Obama inauguration offers living history lesson

Many Georgia educators let the opportunity slide

On a Sunday afternoon, I watched via Internet as Barack Obama roared toward Washington, D.C. to the take the oath of office. Styling himself as a modern Abraham Lincoln, our new president retraced the pre-inauguration train journey traveled in 1861. At every stop, huge crowds braved sub-zero temperatures to catch a glimpse of the new leader of the free world, or to shout “Yes, We Can!” as the train rolls by.

As I watched that train roll toward the capitol, I thought of my friend Martha Archie. At birth she was named Martha Moss, and she grew up here in Ringgold, where her family is well-known and well-respected in the community. She graduated in 1964, the same year as both my parents. Yet even in this small town, my parents never met Martha Moss when they were teens. As an African-American, Martha Moss could not attend Ringgold High School.

Wilson High School was the school designated for students with darker skin. Situated down the hill from Ringgold High School (now the Middle School), Wilson offered education that was supposed to be “separate but equal.”

We were decorating a float for the Christmas parade the first time I heard of Wilson High School. Martha pointed out where Wilson High was housed, in what is now the ROTC building. Standing in the frigid wind with balloons in both hands, I cast my gaze from one school toward the other, and tried to imagine how two worlds could be so close and yet so segregated.

I should have realized there would have been two schools in my hometown, just as there were all across the South. I knew my parents lived through segregation and desegregation. My mother had told me about the separate drinking fountains in public places. As a child too young to understand, my mother had begged to drink from the fountain labeled “COLORED.” She thought the water would be tinted all the colors of the rainbow.

It is easier to imagine those things happened in Chattanooga, or down in Atlanta, or somewhere off in Alabama or Mississippi. We tend to downplay the history of racial tensions in our own hometowns. Certainly we would rather focus on the positive, like the gymnasium at Ringgold High School which is named after a black athlete. Neither do we like to remember that the KKK marched these streets not so long ago, and that black families in Ringgold were threatened in the 1960’s and even subjected to domestic terrorism that killed a mother in her bed.

We thirty-somethings do not go back that far. It’s difficult for us to comprehend how bad things really were. Today students of every skin tone mingle in the school yards. We have a city council that cares about all citizens, enough to remove a symbol that offends the black community. Then we see Barack Obama waving from the train car, and placing his hand on Lincoln’s inaugural Bible.

“Young people don’t understand how significant this is,” Martha told me the night of the parade. “They don’t remember what it was like, when you couldn’t even walk into a place and eat dinner.”

One reason young people don’t remember is because we, as a society, do not teach them. During all my years in Ringgold High School, no one ever spoke of Wilson High School. It was as if the black school had never existed, never left any imprint on this community, and did not even deserve acknowledgement.

No wonder American education lacks relevancy. We focus on the distant past that can be sanitized and analyzed, while ignoring the messy situations and overlapping voices that form real human history.

Students learn about Columbus every single year, but rarely are they taught about Clinton or Bush. Other powerful political figures like Nancy Pelosi, Karl Rove, Jesse Jackson and Dick Cheney hardly enter the classroom conversation, even though they have an enormous impact on our society and our world. Students learn how to calculate the height of a flag pole by measuring its shadow, but not how the World Trade Towers could have been protected from terrorism. They learn that the Civil War was about states’ rights and not just slavery, but they do not learn how to articulate both sides of the Iraq controversy.

Individual teachers cannot be blamed for a problem that is systematic. Georgia public education requires that every student in Georgia pass the same end-of-course tests. The advantage of the testing is that it standardizes Georgia education so that a diploma from one school is roughly equal to a diploma from another. The disadvantage is that it pressures teachers to neglect creativity and relevancy in favor of homogeny and “teaching to the test.” Standardization seeks to make all students the same, not better.

Students need to learn what is going on in the world right now. They need to read newspapers in the classroom. They need to have sources like National Geographic at their disposal –not just buried in the library, but open on their desks. NPR and CNN should be played in the classroom from time to time.

The inauguration of Barack Obama was a watershed moment in American history. Whether you love him or hate him, he has changed the face of American politics forever. In Washington, millions gathered to experience it.

Around the country, many homeschool parents seized the opportunity to teach their children about the political process all year long. They printed maps for their children to color as the state-by-state election results came in. They took their children on the campaign trail for one of the candidates. Not constrained by having to board a school bus at dawn, many homeschooled students stayed up to watch the election results rolling in at midnight. On January 20th, most of those families turned on the TV to witness America once again transfer power without violence.

Likewise, in a few public and private school classrooms, resourceful teachers do make a point of teaching students about politics without indoctrinating them. On Tuesday, some of those teachers recognized the importance of the moment, and turned on the TV. Sadly, others did not. In fact, some Georgia schools were forced by parents to offer an alternative activity, because parents protested that the inauguration was not educational. Other schools just failed to see the significance of the event and did not plan accordingly.

Nothing else that happened on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, held more educational significance than the inauguration of a new American President. How could printed words in a textbook compare to watching history unfold before us? The speeches delivered at the inauguration contained compelling history lessons, even as they became part of that recorded history. Art, music, poetry, prose and architecture were on display. Most of the important political figures whose names are not being taught at these schools were standing in the audience with their families. The event presented a massive array of teaching opportunities on politics, history, culture, literature, science and math.

Of my six children, only one attends public school. She is the only one who was prevented from watching the inauguration. Next election, I will be keeping my children home so they can learn.

#

Undoing Eight Years of Stupid

Sometimes the worst brings out the best

On election night, hope was palpable. A sort of jittery excitement filled the air at the Catoosa Democratic Headquarters in Ringgold, Georgia. A year ago, the local party was lucky to have twenty people at a breakfast meeting. Now, giddy Obama supporters edged past each other in the crowded banquet hall, sharing smiles and ogling the vast array of t-shirts and buttons. “Your grandparents were right,” read one sticker, “Vote Democratic.”

For decades, this area has been Democratic. That’s the reason we are known for having some of the best public schools around. It’s the reason we have a fabulous library, and a learning center that not only rescues individual educations, but actually boosts the local economy by increasing wages so that it brings in more revenue than it costs taxpayers. Nationally, Democratic values have brought us the social security program that supports the elderly, a public education system that ensures every child in America has the right and responsibility to go to school, help for the mentally ill, assistance for the impoverished and health care for poor children.

Curiously, the Republican Party has managed over time to misconstrue the notion of family values. Somehow a number of Christian voters have been convinced that Christianity is about denying rights to people who don’t believe like we do. Jesus was never into that. Jesus came to heal the sick, bind up the broken hearted and preach good news to the poor.

As the hours passed and the soft drinks disappeared at the election party, it became apparent that Barack Obama would be the next President of the United States. Our excitement was tempered by the memories of the 2000 election. It was not until the election was called with a wide margin that the true celebration began. White Democrats clapped and laughed and danced in the streets, vaguely wondering why the black Democrats had slipped away early. Then the sound of church bells pealed through the chilly air.

For days, the reality of what had taken place was still sinking in. “I can’t stop crying every time I think about it,” wrote my friend in New York, sounding so much like another friend in Hawaii and another in Canada. Suddenly a nation known for its racial divide had leaped from prejudice redneck status to multiculturalism, becoming an inspiration for reconciliation advocates in Europe and all over the world.

Not one to bask long in the glory of a moment, Barack Obama immediately got back to work. Less than one month from the election, he has already chosen most of his officials and cabinet members, including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker as top economic advisor. Obama’s choices have thus far proven to be centrists and have sometimes crossed party lines (case in point, keeping Robert Gates as Defense chief.)

The task that lies before the President-elect is not an easy one. If the election was hard-won, economic and foreign policy success will be more difficult still. Some have even suggested that the Republicans were relieved not to win this cycle. After all, who wants to shoulder responsibility for the mess that Bush has made? The ship of state is not easy to turn around. It may take a decade or more to recover from the economic devastation of the Bush economy and quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then again, maybe it is all easier than it sounds. It doesn’t take a genius to do better than Bush; Obama is probably overqualified. How does one undo eight years of stupid? A lazy but clean solution would be simply to make a list of every policy Bush in enacted, and reverse it. The Patriot Act is a good place to start.

The problems Obama is inheriting are no more daunting than those faced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. We love and revere FDR because he took on leadership at a time when the nation was utterly devastated. Through creative strokes of genius, FDR not only salvaged the economy; he used the crisis as an opportunity to build infrastructure, spur innovation and strengthen American ideals.

George W. Bush’s legacy as the worst president in history presents an opportunity to the next president. If Barack Obama acts timidly and only tweaks the failed Bush policies, he can expect to be caught in the same quicksand that has brought us to this point. If Obama acts boldly, he can create a legacy as a leader who brought the United States out of depression and war, into a time of peace and prosperity. On the heels of “the worst president ever,” Obama can be the best president yet.

Today

Last night, we held our breath. There was no more time for calling or canvassing. It was like that moment when astronauts slingshot around the moon. We were Houston, watching intently but unable to assist.

Today we breathe deeply, and the sky looks more blue than ever before. Today we can do anything.

Last night, we watched the electoral votes surging slowly and erratically upward, and we sat taller by the minute.

Today we wear our Obama buttons just for fun, like football fans gleefully displaying our loyalty to the winning team. Today we love everyone who shared this moment with us, even (or especially) Senator John McCain.

Last night, there were whoops of joy, clapping hands, tears, laughter, cheering, hopping, and dancing in the street.

Today we remind each other of the hard road ahead, as if suddenly we must temper hope with realism, when for so long we have tempered realism with hope. It is so easy now to slough off fear and cynicism. It is so easy to smile and think of the better future that lies ahead for our children, so we keep reminding each other not to leave behind the tools that will help us climb this mountain.

Last night, the church bells were ringing through the cold, still air.

Today, we are practicing the sound of it in our mouths: President Obama.


