So much...

Not blogging for over a week means that so much has happened that it's really quite impossible to address it all. Obama meeting Bush? Biden meeting Cheney? Oh, to have been a fly on the wall, especially at the latter. After all, Biden did call Cheney "the most dangerous vice-president we've had" in US history. Priceless...

Add to that a dash of Palin news interviews, a sprinkle of Ted Stevens falling behind in the Senate race, Al Franken still in the running for Senate seat, and more than a bit of transition politics, and it's a political funfest the likes of which I haven't seen in ages.

Oh, and don't forget a healthy dose of financial crisis, some 'oh my god the sky is falling' panic surrounding the auto industry and stock prices globally, and a smattering of 'how the holy hell is Obama expected to fix the world?' Because really, it seems like a lot of people are putting a lot of hope into Obama. And yes, hope has been one of his clearest messages, but not that kind of hope. We're seeing some really unrealistic unicorns and rainbows hope. Let's have some more sensible hope - remember his election night speech?

So yes, a week in the news these days is like a lifetime in the best. I guess the old Chinese curse applies: may you live in interesting times. Still, wouldn't have it any other way.

Hope

While reading the news today, I came across this piece online - I found the little poem at the end to be particularly moving and it made me reflect a little on what just happened back home.

It feels really great to have helped make history. And I think people my age forget how bad things were not so long ago.

I was reminded the other day that the landmark Supreme Court case, Loving v. Virginia (which is a staple of constitutional law classes) came down in 1967. Obama was something like 6 years old at the time.

In Loving v. Virginia, the lower courts had found that a white woman married to a black man in Virginia was violating the law against interracial marriage. The Supreme Court finally overturned it, finding the interracial marriage law to be unconstitutional, but not before the couple in question went through hell to be together.

In 1967, my parents were both in their early 20s.

The lesson to be learned is that change can only happen on a generational level, and that it can only happen through laws that force long-held prejudices to end. The civil rights movement was the most powerful force for equality that this country ever saw, and it's amazing that it only took a generation to create a body of youth for whom race really doesn't matter.

If this could be done in the US, a nation that not so long ago had slavery, it can be done elsewhere. And the solution is integration of education. Take the Roma in hungary for instance - Hungarians have to be legally forced to share classrooms with Roma children without recourse to newly formed de facto segregated private schools. And in a generation, maybe the Roma won't be second class citizens anymore.

That is the hope that America was meant to bring to the world. That's what makes other countries look up to us. Because really, nothing is ever impossible, and we just showed the world. Not just with an electoral victory, but with people taking to the streets all across the country, celebrating a victory that they were personally invested in, and that meant the promise of change, in all of its guises.

The exuberance shown, from Pennsylvania Avenue, to the streets of Ann Arbor, to the neighborhoods of cities across America tells us something else. Maybe this generation didn't protest like was done in the 1960s. Maybe no one confronted police, yelled to be heard and marched in the streets. But maybe this generation was right. By using the democratic process to effect change, the American people showed the world that yes, we are still a great force for good, for change, and for democracy. Our system isn't quite as broken as was feared. And on Tuesday night we proved it. Without violence and without protests. Even in Chicago.

Yes We Did!

What has epitomized Obama's campaign from beginning to end is its feeling of can-do - a feeling that each individual can make a difference. Yes we can! embodies this feeling, and is the slogan that sent the powerful message to America and to the world that united, Americans of many different persuasions can come together and help start the process of change.

Obama's acceptance speech last night indicated his understanding that this only marks the beginning. You'd have to be naive to think this financial crisis is going to fix itself. And that's just the most obviously pressing crisis right now. The first step has been taken.

Today I felt myself stand noticeably straighter. Noticeably prouder. In addition to seeing the first candidate in my life win who I genuinely support, believe in and wanted to win (and not just because he wasn't the other guy), there's a sense of having made history. It's a little easier to say to the world, hey, you could learn something from us - we've still got what it takes.

