I learned that principle working within the high conflict arena of natural resources in the West. My work that started out with Americorp (Clinton’s domestic version of the Peace Corp) and led to a position riding shot gun to Mike Preston and the Montezuma County Federal Lands Program spanned 15 years. In those years, we got an up close view of how federal policies impact land based industries and ultimately families and the entire custom and culture of communities across much of the West. Much of what we did involved trying to bring people together and find win/win ways forward. In our county we worked hard to keep a diversified economy and preserve a place for our loggers and ranchers as well as the hikers, mountain bikers and latte drinkers. It’s not easy to do when people’s definition of community and sense of security collide. It’s parallel to what’s happening to us on a national scale. People, including myself, are passionate about the outcome and about whom they think is fit to be president. Yet, we can’t forget that when it’s all said and done, no matter who wins, at the end of the day we are Americans and we must press on with whatever work we have been given to do and continue to show the world that our foundation is still strong.
For the past month or so I have been trying to drill down into some of the issues and understand them from a factual basis not from a “spin.” Questions like why have so many jobs been lost to other countries, why we are fighting in the middle east, and why do we import 70 percent of our oil needs have been on my mind. I have found it hard to place blame squarely on the policies or philosophy of one party or the other which is why I become very suspect when I hear accusatory statements from friends or commentators that sound a lot like sound bites we’ve all heard on TV over and over. When I read the 2008 preamble for both party platforms and what they have on their websites describing what they are about, it’s pretty hard to decipher on face value the differences. Both parties want to lay claim to “a special commitment to America’s promise” and both talk about good wages, retiring with dignity, civic commitment, change, helping hurting people……. It’s what you call rhetoric and it is meant to stimulate our mammalian brains so that we like the candidate speaking. We are very susceptible to rhetoric and repeating the sound bites or fears stoked by our party of choice. I have heard numerous people from both parties parroting statements crafted by brilliant people like Frank Luntz: “The government's present system of taxation is lining the pockets of the rich while the middle class disappears before our eyes.” “Obama is a Muslim and would capitulate to the Muslim world.” “We are in the middle east only to get their oil.” Give me a break. Here’s what I have figured out, caring about America, the poor, the economy, health care, and all the other issues is not a market cornered by Democrats or Republicans. Good, principled people are concerned about those things and bad, unprincipled people don’t care.
Let’s get subterranean on a couple issues. The manufacturing sector has been hammered with the loss of 3.7 million jobs over the past seven years leaving only one-tenth of all U.S. jobs in the manufacturing sector. The manufacturing sector accounts for only 12.5% of gross domestic product in the U.S., while it makes up 36% of the Chinese economy. China's share in global manufacturing is forecast to overtake that of the U.S. by 2016, boosted by rapid gains in market share of textiles, basic metals, computer equipment and mineral product manufacturing. (Global Insight) . The giant sucking noise of jobs leaving the U.S. as Ross Perot so aptly stated is not the result of any one policy you can point to. Both Democrats and Republicans have supported free trade agreements beginning with Israel in 1985, Canada in 1988 and then NAFTA in 1994. Both Obama and Hillary Clinton talked tough on the campaign trail about cracking down on Mexico’s poor labor and environmental standards as a way to level the playing field and bring back lost jobs. Each promised to in some way to renegotiate NAFTA using these hammers. Yet, China has captured more jobs than any of those in trade agreements and they are a communist society that we have so far been unable to persuade toward greater regulation when it comes to human rights, currency, etc. We owe them like $500 trillion dollars and our businesses continue moving to China and other parts of Asia. All forecasters say we should expect more of the same. I spoke to a former executive with a manufacturing company that spent some time with transferring facilities to China. I asked, “How does it work? Do you pay them to set things up, build your facility?” His answer was, “I don’t really know how they do it but the government takes care of it. What ever you want. They have the money available. They build it for you, give you long term leases on the land, and find the employees.” Sounds like a heck of a deal; hard to resist when American’s are standing in line at Wal Mart to buy more cheaply made goods because they can’t afford or can’t get quality goods. Is this condition the government’s fault? Should Bill Clinton have put the breaks on NAFTA before this trend got too out of hand? Is it George Bush’s secret “doctrine” that encouraged companies like GE to commoditize its appliance business and artificially force prices down by manufacturing in Asia?