#

Jeannie's Endorsements

I'm a bit late in posting this, as of course it was published before the election. Nonetheless I'll include it to not have a missing link in my archive.

Vote for progress
Jeannie’s endorsements for 2008

Melvin Edwards for Catoosa County Board of Education
Check out the questionnaire interview completed by Brent Williams and Melvin Edwards. Williams talked only about his love of numbers. By contrast, incumbent Melvin Edwards talked about his love of kids and his love for education. As Edwards put it, education has been his whole life. As a former student of Ringgold Middle School where Edwards was principal, I know that his words ring true. Back then I thought he was too strict with his shiny shoes and militaristic attitudes. Now I read in the news about bomb threats and sexual assaults in schools all over the country, and understand why Melvin Edwards ran such a tight ship. He loves the kids in this county and wants to make sure every single student receives a solid education.

Both candidates recognize that we have major budget issues as a result of Perdue’s 1.5 billion cut in state educational funds. Williams is focused on budget cuts and is threatening to outsource our school buses. Edwards is focused on educating the children in this county.

Ralph Noble for District 3 State Rep
The children of north Georgia desperately need an advocate in Atlanta to prevent further robbing of our educational system. That’s why I am endorsing Ralph Noble, who is a public school teacher and former president of the Georgia Educators Association. On his website, Noble states, “My top priority will be to fully fund education in Georgia.”

Noble’s platform also includes fighting for responsible middle class tax cuts and providing quality, affordable health care for children and the elderly. Noble believes that groceries should always be tax exempt and that hunting and fishing rights should be protected. These types of “common sense” approaches to government make Ralph Noble an excellent candidate for the Georgia House of Representatives.

Sadie Morgan for District 2 State Rep
In District 2, the best choice for the Georgia House of Representatives is Sadie Morgan. Sadie is not a career politician. Like many people in her district, she knows the day-to-day struggle of raising a family in a weakening economy. Sadie Morgan was talking about the coming foreclosure crisis during the last campaign, while her Republican opponent Martin Scott was so out of touch, he claimed the biggest problem facing District 2 was Islamic fascism. What a joke! The only fascists around here are the ones who wear white sheets.

Bruce Coker for Georgia Senate
Just as we need Sadie’s vision and Ralph’s common sense in the statehouse, we also need solid, real-people representation in the Georgia Senate. Bruce Coker is a long-time public servant who truly cares about the individuals in his district. While he may not possess the slick charm of incumbent Jeff Mullis, Coker also lacks the lobbyist ties and political entanglements.

Jeff Mullis has proven to be an expensive employee without results. Consider that citizens are paying Mullis $75,000 per year as head of the Northwest Georgia Joint Development Authority to bring business to the county, in addition to what he makes as state senator. Some citizens point out that this is “double dipping” and a conflict of interests. More telling, no jobs have been produced. Time has come to release Mullis from both his ineffective positions.

Jim Powell for Public Service Commissioner
Jim Powell will stop the systematic deregulation of the power industry, which has increased power prices by about 40%. Once again power producers will be required to practice least-cost planning so that our rates are kept low. Fuel source diversity and energy efficiency are two ways Powell will bring down those rates. As a former senior official with the U.S. Department of Energy, Powell has more than twenty years in federal energy policy and programs, making him easily the most experienced candidate for the job.

Jeff Scott for US Congress
The first time I heard Jeff Scott speaking about smaller government and personal responsibility, I scoffed, “I’m not sure that guy is really a Democrat.” Frankly, he sounded too much like Reagan. Since then I’ve decided that Dr. Scott is a super-moderate kind of guy who thinks about issues deeply without checking the party line. For example, the Democratic platform on health care is that it should be freely (or at least cheaply) available to everyone. Dr. Scott emphasizes teaching healthy living habits and prevention so that medical costs are decreased.

Incumbent Nathan Deal has been a bad deal for north Georgia. He has repeatedly voted right down Bush’s party line -- against education and health care and in favor of Big Oil, invasion of our privacy without warrant, and endless war. Most frightening is Deal’s collusion with neoconservatives who want to replace income taxes with a 26% sales tax that will destroy small businesses and unfairly burden the middle class.

What we need in Washington is a fresh, open-minded representative who will look out for ordinary people like me and you. I have every confidence that Dr. Jeff Scott is the man for the job. Last weekend I asked Dr. Scott why he was running for office. He replied, “to get the government ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ back to the people.”

Jim Martin for US Senate
As a state representative, Jim Martin helped found the PeachCare program that continues to provide affordable healthcare for thousands of Georgia children. Under two governors – one Democrat and one Republican – Jim Martin served as head of Georgia Department of Human Resources. Now Martin is running for the US Senate in order to help Americans recover from the failed policies of Bush and Cheney.

Incumbent Saxby Chambliss has been nothing but a Bush lapdog. Chambliss voted against bringing our troops home. He has repeatedly voted against health care for children and veterans. He even voted against requiring better gas mileage for new cars and against researching alternative fuels. He has voted down the line with the Bush agenda with only one exception: Chambliss supported farm subsidies, a wasteful corporate welfare program that benefits wealthy agricultural interests. Amazingly, Chambliss is even worse than Bush.

Barack Obama for President, Joe Biden for Vice President
The Obama/Biden ticket is truly an opportunity to turn around our economy, our foreign policy, and our future. The McCain camp talks about change even as they support every failed policy Bush has put forth. They say there have been “mistakes made,” yet never enumerate what those mistakes were or how they would fix them. In short, McCain hopes to be Bush’s third term. The only citizens who should vote for the McCain/Palin ticket are those people who are prospering in this economy and happy with the way Bush has lead this country. If you are not happy with Bush, you will not be happy with McCain.

Why do they stay?

Middle class voters and battered women's syndrome

As an advocate for abused women, I’ve heard the question a thousand times. Rather than asking why some men abuse or why society does not punish such criminals, people will invariably ask, “If women don’t like being abused, why do they stay?”

There are a number of incorrect assumptions in that question. First, it assumes the responsibility for abuse lies not with the abuser, but with the victim. This is obviously not true.

Second, the question assumes that abused women stay. Statistically, they don’t. It may takes months or years for a woman to safely extricate herself from a violent partner, but most women are so resourceful that eventually they do escape.

I understand the rationale for the question. Lately I’ve been wondering the same thing about middle class Republican voters. Year after year, Republican officials fleece the middle class. They regale us with promises of spending cuts, only to demand more pork than all their predecessors. They claim to be socially conservative while engaging in gay restroom hookups and chasing after teenage boys. They start wars they cannot finish and spend money we do not have. Even as they use patriotic language and religion to entice more recruits for their wars, they cut funding for veterans programs and wounded soldiers.

Throughout eight years of Bush, it has been discouraging to think that our children’s children will still be paying for this war. If McCain wins the 2008 election, our children’s children will still be fighting this war!

It is the middle class that bears the burden. Proportionally, ours is the greatest tax burden. Do middle class Republican voters really believe corporate welfare and tax cuts for rich people will “trickle down” to the average Joe? If it were true, Joe should be rich by now. Instead, Americans are poorer in real dollars than we have been in several decades.

The health care crisis also hits the middle class the hardest. The poorest citizens are still eligible for Medicaid, while programs like PeachCare that help the middle class are gutted and insurance companies are deregulated so they can invent more exceptions that fall outside covered expenses. These days it is hard to know which is rising fastest: deductibles, premiums or the cost of medicine.

Georgia Republican officials are no better than those on the national level. While middle class Georgians struggle with widespread fuel shortages, Governor Perdue and Senator Mullis run off to Spain. While Georgia public schools are failing (some so badly they actually lost their accreditation) and Georgia test scores are falling, school superintendent Kathy Cox goes on “Are You Smarter than a Fifth-grader?” to show off her knowledge. Middle class Georgians do not care how smart Kathy Cox is. We care what our own children are learning in the public schools we are funding with our tax dollars.

Like violent marriage partners, Republican politicians keep promising to change. Even though McCain and Palin support the Bush policies 100%, they somehow claim to be the party of change. Stealing Obama’s lines, they tell us to vote for them if we do not want “politics as usual.” Yet they cannot point out a single aspect where their policies will differ from the president who has the worst popularity rating ever.

Like other abusers, Republican politicians use religion and guilt to keep their victims in place. They set up “prayer groups,” non-profit organizations and TV preachers to proclaim that voting Democratic will imperil our souls. These are the same preachers who threaten women with the wrath of God if they divorce their abusers. When faced with a Democratic candidate who is a born-again Christian vs. a man who divorced his wife for his mistress, the abusers simply make up lies. Obama is a Muslim, they say. Since there is absolutely no evidence for this claim, they make him a closet Muslim, and an unpatriotic guy who befriends terrorists, to boot. None of this true, but lying is no big feat for an abuser trying to hold onto his prey.

Just like abusers everywhere, McCain and Palin claim to be mavericks to whom the rules do not apply. They condemn other politicians for pork barrel projects even though Alaska holds the record for per capita ear marks. They condemn lobbyists in politics, even though Sarah Palin was the first mayor to hire a lobbyist to bring pork barrel money to her little town of Wasilla. McCain continues to push for endless war in Iraq, even as American citizens and Iraqi officials call for an end to the occupation. They’re mavericks, all right.

Four more years of Bush-as-usual is not what voters want. In every state, middle class Americans are tired of war. Yet, for the presidential election, the Republican Party has selected the most crazed war hawk in American politics today. Why do they stay?

As with abused women, the question assumes too much. They don’t stay. They won’t stay. Sooner or later, middle class voters will be brave enough to leave the Republican Party behind.

Palin Pros and Cons

Several readers have asked me to weigh in on the selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as Senator John McCain’s vice presidential running mate. The way I see it, there are pros and cons to the Palin pick.

PRO – She’s a woman. Over 50% of voters are women, and we are seriously underrepresented in American government.

