Democrats, liberals and other traditional President Bush detractors must always give credit where credit is due, and this time the president deserves the credit. He bucked his own party on the issue of immigration and worked closely with the Democrats to no avail on this major legislation. His own party fought him tooth and nail. He also stood up and supported real standards within the education system in the No Child Left Behind legislation. That legislation is far from perfect, but it is a start. He has confronted the part of his own party that does not believe in the loan, or bailout, that has been proposed for Detroit. Taking on senators who have supported him in the war and in domestic policy can’t be easy in the last month of his administration when he would like to leave with lots of goodwill.

He is about to turn on a green light for the $15 billion loan to the industry. It’s described by the White House as a bridge loan to somewhere, either financial solvency or a structured bankruptcy. Republican senators are shamelessly exploiting this national corporate debacle in an effort to get cheap political points at the expense of one of America’s core industries. That industry right now may be a handful of fat cat executives, but it’s also tens of millions of workers and retirees. This labeling, however, lets us forget that these workers and retirees are someone’s grandparents, parents, fathers, daughters, mother, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. They represent family members of tens of millions of Americans. In short, this is a community problem, not too different from how your local church responds when there has been a fire, flood or some local tragedy in the neighborhood.

Sure, maybe the UAW should be looking at future cuts in pay and benefits, but my questions to the naysayers on this government loan are the following:

• When Honda and Toyota successfully sought to build plants in the South to access our markets, did we demand that they pay our workers what their counterparts were getting at General Motors, Chrysler or Ford? Did we hurt our own people for the benefit of Japanese corporate fat cats?
• Did we sweeten the deal for these foreign companies by offering them goodie bags full of land deals, specialized zoning and tax credits?
• How many factories does Detroit have in Japan? If the wages are so much less there then why hasn’t the Japanese government encouraged our automotive companies to come there? If there are none, then why not?
Does this seem fair to you? Of course not, but the Japanese model has been touted in America under the guise of “Detroit doesn’t get it.”
So, maybe President Bush has finally figured out that the free trade he and others have been touting really isn’t so free after all. The American workers in Detroit are realizing that their counterparts may be earning substandard wages and benefits just a few states away on a very similar assembly line. The challenge then isn’t to take more money from working people. It is to help them keep what they have and to still be part of the American dream. President Bush understands that, and he is providing the leadership we need in his final days.

Thanksgiving weekend is often marked by movie going, and this weekend was no exception. I purchased tickets to “Milk” the Sean Penn movie about “gay” activist Harvey Milk. This is New York, and I knew enough to purchase the tickets early in the day. I was warned by the woman at the ticket booth to get there about a half hour earlier. I arrived 20 minutes early, and the entire theater was filled. “Gay” activists? No, the theater was filled with mostly heterosexual couples of the 50+ crowd. There were few if any under 40.

Harvey Milk, born in the early 1930s, was the generation that most of these moviegoers came from. Known as the “builders,” most of them missed serving in World War II, but the men of that generation served in the military. Harvey Milk served during the Korean War. It was a generation that gave and gave, and many became activists later in life. Harvey Milk was in the closet until he was 40 and only then with the freedom that came with the late ’60s and early ’70s did he choose a life of activism and living a life that was open.

The men and women attending the movie could relate to the story. Here was a man raised in the traditional values of America who decided to put everything on the line for a cause he believed in. It is interesting to see how this happens in a rich and diverse democracy like ours. One person can make a difference, and protests can be planned and peaceful. What struck me is how much has been accomplished by our American methods of dissent. Although Harvey Milk’s life ended in violence, killed along with Mayor Moscone by a former colleague on the board of supervisors, we can disagree and protest without having to resort to the kind of terrorism that we see unfolding before us on an all too regular basis. Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, a country that is an absolute monarchy. There is viable means of dissent or of protest. If you do not like the king’s policies, you may be able to write something in the newspaper, or maybe not. No flash mobs, phone trees or leafleting allowed. Anger and hopelessness will build in an absolute environment, and there is no steam hole in the volcano to allow excess anger to pour out.

