WHILE CRISSCROSSING CRACKED STREETS to knock on the rickety doors of rundown row houses in Philadelphia’s 14th Ward, Liza Sabater also found herself crossing the overlapping lines of political and technological history late last spring as she canvassed for Barack Obama’s campaign.

“I got to spend some time with these Puerto Rican mechanics—guys most people wouldn’t expect to have Internet access,” said Sabater, an Afro-Puerto Rican technologist who blogs at culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham. “But there—among the wrenches and jacks—were their cell phones and handheld devices they use to surf the Web.”

Sabater, who helps nonprofits use technology to further their missions, canvassed in Philadelphia with her two sons and coordinated work in the 14th Ward with three Latino volunteers from the Obama campaign. She saw in the mechanics’ mobile devices proof of her belief that “the ‘digital divide’ is a crock when we realize that laptops and desktops aren’t the only ways to access the Web.” But was the Obama campaign reaching these mechanics on their cells?

As they write future narratives of Obama’s astounding rise, historians will likely foreground how skillfully the “change” candidate maneuvered around the racial, geopolitical and economic terrain of our crises-ridden time. Lost in the background of most of these narratives will be how Obama, the former community organizer, took what he learned about mobilizing working- and middle-class residents on Chicago’s South Side and combined it with the stuff that actually wins elections: money, organizing and technology.

Obama’s campaign for the White House deployed in unparalleled ways Web. 2.0 tools—the set of technological developments that turned the World Wide Web into the ubiquitous, mobile, wireless and interactive Web we use today. As this issue of ColorLines went to production in late August, Obama’s Web site, Mybarackobama.com, was as interactive as any online social networking site. More than 10 million people had signed up at the site, and the campaign had raised millions of dollars. The Web site was the centerpiece of an online and offline political strategy that defeated the Clintons—one of the most powerful Democratic political dynasties—and, in the process, Obama took community organizing to new territory as he redefined the practice of electoral politics in the United States. Whatever the election results, Obama’s campaign demonstrated that it’s possible—and necessary—to go online and move people to action offline.

Sabater, who was born in New York’s El Barrio neighborhood and raised in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, was one of the many who responded to the campaign’s appeal. She is still fascinated by how Obama’s team fused state-of-the-art media and technology with the community organizing that the candidate learned in poor communities. Yet while she thinks community-based organizations can learn from the online organizing methods innovated by the Obama campaign, she also sees reason for concern in the cracked streets of Philadelphia.

Sabater noted, for example, that although her fellow Obama campaign volunteers were by definition “Latinos,” it was a poor decision on the part of the campaign to send three middle-class Chicanos from the west coast to a predominantly working-class, Spanish-speaking, Puerto Rican neighborhood.
“When my colleagues told me ‘we don’t speak Spanish’ and couldn’t interact with the people, I saw the interface problem,” said Sabater, adding, “I saw the disconnect between the online and offline strategies, both of which are focused on middle-class people. Nobody’s reaching out and targeting these working-class communities of color with technology. They don’t think that the mechanics and maids use technology or vote.” The Obama campaign fell through the cultural cracks in the street, while members in the community fell through the technological cracks of the campaign’s Web strategy.

They weren’t the first to use the media in this way, but he came along at that precise moment when the technology had matured, when the audience of media users had reached critical mass.“The (Obama) campaign created a fantastic interface for people to join the campaign,” Sabater said. “But it didn’t do as well in reaching people who don’t have laptops and whose technology is primarily their cell phones. There’s an age and class and race gap.”

Read more

Roberto Lovato is a writer with New America Media based in New York City.

By M. Shahid Alam
CounterPunch

It is perhaps a bit late in the day, nearly two weeks after November 4, to be writing about Barack Obama’s electoral victory. This want of alacrity, however, is intentional.

I thought it would be cruel to write any sooner, when whites and blacks alike were so effusively celebrating Obama’s victory. It would be unseemly to strike a discordant note when a clear majority of Americans was savoring this putative post-racial moment in their history.

Did this victory signal a shift in America's racial tectonic plates?

Memories are so short. In the weeks following his choice of Sarah Palin on August 29, John McCain began closing the gap behind Obama.  The election got closer after Palin electrified the Republican Convention with her line about how “We grow good people in our small towns…”  The message to blacks, Hispanics and Asians in America’s cities was clear: they are not “good people.”

In the absence of the financial meltdown that began in early September, the election could have easily gone the other way. Sarah Palin too may have helped Obama a bit when she began displaying the breathless scope of her ignorance.

Who should we thank for Obama’s victory?

The answer is sobering. We can thank the financial meltdown and, in some measure, the threat of an Armageddon – likely to follow Palin’s succession to a geriatric McCain – for Obama’s victory. There was no shifting of tectonic plates on this continent.

If anything, America’s unquestioning identification of Obama as a ‘black’ candidate is deeply problematic. It demonstrates that the United States remains firmly rooted in ideas of race that go back to the era of slavery and Jim Crow Laws.  

Obama’s mother was white and, apparently, so were all her forebears; while his father was a black African and, apparently, so were all his forebears. Obama is biracial – half-black and half-white. Why did that, automatically, make him black? If being half-black makes Obama black, by the same logic we could identify him as white.

Why didn’t we?

Read more to find out here.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the post-election glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

She described her emotions as a combination of anger and fear.

"I can't say that every white person in Snellville is evil and anti-Obama and willing to desecrate my property because one or two idiots did it," said Millner, who is black. "But it definitely makes you look a little different at the people who you live with, and makes you wonder what they're capable of and what they're really thinking."

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.
Change in whatever form does not come easy, and a black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."

"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission."
If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.

Tyler spoke at a press conference by the Georgia chapter of the NAACP calling for a town hall meeting to address complaints from across the state about hostility and resentment. Another student, from a Covington middle school, said he was suspended for wearing an Obama shirt to school Nov. 5 after the principal told students not to wear political paraphernalia.

