Obama, The Pro-Life Choice

I was challenged by a friend and avid reader of The Garment File to convince her why a pro-life voter should vote for Barack Obama.

I will admit that, while I am a supporter of Obama, I had some initial doubts about my ability to defend his pro-choice voting record to a conservative pro-life voter. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it's not such a difficult proposition.

There are a few reasons that pro-life organizations always support republican candidates. The obvious answer is that republicans purport to be advocates for the pro-life movement. Another reason that matters more for this race than others is that a few supreme court positions may become vacant in the coming years. Since the only legitimate way to ban abortions is to overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-life activists consider the nomination of pro-life justices paramount to their cause.

While John McCain has almost a 100% pro-life voting record, and will most certainly continue that trend as president, he is NOT the best candidate for reducing and/or stopping abortions in America. It is my contention that Barack Obama, while a staunch pro-choice candidate, will actually do more to reduce abortions than John McCain.

Let's consider a few things:

• When choosing a candidate based on his perceived value of life, one must take into account many more factors than abortion alone. John McCain is a clear supporter of war. He has made his support for the war in Iraq VERY clear. A support for life, to me, does not mesh with supporting a war that has no benefits whatsoever. I can understand supporting a war that benefits somebody, but that fact is, our soldiers are dying in Iraq for absolutely no reason other than the fact that we decided to try to police the middle east.
• After voting for George W. Bush and electing a republican congress, based on their supposed advocacy for the pro-life movement, pro-life voters have nothing to show for it. Bush fought for the conservative pro-life vote, but did nothing to prevent or reduce abortions. In fact, I would argue that due to his support of abstinence-only sex education, there are now more accidental pregnancies, which translate to more abortions. To deny our students the ability to learn how to prevent pregnancies is to encourage abortion. Republicans purport to be actively pro-life, but they just want your vote.
  

Now, let's consider the benefits that Obama, despite being pro-choice, offers to the pro-life movement.

It's generally agreed that no matter the legality of abortion, it will continue.

I believe that the some valuable ways to reduce the amount of abortions are as follows:

• Make the world and the country a more desirable place to raise a child.
• Make birth control and prenatal care affordable.
• Encourage responsibility and good parenting.
  

When a woman gets pregnant in today's political and economic climate, she has to consider the benefit to her child of bringing him or her into a country in terrible economic shape, in the middle of a pointless war, and a less than optimal standing on the global stage. She would, most likely, have poor health insurance, or none at all. All of these factors make abortion the logical choice for many women.

Barack Obama promises to change not only the politics of America, but the climate of hospitality and community in America. He has said many times that investing in not only ourselves, but our neighbors and communities, is the best way to return America to our old standard of living. He has said time and time again that our fellow citizens' problems should be ours as well.

When the burdens of your fellow American become your own, a real climate of change for a better society begins. When having a child is viewed as a blessing, and not a curse, abortion becomes more of a last-resort option. When you know that you can provide that child with adequate health care, a real opportunity at financial success, and the opportunity to live in a peaceful world, abortion becomes the illogical choice.

The bottom line is, when considering abortion, one must consider the most effective way of reducing it. Since making it illegal will only serve to criminalize something that will still happen, the only logical choice is to take a preemptive stance to try and remove the willingness to have an abortion.

I truly believe that by making America a more desirable place to raise a child, abortions will decline. I also truly believe that Barack Obama is the only candidate who is taking a proactive stance on reforming not only the economy and our reputation, but the way that we, as a society, treat each other. Let's face it, McCain offers politics as usual. His presidency will most likely be as ineffective as Bush's has been. Since voting republican has done nothing to improve abortion rates, how can voting democrat hurt? It's not like democrats will pass laws that encourage abortion. The legality of abortion will stay the same no matter who is elected. It is simply a matter of choosing a candidate that can change the externalities that influence a woman's decision to have an abortion.

How did I do? Leave a comment and let me know.

Hillary "Huckabee" Clinton

Finally. The Pennsylvania primaries are over. No more bitter-gate. No more Charlie Gibson. No more Hillary. Wait a minute, you mean she's still in the race?

Is anybody really buying her claim that she can win this nomination? Is anyone buying her claim that she can win the general election?

I realize that the media is loving this drawn out race, but let's face it, Hillary Clinton just can't win the nomination. She netted a whopping ten delegates out of the largest remaining state. Of course her campaign is calling this the momentum-generator that her candidacy so desperately needed. However, the math for Hillary is just impossible. With a 130+ delegate deficit, at this point she would need to take at least 20 delegates in each of the remaining states, which is just not possible.

As of today, I have decided to dub her Hillary "Huckabee" Clinton. Just like Mike Huckabee, she is staying in the race when it is just NOT winnable. Unfortunately, because of the superdelegates, her defeat, while an eventuality, is not a foregone conclusion.

Just like with Huckabee, the pundits and newscasters are all trying to come up with all of these ridiculous scenarios in which she could pick up enough delegates to secure the nomination.

