All Gone

Now something from the day late and dollar short file:

Back in 2017, I wrote about the plans to build the Barack Obama Presidential Library smack dab in one of Chicago's most important treasures, Jackson Park. On a lovely summer day, I took my daughter to the proposed site and my heart broke as we encountered a lovely urban landscape filled with rolling berms and an extensive variety of mature trees, some well over a century old, all marked with little orange dots, signifying they were slated for destruction. 

I didn't realize it at the time, as there were no little orange dots present, but just to the north of the landscape, one of the loveliest formal settings in the park, the Perennial Garden, which featured a circular sunken lawn surrounded by flowering crab apple trees and the eponymous perennial plants, was also to be destroyed. 

The landscape, creation of the estimable landscape architects Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted, who restored the site back to a park after the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the Garden, the work of May E. McAdams in the 1930s, were not destroyed right away, as a lawsuit challenging the wanton destruction of public park land delayed the inevitable for a couple of years. 

In 2019 a judge threw out the suit and the Obamas, shovels in hand, ceremoniously broke ground in 2021, officially sealing the fate of this portion of Chicago history. 

According to this Op-Ed piece in the Chicago Sun Times, published in 2020, citing an inventory of the site, said the 640 trees on that site alone:

store 203.8 tons of carbon, remove 5.8 tons of carbon from the air per year, remove 341.5 pounds of air pollution per year,...and have an avoided rainwater runoff amount of 9,591 cubic feet per year...

In addition, according to the piece: 

The planned tree destruction and Obama Presidential Center construction will evict small wildlife, including resident birds. Its 23-story tower will occupy a currently building-free migratory bird flight path, which inevitably will become a new source of migratory bird deaths.

A magnificent White Oak that almost certainly was present during the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, dominates the landscape that stood in the way of the site of the future Barack Obama Presidential Library.
Everything in this photo has been destroyed. 

In my 2017 piece I quoted Barack Obama defending the construction of his monument in Jackson Park:

It's not just a building. It's not just a park. Hopefully it's a hub where all of us can see a brighter future for the South Side,

I have no qualms with the Obamas' claims for the value of the presidential library and all the potential good it will do for the city and especially for the South Side which has been neglected far too long. But I take strong issue with the former president's careless "not just a building, not just a park" remark. 

For God's sake Mr. President, you as a former Chicagoan of all people should know that landmarked buildings and parks are an important part of this city's cultural legacy. They were designed and built by some of the most significant artists this country has had to offer, and we have every right to be proud defenders of them. The loss of any of these should never be taken lightly as they are irreplaceable elements of our public, civic, and cultural landscape. 

Sometimes there may be no alternatives and serious choices must be made, even for ones on the National Register of Historic Places as Jackson Park is. 

But it is ridiculous to assume that there were no reasonable alternatives to the wholesale destruction of twenty contiguous acres of a landmark public park. Perhaps the designers could have worked with the existing landscape architecture of the park, or better yet, build somewhere else. It's a pretty hard sell to say there is simply no available land in that part of town. 

In both cases, perhaps scaling down the massive size of the project may have been necessary. I'm not sure but I don't think that idea would fly with the principal characters in this story, especially in a day and age where public monuments are becoming more and more imposing with each one trying to "one up" the previous one. Maybe we should be happy the Obamas didn't insist on having their monument occupy all of Jackson Park. 

Anyway, it's all water under the bridge now, the deed is done. A massive construction site today has replaced the landscape and perhaps the most beautiful formal garden that once graced the city.

It's all gone now and perhaps even worse than its loss is the dangerous precedent it sets. 

Our city's parks, a precious public trust, are no longer safe, even from people from whom we should expect much more.

What a shame. 

Stars and Bars

We live in a bubble up here in Chicago. All the more so for me as I work in the art world, where the vast majority of people I come in contact with on a daily basis are a pretty homogenous group, politically speaking that is.

The last time our family took a road trip out of town was two summers ago, during the 2016 election. Taveling through rural Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, I expected to see scores of bumper stickers and posters supporting Donald Trump for president. Even though the people in the areas we passed through voted overwhelmingly for the current president, much to my surprise during the hundreds of miles we covered on that trip, I could have counted on one hand the number of folks who publicly displayed their pro-Trump sentiments, and still had a finger or two to spare.

This past weekend we took a short trip downstate, to visit a college with our son. The city, Galesburg, IL. and the school, Knox College were founded concurrently by the same man, George Washington Gale, a Presbyterian abolitionist. The first anti-slavery society in Illinois was founded in Galesburg and the city was also a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Galesburg wears its Lincoln heritage on its sleeve. It was there in front of the building known as Old Main on the Knox campus, where the fifth of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Steven Douglas took place on October 7, 1858. (More on that in a subsequent post). Throughout the town and especially on campus, there are likenesses of the 16th president practically everywhere you turn, so much so that I asked our student tour-guide if she ever became a little weary of all the Lincoln hagiography. She diplomatically kept her cards close to her vest.

If that weren't enough, Galesburg was also the birthplace of the poet and author Carl Sandburg who wrote the most exhaustive biography of Lincoln ever: two volumes alone devoted to "The Prairie Years", and four, count 'em, four to "The War Years."

Clearly Galesburg has serious historical street-cred when it comes to the cause of American progressive politics.

Despite that, I wasn't surprised to find Trump posters and bumper stickers scattered here and there around town. I get it, Galesburg, like just about every other municipality in this part of the country has seen better days. The Maytag refrigerator plant moved out of town in 2004, about a decade after the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, and took with it about 5,000 well paying jobs, representing one sixth of the population of the city. The company re-located its plant just across the Rio Grande from Hidalgo, Texas to the city of Reynosa, in the state of Tamaulipas, Mexico. There, factory workers who now build Maytag refrigerators earn on average, $1.50 per hour, about one tenth of what their counterparts made in Galesburg.

Donald Trump campaigned hard on the issue of NAFTA and the disastrous effects it had on American blue collar jobs, while Hillary Clinton all but ignored the struggling blue collar workers of this country. It's not hard to see how Trump's slogan "make America great again", played in a city that could be the poster child for all that is wrong with free trade. And it's not at all difficult to understand why Donald Trump won more votes than Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election in countless places like Galesburg.

What is a little hard to understand is why, underneath the Stars and Stripes on the flagpole in front of a business platestered with Trump posters, as well as a few other locations around town, a Confederate flag flapped in the breeze.

