You’re The Decider

So shall ye reap.

I am all for everyone being at the table. I support bringing various folks together to talk. I hope that the new secretary of agriculture will not only represent large-scale agriculture, but also a healthy ecosystem that will let our children and grandchildren inherit a rich biosphere.

Companies like Monsanto, who would like a single monoculture may very well be profitable in the short term, may very well be endangering the future. A single strain of a crop is far less resistant to danger than multiple strains. A genetically modified variant may be more fragile than a natural one that varies over time to the environment. Imagine the equivalent of smallpox affecting the native American population. Less resistance to new disease because of a small genepool.

Perhaps because I was raised on Johnny Appleseed, who spread seeds far and wide, I have an aversion to single sources of food. What happens if Roundup suddenly mutates in the wild and kills all the soybeans and cotton? If farmers can save other seeds, and hybridize them, not so much of an affect.

Also, I’d like to know how a governor from a corn-growing state would investigate the effects of corn syrup in the diet, and how the corn lobby has increased the cost of real sugar so that now everything has corn syrup in it. Even tuna fish sandwiches at a deli. I’d love to see some studies on the relationship between corn syrup and diabetes. It seems to me that they have increased at a similar pace in a similar time frame.

At the same time, it will take people who have industry relationships to change the industry, should they choose to do so. I hope they will.

President-elect Obama can have all the ponies he wants, as far as I’m concerned, when he gets inaugurated. And if he gets us out of Iraq, closes Gitmo, creates 5 million green jobs, and provides health care to all he can have many many more. It’s for this reason that I’m not overly concerned with his desire to have Pastor Rick Warren give an invocation at the inauguration. I don’t particularly think we need an invocation, but it would probably annoy more people to not have one. I’d rather have Jeramiah Wright though.

Of course, though, I’m not gay, so I’m not as naturally upset as those who are, especially since he worked to defeat Prop 8. However, to my friends on their high horses, I believe climate change is the most important of all challenges facing us. If we don’t do something about it, nobody’s getting married. And it’s not like the ERA has gone anywhere, so how about fighting for my equal pay, too. Anyway, weeds.

To those on high horses, there are other things to be mad about, and generate anger over, that are more timely.

However, to my dearest president elect, this reminds me of how you dealt with FISA. You just said, we need to disagree without being disagreeable. Well, I’m going to disagree disagreeably every time you choose not to explain why you are disagreeing with me.

Your press conference today was not one of your better linguistic moments. You start talking about your personal beliefs. Using lots of “I statements.” You say where you disagree with Warren, and then that we need to come together as Americans where we do agree. Then you use passive voice to say “So Rick Warren has been invited to speak.” And then you say lots of other viewpoints will be there so agree with them.

I think you passed up a huge opportunity to explain where you agree with Pastor Warren, that you hold in common. That’s the hope thing we all got behind you for. But don’t go all weaselly passive voice and point to where people would automatically like things. Take it upon yourself to diffuse the disagreement by pointing to why you actually wanted Pastor Warren there. And say you chose him. It’s your inauguration, you’re the decider. Say “I wanted Rick Warren to speak. I admire XXX about him.” Unless you didn’t. In which case he shouldn’t be there if you can’t defend him better.

Maybe I disagree with you. Maybe I disagree with someone you agree with. Give me the opportunity to agree. Don’t just piss me off. It’s uncivil. And unagreeable. I would like some ponies, too.

Scarlett Johansson would auction her panties on eBay, not just her used snot rag.

Hey check it out, while California has some amount of officials convicted of corruption, per capita, the figure makes the state one of the lowest in dirty dealings. Perhaps we should export more of our San Francisco values.

A lot of words have been blathered this week on the issue of torture, especially since Brennan withdrew his name from any potential positions of authority in national security. I had no idea he’d been the one to convince Obama to change his FISA position. It would have been nice for it to come with more explanation. Of course it’s hard to have transparency in a secret matter. But, in a democracy, you have to have transparency at some level, or it’s no longer a democracy. I’d like to believe we still live in a democracy.

But other than Brennan’s letter, I’m not sure why the anti-torture position is dismissed as something of the “liberal blogs” as if, you can just say, well “the liberal blogs think x and x and you know how they are.”

I’m pretty sure Andrew Sullivan is not liberal, and he’s been against torture from the getgo… I don’t really think I hold all that radical of positions, but from what you see on TV, I’d be right out there with radical terrorists.

Torture should never be legalized or rationalized as US policy. Ever. Don’t use Orwellian words like rendition, or harsh interrogation. Call it torture. Is it cruel and unusual punishment? Don’t do it.

Now. Do you think you absolutely have to do it? Think three times. Why is this such a hard concept? One of the things that I learned while travelling overseas is that while people are mad at the US for some current policy, they want us to fix ourselves so we can be an example of a government by the people, that works, and is not corrupt.

I’m not sure which is more corrupting, torture, or the greed of people on wall street who need more than $1million/ year salary. In both cases, though, we need to correct these excesses so that we can again hold ourselves up as example.

So some thoughts on unconfirmed choices for various Obama posts.

