Demographics

The while [male] establishment is finished. Bill O'Reilly says so. This clip has gained a lot of attention over the past few days, and I want to keep a record of it on my blog because it may mark a historic turning point in US and world history.

O'Reilly's arrogance is annoying, to say the least. He says that Democratic voters "want stuff," meaning unearned handouts. In other words, he is against a humane society in which we all recognize our interconnection and help out people who are having a difficult time. And he ignores the "stuff" that the present system has given to white people, to men, to the 1 percent of the wealthiest US citizens whose greed in endangering the well-being of the 99 percent and the rest of the planet.

But he's acknowledging that US society is becoming more ethnically diverse, and with that change, our society is becoming much more progressive. He is mourning something that I would personally celebrate--the passage of racist, capitalist patriarchy.

With a lot of hard work, those who welcome a changing United States can make this come true.

Equinox

It is the first day of Spring, and in my little neighborhood in northwest Oklahoma City, there are several inches of snow on the ground. Snow covers large parts of the state of Oklahoma. But I am fairly confident that hell has not frozen over. Therefore, there is no way that my Congressional representative, right-wing Republican Mary Fallin, will vote for the health care bill when it comes before the House of Representatives some time tomorrow. Therefore, I can safely ignore the pleas that have been flooding my email inbox, urging me to call her and ask her to vote for the bill.

As I've noted recently, my overwhelming reaction to the current health care bill is ambivalence. I hope that in 20 years, we will all look back and see this bill as a historic first step toward achieving meaningful health care for all. I fear that we will look back at this as the moment when a Democratic president and Congress sacrificed the well-being of ordinary people in order to serve the interests of insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, and for-profit health-care providers.

Regardless of my hopes and fears, despite the united opposition of Republican lawmakers, it now appears that the bill is almost sure to pass. You can see this from several recent posts on Talking Points Memo. The Democrats have abandoned a controversial parliamentary maneuver and now the House Will Hold Straight Up or Down Vote on Senate Health Care Bill. Progressive skeptics are now falling in line to vote for the bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is refusing to allow anti-choice zealot Bart Stupak the opportunity to amend the Senate bill, which is slightly less destructive to women's reproductive freedom than the version originally passed by the House. It may not be a done deal. It will be a close vote that could still go the other way. But even the racist and anti-gay ugliness perpetrated today by "Tea Party" protesters at the Capitol suggests a desperate last-ditch effort to stop the inevitable.

So it's Spring, y'all. There was so much snow that the local protest that had been scheduled to mark the seventh anniversary of the Iraq War had to be canceled. It may be rescheduled, and other protests took place nationwide. Tomorrow, immigration rights activists will march on Washington, DC to demand reform of our nation's unjust immigration laws. Activists continue working for single-payer health care. And frankly, my friends, I don't believe there is a hell.And I still believe that if we work really hard, we can make this world better without waiting for torment or paradise in some world to come. I hope you are having a lovely Equinox. As for myself, I am going to go for a walk in the snow.

Almost magic

This is one of those times when there is so much happening that I would like to write about, but I am too busy living life to write it down. Next week I'll be in my house. The lease is up on my apartment. I think I'm going to make it, thanks to a lot of help from my friends.

It used to be difficult for me to accept help. Now it is a little easier, but I still don't know how to ask. Part of it is reluctance, but part of it is that asking for help is a skill, like running a photo copier, or attaching a compression valve to a copper pipe. It's a skill I need to practice. Fortunately, I seem to have friends with a knack of showing up when I need them. Yesterday my house was filled with women painting, cleaning cabinets, ripping up carpet, helping me diagnose the operation of my floor furnace. It felt like a miracle.

This week Barack Obama was inaugurated as president. My expectations have not been terribly high. He's a nice centrist Democrat who happens to be African American. If we want progressive programs and actions, we will have to develop and push for them. And yet, it's a wonderful thing that the United States has moved forward far enough to elect its first African American president. It doesn't mean the end of racism, but it's an important step.

In less than a week in office, President Obama has moved to shut down the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and rescinded the global gag rule. Soon he will sign into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Renewal of the State Children's Health Insurance Program may be next. After 30 years of right wing backlash, it feels like a miracle.

"Not the Change I Was Expecting "

The Women's Media Center has this commentary by Veronica Arreola about the possible selection of former Lawrence Summers as Barack Obama's Secretary of the Treasury. Summers is currently an economics professor of Harvard, and previously served as president of Harvard and as treasury secretary for the final year and a half of the Clinton administration.

Arreola writes:

I am the president of the Larry Summers fan club. As the director of the Women in Science and Engineering program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, you might find that odd.

After his infamous statement in 2005 that women and girls had an intrinsic handicap towards math, explaining my job was a moot point. Everyone in my circle of friends and around the country knew the importance of running an academic support program for women majoring in science and engineering at a Research I institution. Despite the fact that women are going to college in record numbers and increasingly majoring in sciences, there are still those out in the world who think women just can’t hack it in the end. It also was an easier sell to donors and funders about the importance of the WISE office and our mission. So thank you, Larry for making my case so eloquently.

After his departure from the Harvard presidency he faded from the limelight. This week his name, along with New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner, has been bandied about as secretary of the treasury in the incoming Obama administration (can I just say how amazing it is to say that? The Obama administration!). Could the man who sold America on change seriously be considering appointing a man who suggested that Malia, Sasha and all of our daughters have a genetic disposition from not being able to math? Sadly yes.

Over at Open Left, Matt Stoller discusses some of Summers' shortcomings:

Summers was one of the key proponents of the banking deregulation of 1999 that led to the current financial crisis. In addition, Larry Summers has argued that women are innately less gifted in science than men, that 'Africa is Underpolluted', that child sweatshop work in Asia is sometimes justified, and that job destroying trade agreements are good for America.

People get stuff wrong all the time. That's not bad. But if you got the big stuff wrong, repeatedly, while being warned against it, you shouldn't be rewarded with a promotion.

Open Left has a petition to urge President-elect Obama not to appoint Summers to this critical post. I just signed it. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Update (11/10/08 10:55 p.m.): For a detailed analysis of Summers' failures as an economist, see this post at thenation.com by Mark Ames.

Good news and bad news

The good news is, after 30 years of right-wing backlash and Republican misrule, Barack Obama and the Democrats have won the presidency and increased majorities in the US House and Senate. (Someone might ask, but what about Bill Clinton? I would agree with those who said that Bill Clinton was the best Republican president we'd had in years.)

And as Jeff Fecke points out, this Democratic victory owes a lot to the tireless work of Hillary Clinton.

In more good news, RH Reality Check reports that anti-choice ballot measures on the ballot in several states all went down to defeat.

Now for the bad news. Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend reports that anti-gay initiatives are passing in Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida. She also reports that the  anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 appears to be narrowly passing in California, though not all of the votes have been counted as of Friday morning. Also at Pam's House blend, Pam Spaulding writes that Ballot initiatives provide a wake up call to the LGBT community about race.

I still remain cautiously optimistic that 30 years of right-wing backlash are drawing to a close in this country. But we do have a lot of work left to do.