The flag, specifically the Confederate battle flag, has been a point of contention for a long time, but the issue came to a head after a white supremacist slaughtered nine members of the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. in 2015 after the victims warmly welcomed the killer into their church. After his arrest, authorities gained access to his website which included photographs of the murderer posing with symbols of white supremacy, including a Confederate battle flag. That incident sparked the movement to remove that flag from display from all government property in the south. It was time many people felt, to put the hurtful symbol of oppression for so many people, to rest.

Not surprisingly, that movement ignited a controversy among those who believe that flag is an enduring symbol of Southern pride and culture, both the good and the bad of it. Again, I get, well sort of, why white Southerners feel strongly about that symbol of their complicated history. My question is this: what does it mean when Northerners, especially deep in the heart of Lincoln country fly that flag, especially in tandem with a Trump sign?

I can hear all my liberal friends answer that question with a resounding "well duh." It is in fact quite hard for me to come up with any explanation other than the obvious one: it's because they're racists.

Giving them the benefit of the doubt however, I'll throw out a few other possibilities:

• Could be the people flying the flags are transplanted Southerners, homesick for the feel of soft southern winds in the live oak trees, good ol' boys like Thomas Wolfe and those Williams boys, Hank and Tennessee. (With sincerest apologies to the memory of the great Don Williams) 
• Perhaps the Confederate flag flyers are staunch anti-Federalists, who buy into the myth that the Civil War was not about slavery at all, but about denfending states' rights to determine their own destiny against the tyranny of the federal government. 
• Or it could be simply this: flying the Confederate battle flag is nothing more than one big "fuck you" to us left wing snowflakes who refuse to accept the fact that Donald Trump is our president. Personally I think this is the most credible explanation outside of the obvious one. 

The problem with these explanatonns is that no matter how hard you try, you simply can't explain away the underlying scourges to humanity that flag represents, namely intolerance, oppression, racism, and of course, human bondage. Hillary Clinton made a huge gaffe when she declared a large swath of Trump supporters to be "deplorables." That move backfired as a great many Trumpers picked up that devisive term as a badge of honor for themselves, much as religious groups adopted names like Quaker, Methodist and Lutheran, which were originally unflattering pejorative terms used against them by critics. The difference is that the Trump supporters Clinton was describing, namely KKK members, Neo-Nazis, and other white supremacists, by any reasonable standard, are truly deplorable. By proudly referring to themselves as "the deplorables" Trump supporters are unwittingly or not, either equating themselves with these groups or expressing solidarity with them.

One of the big lies that the Trump camp keeps propagating in an attempt to refute the idea that they may be racist, is to equate themselves with the Republican Party of the past, the party of Lincoln the Great Emancipator. Conversely the Deomcrats are the party of slavery and Jim Crow. Gullible people who have absolutly no understanding of US history over the past 150 years, fall for that nonsense, hook, line and sinker. While the roles of the two American political parties had shifted 180 degrees a century after the Civil War, the coup de grace came on July 2, 1964, when a Democratic President from Texas,  Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law what he hoped would be his enduring legacy, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which put an end, at least on paper, to discrimination in this country on the basis of race, religion, sex or nation of origin. That evening, a somber Johnson confided to his then staffer,  journalist Bill Moyers:

I think we just delivered the South to the Republican party for a long time to come,

Never have words coming out of a president's mouth been so prophetic.

Then there are the words coming out of the current president's mouth. Time and again during his presidency he has had the opportunity to bring people of different races and nationalities together, and time and again he has chosen to do exactly the opposite.

His latest episode was an imbecilic tweet reacting to a TV interview of basketball star LeBron James, conducted by CNN journalist, Don Lemon. In the interview about James's charitable work in opening up a school for underprivileged kids, both men who happen to be African American, expressed exasperation with Trump, to which the President of the United States responded:

Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do.

Add Lemon and James to a long and growing list of African American individuals whose intelligence has been publicly questioned by this president. In a measured response, Lemon said this:

Referring to African Americans as dumb is one of the oldest canards of America's racist past.

A long time ago, President Johnson, again speaking with Bill Moyers, de-constructed America racism in a slightly more colorful way:

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

As far as Galesburg is concerned, no, the town didn't shrivel up and die as some predicted it would after Maytag moved out. Businesses that benefited from free trade, such as the railroads which were always a major player in town, and distribution centers, began to fill the void left by the loss of the manufacturing jobs. That's not to say that things have returned to where they were before Maytag pulled the plug, not by a long shot, but things are looking up. Barack Obama visited Galesburg several times before and during his presidency. Looking toward the future, he advocated for the expansion and development of industries with a future such as solar and wind based energy. On our drive to Galesburg, we passed several flat bed trucks, each carrying a single enormous wind turbine blade, supplying the numerous wind farms we passed along the way.

Meanwhile President Obama's successor is advocating for the revival of moribund industries like coal, and instituting tariffs that are little more than a detriment to many up and coming new industries. He has also, time and again, aligned himself with the same types of individuals who sold out the city of Galesburg by putting the wants of stockholders ahead of the needs of their fellow Americans, people whose labor made them rich in the first place. Free trade may have created a conduit for greedy individuals and corporations looking for the big payday, to easily pull up stakes and leave communities high and dry, but it certainly did not necessitate the move as the current president would suggest.

Regardless of how you feel about the current president, if to you, the sentiment of making America great means a country where anyone can earn a living wage without necessarily going into years and years of college debt, as well as a country where there is truly liberty and justice for all, then I'm with you one hundred percent.

If on the other hand that slogan to you means taking America back to a time when women and people of color knew their place, say, back before the stars and bars flew over Dixie, well that's where we part company. You sir are a part of the problem, not the solution.

If you truly feel that way then you could not care less what I have to say, but it may behoove you to heed those words of President Johnson's.

Above all, don't forget to check your pockets.

Barack Obama

A friend of ours met last week with Barack Obama at Blair House in Washington DC. She was part of a contingent of folks who either themselves or their loved ones suffer from serious heath issues. They met with the president to discuss an uncertain future under a new president who made a campaign promise of repealing the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. Without the ACA many of these folks believe, either they or their loved ones would not have been able to afford the medical treatments that have been responsible for keeping them alive, and any kind of repeal they believe, would do nothing less than put their very lives in jeopardy.

