Obama’s Willing Executioners, Part II

Last Friday, as I was preparing for a friend’s birthday party, the word came down from on high that Obama’s Department of Justice had filed a brief in the case of Smelt v. the United States. The brief cites a number of cases in which states determine independently of any federal law who can marry within their borders. I won’t recite the brief or the particular criticisms of it. Plenty of people have blogged about it, from Pam’s Houseblend (terrific) and New York Law School professor Arthur Leonard on Leonard Link (getting there, maybe). Even the New York Times thought the brief was a slap in the face to the GLBT community. Pam also makes the point in one of her entries that progressive straight people are not getting it, and are getting in the way with their defense of Obama. What I want to point out is something from Goldhagen’s thesis that I believe applies to the current situation of GLBT people in America: the history of gay-hating is so long and deep in America, that despite trends which may suggest the country is getting over it, the pernicious hatred of the GLBT community continues and is at a boiling point. Think Weimar Republic. Looks promising, and then…

Many people in America are commenting on the rise of hate groups, but they point toward the recent actions against Dr. Tiller in Kansas or the shooting of the guard at the Holocaust Museum. These are indeed acts of terror and hate. I don’t want to dismiss them. But it is important that we do not assume hate always manifests in a shooting. It comes upon us more subtly.

It came upon us on January 20, 2009 when Obama chose to have a gay-hater deliver his invocation, and he laughed at us. It came upon us when in Congress Virginia Fox said Matthew Shepard’s death was not a hate crime but a hoax. It comes with every soldier dismissed for being gay or lesbian. It stands out in the 26 states that have constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. It is there every time a census worker erases a gay marriage. It is present in the media attention given to Carrie Prejean, Miss California, whose beliefs are not only exactly the same as President Obama’s, but whose visibility is nearly as great.

For every court victory GLBT people win, more hatred starts to simmer. With every state that allows marriage equality, the hate becomes more palpable, as groups like the Knights of Columbus or the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) throw precious dollars at ad campaigns that feed, cloth, house, or ease the suffering of no one. As young people who taunted at school for being gay kill themselves, it grows less necessary for hate groups to kill us. Some of these young people may not have been gay, but the perception is enough–and not just the perception that they are gay, but the perception that being gay is so awful it merits one’s own destruction.

So let’s get rid of this crazy Hope’n'Change™ denial about what is really going on. There is a gay-hater in the White House. We don’t need to explore whether he hates gays because it is politically expedient or because deep down he has issues. It doesn’t matter. His actions matter. His words matter too, of course. Many people point to his explicit promises for gay civil rights and say, be patient. But let’s remember that to argue against gay marriage, he invoked his Christian faith, as if somehow being gay is anathema to all Christians, or that no Christians could support gay marriage. That’s insidious, and powerful.

Germany was one of the most cultured nations in the world when Hitler became its chancellor. It had begun to create equality for Jews; increasing numbers were given posts at universities. Many Jews identified at nationalistic Germans. One of them was Edith Stein, and she yet she tried in vain to warn others about what was happening in Germany. There were many people in denial about how powerful the forces were that were gathering in Germany.

I know that people will read this post and dismiss it as conspiracy theorist or hysterical. To them, I have nothing to say, except feel free to tell me I am wrong or misguided. I welcome all opinions here.

I am someone who believes in vigilance. And right now, when we can be dazzled by gay weddings, we also need to remember the gay cabarets that made the Weimar Republic seem like a safe haven. We have economic conditions that are becoming more stark. We have a long history of gay hate in the US. And we have a president who will apparently, like water, find the path of least resistance.

[This post is entitled Part II because after the election I wrote a piece by the same name.]

Remembering Laos: bombs still exploding decades after the Vietnam War is over

In a land far away, but in a time not that distant, the United States was fighting an undeclared war in southeast Asia. After the war it left behind its footprint, an enormous amount of explosives buried in the fields of Laos. When I was a young kid, some friends of my parents had a grown son in Vietnam. I did not know what that meant. I had seen his Marine portrait. One day the news came from Mr. Mosier that his son was dead. He had stepped on a mine. We went to the funeral home, and since we were Catholic, I expected an open coffin. I didn’t understand what death by mines does to a human body.

All over the world, countries have left their unexploded weaponry littering countrysides. In one of her last charitable efforts, Princess Diana embraced the cause of cleaning up mines that were maiming and killing countless people.

