When Jon Stewart has the smartest sounding idea around, we're in trouble...

So, Jon Stewart floats this option every time anyone remotely connected to the economy is on his show, and I have yet to hear one of them argue why it can't be done. Nobody has put forward a reason why his option would be worse than any of the other options we've heard.

Here's Stewart's idea in a nutshell, then I'll add my own brilliant flourishes (make it shiny!):

- The insurance companies (like AIG) are in trouble, because they have insured these loans that just aren't going to get paid back, and they can't afford to cover the banks' losses;
- The banks are in trouble because they have all of these loans on their books that aren't going to get paid back, and so their actual capital is less than what they need to be able to loan money out like they're supposed to;
- The homeowners are in trouble because they have these mortgages they can't pay back because they were stupid/gullible/greedy/whatever and were lured into taking out mortgages that they couldn't afford (and shouldn't have been approved for).

So far, our solution has been to give money to the insurance companies and banks: Now the insurance companies can cover the losses they've insured at the banks, and the banks can start lending money again. Homeowners... well, sorry, you're screwed... but you should have known better!

The problem is that the insurance companies and the banks aren't taking the money and using it to fix the economy, they're taking it and awarding themselves crazy bonuses, throwing lavish events, and not putting the money back into circulation in the form of loans, etc. So the economy is not moving forward, and our tax dollars are disappearing.

Jon Stewart thinks it's time to give the 3rd party in the debacle a chance to show us what they'll do with the money. Why not give the bailout money to the homeowners so they can pay off their mortgages? Then, the toxic assets aren't toxic anymore, banks balance books look like they're supposed to (provided they don't start making stupid loans again), AIG et. al. don't have to cover the losses on those loans because they're not losses anymore... problem solved, right?

Those are the pros, what are the cons?
1) Well, do homeowners who took risks they should have known better than taking be bailed out by the goverment? Is that fair to others who either continue to make their payments, or to others who didn't buy a home because they knew that they couldn't really afford it?
2) If we just give money to them, how do we know they'll use it responsibly to pay down their debt? What if they waste it on frivolous spending?

It's funny, because the cons of giving the money to the homeowners are the same as the ocns we've seen fleshed out in gory detail for the banks and insurance giants. So what if we can structure a bailout of homeowners that takes some of our experience with the financial institutions into account?

Right now, we own part of AIG and several banks as taxpayers. I'm not interested in owning those companies, I'd rather own houses! What if the government buys houses from people who are stuck in houses that they're in danger of defaulting on? Here are some ideas to make this work:

1) The government will buy any home that is in danger of foreclosure under certain conditions. Some conditions might have to do with when the loans originated, the payment history before interest was reset for ARMs, the percentage of equity versus the current appraised value of the property, etc.
2) The government will pay a price that covers the payoff amount of the mortgage, plus a percentage of the equity based on some formula that takes the aforementioned conditions into account. The payoff money for the mortgage does not go to the homeowner, but directly to the lending institution, releasing the title to the government. The balance goes to the homeowner in exchange for releasing the title to the government.
3) The government then immediately puts the home on the market, using a formula for the price that takes into account the price paid for the home and the current appraised value for the home. Any financial institution that wants to handle the mortgage for these government sales must choose from a limited number of options, like fixed-rate 30-year notes with minimal interest rates. It might even be an option to offer 40 or 50 year notes to qualifying buyers.
4) Current occupants of the home can be given the first opportunity to apply for the new loan and buy the house back from the government. If they apply (with realistic qualifications), they don't have to move out of the house and then move back in. They don't get the house for free, they get a restructured loan with government assistance.

So, the loans are no longer toxic, just a little bit nauseating. The banks exchange theoretical assetts and interest income that they'll never get back for a less amazing looking return, but a return they will actually receive. The government intervenes to make sure that the bank recoups its initial investment plus interest, though the interest is less amazing than they thought they could get in their pre-bubble-burst fantasy world.

Insurers don't need to save the banks, therefore they don't need government assistance, therefore they can use their own money to pay out bonuses and throw lavish to-dos.

Homeowners don't get a free house from the government, they just get another chance to pay off their debt with restructured loans that are more realistic. People who waited and didn't buy a home with crazy, unrealistic rates now have a chance to buy a house with reasonable rates that will stay reasonable from the government from those homeowners who really shouldn't have even tried, and who lose their homes but don't end up hopelessly in debt.