The president told those gathered that day, to fight the good fight, to never let down, and to make their voices heard, using the motto of the State of Missouri "Show Me" as a rallying cry to Congress, demanding they present the citizens of the United States with a comprehensive replacement plan, before they dare to repeal the ACA. Obama assured them that he will do his part, whatever good that will do, to be an advocate, not specifically for the health care program that bares his name, but for any system that ensures that health care is a right that everyone should enjoy.

President Obama obviously leaves behind a very positive legacy for these people. To others however, the word Obamacare is synonymous with government intrusion into the lives of the American people. In other words, Obamacare detractors are the folks who resent having to pay money out of their own pockets to insure that others less fortunate, might be covered.

Barack Obama gave his farewell address to the American people last night. He gave that speech here in Chicago, his adopted home town where he famously (or infamously, depending on your point of view), worked as a community organizer before becoming an Illinois state senator, and later a United States senator. It may not have been a speech for the ages like the address he delivered before the Democratic National Convention in 2004, four years before he was nominated as his party's standard-bearer. In that speech he professed his deep belief in the promise of America, and the basic goodness of its people. Asserting in no uncertain terms what drives progressive ideology, he said this:

It is that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sisters' keeper -- that makes this country work.

We often think that the crux of the dispute between Republicans and Democrats these days, is the argument over the size of government, but that's not really true. There are in fact very few honest to goodness Libertarians around, that is to say people who whole heartedly believe that government should play as small a role in the lives of its citizens as possible. Conservatives who call themselves Libertarians are all for big government when it comes to issues close to their hearts such as national defense, immigration control and law and order, including the enforcement of laws regarding things they don't like such as abortion and flag burning. Sad to say, many Republicans today strongly oppose government handouts to individuals or groups, that is unless those handouts directly benefit themselves. A good example is transportation. Republicans will fight tooth and nail against the funding of public transportation, which they typically don't use, but have absolutely no problem with government funding of our nation's outrageously expensive highway infrastructure.

The real divisive issue separating Democrats and Republicans today is the question, "to what extent am I my brother's keeper?" To Democrats, the answer on the other side would be: "to no extent whatsoever." In contrast, most Republicans would say that your average Democrat favors the assurance of cradle to grave care for all, regardless of need, courtesy of the taxpayers.

Yet there are actually few of us who would go to either extreme; the staunchest conservatives (I would hope), believe that we should care for the most vulnerable in society, while even the bleedingest of hearts appreciate at least to some degree, the value of work and personal responsibility.

But in recent years, we, (myself included), seem to have become ever more entrenched in our own ideological bubbles, scarcely giving folks on the other side the time of day when it comes to expressing their views and logic (flawed as it may be!).

Addressing the perceived ideological rift in this country, Barack Obama gave us this bit of hope, the most memorable line from that speech twelve years ago:

The pundits, like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.

Obama's speech last night didn't have any take home lines like that one, rhetorical flourishes meant to garner attention. That was after all the speech that put him on the national map. Instead last night's speech was an effort to cement his legacy, but more importantly, a thinly veiled warning of the administration that is about to take over, and an admonishment for all who despair of the upcoming four years, to work for a change.

The premise of this Obama speech was the four biggest threats, as he saw them, to our democracy. His first point directly addressed the president elect's campaign rhetoric, targeted at white underemployed blue collar workers who came out in unprecedented numbers to support the Republican candidate. Recognizing the vast number of people for whom the American Dream has become a nightmare, President Obama said:

To begin with, our democracy won't work without a sense that everyone has economic opportunity.

But his answer to the problem was much different from his successor's who campaigned tirelessly on the issue of bringing back jobs that were lost to other countries due to bad trade deals. Obama instead emphasized education and the encouragement of involvement in 21st century enterprises such as new technologies, health care and alternative energy, rather than raising unrealistic hopes that long lost industrial jobs will magically reappear. Obama stuck a dagger into the heart of his successor's basic premise by giving us this reality check:

...our trade should be fair and not just free. But the next wave of economic dislocations won't come from overseas. It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good, middle-class jobs obsolete.

Obama's second stated threat to democracy was racism. His detractors have labeled Obama the great divider, especially when it comes to race issues. He certainly made those people chafe yesterday when he pointed out quite rightly that:

For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn't suddenly vanish in the '60s, that when minority groups voice discontent, they're not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness. When they wage peaceful protest, they're not demanding special treatment but the equal treatment that our Founders promised. 

Obama also brought up the vital role immigrants have played in the history of this country, pointing out that the same words used to describe Mexicans, Muslims and other ethnic groups trying to enter this country today are the exact words that were used to describe Irish, Italians, and Poles immigrants over a century ago.

Conservative critics of the president's speech were quick to point out their perception of Obama's anti-white sentiment in those statements, but somehow seemed to miss this prescient bit of self reflection:

For blacks and other minority groups, it means tying our own very real struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face -- not only the refugee, or the immigrant, or the rural poor, or the transgender American, but also the middle-aged white guy who, from the outside, may seem like he's got advantages, but has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change. We have to pay attention, and listen.

Bringing us back to his theme of our lack of national solidarity, President Obama pointed out that:

For too many of us, it's become safer to retreat into our own bubbles, whether in our neighborhoods or on college campuses, or places of worship, or especially our social media feeds, surrounded by people who look like us and share the same political outlook and never challenge our assumptions. The rise of naked partisanship, and increasing economic and regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every taste -- all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable. And increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we start accepting only information, whether it's true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that is out there. 

And this trend represents a third threat to our democracy. But politics is a battle of ideas. That's how our democracy was designed. In the course of a healthy debate, we prioritize different goals, and the different means of reaching them. But without some common baseline of facts, without a willingness to admit new information, and concede that your opponent might be making a fair point, and that science and reason matter -- then we're going to keep talking past each other, and we'll make common ground and compromise impossible.

Notice that at no point here is Obama pointing fingers at any single ideological group. These same criticisms can be leveled at liberals as easily as conservatives. 

To both groups, Obama gives us this simple and brilliant solution:

If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking with one of them in real life.

President Obama's final stated threat to our system of government, perhaps the most insidious, is the taking of our democracy for granted. To that point, the president quoted from George Washington's own farewell address where our first president warned of the many forces that will conspire to weaken our conviction that our democracy "is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty."

