This is particularly ironic in that Governor Sarah Palin is governor of one of America’s most Socialist states: Alaska. Alaskan residents participate in not just socialism, but collectivism, as the natural mineral wealth of their state is collected and the money from the exploitation of that wealth is literally spread to all the residents making them not tax-payers, but beneficiaries of the state-owned enterprise. Of course, that is not the whole truth either, as private companies get to extract their profits first, enjoying state enforced monopolies for the contracts they hold.

Compounding that irony is the wholly separate irony that both Obama and McCain would like to raise taxes (which is a necessary thing, for we cannot continue to dump the debt from our greed on our children and their children), they only differ in who they want to tax. McCain would have us tax the poor and middle classes and give the wealth to the very wealthy and corporations in a Robin Hood in reverse pyramid scheme. The practical advantages to this are that millions and millions would pay a smaller raise, and relatively few would collect some rather staggering benefits. I think McCain hopes those wealthy people and corporate executives would use that money to jump start the economy; frankly I think he’s mistaken, and that those same people would simply take the money and run. Obama would have us tax the very wealthy and corporations a little more and cut taxes for the middle class and the poor. The practical advantages to that are that millions and millions would have a few extra dollars to spend, and that may cause economic recovery as the poor have a track record for spending everything they get. Both ideas are a redistribution of wealth, and it’s pretty clear that those voting purely for economic self-interest (a minority, but a sizable one) are voting where their interests lie. Obama is getting most of the middle and poorer classes, and McCain is getting most of the very wealthy classes. Confusing this trend is the notable crossover of wealthy voters being altruistic and poor voters living a fantasy life as wealthy folks who don’t want their wealthy fantasy selves to be taxed more.

It’s not entirely clear that either candidate, if elected president, would be very successful at changing current tax laws to conform to their stated plans. Our congress is not really controlled by any party, but is instead a bit of a mob that can be goaded into action occasionally, but is more often simply resistant to change. Of course, we have only ourselves to blame for that, we elected them with our flawed, but still awesome system of democracy.

The most delicious irony of all though is that McCain is basically right. Obama’s plan, which is unlikely to get approved by even a more Democratic congress, is a bit more Socialist in that we will all benefit from sharing greater health care and wealth a little more fairly. Companies freed from the huge burden of providing health care could afford more employees and to pay them more; taxes would be higher, but we’d no longer need to make co-payments (or taxes would be unchanged and co-payments would be higher, but more uniform); we’d be more like our other industrial democratic allies Germany, France, Denmark, Canada, Japan South Korea, England, Sweden, and Spain; making trade with them easier and more balanced. Of course McCain’s plan could also be called Socialism, specifically: nationalized socialism. It’s been tried before a few times; and for corporations and their favored leaders it was extraordinarily successful; but for most people in those societies it was a very painful process that caused a lot of damage. To be fair, the problems with those nationalized socialism experiments may have come from their dictatorial style of governments, and not from their economic systems; but the world has not seen a democratically elected nationalized socialism yet much has it has not really seen a very large democratically elected communism either.

My big question is why is Socialism such a bad term? We must reclaim the valid term Socialism for legitimate use as a legitimate and interesting style of government. There is nothing wrong with Socialism. Perhaps it is not the preferred system for the corporation, but last I checked, corporations don’t vote… they simply buy our votes if we let them. Just like there is nothing wrong with being Liberal, there is nothing wrong with being a Socialist either. We need to get out of the McCarthy era already.

Update: Wow, Daniel Eran Dilger had similar thoughts and wrote about them much more eloquently than I did!!

3rd Debate Comments after the fold…

Debate Revisited:
I was not going to write much about the 3rd Presidential Debate held by the CPD between Obama and McCain; but people have been asking me to do so… I confess I did not catch all of it live; and most of it I listened to via WAMU radio. I have since seen it online and I think it is Senator John McCain’s best debate performance yet this election. He was more animated, more connected with his current surroundings, and definitely more aggressive in attacking Senator Obama; but Obama still trounced him soundly. McCain’s specious attacks were all deflected or answered adroitly by the better statesman and debater, and by a clean recitation of the facts rebutting the right-wing talking points. It’s hard to attack when your attacks are invented tripe, and I give McCain kudos for effort; but after failing to rattle Obama with fiction McCain had a bit of a mental meltdown. The majority of the debate (after the first 20 minutes) was filled by sophomoric physical antics by John McCain, who was clearly getting angrier and angrier. For fully 2/3rds of the time, John McCain was completely incoherent. I think that will be the word of the day if not week: incoherent and here is why:

1) Senator McCain could not remember Mrs Michelle Obama’s name!? I suspect we should all get to know the name of our next first lady. Ok, so he’s under a lot of pressure… perhaps he remembered and just decided to disrespect her; but how is that presidential?

2) McCain claimed that Obama voted against the nomination of Justice Breyer? Really?!? I was sure Breyer was a Clinton nominee before Obama was a Senator.

3) Colombia!? Seriously? Two wars, financial crisis, obliteration of our constitution, and McCain wants Obama to visit Colombia? No offense to Colombia nor Colombians, but this is not a valuable use of limited debate time in this election. Yes, agricultural products sent to countries like Colombia are a few jobs and big revenue for giant agricultural businesses in the United States; but investing in renewable energy production would mean much bigger revenues, and many new jobs for Americans. Unburdening small businesses with the costs of health care insurance helps American businesses compete and gets Americans jobs and provides more health care.