Why not? There's lots of cons, but I posit that the downside is less dreary than the current system of propping up the financial institutions directly. They've shown they can't be trusted to be responsible with our money. I'm all for giving the little guys a chance to disappoint us. We might be pleasantly surprised...

- "Now begone, before somebody drops a house on you!"

No, not that Matt McDonell...

When you google yourself, you learn all kinds of things about yourself that aren't true... and aren't you. Apparently, my name is common on Milwaukee and Australia. Here are some highlights from google entries that are about other me's:

- Gouda to Matt!! Big Cheese is here for you!!! You have been a wonderful addition to DC, hope to see those posts coming. (Apparently, this other me is a cheese enthusiast)

- Matt .. you have been so much fun and I am a huge fan :) (true, but not about me, unfortunately)

- My name is Matt McDonell, and I’m from Saint Cloud, Minnesota. I was born in California but moved to Minnesota at the age of four, so I’ve known the cold ... (I was born in California, but never lived in Minnesota. Therefore, another me)

- Matt McDonell,. today. revealed the secret to. writing a great media. release. “There are three aspe. cts to this,” he said, “layout, ... (apparently the Australian version of me likes to end sentences whimsically several times within each complete thought whereas I as everyone knows here in the United States will refuse to punctuate long run on streams of thought that could clearly be broken up by at least one period and certainly could use a little help from several commas semi colons and or colons hyphens dashes etc you know what I mean oh yeah question marks too)

- On an individual basis, Matt McDonell was recognized most often (72%) (it seems ironic that I could be recognized most often... and yet it was never me that was being recognized!)

- “The project targets people who are looking for something different”, says Matt McDonell, Chairman of Greater Sydney Tourism. (what's really weird is that Sean McDonell is the Chairman of Leser Sydney Tourism...)

- Winning second place was ASWN: Damen Hatton, Matt McDonell and Josh Long, all senior electrical engineering majors. They were awarded $200. (Clearly, electrical engineering is the perfect preparation for a career in promoting Australian tourism)

- Lakota Lacrosse Club and Lakota School District name Matt McDonell Head Coach for East boys for 2009 season. (Lacrosse: The sport of Australian Electrical Engineers)

- I am a third-generation Oaklander, both of my parents and three of four grandparents were born in Oakland (one grandfather was born in foreign lands, Berkeley), my grandfather’s house and father’s family home are still in the family, McDonell Avenue is named after my great-grandfather, I was married in the Rose Garden and our reception was at the Snow Building in Knowland Park. (This is really weird. I live across the bay from a street named after my great-grandfather... who is actually not related to me at all...)

- Temko welcomed new employee Matt McDonell to the District. Matt was recently. hired as a Deputy Harbormaster at Pillar Point Harbor. (This is from San Mateo, also next door to my home of San Francisco. There seems to be some sort of plot to draw out the Matt McDonells from Australia and Minnesota and concentrate them here, in the bay area...)

And there are many, many more. There seems to be a high concentration of Matt McDonells involved in sports around the world: I found Matt McDonells who were soccer players, lacrosse players, runners, rodeo riders, cricketers, and one Matt McDonell who provoked an online stream of swearing from a fellow whose knee Matt McDonell had thrown a stick at. Anyone who knows me knows that I live for sports and simultaneously watch up to 11 contests on the many HDTV's hanging from the walls and ceilings of my subterranean lair, so this makes perfect sense.

So google yourself. You'll discover sides of yourself that you never imagined to be true about yourself.

- "I'm not myself."

Customer Disservice

My sister-in-law has been doing some sleuthing into the fee-scheduling practices of her current (soon to be former) bank, and her findings are interesting, infuriating, frustrating, and (I'm afraid) fairly typical. (I won't name the bank, but it's the bank of our continent... and the next one down...)

