political, ethical, religious and philosophical thoughts to ponder

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy

liberals.

White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 20-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

I'm a little confused!

Let me see if I have this straight.... .

• If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic, different.'
  
• Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're a quintessential American story.
  
• If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
  
• Name your kids Bristol, Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
  
• Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
  
• Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
  
• If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, elected to the US Senete in 2004 representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.
• If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
  
• If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.
  
• If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.
  
• If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.
  
• If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant , you're very responsible.
  
• If your wife is a Harvard graduate laywer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't represent America's.
  
• If you're husband is nicknamed 'First Dude', with at least one DWI conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
  

OK, much clearer now.

Politics and Choice

The United States is now in the process of deciding who will be its next president. This is a political process that comes down to a choice: the choice of how each of us as individuals will vote on November 4. The choice is not meant to be simplistic; it can never be about one issue. The decision we make at the ballot box has implications far beyond who will sit in Oval Office. The outcome will affect not only this present generation but generations still to come, not just in our nation but throughout the world. It will determine the direction this nation will take on energy, environment, the economy (both local, national, and global), education, health care, social security, national security and a plethora of other important issues.

To choose a candidate on the basis of one issue, no matter how strong ones feelings on that issue is, in my opinion, irresponsible. For many years a powerful faction within the Republican Party has been a dominate force in defining morality based on their particular religious persuasion. They demonize any candidate that does not adhere to their world view. There is no difference between this ideological bent and that of any other religious or political system that denies the opinions and or beliefs of others. This form of extremism does not make for a healthy pluralistic democracy that our republic prides itself on.

The word politics comes from the Greek Politeia which is derived from the Greek word Polis or city state. Politics is about the rights of the citizens (citizenship) of a nation. This nation is a nation of the people, by the people, and for the people. This means that not everyone will get what they want all the time. However, it does mean is that everyone will have the right to express their opinion, especially, at the ballot box. However, the electoral process is not meant to restrict the basic rights and freedoms of others as found in our constitution and its interpreted laws.

For the past eight years, many of our basic rights have been eroded by the present administration in the name of national security. Should the present administration be cloned into the next, we will undoubtedly see more of the same. The religious fundamentalism that has governed much of this administrations decision making will continue eroding the choices we have as citizens. None could be more obvious than a woman’s right to reproductive services being eliminated.

Those on the religious right have made the abortion issue the key in determining whether or not they will support an otherwise qualified candidate. It has recently been pointed out that in the last 35 years (since Roe versus Wade) 48.5 million abortions have been preformed. This is approximately 3,803/day. At the same time we have pharmacists refusing to sell legal birth control pills to women in need. These same individuals want the "morning after pill" banned, and sex education limited to abstinence or "just say no" as a mandated federal policy. The US policy on international aide to poor nations, in need of both birth control and HIV Aids information, is to refuse to give out information on use of condoms, instead abstinence is preached. In the three years prior to 2004 the Bush administration withheld $34 million in congressionally approved funds to 140 nations through the UN Population Fund. The UNPF estimates that this resulted in one million unwanted pregnancies, 800,000 abortions, 4,700 maternal deaths, and 77,000 infant and child deaths. This from a right to life president.

The resources of our world can not sustain the population growth at its present rate. As of 30 August 2008 the world population was over 6.839 billion and growing at approximately one person / sec. The US population for the same day was over 305 million, and growing at a rate of one person every ten seconds. In a world where 15 million children starve to death every year, that is one every 3.6 seconds, 1,028 per hour or approximately 25,000 per day, abstinence alone is not the answer. In a world where 1.2 million children are trafficked to work in sweat shops and the sex trade for an annual $15 billion profit to those who abuse them, abstinence is not the answer.

There are other issues of life and death other than abortion, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for one. In 2003 the war was costing the American tax payer 4.4 billion dollars per month, in 2006 it had grown to 8 billion per month and by 2008 12 billion per month. Latest estimates place the total cost of the war around 4 trillion dollars. But the true cost can never be calculated. The loss of life of US military personnel is just a part of the cost (the government has put a value of $6.5 million on each American soldier and contractors life, this comes to approximately $18 billion). This doesn’t take into account the documented Iraq and Afghanistan civilian deaths, between 82,987 and 90,521, many of whom are children. Nor does it take into account the billions of dollars that are being spent and will be spent in the future taking care of the physically and mentally wounded from these wars. War is not the answer to our international problems.

A simplistic one issue, black and white view of the world doesn’t equate in the real world of daily suffering and death. For example, the World Health Organization estimates that between 300-500 million new cases of malaria will occur every year. Of those, 1 million will die. Many of these are children. It is estimated that in an average year 195,000 people in the US will die in a hospital due to medical error. The statistic on death and suffering could go on and on, and they do, and they will, no matter who sits in the White House.

The question facing us as a nation and as individuals is which candidate will do the most to end this suffering and death. John McCain is willing to continue the war indefinitely. With the continued waste of wealth and resources on war, there is no money to spend on health care, education, infrastructure (roads, water and sewer systems, etc) and the environment. The failure to address these issue have long term consequences that will in the end cripple our nation, and will add to the suffering of untold millions yet to be born. Is the abortion issue important? Of course, but it must be kept in perspective. What rational person would want to bring their child into a world where environmental degradation and where economic and educational opportunities are limited or not available? John McCain’s vision for America is more of the same as experienced under the Bush administration. Barack Obama’s vision is one of hope. Not a pie in the sky hope, but a realistic vision that will require change in the way Washington does business. A vision for future generations of all Americans, not just the privileged wealthy few, nor the corporations of the rich and powerful. Barack Obama is the kind of president America needs and deserves.