If we are to lose our integrity and values, Obama implies, all else falls by the wayside. Here in perhaps his most ominous warning about the coming administration, Obama brings up American values that in our history, resisted facile solutions to difficult problems:

It's that spirit -- a faith in reason, and enterprise, and the primacy of right over might -- that allowed us to resist the lure of fascism and tyranny during the Great Depression; that allowed us to build a post-World War II order with other democracies, an order based not just on military power or national affiliations but built on principles -- the rule of law, human rights, freedom of religion, and speech, and assembly, and an independent press. 

While he trumpeted the gains made during his administration, Barack Obama took pains to make sure the credit for those successes went to the people of the United States, not to the guy sitting in the White House or the members of his administration. Compare that to the words we heard in Cleveland this summer when the Republican nominee for president proclaimed that only he, and he alone could "fix" this nation's problems.

In my book, there in a nutshell is the difference between the president of a republic and a dictator. Not one word out of the mouth of the president-elect has convinced me that he understands the difference, or cares.

Barack Obama, like all good presidents, all good leaders for that matter, has a strong understanding and appreciation of history, which made it possible for him to lead us eight years ago into an uncertain future. He inherited challenges that few of his predecessors faced, namely a war on two fronts and a tremendous economic crisis, not to mention a completely intransigent Congress who from the outset was committed to nothing other than his downfall.

Like all administrations, Obama's had it's successes and failures. You wouldn't know it from listening to most of his detractors who fed by whatever bug is up their ass, refuse to see the Obama administration as anything but an abject failure. Some would suggest that the irrational animosity toward Barack Obama is fueled by racism. I for one have not seen any evidence to dispute that claim. Regardless of one's personal ideology, whether you agree with President Obama's policies or not, and yes, there is plenty to criticize, any rational judgement of the man would have to conclude that he performed his job with insight, integrity, intelligence, grace and eloquence that few of his predecessors could match. Most important, I can't for the life of me believe anyone could seriously question his commitment to make life better for all Americans, regardless of their race, creed, or ideology.

I stated before in this space that Obama's legacy most likely will be split along ideological lines, but it's not that simple. People will judge Barack Obama largely on the basis of self-interest. They will ask themselves as Ronald Reagan asked the American people in 1980. "am I better off today than I was at the beginning of this administration?"

Clearly the majority of folks who voted for the Republican candidate this past election, answered no to that question. No one should be surprised by that fact alone, seldom in this country's history has one party controlled the White House for two or more subsequent administrations.

What's different of course is the man for whom they voted. With practically zero understanding of history, the next president promises to bring this nation back to a glorious past that never really existed. It's hard to tell right now whether he will lead this nation to ruin or he will merely be an insignificant burp in history.

In his speech last night, Barack Obama let us know in no uncertain terms that the work of government is the work of the people, not the work of one man. And that one man cannot destroy our nation and our democratic republic, unless of course, we let him.

Barack Obama reminded us last night that while we have a lot of work to do in the coming four years, in the end we'll be OK as a nation.

Thank you Mr. President. You have made me proud to be an American.

The Blame Game

As if comedians didn't have enough material from this election season, who should come along but Sarah Palin, sent to them from on high like manna from heaven. In her latest attention grabbing stunt, Palin made a public appearance to announce her endorsement of Donald Trump for the Republican party's nomination as their candidate for president. As Trump stood next to her at a campaign rally in Ames, Iowa with a dumbfounded expression on his face, Palin went into one of her trademark stream of consciousness rants of gibberish that sent the pundits' hearts all a flutter. So much nonsense came out of her mouth that it was truly hard to make sense out of what she was saying, other than she thinks Donald Trump is really good and all of his opponents, and especially Barack Obama, are really really bad.

One thing she did make crystal clear is her contention that the current president is directly responsible for her adult son's behavior problems.

Palin's son Track has had numerous run-ins with the law, and the former governor of Alaska contends her son's issues are a direct result of post traumatic stress disorder, (PTSD), resulting from his service in the military in Iraq. Whether there is a connection between the two is debatable as A) young Mr. Palin had behavior issues before entering the service, and B) there is serious doubt as to whether he actually saw combat during his time in Iraq. What is certain is that President Obama has made veterans' health care a priority of his administration, making Governor Palin's accusations that the Obama administration turns a blind eye to veterans' needs, absurd. Of all the legitimate criticisms of the Obama administration, this is not one.

At lunch with a wise old friend the other day, I asked him why he thought President Obama when compared to all the other US presidents, is reviled by so many Americans. I expected my friend to bring up the easy answer of race, but instead he said that people right now in this country are simply angry because they are dissatisfied with their lives. They may be un-employed, under-employed with poor job prospects, in the hole with their mortgage, and/or headed toward retirement without enough put away. Some Americans may have plenty of money but are just struggling with that ol' ennui. Regardless, who better to blame for your funk and anger than the man sitting in the White House?

With her ridiculous accusations that have been panned, even by the right, Palin is tapping into a current trend in society that has reached epidemic proportions, namely blaming public figures, especially the president, for personal problems.

The good news for him is that Barack Obama is not a bi-partisan scapegoat. The grumblers and whiners on the left blame all the problems of the world including their own on the the Tea Party, the Koch Brothers, the Bush family, the police, Dick Chaney, the one percent, Monsanto, evangelical Christians, and white people, especially if they themselves are white.

Of course Obama is not the only scapegoat for the other side. Minorities, immigrants, the Clintons, political correctness, homosexuals, gun control, atheists, universal health care, little league participation awards, big government, and scores of other concepts and individuals all give the president a run for his money as the favorite scapegoat of the right.

One may ask, we've gone through bad times before without having to resort to blaming government officials or everybody with whom we disagree for all our personal troubles, why now?

Here's my half-baked answer:

In the past, no matter how desperate the situation, Americans used to believe in the promise of this country, as they looked toward a brighter future. Sadly for many of us today, The American Dream has become an ironic term. We no longer believe in ourselves, our country, or really very much at all for that matter. True, the Trump campaign uses the slogan, "time to make America great again." but the greatness they are espousing is not meant for everyone to share. They're not alone. Gone from the vision of both sides of the political spectrum I'm afraid, is the idea that all of us, no matter how divergent our backgrounds or beliefs may be, make up this country. You heard me say it before and I'll say it again, our great strength as a nation is born out of our differences. At least it used to be.