Lots of rumors out there for Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. I didn’t vote for Clinton in the primary, I voted for Obama. I didn’t like the ‘inevitable’ meme - I mean, what, I get no choice in the matter? I didn’t like the idea of Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Some other families should be in the executive, otherwise it’s like a monarchy. She voted for the war in Iraq, and didn’t seem to apologize for it, and I think she called Iran’s army a terrorist organization (what does that make ours). Also, I signed up for her campaign letters, and I never got a clear sense of why she wanted to be president, only that she did. And the moronic letters written by a Stanford grad made me either question Stanford’s standards, or think the campaign was cynically making Chelsea out to be a third grader (mostly the latter). So those were my reasons, some of them, for voting against Clinton. However, once she lost, and accepted it, she really got on the bandwagon, she did everything she could to keep McCain from getting elected. If that had been the person I saw when I made my choice, maybe I would have voted for her. (Maybe, she never addressed the B-C-B-C question.) So I’m fine with her getting anything she wants as a reward for truly ensuring Obama was elected. And State seems fine. She knows everyone already. I do concur with others commenting that her campaign was somewhat poorly run, and State is huge department. If she gets a really good second in command, more of an ops person, she’ll be fine. She’ll certainly do better than Rice.

Likewise, Richardson should be rewarded somehow for endorsing early, and has great experience running parts of the government. Not that my opinion matters, I’m also ok with Gates staying on at DOD, for continuity’s sake in a war. Holder as AG seems great on civil liberties front. Perhaps weaker on other things.

I would hope that in addition to picking moderate, conservative, and even Republican voices, Obama would pick one or two fairly left wing, progressive voices, to help swing the pendulum more to the left. I’m not saying he should pick Starhawk for Dept. of the Interior, but that does point out how middle of the road his current choices are.

To make up for the continued employment of torture apologist John Yoo.

Seriously, I can’t believe that man is teaching anyone about anything. I can’t believe you can get a fundamental principle of western democracy and jurisprudence so utterly and completely wrong, and still be on the staff of a well-regarded law school. (The principle being right to speedy trial, and at the very least being able to challenge the facts of your arrest. We’ve had some people locked up for seven years now, and haven’t let them challenge the circumstances meaningfully. Can you imagine being locked up for that long with no hope? It would drive me crazy.) For all the right wing talk of freedom, they seem willing to give up rights that our ancestors died for fairly readily.

{h/t sullivan}

Another thing, the transition government web site was up rather quickly, and has a great look and feel, with good information (seemingly taken from policy papers from the campaign site.) That this was approved so quickly means that not only was BO and team really good at the closing of the campaign, but was multitasking on what was important for the transition.

It’s still a bit rough around the edges, but I’m glad there is evidence of a transparency of government, as well as a good propaganda machine keeping us abreast of the news of the day.

To balance out the disappointments, I’ll also post on things that make me happy.

1) Obama won. Yay. I’m happy that there weren’t any of the irregularities that plagued the previous two presidential elections.

2) Chief of staff pick. It’s good to have someone who will help govern, and also from a perspective of getting things done. I think Emanuel has made some poor choices in the past, namely interfering in democratic primaries when it’s not needful. That is, let the people in a district choose, then the national party should get behind that candidate. But I can hardly fault someone for doing the best he can, and he got a lot of people elected. And his priorities seem in alignment with Obama’s, and he’s sacrificing family life to serve the president and country.

3) The funny bits from the first press conference of the president-elect. Loved the way he talked about the choice of dog, that it would be just as deliberate as the choice of Treasury Secretary, and he made fun of his own speaking style. Goodness, someone who is aligned with my priorities, smart, strong, and also funny??? Course, I think cleverness encompasses both brilliance and humor. And I think we also need some cheering up so we don’t sink into a huge depression. Some things are no laughing matter, but it will do the country good to smile.

4) There are also rumors of things that would make me happy, such as review of executive orders, but I won’t really go into them to much until they are reality.

Over the next four years, I’m sure president Obama will do things that I don’t agree with.

I thought I’d start early and get some stuff out of my system.

1) FISA. I believe in protecting American’s civil liberties first and foremost. This bill would have made it okay for some telecomm companies to have broken the law on the president’s say-so and would have not rewarded any of the companies who refused, and whose chief executives were indicted as payback. Living under rule of law, not men, is hard, but the only way to build a solid foundation for future generations. Senator Obama had said he would stand with Senator Dodd in opposition to the rewritten FISA bill. Instead, he changed his mind, with little explanation. Perhaps, ten years ago, I would have trusted him, but after this administration, I have no trust in government. He needs to rebuild it, not rule by fiat. So I’m mad he changed his mind, then just told the people who he used to be supporting “I disagree with you” instead of getting them to change their minds too. Why piss people off like that? I suppose there must be national security reasons for changing one’s mind, but one would think that someone with Obama’s rhetorical flair would be able to convince one’s *allies* of a position while dancing around what can’t be said. He chose not to, and just thumbed his nose at people who disagreed. He didn’t have to do that. It was disappointing.

2) Larry Summers’ name is being floated as Treasury Secretary. I first heard the name and then thought ‘Hey, isn’t that the guy who said girls can’t do math and science as well as boys for innate reasons’ ? And it was. It’s disappointing that someone would even consider him as a choice for such a trusted position. Who knows what other bigoted thinking will prevent him from coming up with the best solution. BTW, girls do not have any less of innate abilities for math and science, but it does take a great upbringing (thanks mom and dad) and some amount of force of will to buck the societal pressures against expressing your brilliance when boys are around. I can’t imagine that Mr. Summers would be able to be unbiased in the hiring of people in his department, seeing as how you have to know some math do do economics, and well, girls obviously can’t. I’d hate to have to be a woman in his department, knowing you were fighting against the prejudices of your boss, and having to be twice as good as any man just to prove yourself.