Gene Lewis Perry

If life were like fairy tales, I'd have been devoured by trolls already.

living up to the promise

Posted on | December 2, 2008 | 1 Comment

The media has given plenty of attention to what Obama will do with his unprecedentedly large and detailed database of voters collected during the campaign.  This was the backbone of their wildly successful fundraising from small donors, but even before election day, the flush with cash campaign’s pleas for ever more money grew increasingly absurd.

I laughed out loud at one e-mail from Oct. 30 that cited “unexpected spending against us in Montana and West Virginia.”

As we saw on election day, if the GOP was having to spend money to defend Montana and West Virginia, Obama did not need any more of our money to beat them.

(Unlike most e-mails which came from luminaries like Joe Biden, David Plouffe, or Obama himself, it was from “Chief Financial Officer Marianne Markowitz,” perhaps because the others were too embarrassed to put their names to that particular beg.)

But hey, them’s elections.  I don’t hold it against them.  Even when the odds look good, the presidency is too important to worry about e-mail dignity.

But now that it’s over, they can devote this valuable resource to more altruistic ends, right?

Not so far.

The most recent plea promises a “limited edition sterling silver Obama keychain” for giving $30 or more to the Democratic National Committee.  Leaving aside that they are relying on tactics reminiscent of the Home Shopping Network, what the Democrats need now is not more money from us.  They will soon control the Congress and Presidency based on millions of selfless contributors and volunteers, and now it’s their turn to prove they deserved it.

Not to mention that improving the country, putting our economy back on track, bringing us health care and renewable energy… all of these things will do far more to get them reelected than a $30 contribution for a keychain.

It’s not a frivolous complaint.  The economy sucks, many people are hurting, and there are plenty of groups out there that could use that $30 to do much more good than putting it into the ad budget of the DNC.

And if they do eventually put the list to better ends, the attrition of those who unsubscribed because they were as annoyed as I was will make it that much less useful.

Obama has a powerful resource in the database and social network of committed donors and volunteers, but, unlike some of the critics have said, we aren’t a mob of mindless supporters.

Appeal to our desire to restore our communities and give us the tools to do so, and we will take action in a million beneficial ways.  Treat us like a bag a money to occasionally shake, and you may get a few extra dollars, but you will lose the potential for real community organizing and a new kind of politics that you claim to represent.

Category: politics

links for 2008-12-01

Posted on | December 2, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

Nixons to China

Posted on | December 1, 2008 | No Comments

Some encouraging reporting from The New York Times:

When President-elect Barack Obama introduces his national security team on Monday, it will include two veteran cold warriors and a political rival whose records are all more hawkish than that of the new president who will face them in the White House Situation Room.

Yet all three of his choices — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as the rival turned secretary of state; Gen. James L. Jones, the former NATO commander, as national security adviser, and Robert M. Gates, the current and future defense secretary — have embraced a sweeping shift of priorities and resources in the national security arena.

The shift would create a greatly expanded corps of diplomats and aid workers that, in the vision of the incoming Obama administration, would be engaged in projects around the world aimed at preventing conflicts and rebuilding failed states. However, it is unclear whether the financing would be shifted from the Pentagon; Mr. Obama has also committed to increasing the number of American combat troops.Whether they can make the change — one that Mr. Obama started talking about in the summer of 2007, when his candidacy was a long shot at best — “will be the great foreign policy experiment of the Obama presidency,” one of his senior advisers said recently.

I’m still a little skeptical of a Secretary of State Clinton because the personalities and culture of her campaign were so completely dysfunctional. But a new reliance on diplomacy and non-military forms of power of all types can dramatically change the role of America in the world, and it is probably a necessary precursor to releasing the defense industry’s death grip on their billion dollar contracts.  Meaningfully reducing our defense spending is extremely important if we are to return our budget to a sustainable course.  It’s also going to be the most difficult political problem Obama will face.

The “hawks” have done great damage to our country in recent years, but to face down the defense industry, Obama will sadly need the support of people who have more credibility among other hawks.  The key point is, these defectors need to be committed to Obama’s policy, and the policy needs to set a genuinely new direction away from the reckless conventional wisdom of the past.

We will see how that turns out, but this article is a good sign.

Category: politics

links for 2008-11-29

Posted on | November 30, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

Interfaith Dialogue of the Day, Part XII

Posted on | November 29, 2008 | No Comments

Freestyle Rap Battle Translated

Category: interfaith dialogues

links for 2008-11-26

Posted on | November 27, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

Interfaith Dialogue of the Day, Part XI

Posted on | November 23, 2008 | No Comments

Watch the whole thing for the surprise ending.

Category: interfaith dialogues

links for 2008-07-21

Posted on | November 21, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

variations on a theme

Posted on | September 23, 2008 | No Comments

David Cay Johnston:

The Administration has scared the markets and some key legislative leaders, but it has not laid out a coherent, specific and compelling need for this enormous proposal, which is the equivalent of a one-time 55 percent income tax surcharge. (Instead the money will be borrowed, so ask from whom and how this much can be raised so quickly if the credit markets are nearly seized up with fear.)

Ask this question — are the credit markets really about to seize up?

Daniel Larison:

A useful thing to remember in the days to come: whenever someone yells about an impending catastrophe, he is probably either trying to sell you something or trying to steal something from you.  The mega-bailout is actually a case of trying to sell you on the idea that you should allow yourself to be robbed, so we should be even more wary.

It doesn’t surprise me that people in Wall Street and the government would try to exploit a crisis to grab power and rob us blind. But I am continually astonished when they don’t even try to conceal what they are doing and still get away with it. How many times can they fool us?

Category: politics

How much is 700 billion?

Posted on | September 22, 2008 | No Comments

Hint: it’s a whole f***ing lot.

Category: politics

fox, meet henhouse

Posted on | September 21, 2008 | No Comments

This is insane:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Because heaven forbid a $700 billion handout from the pinnacle of integrity that is the Bush administration to the notoriously incorruptible finance industry have any possibility of legal or administrative review. In an emergency like this, the most important thing is to give unlimited power to the same people who created the mess in the first place.

Category: politics

links for 2008-07-31

Posted on | July 31, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

links for 2008-07-26

Posted on | July 26, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

links for 2008-07-19

Posted on | July 19, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

links for 2008-07-16

Posted on | July 16, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

book review: my stroke of insight

Posted on | July 15, 2008 | No Comments

This is a quick and easy read (I finished it in two days), but don’t let that fool you. It’s full of fascinating insights into our brains from the unique perspective of a neuroscientist who temporarily lost half of hers to a stroke. Her story is invaluable for stroke victims and their friends and families. But it can also help the rest of us understand what we are, how our brains process information to form our day to day personalities, and how to take ownership of that process to live a better life. For a preview of the topics covered in this book, you can see the author give a short presentation on it here.

Category: books
Tags: > >

links for 2008-07-15

Posted on | July 15, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

links for 2008-07-14

Posted on | July 14, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

links for 2008-07-03

Posted on | July 3, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day

links for 2008-06-28

Posted on | June 28, 2008 | No Comments

Category: links of the day
« go back — keep looking »

  • Meta

  • Blog Network:
    Blog Networks