Plessner Chronicle Blog

Palin’s performance in St. Louis (where I grew up within a mile of Washington University), was exceptional, given her background and her previous appearances with Katie Couric and others. Those of us who are elitists (this author included) will see her as the completely uninformed small town mayor and small state governor that she is.

But Americans like her — young parents, Evangelicals, urban small business owners, rural people and hourly workers male and female — will see her as one their own and that includes one heck of a lot of voters, by golly!

And it will also diminish the hesitancy of many blue collar voters across the country and especially in the South, who are not eager to vote for a black man for president, a fact of American life that all Americans should be concerned about.

As for her cute dialect of “you betchas” and “by gollies”, Americans should remember that Strom Thurmond and other politicians of the last decade also talked like hicks and no one made fun of them.

Television is not about content, it is about appearances and in her debate performance Sarah Palin appeared smart and eager, two qualities most Americans admire.

Of course she is not qualified to become president and if, God forbid, a President John McCain should die in office, America and the world would be in even greater peril.

Of course she has little knowledge of how Washington works. Of course she is probably uninformed about anything political beyond the South end of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. And of course she has a lot of ideas about global warming and Evolution that most Americans don’t share.

But one heck of a lot of ordinary Americans like a woman with spunk and that is why Democrats ought to take Sarah Palin more seriously.

P.S. And if she gets elected I may move to Alaska, dadgum it!

Except for the fact that I lost my wife to a stroke a year ago, all-in-all life for me and my family is just fine.

But I wonder just how much of that good life we are going to leave to our grandchildren. Will they enjoy the American dream that you and I have been blessed with? Will they be able to go on to college, university or a first-rate technical education program?

Will our grandchildren be able to find good jobs with rewarding wages and a retirement as safe and secure as we have? What kind of life will their children have and will the world even be livable by the time they retire?

All of these thoughts come to mind because of the current political election which has, regrettably, turned from a road show into a soap opera and now into an embarrassment, one way or another, to every American.

You and I, at our age, have one last chance to turn things around for our grandchildren and it has to do with the 2008 presidential election. We know that most people our age are politically conservative with what are called traditional values. We also know that people like you and me have tended to vote Republican since the election of Ronald Reagan. But times have changed — quite drastically — and the Republican Party of today, despite what it’s leaders or candidates tell you, is not the party you joined when you were a “Reagan Democrat” or “Reagan Republican”.

I was a Republican long before that. My great-grandmother Flora, who cared for me when I was a toddler, was a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. Great-grandma Flora lost her husband Hermann to Influenza in 1889. He fought for the Union in the Civil War and they were both members of the original Republican Party, the one that elected Abraham Lincoln!

My grandfather Edward was a Republican patronage employee in St. Louis, Missouri, where I was born, and my mom and dad were both registered Republicans. I actually voted for Barry Goldwater for president and I’ll bet many of you did the same thing!

But things have changed since then and especially the Republican Party.

Republicans have always tended to be fiscal conservatives and small business people, but today’s Republican party is more reckless than Democrats ever were when it comes to money. Just look at the huge debt they are creating day by day!

And Republicans have done everything they can to kill small business. If you don’t believe that just look around your neighborhood for an independent drug store, filling station or grocery market.

Republicans were always more interested in solving domestic problems, but today’s Republican politicians are much more interested in being imperialists, sticking our nose in other country’s affairs and helping international businesses get bigger, ultimately at our citizens’ expense. Have you checked how much more it costs to fill up your automobile when you want to visit your grandchildren? I have!

And worst of all (in my opinion) the Republican Party is being run by a class of professionals who can only be called political criminals. Just look at their lying television commercials, their organization that is run by a majority of Washington lobbyists and the McCain campaign manager who is a registered lobbyist for the nation of Georgia!

In addition, the same neo-conservative operators who got us into an unjustified war on Iraq are John McCain’s best friends and advisors on international and military affairs!

I have believed for some time that American conservatism was on a losing slide to the dustbin of history. After what has happened in recent weeks,I’ve decided that John McCain’s choice of a modestly experienced, small state governor as his vice presidential candidate is the conclusive evidence of conservatism and the Republican Party’s disintegration. I believe the Republican Party — the one that played such a big role in my family’s life — is lost for all time and that is why you and I, while mourning our loss, must vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

For America’s sake and for our grandchildren’s future, I hope you agree.