"Now if every black person in North Carolina doesn't vote, AND Barack Obama punches an old lady, AND if every Hillary supporter gets two votes..."

However, no matter what the scenario, her chances rely solely on the superdelegates flipping to her.

In what world does she live in that she thinks that the superdelegates will somehow vote against the popular vote? In which situation does she think that it's ok for the democratic party to go against the wishes of its electorate by nominating her? Race after race proves that, while she has some appeal to a lot of voters, the general population prefers Barack Obama.

It is now absolutely clear to me that Hillary does not have our country's best interests at heart. All she is succeeding in doing is tearing down Obama's reputation. And to what end? She can't win the nomination. So, in essence, she's doing John McCain's work for him. She's painting the eventual democratic nominee as an inferior candidate.

If Hillary Clinton really cared for her country, she would bow out and go on the stump as an Obama surrogate. If she really wanted the working-class people to succeed, she would make sure that, her own aspirations aside, a democrat takes office in 2009, which becomes a more daunting task as she plays dirtier and dirtier. It's time to stop being selfish and start thinking about the good of the party.

Will this happen? Will Hillary finally quit? My prediction: No way.

Hillary is hell-bent on becoming the first woman president. She is as determined, stubborn, and delusional as Mike Huckabee was earlier in the primary season. Hillary will fight and fight and make ridiculous claims about "electability." She will hang on way past any conceivable "comeback" is possible, and will insist on having a brokered convention. This should be a sign to her supporters that she truly is merely another Clinton. She is a professional politician. She does not care about her country or her party, she is concerned with winning, and winning only.

Support the one candidate who isn't bought and paid for. Support the candidate that the voters actually want. Support Senator Barack Obama.

http://www.barackobama.com

Bittersweet Symphony

Well, it's that time again. Time to regale you with more of my ill-informed and hastily drawn conclusions.

The news story this week, as I heard it:

"Barack Obama, Illinois' elitist and condescending junior senator, has spewed utter hatred towards Pennsylvanians by calling them gun-toting, simple-minded people who are nothing but bitter. He will surely never live down this egregious statement and will be mocked for centuries to come."

Am I exaggerating? Maybe just a tad, but the point is, can we really blow up two badly worded sentences THIS MUCH and still hold peoples' attentions? I think Obama put it best when he said that we're getting into "silly season" of this election.

I mean, really, can we stop taking portions of quotes from the original context and repeating one word over and over?

I don't think that anyone would argue with MY version of the statement:

When people are completely frustrated with their inability to lead successful lives because of complicit governments, they often find comforts in the rights that they still have.

There. I said the exact same thing.

"But Mr. Garment, you didn't call them bitter, and you didn't say scary words like 'cling,' how do you explain that?"

Clearly I need to clarify:

Let's look at the original text of the quote.

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Ok, I'm willing to admit that the wording is a little awkward. The word "cling" is really what made the whole statement sound judgmental. But, look at the actual substance, and try to put yourself in the frame of mind of someone who lives in a small town that's on the verge of insolvency.

It's pretty obvious to me that when peoples' morale is in the dumps, they try to find joy in the simple things that they can still appreciate. When candidates are running for office and people feel like no previous candidate has helped them at all, they focus on the remaining issues that they want to protect. To summarize, if you think that no candidate can save the economy, you might as well start focusing more and more on the other issues that are important to you.

Senator Obama was only trying to make the point to his donors that people who have lost their jobs and livelihoods due to poor management of the economy are jaded by the system of American government. Of course if you lose your manufacturing job in the northeast, you're going to blame NAFTA or illegal aliens, it only makes sense.

If I was an avid gun-owner and I believed that my government had forgotten about me, and that neither candidate could really improve my economic situation, I would probably take what I believed to be the lesser of two evils and vote republican, as they have traditionally supported gun-rights more than the democrats.

Again, if I was a deeply religious man, and thought that the government would be completely ineffective in doing anything to help my town, I would vote for the party that has been more traditionally conservative.

Let us now look at the intention of the quote:

What Obama was trying to say was that the real challenge is to convince people that, while Obama may have a few conflicting ideas, he is the only candidate who promises to try and improve their lot in life. Would you still hate the idea of free-trade agreements if they helped you and your community? Of course not. Would you vote against a candidate who could help stimulate the economy simply because he opposes assault weapons? I would hope not. (Do we really need assault weapons anyway? But I digress...)

It's ridiculous that we should pick apart and repeat the word "bitter" over and over like it's some curse word. If you lived in a town that had been literally almost bankrupted because of multiple free-trade at any cost administrations, bitter would be the gentlest way of putting it. There are far more offensive words that I would use to explain my disenchantment with my government.