The student's mother, Eshe Riviears, said the principal told her: "Whether you like it or not, we're in the South, and there are a lot of people who are not happy with this decision."
Other incidents include:

Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.

Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."
Emotions are often raw after a hard-fought political campaign, but now those on the losing side have an easy target for their anger.

"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book, "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."

"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man.'"

"It's as stupid and ineffectual as kicking your dog when you've had a bad day at the office," Gallagher said. "But it happens a lot."

Associated Press writers Errin Haines, Jerry Harkavy, Jay Reeves, Johnny Clark and researcher Rhonda Shafner contributed to this report.

Barack Obama’s decisive election as the nation’s 44th president sent a jolt of clean, renewable energy around the world. Forty years after the nation was parched in a desert of despair following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., an African American has been elected president. Stunning. Electrifying.

As he did in his remarks in Chicago’s Grant Park on election night, President-elect Obama’s campaign message has consistently encouraged citizens to open the door of “possibility and change.” Now is the time for more Americans to enter, to join in the daunting but rewarding work of recasting America away from bullying and fear and toward cooperation and love. It’s time to begin spreading around the wealth of new ideas and bold programs needed to confront the crush of pressing issues facing our nation and fragile planet.

Make no mistake. President Obama cannot single-handedly create the just new world so many are hungering for; he cannot do so no matter how talented and committed a team he assembles to serve in his administration. It’s up to put our shoulders to the wheel of change, to help turn the American ship of state in a new direction.

We’ll need the same level of commitment, the same blend of idealism and pragmatism, and the same kind of community organizing key to electing Barack Obama president. The legions of dedicated citizen-activists—from rural pockets around the nation to dense neighborhoods in our largest cities—making phone calls, canvassing streets, apartments, and country homesteads, who entering data, making food, offering lodging to out-of-state activists, we’re all still here. We still care. Sure we’re tired, but we’re also “fired up and ready to go.”

This is our moment; this is our time. From graying sixties activists to our age-equivalent peers involved for the first time in a political campaign; from formerly disenchanted (and disenfranchised) citizens of color now engaged; to first-time voters of all ages; from high school and college students to 20- and 30-somethings; to zesty older folks moved to join the campaign. I met scores of them campaigning in New Hampshire and Pennsylvania throughout the fall.

One was a Connecticut man named Gene Black, a retiree in his sixties who for the final month of the campaign moved into a rooming house in Quakertown, PA, volunteering in a swing community in a swing state, working 14 hour days all over Bucks County. Like so many other citizen-campaigners, Gene is back home now resuming his “regular” life but ready to do more for the country. The change America experienced on November 4th was more than just a special moment to savor before returning to business as usual. Barack Obama’s election calls on us to ask ourselves: What else are we willing to sacrifice? What else will we volunteer to do?

Yes, it's a new day in America. And yes, tens of millions of people in the United States and around the world are still abuzz, still savoring for the first time in eight years the sweet honey of victory and its kissin’ cousins, hope and change. But after the celebrating there's always the cleaning up, the morning after.

Between now and the inauguration is a great time to reconnect with the people you canvassed or phone banked with. It's a two month window to develop an action plan for change in your community, in your neighborhood, in your home. Social change movements are living, breathing embodiments of collective energy that thrive on momentum and deteriorate when static. Remember eighth grade science? A body in motion tends to stay in motion; a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Citizen-activists, let's stay in motion.

Joseph Campbell, who used myth to explain the human experience, said if you want to change the world, change the metaphor. The election of Barack Hussein Obama has unalterably changed the American metaphor.

Although we may have crossed the color line, we have yet to reach the finish line. Our new president has inspired millions with a compelling vision of social change. It is up to us now to summon the courage and the stamina for the next leg of the generational relay race some call the American experiment in democracy.

Rob Okun is editor of Voice Male magazine. For more than 20 yeas op-eds and commentaries on the social transformation of masculinity have appeared in newspapers, in online publications and been broadcast on public radio. His essay, “Confessions of a Premature Profeminist” appears in Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power. He can be reached at raokun at verizon dot

By JESSE WASHINGTON
AP National Writer

(WASHINGTON) Shortly after leaving the voting booth, 70-year-old community activist Donald E. Robinson had a thought: "Why do I have to be listed as African-American? Why can't I just be American?"

The answer used to be simple: because a race-obsessed society made the decision for him. But after Barack Obama's mind-bending presidential victory, there are rumblings of change in the nature of black identity and the path to economic equality for black Americans.

Before Tuesday, black identity and community were largely rooted in the shared experience of the struggle — real or perceived — against a hostile white majority. Even as late as Election Day, many blacks still harbored deep doubts about whether whites would vote for Obama.

Obama's overwhelming triumph cast America in a different light. There was no sign of the "Bradley Effect," when whites mislead pollsters about their intent to vote for black candidates. Nationwide, Obama collected 44 percent of the white vote, more than John Kerry, Al Gore or even Bill Clinton, exit polls show.

In Ohio, domain of the fabled working-class white swing voter, where journalists unearthed multitudes of racist quotes during the campaign, 46 percent of white voters backed Obama's bid to become the first black president, more than the three previous Democratic candidates.

Obama did not define himself as a black candidate. So Robinson now feels free to define himself as something more than a black community activist.

Read more

[Big H/T to comedian Elon James White and the whole TWiB crew! Y'all gonna be real busy over the next four to eight years!]

Finally, Nikita marched up to a voting booth at that Clayton County, Ga., precinct to participate in one of democracy's most sacred acts. She would be the last early voter in Georgia to cast her ballot in the presidential race.

No drumrolls ushered Dawson to the voting booth. But as I glanced at the flag hanging in that polling place, I could almost hear "The Star-Spangled Banner." The perilous fight our nation has endured crystallized with images of valiant patriots jailed, beaten, even lynched in their attempts to cast a ballot.

In the long march to this day, I reflect on the role of the unsung heroes captured in sepia tones in history books.