Laos is the former home of a friend of mine who came to the US. In a petition he is writing to garner support for removing the mines, he explains why Laos in particular is in need of weapon removal:

Laos, a neutral territory during the Vietnam War, is a small (size of France) landlocked country surrounded by Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and China. However, from 1963 to 1974, the US dropped over 2 million tons of ordnance over Laos in 580,000 bombing missions. That translates to one planeload of bombs dropped every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, over 9 years. The American public was deceived about the Secret War in Laos and the illegal bombings of innocent civilians that the US Government was engaging in during the Vietnam War.

Legacies of War (www.legaciesofwar.org), a national grassroots organization advocating for the international banning of cluster munitions and US removal in Laos, reported that “up to 30-50% of these ordnance failed to detonate, leaving 78 to 130 million unexploded bomblets, which contaminate 37% of the land in Laos. Data from a new survey being completed in Laos indicate that UXO, primarily cluster bombs, have killed or maimed at least 50,000 civilians since 1964 (34,000 since the end of war in 1973). Each year, there continue to be close to 300 new casualties. About 40% of accidents result in death, and 60% of the victims are children.”

As a neutral country, Laos became the garbage dump for munitions. It’s a very small country, and with 37% of its land filled with unexploded bombs, that uses up a considerable amount of what might otherwise be arable territory. Imagine a family acquiring a small farm and being decimated by the an explosive as they are digging a well, or planting their first crop.

We need an increase in program funding for the Uexploded Ordnance removal from Laos left from the Vietnam War by the United States. As the US seeks to rebuild its image around the globe after eight long years, it should join the global community in recognizing the threat of these weapons. It should clean up the mess it left decades ago.

Release Gov’t Report on Death of Monument Manager–Justice Now!

Release Interior OIG Report on Marlene Braun’s Death

To: Secretary of the Interior, Kenneth Salazar

Sponsored by: The Living Trust of Marlene A. Braun and Friends

In this petition, we seek to get full access to the United States Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General’s Report on the suicide of Marlene Braun on May 2, 2005. An interim report came out a year and a half after Marlene Braun killed herself, but the supporting documents and testimony were never released and are being “redacted.” Recently, President Obama opened presidential papers for review. The White House FOIA memo states that government “should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears.” In addition, agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public.

We the undersigned respectfully request that the full report with testimony be released to those who have requested it, including the Los Angeles Times and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, as well as The Living Trust of Marlene A, Braun.

Please sign the petition by clicking on the link:
Justice for Marlene Braun

Our Billion Dollar President

So far it has cost nearly one billion dollars to get Barack Obama elected and inaugurated. That has to be a record breaker. Think how much money that is per vote for him. Whew! And with the stimulus package he is proposing, he won’t be in office a week before he is nearly a two billion dollar president. When people said this was going to be historic, I don’t think they meant it would be the most costly in history, but it surely is.

If it takes this much money for someone to become president, we need to ask not only whether it is worth it, but why?  Surely there is a diminishing returns problem here. Anything Obama does, good or bad, will have cost us more than anything any other president ever has done.

Of course, it isn’t all about the money. How the money was spent counts. Some of it was spent on gay-hating activities, some of it on becoming the most visible public figure ever, some of it on Greco-Roman design signaling the rise of empire and the decline of democracy–the Nuremburg rallies of our day. It costs a lot to produce a show. Ask anyone in Hollywood. Ask Leni Riefenstahl, whose budget was probably way less but impressive nevertheless.

Two billion dollars before he did a damn thing. And in a depression too. Wow.

And to the republic…

I am reminded of the picture painted by Jacques-Louis David of the coronation of Napolean. The general who was to become emperor placed the crown on his own head, Charlemagne be damned, and thus the first French Republic was gone. France was the sister republic of the United States, which resisted dictatorship. Haiti, another republic, was overtaken by a dictator. Experiments in democratic republics often end like this, and sadly, today, the U.S. appears to be one of them. The spectacle is not simply the celebration of a historic moment, of welcoming the first African-American president. Obama didn’t transcend racial division. He played on it. Moreover, he counted on the fact that he was not descended from slaves, a fact he mentioned in his speech on race, just so we’d all know. Every time I see his picture he is in a Hitlerian pose, arms folded and nose in the air. Imperious.