CON – She’s against women. Palin is part of the most extremist anti-woman platform the Republicans have put forth in years. These Republicans are on the warpath, trying to limit access to ordinary contraceptive methods like the birth control pill, which the majority of American women depend on at some point in their lives. Palin is right in with this crowd, going on record to state that she is against abortion even in the case of rape or incest.

PRO – The restoration of a female to this election could appeal to some voters who are disillusioned over Hillary’s primary loss.

CON – Palin is no Hillary Clinton. Palin’s resume is so thin, it actually includes her high school basketball “career.” She is a one-term governor of the 4th smallest state by population, and before that she was the mayor of a town smaller than Fort Oglethorpe. Most Americans only heard of her last week. She is best known as the bee-hived governor who was almost Miss Alaska. She has no experience outside the state, much less with foreign affairs. According to the New York Times, Palin only got her passport in July, 2007. Even then, she did not visit Iraq as she has claimed.

By contrast, Hillary Clinton is a serious, seasoned political leader known all around the world. It’s not just the age difference. Since her twenties, Clinton has been featured in publications like Life Magazine. She attracted attention not for beauty pageants but for historic accomplishments, like being the first Wellesley student to deliver the commencement address and using that opportunity to criticize the senator who spoke just before she did.

While Republicans hail Palin as a reformer, it is Clinton who is a true crusader. Hillary was a force to be reckoned with even before she teamed up with Bill. In the late sixties, she fought for civil rights, and in the seventies she helped impeach Richard Nixon. In the eighties, while Palin was strutting down the runway in a bikini, Clinton was fighting for education reform in Arkansas and being named Mother of the Year for the second time.

As First Lady for two terms in the nineties, Clinton was so active in domestic and foreign affairs that critics printed bumper stickers reading “Impeach the President and her husband, too.”

Clinton’s greatest obstacle is being ahead of her time. Consider her bid to reform healthcare. As First Lady she was unable to make it happen, but that plan is now integral to the Democratic platform. That’s what reformers do; they change the way we think about the world. Simply challenging an incumbent in your own party doesn’t make you a reformer.

The differences go beyond education and experience; Palin opposes everything Hillary Clinton stands for – health care, education, individual freedoms, and economic security for the middle class.

McCain must think women are stupid. He hopes to win Clinton supporters simply by adding a woman to his ticket. Some men may believe that all females are interchangeable; women know better.

PRO – Palin is a Washington outsider. After 8 years of Republican corruption, lies, and unjust war, many Americans are looking outside the Capitol for a fresh leader without ties, allegiances and debts.

CON – She is not just an outsider; she has absolutely no national experience. Republicans try to brush this away by pointing out that Obama has never been a governor and therefore has no “executive” experience – but the same can be said for McCain. If Palin is more qualified than Obama, then she is also more qualified than McCain. The Republicans need to reverse their ticket! The truth is, Sarah Palin is the least experienced candidate put forth in recent history. The presidency is far too important to risk on a loose cannon like McCain and a complete unknown like Palin.

PRO – A short resume means less baggage . . . right?

CON – For a politician with such a short history, Palin has been remarkably quick to immerse herself in scandalous abuses of power. Currently she is under investigation for trying to force the firing of her ex-brother-in-law as a favor to her sister.

As governor of Alaska (population comparable to Atlanta or Memphis), she has held her hand out for plenty of pork. Palin claims she opposed the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” Not true. Support for the bridge was part of her campaign platform. She only gave up on it after Washington turned against the project. Then she canceled the bridge, but kept most of the money for other projects. Although she claims she opposes earmarks, she has requested more per capita than any other governor.

While requesting federal dollars to study the mating habits of crabs, Palin used her line-item veto power to slash important funding for education and teen pregnancy prevention. She opposes teaching teens about condoms in spite of statistical and now personal evidence that “abstinence only” education has poor results.

Palin has an interesting strategy on changing Alaska’s status as the rape capital of America: Discourage victims from reporting. Under Mayor Palin, Wasilla women who reported rape had to pay for the cost of the forensic exam, reportedly a charge of $300-1,200. Charging women who report sex crimes is a sure way to reduce rape – well, rape reports, anyway.

PRO – Palin is an avid outdoorswoman, giving her a tough, not-afraid-to-get-her-hands-dirty image.

CON – Sarah Palin’s hands are a little too dirty. Palin wants to turn the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge into a private oil field for her corporate buddies.

Hunting does not always translate into caring about the environment or its inhabitants. Palin scoffs at global warming even as scientists document the shrinking of the ice caps and drowning of polar bears. Not that Palin cares about polar bears; she actually sued the Bush administration to have them taken off the endangered species list.

Wolves have fared no better under her watch. Until the program was stopped by a state judge, Palin was offering wolf hunters $150 for every hacked-off front foreleg they brought in.

PRO – The selection of a female vice presidential candidate is a historical first for the Republican Party. Finally, the Republicans have entered the 20th century. That’s not a typo. The press seems to have forgotten that Democrats met that milestone last century when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate in 1984. The Republicans are, finally, playing catch-up.

CON – In choosing Palin, John McCain passed over a long line of more qualified Republican leaders. If he wanted a female running mate, why not Kay Bailey Hutchison? Hutchison served as state treasurer of Texas before starting her fifteen years in the Senate. She is the most senior female Republican Senator, with a great deal of experience and responsibility.

Or how about Olympia Snowe? Snowe is the first woman who ever served in both houses, both in the state and nationally, and one of the first to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee. She was named one of America’s top senators by Time Magazine, and holds a 79% approval rating in her home state of Maine. Snowe is as powerful as she is popular. She chairs the subcommittee that oversees the Navy and Marine Corps and also serves on the Finance Committee. In 35 years, Olympia Snowe has never lost an election.

With choices like Hutchison and Snowe (and Condoleeza Rice, and the list goes on), why did McCain choose a political newbie from the sticks? The answer is clear to hard-working women in all sorts of careers who have watched a younger, less qualified woman soar past them to assume positions at the top. It’s an old gimmick, really: Put a token female near the top to placate the other women in the organization. Just make sure it’s a woman who will fully support the good ol’ boys, without caring what happens to us other women, or our children, or our world.

Better late than never

Better late than never:
Impeach Bush and Cheney

Finally, Democrats are moving to impeach the administration of criminals now controlling the Oval Office. For nearly eight years, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have lied to the American people. They have launched a war that is unconstitutional and unjustified. They have imprisoned thousands of people – some of them women and children – without due process, and then proceeded to torture them. They have spied on American households. They have laughed while they trashed the concepts of due process, habeas corpus, privacy, the Geneva Convention, and basic decency. No one has held them accountable for this tyrannical behavior – until now.

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House, she became one of the most powerful women in the world. Pelosi has long been critical of the current administration’s “war on terror” and the propaganda that surrounds it. Yet, before she even ascended to her current position, she made it clear that impeaching Bush was not on her agenda. Thus for two years, Democrats have held a majority in Congress and yet have not moved to impeach.

Why did Pelosi think America put Democrats in office? To pat Bush’s back and wink at his crimes?

We can understand the reluctance to impeach. Democrats became quite allergic to the whole process after President Clinton was dragged through impeachment over what should have remained a private affair (pun intended.) Millions of dollars were wasted proving that the man had, indeed, cheated on his wife. Conservatives and progressives alike took umbrage at the President’s dalliance with a White House intern – but few Americans considered his personal failure a crime against the country.

Less than a decade later, Republicans are no longer bothered by adultery. Senator John McCain not only cheated on his wife Carol; when Carol became disabled, he ditched her for a younger model, marrying the blond 25-year-old Cindy within one month of his divorce. Aren’t Republicans, who claim to be the standard-bearers of moral behavior, appalled at McCain’s sexual behavior? On the contrary – they want to make him President of the United States! Adultery is now passé for Republican politicians.

President Clinton was found innocent of the charges leveled against him, yet his impeachment affects Democratic thinking today. Some Democratic leaders apparently forgot that our forefathers established impeachment as an avenue toward justice. Impeachment should not be used as a partisan act of character assassination, as it was in Clinton’s case. But when a president has used the office to thwart the Constitution and commit war crimes, then impeachment is not only justified; it is absolutely necessary.

Thank you, Rep. Kucinich, for having the courage to stand up for justice. At this late stage in Bush’s second term, some are tempted to just let things ride. Some would even say it is “too late” for impeachment.

In a democratic republic, it is never too late to hold our leaders accountable for senseless killing. It is never too late to hold an elected official accountable for propagating 935 documented lies in order to invade another nation. It is never too late to proclaim that America is about freedom, not imperialism. It is never too late for justice.

Read the actual articles of impeachment here.

Let them run

The past few weeks have been very interesting for runners of all kinds. An athlete who could not run was carried. An athlete who can run was finally told he could. And in politics, Hillary Clinton was barraged with yet more calls to stop running.

Over 200,000 viewers enjoyed the YouTube video of Western Oregon University athlete Sara Tucholsky’s first home run. In a game against Central Washington University, Tucholsky hit the ball over the fence. At first base, she tore a ligament in her knee. When the umpire mistakenly ruled that one of her own team members could not run the bases for her, two Central Washington players picked her up and carried her around the bases. All over the blogosphere, Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace are heralded as heroes for the selfless act that cost them the game but won them a place in our hearts -- and an entry on Wikipedia.

In other sports victories, double amputee Oscar Pistorius won the right to compete for a spot in the Olympics. Pistorius was born without fibulas (the long thin bones that run from knee to ankle.) Surgeons amputated both his legs below the knee when he was eleven months old. Running on special carbon-fiber blades, Pistorius holds the 400-meter Paralympic word record at 46.56 seconds.

Pistorius is not quite there yet; the qualifying requirement for the 400-meter event in Beijing is 45.55 seconds. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had barred Pistorius from all able-bodied competition including the Olympics, considering his carbon-fiber running blades a “mechanical advantage” over other runners. Their fear was not that he would fail, but that he might succeed.