On a local level, my state voted to legalize medical marijuana and to allow stem cell research (my dad worked on the stem cell research proposal). Really delighted about both of those.

The one dark cloud over this election cycle is gay marriage. It seems inconceivable that so many Americans are opposed to allowing two people who love each other to get married in the courthouse. No one's trying to get the Catholic church to marry gay couples, and I think the deliberate conflation between civil and religious marriage is what's getting people riled up. Arkansas also decided to ban adoption by gay couples, another blow to gay rights.

I'm still coming to grips with the reality that Obama is going to be my next President. It was at about 9 pm, Geneva time yesterday, when I finally realized that Obama was going to win this. Since then, I've been floating around on cloud 9. Months of agonizing and obsessively reading political blogs will be replaced by just obsessively reading political blogs.

*happy sigh*

Yes We Can!

Four years ago, almost to the day, I consoled myself after election day by stating that at least the people went out and voted, and so it didn't really matter who had won as long as people were participating in the democratic process.

Four years later, I cannot say the same.

It does matter who wins. It matters a lot. There is a clear right choice in this election, and his name is Barack Obama.

Tomorrow, when you go out and vote, think about how you want the world to be. Think about how much your freedoms mean to you - not the freedom not to be taxed, but the real freedoms - the freedom to choose your partner, your religion, your way of life, and your opinions and the freedom to make those opinions heard.

Along one path lies darkness, ignorance, fear and hatred. Along another path lies a difficult road, not paved with rainbows and sunshine, but one in which we remain true to the vision of our founding fathers and uphold the Constitution, and maybe regain some dignity and hope along the way.

For 8 years we have been slapped in the face by the jingoistic nationalism of those calling themselves patriotic and denying us the right to call ourselves such. We have been accused of wanting to destroy the Constitution, destroy the America envisioned by the founding fathers, destroy the very fabric of democracy. Our military service has been slandered when we have dared to speak up against foolish actions by our leaders. Our sacrifices to our country have been minimized. For 8 years, we have been marginalized, mocked, and belittled. And at no time more so than during this campaign.

It is time we spoke. We are the majority. We want change. And we will be heard.

Obama the Professor

The latest attack on Obama by Palin has focused on his connections to a radical professor. Not Bill Ayers this time, but the even more nefariously terroristic sounding Rashid Khalidi.

The connection is even more tenuous than the Ayers-Obama link, founded largely on Obama's having attended a farewell dinner for Khalidi when he was leaving U of Chicago for Columbia University. At this dinner, a poem was apparently read by a Palestinian-American girl that criticized the US and accused the Israeli government of terrorism for its treatment of Palestinians. Additionally, the GOP has accused Khalidi of having been a PLO spokesman, an accusation Khalidi denies.

*sigh*

So Obama is linked not only to domestic terrorists but to Palestinian terrorists? Because he happened to be a colleague of a man whose only act of 'terrorism' is to be an outspoken supporter of an oppressed people and a fierce critic of US policy vis-a-vis Israel? God forbid anyone Obama ever met should criticize Israel because clearly that makes him, by association, a terrorist. No doubt Prof. Khalidi's un-American sounding name makes him an even scarier spectre than Ayers, and everyone knows that the one thing you can never ever do in America, freedom of speech be damned, is to criticize Israel, a foreign country that is often treated, particularly on the campaign trail, as our 51st state.

Khalidi's response to this is admirable, not least for his seeming reference to Bob Dylan: "I am not speaking to the media at this time, and certainly not until this idiot wind passes."

The real story in the McCain campaign's accusations is the effect they will have on the individuals 'linked' to Obama. Ayers, admittedly a former domestic terrorist, has turned his life around and is a highly respected professor. Khalidi, not a terrorist of any sort, is also a well-respected professor. Now the whole country knows their names, and not in any good sense. How many threats and piece of hate mail will these men receive for having their names dragged in the mud by the McCain campaign? What the hell did they do to deserve it, particularly Khalidi whose only crime seems to be his name and his stance on Palestine?

