Political debates are an excersise of vapid talking points, quips and body language. Substance is irrelevant. Candidates are programmed to hold the attention span of people that watch American Idol and read tabloids while sitting on the toilet. Yet even these over scripted, dumbed down, brain massaged events have revealing moments.

Yesterday, like most political bloggers, I posted my analysis of the Biden-Palin debate and referenced Palin's most memorable sound-bite:

Change is passé. Barack Obama squeezed all the juice out of the change orange since announcing his candidacy in February 2007. Personally, I never thought much of the "change you can believe in" slogan but there is no denying Obama went far with it.

However, Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's running mate has convinced the public change is coming no matter who wins. Even worse, the very same corporate media that complained Obama only offered "words" compared to Hillary Clinton's policy specifics during the primary season now argue that McCain's lack of specifics does not diminish his stature as a maverick. Is that fair? Of course not! But there is no sense whining about it. These are the cards we've been dealt.

So how do we change the narrative? The solution is to present the voting public with a stark choice: progress or calamity. Change vs. more of the same is stale and no longer resonates.

Sarah Palin has enabled John McCain to revive the culture war as we argue over who is the real elitist, sexist or patriot. We've seen these sorts of smokescreens from Republicans before. They're diabolically brilliant at distracting voters with visceral appeals to the politics of cultural resentment while exploiting America's dark underbelly of racism and xenophobia. McCain/Palin even have the chutzpah to campaign as patriotic change agents eager to fight on behalf of regular folks while promoting polices that amount to class warfare against wage earners and small business entrepreneurs.

How easy to get caught up in Sarah Palin's polarizing celebrity and lose sight of the real issues at stake. That's exactly what the GOP wants. I too have been consumed by the Palin phenomenon in recent days and the GOP's toxic convention. Well it's time to get back to basics. Obama did a good job of that yesterday with respect to the new unemployment figures. I'd like to take a moment and focus attention on another vitally important issue that's easily overtaken by cultural politics: infrastructure.

David Iglesias is the prototype twenty first century Republican: charismatic, Hispanic, an evangelical Christian and a captain in the Navy Reserve who served for many years in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps ("JAG"). In  1998, Iglesias campaigned to become Attorney General of New Mexico against the heavily favored Patricia Madrid. He nearly pulled off an upset and the Republican Party took notice. In 2000, Iglesias paid his party dues and worked for George W. Bush's election.

Shari'a is a code of law based on the Koran. In the Muslim world, many want to replace corrupt autocratic regimes with the Shari'a and establish traditional Islamic states. Western countries regard the Shari'a as a threat. Islamic parties are winning elections on it. Militants have used the Shari'a to justify acts of terrorism. Meanwhile, secular minded people find their most severe provisions repugnant.

In his latest book, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press), Noah Feldman tells the story behind the populist movement in the Muslim world to establish the Shari'a. Feldman addresses questions about why the Shari'a is popular in spite of its harsh code and whether the Islamic state can succeed.

An old cliché is that we can judge people by the company they keep. McCain's camp has vigorously tried to scare people about Obama's associations. Well, if you're a hard working wage earner consider John McCain's friend Phil Gramm. In 1996, John McCain endorsed former Texas Senator Phil Gramm's quest for the presidency. As a Senator, Gramm was the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and worked hard to promote the interests of banks and credit card companies at the expense of wage earners and small business entrepreneurs.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal and cross-posted at Progressive Historians, the Wild Wild Left, The Peace Tree, the Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

The centrifugal force in American politics today is the establishment's failure to deliver prosperity and security. In 2006, Americans voted for a change of direction in Iraq and economic policies at home. Instead, President Bush's "surge" in Iraq was enabled by a feckless congress as fuel prices soared, the cost of healthcare kept spiraling out of control and corporate CEOs continued to enjoy the benefits of a twenty-first century Gilded Age. Senseless privatization, predatory crony capitalism, political corruption, incompetence and corporate greed have combined to put the American Dream out of reach for people who work hard and play by the rules.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as Wild, Wild Left, the Peace Tree, Independent Bloggers Alliance, Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus and Worldwide Sawdust.