I heard a radio story this afternoon about people who date folks with different political opinions from their own, (spoiler alert: there aren't any these days). One woman interviewed for the piece said she would never date a person with different beliefs because "conservative ideas are ignorant." It seems the only thing we respect these days is keeping a tenacious grip on one's own ideology, come hell, high water, or rational discourse.

We've all become cynics, not too surprising since most of us get our news from the late night comedians. Politics, and by extension, government, has become a three ring circus, nothing more than a punchline for Steven Colbert and his peers. Nothing is sacred anymore, not school, not the church, not our families,  not our country, and least of all, not politicians and the pinnacle of their profession, the office of president, and the person who happens to hold that office. I've used this quote before but I think it's worth mentioning again. It's attributed to Oscar Wilde but I believe he lifted it from an old Irish proverb:

A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Since you can't put a price tag on hopes or dreams, they have no value to cynics (here I'm quoting myself), that is until they're gone. And when they're gone, the price we pay as we have seen in recent years, is that instead of being a nation of builders, makers and doers, we've become a nation of worriers, whiners, and complainers.

And we wonder why no one in their right mind wants to be president.

The March on Washington, 2013

National Mall, Washington, DC, Wednesday August 28, 2013

The year was 1965 or 1966 and I was about seven years old, playing at my friend's house while his parents were watching the news on TV. A report came on about a protest march led by Martin Luther King Jr. My friend's parents (both immigrants from Europe), called Dr. King a troublemaker and added something of this nature: "why doesn't that colored guy just mind his own business and let people live in peace?"

Back at home I recall parroting those sentiments to my parents another time Dr. King appeared on TV. I'm happy to report that both my mother and father (he also European by birth), in no uncertain terms repudiated my friend's parents' blatant bigotry, and assured me that Martin Luther King was indeed a very good man who was fighting a righteous battle on behalf of people that did not receive a fair shake in this country.

Those are my very first memories of Dr. King. Not long after that he would be dead and like President Kennedy before him, he would be elevated to the status of sainthood, at least in the minds of people my age who came to know both men more in death than in life. Not only that, his I Have a Dream speech came to be exalted into the realm of sacred American texts.


Last week as the 50th anniversary of that speech and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom approached, having no personal memories of the event, I asked my mother about her memories. She told me that she supported the march, yet like many people across the country, had apprehensions about the possibility of violence. She also recalled my grandmother who, while supporting the spirit and ideals of the march, objected to the means, especially the idea of Catholic priests and nuns marching. "It's just not their place" she said.

About two weeks ago it occurred to me that I would be in Washington DC at the same time as the golden anniversary of the march. Not only that, it turned out my work schedule allowed me to be present at the exact moment marking 50 years to the minute when Dr. King delivered his most famous speech. At that time, church bells would be rung throughout the country and President Obama would deliver a speech from the exact spot on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where Dr. King stood, overlooking the National Mall. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to be present at such an important historical event. After all, while people at that march a half century ago certainly might have predicted a change coming in America, I doubt that few if any in their wildest dreams would have imagined that fifty years from the moment Dr. King got up to address the multitudes on that sweltering Washington afternoon, the first African American President of the United States would stand on that very spot to commemorate the event.

The 2013 march was surely one for its own time, not in any way (except for the location) intended to be a re-enactment of the original. Perhaps the biggest difference between the march fifty years ago and the one this past Wednesday was its focus. More than 200,000 persons, the overwhelming number of them black, gathered in 1963 to demand that the laws of this country apply equally to everyone; that the promises made in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution would be fulfilled.

In the words of Dr. King:

...one hundred years later (after the Emancipation Proclamation), the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

Those words were not the exaggerations of a firebrand painting a desperate picture only to prove a point. On the contrary; if anything they grossly understated the situation at the time. As correctly pointed out by the Rev. Al Sharpton, the original march was not merely an event, it was "the middle of a struggle." So called "Jim Crow" segregation laws were still in place all over the South, imposing separate and anything but equal facilities for people of color. Poll taxes still existed preventing poor people, mostly black, from participating in the most basic civil liberty, the right to vote. When people spoke up about the injustice, police stepped in using any means they felt necessary to prevent American citizens from exercising their constitutional rights of freedom of assembly and speech.

Things weren't much better up north. Although there were no official segregation laws in place, restaurants, hotels and other institutions refused to serve black people. Rocks were thrown at Dr. King in Chicago when he marched through white neighborhoods demonstrating the lack of equal housing in this city. Dr. King said of his experience here:

I have seen many demonstrations in the South, but I have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I've seen here today.

So the trepidations of folks concerning trouble during the march were not unfounded. It took very hard work on both sides, the organizers of the March and the City of Washington and its police force, to make sure the 1963 demonstration would be peaceful.

Where there was a definite anti-establishment edge to the original March on Washington, (President Kennedy watched passively from the comfort of the White House a few blocks away), the organizers of last week's event had to drive establishment figures away with a stick. Two former presidents made the cut, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton joined Obama on the dais, along with the First Lady and President Kennedy's daughter Caroline. Ties to the original march included members of the King family and US Congressman John Lewis, the last surviving speaker at the 1963 March. And yes, Oprah Winfrey was there. It is a telling symbol of the changing landscape of America, that by far the richest, most main-stream establishment figure sitting up on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that day was an African American woman.

Unlike 1963, practically every human rights cause under the sun was represented this year. This may have diluted the message but let's face it, times have changed in fifty years:

The following day in his column in the Washington Times called "Washington Sketch", Dana Millbank bemoaned the fact that "2013 didn't live up to 1963." In his column:

• He expressed his feeling that the preponderance of causes at this year's rally watered down the original intent of the march. 
• He noted President Obama's predicting his speech wouldn't be as good as his predecessor's fifty years ago, then went on to suggest the president fulfilled his prediction. 
• He mentioned the hundreds of vendors, mostly African American, selling chintzy souvenirs many of them featuring the images of not only King and Obama, but also of Treyvon Martin. 
• And he also noted that the slick production values, VIP seating sections, and many other features of this year's event, ran diametrically opposed to the grass roots nature of the original. 

Everything he said was true, but that was exactly the point of the event. Today while the issue of civil rights for people of color is still a burning one, it certainly is not the only one. While much work has yet to be done, significant progress has been made since 1963, as evidenced at this march from the independent entrepreneurs selling their wares all the way up to the gentleman sitting today in the Oval Office. Beyond freedom and justice for people of color, the March of 1963 empowered a tidal wave of movements dedicated to justice and freedom for all groups of people. 

