The House is on Fire

The house is on fire. Our U.S. economy is an inferno, loosing 20,000 jobs a day, and the Republicans want to turn off the hoses. No more government spending!

No, the house is on fire, so let it burn until it burns itself out. In fact, let’s turn off the water while a select few hoard it. Let’s give more tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy.

That’s what Republican economic ideas amount to.

Despite the historical evidence that spending programs like the New Deal put Americans back to work and helped stimulate the economy, the Republicans refused to support President Obama’s stimulus package. Instead they try to tell us the New Deal didn’t work.

And despite further historical evidence aligning tax cuts with economic growth and proving tax cuts DO NOT stimulate the economy, the Republicans continue to sing the same song they’ve sung the last eight years or longer. The average American is finally accepting reality as their jobs disappear and they face losing their homes.

While the Republican Party continues to parrot their selfish, greedy ideology, more Americans lose their jobs, their homes, their healthcare and their security. So I have a question for the remaining die-hard Republicans out there. Do you really believe these same old lines?

November 2007 Sunset

(For Maya Soetoro-Ng in honor of her Nov. 2007 visit to Red Oak, Iowa)

Your arrived on a warm November evening
as the sun slid behind our bronze
and burnished fields.
Visiting the city of red oaks
to speak with educators
in an old white brick home
on the hill --
sharing your shared history
with your brother.

For us, you painted the picture
of a compact, creative family
(Your mother watching
Kansas clouds and raising
children to make a difference.)

You noted the beauty of
an Iowa sunset,
yourself from a land
renowned for arresting
vistas,
and won my grateful
respect and appreciation.

Canopy

Terraced hills
drape the creek bed,
flowing down
to a burbling brook.
Billowy bales of cloud
roll overhead
as spring blows
across the plains.

How dumb are we?

Before you decide to vote for the military man and the self-proclaimed hockey mom, ask yourself if you’re doing better than you were eight years ago.

Then consider the facts:

McCain, while once willing to take stands against his own party, has consistently capitulated to the Bush Administration and the religious right in control of the Republican party. That’s how you get to vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Also consider this: Sarah Palin is the “made-for-TV” candidate. She studied broadcast journalism and worked for a time as a sportscaster. So she can read a teleprompter and deliver a script with style. She looks good, and she knows how to make a good impression. But she’s the real “empty suit” in this race. In fact, she has one of the lightest resumes (and a questionable record) ever in a candidate for national office, much like George W.

McCain’s now touting change, and using his VP candidate as a prop for that argument. So I have to ask, “How dumb are we?”

Are we going to fall for that because we’re uncomfortable with the idea of a black man as president, even though his policy will help 98 percent of us economically? Are we going to fall for it because a woman, any woman in the White House is more important than choice for our daughters and ourselves? Are we going to fall for that because we’re still voting on stupid measures like “likeability” and looking “presidential.”

Wake up America! This kind of decision making is what got us eight years of W. Instead of looking at Bush’s abysmal track record as a corporate executive and governor, we let the media focus on his folksy personality (which is largely a lie).

How dumb are we?

For once in your life read something, and look at what economic history tells you about the Democratic record versus the Republican. Turn off the TV and radio; quit listening to vapid sound bites and vote for your real economic interests.

I’ve spent an entire lifetime watching the lower and middle class in this country fall for these stupid campaign tricks. (Am I reliving 1980!?!) And we’re poised to do it again. You have to remember it’s not a candidate’s personality that matters, it’s the policies. Who’s going to provide healthcare, work for an equitable tax system, and rebuild our economy, national security and stature in the world?

Personally, I’m voting for the candidate who thinks I have a brain.

The Story of Willow Tree

On Dec. 27, 2007, we received a phone call from Curt’s mother. Her brother, Harold Kohler, had died suddenly, apparently from a sudden heart attack brought on by shoveling snow in his driveway on the outskirts of Minneapolis.

Upon learning of their grandfather’s death, Harold’s two grandchildren reacted very differently. His 10-year-old grandson, Ben, openly expressed his grief with tears. But his 12-year-old granddaughter, Allison, turned quietly and shut herself in her room. As her mother describes it, she emerged silently about five minutes later bearing the following poem, Willow Tree.

If I could picture you as anything,
I would pick a willow tree.
So graceful, sweet, and kind,
Giving lots of love to me.

Giving shelter to every creature,
That tries to hide from the rain.
So strong, that when you get chopped down,
You feel not any pain.