I am sad.

Gays in the Gulag and Other Futuristic Tales

Someone I know only through Facebook but to whom I donated $10 to go as a delegate for Hillary Clinton to the Democratic National Convention, and who returned as an Obamabot, sent me a card yesterday. It was a picture of the Obama family and two pins with a picture of the Obama family on them, so I could wear them for Inauguration Day. Indeed, what I wear on inauguration day is important to a lot of people. Will I dress in black, wear my white knot symbolizing my right to marry, or will I don the Obama “Sun” and be a good Unity Player for the crumbling republic? I think I will probably wear jeans and a T-shirt and stay as far away from a television or the outside world as I can. I am getting ready for the Gulag, see.

Recently Obama ushered in Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia as the head of the Democratic Party. It’s a statement that is not so subtle, except that few people pay attention when the economy is in such a mess. Kaine is a gay hater, moreso than even some of the people Obama hangs with, although on par, I would say, with the close cabal of Rev. James Meeks, Doug Kmiec, and Donny McClurkin. Rick Warren gives the imprimatur to gay hate at the invocation at the inauguration, and thus we have a very public statement that it is OK to deprive gays of civil rights, call them pedophiles, akin to rapists and murderers, and so on, so that when the day comes to very publicly target gay people, the well has been primed, as it were.

Now, anyone reading this does not, in all likelihood, know me personally. I would say until this election my primary reputation was for being reasonable. Indeed, one of the most obnoxious of my colleagues asked me to defend him against a harassment charge in a grievance procedure, despite his knowing that I did not like him much. But now I am the crazy one, the one who can’t see Obama as Lincoln (except that Lincoln didn’t believe in total equality for black people, and Obama doesn’t believe in total equality for gay people, but that’s not what people mean when they compare the two–oh, yeah, and Lincoln was a Republican!).

I don’t mind being crazy. I have even wondered about myself. We have been seeing this steady, almost unbelievable, rise in gay rights. When I was a child, the idea that I could even live with a same sex lover seemed impossible, let alone marry my partner. That I could not be fired from a job or thrown out of housing was also like a gift from the gods. I live in a state where there are anti-discrimination laws covering sexual orientation, and I know all states don’t have these, but the national trend has been steadily good. And then Obama, before he is even elected, does more to stick it to gay people than any executive in recent memory. Indeed, George W. Bush, without a whisper, signed into law on Dec. 23 the first federal protection of same sex couples: he signed a law amending other laws so that the same sex partner of a deceased person could inherit a retirement account without paying a tax penalty. Bush did this at the same time that Obama announced he would stall getting rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

We have an interesting cabinet and other administration posts proposed by the Precious-Elect:

Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services: only a 50% rating from NARAL (which endorsed him before Hillary had even dropped out of the primary) (but at least he believes stem research is a good thing, unlike Gov. Kaine);

Hillary Clinton for Sec’y of State, who as a cost for getting this post had to have her husband reveal all his donors and curtail his own international presence;

Ken Salazar for Interior, the post that oversees the Nat’l Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Indian Affairs, a cattleman and rancher from Colorado who has never met an endangered species he was all that crazy about;

Lisa Jackson, EPA, who thinks science is overrated and who has a reputation for bullying;

Robert Gates remains as Sec’y of Defense. Nuff said.

Lawrence Summers goes to the Fed and his knock-off, Timothy Geithner, will Sec’y of the Treasury. Same old, same old song with plenty of misogyny to go around; and

Rahm Emanuel, architect of NAFTA and unswervingly pro-Israel and just as unswervingly anti-immigrant, as chief of staff (P.S.: I am not against Israel at all, but uncritical stances are never a good thing, IMO).

I am not going to name them all. You get the drift.

So why with all the problems in the world should we collectively give a shit about gay people? I mean, we can see why gay people might care, but what about other straight Americans or the world for that matter?

Scapegoating is a common thing. And Obama has been steadily moving toward putting gay haters right out in front where people can see them. Why do this? Bush was not as flagrant. No one thought he liked gay people, and he gave lip service to the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but that was the Republican position. Obama has just elevated to the chairmanship of the Democratic Party a man who favors that very same constitutional amendment and promotes it! Meanwhile, Obama maintains he favors civil union and will end DOMA and “don’t ask, don’t tell” someday. The Gay History Project interviewed Obama as “the most gay friendly candidate.” Nevermind that McCain was never unfriendly to gay people…and employed gay people on his campaign. But things have changed. Hate crimes against gay people are up 24% since 2005 (down for all other groups) and Obama is wasting no time in tapping into that hate.