Devious and hidden fees aside (par for the course, you know?), what was particularly upsetting was the way that she was "served" when calling the bank's customer service number. There's so much here, I'll make a list:

1) Attitude. The attitude of the person on the other end of the line communicated that their job would be so much easier if it weren't for all of these customers calling all day long and demanding service. That's the job! That's what you're paid for! Similarly bemusing was the fact that the length of the call (to be fair, it was a long phone call with lots of questions) seemed to be the most irritating thing to this alleged service provider. If you work answering customer service calls from 9-5, what does it matter if you handle 5 1-hour calls or 30 20-minute calls? I can think of many reasons to consider either one of those scenarios to be "more work" than the other, but the fact that there is a substantial wait time to speak to a human leads me to believe that my sister-in-law was keeping them from answering another (potentially annoying) call, not from taking a donut break. Of course the people calling don't know what's going on and are not helpful... that's why they're calling! If they knew the information they're asking you about, they wouldn't call! It's like a doctor complaining about how they just see sick people all day. Yeah, the people who aren't sick are at work! The people who understand how their banking services work are not going to call you to talk about last night ball game.

2) Deception and/or Incompetence. The person (or persons, she made several calls) she talked to gave her information about the fees levied upon her account that was false. There are 2 options for why this was so: 1) the person lied, or 2) the person was misinformed. If the person lied, that's just wrong! Did they lie because they were instructed to lie by management, or did they lie of their own volition to get this person off the phone?
But what if it was an honest mistake? The person just had the wrong information? Well, it seems to me that this is a failing higher up in the hierarchy: it is the responsibility of management to insure that employees tasked with disseminating information to customers be supplied with accurate information! I'd be willing to bet that the accountants who handle monthly statements are higher up on the list of people who need to know important fee-schedule information than customer service phone-jockeys, and that's wrong.
Regardless of where the deception or incompetence began in the chain of command, it seems reasonable to me to dismiss any fees levied against a customer if an employee of the firm whose responsibility it is to communicate factual information to the customer tells them that there are no fees. Decisions are made based on the assumption that the information received is correct: whether to transfer money to another account or another bank, for example. Money lost because of that incorrect information should be refunded (with interest). To say that the regulations on the books take precedence over those communicated by human beings employed by the bank is to abdicated responsibility in an inexcusable manner.

The real problem is that customer service is embedded into what is essentially a bureaucracy. You start out wanting to make sure that all of your employees and customers are treated fairly, and if your organization becomes large enough, you need to develop some protocols and guidelines to make sure that the same procedures are followed for everyone. It's intended to serve well and serve without bias. Then, you get so large that you need to hire people just to make sure these procedures are carried out.

The fundamental flaw in any bureaucracy appears the instant a bureaucrat understands their primary function to be serving the procedures and rules rather than serving the employees and customers. The rules exist because they were deemed at some point to be the best tools for serving the needs of employees and customers while minimizing time and cost expenditure to the employer. A bureaucrat must realize, however, that cases will come up on occassion where the original purpose for instituting the rules and procedures are disserved if those same rules and procedures are followed to the letter. Bureaucrats must feel that they have the flexibility to amend procedures on occassion when they don't serve their intended purpose.

Once a bureaucracy is entrenched, however, rules and procedures are developed to serve the structure of the bureaucracy, with service to employees and customers no longer part of the rubric. Any manager of an organization that seeks to serve the public or their own employees must be willing to review the machinations of bureacracy on occassion and weed out those places where the machine is serving itself at the expense of those it was built to serve. What do you do if the robot you built to mow your lawn ends up needing to burn your lawn to create fuel for itself? Well, you go back to the garage and pull out the old manual mower, or you let the lawn grow out of control. Neither of these is an attractive option, but that shouldn't stop us from shutting down the destructive grass-burning mower.
"Bureacracy" doesn't have to be a pejorative, and the eventual dissolution of customer service doesn't have to be inevitable. It might require more time, money, or even more thought. It's sad that in the current economic climate, that's a deathblow to treating those we ostensibly serve like annoying fuel.

- "No, wait, I'll go upstairs and hit some guests."

Subscribe!

You may have noticed that I have added a box to the left-hand side of my blog (under my little professor Homer picture) which allows you to subscribe to my posts. This should be handy for those of you who like reading what I write, but don't want to check back every couple of days during the frequent breaks of several months during which no new material is posted. Just enter your e-mail address and new posts will be sent to your e-mail. Check it out!

- sorry, no quote.

Renters vs. Speculators

This article on CNN.com made me think about the nuances of the mortgage crisis a little harder.

I agree that people who bought houses as speculators should not be helped out of those bad investments by the government. Any investment involves risk, and buying a home as a purely money-making investment with a mortgage structured to guarantee that you'll never actually pay it off should count as one of those risks.