If Pistorius makes the cut, he will not be the first Paralympian to qualify for the Olympics. Natalie du Toit, a swimmer from South Africa, qualified for the 2008 Olympics on May 3rd. Du Toit was already competing internationally when she lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident. Du Toit swims without a prosthetic, so fairness was never questioned. A poem on her wall states, “It is not a disgrace not to reach for the stars, But it is a disgrace not to have stars to reach for.”

Like Du Toit, Hillary Clinton is a person who is not easily contented by merely having stars out there. Both women are driven to win. In either case, a win represents far more than a personal victory. Clinton is hardly disabled in the political arena – indeed, America would be hard-pressed to come up with any candidate who is sharper, more well-known, or more qualified to lead our country than Hillary Clinton. Yet, in the political arena, merely being female is still a gigantic perception liability, almost like an athlete competing without a limb.

Throughout Clinton’s campaign, this column has recorded and analyzed a steady stream of media misogyny used to smear the senator and former first lady. While much of the onslaught is presented as humor, it is notable that comic references to Clinton’s sex are invariably negative, and frequently downright hateful.

Since Obama first became a serious challenger, pundits have called for Clinton to drop out of the race. As Clinton’s campaign noted, the drop out cries followed Clinton’s victories, not Obama’s. Clinton had become like the runner on carbon-fiber blades, and much of society wanted to deny her the right to even be a contender – not because she could not win, but because she just might.

Obama now commands a strong lead, but a Clinton nomination is still mathematically possible. Why should the Democratic nomination be ended prematurely? Some Democrats want to end it so the Democratic Party can unify against John McCain. Yet polls show that Clinton is a stronger candidate against McCain. Democrats may shoot themselves in the foot by trying to silence their best candidate.

Quitting now would not only mean giving up the nomination. It would also represent an enormous loss to women everywhere. What woman has not been pressured with these same tactics to “just go home?” Month after month, women continue to hear that they cannot “have it all” (i.e. family and career), even as the majority of American women continue to do just that. We are inundated with magazine articles, Internet essays and news items telling us that women are “opting out” and just going home in large numbers. The facts prove otherwise, but it does not stop the media from feeding the guilt complex carried by working mothers and discouraging us with claims that we cannot succeed.

Being female is still a disadvantage in many fields. Where women have made inroads, they still do not receive the same wages and honors accorded to men. The more education and training a woman has, the less likely she is to earn as much as her peers. The wage gap between male and female physicians, for example, is much greater than the wage gap between male and female cashiers.

Oddly, many feminists are among those calling for Hillary to pull out of the race. The Democratic contest has opened a generational divide between older and younger feminists. Younger feminists are apt to say that the gender of the candidate is completely immaterial, so long as he or she supports feminism.

Older feminists recognize a troubling historical parallel. In the 1800’s, the feminist movement was strong and suffragettes were closer than ever to their goal of votes for women. Many suffragettes were also abolitionists, and were willing to temporarily lay aside the cause of votes for women in order to fight slavery. After the Civil War, the feminist movement spent a great deal of energy and resources fighting for the rights of black men, including the right to vote. As a result, black men received the right to vote fifty years before women.

At a campaign stop in Kentucky, Hillary Clinton responds to those who urge her to quit. “You don’t stop democracy in its tracks. You don’t tell some states that they can’t vote and other states that have already had the opportunity that they’re somehow more important. I want everybody to vote and everybody to help pick our next president.”

So run for all you’re worth. Run in your dark pantsuit. Run on your carbon-fiber blades. Run till the wind in your ears drowns out the incessant whining of those who tell you to go home. They’re only afraid that somehow, against the odds, you just might win.

The truth about universal healthcare

Republican Party spokespersons big and small are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to combat the positive message of the Democratic Party. Over the next few months, you will hear them call good evil and evil good in order to trick America into four more years of Bush-style fear-mongering, war-mongering and recession.

Healthcare may be the issue that shipwrecks their good-is-evil message. For years, Republicans told us that “universal healthcare” was a dangerous, wicked Democratic plan that must be opposed. They said if everyone had healthcare, there would be no healthcare at all! Back when most voters had adequate healthcare coverage, we swallowed the lies. We believed that if healthcare were extended to the masses, it would no longer be as good for us.

Times have changed. Many of us are finding ourselves under-insured, with huge deductibles to meet before our policy ever kicks in. Many more are uninsured altogether, either because we cannot afford the employee portion of the premium, or because our company can no longer afford to offer health insurance. Will people with little or no healthcare really buy the “universal healthcare is evil” mantra?

Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko” really brought the issue to the forefront of the American conscience. It is not that Americans did not know about the crisis. Many of us have experienced it first hand. What the movie and the buzz about it revealed is that the healthcare crisis is widespread. We are not alone in our struggles.

In fact, one survey found that 30% of respondents had delayed seeing a doctor about a known and potentially serious medical condition, because of inability to pay. Medical inflation is currently twice as high as the standard rate of inflation, meaning this problem will not resolve itself. Workers are paying more but getting less, with premiums rising four times faster than wages.

Let’s consider it from another angle. Every American child has the right to an education, whether or not her parents can afford private school. There are schools on every corner – private schools, public schools, and kitchen-table home schools. To be sure, the public education system has flaws. (So do private schools and home schools, but nobody talks about that.) Despite the flaws, we can still say this: Any American child can walk through the doors of the public school house and receive an education.

Unfortunately, I know some people who would like to see public education abolished. As you can imagine, they are people who can easily afford to educate their children privately, and they do not appreciate having to foot the bill for other people’s children.

In the dreams of the selfish, their little Richie would never have to compete with the smart but poor kid down the road. Only the wealthy would be able to educate their children. As for the rest of Americans, well, they just need to be trained for manual labor and subordinate positions to little Richie.

Most of us would be appalled at such thinking. We have been raised to believe that a basic education is every child’s birth-rite. Aren’t health and life more important than education? If every child has the right to be taught to read, then does not every child have the right to receive treatment for a life-threatening condition like asthma?

Universal healthcare simply means healthcare for all. Private healthcare plans will not be eradicated any more than private schools have been eradicated. Those who are happy with their current healthcare can keep it.

Health care is at least as important as public education, public libraries, public transportation and other services that we make available to all citizens. It is time for the United States to step into the twenty-first century and provide healthcare for all Americans. To help us do that, vote Democratic!

Jeannie Babb Taylor
www.JeannieBabbTaylor.com

Soaring fuel prices force trucks off the road

Relief may come in November

Everybody knows that fuel prices are sky-high. These increases inflate the price of every single product that we purchase. Other than locally-grown vegetables, every consumable that comes into our homes has ridden on an eighteen-wheeler at least once, and often more than once. Diesel has now topped $4.00 a gallon, inflating the price of everything from the produce aisle to the dairy section.

What if consumers are paying more than their fair share of the additional fuel costs? What if the brokers who schedule trucks are up-charging the shippers, then pocketing the additional funds and requiring truckers to fund the difference? What if truckers cannot take it anymore?

On April 1st, 250 trucks crawled up I-75 from Macon to Atlanta at 20 mph. The cause of the congestion was not road construction or a traffic accident, and it certainly was not an April Fool’s joke. The owner/operators were staging a public protest against high fuel prices and tight-lipped brokers who refuse to tell truckers what they’re charging shippers for fuel.

Most of us consider the high fuel prices an unfortunate side-effect of the Iraq war, or just a part of life. We continue filling our gas tanks and driving to the places we need to go. With a helpless shrug, we assume that nothing can be done.

Diesel is cheaper to produce than gasoline. Yet diesel now sells for about 70 cents per gallon more than gasoline. Only in the United States is diesel higher than gasoline. This contradiction is very telling. From a conservation point of view, it is disastrous. The disparate fuel prices reward frivolous oil use while punishing necessary industrial oil use. Part of the price difference is the 25-cent higher federal fuel tax, but most of it is simply excessive profit saddled onto a captive customer.

Truckers are a captive customer because they have no options. They cannot choose to drive fewer miles to make up for fuel inflation. They cannot select a lower, cheaper grade like gasoline users can. They cannot carpool or use public transportation instead of filling their fuel tanks. Any drop in consumption means a pay cut.

Their livelihood is tied directly to the fluctuations of oil prices. In a free market economy, you would think that increases or savings would simply be passed along to the customer. According to the truckers, it does not happen that way.

Independent owner/operators rely on brokers who link trucks with loads. The brokers charge the shippers a fuel surcharge, which is rolled into the product price along with other freight costs. However, many brokers refuse to disclose their fuel surcharge to the truckers. Although they charge the shipper more money to cover diesel price increases, only a portion of that fuel surcharge is passed along to the actual truck driver who must purchase the fuel.

Since April 1, the truckers have been protesting the surcharge rip-off in a variety of ways. The slow parade from Macon to Atlanta is just one of hundreds of protests taking place all over the United States. Other truckers have parked their trucks, declaring that they will not carry another load until the government listens to their concerns and enacts legislation to protect them.

Alfred Teeters is an owner-operator based out of Chickamauga, Georgia. Teeters says he and his wife, who have been trucking for twenty years, have written numerous emails to US Rep. Jay Neal (R-GA), US Rep Nathan Deal (R-GA), and State Senator Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga.) Teeters says none of the three politicians even bothered to reply.

Independent truckers say the fuel prices and broker practices are driving them out of business. Truckers are losing their rigs. Some are losing their homes as well.
Meanwhile, the shortage of trucks on the road increases freight costs and constricts business, hurting all Americans.

How will the protest rectify this situation? The truckers hope that they can get the attention of the public, who will then apply pressure to governors, lawmakers and the President.