During an election season punctuated with historic firsts, millions of voters around the country braved lines that stretched for hours. In Virginia, where we challenged the antiquated election system and pushed for extended voting hours and paper ballots, even the judge denying our motion confessed that he had waited in line for over two hours to cast an absentee ballot.

In Craven, N.C., there was a failed blatant attempt at voter intimidation when a casket with a likeness of Barack Obama was placed inside a polling place.

We also confronted scores of other voter suppression tactics, including misinformation about the date of the election and polling locations and claims that people could vote by phone, that students voting in their college towns could lose financial aid, or voters with unpaid child support or parking tickets could be subject to arrest.

Thankfully, such despicable measures could not stem the righteous tide of change. And here we are at this astoundingly triumphant moment with the election of Obama, America's first African-American president.

A moment 232 years in the making—from the end of chattel slavery to today—we are witness to the most inclusive election enjoyed by the largest, best-informed, motivated electorate in our nation's history.

Consider that some African-American precincts saw the number of registered voters swell to 95 percent of those eligible. In some locations, more than 90 percent of those registered actually voted, many for the first time and others for the first time in years. They turned out because it finally mattered.

These stunning statistics represent engagement in the political process on a colossal scale. It is proof through the night that democracy is here.

It is fitting to remember race riots in Springfield, Ill., in 1908 that killed scores of black people and drove thousands more from the city. The atrocity moved labor activist William English Walling to take up the cause of the victims, penning an article that demanded: What large and powerful body of citizens is ready to come to their aid? The birth of the NAACP the following year was the response.

It is equally fitting that the man who has desegregated the highest office in the land and transformed the reality for millions of black and brown children by affirming that color need not be a barrier to high pinnacles launched his candidacy for president of the United States in Springfield.

As we bask in the glow of Obama's stunning victory, the battles are still many. Racial and gender-based discrimination continue to warp our housing, employment, and credit markets. Nearly 50 million Americans are without health insurance. Foreclosures spiral upward. Racial profiling persists. No Child Left Behind has abandoned hundreds of thousands of children in underfunded schools. Wars rage on two fronts.

Still, we have proof through the night that an engaged, inspired nation can come together across racial, cultural, and generational boundaries to bring about change.

Real change can happen as we harness the energy that enables us to achieve the extraordinary, even as we fight for simple justice and basic opportunities. These things can propel us forward as we step out into the dawn's early light.

Benjamin Todd Jealous is president and CEO of the NAACP.

As of 10:50amET, over 50% of voters in this division (i.e., precinct) have already voted. And in what is already one of the most active polling places in the entire city, I am confident we will surpass the 90% mark by 8pm.

For some odd reason, the local Fox Channel affiliate has been camped out at our polling place in front of the church here since 4:30am. They have not interviewed anyone -- just kinda sitting in their broadcast truck. I spoke to the on-air guy a couple times to brag at how awesome our 3 divisions are that share this polling place, and he just politely nods his head.

Today has been an amazing day so far, which is saying a lot, given that I have worked every election here for the past 2 1/2 years and voted without fail for the 6 1/2 years I've lived in Philadelphia as Chicago expatriate who grew up in the neighborhood where Barack Obama served as state senator.

After the groundswell of early voters, the polling place became a ghost town by 8:30am, and the only folks left were the election officials, the church staff, the Democratic committeepeople, the older Black man who was the token Republican in this Obama-lovin' sea of nervous excitement and the dozen or so Obama volunteers shipped in from Brooklyn and Vermont. In fact, there were more Obama volunteers at our polling place who had nothing to do than there were actual voters once the tide had ebbed from the morning rush.

I pointed out that sending Obama volunteers to my polling place was like sending sand to the beach. My neighborhood is so Obamalicious, there are more White lesbian couples with Black children than registered Republicans. In fact, there were probably more McCain-Palin lawn signs (2) on the church's lawn than actual McCain voters.

But enough about my wonderfully economically, racially and culturally diverse neighborhood.

The simple fact is that this morning I saw faces of new young voters, first-time elderly voters, Blackfolk coming out so overcome with emotion and recognition of today's import that they could not keep from crying; Whitefolk smiling giddily as though they were keeping a secret they were trying so hard to let out.

I saw children of all ages -- some as young as two who could say with pride, "Rockobama!". Busloads full of students headed to school yelling out of their windows, "Obama, Obama!"

A feeling is in the air that was not there in 2004.

And in under two hours, I will be sharing this moment when my wife and I bring our 5- and 2-year old sons to push the big green VOTE button when we cast our ballots for Obama this afternoon.

They know it's election day. But what they will not know for years to come is just how much their lives will change -- all of our lives -- no matter how subtlely --  just by the very fact that Barack Hussein Obama may be our next president no matter how imperfect the candidate or the political system that has thrust him to this auspicious moment in time.

Today will be my sixth presidential election that I will be voting in, and the most important.

This will also be the first presidential election without grandparents or my father.

Today, I will not be voting alone though. I will be bringing my ancestors with me and my two young sons.

In a few moments I will be getting ready to leave my home and walk a half block to my polling place and meeting my fellow Democratic Committeeperson to set up for what will most certainly be a long day.

My job in this capacity is simple: to make sure my division's (what other cities call a precinct) Democratic voters are informed and assisted as needed towards voting as smoothly and quickly as possible.

My 21-year old first cousin, Houston, has been with us since Sunday, up from Virginia. This is his first presidential election and the first time he has volunteered for a political campaign. He has been working and with incredible enthusiasm.

Houston will be shadowing me today between GOTV runs for the Obama campaign here. I will be teaching him about "machine politics" 101 and letting him see first-hand how grassroots party electioneering works in quite possibly the bluest neighborhood in the entire state of Pennsylvania.

Our late grandmother, an ardent community organizer in Baltimore and my most influential mentor, ran for office several times unsuccessfully. She died a year or so after I was elected as a committeeperson.

She would be so heartened to know that her grandchildren were actively involved in such a historic election.

We will not be alone in the voting booth.