Americans love stories about people who make a difference – especially those who grow up without privilege. Rosa Parks is famous sitting in the white section of the bus; Martin Luther King for leading the civil rights movement. Harvey Milk was no exception. He organized local business to create an economic and business force. He stood on a street corner with a bullhorn and proclaimed his policies. He acted as a consummate local politician by beginning a campaign in front of television cameras about stepping in dog poop. He championed the local working union member. He did what he needed to do to get various groups who had nothing in common with each other to support him. This is the story of politics in a democracy.

Like other politicians, he had a blind spot too. He could not hear the concerns of Supervisor Dan White who could not feed his family on the salary he was paid, and who felt humiliated by Harvey Milk and the other members of the board of supervisors. Feeling hopeless as he was not reappointed to the job he had just resigned, he killed the mayor and Harvey Milk. The lesson here is that hopelessness can lead to violence, as the hopeless feel they have nothing left to lose.

Yes, there was murder in this American story, but the greater story is how much can be accomplished without violence and by peaceful protests and working within our amazing system of participatory democracy. It doesn’t exist in dictatorships or in an absolute monarchy. Citizens of those kinds of governments can feel hopeless without an outlet. We have at this Thanksgiving week much for which to be thankful. The movie “Milk” shows us how strong we really are as a nation.

When I was growing up my mother belonged to an investment club. Every week the ladies would gather and invest $10. In between meetings they would do their stock market research and carefully watch how their money was doing. In that far away place and time, before opportunities opened for women in the workplace, the ladies would also pay careful attention when their husbands talked about stocks. The idea was to make some money.

Most of all, they loved investing in blue-chip stocks in general, and General Motors and Ford in particular. It wasn’t just the money – every time they bought a share they felt like they were buying part of America. It seemed patriotic. Looking back on it, and how much my mother and her friends loved this country, I must say that it was a patriotic act.

If my mother were alive today she would have been shocked by last week’s Capitol Hill hearings. She would have recalled that the Detroit whose auto museums we used to visit (a three-hour drive from my hometown Cleveland) was peopled by industrious workers, great management and the promise of America. These were the men (and women) who built the tanks and the trucks that won World War II and who kept supplying our country’s defense needs right through the Cold War.
But last week in Congress was a humiliating spectacle. The three fat-cat CEOs, so politically tone deaf that they each flew in on separate corporate jets, testified about their troubles. It was a poster-sized moment of our country’s sad decline as a manufacturing power. And it was a moment that I never would have believed could happen.

But it did happen. The sheer stupidity of Detroit’s management lo these 40 years has also happened. The public’s understandable temptation is to wish a pox on all their houses and let them go bankrupt. I have also had those thoughts. And the truth is nonpartisan, for there is plenty of blame to go around. Was the UAW too greedy for too long? Has management been bloated, greedy and completely lacking vision while being outdone by our foreign competitors? The answer to both questions is yes, of course.

And yet, and yet and yet … I’ve also had to grow up and face another hard truth: These companies cannot be allowed to go bankrupt, period. Here’s why:
We have allowed our manufacturing base to go overseas and with it, our national security. Suppose we ever got into a major land war elsewhere. Who will manufacture our tanks and trucks now? Our international rivals? Perhaps the countries we are fighting?
During World War II and Korea, our auto plants turned on a dime and cranked out war machines by the tens of thousands. Then we had the capacity to make what we needed to win the war. If American auto manufacturing is owned by the likes of Honda, we will no longer own and control the necessary means of production to protect ourselves.

Many automobile workers have worked for decades on assembly lines, not exactly a fun-filled job. Those assembly lines put generations of kids through college, bought houses, supported our larger economy. And the people – we shouldn’t call them simply workers, because for many Americans, they are our grandparents and parents – expected health care and some retirement in exchange for long, tough hours. And here’s another truth: If Detroit doesn’t provide for these folks, the taxpayers must. Better to leave the Big Three in business than overburden our already overburdened doles.
There’s also a question of double standards. Do we bail out the white-collar schnooks at AIG (and the like) whose stupid executives are still taking luxury retreats on the taxpayers’ dime and not do right by our own Detroit workers? That’s not fair. And in the world’s eyes, the Big Three are so connected to American wellbeing that if they are allowed to fail, the effects on the dollar and U.S. standing in the global economy could be catastrophic.