What does the future hold? The gulag? The concentration camp? Medical clinics that will fix us all up to be straight? A steady dose of anti-depressants? I really don’t know. Perhaps America going the way of the Roman Republic.

I only know it can’t be good.

I came, I saw, I conquered--Woohoo!

My Sin

God knows, I am a sinner. Like all people I disobey God, or I fall into periods where my love for Him is not foremost in my mind. I feel anger, pride, jealousy. And these are all wrong. Although my religion (Catholicism) teaches that there are venial and mortal sins, I do believe any act of rebellion against God is in someways the equivalent of all others: it is saying to Him, I have forgotten You. But there is this “sin” that I bear that I do not believe is sinful at all. I may be proven wrong on judgment day; I know many people of many different faiths will believe it is a sin. I am gay (that’s not a sin) and sometimes I have sex (that’s the part that is arguably sinful). I have loved someone faithfully for 17 years and given my all to that person. Together we love God, give back to our community, engage in acts of charity. But I am not mounting a defense. I am just saying that in every way, I am very much like most people.

So it perplexes me that my so-called sin is the only one in America singled out for justification of discriminatory practices when it is not a crime. Murderers, felons of all types, can have their civil rights taken away. But I am not a criminal, despite Obama’s friends likening me and my kind to rapists and murderers. (I can’t even fathom how people think that, but nevermind.) At worst I am a sinner. Adulterers, blasphemers, divorced people (yes, Jesus actually talked about that one), all can get housing, jobs, marriage licenses, adoption permissions without much fear that they will be discriminated upon on that basis. Only LGBT people need to fear this. Only our “sin” is big enough that the American polity feels it can and even should shun us from society. There are attempts to ban gay teachers from schools, and very few places protect gays from housing discrimination. Most states don’t protect domestic partners, let alone allow gay people to marry or adopt.

People commit sins every day, all the time. Many of them attend church and hear the gospel message that we should not judge one another. We heard last week in my church the gospel of Matthew in which Jesus, when separating the sheep from the goats, asks who fed him, clothed him, gave him drink when he was thirsty. He did not ask, “Are you or have you ever been a fag?” He asks about our love for one another. Do we love Him as he has loved us? Do we love our neighbors as ourselves? I know I try, though being human I am not perfect.

Most western, modern countries have decriminalized homosexuality and “acts of sodomy” (not the least because it turns out that a lot of heterosexuals engage in those nasty sodomitical practices too, like oral or anal sex). The US took a while to follow, but now that our acts are no longer criminal, why can we still be the subjects of overt, conscious, legal discrimination? I do not understand!

For people who hate gays, like Obama’s spiritual advisor Rev. James Meeks, nothing I do can redeem me. That is pretty harsh, considering even rapists and murderers can in theory be saved. No acts of good works, no dedication to my vocation to teaching (something I should be banned from doing, according to him), no amount of love and steadfastness in my relationship. Because for people like Meeks, I am my Sin. Only renouncing my being is good enough. But even if Meeks is right (and believe me, nothing will convince me he is), should the civil body politic punish me continuously?

Prop 8, now infamous, removed a right that had been granted by the state. The people of California decided it was not a right they wanted people like me to have. I am perplexed by the hatred. Not suprised by it–I am too old for that. I was attending law school in North Carolina while I was engaging in criminal acts in that state, and by that I mean I (gasp) had sex with a consenting adult. With a sergeant in the army, in fact, about to go off and fight in Iraq in the first Gulf War.

Why is it unacceptable to deprive any other minority of its civil rights but not LGBT people? We stand apart.

I think I may become a theocrat. I think we all should. Any sinner should be banned from fair housing protection, occupations like nursing and teaching, marriage and adoption of children. Any sinner. That way, there will at least be equality. No?