In light of the passing of Obama's dear grandmother, no doubt, he knows this, too.

So, enjoy this cringe-inducing video and think of it on November 5th with a dismissive smirk or an incredulous gape.

By Miles Rapoport
The Boston Globe

Over the last several weeks, a fierce argument has broken out over voter registration, particularly the registration efforts of ACORN, accusations of voter fraud, and the ability of the election system to handle the surge of voters on Nov. 4.

First, the expected record turnout is a cause for celebration. When I served as Connecticut's secretary of the state in the mid-'90s, my colleagues and I bemoaned low voter participation, especially among young people, and the disengagement it reflected from politics and democratic life. Not this time. Registrations have poured in, turnout in the primaries achieved record levels, and all indications are that the wave will continue through Tuesday. Democracy is vibrant and very much alive.

It is therefore a shame that the issue of ACORN's voter registration work has dominated the news about voting.

To be sure, ACORN bears some responsibility. It had quality controls in place, but should have leaned even further backward to ensure that problems would be minimized. Still, 900,000 valid registrations, including new registrants and changes of address, is an important accomplishment. Of course, all groups doing voter registration would be better served by reporting their results with more precision and a little less hype.

But overall, this is a trumped-up controversy. There has been no attempt by ACORN to encourage fraudulent voting, and on close reading the critics do not even make such a claim. ACORN has done a service by reaching out to people who might have been left out. Why, then, the ferocity of the attack?

In part, it is an element of a coordinated campaign directed against Barack Obama, demonizing ACORN and then linking Obama to the organization as a way to raise doubts about him.

In addition, raising doubts about the validity of registrations fits a pattern of efforts to discourage people from voting - from lawsuits to shut down early voting centers in Indiana and stop same-day registration in Ohio to efforts to purge people from voting rolls because their houses were foreclosed or their names didn't perfectly match error-ridden databases like Social Security. Worse, it could lay the groundwork for wholesale challenges to the results, seeking to throw the legitimacy of the election into question and the results once again into the hands of the courts.

What is needed is action by election officials to ensure that next Tuesday goes as smoothly as possible. Many deserve real credit for doing just that. This preparation includes:

• accurate lists from which eligible voters have not been purged
• adequate numbers of machines to avoid long lines, and an ample supply of paper ballots as backups
• sufficient numbers of poll workers, with trained problem-solvers at each precinct
• preparation for extended hours if required, to ensure that every voter has a chance to vote
• fair counting of provisional ballots, so that valid votes are not discounted

This graph shows how highly correlated early voting rates this year are tied to states with large populations of Blackfolk.

No doubt, the RNC and Fox News will contend that these aren't genuine people, but fictitious voters brought to life by the magic ink of crafty ACORN workers.

After all, ACORN is single-handedly destroying democracy as we know it, right?

On a serious note, during a conference call yesterday with new NAACP president, Ben Jealous, and representatives of different branches in swing states, Afro-Netizen and fellow Black bloggers listened to on-the-ground reports of robust voter turn-out in North Carolina and Ohio, both of which permit early voting.

Blaming inner-city dwelling "high-risk borrowers", ACORN, CRA and others for America's housing crisis is akin to charging rape victims for the rape kit. It's simply unconscionable.

Did the working class own predatory lending outfits?

Did the working class dream up the Adjustable Rate Mortgage?

Did the working class own the media conglomerates and other institutions who since the end of World War II have pounded into every American's skull that home ownership is part and parcel of the increasingly elusive American Dream?

Did the working class run the real estate industry? The insurance industry? Wall Street? Madison Avenue? K Street? 1600 The White House/Capitol Hill? Hollywood? Or Silicon Valley?

Oh, one last thing:

Did the working class buy all those now-foreclosed McMansions in suburbia?

The following Lending Tree commercial from a few years back was a (now not-so-humorous) augur of America's precarious house of cards that rested on good old-fashion industry- and government-fostered consumerism and addiction to credit.

See for yourself . . .

By Jonathan E. Kaplan
Courtesy of The Minnesota Independent

John McCain’s attempt to magnify allegations of voter registration fraud could mitigate the impact of a Barack Obama victory and deter black Democrats from turning out to vote in future elections.

Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) and his allies have seized on the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN, which has worked to register more than 100,000 lower-income and minority voters. Some of the registrations have been faked and investigations are underway in some key states.

Even though Republicans have leveled the same attack against Democrats in recent election cycles, accusing Sen. Obama (D-Ill.) of stealing the election could preemptively undermine the legitimacy of his presidency.

It’s part of the Republican DNA to accuse Democrats of stealing elections just as Democrats accuse Republicans of intimidating minorities. It has been ingrained in the GOP’s neurons since John F. Kennedy eclipsed Richard Nixon in 1960 when there were allegations of cheating in Illinois and Texas.

“Republicans tend to believe that Democrats tend to cheat.  The belief is nothing new,” John Pitney, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College, said.

But the allegations are more ferocious because the Obama campaign has registered millions of new voters. In Minnesota, ACORN claims to have registered 42,581 voters, which could give Obama a one or two point edge in a close race.

While Obama’s voter registration effort is a part of his presidential campaign and entirely separate from ACORN’s, the McCain campaign and its surrogates have continued to falsely link Obama to ACORN.

“The reason that it is [more intense] is because Obama is black, that’s the difference,” former Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), said, adding that the attacks have longer-term implications. “This is a good way of raising the race card without raising it.”

“If [Obama] loses, two things happen. [Republicans] still have the race issue and then the black community becomes turned off” to electoral politics, Coelho said.

“I think they are doing that to build a case against Obama if the left tries to steal this election, which clearly they are trying to do,” John Feehery, a Republican strategist, said in an email.

McCain has created a campaign committee to examine allegations of voter registration fraud. On Monday, GOP volunteers handed out flyers at a McCain rally in Virginia urging reporters to link ACORN to the $700 million rescue package (something that McCain’s campaign manager Rick Davis also said last week).