Read me straight, here – there should be no blank checks. There must be management and union accountability here, and that means concessions from everyone: the fat cat boss, the current workers and the retirees. Some plants may have to be closed, and there must also be political accountability – just like closing military bases, we must avoid the “not in my state” congressional mentality. An up or down vote on a comprehensive plan is a prerequisite.

We need some economy of scale here and more green cars rather than making tens and tens of different models, all guzzling gas. There must be a plan for profitability.
All of this is possible. Perhaps the first project of President-elect Obama will be to unite the country around saving this critical industry. American blue chips have recently turned rusty brown. It’s time to make them blue again.

I just returned from a week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Dubai is a microcosm of the world with 85 percent of the population coming from more than 100 countries. The local newspapers were full of two topics – the world economy and President-elect Obama, with some stories covering both subjects at one time.

The locals, known as Emiratis, have a great deal of confidence that the region will be able to ride out this economic shamal (strong wind from the north that bring blinding sand storms). Dubai, unlike Abu Dhabi, has no significant oil revenue to speak of. Instead, Sheik Mohammed al Maktoum is turning Dubai into a tourist destination for the emerging tourist droves from India, Russia and possibly China. At the World Economic Forum held in Dubai there was one shining star remaining in the galaxy of emerging markets – India. Russia isn’t exactly hurting either. The hotels and real estate offices in Dubai are full of Russians on holiday or snapping up villas and flats while carrying gym bags full of cash.

If you think about it, it makes perfect sense to make a vacation, banking and commerce center in the middle of the world, which is exactly where Dubai is located. Our very own Halliburton moved its headquarters to Dubai, for example. Barclays bank has a huge office in Dubai, and that is the springboard to the emerging markets south and east of Dubai.

Despite the mind-boggling rate of development, (I counted 30 new high-rise apartments going up in a six-mile radius of where I was staying), some expatriates worry that Dubai will suffer a credit crunch as well, and that will leave those high rises empty. After I interviewed a number of people, the one common theme I observed is that they think President-elect Obama is going to “fix everything.” Emiratis, Australians, Indians, Pilipino, Brits, South Africans … all see the future of their country tied to the future of the U.S. And they believe that Obama will go into deeper debt to fix the U.S. economy and, therefore, the world economy. They don’t seem to be bothered by the debt that the U.S. takes on and its long-term implications for the dollar, which is of course inextricably linked with the UAE dirham.

Despite interesting conversations about the world economy, the thing most people wanted to discuss was Obama’s win. I heard story after story about how people watched returns on Wednesday morning and cheered each other at work and celebrated. I think this was due to a few reasons. First, they think there needs to be a dramatic change in the way America works in the world – that we need to steer clear of shot, fire, aim and that Obama will be less likely to shoot from the hip than the Bush administration. Second, the win illustrated to the world that the American dream is still alive, and the American people are not asleep at the switch. The rest of the world looks to America as the standard bearer for unencumbered opportunity – that someone can be born with no means, with the hurdles that Obama has overcome and rise to be the most powerful man in the world.

I left Dubai a proud American. Our system may have its flaws, but it works, and the rest of the world sees that it as well. It has given people hope and made people around the world smile. That as they say in the Middle East “is a good thing.”

For the past year Americans have been losing friends, making enemies and in general, being their old partisan selves over the question of who is best qualified to lead us. We’ve argued about Iraq, taxes, the budget, whether one candidate is a Mini-Me of George Bush and whether the other candidate is an honorary member of the Weather Underground.

It’s now end game. On Tuesday, the shouting, arguments, innuendo, dirty campaigning and the all the rest comes to a screeching halt. We’ll get our president … and then … and then … and then what?

Everybody, left, right, center and unknown agree that this time, it really is different. The meltdown, the looming global recession and the foreign-policy mess have produced a world unlike any other that Americans have faced since the end of World War II. So my question is this: Given the magnitude of the problems we and the world face, does the winner of this presidential contest actually lose?

What is to be done? Signs right now point to a deflation, possibly global. Everyone senses this – falling stocks, home values and commodity prices, layoffs and the threat of double-digit unemployment now point to falling wages. Even the price of gold is down. Can falling prices be far behind?