Obama denied job in his own administration

In a surprise announcement today, Joe Biden, Vice President-elect, and Obama’s White House chief of staff-select Rahm Emanuel announced that Barack Obama could not have a job in his own administration, because of a questionnaire the President Elect was using to vet potential candidates for the bureaucracy. “Our questionnaire is very thorough,” Biden said. “We want to weed out any applicants that may have questionable past associations with unsavory characters, or use of drugs like cocaine, or whose resumes have been inflated.” An article that ran in the New York Times described the process:

updated 12:57 a.m. ET, Thurs., Nov. 13, 2008

WASHINGTON – Want a top job in the Obama administration ? Only pack rats need apply, preferably those not packing controversy.

A seven-page questionnaire being sent by the office of President-elect Barack Obama to those seeking cabinet and other high-ranking posts may be the most extensive — some say invasive — application ever.

The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well, that are forcing job-seekers to rummage from basements to attics, in shoe boxes, diaries and computer archives to document both their achievements and missteps.

Obama filled out the questionnaire one night when he was very tired, according to his wife Michelle. “He was not required to fill it out. Only applicants are required to. He has been elected. I think this is an attempt to undo the most historic election the United States has ever seen. It’s a conspiracy.” When asked if the drug use Obama confessed to in his autobiography should count against him, his wife snorted, “No!” and stomped off.

According to the NYT:

Just in case the previous 62 questions do not ferret out any potential controversy, the 63rd is all-encompassing: “Please provide any other information, including information about other members of your family, that could suggest a conflict of interest or be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family, or the president-elect.”

It was this question that led Biden and Emanuel to reject Obama. Obama wrote, “My wife Michelle is a black separatist who still loves the Rev. Wright. I have tried to get her to stop going to that church, but she won’t. I still seek advice from Rev. James Meeks, and sometimes I embarrass myself by having been friends with Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, and Robert Blackwell, Jr., not because I dislike these guys but because I miss them and it makes me cry.” Obama also listed among his mistakes in the past using drugs, spending DNC money on clothes that would make him look cool, refusing to speak to his wife Michelle for two years of their marriage, having an illegitimate child with a campaign worker who was shipped off to the Caribbean, and doctoring his birth certificate to make it look like he was born in the United States, and wearing make-up at the debates.

When asked about his job as a professor of the University of Chicago Law School, Obama admitted he wasn’t really a professor. “They were nice in saying that,” he admitted, “but really Larry Tribe called up and all they would offer me was a lectureship because I had never published anything. I was not a great teacher. I really didn’t know any constitutional law, but we’d talk about race and gender and issues like that, and it kept the students occupied.”

The questionnaire Obama filled out reveal unusual moments of candor, said gay pundit Andrew Sullivan. “I think we should still love Barack Obama, because he is precious. These trivial details about his affiliations with criminals, drug use, and unimportant jobs in the past do not change the fact that this election is historic and he will be the greatest president ever.”

In answering Question 8 “Briefly describe the most controversial matters you have been involved with during the course of your career,” Obama wrote, “I have not had a career per se. I have had an ascendancy.” But other answers showed a lack of his usual arrogance. He revealed, for example, that his controversial backing of FISA was a misstep. “I promised the director of General Dynamics, who bundled over $200,000 in contributions for me, that I would vote for FISA.” When Emanuel confronted him that this could be seen as taking a bribe, Obama looked quizzically at him. “We did not learn the rules of bribery at Harvard Law School,” he said. “Really? Damn.”

So far the only person to be successfully vetted under this questionnaire was Hillary Clinton, but Biden and Emanuel both admitted there was no way they were hiring HER!

As the NYT put it:

For those who clear all the hurdles, the reward could be the job they wanted. But first there will be more forms, for security and ethics clearances from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Office of Government Ethics.

But it looks like Obama may not be getting that job.

For more info on the questionnaire and whether or not you can qualify for a job in the Obama administration, see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27690267/.

Obama’s Willing Executioners

Barack Obama was elected with euphoria on the part of his supporters on Nov. 4, 2008. So starry-eyed was one of my friends he told me, “I think Barack Obama may prove to be one of the greatest presidents in American history.”  Then Prop 8 passed. And the news media reported that 7 out of 10 African Americans voted for Prop 8, as did a majority of Hispanic voters. But later a petition began to circulate in academic circles blaming the Mormons, who make up only 2% of California’s voting population, for this “catastrophy,” as LGBTQ people and supporters characterized it. They have called for the withdrawal of tax exempt status for the Mormon Church, but not the Catholic Church or black churches.