McCain has continued the line of attack even after being reminded that he attended an ACORN rally in favor of an immigration bill he was working on in 2006.

The McCain and Obama campaigns held dueling press conferences on Tuesday to accuse the other of acting in bad faith.

“If left uncorrected, these numerous investigations and accusations of voter fraud with ACORN could produce a nightmare scenario on Election Day,” Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said in a statement.

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, said McCain’s tactic was “a strategic and cynical ploy to sow confusion and a deliberate attempt to decrease turnout. It is a smokescreen to challenge people inappropriately. Throwing anything they can at the wall to create a diversion.”

The GOP’s outrage erupted last Friday when the McCain campaign released a web-only advertisement insinuating that Obama worked for ACORN in the early 1990s (he did not) and argued that McCain killed the initial bailout package because ACORN’s partners would have been able to apply for government money to invest in low income housing. In fact, House Republicans objected to such a provision and it was dropped before McCain took a position on the bill.

Top GOP lawmakers also believe that Democrats are trying to steal the election. Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) told reporters on Friday that a Democratic lawmaker – who he would not name – told him jokingly that, “We got the votes, we’re just looking for the bodies.”

“We could lose, I suppose, if they cheat us out of it. I think the only way we lose a state like North Carolina or Indiana is to get cheated out of it,” Sen. Lindsay Graham (D-S.C.) told the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette last week.

And there are multiple ongoing investigations into voter registration fraud in several swing states.

ACORN, not surprisingly, has a different take on the situation. “Not only is this a preemptive strike to try to attack Obama, it’s a strategy to try to justify challenging the basis of the election,” Brian Kettenring, an ACORN spokesman, said in a phone interview.

Moreover, there is no evidence that a falsely registered voter have cast actual ballots.  To Democrats and independent analysts, the entire story is contrived.

“In almost every case where you’ve heard about fraud by Acorn, it’s because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that’s been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers,” Brad Friedman, the author of the blog, BradBlog.com, which reports on voting rights issues, wrote recently in The Guardian. “None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it’s voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.”

Robert Bauer, Obama’s election law attorney, said on Tuesday that Republicans had put “enormous amounts of pressure on criminal justice system” to ferret out voter fraud and reminded reporters that the U.S. attorneys firing scandal started because some U.S. attorneys did not prosecute voter registration fraud to the Bush administration’s liking.

“The only fraud that has affected the governmental process is the one that has been launched on the other side looking to establish a fact that does not exist,” Bauer said. Despite the torrent of accusations, Democrats remain confident that the accusations will disappear by the wayside if Obama wins.

“Post election, all of this will be swept away,” Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic strategist and speechwriter, said. “Having gone through 2000, where Republicans did steal the election, everybody moves on.”

“Obama is on his way to such a huge electoral win, at least as things look today, that this will not work after the election,” Joe Trippi, a Democratic political strategist, said. “And there will not be fraudulent voting that is provable in any case.”

Beyond the political calculus of winning or losing, the next president will confront larger and more complex issues.

“Obama will have much bigger problems than that—because he’s a liberal Democrat, because he’s black, and because he faces challenges far more vexing than those that confronted most of his predecessors,” G. Calvin Mackenzie, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, said.

Others argued it was unlikely that the McCain campaign, like most campaigns, is incapable of thinking so far ahead.

“That notion assumes way too much long-term thinking on the part of McCain and the Republicans.  Their time horizon goes no farther than Election Day,” Pitney said.

Unless McCain – assuming he comes up short on Election Day – raises questions or contests the vote, the issue likely will disappear. Even in previous elections where there was no clear winner, the loser has often helped establish the winner’s legitimacy.

“That Al Gore did not cry foul about the way the election was decided probably contributed to Bush’s legitimacy,” Mackenzie said, “in the same way that Nixon’s refusal to cry foul in 1960 when there was genuine cheating in Illinois and Texas helped Kennedy.”

Jonathan E. Kaplan is the Center for Independent Media’s Washington correspondent.

In case you can't read the writing on the back of the t-shirt of the White motorcyclist pictured below, it reads:

"Nigger Please!! It's a WHITE house"

(Notice the McCain-Palin bumpersticker below his tail light.)

Hat Tip to long-time afro-netizen E. Rigaud for sending us this disturbing photographic image of the psyche of what we hope will be a small enough subset of the mystical White American "undecided" voting population to deliver this bigot and his ilk the worst freakin' Election Day nightmare their little, racist brains can handle!

We can only imagine what the front of his t-shirt reads!

My top guesses are:

5. I [heart] Mavericks

4. NO-bama

3. 4 more years!

2. "These colors don't run!"

1. "Thanks, but no thanks!"

With the McCain campaign growing desperate by the day as polls show Senator Barack Obama making significant progress in key battleground states, the presidential election is now turning on John McCain’s not so subtle “white appeal.” Over the last ten days we have watched McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, unleash a torrent of racially coded attacks that has given their followers license to resurrect hate that we had hoped had been buried with Jim Crow. Apparently the crow flies.

With the active encouragement of both Senator McCain and Governor Palin, speakers and supporters at their rallies have been motivated to shout “kill him” and “off with his head,” in reference to Senator Obama. Thought Senator McCain eventually tried to calm his bloodthirsty brood, it is apparent that the genie is out of the bottle. For almost two years running, the specter of race has hung over this presidential campaign and, up until now, every time it surfaced well meaning individuals in political circles and the media worked feverishly to temper the rhetoric. Now, with less than a month to go, the issue of race and racism has come back with a vengeance as a desperate campaign throws one last “Hail Mary” pass hoping to sow seeds of doubt about Senator Obama in the minds of white voters.

Congressman John Lewis is absolutely right. What we are witnessing is straight from the George Wallace-Lester Maddox playbook. When all else fails, remind working class white voters of the need for racial solidarity; despite the fact that it could work against their vested interest. Senator McCain’s contemptuous reference to Senator Obama as “that one” was his call to arms to those paranoid white voters whose guilt would have them to believe that a Black president will turn history’s table back on white America. The McCain team’s spiteful invocation of “Who is Barack Obama?” attempts to portray “that one” as a covert, anti-American, Black Muslim Arab sympathizer who is an undercover agent for terrorists abroad. It is conspiracy theory run amok and only capable of taking root when the appeal is made in the context of an anti-intellectual framework. The McCain campaign is hoping that a hate filled, sound bite driven volley as the campaign winds down will give their ticket the boost it needs among those white voters still burdened by race.

It has been sobering to watch Governor Sarah Palin, the poster girl for cut and paste politics, attack someone far more educated, accomplished and qualified to serve than she could ever hope to be. And it has been revealing to see Senator McCain hide behind his running mate as she makes baseless accusations that are an affront to the American public. If there ever was a time for Senator McCain to demonstrate real courage, it would be now. But he can’t because he has awakened the beast and history teaches us that once the lynch mob gathers, someone has to get lynched. He can’t play the voice of reason now with his angry mob because they have been promised a lynching and will now turn on him if their thirst for blood cannot be satisfied.

Read more . . .

Walter Fields is the CEO and Executive Editor of North Star News. Mr. Fields has been an award-winning journalist who has written extensively on matters of race and public policy as a columnist for the New Jersey Reporter, MSNBC.com, The City News and the Record (Bergen County, N.J.).

You have heard Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi -- even Republican political figures reference "green collar jobs" in the rally cry for a new economy built on energy independence and a heightened environmental stewardship that for the next generation of American voters may become an inviolable non-partisan issue like Social Security or, dare I say, Israel.

Beyond the political rhetoric whose growing lexicon has now subsumed "green collar" this and "green economy that, is the actual substance and context that every voter -- every American -- should understand. Most especially, we as people of color must commit to understand and advocate for our integral inclusion and leadership in the shaping of the social policy and business development in the emerging "green economy".

As Jones articulates so well, the green economy's success depends on our early and broad involvement as people of color to ensure that the fruits of our country's labor in this area produce not just a more vibrant workforce, but secure the type of "eco-equity" that the mainstream American environmental movement has been conspicuously silent on.

So, without further ado, here's a taste of a groundbreaking book we all should read and spread the word about with as much zeal as we do the chain letters that (rightly or wrongly) compel us to think, feel or do something away from our computer screens.

Still not sure what the heck "green collar jobs" are and why we should care?

Read on . . . (and BUY THIS BOOK TODAY!)

The possibilities are endless. Someone says “green jobs,” and our minds go to Buck Rogers.

Let’s be clear, the main piece of technology in the green economy is a caulk gun. Hundreds of thousands of green-collar jobs will be weatherizing and energy-retrofitting every building in the United States. Buildings with leaky windows, ill-fitting doors, poor insulation, and old appliances can gobble up 30 percent more energy.

That means owners are paying 30 percent more on their heating bills. And it often means that 30 percent more coal-fi red carbon is going into the atmosphere. Drafty buildings create broke, chilly people—and an overheated planet.

Another bit of high-tech green technology is the clipboard. That tool is used by energy auditors as they point out energy-saving opportunities to homeowners and renters. This job does not require much training and can be an early entry point into the booming world of energy consultation and efficiency. And one consultation can save an owner hundreds—or even thousands—of dollars annually.

Other green-collar workers can then follow up with other tasks for building owners: wrapping hot-water heaters with blankets, blowing insulation, plugging holes, repairing cracks, hauling out old appliances, replacing old windows with the double-glazed kind.

Other pieces of green tech are ladders, wrenches, hammers, tool belts, and nonslip work boots. Those are the space-age gadgets used by solar-panel installers every day.

The point is this. When you think about the emerging green economy, don’t think of George Jetson with a jet pack. Think of Joe Sixpack with a hard hat and lunch bucket, sleeves rolled up, going off to fix America. Think of Rosie the Riveter, manufacturing parts for hybrid buses or wind turbines. Those images will represent the true face of a green-collar America.

The following is a press release issued today by one of Congress' most progressive members, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), on the failure of Congress to pass H.R. 3997, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. (H/T to PublicMarkup.org & the aggressively innovative Sunlight Foundation!)

Legislation Would Have Rewarded Predatory and Subprime Lenders

Washington D.C.- Today Congresswoman Barbara Lee delivered the following statement on the House floor in opposition to the financial bailout bill considered today. The Congresswoman voted against the bill, which failed by a vote of 205-228.   

“Thank you Madame Speaker and thank you Mr. Frank, the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, for his efforts to improve the administration’s $700 billion blank check proposal.   

“As a former member of the House Financial Services Committee for eight years, I can tell you that the situation we find ourselves in is the direct result of the deregulation happy, turn a blind- eye approach of this administration and its allies in Congress.

“Now we see the horrific price of these reckless deregulation policies.  More than 600,000 Americans have lost their jobs since January.  People need jobs to obtain credit and to pay their rent.   They need jobs to pay their mortgages or to put money in their 401k or retirement account.  Millions of people are living paycheck to paycheck, if they have a paycheck.

“Home foreclosures are skyrocketing, and home values are plunging, banks are failing and we are still spending more than $10 billion every month on a war in Iraq that should never have been waged.

“So there is no question that we are confronting an economic and financial crisis.

“But I’m convinced that this bailout plan is not the solution to this mess. 

“First, it does little to address the underlying problem – the foreclosure crisis. We need a moratorium on foreclosures and bankruptcy reform to help people stay in their homes.

“Second, this bill should be paid for by the high-flying industry that created this problem.   $700 billion should not be given to Wall Street and the Bush Administration unless those who cause this mess pay for it. We should also prohibit the tax deductibility -and my bill the Income Equity Act (H.R. 3876) would do this across the board -  of executive compensation in any company where the highest paid corporate officer is paid more than 25 the times the pay of a bailed-out company’s lowest-paid worker. 

“And third, we need an economic stimulus package to deal with the crushing reality of the recession that is hitting people hard and growing every day.