Hillary has really latched on to this one word. She's passing out bumper stickers that say "I'm not bitter." Guess what Hillary, a lot of America IS bitter. We're bitter because your husband's administration rushed NAFTA through without making any provisions to keep it fair. We're bitter because the Bush administration has wasted money that could have been used to stimulate our economy on a stupid war with no point, and no end in sight. We're bitter because people like you have changed politics from government for the people, by the people, to government to the richest and most elite. When you make $109 million in 7 years, you have no right to call ANYONE elitist.

End of rant.

Just Another Rant

My apologies for the lack of posts recently, I have been in the middle of moving the Garment File corporate headquarters to a more secure and lavishly posh location. I've also been a little uninspired as to what topic to cover. In lieu of something creative and exciting, I decided to cover a topic that nearly everyone has been covering recently.

We have all seen the pro-Tibet, anti-China protests as of late. While a lot of people, myself included, do not know enough about the Tibet/China conflict to take a definitive side, I would like to offer alternate reasons that we should condemn the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

I recently got done reading a book called "China Shakes the World" by James Kynge. It details China's rise to power as a manufacturing giant in the world. It also details the perilous future that China faces as a country and as a player on the global stage. While a lot of what he said was common sense, he shed some light on some things that I didn't realize. To summarize, China consumes natural resources and pollutes at a greater rate than any other country in the world, while its laws allow even more subsidized pollution by ignoring international laws regarding imports of things like stolen scrap metal and illegally-harvested lumber.

While the magnitude of disregard that China has for the international community is alarming and upsetting, China's blatant disregard for basic human rights is even more appalling.

While it is true that China is still officially a communist state, China has migrated more and more towards capitalism every day. This move towards capitalism is what has allowed China's quick rise to power in the manufacturing and industrial sectors. While China still calls itself a "People's Republic," the days of true communism in China are long gone. Instead of government controlled agriculture and manufacturing, China's government has allowed more and more private enterprise. While this may seem like a move toward a progressive nation headed for democracy, it is instead just another symptom of a communist-controlled state.

When Deng Xiaoping started his financial reforms that allowed Chinese people to actually turn profits on surplus agriculture, it seemed to be the first step towards a completely free-trade based society. The problem was (and is) that nearly every aspect of private enterprise is still controlled by the Communist Party. Sure, you can get a small business loan, but the loan will be from a State-run bank. Sure, you can exist as an entrepreneur in a province, but that person who is in charge of your province answers directly to a hierarchy of Communist Party leaders.

As a result of expanded capitalistic opportunities, the government in China now has more control than ever. These powers, as a necessity of complete control, have evolved past just a national control of economics and politics, but have graduated into the absolute trouncing of almost all basic human rights.

Even some of the economic policies hurt the common man in China. As the government constantly manipulates the currency to keep it artificially undervalued, it keeps wages so low that a majority of the common people live in poverty. The government does this by subsidizing power and water costs to keep the perceived value of the Renminbi (China's currency) low. It works like this. If your power bill is $100 a month, making $400 a month seems pretty outrageous. If you had to pay those rates, you would demand higher wages. You would realize that you were not making nearly enough. What China's government does is eat a portion of the costs of the power bill, so that the customer only sees a $20 bill, making that $400 seem that much more of a paycheck. This allows China to stay on top of production by keeping wages lower than almost anywhere in the world.


This might seem like a pretty strong example of China's willingness to step on its people's rights, but it's merely the beginning. Since China entered the World Trade Organization it has been continually ranked in the top ten offenders of human rights worldwide.

While the Lou Dobbs's of the world will tell you that we should boycott China and Chinese products because of their subversive business practices that are "stealing American jobs," I would argue that the need to boycott the Olympics should be based solely on China's atrocious record of human rights violations.


Currently, China and its government:

• Rank 7th in executions per capita worldwide
• Ban words like "democracy" from online chat rooms
• Sentenced a man to 3.5 years in prison for writing essays about human rights
• Run almost all news outlets
• Filter all internet content that refers to human rights or anti-China rhetoric
• Limits membership of high-ranking offices to atheists
• Regularly turns a blind eye to forced abortions because of its benefit to the "One-Child Policy"
• "Misplaces" international mail that may not be pro-China
  
• Have ignored restrictions put on trade with genocidal Sudanese
  

Since the Olympics are meant to be a sign of friendship between the nations of the world, our support and participation in the Olympics signify our "friendship" with China. It seems to me that no country would support Hitler-run Germany's hosting of the Olympics. When the host city of the Olympics is based in a country that is, without any question, one of the worst offenders of human rights in the history of the world, it should be up to civilized countries like the U.S. to take a stand. It should be up to us to to tell the rest of the world that we don't support countries that don't embody the same freedoms that most of the world agrees should be universal. While I'm not advocating our intervention in foreign countries, I am advocating at least making an effort to not associate ourselves with them.

It is even more ironic that the theme of the Olympics is "One World, One Dream". Apparently this singular dream does not include the dream of fair wages, a clean environment, or the right to free speech.

I realize that this post is really scattered and "wandering". There is just so much information about China's history of injustices towards its people that it is hard to reduce it into a short summary.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment!