Pig in a poke

My grandmother used to say, "I ain't buying no pig in a poke." She had a lot of other colorful expressions that got much more colorful the older she got. The license of age. This one puzzled me because I didn't know what a poke was. 

I don't remember who explained to me that a poke is a sack, in this case a burlap bag. You wouldn't want to buy it because you couldn't really tell what you were buying. You could see if it were shaped like a pig and how big it was, but beyond that, your imagination had to fill in the details. I guess you might buy it if you really, really trusted the seller. But in any economy a whole hog has been an expensive investment.

Now, I'm not calling Sarah Palin a pig, but it surely looks like Karl Rove, and the rest of the rogues' gallery that's run the government for the past eight years, are the ones holding the poke. They're keeping that string drawn taut. They've tied all kinds of pretty bows on it and built some really lovely pedestals to set the poke on. They're traveling the country showing off the package. But there's a velvet rope they're calling a media blackout around the pedestal and they aren't letting anyone in to peek at the contents. They aren't even letting anyone but the shills on the payroll ask questions about what's in there. 

They've made movies reportedly outlining what's in the poke. They change the ribbons and bows and paint a face on her every day. They put a mike up next to the whole package and it sounds like whatever is inside is speaking. But who can tell? 

We can, however, look at where that package has been and what it left in its wake. With Palin, the wake is weak and what is there doesn't look very good and it doesn't match at all the picture that's being painted on the outside of that poke. I hope people in this nation who cast ballots in this race have the good common sense my Nanny had and demand that McCain and crew open up that poke or move on to Barack Obama, the man standing out in the sunshine, dodging the rocks and explaining his plan for the country.

What's up with this Barack?

Last night I sent a request to the Obama campaign for an interview to ask the senator about his change from vowing to filibuster against new FISA legislation to voting in favor of it Wednesday.

Some of his strongest supporters during the nomination campaign are dismayed about this vote, not just that it prevents us from having a day in court to challenge the erosion of our Constitutional rights. So far many of us are not satisfied with his statements and assurances. From what I understand at this point, the legislation was not necessary for national security reasons. We have operated without it for many years before the attack on 911 and for several years after it. A lack of the kind of information that can be obtained under the FISA law was not the reason the Bush Administration was caught unaware on 911. And the new law will give the government the right to listen or look in on any communication I might have with my children who travel widely around the world or that I might have with people here in the U.S when I travel outside the country and what previously has been confidential correspondence I might have had as a journalist with sources I have developed in other countries.

Last night Sen. Russ Feingold, who led the fight against the bill, said that although he was not happy with the result, it will not be so bad when Obama is president because he can lead the fight to change it. Well, what happens if Obama loses? Then we have a senile old guy, probably with an enthusiastic, far more conservative younger guy with all the tools he needs to complete the work begun during the Reagan era to establish an unstoppable, all powerful executive. And with the corrupting power of power, there certainly are no guarantees that Obama won't be seduced himself.

This simply is not acceptable and I hope Sen. Obama can offer a more satisfactory explanation of his change in policy. It's too late to change back on this issue, but some concrete assurances that his change philosophy has not been absorbed into the Beltway Borg are necessary for him to keep the kind of enthusiastic support he has enjoyed for more than a year.

Presidential war strategy

Barack Obama and John McCain each are engaged in a charge of the light brigade. Cannons to the left of the Cannons to the right, volley and thunder.

In predictable moves, both are maneuvering toward the middle. If both are successful, McCain will win the war of the General Election ballot box.

Obama's phenomenal success in the Democratic Primary was due to two factors: First, his ability to uplift the hearts and spirits of old political soldiers grown weary of the same old same old. They were profoundly disillusioned that Bill Clinton had spent their political capital to pass George H.W. Bush's political agenda of NAFTA and welfare reform without bothering to reinforce the social safety net. They were disgusted by Gore's twisting like a tortured wonk on lances of coziness with Chinese bankrollers and political consultants' admonitions to stop debating like Gore. And John Kerry knocked the rest of us out after he became John Kerry v.2004 when it came to everything progressives considered important and not the Kerry v. 1969, railing against the war in which he had been some heavy dues.

Second, Obama excited a tidal wave of fresh recruits who not only enjoined the battle of the Internet but actually showed up at the polls and beat the masters of insider politics in the caucus battles. This is a test run for them. They likely won't stay around to be fooled a second time if they feel their trust is wasted.

Ralph Nader's once again crowding the Democratic candidate on the left, might prove a plus for Obama and he should take advantage of that. He can push back without adopting any stances he hasn't already announced and still look more centrists. If Obama does in fact reach further right to emphasize the difference, again he will deflate support he already has won.

McCain must satisfy party die-hard social conservative that he is better than the alternatives (Barack and Libertarian Bob Barr.) And he must reach out to grab some of the so-called Reagan Democrats. That might be a reach, but Republicans have humongous financial resources, are practical, and most likely will show up to vote even if they have to hold their noses. And he doesn't have the kind of following that will be disheartened if he turns out to be just like other Republican candidates of years past, they've served the party interests pretty darned well. The religious right might abandon him, unsure of his commitment to their dearest principles. However, he retains that club of Supreme Court justice appointments to hold over them, a weapon they're not likely to beat into plowshares for the culture wars.