When someone buys a home to live in however, it's more than just an investment. The purpose of buying the home isn't merely to use it as an opportunity to increase capital; it's fulfilling one of the basic human needs: shelter. Many people who bought homes to live in via a poorly structured loan would never have been able to qualify for a loan otherwise. They were the vicitims of predatory lending practices, but before that they were the victims of an economy that places home ownership out of people's grasp.

There's another option for people who can't qualify to buy their own home: rent one! And here's where it gets sticky. What happens when an unscrupulous speculator buys a home as an investment, but then rents it out to someone who is not a speculator, but merely someone renting to fulfill the basic human need of shelter for themselves and their family? When the owner is foreclosed upon because they gave up on paying off the mortgage for a home they don't even live in, what options do the renters have, and what rights should they have?

The renters could buy the home from the bank, but many people rent precisely because they don't have the credit history or income necessary to qualify for a loan from the bank to buy a home.

Here's what I propose:
1st step - The bank must allow the renters to remain in the home after foreclosure for the duration of their lease or 6 months, whichever is greater, while paying the rent specified in their lease directly to the bank, as long as the amount of the rent is greater than or equal to the amount the erstwhile owner was supposed to pay the bank as specified in the original mortgage agreement. There is an understanding that after this time period is over, the lease will not be renewed.
2nd step - If the rent specified in the lease is less than the mortgage payment required of the owner, the bank extends the option to the renters to remain in the home for the duration of their lease or 6 months, whichever is higher, but they must pay to the bank the amount that the owner was supposed to have paid as per their mortgage agreement (non-retroactive: just keep up, they don't have to catch up!). There is an understanding that after this time period is over, the lease will not be renewed.
3rd step - If the renters have lived in the house for at least 1 year and have a perfect history of paying their rent, then once the lease (or 6 months) is up, the bank offers the renters the first chance at buying the property. The sale amount is not to exceed the balance of the mortgage, and the regular credit-score/income requirements should be waived. If the equity already in the house is equal to 15% of the current value of the house, no down payment is required. If not, a down-payment which will bring the equity up to 15% of the current value of the house may be required by the bank at the bank's discretion.
4th step - If the renters have lived in the house for less than 1 year and/or have a less than perfect history of rental payments on the house, then they will also have the first chance at buying the property with a loan structured as above, but the bank may apply the regular credit-score/income requirements to the renters.
5th step - If the renters are unwilling or unable to purchase the house under the above structure, the bank is free to offer the house for sale as it would any other foreclosed property.

Throughout this whole process, the speculative/deadbeat owner is cut out: They have been foreclosed upon and have no further connection to the property. Any investment they made in the property is lost, and their credit history reflects their poor investment choices.

So, what do you think? Is this fair? Is it reasonable for the government to require lending institutions to extend these options to renters?

- "None at all."

Options for Florida and Michigan (updated 5/21)

Option 1: Don't seat any delegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,025. There are currently 86 delegates that will be determined by votes in the remaining states (and Puerto Rico), and 212 superdelegates who have not publicly pledged their vote to either candidate. Obama needs 62 (21%) of these remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton needs 247 (83%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race).

Option 2: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 55% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates), while Obama would receive none, since he received no votes because his name was not on the ballot. Obama would need 185 (52%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 268 (76%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama).

Option 3: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast, award all "unpledged" votes in Michigan to Obama (who did not appear on the ballot, though Clinton did) and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 55% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates), while Obama would receive 40%, representing the 40% of Michigan voters who voted for "unpledged"delegates on a ballot that had Clinton's name but not Obama's (51 delegates). Obama would need 134 (38%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 268 (76%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama). John Edwards name did not appear on the Michigan ballot either, however, making it problematic to award all of these delegates to Obama, which leads us to the next two options...

Option 4: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast, award half of "unpledged" votes in Michigan to Obama (who did not appear on the ballot, though Clinton did) and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267.This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 55% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates), while Obama would receive 20%, representing half the 40% of Michigan voters who voted for "unpledged"delegates on a ballot that had Clinton's name but not Obama's or Edwards' (26 delegates). Obama would need 159 (45%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 243 (69%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama).

