The majority’s tyranny

It was certainly a stirring image, the President-elect giving his acceptance speech in front of more than one hundred thousand in Chicago’s Grant Park. Amid the euphoria and the sense of renewal, however, we saw some of the politics as usual of the past in the use of ballot initiatives to curtail individual rights. In four states voters passed gay marriage bans and other anti-gay measures dealing with foster care and adoption. In California the ballot measure was an attack on a state Supreme Court decision invalidating of a previous gay marriage ban. Take that activist judges!

Those who favor these ballot initiatives see nothing wrong with the notion of citizens voting on the rights of others, especially when the others are gay and lesbian Americans. Gays are not seen as a group experiencing discrimination, and they should never be compared to the traditional minority groups lest the legitimate yearnings of those groups be somehow debased. In an ironic twist, the Bible is used to justify these votes, while the collective memory blocks out the use of the very same book in the Southern United States to justify slavery, as well as its use to subjugate women.

There are obviously many people who don’t think that gays and lesbians deserve the same civil rights as others, that our difference is a choice we freely made as opposed to some kind of genetic marker, as if genetics should determine whether civil rights are extended or not. However, we do live in a constitutional republic, one in which the rights of minorities are supposed to be protected from the tyranny of the majority. Judges are there to protect those rights. As one of the lawyers in a suit filed today against the California marriage ban notes: “Equal protection is supposed to prevent the targeting and subjugation of a minority group by a simple majority vote.”

So while you may be disgusted, or disturbed, or frightened by homosexuals, it is beyond time to stop using these petition-based ballot initiatives with their biblical underpinnings as a cudgel to wield against one group of individuals. Finally, without the decisions of so-called activist judges, does anyone really believe that we would be greeting a President-Elect Barack Obama?

Race in the race

What do you say to a frightened senior citizen who won’t vote for Barack Obama because he is an “arab”? Well, if you’re John McCain, confronted with supporters whose anger has been unleashed by his campaign rhetoric, you reassure the frightened woman that no, Mr. Obama is not an Arab, or a Muslim, or a terrorist. According to McCain, Obama is a good man, not the bad Muslim of his supporter’s nightmares. That’s what seven years of the “War on Terror” has brought us – American citizens who equate Arab with Muslim with terrorist.

It’s all well and good to refute the ridiculous blather about Barack Obama’s background, as a report in the New York Times has done, and as Obama himself has done by stressing his Christian faith. What’s missing from this conversation is a rejection of the notion that the Arab and/or Muslim citizen is somehow dangerous, unamerican, a threat. How about this: the next time some irrationally fearful individual insists that Mr. Obama is an Arab, respond by saying: the senator is not an Arab or a Muslim, but if he were, he would be just as acceptable a candidate.

Meanwhile, there is an Arab American running for president, and while he has been vilified for many things, nobody has accused Ralph Nader of being a dangerous terrorist. At this point, the Muslim/Arab label is a foil because in this toxic electoral atmosphere, it is easier to attack someone for perceived membership in a hated group, than to admit discomfort with an African American candidate. In order to move past this, our political leaders need to model acceptance of difference, rather than defensively denying it.

The bailout hypocrisy

Now that the Bush administration is requesting a $700 billion dollar bailout of Wall Street investment moguls and their companies, a little perspective is in order. It was almost one year ago that Mr. Bush vetoed an expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program, much to the dismay of members of his own party. The Congressional attempt to cover an additional 3.5 million low- to middle-income children was viewed by the Bush administration as a “federalization” of health insurance. The grand total of funds requested for this endeavor – $60 billion over five years.

Most experts now agree that some form of federal bailout is necessary to keep the American economy afloat – and that the Wall Sreet firms now in trouble are “too big to fail”. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, himself a former CEO of Goldman-Sachs, will oversee the federal bailout, and has already suggested that a “clean bill” (one without the encumbrances of the democratic process) clear the House and Senate without delay. Ordinary Americans may be chastised for the decisions that lead to their bad debt, but Secretary Paulson insists that the Wall Street bailout remain free of punitive actions.  And while taxpayers are being asked to foot the enormous bill brought about by questionable if not criminal lending practices in support of Mr Bush’s “ownership society”, the administration is balking at such sensible terms as limiting the amount of participating CEO remuneration and giving bankruptcy judges the ability to change the terms of primary mortgages and help homeowners avoid foreclosure. In a display of unmitigated gall, those same industries that are now dependent on government help are lobbying against any aid for struggling homeowners.

To be fair, both parties are responsible for the meltdown we are currently witnessing, as Democrats as well as Republicans are beholden to the financiers now in so much trouble. It was Bill Clinton who signed the Financial Service Modernization Act (also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act) in 1999 effectively repealing the Depression era Glass-Steagall Act and removing the wall between commercial and investment banking. That would be the “nation of whiners” Gramm, who until recently was a John McCain economic advisor. Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, yet another former CEO of Goldman-Sachs and now an Obama economic advisor championed the repeal. And when Congress passed the bankruptcy reform bill of 2005, handing a huge victory to the credit card industry, 18 Democrats (including the current vice-presidential nominee) voted for passage of the egregious legislation.

The Republican nominee has rid himself, at least publicly, of his troublesome economic advisor. Senator Obama should do the same, and seek economic advice from individuals who are not tainted by their actions in support of the current crisis.