No one was ever under the delusion that the 2013 model of the March on Washington would be a replay of the original, as it would be impossible to match the spirit and urgency of that much different time. On the contrary, this event was a celebration not only of the 1963 event, but of how far we have come in fifty years, without ever losing sight of how far we have yet to go. Many people believe that the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was the turning point in the civil rights movement; perhaps, (to paraphrase Winston Churchill), not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning of the struggle for equal rights in the United States.

To that end, it is certainly fitting that we celebrate the great event's fiftieth anniversary.

As a celebration I'd have to say this event was a rousing success. As you can see from the photographs, the group who gathered on the National Mall last Wednesday was made up of people of all shapes and sizes,  a diverse group of races, ethnicities, genders, ages, and sexual orientations, representing the depth and breadth of this country. 

Perhaps as Mr. Millbank wrote, there were "no speeches likely to live beyond a news cycle or two." But that hardly matters. In the end, more than the group of dignitaries gathered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the lasting image of the 2013 March will be the crowd of Americans who spontaneously assembled together in our nation's most hallowed spot, to share Dr. King's dream that the promise put forth by the fathers of our great nation might one day be fulfilled. When all the words spoken on that platform will long have been forgotten, the spirit of that day will remain...

... and what a magnificent day it was.

Our president

Last night a Facebook friend posted the question: "What's the first election you can remember?" This guy is in his twenties as are most of his friends, and the typical response went all the way back to Bush/Clinton, 1992. I didn't respond to his query because given my age compared to the age of the responders, I might as well have said I can remember Abraham Lincoln's last election. In truth the first election I remember, though not in great detail, was the 1964 election between Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson. In other words, I've been around a long time and can remember a lot of presidential elections. Without a doubt, the one this year has been by far the most contentious election in my life.

When folks tell me that more hatred is directed toward Barack Obama than any other president, I try to downplay it, pointing to events such as the Republican impeachment of Bill Clinton and the broad dislike, even hatred of George W. Bush from the Left. But Clinton and Bush earned most of the vitriol aimed in their direction all on their own. While some people find President Obama's politics, his methods, even his personality objectionable, I can't for the life of me figure out why he is hated so much by a such a large sector of society. At least I don't want to admit what I think might be the reason.

Walking past a public school on my way to work this morning, I passed several children who were having an animated conversation about last night's election. Clearly some of them had not stayed up past 10pm and were asking their friends: "Did Obama win Ohio?" Interest in such details of an election coming from kids who couldn't be more than ten or eleven was inspiring. I couldn't help being moved by the fact that those children were all African American. In fact during several encounters with black people today I noticed a definite sense of enthusiasm. The exuberance over the president's winning the State of Ohio and consequently the election was contagious. In the world in which I live, Barack Obama is very popular.

In other parts of the country, he obviously is not.

Clearly we live in a divided nation, and much of it has to do with race. It's a nasty issue that doesn't get  discussed much in polite society. A co-chair of the Romney campaign, former New Hampshire governor and Chief of Staff to the first President Bush, John Sununu touched on the subject briefly during a TV interview when he suggested that General Colin Powell's endorcement of Obama was racially motivated. He said: "I think when you have somebody of your own race that you're proud of being president of the United States, I applaud Colin for standing with him." In a more reasonable, non racially-charged society, that comment probably would have gone unnoticed. But it went viral here because between the lines, some people read Sununu as saying: "If it's OK for black people to support one of their own, why can't we white people do the same?"

After I encountered the enthusiastic kids this morning, the thought did cross my mind about how I'd feel if the tables were turned and I walked past a group of fist pumping, high fiving white folks, hollering and whooping it up because Mitt Romney won the election. I'd probably dismiss them as a bunch of yahoos.

In this year's presidential election, about 59 percent of the white vote went to Romney and the pundits are using that figure to comment how racially divided we are. But about 93 percent of the black vote went to Obama and there was hardly a peep. Is this a double standard?

In one word, no.

The ancestors of most African American people lived in this country long before the ancestors of most European Americans, including my own. Needless to say, most of them did not come here of their own free will. Black soldiers fought and died for this country in every war, often in disproportionate numbers. When they had the opportunity to, which was not until quite recently in some cases, African Americans could be counted on to consistently vote for white candidates. Black voters had been taken for granted for so long by white politicians that no one saw coming the tremendous ground swell of support for black candidates such as the late Mayor Harold Washington of Chicago. Still it is a mistake to assume that African American people always vote as one block for candidates of their own race. The last mayoral election in Chicago was decided by the black vote in favor of Rahm Emanuel, despite the fact that on the ballot there was an extremely well known black candidate.

The fact is, in the past four years, the Republican Party has bent over backwards to alienate black voters:

• The issue of requiring voter ids in some states harken back to the days of the poll tax where poor people, many of whom were black, were prohibited from voting simply because they could not afford to. The tremendous turnout in many of those states in this election where people stood for hours in line to cast a ballot, proved that people would not be denied the right to vote. 
• The new campaign laws which eliminated spending limits, made the office of president available to the highest bidder. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the Democrats and Obama outplayed them at their own game by raising more money, an obscene amount, than any campaign in history.
• While the office of president should command the highest respect, opponents of Barack Obama have gone to tremendous lengths to disrespect both the man and the office. Instead of doing their jobs and governing, some Republicans in Congress openly vowed at the outset of his presidency that their number one goal was to make Obama a one term president. From ridiculous demands of proof of citizenship, to a governor pointing her finger in his face, to a congressman calling him a liar during a speech, to the unbelievable intransigence in Congress over every bit of legislative minutiae, Republicans have shown over and over again that they will stop at nothing in order to gain control of the government. 

In short, every plausible reason for black folks (and folks of many other shades including white), to vote for Mitt Romney, was overshadowed by the enormous baggage of poor choices made by the candidate and his party. Instead of venting their anger at the results of this past election, Republicans need only look in the mirror.

It's not going to get any better for the GOP. This country is moving in a new direction demographically, and being the white people's party is simply not going to cut it anymore. As someone who has voted "Democrat" for most of his life, you might think I'd be thrilled at the prospect of the demise of the Republican Party. I'm not. As an American I believe deeply in the two party system, in a meaningful rational dialog, and being forced to make a choice between two credible candidates come election time.