Option 5: Seat delegates proportional to votes cast, split the "unpledged" votes in Michigan evenly between the two delegates and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton half of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (93 delegates), and Obama 33% of the available pledged delegates from Florida where he received 33% of the popular vote (61 delegates). Clinton would also receive 75% of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (70 delegates) representing the 55% of Michigan voters who voted for her, as well as half of the voters who voted for "unpledged" delegates (even though her name was on the ballot! A generous option for Hillary!), while Obama would receive 20%, representing half the 40% of Michigan voters who voted for "unpledged"delegates on a ballot that had Clinton's name but not Obama's or Edwards' (26 delegates). Obama would need 159 (45%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 243(69%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race, and because of the Florida and Michigan delegates that represent votes for candidates other than Clinton or Obama).

There's one more option that would definitely be the least fair to Senator Obama, especially since his name didn't even appear on the Michigan ballot...

Option 6: Treat both states as "winner take all" and award all available pledged delegates to Clinton and reinstate superdelegates. In that case, the total number of delegates needed to win is 2,208, and the number of unpledged superdelegates goes up to 267. This would give Clinton all of the available pledged delegates from Florida where she received 50% of the popular vote (185 delegates), and all of the available pledged delegates from Michigan (128 delegates) where she received 55% of the popular vote. Obama would need 246(70%) of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, Clinton would need 118 (33%). (The two percentages don't add up to 100%, because of the 9 delegates awarded to John Edwards before he dropped out of the race).

Notice that currently, Clinton needs over 80% of the remaining delegates to gain the nomination, while Obama only needs 21%. Almost any option that involves apportioning Florida and Michigan delegates in some sort of fair way reduces Clinton's needed delegates to 69% or 76%... not a huge change. The only way that she gains an advantage is if she gets ALL of the delegates from Florida and Michigan, which seems unfair since Obama received a third of the votes in Florida, and 40% of the voters in Michigan turned out and voted for "unpledged," which HAS to be interpreted as a vote that would have been cast for Obama or Edwards if they had been on the ballot. It's not too much of a stretch, either, to imagine that some of those who voted for Hillary might have voted for Edwards or Obama if they had been on the ballot.

I say award delegates proportional to the votes they received (option 2). That's not the fairest option (I think that option 4 would be closer to the real numbers), but it should take away any whining ammunition that Hillary might take into the convention if Obama gets to 2,025 delegates but not 2,208.

What do you think?

- "There's no crying in baseball!"

The voice behind the mouth

Hello, loyal readers,

I recorded another short "Perspective" for our local NPR station (KQED) and it will air Wednesday, May 7th. It's another installment in my ongoing, multi-part, multi-media rant on standardized testing. I think it airs at 7:37 am and again at 8:37 am... but I'm not sure. If you aren't able to tune in, you can listen to their archive of past Perspectives here, as well as my two previous contributions to the program here and here.

-"I'll make you famous."

I love you, Jonathan Kozol!

I've started to read Jonathan Kozol's latest: Shame of the Nation. I love it. Basically, Kozol is tracing the backward slide of American public education into segregation and inequity to a degree we haven't seen since the 1950's. Poor kids (especially black and latino kids) are being sequestered educationally and denied access to facilities, teachers, opportunities and especially money. Sounds like the good old days, doesn't it? I love the way he cuts through the political double-talk that we hear so often that claims that "throwing money at the problem" won't work for the education of poor, urban, minority students. If the rich really believe that, muses Kozol, how do they justify the insane amounts of money they gladly fork over for their own kids education? Their behavior certainly does seem to suggest that at some level they believe that a better education costs more money... or they're big suckers, easily parted from the money, an option which the fact of their wealth would seem to invalidate.

Anyway, reading this book is great... but there's a problem. So far it's just making me angry and frustrated, and I think that's valid. It should. But what good does that do anyone? Complaining loudly about how messed up things are has become something of a national pastime in post-modernist America, and being outraged at injustice has become an acceptable substitute for actually working for justice.

Not to say that it's our responsibility to fix the problems of the world, but here's a little game I like to play in my own mind: I call it "what if everyone made the same choices as I do?" I know that my owning a hybrid rather than a Hummer will not by itself save the world from global warming, or that whether I throw my soda can in the garbage or the recycling will determine whether or not my descendants will have to live in caves underground. But it is helpful to assume that on each issue, the world is full of two kinds of people: those who are making the problem worse and those who are making it better. At that point, I have to decide which group I want to belong to.

Making these choices more about the identity I want to reinforce for myself and the kind of person I want to continue becoming rather than about changing the world is very freeing. It's not my responsibility to change the world, but I can choose to be a part of the group that takes individual responsibility to the whole seriously.

So, back to the issue at hand: how should I respond to Kozol's damning indictment of American education? Here's some ideas I've been thinking of... please reply with more if you come up with any... and let me know how you're doing on following through!

• Vote for political candidates that favor more equity in public education (well, assuming the choice is given, check!)
• Write op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, my elected representatives at local, state, and national levels, and express my disappointment with the injustice going on and my hopes for their moral integrity as one of their constituents (check!)
• Try to let everyone I know in on what's "really" going on with public education, and deciphering the statistics and political jargon for what it really is: a concerted effort to make sure that any available resources are shifted toward those who already have more than they need at the expesne of those who really need it (If you're reading this... check!)

Now, the really tricky ones... the ones that trip up those avowed liberals in Hollywood or the left-wing politicians who talk the talk but send their own kids to the same elite schools as the rest of the rich people:

• Resist the pressure of society to seek out places to live with "good-schools" and assuming that my responsibility to my own children mandates sheltering them from "those people" and making sure that none of the "problems" of growing up as an urban minority have anything to do with me or my family.
• Work in an inner-city, minority school and teach those kids with everything I've got.
• Send my own kid to a public, urban school with a diverse population instead of the elitist schools that my race and socio-economic status hold out to me, and then invest heavily in that school community as a parent volunteer and advocate .

So that's the kind of response I want to have to a book like this. Please keep me accountable when you see my making choices that betray my convictions.

- "Have you met them? The poor?"

Sorry, Florida and Michigan... kind of...

Apparently, the voters of Michigan and Florida are being "disenfranchised" by the way the DNC policies have erased their delegates. People are understandably upset about that. But who should they be upset at?

State party officials were apparently well aware that they were breaking the national party rules when they scheduled their primaries so early. As far as I know, there has been no dispute on this point.

It also seems that the fact that their delegates would not be seated at the convention was also not suddenly sprung on them in the last month or so.

So, the state party officials who made this decision with full knowledge that they were violating a rule that they had agreed upon ought to be held responsible. What's funny is that these are the guys who are loudly blaming Howard Dean and Barack Obama (and others) for unjustly disenfranchising Florida and Michigan voters.

Florida and Michigan voters should be mad, but not at Dean, and not at Obama. They should be mad at their state party officials who agreed to something and then decided not to go along with it in order to increase the strength of their voice (or so they thought) in choosing the Democratic nominee.

What's ironic is that the decision was made to put them at the head of the pack, theoretically to have a more decisive voice in the nomination. With the 2 front-runners neck-and-neck, however, it now seems that the last states to vote will hold more power.

So now they are demanding to be given the last voice, too! It's just politics as usual, but it's still frustrating to hear the voices that caused all the problem loudly proclaiming everyone else to be at fault, and themselves to be the biggest victims.

The funniest thing is how both Clinton and Obama seem to have randomly fallen ideologically aligned with the position which (coincidentally) supports their own nomination. What are the chances? I love hearing them talk as if they're advocating for the poor disenfranchised voters, or for the other state parties who followed the rules and will be less likely to if poor precedent is set... when of course they're advocating for themselves!

Although I guess that same remarkable coincidence is at work in this very post, as I (an Obama supporter) advocate a stance that seems to work in Obama's favor.

That's politics for you.

- "And your gonna become voters! And your gonna vote like your friends do!"

Barack for President

Below is the text from one of the best political speeches I've ever read. Given by Barack Obama in Philadelphia today. (It's pretty long, so don't start if you don't have more than a minute or two free!)

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk -- to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign -- to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners -- an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems -- two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth -- by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters.And in that single note -- hope! -- I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories -- of survival, and freedom, and hope -- became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about memories that all people might study and cherish -- and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety -- the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions -- the good and the bad -- of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America -- to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination -- where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments -- meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families -- a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods -- parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement -- all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it --those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations -- those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience -- as far as they’re concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze -- a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns -- this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy -- particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction -- a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people -- that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives -- by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative -- notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds -- by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle -- as we did in the OJ trial -- or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina -- or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation -- the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today -- a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

- "They call me MR. TIBBS!"