Everyone knows that what the candidates argued about during their three debates – tax cuts, spending programs, something better for everyone, no exceptions – was not only beside the point, but was almost irrelevant to the problems we face. In truth, whether the winner is McCain or Obama (and I hope it’s Obama), no one knows for sure what either man is going to do about any of this. It’s as if the candidates were sleepwalking. In fact, by not demanding more answers about real problems, so were the media and the public. One might call this the Great Denial Election.

So does the winner lose? If we are headed into a deflation, something this country has not really experienced since the 1930s, what exactly will McBama do about it? More to the point, what can they do about it? It’s as real as rain and as serious as a heart attack – neither McCain nor Obama has addressed the economy on its own terms and proposed anything of substance. It’s as if both men studiously avoided having to tell us the truth.

And what is that truth? Perhaps that we’re up to our eyeballs in debt. Perhaps for a generation, we spent too much and saved too little, pinned our hopes to real-estate investments (something our grandparents never would have understood) or our 401Ks (something our grandparents would have warned us against doing.)

So whether it’s the man from Illinois or the one from Arizona, be prepared to be disappointed. Be prepared to, as the old Yankees used to say, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” Because for now, and maybe for the first term of whomever wins, we’re in a new age of austerity, limited missions, curtailed dreams and quite possibly, a declining standard of living.

It promises four years of heartache and broken hopes for Tuesday’s winner. And it will hit hard, because neither McCain nor Obama was able to look into that magic lens and tell the people the economic equivalent of what Winston Churchill explained on May 13, 1940 – that all he could offer the public was “blood, sweat, toil and tears” – especially the part about toil.

With our economy a mess and the world economy messy as well, it is easy to forget about other problems. One of those “other problems” is the proliferation of arms. It is especially easy to forget, given that our export economy includes a significant sale of armaments.

There is a campaign to stop this trade called “The World Is Watching.” The goal? To get the 153 governments who voted at the United Nations to develop an arms treaty. This vote took place in 2006, but so far there is no treaty. (more…)

With the recent announcement by Washington DC’s Metro Authority and Transport that the Transit Police have the authority to conduct random searches of passenger’s bags, it begs the question: am I losing my rights here?

Who, exactly, gave them the authority? Is that even legal? According to whom, and why?

The threat levels are in a constant high state around Washington, DC, and in the coming days it is likely to be pushed even higher due to the upcoming election. The threat level is the reason given for the random searches. WMATA says they will be choosing a random number, such as thirteen, and they will check every thirteenth person that is carrying a bag large enough to carry explosives. They claim they will not pick people from the crowd that are acting suspiciously and target them. Really? How do I know that I was really the thirteenth person carrying a bag, and not that I was the one that was looking suspicious? Do I just believe you?

Certainly it’s not that difficult to put into place a detection system that sniffs for explosives as Washingtonians and tourists alike wander through the Metro system. Bomb dogs could be brought out en force to slink throughout the plazas. But an arbitrary screening process, based on the counting ability of the Transit Police?

The idea is not only ridiculous (a person carrying something dangerous, or illegal, could simply meander back and forth until they can enter the system without being stopped) it’s also making me wonder when the government is going to start stopping random people on the street and inspecting bags for no reason other than they can!

What country do I live in, again?

If you are a registered Republican or Independent voter in a swing state you most likely have received a robo call during the last couple of weeks. Robo calls are generated by recorded voice and delivered by a computer. Many campaigns and organizations have used them. In its “wisdom,” congressional officials have voted to exempt them from the “do-not-call list.”

However, this exemption does mean the calls are not regulated. The Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 outlines the rules for robo calls. They must include who is initiating the calls and a telephone number or address to reach the party who is paying for it. In addition, some states such as California mandate that a live person must get on the line before the message is played.

With two and a half weeks before Election Day, the McCain campaign has made ample use of these calls. The call that played most often this week began, “Hello, I’m calling for John McCain and the RNC.” Then it goes on to say “Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans.”

One of the robo call companies promotes its ability to achieve desired election results on its website. GOPcalls.com says it has the capacity to make 10 million calls a day and that systems can, “recognize an answering machine, a live person, a fax machine, busy, disconnected and unanswered calls with the highest accuracy in the industry.” Doesn’t that make you feel warm and fuzzy about these calls?