“I cannot vote to reward those predatory and subprime lenders who are creating such havoc in the lives of millions of Americans.

“There is a better way.”

What is this elusive "better way" that corporate media and Congressional leaders have refused to include in the recently failed legislation, you ask?

Click here to read about what we should echo throughout all media outlets, courtesy of the good folks at the online journal, ShelterForce .

By Mary Dillard

Guest Contributor

Today is the third day of the 2008 Clinton Global Initiative.  This year I decided to focus on listening to the global health panels, which have emphasized the goal of expanding the global health workforce. 

One statistic that was mentioned yesterday is that Africa has 11% of the world’s population, over 20% of the world’s disease burden, but only 3% of the world’s health workers.  This has not always been the case and there are a number of reasons the numbers of health care workers have diminished so precipitously over the past thirty years. These include the Structural Adjustment Programs imposed on a number of African countries during the 1980s and 90s that forced African governments to decrease the amount of money that went into public health.

A second factor was the so-called brain drain- a controversial term referring to the migration of skilled professionals from developing countries to fill human resource needs in wealthier countries.  This process began in the 1970s but accelerated due to the decline in working conditions for health workers in the 1980s and 90s.   

Over the past two days, several panel participants have called for private investors to pay more attention to partnering with the public sector, thus challenging the legacy of structural adjustment.  The clearest call for this came yesterday from Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health who reminded the audience that the CGI goals (Poverty Alleviation, Energy and Climate Change, Education and Global Health) are particularly relevant for impoverished countries in the global south. 

While Farmer was technically on the panel to speak about global health, he emphasized that the recent devastation that Haiti has faced is due to climate change.  Although this has been little reported in the U.S. corporate press, Haiti has been battered by four hurricanes in the past two months.  These storms have resulted in the deaths of over 1000 people and displacement of close to a million people. 

Farmer argued that with the splintering of NGO groups, it has been more difficult than ever to coordinate efforts or to share best practices of health care delivery but that it is crucial for people to pay attention to what is happening in Haiti in order to avoid an increasingly dire humanitarian crisis.   

Given the fact that there are many immediate healthcare crises occurring in the world, it may seem strange to focus the theme of the Global Health panels on recruiting healthcare workers.  However, this need was echoed by most panel participants over the past two days.  Yesterday, Dr. Nancy Aossey, President and Chief Executive Officer of the International Medical Corps (IMC) argued that this is a crucial priority for post-conflict and active conflict zones where IMC works including Chad, the Central African Republic, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Today was “policy-wonk day” on the health panels.  Most of the speakers on the smaller panels were very well versed in health policy and there was a clear emphasis on practical, replicable solutions to challenges facing health care workers around the world.  This morning’s global health panel featured Craig R. Barrett, Chairman of Intel Corporation,
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Minister of Health, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 
Aruna Uprety, Director, Rural Health and Education Service Trust of Nepal and Dr. Lola Dare, Executive Secretary of African Council for Sustainable Health Development (ACOSHED).

The Ethiopian Minister of Health reported on initiatives that his government is doing to expand the medical corps.  According to Minister Tedros, when the government set priorities,  “We decided to focus on trying to reach the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the goal of ending poverty by 2015.”  Ethiopia’s per capita health expenditure is only one dollar per person.  With such limited funds directed towards the healthcare, increasing the numbers of low and mid-level providers (traditional birth attendants, nurses, physicians assistants) became a priority and the Ministry decided to strategically allocate resources. 

The current national health plan focuses on what he calls  “Flooding and Retention”.  Flooding refers to exponentially increasing the number of trained doctors, while retention refers to efforts to keep trained healthcare professionals employed in that capacity.  In too many impoverished countries, salaries for health care providers are so low that people cannot afford to work in the sectors where they were trained.  This contributes to skilled workers either leaving the country or finding other employment.  The largest outlay of funds in the health budget will go towards “Flooding” with  the hopes that at least a fraction of the doctors trained will continue to live and work in Ethiopia. It’s a risky strategy but clearly one that the government believes it must take.

Dr. Lola Dare made one of the most compelling arguments to not only increase the number of health care providers but also to provide those workers with the necessary supplies. She reminded the audience, “I worked in pediatric health and I left because I had no supplies in order to do my job.”  Her comments highlight the fact that the best intentions mean nothing to workers on the ground unless they have the supplies necessary to provide the kind of care that they were trained to provide. 

Africa has the highest disease burden but also has the lowest number of health workers.  Clearly the Continent has faced tremendous challenges in providing adequate health care over the past thirty years.  Since CGI is about creating “political will” my hope is that one day we will see real progress, by convincing governments around the world to make their health budgets more important than their military budgets.

Mary Dillard is Associate Professor of African History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York.

By Mary Dillard
Guest Contributor

On Wednesday morning, I attended the first full day session of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), an annual meeting of world leaders, corporate executives, NGO representatives, foundations and research institutions.  Timed to coincide with the opening session of the UN General Assembly, CGI’s goal is to link these various organizations in an effort to direct resources towards sustainable solutions to some of the most vexing global problems. 

This is my second time blogging for Afro-Netizen about CGI.  I attended last year and was impressed by Bill Clinton’s ability to assimilate a wide range of information, to bring disparate perspectives together in the same room and to speak intelligently on a wide range of topics.  Last year, I diligently followed the education panels because I wanted to hear up close and personal about the latest innovations in girls’ education, especially in Africa. 

What a difference a year makes. 

Last year, Clinton sang the praises of Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki for his efforts to provide universal primary education to all of Kenya’s children.  Today, Kenya is still recovering from its own political crisis at the end of 2007 which displaced thousands of families and set the country back tremendously in terms of its educational and development goals.