So all in all, Obama better stay audacious and lead a brave-hearted charge that moves boldly straight ahead without testing political winds.

Harbingers — a long commentary

Sometimes a single experience can produce a cluster of realizations.

On a recent trip to Haiti, in Cap Haitien and Port-au-Prince, I witnessed people constantly in motion. Narrow streets, mostly dirt, only one marked in a city of two million, all impossibly crowded with traffic. How anyone navigated and survived a venture into those streets confounded me. Children darted in and out of a flow of pedestrians who filled what might have been shoulders if roads there had such. Into that same space crowded scooters and small motorcycles with whole families aboard, bicycles, delivery trucks, buses filled to overflowing with people and livestock covering the roofs, tap-taps also brimming with life, cars, trucks, pickups, white UN military vehicles. Only one traffic law seemed to apply: When someone honks, pay attention.

The sides of the road brought more culture shock. Trash was piled everywhere space existed between houses. People combed through the mess, looking for bits of metal. Atop the mounds of trash, pigs and chickens were tethered, picking away at bits of food and I shudder to imagine what else they found there to eat. Alongside the streets, between houses, ran concrete gutters or trenches dug into the dirt. They flowed into the bays or just disappeared into the streets. This I realized was the sewer "system." I never saw what passed for a water system, but there might have been such, at least something that connected to businesses and wealthy homes. Even in those places, we could not drink the water and I had to think hard about bathing in it, remembering to keep my eyes and mouth closed.

Along sidewalks and what would have been sidewalks if they had been there, were vendors and even industry. Those who had gleaned metal or wire sold it from the side of the road. There they set up little shops to crack open motors, extract the tiniest pieces of wire and splice them together to make coils. Next door, others spent the day hammering out bent bicycle rims and chains and selling them. With so much traffic and so few consumer goods, there's a big market in bicycle and other vehicle repair. These people are industrious to the max. In every possible space, men and women crouch beside tiny markets selling items like fake Crocs, stale cheese and crackers, cookies and water packets. Movement everywhere. Use, reuse everything.

Dust traffic kicks up traveled into houses built right up to the edges of streets. A peek into doorways brought views of women fighting the endless battle of sweeping the dust back into the street. Those with homes to sweep out had precious little else, and hearing the stories behind the snapshots of life we could see revealed some true horrors. That dust, that dust that came off the tires of trucks, off the feet of livestock living on trash heaps, that mixed with soot from ever-present charcoal fires and the overflowing sewers became "food" for human beings at the bottom of the heap. The women who swept the dust from their homes resorted to mixing it with sugar and oil and baking it into cookies to staunch the burning hunger in their children's bellies.

As the meaning of what I was seeing settled into my brain, I realized I was looking at a preview of our future if we don't' make some big changes fast. Two qualities missing from Haiti are rapidly declining here: Infrastructure and a middle class.

United States' policy and industry are largely responsible for what exists and does not exist in Haiti. Fifty or more years of meddling in their politics and imposing our markets on them have made them dependent on others for everything new and extra in their lives, and most of the basics. Once cheap American food came into their country, the farmers could not compete and left their farms for the city where they found no work. Now there are not enough farmers left to grow sufficient food to feed the people of Haiti and they must buy everything imported. A small island, they don't have raw materials to produce many consumer goods, so all those things are imported as well. European colonials clear-cut their great mahogany forests. Having no fossil fuels on the island, the people have nearly completed the deforestation to make charcoal for their traditional cook stoves. Corrupt governments have left the streets, water and sewer treatment to fall into ruin. Each failing resource makes recovery from another less likely. And as soon as world fuel prices soared, the cost of almost everything zoomed out of the reach of almost everyone in Haiti, including the few wealthy because the retailers couldn't afford to buy their supplies.

Isn't that a complete metaphor for the position we find ourselves in today in these United States? We no longer make things, we import them. Industrial giants have forced out the family farmers and replaced food crops with fuel crops. We are spoiling our environment to cook our food and heat our homes. Our infrastructure is falling into ruin — bridges, roads, levees, rail beds no longer are serviceable. Our people, no longer employed to make things, fall ever more often into low-paying service and retail work. Our common investment through tax dollars does not address these issues. So far, the political conversations only touch on the urgent need to attend to maintaining a middle class and the infrastructure that made this country the mightiest on earth. Our so-called solutions are pitifully shallow, narrow, shortranged and insufficient.

So think about that as your considering whom to vote for in the upcoming elections. Is there a vision and an action plan to create a future for America that strengthens the systems that are vital to our independence and our common well-being? Barack Obama is beginning to outline such a plan. But he needs support from a broad spectrum of folks to enlarge that vision. And he needs people elected at all levels of government who care more about making hard choices and honestly communicating what kinds of sacrifices we need to make now to ensure the future than they are in re-election. We really must get beyond the reality show mentality, the game that we have made of politics and seriously assess how we direct our common resources for the common good. Otherwise, we will be engaged in that daily struggle Haitians live to just stay alive.