In this election I didn't feel there was a choice. Four years ago I knew President Obama was in for a rough ride and given the state of the economy, I was skeptical about his prospects of being re-elected in 2012. Yet I believe he's done a reasonably good job in office, attempting at least to fulfill the campaign promises he made four years ago. My most profound experience of the effects of his presidency came this summer while driving up to Wisconsin with my family. As we passed the massive Chrysler plant in Belvedere, Illinois, I noticed the employee parking lot was filled with cars, far more of them than I had seen in years. As my wife pointed out, had it not been for this administration, that lot, and hundreds like it around the country today would be empty.

That said, we're still in deep financial trouble and I'm not entirely convinced that the policies of this administration will lead us out of the morass. I would have desperately liked to have been challenged by a candidate from the other side who presented a clear, consistent alternative vision for the future of this country. Unfortunately Governor Romney did not. His statements during the campaign were all over the place, made more out of convenience rather than conviction. The only conviction of the governor's I could detect, was his desire to be president. Perhaps the delicate balance of trying to please a very disparate constituency was too much for him, but in my opinion, the governor was simply not a credible candidate.

Obviously a lot of people disagree, most of them belonging to the same race and gender as me. Unemployment, the deficit, the debt, the bad economy and a plethora of other issues are all legitimate concerns and most of the people who voted for Governor Romney believed his ideas to address those issues were better than Obama's.

Some people however, I have no idea how many, don't feel that Barack Obama truly represents them and voted for Romney simply because of the color of his skin. I know this to be true because I personally know some of them. Unsavory as it may be, that is their right.

All I can say is this: I'm glad the election is over.

The Debates

Obama - 1
Romney - 1

The rubber match will take place next Monday. Stay tuned.
In other news:

Tigers - 3
Yankees - 0

Giants - 1
Cardinals - 1

I love this time of year, the nip of fall in the air, the leaves crunching underfoot, football, hockey, (the AHL at least), and the World Series. Yes I even love the quadrennial election season, up to a point.

But I don't love the debates. My feeling is this: we're electing our president, not the captain of our debate club. Yes, the debates give us all an idea how each of the candidates perform under scrutiny and pressure. And they make for terrific water cooler conversation. I suppose those points alone are valid reasons to keep them around.

Still, ever since the televised Kennedy/Nixon debates in 1960, presidential debates have been about appearance, performance and strategy, more than about ideas and substance.

Mitt Romney clearly won the first debate because he was well rehearsed and he appeared likable and comfortable. In contrast, the president looked tired and irritable, as if he had just spent the last four years of his life being President of the United States. It appeared his strategy was to be congenial and inoffensive. Every time it was his turn to speak he reminded me of Chicago White Sox sluggers Paul Konerko and Adam Dunn who every time they were up at the end of this season, down by a few runs, came to bat with the bases loaded, nobody out, and either struck out or hit into a double play. They like Obama might have driven in a lone run, but it was far less than expected of them.

Obama supporters were aghast and anyone who's been paying attention knew that tonight he would come out spirited and take the offensive, which is precisely what he did. Romney on the other hand kept going over the same rehearsed points he used during the first debate and came out flat, uninspired, and on the defensive. Neither candidate answered the questions presented them by the chosen individuals from the New York town hall audience, they just used the questions as spring boards to go off on their own tangents. No surprise there.

The best part came toward the beginning when the two men who were free to walk around the stage, came uncomfortably within striking distance. My son said it looked as if they were about to drop the gloves and start a good hockey brawl. Now that would have been something to see.

If you find it trite to compare the campaign to sporting events, well all I can say is you must not be watching.

Tonight I made the conscious decision to watch the debate rather than the Yankees-Tigers playoff game.

Given the relative quality of the performances of the two events, I'm not sure I made the right choice.

The other shoe drops

As predicted in my last post, the Democrats at their convention this week in Charlotte, spun their own tall tales, most if not all of them caught by FactCheck.org. It's amazing to me given the army of people these days devoted to scrutinizing candidates' speeches with a fine tooth comb, that the campaigns don't put more effort into making sure what comes out of the convention speakers' mouths is air tight.

OK I understand putting out a figure that is purely conjecture, such as how much the president's policies will result in cutting the deficit. All you need to back something like that up is the opinion of one so called expert, a rabbit and a hat. But in the age of YouTube, is it really a good idea to take your opponent's comments out of context, thinking no one will catch on?  You'll remember the Republicans did just that with Barack Obama's "you didn't build that" line.

Yes Mitt Romney did say as Joe Biden suggested: "it's not worth moving heaven and earth, and spending billions of dollars" to catch Osama bin Laden. If you read transcripts of his comments however, Romney was looking at the larger picture saying it was more worthwhile to go after the entire leadership of al-Qaida then targeting one man. That's a valid opinion, you can agree with it or not. But in no way did it undermine the effort and heroism of our armed forces to catch the former al-Qaida leader as the vice president implied.

Then there's the problem when you want to point out your opponent's deficiencies in one area, but don't have enough fodder. Why not just make stuff up? Throughout the Democratic convention, especially in the culminating speeches Thursday night, it was pointed out that Mitt Romney proposes to cut the taxes on the rich, while raising the taxes on the middle class. The first part is true, but Romney also has stated his proposal to lower middle class taxes as well.

It can be argued, as pointed out in the FactCheck article, that some experts have suggested the result of eliminating certain tax credits and deductions to pay for Romney's proposed cuts, might actually cause some middle class people to pay more tax. Now that's a valid argument against Romney's plan, why not just state it that way?

Other than the factual errors, in my opinion the Democrats did a superb job of delineating the philosophical differences between themselves and their opponents. Their speeches were well thought out, delivered for the most part with a good measure of passion, wit and intelligence. Admittedly there were as many tiresome Democratic stories about poor relatives and their struggles to sacrifice so their children could have it better than they did, as Republican ones. The fact that they rang truer to my ears could be simply because I'm biased. The Democrats also went out of their way this year to pay tribute to the military and their families. Amazingly, the Republicans did not; they were probably too busy tripping over themselves telling us how much they like women. In a time of war, that was a huge gaffe and the Dems pounced on it big time. Expect Romney, Ryan and their supporters to make up for their oversight in the coming weeks.

As critics pointed out, the Democrats didn't address the details of what they would actually do in the next four years, especially about the terrible economy. But let's face it, convention speeches rarely go into those kind of details, and when they do, the plans and their projected results presented as we have seen, are usually misleading at best.