And yet no one was blaming Barack Obama, whose supporters clearly carried in Prop 8 in California. Why should they? Barack Obama loves gay people, doesn’t he?

It’s just those friends he keeps, and those he finances. Obama is friends with the Rev. James Meeks, leader of the Illinois Family Institute, someone the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a major foe of gay people and a “hater.” Meeks is also connected with Americans for Truth, an Illinois group. Obama is also friends with one Father Doug Kmiec, a Catholic priest whom Obama chose to lead his own Family, Faith and Values Tour that began in the last week of September, 2008. The tour was billed as “Voting All Our Values,” but its anti-gay message apparently did not register with too many of Obama’s LGBTQ supporters. It did register with a few feminists, who decried it, but it went out directly to those voters Obama wanted to reach: anti-gay voters.

The gay magazine The Advocate ran an article about the tour, but in the frenzy of Obama fever and Hope (TM) and Change (TM), its impact was a fizzle. The Advocate took the line that “Kmiec’s views run counter to those of Obama,” a mantra that has continued to distance Obama from the anti-gay activists with whom he closely associates.

Obama has said he wants to repeal the DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she’d back him in that. So it would seem that Obama thus opposes his friend Meeks’ association with Americans for Truth. But many Democrats who were vigorously behind Obama, such as Senator Harry Reid, voted for DOMA, and it’s repeal seems unlikely, given Obama’s lack of courage on gay issues. If it were only a lack of courage, though, we could perhaps forgive it. Bill Clinton suffered from the same willies, as it were, to push too hard for gay rights. Yet Obama puts himself consistently in the company of people who hate gays who say they liken gays to murderers. This is extreme language. Obama says he doesn’t agree but appears with the people at public campaign events anyway.

Moreover, any repeal of DOMA is likely to lead exactly to where Obama wants to go: to the states. Many who don’t favor gay marriage believe DOMA is a kind of prophylactic, as it were, and if that is removed, it will generate more Prop 8-type ballot initiatives and state action.

Why should LGBTQ people believe that Obama is choosing these people to act as his spiritual advisors and lead his all-inclusive Values campaign if he does not embrace these values himself? Indeed, his own promotion of his tour claimed he was focusing on universal values. As a gay person, I don’t find it a panacea that Obama says (often smugly and with condescension) that he is for civil union, wants to leave it to the states (wasn’t that said about slavery?), and feels secure in his own sacred marriage.

Constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage also passed last week in Arizona and Florida, and Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents. These states either went for Obama or gained in Democratic votes in the days before the election.

For me, marriage is an issue I have not, as a gay person, been willing to embrace. I thought of it as a patriarchal institution that was essentially heterosexual and one that had a history of the oppression of women that I saw no need for gay people to embrace. I thought of civil union as sufficient, and possible a wonderful alternative, if it were equal in all regards. But I have come to see it differently in the light of the onslaught against gay marriage, because this is the issue the homophobes have siezed upon, along with pedophile priests and teachers, that will bring the LGBTQ people down. This is the beginning of our “Nuremburg Laws.”

We will begin to see, under Barack Obama’s presidency, a gradual set of laws that resembles the 1935 Nuremburg laws used to deprive Jews of civil rights, but this time, the laws will be directed against LGBTQ. It will take more time, because we have a federal system that does relegate much to the states, so it may happen last in a state like Connecticut, which showed its unwillingness to oppress gay rights, and first in a state like California, which has referenda allowing homophobic lobbies greater access to constitutional changes. But make no mistake, Obama will support these without being so bold as Hitler to say that he does. He will simply claim there is nothing he can do about it.

In Daniel J. Goldhagen’s provocative book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, he posits that anti-semitism ran so deep in German culture that when a charismatic leader came along who could invoke that hatred as a legitimate feeling, the Christian German people were more than willing to see their Jewish neighbors exterminated.

Obama is a charismatic leader who has shown us a narcissistic personality unrivaled in American politics. He has trotted out a seal, a symbol, a flag, and now another seal called The Office of the President Elect. (There is no such office.) He has shown his love of grandiosity with the spectacle in Denver at the Democratic National Convention that was reminiscent of the Nuremburg rallies, although it was more Britney Spears than Leni Riefenstahl. For all the totalitarian tendencies, which Obama’s supporters don’t seem to mind, come policies that will relegate gay people to the lowest status imaginable.