The reason I am predicting that John McCain is not going to win the election is that he has to resort to tactics like these. They turn voters off, not on. It is not the John McCain many people think they know and like. In fact, there are reports that the McCain campaign hired the exact same firm that delivered scurrilous lies about him in 2000. What are they thinking? Even people who are voting for Obama have great respect for McCain. They don’t expect him to run a campaign counter to his own values.

These calls have been so upsetting to some of the swing state voters that even Republicans running for election have asked the RNC and the McCain campaign to stop. The AP reported that two senators running in close elections have asked for the calls to cease. Susan Collin’s campaign spokesperson said, “These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics.” Even Norm Coleman, who is in a tough election campaign with Al Franken in Minnesota, has said that he wanted these attacks stopped.

Congress is also considering action against robo calls, and Shaun Dakin of Citizens for Civil Discourse called for a Voter Privacy Bill of Rights. Even if we could get Congress to pass such legislation, it is highly likely that the Supreme Court would strike it down because the law would limit “free speech.” However, there needs to be some relief for voters. Some people in swing states have had as many as 10 calls per week. There has got to be a legal way to limit the annoyance and danger of these calls. The candidates would not pay for them if there were not some evidence that this kind rancor works. But it turns some voters off to the election process. Democracy cannot afford a citizenry that is cynical and turned off to the main instrument of our republic, the individual voter.

All you have to do is to look at blogs and listener/viewer e-mail to know how angry Americans are right now. It is not just your usual every-four-years, pre-election anger. This anger is deep and will likely determine the next president.

I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to have some idea about where the rage is coming from. Carol Checkbook and Wally Worker are having a tough time paying the family bills. It isn’t just the mortgage and stock market crises. You can open the paper on any given day and find someone who has taken horrible advantage of someone else. Even a casual glance at the newspapers can spill out stories of amazing greed. One that really got me was the story of two executives of Duane Reade drug stores allegedly cooking the books so they could take big bonuses home at the end of the year. If you have ever shopped in a Duane Reade it is obvious that the cashiers and other help in the store are not getting rich off of their employment. To cook the books and enrich themselves while workers are paid close to minimum wage is just plain immoral. I am not saying that this kind of greed is limited to the year 2008; it has been around since the beginning of time. What is new is that the moral discussion of such greed seems to be off the table.

President Bush and others have talked about moral issues, but they have focused on vote-getting issues such as banning gay marriage rather than issues that impact every one of us. Gay marriage has not negatively changed the fabric of Massachusetts, which now has the lowest divorce rate of any state in the union. But our culture of greed has impacted every citizen of our country. Has gay marriage made the crime rate increase? Has gay marriage decreased a family’s ability to put bread on the table? The answer is clearly no. But, greed and the lack of discussion and societal sanctions on greed have changed the life of every person in America. Talking about greed has not been a wedge issue to get more votes so many politicians haven’t talked about it. The Democrats have, however, started to make it an issue, and it is catching on and accounts for the women’s formerly “undecideds” moving quickly to Sen. Obama. He was the first one to talk about what is happening in corporate America.

A Fox News Poll on Friday showed Obama increased his edge among women to 16 percentage points, up from a four-point edge only a month ago. This is a shocking swing considering many women were very supportive of Sen. McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin. How much a month can change things. But what a month it has been. Women in this country pay the bills. They might stay home or work part time but they are often the bill payers, and they are usually the grocery shoppers even if they also work full time. If they go to Duane Reade to pick up Johnny or Jane’s cough medicine, they see how hard the clerks in the store work and how long they stand on their feet. Then they read the newspaper and the stories of corporate greed hit home. No wonder they have decided to cast their vote for Obama.

The Fox News Poll also points out that the Obama-Biden ticket has a clear advantage on “having better judgment” by seven points, “bringing the right change to Washington” by 15 points and “better understands American families and their problems” by a whooping 24 points. Twenty-four points?! That is an amazing lead. The vote in a few weeks is not going to be based on a Bill Clinton “I feel your pain” identification, but instead based on real concern and, unfortunately, real anger. This anger will dissipate only when politicians get back to values that are not trumped up to get votes but that made this country strong.