The opening panel session featured Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Queen Rania al-Abdalla of Jordan, former U2 member and co-founder of the ONE campaign Bono, E. Nevill Isdell the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Coca Cola, and former Vice President Al Gore.  President Clinton heaped praise on President Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson for the tremendous growth of Liberia’s GDP since she became Africa’s first female head of state in 2006, after the country ended fourteen years of civil war.  President Sirleaf-Johnson’s background as a senior loan officer at the World Bank has certainly enabled her to tap into the various multinational entities that are interested in participating in Liberia’s postwar recovery. 

Investors have flocked to Liberia because as President Johnson-Sirleaf stated “We are not a poor country, we have tremendous natural resources.”  She argued however, that the country still faces tremendous challenges, particularly in rebuilding infrastructure. In addition, the lack of coordination among donors has hampered smooth implementation of redevelopment efforts. 

Surprisingly, the most fiery speaker of the morning session was former Vice President Al Gore who linked the current economic crisis in the United States to the continuing climate crisis.  Gore suggested that for years, the American public received misinformation about the potential hazards of sub-prime lending practices.  The Vice President argued that similar misinformation is still being spread by entrenched fossil fuel industry interests about the dangers of climate change and suggested that these companies were committing a type of securities fraud by telling investors that their products were not harmful to the environment.  He then called for civil disobedience by young people to fight the building of any new coal burning power plants.

Bono began his statements by pointing out that the U.S. government can find $700 billion to bail out Wall Street, but the entire G-8 can’t find $25 billion to make sure that thousands of children don’t continue to die every day of preventable diseases.

His comments highlight the fact that part of the potential of CGI is that it can help to create the political will to divert more resources to alleviate poverty, bolster global health initiatives, support education and address the question of climate change.  In this respect, CGI is a very important forum for bringing key players together.  However, there also tend to be a lot of contradictions in these types of gatherings.  The winner of today’s “Clueless Africa Comment” prize must go to Bono. 

Addressing Queen Rania al-Abdallah of Jordan as “your majestyness”  he said, “The biggest problems of your continent are three types of extremes: extreme politics, extreme poverty, and extreme ideology.”  He continued, “Take a situation like Darfur.  I’ve been there. There is nothing there.  It’s just dirt.”

Clearly, his point was not well made but his words are also a reminder to many Africa specialists of the problems that arise when moderately informed celebrities end up being the last word on African politics.  First of all, Jordan is NOT in Africa.  Secondly, this kind of language obscures the real roots of political conflicts in Africa, giving the impression that Africans are once again fighting over things that don’t really matter.  Do the people of Darfur think there is nothing there? 

The Chinese government clearly sees something other than dirt in Darfur, or else it would not be continuing to expand its political and economic relationship with the Sudanese government.  Most troubling to me in the many invocations of Darfur that occurred today, was the complete silence on the Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa’s largest war to date.  Could it be because Canadian and American companies (among others) are still benefiting from their trade relationships in Congo?

There is obviously a lot of good that can come from this summit.  The rest of the week will feature announcements by CGI partners of funding commitments that they will make this year.  I for one, have returned more skeptical this year and will attend the remaining events hoping to hear more informed analyses about Africa and the Caribbean. 

Mary Dillard is Associate Professor of African History at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. 

By Darrell Williams
Guest Contributor

Make no mistake, this is historic.  I’m talking high school textbook historic.  I’m talking “where were you when this happened” historic. 

Regardless of its details, the $700 billion (and possibly up to one trillion dollar) bailout of Wall Street excess being negotiated as you read this will be eclipsed only by the election of Barack Obama on November 4th.  In a plot line dripping with irony, President Obama may indeed be known as “the janitor” charged with cleaning up the mess after the eight-year frat party known as the Bush presidency.

And, baby, what a mess it is! 

Treasury Secretary Paulson is basically asking for blank check authority to purchase the troubled assets of teetering financial institutions.  These assets are primarily in the form of securities backed by sub-prime mortgages, the kind of mortgages that homeowners can no longer afford to make payments on for various reasons. Because no one can connect any particular mortgage security to any particular set of mortgages, no one can effectively calculate a value for the securities and thus no private sector investor is interested in buying them. 

So, in order to keep America from falling into an economic depression, taxpayers have to do what investors won’t: buy securities the value of which may be calculated best by a wet finger in the wind.  Secretary Paulson asserts that the tough times likely to result from both the debacle itself and the bailout will not be as apocryphal as the global financial meltdown and economic depression that would likely occur if we did nothing. 

The tough times might be summed up in one word: recession, which is basically a contraction of economic activity usually resulting in higher unemployment, business financial losses and declining stock prices.  Economic activity is driven in part by the availability and low cost of credit.  If credit is unavailable or too expensive, companies can’t or don’t build inventory, or build plants, or purchase big ticket capital goods.  If companies aren’t building new plants or building inventory, then companies aren’t hiring employees. 

What makes credit more expensive?  Demand of course. The cost of credit goes up the more people, companies and governments demand credit.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that in order to finance this bailout, the government is about to start demanding more credit than it ever has before.  Total US federal debt is already $9.7 trillion. (Yes, that’s with a “T”.)  Add to this the cost of the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailouts which analysts put at about $200 billion.  As stated, the Wall Street bailout is targeted at $700 billion.  This year’s federal budget deficit is over $400 billion.  Analysts peg the 2009 budget deficit at nearly $550 billion.  The cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan is $580 billion and climbing.  Add up these and some other minor initiatives (at least by comparison) and we are looking at total federal debt north of $12 trillion. 

Compare this to the $5.7 billion of national debt when President Clinton left office.  The public and private sectors will compete for available credit dollars which generally leads to higher interest rates.  For us, that means higher costs for student loans, car notes, mortgages and other consumer credit – assuming there is someone out there still willing to lend after all of this washes through.

Unfortunately, the pain does not end there.  Secretary Paulson is demanding this authorization without oversight.  The Treasury Department would be the sole arbiter of what your tax dollar (well, the debt dollar that you will eventually pay off with your tax dollar) is used for.  If Paulson gets what he wants, there will be no oversight, no supervision, no pre-established procedure, no veto power, no check or balance.  The Treasury de