A two-minute advertisement in which Senator Obama speaks directly to the nation on his view of the state of the economy and what he would do to fix it if he is elected president.
“The ad offers a link to Obama’s economic policy, but a better analysis might be this recent NY Times article that tries to figure out whether Obama is the leftist regulator that a WSJ editor claimed or the corporate mouthpiece described by labor union leaders.
In order to move into a postpartisan era, we must be more concerned is more with practical realities rather than ideology. Ideology is about trying to fit your square peg into a round hole and blaming anything but your peg for not working. “Obamanomics,” as the article coins the phrase, doesn’t care about ideology, it’s just about taking a pragmatic chisel to that square peg.
How?
• Using free-market systems to end corporate lobbying rather than encourage it.
• Changing the tax code so families making more than $250,000 pay more.
• Investing in domestic alternative energy and roads to create middle-class jobs.
“Doing these things won’t be easy… but we’re Americans.”
NY Times: http://tinyurl.com/4afuf7
“According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain’s haul.”
Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what’s possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It’s the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God’s edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one’s life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.
My personal favorite, “fortune cookies will really end with “in bed.”“