When I taught a college-level course on human development, I used to give the example of a child with a big red toy truck at the playground. Other kids would see it, want to play with it and, yes, even covet it. Most of the time the parent of the child with the red toy truck would encourage the child to share his toys. The problem is that we have had too many people with those toy trucks playing by themselves, and that has left the voters seeing red.

Last week was a truly Washington week to remember.

First up was the bailout package: failed the House on Monday, stuffed with pork and then passed by the Senate on Wednesday. As the House does not keep kosher, this stuffed pork chop passed through intact on Friday. In the meantime, billions in value melted away or rematerialized in minutes in the securities markets.

It was like picking petals off a daisy – “yes” we need a bailout, “no” we don’t. Like first time investors and other suckers, Congress took the bait – hook, line and sinker. And after the bailout was passed on Friday? The market dropped 157 points. Congress just learned its first lesson about markets: You can love stocks, but they don’t love you back.

But the week’s biggest loser (other than the taxpayers) was probably Sen. John McCain. Forget his “come let us reason together” rhetoric – he could have proved his self-appointment as the nation’s First Maverick by opposing the bailout. As the House found out, the public hates this bill, and McCain could have picked up some swing state voters had he opposed the plan. Instead he demonstrated bad economic electoral
strategy by letting Sen. Obama take this economic prize.

Now, the McCain- Palin advisers have decided to go negative on Obama’s background and colorful associates rather than fighting him on the economy. But had McCain stood with House Republicans and rallied against this Fat Cat Welfare Act and Pork for Dorks Act, he might have been able to something that has eluded Republicans for a generation: make the economy a Republican issue.

Now the campaign will amount to a contest between whose friends are worse, rather than the one thing the public needs above all: a real debate about exactly what it is Congress just did and why, under some new administration, this will never happen again.

Some Washington insiders have suggested that McCain can’t change his plan as it’s already been written. But the earth moved after this week, and he should remember something he must have learned in the military: “adapt, improvise and overcome.”

And I say let McCain argue his plan – it’s a flawed one. He’s basically running on a pledge to stop earmarks, pork-barrel spending and waste. It’s like running against sin: Who could be against it? So, why did McCain vote for a pork-chopped bill with tons of earmarks for everything from wooden arrows to tax breaks for alcohol in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands?

While the rest of the herd was planning the next disaster, where was their maverick this week? If I were Obama, I’d ask him outright: How is he going to get a bill passed in Congress without all those earmarks he says he doesn’t like?

McCain’s plan declares, “[T]he United States will be telling oil producing countries and oil speculators that our dependence on foreign oil will come to an end.” Once again, who could disagree?

The tricky little question is, How? McCain touts his “Lexington Project” as an answer. This project has set a goal of building 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 and creating 700,000 jobs. Even if Americans have come around on the issue of nuclear power, this is totally unrealistic because we can get no agreement on what to do with all that waste. And there’s the NIMBY (not in my backyard) local zoning and planning boards that are going to prevent the construction of these plants. I would like McCain to tell us where he plans to put the 45 nuclear plants.

What about McCain’s plan to develop green technologies? He’s offering a $300 million prize to improve battery technology. He also will issue a Clean Car Challenge to the automakers via a tax credit. That may have worked five years ago, but we just gave the automakers $25 billion in the most recent budget bill. How are you going to take a tax credit if you are not making money? Obama proposes taking real money and supporting American industry to develop these green jobs. That is the only way to do it. Why McCain does not revise his economic plan and do the same is beyond me.

Perhaps the biggest evidence that McCain got his economics degree on “Fantasy Island” is his plan to pay for the deficit by applying the savings from winning the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. The memo this week from Afghanistan commander Gen. David McKiernan must not have reached him. McKiernan said the situation there will get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Unless McCain decides on day one to declare victory and then withdraw, we’ve only begun to “invest” in this war.

Maybe the senator and his staff should go back to school and take an economics course – because right now, the only school he’s graduated from boasts only two other graduates: Ms. Fannie Mae and Mr. Freddie Mac.