The corporate media, blogs and our individual attention spans are understandably consumed by the celebrity hype of presidential politics these days. Mothers Day however offers an opportunity for all of us to reflect on our society and individual families.

Women have made remarkable gains the past forty years. Indeed when Billy Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs in their famous 1973 tennis match, women were typically denied credit cards simply for being women. Today women are CEOs, television news anchors and Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House.

As many of you know by now, The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Senator Clinton slammed the activist organization Moveon.org at a fundraiser in February:

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal on April 6th and x-posted today at The Wild, Wild Left, The Peace Tree,The Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

How many economists have you read or watched on television in recent years that claimed the economy was performing well while you struggled to make ends meat and keep up with the cost of living? Indeed, until recently a happy talk virus had infected a cabal of conservative plutocrats who preached the virtues of limited regulation, market forces and free trade as wages declined and predatory lenders had a party. It seemed we were hearing conservative politicians and their mouthpieces at the Heritage Foundation or Fox news refer to the economy as "the greatest story never told" at every opportunity.

Now that the housing and credit crisis has metastasized, conservative apparatchiks are fighting to minimize government intervention on behalf of regular folks while preserving corporate welfare. They accuse anyone who raises a fuss of waging class warfare. Instead these agents of the status quo prefer we erroneously obsess about Social Security going bust and agree to privatize it for Wall Street's benefit.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as The Wild Wild Left, The Peace Tree, Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

Effective change agents and activists must blend their cognitive skills and passions with deep reservoirs of inner strength. It's a life path requiring self-sacrifice, discipline, a tough hide combined with empathy, idealism joined with pragmatism, a willingness to put ego aside, resiliency and a perspective beyond the moment of immediate conflict.

Alas, many of us dedicated to pursuing the cause of peace, justice and economic fairness are demoralized by setbacks and criticisms overtime. Personal lives are also easily consumed by the flames of devotion to causes larger than ourselves, such as reversing global warming or stopping genocide. It's so easy to lose our balance as we stand apart from professional colleagues, friends and relatives who don't share our passions or devotion to change the world for the better.

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal as well as The Wild Wild Left, the Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

Most Americans are eager to turn the page on the Bush years. Yet even as we elect a new president we're still coming to terms with an era that has both tarnished America's reputation and diminished its influence.

Fred Kaplan chronicles the folly of the Bush years in his new book, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power (John Wiley & Sons).

Kaplan writes that,

"Nearly all of America's blunders in war and peace these past few years stem from a single grand misconception: that the world changed after 9/11, when in fact it didn't.

Certainly, things about the world changed, not least Americans' sudden awareness that they were vulnerable. But the way the world works - the nature of power, warfare, and politics among nations - remained essentially the same."

The topic below was originally posted February 14th, on my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal and crossposted today at The Wild Wild Left, Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

American politics typically reflects our cultural ethos of the moment. Just consider these questions:

1. Has our culture promoted community or celebrated greed?
   
   
2. Is our foreign policy based upon cooperation with the community of nations or the imperatives of empire?
   
   
3. Can individuals live in dignity regardless of their profession, economic class, ethnicity, gender, religion and sexual orientation or is gentrified wealth valued above character?
   

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal, as well as the Wild Wild Left, the Peace Tree, Independent Bloggers Alliance and Worldwide Sawdust.

Since returning from work today my inbox has been flooded with people either venting about Edwards dropping out, praising his campaign or wondering what if anything I have to say. Viscerally, I'm despondent about his leaving. Even if Edwards wasn't likely to prevail he set the pace on the issues debate. Edwards was far ahead of candidates in both parties on healthcare, poverty, the plight of the working poor, the phony global war on terror and global warming.

John Edwards is a champion of progressive values. Only a progressive mandate can facilitate the massive modernization our infrastructure needs, implement an exponential upgrade of public education to ensure the future, nurture a commitment to research and development for cleaner energy, reorient the economy so it values work over gentrified wealth, empower unions so wage earners will have more leverage, reform a justice system that supports a prison industrial complex by disproportionately incarcerating young black men and challenge America's empire culture so we're no longer at odds with the civilized world.