What exactly are the truckers demanding? The laundry list looks something like this:

Suspension of all federal and state fuel taxes until the economy recovers.
Creation of a federal oversight committee to regulate insurance premiums on Class 8 truck insurance.
Prohibition of self insurance for large trucking fleets, in order to level the playing field for smaller companies.
Federal regulations for brokers and shippers, properly enforced, with set maximums.
Standardized safety violation fines from coast to coast.

No major trucking companies are backing the protest. The Teamsters union and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association deny organizing the protest. The association is legally prohibited from calling for a strike, because it is listed as a trade association.

Oil company executives say they sympathize with consumers regarding the high fuel price, but that they are not to blame. They claim their profits are in line with other industries. Oil profits hit another all-time high last year, totaling about $123 billion.

How long must we tolerate an economic structure that leaves us at the mercy of the oil barons? The answer may be “Only until November.” Democratic presidential candidates have unveiled detailed plans to reduce American’s dependence on foreign oil, provide stimulus for the alternative energy industry, and put bring Iraq’s oil industry back online. Hillary Clinton also wants to curtail the excessive oil profits, redirecting some of that money to fund energy research and create more jobs.

Of course, there are some voters who just do not mind paying such exorbitant prices for gasoline. They don’t care if truck drivers must pay $1,600 a week for diesel to keep their trucks on the road. They don’t mind paying $5.00 or $6.00 a gallon for milk. Those voters may try to put McCain in office.

A vote for McCain is a vote for the oil barons. A vote for McCain is a vote to escalate war in the Middle East, expanding the fighting from Afghanistan and Iraq to Iran and other areas for “a hundred years.” A vote for McCain is a vote to continue the manufactured oil shortage. A vote for McCain is a vote to put more and more truckers out of business. A vote for McCain is a vote to strangle the American economy.

Why we need to elect Democrats

Are you concerned about family values? That’s why we need to elect Democrats. Democrats founded the Department of Education in America. Democrats passed the Family and Medical Leave Act to prevent working parents from being fired when they have to leave work to care for a sick child. That act had been on hold for years because Republicans opposed the idea.

Republicans also opposed the World Health Organization (WHO) code to hold formula companies accountable for their unethical marketing tactics that harm mothers and babies. While the rest of the world signed the WHO code in 1980, babies in the United States had no protection from unscrupulous corporations until Democratic President Bill Clinton took office. Democrats have a bill before the House now to protect breastfeeding mothers from discrimination and offer them a tax break for contributing to the public health.

Speaking of children, Democrats also implemented the State Children’s Health Insurance (SCHIP) program that provides health care for millions of poor children. Democrats continue to fight valiantly for the program in the face of funding cuts and repeated vetoes by Republicans.

Are you concerned about Christian values? The last president who actually attended church was Bill Clinton, a Democrat. The next-to-last president to attend church was a Democrat, too. Jimmy Carter preaches, teaches and has written numerous devotionals. As for the current crop of presidential hopefuls, Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have a history of Christian faith that includes conversion, church membership and attendance. By contrast, McCain is so loosely attached to any church that he changed his credentials from “lifelong Episcopalian” to “been a Baptist for years” mid-campaign.

Are you looking to protect our personal freedoms and civil liberties? That’s why we need to elect Democrats. Republicans have conceived attack after attack on the rights we hold dear. Bush launched the Patriot Act, suspending the right to habeas corpus. Habeas corpus protects us from unlawful arrest by preventing authorities from detaining a person without evidence of a particular crime. Without habeas corpus, we can be arrested without ever breaking the law, and held indefinitely.

Republicans continue to chip away at our civil liberties by spying on Americans through the telephone companies. Although the companies’ actions are illegal and a violation of privacy, blanket immunity protects the companies from prosecution.

Perhaps you are concerned about the economy and prefer to vote for fiscal conservatives. That’s why we need to elect Democrats. The last president to balance the budget was a Democrat. The last president to preside over a budget surplus was a Democrat. Republicans have not so much as broken even since the Nixon era. In fact, President Clinton left office in 2001 with a $127 billion surplus. By 2005, President Bush had burned through that extra money and accumulated a $319 billion deficit.

After another term of Bush, the deficit has spiraled to $9,413 billion at the time of the writing of this article. The deficit will be higher when you actually read this piece, since it is increasing by $1.7 billion per day. In case you’re wondering what this means to you, your personal share of the budget deficit is $31,001.26 and rising.

Sure, Republicans will cut funding in the name of tax relief. They cut school lunch programs, health programs, and help for the elderly. They cut school funds to help special needs kids – both gifted and learning delayed. Federal and state cuts mean that individual school districts must raise property taxes, suspend programs, or lay off teachers. Look around you and notice that they are doing all of the above just to make ends meet and stay solvent.

Republicans like to call Democrats “tax and spend.” In reality, it is Republicans who tax and spend – but they cut important programs while doing so. They spend everything in the budget and more, then use the budget as an excuse to hurt the helpless. After your child’s special needs teacher is let go, do you think you will receive a tax refund based on her lay-off? Hardly. That money is needed for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The war against Iraq costs Americans some $275 million per day. According to the New York Times, the $1.2 trillion (that’s over a million millions) spent on Iraq up through January is enough money to fund the following U.S. improvements: An unprecedented public health campaign that doubles cancer research funding, treats every unmanaged diabetic and heart disease patient, and saves millions of lives through global immunization. In ten years, this program would only use half the money. We could also fund a preschool program for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country, and give New Orleans a gigantic reconstruction boost. The rest of the money could be spent improving national security by implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which Bush chooses to ignore. We would still have money to finance the war in Afghanistan to hold back the Taliban, and fund a peacekeeping force to stop genocide in Darfur.

Are you concerned about security in a time of war? That’s why we need to elect Democrats. Let’s look at security on a local level. Notice that the sheriffs of Whitfield, Walker and Catoosa counties are all Democrats, and all known for their ability to keep order and provide safety. Nationally, the same is true. It was a Democratic president who won World War I. It was a Democratic president who won World War II. What exactly is the Republican war legacy? Vietnam? Korea? Afghanistan and Iraq? Republicans do not even declare war properly. They surely don’t know how to declare peace.

Democratic leaders are our best hope for a brighter future.

Setting the record straight

Evaluating election rumors

With a flimsy platform and no strong candidate, Republicans are hoping to win the November election on whisper campaigns and character assassination. Let’s check out some of their claims.

No, Hillary Clinton did not defend the Black Panthers who killed and tortured Alex Rackley. Hillary Clinton was a student at that time, not an attorney or a politician. She attended the trial as a volunteer observer for the ACLU, but had no impact on the outcome. Like many students, she was concerned about whether the black defendants were receiving a fair trial, and she participated in protests calling for a change of venue.

No, people who oppose the Clintons do not meet an untimely demise. The “Clinton Body Count” is so preposterous that no reasonable person could entertain the idea. For a body-by-body debunking, see http://www.snopes.com/. The shorter version is: If Hillary Clinton had a 50-person hit list, wouldn’t the Republicans be all over that? She would certainly be sitting in jail for connections to even one murder.

No, Secret Service agents did not claim Hillary Clinton was rude and arrogant, mistreating her agents and even charging them rent. As early as 1993 Time Magazine reported a known political trick in which spurious Clinton stories were “leaked” to the press. Often these stories were attributed to anonymous Secret Service agents as a way to lend credibility to the false claim. As for rent, the Clintons are entitled to receive $1,100 per month for housing Secret Service agents in their Chappaqua, NY home – but they turned down the money.

No, Obama does not refuse to pledge the flag and yes, he has flags on his website. Obama has been videotaped pledging the flag. His website is red, white and blue (mostly blue.) The background centers on an eagle holding a shield and flag. His logo, shown multiple times on every page, is an interpretation of the American flag and the theme of hope (the sun rising over a field) all framed as a big O.

No, Obama does not attend a covertly Muslim church that excludes whites. Obama is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC). The membership of TUCC is predominantly black, and the church places great emphasis on honoring African heritage and promoting the idea that “black is beautiful.” However, all people are welcome at the church, which adheres to the theology of the United Church of Christ.

No, Obama did not take the oath of office by swearing on the Koran. That would be a strange thing for a Christian to do. Obama was sworn in on the Bible.

No, John Edwards did not cause the 2004 flu vaccine shortage. The urban legend states that John Edwards sued a pharmaceutical company on behalf of a man who contracted the flu after receiving the vaccine. Supposedly the threat of further litigation ensures that no pharmaceutical company in the Unite States will dare to make the flu vaccine. The legend claims that the 2004 flu vaccine shortage resulted from contamination of a flu vaccine facility in the UK. This one is false all the way around. John Edwards never litigated a flu case. Anyway, the flu vaccine is manufactured in the United States. It was a US facility that was shut down due to contamination, resulting in the shortage. The real reason few pharmaceutical companies produce flu vaccine is because the profit margin for flu vaccine is very slim.

What about the Republican candidates? Is there a whisper campaign against them? Every email I have received has been against a Democrat. Even searching for GOP candidate names along with “urban legend,” I came up with very few stories, all of which are substantiated by reputable media outlets.

Yes, Senator McCain supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. In 2006 and 2007, McCain joined with Ted Kennedy in supporting Senate bills that would give amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. He also denounced and voted against an amendment designed to stop illegal immigrants from receiving social security benefits through identity fraud. McCain co-sponsored the Dream Act, which provided in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants. Later he said he would have voted against his own legislation – but in fact he was absent when the vote was taken.

Yes, McCain is being swift-boated. There really is a group called Vietnam Veterans against John McCain. They claim that Senator McCain committed treason and does not deserve his medals because he gave the enemy information while he was being tortured as a POW. According to McCain’s own account, he did give the enemy information – some true and some false. For example, when asked to name the members of his squadron, he listed the names of the Green Bay Packers offensive line. McCain is a war hero as far as I am concerned, but it is true that this group exists and that they insist otherwise.