I am ashamed to admit it, but I think we are collectively to blame for overextending credit, lapping up increasingly cheaply priced and made goods. We condoned a culture that allowed executives to earn $13 to $47 million a year while pursuing short term gain instead of innovation, investment and research in people and products. Instead they spent their time and money setting up facilities in China and financial services in urban centers. We went along because it felt good to see our portfolios grow while we played golf, regardless of our party affiliation. It’s been said a lot over the last couple years, since the mid 80’s we’ve been on the equivalent of a Saturday night drinking binge and now Sunday morning is here and the bell tolls. For the 90’s decade we felt the party would never end and that we could disconnect from our manufacturing roots and continue to prosper through financial services and tech startups alone. What we are finding is that the virtual world does not support the living standards we have come to expect for most of our population. If you look even deeper into this culture, you find also a disdain and embarrassment for the blue collar guy known now as “Joe Six Pack.” He is "the hurting person" the candidates keep talking about. We are equally embarrassed by the chicken or tobacco farmer who still loves his Mamma, apple pie, and NASCAR. The millions of people in rural and even suburban America that “cling to their guns and Bibles” and go to church every Sunday and talk openly about faith and the Godly precepts our country was founded on are painted as ignorant and not quite “with it”.
There’s a lot of emotion around “the war.” People don’t like the war; no body likes war. It costs lives and money. Liberals see Bush as a playground bully unwilling to employ diplomacy and even lying to Americans about why we are in Iraq. I’ve heard many fairly well educated people say things like,”Bush lied and took us to war just so he could get back at Saddam and Iraq’s oil.” Conservatives see Bush as the first leader in recent times willing to say publicly, “we gotta deal with these radicals who want to kill us and it’s probably better to fight them on their ground than ours (some examples leading up to 911 = U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole in the port of Aden in Yemen). What if after 911 instead of acting with serious force we would have just gone to talk to the leaders of the Muslim block of countries. While we were talking the extremists funded and fueled by Osama bin Laden and the crazed clerics would have continued carrying out plots to bomb, high jack and otherwise monkey wrench our cities.
Terrorists are not really what this is about fundamentally though. At the core is our country’s stance on intervention and nation building. What you believe about that is one dividing line between conservatives and liberals. We have been highly active in the intervention of unstable countries on a military level and humanitarian – just to name a few: Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo. James Payne from Yale said between the U.S. and England we have made 57 attempts at nation building with only 27 percent succeeding based on their criteria. James Dobbins with RAND studied U.S. nation building in recent history and identified “many factors—such as prior democratic experience, level of economic development, and social homogeneity—can influence the ease or difficulty of nation-building, but the single most important controllable determinant seems to be the level of effort, as measured in troops, money, and time.”
Does any country in the world have a right or responsibility to intervene in governments? If we go to Iraq, pull down Saddam and then set about trying to encourage a democratic government and build community centers, schools and all the other trappings of a democratic society are we being moralistic, imperialistic, or strategic? Are we saying that from those who have much; much is expected? Are we acting on the experience of having created and lived out a successful plan for society paralleled only by a few historic examples and thus deciding we have a duty? Richard Ebeling, Hillsdale College in Michigan, wrote on September 12, 2001 that America had aroused the anger of terrorists because of American political and military intervention around the world. He pointed out that since the Second World War, the U.S. government has taken it upon itself to serve as the global policeman and social engineer. “But being a global policeman requires the U.S. government to decide in each country into which it intervenes who are the “good guys” and who are the “bad guys.” In other words, the United States must end up taking sides in the domestic political, ideological, and economic conflicts in these other lands.”
What about the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout giving the Treasury Department authority to buy up all those assets in hopes of reselling them. The numbers are so big and the stakes so high neither candidate seems sure of the proper response. In the debate last night, neither would really answer the question about what to do. The key point made by David Wessels of the New York Times is this: "…will the financial system be able to lend money to consumers and businesses in the weeks ahead, because if they don't, the economy will come to a standstill." In Obama’s Denver speech if you didn’t know better according to Michael Gerson, Washington Post, you would have thought that every American home was on the auction block, every car stalled for lack of gasoline, every credit card bill past due, every worker treated like a Russian serf. John McCain was blasted for being out of touch and saying a few months ago that the fundamentals of our economy are good. We are in unchartered water. The only way forward is a thoughtful, civil bipartisan plan that somehow balances the Democrats rally cry for more regulation and the Republicans genetic disposition to free markets.
