response. There were some new ideas and some good useful input.  Know that your suggestions are now in motion for tomorrow.  Knew you'd help.

From today's Sydney Morning Herald:

 

"Obama wins by a landslide - in Australia

ALMOST three-quarters of Australians want Barack Obama to win the US presidential election while only 16 per cent back John McCain, the latest snapshot of Australian attitudes to a range of foreign policy issues shows.

The Lowy Institute's annual survey found Australians' trust in the US had bounced back from a decline in previous years but they were becoming more wary about China.

There were also big concerns about investment by foreign governments and a desire for Australia to do more to stop Japanese whaling."

 

I've attended a number of official City of Sydney functions in the last week and everyone is rooting for Mr Obama. One of the Lord Mayor's longtime staff members is leaving at the end of the week for Ohio as a campaign volunteer.

[Manly]BondiBeachViews

According to Andrea Mitchell, Newt Gingrich, who plans to run for president in 2012, undercut Baynor by calling GOP members and telling them not to vote for the bill, that it was Socialism and a terrible bill.  After the bill was voted on, he said it was a good bill and needed to pass.  Another example of GOP hypocrisy!

Gov. Eliot Spitzer's eerie prediction on our current economic crisis, written Feb, 08!

"When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html
 
(My take on this crisis, is that Lenders suckered average folks into mortgages which they could afford at first.  Because there were no Regulations or Oversight, these Lenders would raise the monthly mortgages to an amount they could no longer afford!  The houses were then foreclosed on and then re-sold again to some other unsuspecting victim, until the whole deck of cards has collapsed.  What is compelling, is that before the total collapse, CEO's pay themselves millions, sometimes billions as compensation pay for the said collapse!)
 
For instance, "In 2007, Wall Street's five biggest firms-- Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley -   paid a record $39 billion in bonuses to themselves."  From ABC's Political Punch
 
Could one of the Main reasons why these companies fail and go under, be due to the enormously high salaries paid to CEO's (millions of dollars a year salaries) which actually, and in the end, bankrupt these companies!

@ Michael Chapman --Great news from Australia! And that about one of the staff members of the Lord Mayor going to Ohio pretty much sums up the community organizing movement that Sen. Obama inspires.

Al - as you noted, it's generally the polar opposites who are voting together against the bill and all centrists plus those not up for re-election voting for it.  Me first -not country first -still goes on even when our basic financial markets being able to function is at stake. Bush is supposed to speak again this morning to calm the fears of the 12% who still listen to him.

In one of the diaries on DKos was a picture of a young demonstrator from yesterday holding a sign "REPENT GOP. THE END IS NEAR".  Now THAT is a sign I can believe in. Those hills look only about 35 days away...I don't think it's a mirage...

I think there's something more going on. Whenever the administration yells 'Fire!' and Congress enables or falls for it, and the media hype it so that people trample each other to save their own hides, then I know it's time for research.

Seven years ago I asked myself, why the World Trade Center and why Building 7, which among other key orgs, housed the SEC?

I think the current 'crisis' may be part of a strategy pointing beyond PNAC to the Bilderberg Group. Whether created, supported, or manipulated by some of their members, the 'Economic Pearl Harbor' http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/sep/25/banking.wallstreet1 gives them the opportunity to merge and centralize banks, and thus centralize power, influence, and resources.

Sift through the interpretations, projections, suppositions, and CLing here and note the salient facts: http://whitewraithe.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/bilderberg-seeks-bank-centralization-agenda/

Also note that Tony Blair now works for JP Morgan: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7180306.stm

My tin hat is packed away, but does anyone have a deeper insight into what's going on?

P.S. The good news is that We the People are waking up... and staying awake.

 

If I choose to be with Barney Frank, that means I'm also with George W. Bush and Robert Rubin, two that I would neither ever share a foxhole with, as much as I like Barney and Dennis.

While I agree with you 100% about Rubin (and, of course, Dubya), I noticed that Robert Rubin was one of the first people Barack Obama invited into the foxhole with him.

There is a lot of political kabuki over this bailout (and in this post), but it is clear that Obama and Rubin and Bush and McCain are all on the same side of this thing.

And actually progressive economists like Joe Stiglitz are on the outside looking in.