Yes, Mitt Romney transported his dog in a cage strapped to the top of the car during a 12-hour journey to visit his parents. The 1983 misadventure was reported in the Boston Globe last June. Romney clarified that he attempted to shield the dog with some sort of makeshift windshield. The scared pooch developed diarrhea, so Romney stopped at a gas station and hosed down the dog, the carrier, and the back of the car. Romney’s campaign-trail response to pet-loving critics: “They’re not happy that my dog loves fresh air.”

Speaking of dogs, Snopes confirms that Mike Huckabee’s son was fired from his job as a Boy Scout Camp counselor after he killed a dog by hanging. John Bailey, then director of Arkansas state police, claims Huckabee refused to allow police to investigate whether the boy violated animal cruelty laws. Huckabee says that Bailey is just a disgruntled employee. Huckabee says the dog was mangy, emaciated, and threatening, and that his son acted out of compassion.

Yes, Huckabee had a prominent role in the release of a serial rapist in Arkansas. Worse, the decision to release Wayne Dumond 25 years early appears to be politically motivated. Dumond was convicted and incarcerated while Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. One of the victims, a seventeen-year-old high school cheerleader named Ashley Stevens, was distantly related to Clinton. Republicans seized on the connection to claim that the man had been wrongfully convicted.

Soon after election, Governor Huckabee began to agitate for Wayne Dumond’s release. In his book, “From Hope to Higher Ground,” Huckabee states that he worried Dumond might be innocent. He was callous enough to say this to Ashley Stevens when she begged him to keep Dumond behind bars. According to the Huffington Post, Huckabee’s office kept the visit secret, as well as letters from numerous victims warning that Dumond would strike again. They were right. Dumond then raped and then suffocated a 39-year-old woman. He was arrested again, the day after he allegedly raped and murdered a pregnant woman. Huckabee’s response amounts to “Who knew?” Other times he has blamed Clinton for Dumond’s release, pretending the commutation happened before his term.

In an election of this import, voters must make the effort to find out the truth. Don’t go into the voting precinct next Tuesday with a head full of lies. Cut through the urban legends – and even the campaign rhetoric – to consider a candidate’s true stance on the issues. Past voting records are the best clue.

We can believe that Democrats will institute nationwide healthcare coverage – and that Republicans consider it unnecessary. We can believe that Huckabee will be soft on crime and add to his 1,000+ pardons. We cannot believe McCain on immigration or Romney on abortion, because their positions are shifting and do not match their voting patterns. We can believe the Republicans when they say they will extend the war in the Middle East for 100 years or more. We can believe Democrats when they say they will end the war and bring troops home.

Who’s crying in their coffee now?

Media attempt to manipulate the election fails – this time

Just before the New Hampshire primary, the media was abuzz with the claim that Hillary Clinton was coming unraveled. Multiple sources claimed she had been crying. One columnist called it a “weepfest” while others speculated that it may be a calculated attempt to “cry her way to the White House.”

Most pundits said she was finished. AP writers even claimed to have inside information that she was planning a pull-out. Every story implied she was crying over her loss in Iowa and impending loss in New Hampshire.

Being the curious sort, I went to You-Tube for the video clip. She was not even talking about Iowa or New Hampshire. She did express herself passionately. At one point her voice, hoarse from campaigning, quavered a bit.

But there was not a single tear shed. How does one have a “weepfest” without tears? Yet this moment of perceived weakness was recounted and embellished in the media as they gloated over Clinton’s supposed political burial.

As the New Hampshire primary votes were counted, it was interesting to watch the news reports roll into Yahoo News and CNN. As Clinton took the lead, the AP article was updated to state that Clinton and Obama were “dueling for New Hampshire” -- yet it continued to claim she was considering dropping out. As her lead grew, reporters kept claiming the race was neck-and-neck.

When the New Hampshire primary was over, CNN put it like this: “Clinton wins back women, narrowly takes New Hampshire.” Actually, Clinton earned a higher percentage of votes in New Hampshire than Obama earned in Iowa.

Seems to me the pundits and reporters were intent on taking the woman candidate down. They presented to the world a caricature of Hillary Clinton crying in her coffee while her campaign team whispered about withdrawal. They believed, like all good Republicans, that if you repeat a story over and over, it becomes true. They hoped that voters would not cast their ballot for a “loser.”

When Clinton won New Hampshire, the pundits could not say “We were wrong.” They certainly would not admit “We misled the public.” So they had to say, “Wow, look what we did! We made all those silly women voters feel so sorry for Hillary Clinton that they actually voted for her!”

I have some news for the news people: Your projections were wrong. Hillary Clinton was always popular in New Hampshire. The primary voters did not cast a sympathy vote. They cast their votes based on a concept called issues.

In fact, exit polls showed that the greatest Clinton voting gap was not between men and women. It was between women with jobs and women without jobs. Women who are currently looking for work voted for Senator Clinton in faith that she can turn the economy around and strengthen the job market.

Although female voters were significant, Clinton was also favored among certain other groups, including college-educated voters of both sexes and voters over forty.

Hillary Clinton is well-respected among party Democrats. Democrats are well aware of Senator Clinton’s work. We know better than to believe the biased media that paints her as super-liberal or overly divisive. Clinton has a history of reaching across the aisle and getting things done. She is a known quantity. She’s a safe bet. In states where primary voting is limited to the parties, a strong Clinton showing is expected.

Radio preachers and Republicans always lament “the liberal media.” I’d like to know where this so-called liberal media can be found? You can’t tune the radio without coming across a horde of ranting, slobbering right-wing extremists, yet it is nearly impossible to find a left-leaning speaker.

Television and the air waves are owned, dominated, and narrated by conservatives. They falsely divide Democratic voters into groups, claiming “Obama will win the black vote” and “Hillary will win the woman vote.” Neither blacks nor women vote as a block – and if they did, it would create a real problem. Over half of black voters happen to be women. A fair number of female voters happen to be black.

The American media is not liberal. What we have is a sexist media that will prognosticate endlessly about Hillary Clinton’s hair, cleavage, laughter, voice, tears, clothes – anything that can be used to remotely suggest that women are something ‘other.’

Commentators make sexist remarks without impunity. Imus was publicly reprimanded for making racist comments toward female athletes, but what if those players had been white? Chattanooga radio personalities make sexist comments about female athletes, lamenting that they cannot watch sexy, half-clad models on the court rather than muscular women who know how to handle a ball. Few listeners complain, so long as race is not mentioned.

You would never hear the pundits discuss how well Obama meets their stereotypical perceptions of bi-racial men -- Not the same way Clinton’s femininity has been picked apart. That’s not to say that racism is not a major barrier in American life and politics, but at least it has been consigned to the whisper campaign. Woman-hating is still a public and accepted American pastime. Unfortunately, the media is no exception.

Media Matters has launched a campaign against MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews for his sexist remarks toward Clinton. His comments include referrals to Clinton as a "she devil," an “uppity woman” and a "strip-teaser." He called male Clinton supporters "castratos in the eunuch chorus." Other times he has called Senator Clinton "Madame Defarge,” a Charles Dickens character who spent her time knitting a register of people she wanted dead. On four occasions Matthews has depicted Clinton as a woman who wants to smother a baby in a crib – the baby, of course, being Senator Obama.

Chris Matthews and Rush Limbaugh both refer to Senator Clinton as "Nurse Ratched." Nurse Ratched is the sadistic woman who terrorizes mental patients in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

Intelligent voters make their choice based on the issues that are important to them, not media caricatures. I, for one, will vote my conscience.

copyright Jeannie Babb Taylor
http://www.jeanniebabbtaylor.com/

Racism, sexism and representation

Primary picks to make your vote count in 2008

Several readers have requested my primary picks. Here they are, from numerous angles and with a humorous twist.

If I were a super-conservative religious male (Christian, Muslim or otherwise) who believes that men are created in God’s image and women are lesser beings, I’d vote for Mike Huckabee. I’d sing hymns in my head while standing in line, and whisper “Amen” when I put my hand on the TV screen. On the way home, I would buy six months worth of groceries in anticipation of the 23% “Fair Tax” to come.

If I were a rich libertarian who wants to tell other Americans that their education and health care are none of my concern, I’d vote for Ron Paul. I would still have to stop for groceries on the way home. I would especially stock up on medicines, meats and other FDA-approved goods. There is no telling what toxins might be added once Ron Paul eliminates the FDA and gives us back our “health freedom.”

If I were the head of a powerful and corrupt corporation, I would vote for Mitt Romney. He’d be someone I could work with -- someone who understands that the bottom line is far more important than the lives of a few babies or the long-term health of women. Romney understands that government is just another form of business.

If I were a secretly gay conservative male bent on suppressing the lifestyles of openly gay liberal males, I’d vote for Rudy Giuliani. With his quick flip-flop from supporting Gay Pride to suddenly endorsing a marriage amendment, it is obvious he has no real scruples and will comply with whatever his handlers say on the matter. I’d try to remember to remove my lipstick before going the polls, and make sure my slip was not showing.

If I were a war-hawk with a T-shirt reading, “Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out,” I’d vote for John McCain. I’d invest some money in Dyancorp and Halliburton. Then I’d send my son to Canada, knowing that McCain has stated he does not mind if the troops are in Iraq for a hundred, a thousand, a million or even ten million years.

If my greatest concern were the economy or healthcare – perhaps as a plant worker, a school teacher, a parent, an honest business owner or just a middle-class American struggling to pay the bills on time -- I would vote for a Democrat. Any Democrat I liked.

Then I would breathe a big sigh of relief, confident that if Democrats win the economy will soon improve and taxes will be held at bay. Democrats are historically much better at managing the national budget, and they don’t tax things like groceries and medical bills.

I’d go home with a smile on my face, knowing that soon our borders will be secure and the government will be targeting the corporations who bus in illegal workers – not raiding and breaking up families. I would feel relieved that our men and women in uniform will soon be coming home – with solid veteran’s benefits when they return. I’d take my family out to eat, hopeful that my candidate will win and the American economy will at last begin to recover from eight devastating years of Bush.

