Obama is making his fourth trip to the Gulf. Will it matter?

I guess we'll know tomorrow with his "speech to the nation," as it is being called by the TV Pundits. It's been 56 days now since the explosion that started the oil eruption under water and just about everything that has been tried has been functionally useless (there's a cap of sorts taking our a small percentage of the flow, but not enough to make a difference, and two relief wells are being drilled to cut off the leak itself, but we're about two months away from it happening).

BP is spending millions on advertising where they say that they are taking "full responsibility" for the leak and the cleanup, and that no American taxpayers will have to pay  for this. Of course, such a statement is utter bullshit, since all the news shows talk about lately is business owners and fishermen on the Gulf who have appealed to BP for recompense do to their losses in the tragedy and have not been able to get the oil company to pay for anything.

BP put this out on it's <a href="http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9033655&amp;contentId=7061997">website</a>:
<blockquote><em>BP's onshore response efforts have rapidly expanded,  with equipment and people staged and ready in Louisiana, Mississippi,  Alabama, and Florida. BP has positioned rapid response teams in Alabama  and Louisiana to enable quick response and cleaning of areas where oil  may come ashore. These 12-person teams will assess initial impacts, and  then call in a larger contingent of trained responders and volunteers to  clean the affected area.</em></blockquote>
If that sounds good you should tie it to the word yesterday afternoon from Alabama that their beaches were now covered with tarballs and oil mass and their summer tourist season has been destroyed (along with the wildlife.) So much for "rapid response." One of the things Obama is supposed to be doing today is speaking with BP officials. Let's see if that gets him anywhere.

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After yesterday's fiasco and todays substantial electoral victory, I keep finding myself thinking that Hillary Rodham Clinton should PERHAPS consider mounting an independent candidacy.

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I have been reading Obama's platform materials on his web site, trying to deconstruct what he is all about and actually, I am finding a lot of stuff that I think I like, except that I don't think that it is possible for a lot of people to implement because they don't really have the resources. However, many Republicans do, and for them, messages of individual responsibility, ring true. Really, they should for all of us, but we just have not set up the support networks we would need to be able to be independent yet. For example, many of us are still dependent on jobs and the kinds of healthcare that are available to us to purchase or get through our jobs, which are no longer affordable. However, those healthcare services ARE available on the free market, in places like Mexico and India, at affordable prices. That is why Obama proposes to make the practice of buying prescriotion drugs overseas legal (although I see his GOP backers not wanting that, as that is an issue that sends them ballistic, because it cuts into the profits of American pharmaceutical companies. They wlll have to work that one out while we wait, I suppose.

Another form of individual responsibility is self-sufficiency. If you get sick, and can't afford to go to the hospital, I suppose that means 'fix it yourself'. I saw a trailer for the movie 'Sicko' where a responsible and thrifty young man stitched up an injury himself. Sure, it would leave a scar, and might get infected, but if it doesn't, he would probably save a few thousand dollars. You get the picture.

I see why Louis Farrakhan is endorsing Obama. The Nation of Islam has always promoted self-sufficiency, and they have built a network of businesses that all use each other. They tap into an earlier survival strategy that people fall back on during hard times, rallying around your own community. There is a lot of pressure in those commmunities, perhaps to contribute to the group. Sometimes it can be oppressive, like with the Mafia, but it often is not, its a good thing. Contributing to the welfare of the group, as long as it isn't coercicve or illegal, can be good. Many people depend on churches for things like childcare. Bush has stirred up a lot of controversy with his push to replace government services like education with 'faith based' services like parochial schools, but their aid has been a shot in the arm for institutions that were struggling. During Victorian times, and the Depression, churches had soup kitchens and you could receive a bowl of soup and a piece of bread if you were willing to stand in line for a few hours and then listen to a sermon. That is what faith-based services are all about.

A kinder gentler nation. One thousand points of light, and so on. The magic of the marketplace.

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In a recent speech, Rudy Giuliani left the Iraq War out of the 12 priorities of his campaign. Just like Paris Hilton has "people" who read her mail, Giuliani expects "other people" to handle Iraq.

What I was trying to do was to look at the things, as best as you can predict it now, that are going to be there a year and a half from now," he said. "Iraq may get better; Iraq may get worse. We may be successful in Iraq; we may not be. I don't know the answer to that. That's in the hands of other people. But what we do know for sure is the terrorists are going to be at war with us a year, a year and a half from now.

For Giuliani, the Bush administration is handling Iraq. Of course, there's a sense in which that is true. The Iraq War is in the incompetent hands of the Bush administration. But, Giuliani is using the Bush administration just like Paris Hilton used her publicist--as a crutch to absolve himself of responsibility for evaluating the military progress of the surge, commenting on the insurgency, or analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the Maliki government. In fact, Giuliani seems to see the Bush administration as an excuse for not thinking about the war at all. Sort of like Paris Hilton didn't want to think about her suspended license.

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    There is a growing chorus here in the states to blame the Iraqi's for the strife and suffering that they are now experiencing as a result of the invasion and subsequent occupation. While this attitude is becoming politically popular, it undermines the real problems that were uncovered by the invasion. It also belies the terrible job that was done with post invasion planning and reconstruction.

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