The disconnect between the impressive, progressive grassroots movement behind Obama and the inspirational corporate centrism of the candidate himself has never been greater.

(And just so that I am not misunderstood here, I continue to support Obama as the lesser evil.  But I also continue to feel that in four years, under an Obama presidency, we'll still be in Iraq, we'll have no real national healthcare... and, with Obama's blessing, we'll have paid over a trillion dollars in corporate welfare to the Wall Street barons who fund both major parties.)

Michael Chapman, I met a couple from Sydney at the Monterey Jazz Festival last weekend--a retired pediatrician and his wife, and I was gratified to hear the intense interest in this election, and the delight at seeing Obama shirts and buttons everywhere. They were curious as to my reasons for supporting Obama, and while there are many, a major one for me is restoring our reputation in the world; they wholeheartedly agreed. They had been stunned though, to have been on the plane with a young American who was so hateful towards Obama as to be described by them as "virulent." I had no answer for that one. 

Just curious, is there something about the Illinois Senator that causes the GOP to self-implode?  Current events have a strange similarity to his U.S. Senate campaign with the lead GOP candidate having to drop out and they send in carpetbagger Alan Keyes to run against him?! That was the first "Sarah Palin" strategy that hugely  backfired.  And as a result, we had a huge number of suburban Republicans in Illinois who sat out that election. 

It's well-made and incredibly motivational. It really reminds everyone of why we have to register as many new voters as possible.

Ben - And in 1998, Hugo Chavez invited Gustavo Cisneros (richest man in the country, owner of Univision) into his foxhole with him. Everything that happens in a campaign is about appearances... and means little in terms of how a candidate will govern once in office.

Standing next to Rubin was Joseph Stiglitz - the two have radically different economic ideologies (the first is a poster boy for loot-and-pillage global capitalism, the second for standing up against it). Rubin is the symbol of Clinton economics. A lot of those Clinton Democrats think he has the most sound judgment. They're wrong, but they're an important group of voters for Obama.

I just think progressives have little attention for the nuances of politics and why so many think that what happens in a campaign has anything to do with governing astonishes me, because we have decades of history on the record that prove, definitively, that it's not the case.

I would no more tell you that Stiglitz standing there indicated anything about how Obama would govern than you should assume because Rubin was there. The bailout bill is a side show involving what is already "funny money." Whether it passes or not is just not the apocalyptic matter that both sides are projecting upon it. Those that angrily oppose the bailout are, to me, the same as those that angrily favor it: missing the big picture.

 

I'm already imagining Al's book tour, after President Obama is elected.  Feel some comfort knowing more & more people will be reading the words we're reading, facing the truth, and working together to build what each of us for many, many years has dreamed our country could be.

Who ever is still working on the Field Hand logo, let's add a phoenix!

Thanks again, Al.  Hard to read this one, thank you!

You wrote:

But for us, below and to the left, what mattered most was destroyed by them already.

What is the what in that sentence, please?

Thanks.

I just think progressives have little attention for the nuances of politics and why so many think that what happens in a campaign has anything to do with governing astonishes me, because we have decades of history on the record that prove, definitively, that it's not the case.

I agree with Al 100%, this is political theater, holding a rigid ideological frameworks and sticking to them is why the left loses election NEWSFLASH: most people want reasonable, pragmatic government that puts their best interest above all...ideologues from both sides do nothing but alienate the majority. Obama was masterful with this Kabuki theater, he was praised by the WSJ of all papers for the set of advisers he chose. For me personally it displayed pragmatism, keen awareness of the people's desire to govern not from an ideological perspective but from a pragmatic one.

I just think progressives have little attention for the nuances of politics and why so many think that what happens in a campaign has anything to do with governing astonishes me, because we have decades of history on the record that prove, definitively, that it's not the case.

History actually suggests that it has something to do with governing (to take but one example, Nixon's style of campaigning had a close family relationship to his style of governing), but you're 100% correct to caution us that what a candidate says and does to get elected and what he or she does once elected are not the same thing.

And as I often find myself saying, I certainly hope you're right--and I'm wrong--about what an Obama presidency will look like.

At any rate, given the likely course of a McCain presidency, your optimism and my cynicism point in the same political direction at this moment.

"Whether it passes or not is just not the apocalyptic matter that both sides are projecting upon it."

But if our own business is any indication, a high percentage of the country is holding their breath ... and is holding off on purchasing decisions until news about the economy becomes more stable.

This will lead to massive unemployment and dislocation if it continues into the Christmas holiday.

You know, this post and Al's stance on Obama's FISA vote seem to pit Obama's authenticity against Obama's Kabuki theatre. So now we are to see Obama as a Trojan Horse ready to usher in an era of leftist policies?  Obama isn't really all about the votes he has shown us, he is about the movement you want to see?  Even with an Obama Presidency, you will find that his voters' paths will diverge on these economic issues.  Not sure Rubin and Stiglitz in any way minimizes the divergence in these views and the trouble it will cause down the line.

Which is your point too -- buckle down and use community organizing post haste,  post election to fight for a new system in America.  And maybe even against President Obama? Is that a part of your larger point and, perhaps, your larger vision?  

When I see my invested dollars shrivel and your view of over a trillion dollars vaporized in 5 hours  as somehow ushering in a new dawn for left policies, I'm seeing the paths diverge.  Delight in the face of an unprecedented loss of investment value which hurts individual Americans not just corporate behemoths is hard for me to take silently.  I hope you do not find this disrespectful and I am glad to take the commentary elsewhere.  It is your blog, of course, and your commentary is why people come here. But I do challenge what I perceive to be the underlying points in your post. That is, Obama somehow is not the centrist/compromiser he plays on teevee, and that this is great because the grass roots can build a brand new America in the image of .... well, of what? 

 

I just went to sign up for Camp Obama, a way to become more involved with community organizing. Tell me people aren't on fire trying to take this country back. I see a movement about to explode.

Here's the message from the Obama campaign:

Apply to be a Deputy Field Organizer

 

Camp Obama trainings offer an in-depth look at the strategies and techniques that have driven this campaign since the beginning. They'll prepare you to lead our Get Out The Vote efforts in a battleground state, working as a Deputy Field Organizer during the final weeks of the campaign.

We'll be holding sessions at locations in Connecticut in the coming weeks. They'll be led by experienced Obama campaign staffers and other professional organizers who are eager to empower dedicated supporters like you.

 

Due to an overwhelming response to attend this program we are currently NOT accepting any more applications for Camp Obama. Those who have signed up will be contacted only if they have been selected for the upcoming program. Thank you for your support and interest.

 

Al is absolutely right to emphasize that the movement to create a society and economy that does justice for everyone goes far beyond November 4. That's one of the reasons why none of us should take satisfaction in the carnage on Wall Street, however much it creates the possibility of an Obama landslide. Obama voters' 401(k)'s and pensions are suffering too, and the credit freeze is leading to lay-offs of workers as we speak, today. The "bail-out" was a technical mechanism to extract bad debt from threatened financial institutions, as well as an emergency psychological measure to reassure world credit markets that the U.S. government would act to stop the domestic panic and prevent a major global economic implosion. Without some sort of legislation out of Congress in the next week of equivalent size, more American financial institutions (including small local banks) will fail, the Fed will have no choice but to print more money, and inflation and unemployment will rise simultaneously. How many more points on the unemployment and bank failure numbers are you willing to accept, for a few more Obama electoral votes on November 4? The reality is that if there is no decisive government action to halt the credit crisis before the election, Obama will inherit a much more seriously weakened economy and be digging out from a deeper hole for far longer into his new administration. What happens this fall can affect his ability to govern progressively. Let's hope that some sort of systematic U.S. government action proportionate to the world credit crisis is taken soon, because we all want Barack, once elected, to be able to act on the plans and priorities he's talking about. You do not want his entire first term to be digging out from under more debris left by the fecklessness of Bush and the obduracy of congressional Republicans.

I saw something troubling on Democracy Now last night: Dennis Kucinich that the bankruptcy provisions of the bailout plan, which would have given judges the power to alter the terms of mortgages, were struck from the final bill because Obama was against them.

The bankruptcy provisions were the most helpful thing for Main Street in the whole misbegotten bill.  I can't think of a good reason, even a political one, why Obama would have opposed it.  I hope Kucinich is mistaken about this.

Full interview here: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/29/is_this_the_united_states_congress

You are right on with your comments.

I don't know if the credit markets will collapse without some sort of intervention, but it certainly seems possible.  It seems to me, though, that to not address the situation involves some pretty damned high-stakes gambling.

No idea if anyone here reads Pearlstein at WaPo, but he's been pretty accurate for a couple of years in terms of what he saw in this financial situation (and won a Pulitzer for his efforts).  He had an interesting column today in response to yesterday's vote (also a good column yesterday before the vote).  This guy is pretty conservative, so his third-to-last paragraph is striking.

I'm not the nervous type, but when I see a conservative business writer saying that in the near term the government will have to nationalize large chunks of the financial sector, it does cause a bit of unease.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/29/AR200809...

love the dog-whistle.

 

y no esperaba menos, al.  gracias por demostrar que "el güero si agarra la onda".

 

I never thought i would read el sub's and la sexta's words applied to USAmerican politics.  But it has never looked better for those of us below and to the left...

Co-sign.

I remember cruising around suburban Birmingham back in '96 when I was reading Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere for an urban geography class. My buddy and I were amazed at the rampant cookie-cutter housing spreading ever further from anything meaningful and useful, tearing up perfectly good farmland and forest in the process. Unsustainable was our conclusion.

Suburbia is built on cheap oil. It depends on it for survival. When oil goes up in price, suburbia gets more expensive to maintain and it's value drops. I think what we are seeing recently, with "credit default swaps" (can anyone think of a more hollow representation of value?) is the collapsing of a virtual house of cards that portends the collapse of suburbia as a viable place for people to inhabit.

This political movement has to be a bridge to a more sustainable America. I feel for those folks who might lose their jobs or their houses, but for the good of the country, I'd rather let the entire suburban bubble burst than hamstring the Obama admin. with a huge golden band-aid to pay for propping up this wasteful economy.

Kunstler's blog, Clusterfuck Nation, is awesome.

website = endofsuburbia.com.   I saw the film in a group setting as a part of a larger movement - transitionculture.org for more information.  You would be surprised what is going on in Los Angeles, of all unsustainable places.

Chris E. - When I heard Obama speak of this, I understood him to say that he did not want this provision, among others, in this bill because they would keep it from being passed.  He preferred to present a stripped down bill that had a better chance of passing and include other provisions in a later bill when things had settled a bit.  He seemed to be in favor of the idea, just not of putting it in this bill.

I agree with Tribunas points -- and that is that large scale governmental action must be taken to solve a deep and wide problem. In a perfect world, it would happen before Nov. 4. This will more than likely not occur and a temporary measure (like the bail-out) will pass now. After the election, the dems MIGHT feel emboldened (assuming an Obama presidency) and pass something more sweeping and more progressive then basically dare Bush to veto it. But so much depends on how the crisis holds out until then.

If you make the assumption that only the bail out will pass, and nothing else until after the election, do you say "do nothing"?  That is the real issue on the bail-out, IMO. The Congress is so dysfunctional and neither party has a real leader -- sweeping legislation to address these issues is unlikely right now. Maybe, maybe the dems can swing some of their voters over with a lot of effort -- but the ideological fissures will show.

The point of who Obama is and where he is coming from on these issues still stands, despite the very different discussion in these comments that the economy is in crisis (and the differing views of what that means). And that is the more basic point I was addressing to Al.   For better or for worse, Obama will govern from the center, he will compromise on significant points, and he will not turn his back on Wall Street. Sometimes I hate the outcome (FISA) sometimes I don't.  I think it is too early to tell where Obama stands in terms of something that is probably needed -- truly nationalize the financial markets. I do not think he has the support or the inclination for that and the Congress is basically crippled. The center won't hold and there is not enough votes on the margins.  Frankly, I am not optimistic about the outcome.  [I am an Obama supporter and have spent a lot of time and money to try to get him elected.  I just do not see him as a candidate who will deliver the arguments for legislation  in the way Al suggests and Congress can't do it.  Nonetheless, he is the best choice and hope and I continue to support him. He will win. And he will inherit a mess.]

For all who need a good reason to recommend that people vote early with paper absentee ballots as much as possible, this ten-part YouTube series by staunchly Republican cyber-analyst Stephen Spoonamore is riveting. I would call it a must-see for every American. A ten-part series that will not put you to sleep.

Spoonamore is one of the top network engineers in the nation and works mainly in the banking/credit card field. He appeared as an expert witness this September in the Ohio vote fraud case currently in court.

all too rarely, a writer strings words together and they become a masterpiece.  That's what Al's done in this article.

I drove to Reno last night from Folsom, CA to attend Obama's speech this morning at the University of Nevada - Reno campus. It was well worth the hike over the mountains. Since he addressed yesterday's vote on the bailout plan, the major media all covered it, so you'll see footage from the rally this evening if you haven't already.

Obama did a great job of selling the effort in Congress in real terms, including explaining how these assets will likely increase in value and return much of the outlay to the taxpayer.  If Bush had explained it as well, perhaps Congress would have supported him.

I went to the website to see if everything Obama said was scripted, and found that some of his best lines were improvised.  From his prepared remarks:

But while there is plenty of blame to go around and many in Washington and on Wall Street who deserve it, all of us now have a responsibility to solve this crisis because it affects the financial well-being of every single American. There will be time to punish those who set this fire, but now is the moment for us to come together and put the fire out.

But live, he riffed on that last sentence in a way that connected with the crowd.

He went on to say, if your neighbor's house is on fire, that isn't the time to talk about how irresponsible your neighbor is, how he leaves the stove on or smokes in bed, because the fire that is engulfing his house could spread to yours.  First, you must put out the fire before your own home is affected.

The event was very well organized, they moved a huge crowd of people through security, and it was a beautiful day.  At one point a flock of geese flew overhead in a V while Obama was speaking, and for me it was a perfect metaphor for how he has inspired us to organize ourselves into a flock of geese, drafting on each other's energy and honking encouragement as we fly to our goal.

Al, your post is great and reminds me of an article by Howard Zinn from 2004 called "The Optimism of Uncertainty" and how things have changed.

I put this article up on the board by the coffee machine at work and sent it around via email after I found it after the November 04 elections - a very dark time indeed (we had had seen New Orleans flooded and bereft; saw the photos from Abu Ghraib; watched our civil rights eroded; witnessed more questionable election/voting issues; and watched the media, for the most part, act as news readers instead of journalists). Zinn's article was a call to me, a reassurance and, I'm glad to say, a harbinger of what I feel has come to pass in this country by those of us who do struggle, who act, who hope. Thank you for reminding me of it and of where we're heading and why.

I've noted some of Zinn said below but for the whole article is wonderful and worth reading:

"...it's clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience--whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just.

...

I have tried hard to match my friends in their pessimism about the world (is it just my friends?), but I keep encountering people who, in spite of all the evidence of terrible things happening everywhere, give me hope. Especially young people, in whom the future rests. Wherever I go, I find such people. And beyond the handful of activists there seem to be hundreds, thousands, more who are open to unorthodox ideas. But they tend not to know of one another's existence, and so, while they persist, they do so with the desperate patience of Sisyphus endlessly pushing that boulder up the mountain. I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.

...

An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."

The link you provided looks like bogus. I'm all in favor of abolishing voting machines and doing everything by paper, but this part makes Spoonamore's claim very hard to believe:

Here Spoon tells us that McBush's team--i.e., Karl Rove and his henchpersons-- have their plan in place to steal this next election: by 51.2% of the popular vote, and three electoral votes.

This is impossible. Many states require voter-verified paper records, so you simply cannot get that exact percentage or number of electoral votes by manipulating the machines. This man is a nut.

I suggest you google Spoonamore's name and check his credentials before deciding he's a nut, or calling me a panic creator. Spoonamore is the person who first called attention to the danger of electronic voting machines in the late 90s before anyone knew it was an issue.

You can start with his affidavit (note #4 & #5) as an expert witness in the Ohio vote fraud case currently in US District Court in Columbus. Read his credentials.

As for this sentence: "...you simply cannot get that exact percentage or number of electoral votes by manipulating the machines," you need to spend a lot of time reading the archives here. Because you are wrong about that. Here's one in particular you might be interested in, since it was BlackBoxVoting's subsequent proof of hacking that resulted in California changing its laws to require a paper trail.

The reason why there are green states on the link you provided is because of the work done by Stephen Spoonamore and Bev Harris. You are unaware of the history of this issue over the past ten years.

I downloaded the Diebold software that Bev Harris located on a Diebold unprotected website a few years ago and recreated the hack myself on my own WIN machine, since I was as disbelieving as you at one time too. I was able to alter the numbers of votes or set a percentage of the total votes for each candidate. I repeat: I did this myself on my computer.

YouTubes abound showing precisely what you claim is impossible. Start with this one proving it in an independent test at Princeton University. Or search for <<vote fraud>> in the YouTube search field.

But vote fraud has now become faaaar more sophisticated than simply interrupting numbers in a precinct or district tabulator. As Spoonamore described in the series above, now hackers -- foreign governments -- can penetrate the entire national network responsible for providing election eve numbers to state governments and the media.

Since only 18 states have paper requirements, there are 32 states still available this election cycle for vote fraud mischief. Total the electoral votes in those states and the impossibility you claim evaporates.

That's why I like Spoonamore's suggestion to use paper absentee ballots to reduce the possibility.

You cited http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

One of the Board advisors is this guy:

Aviel D. Rubin, Associate Professor of Computer Science Johns Hopkins University. Background: Computer security expert, co-author of Johns Hopkins / Rice report and "A Security Analysis of the Secure Electronic Registration & Voting Experiment (SERVE)."

Bev Harris was the one who got Rubin involved in the vote fraud issue years ago because she sent the Diebold software she discovered to him.

Go to this page on the verifiedvoting.org site. Scroll to the bottom. The very bottom for the 2003 dates. See Bev Harris' name there?

Bev Harris and Stephen Spoonamore have been involved together for a long time. Try here (in which it says he was an advisor to the McCain campaign at one point) and here and here and here (note last paragraphs) and google for more if you are interested.

Good morning: Once the deadlines for registering new voters are done, we will address the matter of "protecting the vote" from suppression of voters and from attempts at fraud.

I think the matter is real, but also exaggerated a lot and handled very badly by a lot of people that want to simply say "your vote doesn't matter" without offering a constructive path of action to combat it. Most of the anonymous comments on the subject don't make it through here because they're just Chicken Little or "Eeyore" comments that don't arm anybody to protect the vote.

Alexa's comment made it through because she said "make sure you vote early and on paper." That's one of the very simple steps that can beat attempts at fraud.

Here, we're not going to engage in the existential debate - "is there electoral fraud or not"? - Of course there is, but part of it includes irresponsible statements that make people think their vote doesn't count, so why vote anyway? I'm sure that the very same people attempting it are among those posting to Internet sites in panicked ways about it. If such talk deters anyone from voting, it has already succeeded before any hacker has a chance to alter the logorhythms.

For those that want to do something about it, Black Box Voting has a Took Kit - it can be downloaded for free - to arm yourself to vigil and guard against it in each state.

Basically, yes, it exists, but no, it is not so easy or omnipotent that it can flick a switch and therefore rob a high turnout election, and the best way to beat it is to flood the ballot box with too many votes for hackers or anybody else to counteract (something that is actually happening this year).

And when people say, "the vote is fixed" while also saying "how can you vote for a corporate candidate? Obama is the same as McCain!" we know their agenda is not protecting the vote but, rather, to show they're purer than you or me and the effect of their work is the same as Karl Rove's - to try and suppress you from voting. Those people can kindly grab a nice big cup of STFU and take their schtick elsewhere, thank you.

Basically, unless someone is offering the positive steps to defend the vote, I consider 90 percent of what is typed about it on the Internet to be ridiculously panicky and am glad it happens on other sites, but not here.

When we address it - in the weeks prior to the vote - we will address it systematically, strategically, with action plans to prevent it. Without that it does border on panic spreading, when in fact it should be taken as an opportunity to clean up democracy.

I appreciate your research into this matter. I think voting machines are dangerous and I agree completely that they can be manipulated fairly easily without leaving any traces. That's why I think they should be abolished and voting should happen by paper only. I also agree that everyone should vote by absentee ballot to minimize fraud risk.

The thing is, you cannot know in advance how the vote will turn out in the "green" states, where voter-verified paper records are mandatory and where mass-scale fraud is therefore impossible. So yes, in theory you can manipulate the machines to get to exactly 51.2% of the vote in the non-green states where VVPR are not required (not counting absentee ballots), but you cannot get that exact percentage of the popular vote in the country as a whole, because you can manipulate only part of the country. That's what makes Spoonamore's claim so bizarre.