The differences between the top three Democratic candidates are slim. Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton are all intelligent people with a solid history of serving Americans. I would be honored to cast my vote for any of them.

The differences between the Republican candidates are greater, and the chasm between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party is gaping wider every day. Republicans want to kill, and Democrats want to heal. Republicans want to squeeze the life out of the American lower and middle class, while Democrats want to salvage the economy and strengthen the middle class. Most Republicans want to expand and escalate the war in the Middle East. Democrats want to bring ‘em home.

On February 5th, Georgia voters have the opportunity to make history. We can help put the first black person or the first woman on the national ballot. People of color are underrepresented in American government, as are women.

Women comprise the majority of voters, but only 16% of Congress. No female presidential candidate has ever before appeared on the national ballot for either major party.

Point this out to some Republicans and they will act like they’re vaguely sorry they didn’t think of it first. “It’s not that I’m against a woman president,” they’ll say, “just not THAT WOMAN.”

Very few can give a substantive reason for opposing Hillary Clinton. More common are knee-jerk reactions based on mischaracterizations or outright lies. Republicans frequently characterize Clinton as a super-divisive liberal, but anyone who follows her actual votes and agendas sees a very different picture. Clinton is a moderate.

Then there is the so-called “Clinton Body Count” that has been regurgitated from the 1990s and is re-circling the Internet. This piece of work claims to be a list of all the people who have died “mysteriously” because of their connections to the Clintons. The connection may be tenuous (such as Bill’s chiropractor’s mother, or a person who once lived in Arkansas) and the mysterious death usually is not mysterious at all. Nonetheless, it’s good fodder for fools who say “I got it in an email, so it must be true.”

Sadly, the United States is far behind the times in granting women full access to the government. Other countries have had women in the highest office as far back as the sixties. Great Britain has had Margaret Thatcher, India had Indira Ghandi, and Israel had Golda Meir. Pakistan, Turkey and Bangldesh are all Muslim countries that have placed women at the helm. This short list does not even touch on the extensive list of women who have ruled as royals, stretching from pre-history to modern times.

Who could have imagined that America would cross into the new millennium and journalists would still be asking, “Is America ready for a woman in the White House?”

We should ask ourselves how satisfied we are with the male who has been in office the last seven years. If we elect another man like Bush, we can expect four more years like the last seven.

Hardly anyone favors a candidate solely on sex or skin color. Such traits illicit more votes against than for. Yet there are many people who consider Clinton’s sex and Obama’s color an important part of who they are and how they will lead. All else being equal, many women (and indeed some men) prefer a female candidate. Likewise, many people consider Obama’s skin tone a perk rather than a liability.

What do you call it when a woman votes for Hillary Clinton because she’s female, or a black person prefers Obama because of the color of his skin? It’s called representation.

Jeannie Babb Taylor
www.JeannieBabbTaylor.com

Looking into the eyes of Jesus

The real Christmas story

During the Christmas holidays, several news outlets carried an article about Rudy Giuliani reading the Christmas story at a children’s home in Harlem. The heart-warming headline was followed by a story explaining that he is following up on a fourteen year tradition. Every December Giuliani goes to the children’s home to read “Twas the Night before Christmas.”

Reading to children is a nice gesture. On Christmas Eve, my father-in-law read us all the Christmas story, and charged us to read it every year, even after he is gone from this earth. But he was not reading what Rudy Giuliani was reading. “Twas the Night before Christmas” is not the real Christmas story.

For those who have forgotten, the Christmas story is set in a little Israeli town called Bethlehem. It’s a musical, which opens with a young woman singing her joy at being chosen to bear a special child. It continues with a rousing number sung from the very heavens by a choir of angelic beings.

The amazing thing is that the Christmas child is no mere baby – he is the very incarnation of God. Our Creator, who cared for us and was rejected by us, sought to rectify the situation by becoming one of us. God could have come down here as a judge bent on revenge. Instead, the Divine took on human flesh, entering our world and our timeline as a helpless, bloody infant.

The Christmas story pre-dates “Twas the Night before Christmas” by a couple of thousand years. That’s not to say I don’t like Santa. He has rosy cheeks and a big, round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly. What’s not to like? We can hardly blame Coca-Cola’s Santa Claus or his predecessor Saint Nicholas for the commercialization of the holiday.

Christmas commercialism extends beyond our own families; now we have every church, school, business and civic group raising money and toys to make sure that poor children have their share of commercialism, too. Don’t get me wrong; I like gifts. Baby Jesus received a few nice gifts that Christmas morning, and I think we ought to continue the tradition. Giving gifts to those who cannot buy their own is an especially caring idea – much better than racking your brain to find that special something for a person who already has everything.

Even stray cats receive a little Christmas love. A few weeks ago, my son spotted a little black kitten in the Ingles parking lot. We have a one-pet rule, which is already broken by the proliferation of semi-domesticated raccoons that occupy our back porch every evening. The answer was no – but it was Christmas, and the kitten looked so small and helpless… As my son approached, the cat darted into the culvert and looked back at us with golden eyes. She was right where she wanted to be.

I was moved when my sister called to tell me that someone was setting out cat food for “the little black kitten who lives in the culvert at Ingles.” I didn’t know anyone else knew about the kitten, but I soon learned that my mother and my sister both tried to catch it. Now I wonder just how many of my neighbors saw the Ingles kitten and longed to help. Christmas brings that out in us.

I also like the fragrances of evergreen and hot cider, the incessant ringing of the Salvation Army bell, and the holiday sales. I like my Aunt Odette’s traditional oyster dressing and thin gravy. I like that my brother flies down from Boston, crisp and cosmopolitan in his black wool coat. I like the Christmas music playing in the background, and the sparkle in the children’s eyes as they examine every ornament on Grandmother’s tree.

But sometimes in all the excitement, we forget about the baby. Even in our churches, where the choir has been practicing a Christmas cantata for months and the purple candles are lit by a different family each week, we can miss the point: Emmanuel, God with us. That baby was divinity wrapped in human flesh. A holy God, that we could never reach or touch, came down to intersect our lives.

Our response was not very good back then, either. The inn-keepers all turned the poor travelers away – all except for one, who had only enough compassion to point them toward a barn. A few shepherds showed up, and later an untold number of magi (the Bible never says three) arrived to honor the Christ-child. The rest of the world could not hear his thin cries above the hubbub of the crowd traveling home to pay their taxes. God came to earth, and learned there was no room for him here.

In fact, when the reigning king learned of his birth, all the newborns in town were slaughtered in an attempt to kill Jesus. The young parents took the baby and fled to a foreign land. If the Egyptians had deported them, we might not singing “Silent Night.”

Is there room for Christ today? In Cincinnati, Rev. Larry Kreps is under fire for providing food and shelter to illegal immigrants who were fleeing a raid. Some members of John Wesley United Methodist Church were uncomfortable with their church building being used to provide sanctuary for “illegals.” Kreps admits that he was conflicted when the desperate families appeared on his doorstep. "Of course we're coming into Christmas and the question: 'Is there room at the inn?'," Kreps said. "I'd rather be someone who makes room somewhere."

Many churches, food banks and private organizations have already faced this question. Some have answered with a resounding “No room.” They use citizenship as a qualifier for who can receive assistance. This is accomplished by requiring vouchers, social security cards, or other identifying information to prove citizenship.

Republicans and Libertarians who oppose welfare often state that it is the job of churches – not governments – to provide charitable help to those in need. As the government responds to public pressure to deport illegal immigrants, split up families, and deny even emergency medical assistance, Christian churches will have the opportunity to demonstrate the depth of their convictions. What we will do for the sick and the hungry among us? Will we look at the color of their skin and demand identification? Will we refuse to feed the hungry man who has no social security number? Will we turn away sick children because their parents were born in another land?

Whatever a person believes about government welfare, the responsibility of Christians is clear. Jesus warned us that “whatever you did not do for the least of these, you did not do for me.” (Matthew 25:45) The families on the doorstep of John Wesley United Methodist Church looked up at Rev. Kreps with dark eyes filled with hope and fear. He smiled, because he knew he was looking into the eyes of Jesus.

Baptist drop-out vs. Mormon priest

Religious battle for the Oval Office

Will the real Republican candidate please stand up? It surely can’t be drag queen Giuliani or “Bomb, Bomb Iran” McCain. Fred Thompson’s act as a candidate is not very convincing, either. Thompson did not even make the Delaware primary ballot; he failed to locate even 500 registered Republicans who wanted him on the ticket.

Perhaps the real candidate is Mitt Romney. Sure, Romney is a slick corporate thug that should never be trusted with the presidency – but that’s just the sort of candidate Republican Party leaders want.

Now Mike Huckabee is finally getting some press. The former governor and Baptist pastor is everything conservatives say they want: anti-abortion, anti-immigration and anti-homosexual. Huckabee claims that “nothing in our society matters more” than heterosexual marriage.

Of course he is sold out to all the usual Republican lobbies. He wants to protect gun-makers from lawsuits, he scoffs at the idea that all Americans need healthcare, and he wants to dump more dollars into Iraq and other wars. Sounds like a perfect Republican candidate!

Yet Huckabee has been rejected by his own. Pat Robertson chose to endorse the drag queen instead of the Baptist pastor, revealing that politics are really more important to him than faith. Huckabee is gaining popularity now in spite of the snub.

Huckabee’s rise to the top may be short-lived. With public notice comes public scrutiny, and Huckabee just cannot pass muster. Already his campaign staff has had to defend the preacher’s repeated false claim of being “the only guy on that stage with a theology degree.” Turns out, Huckabee has no theology degree either. He dropped out of seminary after only one year.

Huckabee is also taking some heat for wondering out loud if Mormonism holds that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Mormon presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his followers characterize the comment as a religious smear tactic.