4) WTF is Senator McCain talking about regarding people disrespecting his rally attendees who have ball caps? We were calling out his own and Sarah Palin’s deliberate inciting of violent rhetoric; not attacking his supporters who are clearly doing exactly what they’ve been trained and encouraged to do. He is clearly confused.

5) Health Care costs; McCain clearly lives in a fantasy world of congressional entitlements and forgot what the rest of us have to deal with during his over-long tenure in the Senate. Time for him to experience the real world again.

6) McCain’s interruptions and audible hyperventilation, his eye-rolls and tongue juts are shameful signs of his disrespect for Obama, for the party that nominated Obama, and for debate audiences. Respect engenders respect. Mocking antics beget mocking antics. How can Senator McCain expect to be taken seriously?

7) McCain was unable to even keep basic facts straight and kept bouncing between his various contradictory messages with no smooth transitions.

He cannot even keep Autism and Downes Syndrome straight, not even when it’s his own picked running mate’s child who has special needs.

9) He cannot be bothered to read his opponent’s health care and tax plans; he looked completely gobsmacked when Obama answered his question about how much everyman “Joe the Plumber” would have to pay in taxes for health care. When your opponent actually has already answered the question, wouldn’t you at least rephrase it to confuse him? Failing that, you should not be surprised when your opponent has a simple, prepared answer to the question he knew people would ask a year ago. McCain is clearly not prepared to be President himself.

10) When asked about his choice in running mate, McCain can only come up with the pure B.S. that he thinks Palin is a reformer!? Either he is fooled completely or he’s lying to pander to his base. Palin is clearly and obviously no reformer; she’s a cynical and insulting pick selected to pander to a faux Christian base that wants the end of times to happen now.

In summary: people may think it was a close debate; but they are wrong. Look for Senator Obama to pick up an additional 3-5% lead after that last debate.

It was the best debate of the series, but still not as good as an Open Debate would be. The CPD is a lousy debate organization; strictly bi-partisan rather than non-partisan, hiding transparency through fallacious copyright claims, and not open to either third party participation or citizen demands for more challenging questions. I would much prefer we scrap the show and get into the nitty-gritty business of real debates; then voters might actually get informed.

Will Bin Laden Strike Again?

I have also been perplexed that McCain’s campaign has been throwing everything they’ve got at Obama too early, and wondered what they might have held in reserve to try to save McCain’s campaign late in the game… and I also am getting more and more convinced that McCain has nothing left.

So the only remaining game changing even would have to be a dramatic, attention-grabbing act of international terrorism. Unlike Rany Jazayerli, I think there is a serious chance that the surprise may come from the departing Bush administration; but I agree that the most likely source of surprise is from Osama bin Laden or another terrorist group from the Middle East. I completely agree that bin Laden’s video release in 2004 was an attempt to shift the election in favor of continued war (and therefor for Bush); Bush’s policies have helped bin Laden’s recruiting more than anything else we’ve done as a nation in 50 years. It makes sense that bin Laden would favor more war and therefore would want McCain to be in the oval office. We are dangerously close to war with Pakistan already, so Al-Qaeda can probably sense greater escalation is just around the corner. I am guessing at a 65% probability that sometime this month, towards the end of the month we will either see a dramatic attempt at terrorism or a video with Osama bin Laden on it released to the world’s media.

It will be a crude attempt to change the outcome of the American general election, and this time, I think it will fail. I believe Americans have smartened up enough that the only people fooled by such a ploy are the fools who are already voting for McCain and Palin. The deciders will not shift one bit, and Barack Obama will be our next President as the result of a landslide election of historic proportions (a landslide that will happen even without a terrorist attack).

So, what of the 25-30% chance that the October Surprise will come from the Bush administration? Bush has very little to lose, and that makes him rather unpredictable. Perhaps another preemptive military action? I hope that is unlikely, our military is already stretched. I guess it will be a surprise.

Yes, this message is ugly, messy, and very, very negative against Senator John McCain, but it is also factually true, accurate, and directly addresses a concern many people have about wether John McCain should be trusted with the power of the oval office. If McCain has a public record history of protecting criminals from justice, and making the public pay for the mistakes; is that not very important information we need to know and be reminded of before we vote?

Compare that, if you will, with Palin and McCain’s outright lies about Obama and Obama’s positions every morning on several different campaign ads in every television market where a competitive state makes running ads attractive. McCain has “approved this message” on so many false statements that we are questioning his integrity and ability to continue serving as a Senator. He has falsely claimed that Obama was trying to teach children about sex (Obama was trying to teach them about sex offenders, which is a big difference). He’s falsely claimed Obama would raise taxes (as much as I don’t like it, Obama is talking about Reagan-like tax cuts). In the Virginia TV market we get bombarded with these lies and misdirections every day. It is almost, but not quite as nauseating as the normal bombardment of crappy drug commercials for problems we don’t have.

Question is, will America notice the difference between negative and accurate and negative and deceptive? Obama is making a pretty big gamble that Americans are smart enough to figure it out. I pray he is correct.