Just sitting there so peaceful,
Letting the wind carry you around.
Always holding a smile,
and never once a frown.

Your trunk so big, your leaves so small,
Your branches swing left to right.
If you take one look, you will see,
The most beautiful, man in sight.

Upon reading the poem a second time, I began to see this image of the willow tree planted outside Harold’s home. In American folk art traditions, the willow tree was used in memorial paintings and needlework as a symbol of mourning. But to Ally, the willow tree simply represented Grandpa Harry.

Republicans, McCain and the Pottery Barn rule

In 2003 during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, General Colin Powell warned the Bush Administration that military action in Iraq would follow the Pottery Barn rule: “You break it, you buy it.” And so here we are in 2008, bogged down in a quagmire of occupation with the tally of lives lost and dollars spent on this destruction rising hourly.

Similarly, the Republican Party should recognize their responsibility for their current presidential candidate. They may not be overjoyed with John McCain, but he is the product of the morally bankrupt administration they pushed into office in 2000 and 2004 – by any means necessary.

John McCain, once admired for his willingness to buck his party and take unpopular stands on principle, was broken by the Bush Administration, capitulating to their demands in his overarching desire to win the Republican nomination in the future. Now, they own him.

Once against Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, now McCain wants to make them permanent. Once critical of the Iraq War execution, now he argues it’s a success. Once against torture, he quietly caved when the President watered down the legislation banning such practices. On so many issues, McCain has abandoned former thinking to embrace the stances of Bush Neo-con Republicans and their extreme agenda. This is only made more evident with the use of the current Karl Rove campaign tactics and talking points McCain was once the target of himself.

So I say to the Republican Party, “Good luck with McCain. You broke him; now you own him.”

Confluence of events

For the last several months, I have been obsessed with the presidential election and the state of our nation. I am fascinated and appalled at the divergence of threats: our crumbling infrastructure, the mortgage crisis, rising gas prices and unemployment, further political breakdown and violence in Iraq, intra-party sniping among Democrats, eroding consumer confidence, and on and on.

What may appear to be an amazing confluence of events to many only reinforces observations I’ve made for years.

First, as an artist, specifically a drawer, I have been trained to observe -- and to observe relationships between objects so that I can reproduce them realistically. Nothing is ever seen in isolation. So I tend to connect events and actions in relation to other events and actions, as well as on the continuum of history.

Additionally, this observation requires an attempt to view things objectively, with as little emotion as possible. In fact, when you are truly observing and drawing with your right brain, there is a sense of detachment which allows you to analyze without making evaluations.

Similarly, when I observe political and current events, I view them as related. Thus for many years, I have observed that America’s economy, based on consumer spending and wall street stock prices, is a teetering house of cards. One stiff breeze would be enough not only to blow it over, but to scatter the cards in all directions.

So how did we think the War in Iraq was going to affect our economy, especially gas prices? When you attack and destroy the production capacity of one oil-producing nation, not to mention the surrounding oil-rich countries, do you really think gas prices will remain stable?

Also, based on the history of war in America, did we really think we could sustain tax cuts and support a sustained military offensive?

Add to these problems our long history of spiraling medical and drug costs, loss of jobs and spiraling education costs.

Yet as a culture, we compartmentalize these concerns. The presidential candidates and campaigns parcel their positions on individual topics: health care, energy, education, the military, the War in Iraq, etc. But the reality is these issues are a great complicated web.

For example, I want the candidates to discuss the possibility that universal single payer health care (yes, socialized medicine!) could provide a great economic stimulus by encouraging entrepreneurship and small business enterprise, as well as freeing capital for existing companies to retool and grow. I have always been taught small businesses were the best drivers for stimulating growth.

In addition, to battle unemployment as well as rebuild infrastructure, why not develop a new Works Progress Administration for the 21^st century? This could dovetail with a new national service requirement for all youth that would include civic as well as military options.

And as we repair our own country with service and shared sacrifice, we can rebuild our relationship with the rest of the world. Because it is not our freedoms that are hated, it is our foreign policy, especially with regard to the Middle East. As a nation, we must step back and observe our own actions dispassionately from another viewpoint if we are to change things for the better.

Viewed on the continuum of history, I see America where we were a century ago. And it will take a similar pendulum swing in the opposite direction if we are to undo the damage of 40 years of conservative greed. Because in historical terms, that what conservatism represents – individual greed and self-serving motivation over the community good. We Americans need to learn from our own history, not to mention centuries of world history.