Obama does hold the views of the company he keeps. And that company is all too willing to suppress gay rights. I don’t think Obama is going to exterminate gay people. But I think we will see a series of Nuremburg-like laws that begin to erode the move towards equal rights for which gay people have fought so hard. We need to be vigilant. And we need to take the blinders off when it comes to Obama.

The Power of a Positive No

I have been reading a book by William Ury called The Power of a Positive No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship–and Still Say No. I do not know what Ury’s politics are, so please note that this post is not about his politic position, but rather it is about mine.

Ury writes in his book about a guy named Chris who, in the midst of making a business deal that everyone was thrilled about, he came across information that it was a bad deal. Chris did not want to dampen everyone’s enthusiasm, so he kept quiet. Ury writes,

“We all want to be liked and accepted. No one wants to look like the bad guy. That is what Chris was afraid would happen if he brought up the uncomfortable facts. Everyone’s excitement would turn to anger against him, or so he feared. So he proceeded to to OK a deal that he and others later came to greatly regret.”

Ury also concludes that “[t]he price of saying Yes when we should be saying No is higher than ever.”

This sums up in a nutshell what I think about Barack Obama’s candidacy. There has been a media drumbeat to go along. MSNBO has tried to convince people that Obama is more liked than he is. Even when Hillary Clinton was exceeding Obama by about 500,000 votes in the primaries beginning from Ohio onwards, the media was telling us that he was “winning” as a “juggernaut” and was soaring in popularity, ignoring the realities of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and so on. Now that Clinton is out of the race, the Democratic Party is pretending she wasn’t even there.

They do not intend for Clinton to play any part in the convention as a “candidate.” They are short on their funding for the convention and have even spoken publicly about whether it is necessary to have one. This is unimaginable! But they have also moved the DNC to Chicago, a move that had to planned well in advance of any official win by Obama for it to be accomplished so quickly. Clearly, the party had Obama’s ascendancy in mind for a very long time.

Obama is apparently thinking about vice presidential candidates who are either ultra conservative or just as inexperienced as he is. He is pandering to evangelicals and plans a religious theme at the convention, if it’s held. He is purging GLBT supporters from his campaign ranks; they are no longer necessary and might drive off the evangelical Christians.

He is counting on women and gay people to vote Democratic because, he claims, we have no choice. Only he will protect Roe v. Wade. Indeed, Roe has become the stick more than the carrot.

So we who vote, who have gone to the voting booth for years conscientiously and tried not “waste” our vote by voting Green or for some other third party candidate are being told to get in line and do it one more time. And this time, we must say NO.

As Ury points out, on either side of a positive NO are two Yesses. The first Yes is to oneself. I say Yes to what I want. I say NO to the other person or entity. Then I say Yes to the relationship. So here it is:

I cannot in good conscience vote for a man with totalitarian and narcissistic tendencies, who has no experience being an executive or even holding a full time job for very long, to be president of the United States. I must say yes to my conscience. I must say NO to Barack Obama and the Democratic Party leadership that wants to elevate him to some sort of demigod status within the Party. And I must say no, because I want to say Yes to American values, to what used to be Democratic Party values. If there is any chance at all to retrieve them, I must say NO to Obama.

There is a movement afoot, not just among “angry women” who supported Hillary Clinton, that also wants to say NO DEAL. They call themselves PUMAs. They are not crazy people. Some of them will vote for McCain, some for no one at all for POTUS. I am in the latter group. I am not throwing away my vote. By going to the polls to vote downticket, I am telling the DNC in the loudest voice I can, I will not accept this coup. I will not goosestep for this candidate who lacks any serious qualifications for the office of the Presidency.

Obama keeps making it clearer and clearer that he is unfit for the job, from selecting people he has to throw under the bus continuously to showing complete ignorance of history and geography,  but the DNC will not back away from their investment now. They do not want Hillary Clinton. They do not want Bill Clinton, the only Democrat since FDR to hold more than one elected term as president! This amazes me. Somehow the “Kennedy mystique” holds greater power than the success of the one person who managed to actually serve two terms as President. The first one since 1945. And he is persona non grata.

If the Democratic Party no longer values FDR’s commitment to all classes, to the working people especially, then it is no longer my party. Obama is not my candidate. I have the power of a positive NO and I am exercising it. Don’t be afraid to exercise your own power.