Conventions are meant to rally the troops. That's especially important in a close election when there are relatively few undecided voters and the outcome may very well be determined by voter turnout. The Democrats preaching to the choir, did a good job conveying their message of inclusion and the idea that we're all in this together. Looking at the delegates on the convention floor, you saw the face of America today which represents all races, ethnicities, creeds, and social classes. This is not the vision many in this country like to see, but it is a fact. Most inspiring I thought was the emphasis on the dignity of work and the idea that all jobs are important, not just the high paying ones. As someone who plans to vote Democratic this year, I was pleased and yes even moved.

I just wish they could have cut out some of the crap.

Funny Money II

I've prided myself during my adult life for trying to be open minded, willing to listen to both sides of arguments and not making up my mind on an issue until all the facts are in. As far as politics is concerned, while I've cast the majority of my votes for one particular party, I've done my best not to be controlled by that party's ideology. I've always given the other party the benefit of the doubt and have cast my vote in their direction a number of times. But circumstances have changed in recent years and after listening to a good portion of the Republican National Convention last week, I think I can sum up the event in one word: bullshit.

I understand that in the art of politics, the bullshit factor is unusually high compared to other fields of endeavor. Let's face it, it's a game of salesmanship and the Republicans want to win the election in November. I will not be surprised if the Democrats at their convention this coming week, dish out plenty of their own. But this go around the Republicans have raised the bullshit bar to staggering heights. If shoveling the you know what were an Olympic event, the current crop of G.O.P. members would be the Michael Phelps of shovelers.

Where to begin? One of the most irritating themes of the speeches last week was the inevitable mention of the humble origins of the speakers. If the speaker wasn't poor at one time, the parents were, if not them, the grandparents, and so on. Big deal; unless you're related to British royalty, chances are pretty good that on some branch of your family tree, you will come up with someone who had to struggle to make a living. Republicans, at least this crop of them have been accused of not understanding poverty. One or two uplifting rags to riches stories would have been sufficient, but dozens of them? I just didn't buy it.

Then there was the incessant pandering to women. Polls show the Reps trail the Dems significantly among half the population. It didn't help when Missouri Republican congressman and senatorial candidate Todd Akin claimed that a woman who is "legitimately raped" will not become pregnant. Fellow Republicans had to distance themselves from the comment, and the congressman as fast as their legs could carry them. Speaking of distancing themselves from one of their own, Where was Sarah Palin?

Another recurring theme of the convention was the reaction to a comment made by the president that was taken out of context. President Obama was talking about the system in place in this country that enables people to become successful, and the moral imperative of giving back a little to the society that helped make them that way. He said: "If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own." Admittedly he could have framed that sentence better, but what he said was obvious even to the point of being a truism. Frankly I'm not sure how any reasonable person could argue with it. Unfortunately at one point in the speech, the president while caught up in the moment, let slip the awkward and unfortunately timed remark: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that." The "that" he was referring to was specifically roads, bridges and other essential infrastructure that obviously were not built by individuals. The Republicans of course lifted those words verbatim and had a field day with them, someone even wrote a song called "I Built That". For being less than crystal clear in his choice of words, the president set himself up and has only himself to blame. However he may have the last laugh as the GOP's insistence on dwelling ad nauseum on a non-issue made themselves look disingenuous and foolish. You decide for yourself:

Mitt Romney's choice for running mate, Paul Ryan gave a speech that was filled with so many misleading statements, falsehoods and outright lies, he was called out by none other than the bastion of conservatism, Fox News. Here's the money quote:

to anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.

Egregious as Ryan's blatant falsehoods were, perhaps the biggest, most tragic lies were perpetrated by the presidential candidate himself, Mitt Romney. In his acceptance speech and the build up to it, much was made about Bain Capital, the company Romney headed, and its contribution to the creation of jobs in this country. Staples, the nationwide stationery chain was sited as a success story which was made possible by Bain and Romney. The CEO of that company Tom Stemberg got up and lavished praise upon Romney and ridicule upon the president. It's true that the jobs created at Staples are a success story. So are the jobs at Sports Authority and Dominos Pizza, two other companies that were nudged along with the help of Bain. But did you wonder where all the other success stories were and why they weren't exploited by Romney and his friends? It's because they don't exist. When Romney counts the number of jobs he helped create while a businessman in the private sector, he singles out those three companies that created jobs in America. What he fails to mention, are all the companies that were forced to eliminate jobs, outsource them overseas, or in some cases driven into bankruptcy as a result of the corporate mergers and takeovers instigated by Bain. No one knows for sure but Mitt Romney and his company may have been responsible for more jobs lost to this country than gained.

This article in Rolling Stone gives a far more nuanced view of Romney and his work at Bain than the candidate and fellow Republicans gave us at the convention. Entrepreneurs of the past whose hard work and willingness to take great personal risk, created businesses that built things and created jobs. Those entrepreneurs had a tremendous stake in the success of the companies they built. This is hardly the case with new entrepreneurs such as Romney, who make their money buying and selling businesses, not creating them or involving themselves in their day to day operation. I wrote about this very topic almost one year ago. Whether the businesses they bought into create jobs or lose them, whether the companies succeed or fail makes no difference, this new breed of entrepreneur makes money either way. They and their clients (the investors not the customers) simply move on to other investment opportunities while the folks who worked for the companies, and the businesses whose own success depended upon them are left holding the bag.

Romney and his cronies would have us believe they want to return to a simpler time in America, where anyone who wanted to, given faith in God and themselves, and the will to work hard, could be successful. It could be argued that time never really existed in this country. The choice of actor Clint Eastwood with his ridiculous "make my day" bluster, to address the convention underscores the Republicans' attempt to sell us this fantasy.

The tragedy in all this is that fact that there are tens of thousands of unemployed Americans who buy into the notion of Romney the "job creator." I know some of them. They believe in Mitt Romney as their hope for the future.

Mitt Romney plays up the role as a successful businessman as his chief qualification to be president. In that vein he says he is poised to successfully address the problem of high unemployment in this nation. Today on Labor Day he is bemoaning the fact that millions of Americans woke up this morning not knowing where their next paycheck will come from. This is indeed a tragedy.

What he fails to mention to us is that in his role as businessman at least, he was part of the cause, not the solution.