While I am hardly a Huckabee fan, I have to defend the preacher-turned-politician on this issue. Huckabee may have lied about his education, but it hardly takes a theology degree to perform a Google search. The official Latter Day Saints (LDS) website states “Both Jesus and Lucifer were strong leaders with great knowledge and influence. But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer's older brother. (See Col. 1:15; D&C 93:21.)”

As usual, Christians are asking the wrong question. A church’s theology on Satan is not a major criterion for inclusion beneath the Christian umbrella. The question is not what they do with Satan, but rather what they do with Jesus. Nearly everyone in the world believes that Jesus existed and was a good guy. Even Muslims accord him the status of prophet. The defining point of Christianity, however, is a belief that Jesus is in fact fully God.

Romney said in his carefully-crafted religion speech that Jesus is the savior of the world, hoping Christians would breathe a sigh of relief. However, there is an important theological distinction between the LDS church and those that are considered Christian churches. The LDS Church does not teach that Jesus is the eternal God. This is why Huckabee’s church and mine both consider the Mormon church to be a cult, not a Christian denomination.

You see, it is not enough to like or respect Jesus. According to the basic tenants of Christianity followed by every Christian church from the Southern Baptists to the Roman Catholics, Jesus is the eternal God who created the Universe. People who cannot agree with this statement are simply not Christians. They may be nice people. They may be intelligent, moral, strong, or even presidential. But they are not Christians.

According to LDS theology, Jesus was a created being who became God. Likewise, LDS men claim to be passing through mortal bodies on their way to becoming Gods. What we should be asking Romney is, “Do you consider Jesus God?” or even “Do you consider yourself God?”

As in Muslim theology, Mormons teach that women can only be saved through their husbands, not through faith in Christ. The LDS church no longer endorses polygamy – and yet, LDS writings claim that Jesus Christ himself was polygamous. If Christians were scandalized by Jesus’s fictional marriage to Mary Magdalene in“The Da Vinci Code,” how much more should we recoil from the Mormon claim that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany and her sister Martha all at the same time?

Mitt Romney would like for us to believe he is unaware of such teachings, as if he were just a lay member of the LDS church. What voters must understand is that the LDS church has no lay members. Every male who joins becomes a priest of Aaron, and with any sort of time and devotion, moves right on up the ecclesiastical ladder. Mitt Romney has, in fact, served as a foreign missionary, a bishop, and the Stake President of his region.

As Stake President, Mitt Romney commanded hundreds --maybe thousands -- of Mormons under his charge. (No one really knows, since this information has been kept from public view, as have Huckabee’s sermons.) Stake presidents sit in judgment and determine who should be excommunicated for failing to live up to LDS standards. The position is somewhat analogous to that of a Catholic Archbishop.

Mitt Romney certainly knows what the LDS Church teaches – including the bit about women having no salvation apart from husbands – because he was responsible for making sure that all those members in his care followed the teachings.

When John F. Kennedy gave his famous speech on religion, he quipped, “I am a presidential candidate who happens to be Catholic.” Romney sought to give a similar vague answer, shrugging off his Mormon beliefs as if they were coincidental, like being left-handed. But Romney is not a barely-practicing LDS member by accident of birth. Romney wants to be the first Mormon high priest in the White House.

Nowhere in our Constitution is it written that presidential candidates must be professing Christians. In fact, Article VI prohibits using a religious test as qualification for any office. In other words, it is perfectly constitutional to put a Mormon or a Muslim or an atheist on the ballot. The Constitution agrees with Mitt Romney that "one's faith should be no barrier to the right to vote, the right to run for office, nor the right to hold office."

What Romney implies is that we have no right to consider his religion when we go to the polls. This is patently false. It is the government, not the voters, who are prohibited from employing a religious test. Our own religious freedom mandates that we have the right to bring our personal convictions into the polling booth. We can vote against a candidate just because he is a Mormon or a Muslim or an atheist. That’s the First Amendment, Mitt, and neither your good looks nor your clever manipulation of words will wrest it from us.

Barbie poisoning

I remember the year I eased the Barbie ban. It started with a lazy holiday shrug, and ended with a dozen naked plastic bodies strewn about the house.

I never bought a Barbie myself. Yet, a few years and a few children later, the Barbie population in our house surged beyond a hundred. Not that anyone has performed an actual census. You could take a sample count of a square-foot area of carpet and extrapolate from there. At one point I gathered them into three large plastic tubs and “lost” them in the basement. More Barbies quickly appeared to take their place.

I’ve overcome the impulse to rampage through the house forcing tiny shirts over those matted blond pony tails. In fact, I rarely notice the dolls anymore. I nudge wafer-thin naked bodies aside as I wade through the little girls’ bedroom in search of the last diaper in the house. I nonchalantly toss Barbies out of the shoe bin as I search for the other Tinkerbell tennis shoe.

The problems that bother me today are not the same ones that bothered me years ago. For example, I’ve grown accustomed to Barbie’s unattainable figure. At one time critics claimed the doll would be 5’-9” tall and 110 pounds if she were a real live woman.

In recent years, Mattel remodeled Barbie’s figure to look more like that of a teen. It’s not that they were concerned about the rates of anorexia on catwalks or in high schools, or the record number of adult women seeking breast augmentation. Rather, it was a response to the whims of fashion.

“In order for the hip-huggers to look right, Barbie needs to be more like a teen’s body,” Mattel spokesperson Lisa McKendall told Mother Jones magazine before the 1997 change. “The fashions teens wear now don’t fit properly on our current sculpting.”

That’s the nice thing about plastic bodies, I suppose. They can be re-sculpted to fit the clothes. Thus, Barbie’s breasts were pared down, her waist thickened a tad, and her hips made even narrower.

Barbie has become more diverse as well as (slightly) more realistic. The platinum blond hair has been varied with auburn, brown, black, and shades of gold. Various skin tones and even different facial features now adorn the dolls.

Before her recent conversion to a teen, Barbie ventured into careers that would make any feminist proud. She enjoyed stints as an astronaut, a doctor, a paleontologist, and a presidential candidate.

So what’s my beef with Barbie? I don’t think she’s very American. When 675,000 Barbie accessories were recalled due to lead paint applied in China, I picked up one those naked dolls and looked at the stamp on Barbie’s backside: Made in China.

Mattel, the maker of Barbie and owner of Fisher-Price, is the largest toy company in America. Lately Mattel has been in the news not because of a hot must-have Christmas toy, but because of tainted toys made in China.

So far, Mattel has paid $975,000 this year alone for failing to report safety hazards and recalled over ten million toys. The safety hazard, typically consist of lead paint or dangerous magnets.

One of the recalled toys is Barbie’s dog Tanner. Tanner eats and poops plastic-coated metal dog biscuits. Barbie picks them up with her magnetic pooper-scooper and deposits them into the trash can -- which is also the dog biscuit dispenser!

As if recycled poop biscuits were not enough reason to recall Tanner, the tiny magnets are a major safety hazard to young children who swallow them. When two or more magnets become lodged in different sections of the intestines, they may stick together to the point of perforating of the intestines. The recalled toys, including Barbie’s biscuit-eating dog, have frequently been of Chinese manufacture.

Barbie is not alone. Approximately 80% of the world’s toys are manufactured in China. One reason Chinese goods dominate the world market is that the Chinese government artificially devalues its currency to make its products the cheapest in the world. As China takes over whole industries, local manufacturers either outsource to China or go out of business, making those countries dependent on Chinese-made goods.

Just imagine the cycle. Every Christmas, American parents fill their children’s stockings with cheap plastic junk made in China. Meanwhile, many of these same parents are losing their jobs because they cannot compete with the cheap labor of China.

Outsourcing causes inflation-adjusted wages to fall here in America, further ensuring that Americans can only afford to put cheap plastic toys under the tree. Factor in the lead poisoning of our children -- which can lead to lower IQs, physical and mental disabilities and decreased career success long-term -- and you have the makings of a very ugly downward spiral.

What’s the antidote to Barbie poisoning? It starts with buying American-made toys. If “buy American” sounds passé, it is not just because Chinese toy makers have lulled us into a lead-paint stupor. The fact is that American-made goods are more expensive. A quick search online reveals that natural toys made with wood and non-toxic paint cost several times what we expect to pay for cheap Chinese junk.

It is time to remember the old adage, “You get what you pay for.” Opt for fewer gifts of higher quality. In the long run, quality gifts have more character and last longer.

The U.S. government has a responsibility to test every child in America for lead poisoning. There are now so many tainted toys in so many millions of homes, that recalls cannot possibly be effective in getting the lead out of America’s nurseries.
Testing is urgent because lead poisoning is cumulative. The longer the duration of the exposure, the greater the brain damage will be. There are medications to treat lead poisoning, but the most important aspect of treatment is removing the lead source.

Health departments, schools and daycares should provide the venue for free screening to determine which children need treatment and which toy boxes need to be purged. Mattel and other violators should pay for the cost of the testing and treatment.

Finally, the importers must be held accountable. We cannot regulate Chinese companies, but we can regulate Mattel. Importers should be required to prove their goods meet the same standards as American-made goods.

Since the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) does not have access to Chinese manufacturers, accountability must happen within our borders. Importers should be required to submit to independent testing on a regular basis. The CPSC, which has been rendered somewhat toothless by Republican administrations, should have authority (and funding) to drop in at any store or distribution point, and test at random. The CPSC should impose penalties that serve not only to punish and deter, but also to clean up and compensate for violations.

A side benefit of import compliance is that it will somewhat neutralize the cost differential between imports and domestic goods. Apparently lead paint, antifreeze, and other toxic ingredients are cheap and plentiful in China. Currently American manufacturers must spend more than Chinese manufacturers to comply with safety regulations. Holding importers to the same standards will level the playing field.

When China is no longer so much cheaper, manufacturing jobs will return to America. Perhaps even Barbie will come home.