It is clear that the Republicans are anti-intellectual. Radicals lurk in our universities, secretly spreading un-American propaganda to our youth. Bastions of elitism, universities are the opposite of the Real America, where leaders are blindly followed and all that is not conservative and Christian is evil. There is no place for debate or for rational thought in today's Republican party. The campaign might as well just come out and accuse Obama directly of being a terrorist for having taught constitutional law (a hippy terrorist subject that the Republicans have done their best to ignore for the last 8 years) at U of Chicago.

Hungary's bailout

Sorry for the absence - I was in Berlin for the weekend and flu-ridden for the last two days, thus completely unable to think, let alone write.

Rather than talk about the US presidential election, which is really a thoroughly beaten dead horse at the moment, I'm going to shift gears and return to the topic of the global economy.

As a Hungarian American, I have a particular interest in how Hungary fares economically. And recently the prognosis has not been good. Hungary has received a $25.5 billion bailout from the IMF and the EU to help rescue its floundering economy, the largest bailout in Europe thus far. Amidst discussions of salary freezes and pension cuts, the question is why is Hungary in such a bad position? Why is its budget deficit the largest in eastern Europe? While I'm not informed enough to provide a comprehensive answer, I think the crisis can be in large part attributed to long-standing economic policies implemented in the early transition period.

In particular, eastern Europe in the early 1990s found its socialist systems being radically restructured to conform with the model of capitalism promoted by the Washington Consensus. This shock therapy, implemented throughout the eastern bloc, is the very model of unregulated, unfettered capitalism that is causing the foundations of the post-Reagan US economy to crumble, and that caused crisis after crisis in Latin American countries during the 1990s.

Whereas western Europe built its economy on a capitalist model tempered with social programs to ensure the health and survival of all members of society, social services in eastern Europe were systematically dismantled, privatized, and sold to corrupt entities interested only in profit. Sound familiar? It should. This is what the US, together with the IMF, has been selling to developing and transition countries around the world. Sure, it looked enticing when everything was peachy in the US, but it doesn't look so great now. And eastern European countries, already viewed as riskier investment areas than western Europe, are seeing a flight of capital that is causing the markets to plummet and undermining a system based on market strength rather than actual assets.

The model of capitalism promulgated by the US in the last few decades is an unsustainable one, working through speculation and lacking in underlying assets. And when the market hiccups, the national economy vomits, particularly in smaller countries without the market power of the US. As long as the markets were functioning in their happy magical land of unicorns, rainbows, puppies, and Greenspan, all was well. Now, seeing that this model doesn't even work for its creator, it's time to attempt to reintroduce the concept of actual rather than speculative value, although it may be too late.

As for Hungary, the economic crisis is surely due to more factors than its post-transition economic choices, including corruption of politicians, poor public policy choices, and the ripple effect of economic shocks undergone in the process of acceding to the EU. (Let's not forget, the EU is as bad of an offender as the US in many ways, forcing adherence to the acquis by accession countries that was never and is still not required of older member states.)

Nevertheless, the underlying message is clear: corporatism, i.e. US capitalism, is not in the interest of human beings. It has never been in the interest of human beings. And if we want to weather this financial crisis, we need to give the economy back to the people, not in the sense of allowing them to invest their pension funds willy-nilly in volatile markets, but in the sense of ensuring for their future and their wellbeing rather than the future and wellbeing of corporations.

One man's terrorist...

They say one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I guess that's why Sarah Palin refused to condemn abortion clinic bombers as terrorists. See, Bill Ayers, as she says, admitted he's a terrorist. But "others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities that uh, it would be unacceptable. I don’t know if you’re going to use the word terrorist there."

So let me get this straight. Bill Ayers is a terrorist because Sarah Palin disagrees with him. Abortion clinic bombers are merely fighting for the freedom to live in a country that denies women the freedom to choose what to do with their own bodies?

Fighting for freedom from freedom. That's freedom you can believe in.