We can pontificate all day long about Republican versus Democratic philosophy but come November 4 you have to choose the man. One man must embody everything you trust and believe regarding what needs to be done about energy, climate change, health care, banking, jobs, foreign policy etc. One man must resonate deep within your mammalian brain as a leader – temperate and wise; able to seek and decipher council yet decisive. I am a moderate and I want that kind of government not an ideological or reactionary government. Here are some of the reasons I will vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin:
S.RES.70 : A resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the Commander of Multinational Forces-Iraq and all United States personnel under his command should receive from Congress the full support necessary to carry out the United States mission in Iraq.S.32 : A bill to reform the acquisition process of the Department of Defense, and for other purposes.S.83 : A bill to provide increased rail transportation security.S.85 : A bill to amend the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to clarify that territories and Indian tribes are eligible to receive grants for confronting the use of methamphetamine.S.192 : A bill providing greater transparency with respect to lobbying activities, and for other purposes.S.463 : A bill to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to clarify when organizations described in section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 must register as political committees, and for other purposes.S.519 : A bill to modernize and expand the reporting requirements relating to child pornography, to expand cooperation in combating child pornography, and for other purposes.S.663 : A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to repeal the statutory designation of beneficiaries of the $100,000 death gratuity under section 1477 of title 10, United States Code, and to permit members of the Armed Forces to designate in writing their beneficiaries of choice in the event of their death while serving on active duty.S.1900 : A bill to authorize appropriations for the United States Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution.S.2172 : A bill to impose sanctions on officials of the State Peace and Development Council in Burma, to prohibit the importation of gems and hardwoods from Burma, to support democracy in Burma, and for other purposes.S.2890 : A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide for a highway fuel tax holiday.S.AMDT.28 to S.1 To provide congressional transparency. S.AMDT.1190 to S.1348 To require undocumented immigrants receiving legal status to pay owed back taxes.
That’s just a sampling of bills McCain supported for 2007. You can look up Obama’s record and others at http://thomas.loc.gov/ Just to add a couple more: The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA, McCain–Feingold Act, Pub L. 107-155 and the Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 (S.139) with Joe Lieberman.
On the personal side:
July 29, 1967 downed by friendly fire in North Vietnam
October 26, 1967 bombed by Vietnamese breaking both legs and arms and beginning of a five year stay at the Hanoi Hilton without medical treatment and subjected to torture. Stayed with men despite option to leave early.
Naval honors include the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart, and the Distinguished Flying Cross.
22 years service in the U.S. Navy
24 years service in the Senate and 2 years in the House of Representatives
No, military experience nor twenty- plus years as a legislator does not necessarily make you fit to be president but it says something about character. Remaining in a prison camp when you don’t have to and continuing to serve in Congress when your wife alone could support you quite nicely says something about character and values and principles. You can find flaws with John McCain but one of them is not being a self-serving, arrogant person. I don’t agree 100 percent with everything McCain has said or done, but I trust a man who survived a Vietnamese prison camp and turned the experience into a deeply held love for country and desire to serve and to do the right thing.
Our government was principally set up to protect rights invoked by the Declaration of Independence—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—not happiness, but the pursuit of happiness. These rights are within individuals, not groups. The principles of justice and equality the authors of this country promulgated ran counter to any former successful regime as described by Mackubin Owens, Professor of Strategy and Force Planning at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Before the U.S. was created all systems were based on the principle of the interest of the strong. Our forefathers founded the U.S. on a principle not of the strong but of justice. I trust that John McCain fully understands that principle of justice through his training and life experience. I believe he would give his life to maintain that principle.
Don’t forget to vote November 4!
To get good side by side on issues without partisan spin go to these sites
Council on Foreign Relations
http://www.cfr.org/
Bank Rate.com
http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/pf/20080128_issues_a1.asp
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