Without that it does border on panic spreading, when in fact it should be taken as an opportunity to clean up democracy.

Precisely. This sunrise of new facts about what can and does go on should produce broad smiles that a bright day is coming. Because its fixable. But first you have to be able to define the problem...and the scope of it...and you have to be okay with the fact that shit happens. The delish part is that these backroom phucks have been caught.

I remember when Daniel Hopsicker produced a handheld video about vote fraud with touch screens in the 2000 Florida election. He made the flick right after the election. The machines were still in the warehouse so he was able to capture what the machines had recorded, and how they’d flipped the vote. The female candidate harmed in that FL race requested the after-check of the equipment, which gave Hopsicker his warehouse access. Hopsicker also filmed the various touch screen manufacturers’ supposed “offices” around the country. Hilarious, but disturbing. He went into the criminal backgrounds of two of the owners.

I bought his DVD years ago and tried to interest people in watching it. Snore. Massive snore.

My friends thought I was making a mountain out of a precinct or district molehill. That it was just an isolated incident, vote fraud doesn’t go on, no state would recommend touch screens if they knew they could be hacked, election officials would never ever allow it to happen, just another conspiracy theory, blah-blah-blah.

Well. Incorrectamundo.

The army of ordinary people who do understand the problem now, mainly as a result of Bev Harris’s work, is significant. They’re organized. They’re informed. And they’ve got a plan. And they dont panic because they understand the scope of the problem and how to counter it. Harris doesn’t suffer drama queens in her operation.

That said, I have a fact-friendly approach to conspiracies. The more facts that pop up that are irrefutable the happier I get. I love megawatt flashlights thrown on the snakes infecting our ground, makes me breathe easier. [I like clean closets in my real life, no matter what the mess on my desk or counters. Subterranean order, hidden order, is absolute sanity to me. That's why I go there.]

And that’s why Spoonamore is such a prize to me. He is an acknowledged expert in his field with no axe to grind other than to secure our vote as a democratic right. He is so knowledgeable about the subterranean processes of computer and network security that his warnings can’t be ignored; he’s informative; he’s direct, and he gets to the point. All of his YouTube interviews are well worth watching.

And he’s squealing on the Republicans now -- he was a Rove campaign hire -- even though as he remarked ten days ago, he’s “taking a heavy financial hit” as a result.

So yes, in theory you can manipulate the machines to get to exactly 51.2% of the vote in the non-green states where VVPR are not required (not counting absentee ballots), but you cannot get that exact percentage of the popular vote in the country as a whole, because you can manipulate only part of the country.

Actually, Emma, you can. Has to do with the software. See, you can't alter numbers uploaded from the memory card in the application. But the app (in tabulator computers) sits on the C Drive, like any app; however the data entered into the app is not app-dependent. It sits on the C drive separate and apart and you can open it from the C drive, alter the information by either number or percentage, save, then open the app and see your changes. I did it.

This is just one method, however.

Another, like the Finnish expert who showed this to Harris, is altering the memory card before it reaches the machine. Negative numbers for a candidate can be preset (say, -6,000) and the candidates doesn't show any votes until 6001 people have voted for him. (Just one alteration possible on the memory card.)

Another method was detailed earlier this year in which the memory card accounted for all the machine accuracy checks performed on election day in front of election officials but still contained contaminated code that flipped votes for candidates according to preset percentages. I put that video link up here a couple of months, but I dont have it at hand now.

These are just three of many. Spoonamore's latest warning is that the sophistication has grown exponentially. Now foreign hackers have figured out how to access and alter the results. (I understand what he's talking about technically, but it's too arcane to get into here.) As Spoonamore told his Republican buddies who thought this was just a national scam they had control over, You've let the genie out of the bottle. Now you dont know who is in this game.

If you have extra time, search for Spoonamore's name on You Tube and watch his interviews over the years. He will explain how this works really clearly.

Forgot to add that the way they get those percentages to work out to an exact degree is via the algorithm, which would alter the results during election night in real time to reflect the algorithm rules.

In other words, it's liquid.