Sincerely,

Gerald Plessner

The real reason for Russia’s attacks on Georgia is to respond to the Bush administration’s provocative installation of ballistic missiles in Poland, which is right next door to Russia.

The United States says the rockets are a defense against an Iranian attack on Europe but the Russians don’t believe that. They see the missiles as a danger to their own country, upsetting the previous balance of power.

Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis? The United States made Russian Communist ships carrying missiles to Cuba turn around and go home. Every nation has a right to protect itself and bigger nations have a right to a sphere of protection and influence around them. This concept is even included in our Monroe Doctrine which defines our rights and responsibilities in diplomacy and on the high seas.

The fact is that the Bush administration’s initiative to locate anti-ballistic missiles in Poland without considering Russia’s interests was another example of its incompetence and its neo-conservative ideology, which is based upon the belief that America has the right to rule the world as the dominant imperial power of the 21^st century. (I am not making this up!)

The United States began negotiations with Poland at a time when Russia was weak, suffering from an unstable economy and angry that the United States and other European countries broke up the former Yugoslavia to create the predominately Muslim state of Macedonia.

The United States and the other nations disregarded the concerns of Russia, which had a long-standing friendship with the former Yugoslavia.

To presume that Russia would remain weak, or that it might not do something in the future to get even, was also foolish.

But the Russians now have the upper hand with the United States having committed the majority of its military resources in Afghanistan and Iraq, and with the price of oil ravaging our economy.

The Russians are now speaking and acting aggressively to defend their interests and in this situation they are acting fully within their rights.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gerald Plessner is a Southern California businessman who writes regularly on the subjects of politics and culture. He would be pleased to have your comments at gerald@graldplessner.com.

Is that what American marriage and marital bliss have come to? Why has our society created a world in which marrying age adults don’t know how to cultivate and maintain love and passion, who care more about their favorite television show than they do about their mates?

Are American young people being raised in homes where they never learn from the example of parents who love each other and show it in front of their children, either through touching, kissing hello or goodby or by acts of caring and concern?

No wonder our divorce rates are so high!

If you are in the same kind of marriage as those two couples, I have some advice for you. I’m a 73-year old man who recently lost his wife of 48 years. Carole and I were deeply in love as soon as our second date and we remained in love until her last day. And I remain in love with Carole even now.

But our love didn’t remain vibrant, and I mean really vibrant, without conscious work by both of us to keep our partner in love with us.

We never parted without a kiss and we never greeted each other without kissing and holding. (Carole’s smile upon seeing me remains my most treasured memory.)

Nobody believes it but we never had an argument, although she probably won almost all of our “discussions”. And we never, never showed anger or resentment at one another in front of our three children. Never!

You have to work at being in love. Romance doesn’t just happen and it won’t survive on its own energy. If you want to avoid having to force yourselves to “have sex” you need to decide together to “make love” eagerly and often.

Human sexuality is a profoundly wonderful gift, either from God as you may believe or as a result of evolution as others might understand. In either case it is a gift bestowed in such abundance and complexity only in the human specie. Those who deny it or soil it or work to make it seem sinful are fools.

And contrary to what you may think, true love that lasts for years requires attention, response, dedication, tolerance and compromise. Only with an abundance of those will lifelong love and romance survive.

But you still have to work at it.

If you don’t take her hand when she is sitting next to you in the car, in church, in a movie or at home, you are not working at it. And if you don’t return his gesture by squeezing his hand when he takes yours, you’re not working at it.

If you don’t grab or pat some part of her when she brushes by, you are not working at it.

If when in bed reading or watching television and you don’t reach over and touch each other in those special places, then you are not working at it.

If you don’t show your pride in your lover’s achievements and brag about them to others in front of your lover, then you are not working at it.

If you don’t kiss at least once a week with unexpected passion, perhaps ending up behind a closed door, then you are not working at it.

And perhaps finally if you are making love and your partner’s satisfaction isn’t your first concern, then you certainly are not working at it!

If you are reading my commentary for the first time and want to be added to our email list forward this article to gerald@geraldplessner.com .

And if you believe that a McCane presidency will be able to reduce our military commitments around the world or significantly improve our relations with friendly nations you may be in for a whole bunch of disappointments.

A new McCane presidency will be confronted with dozens of neo-conservative war hawks planted in the White House, the Defense and State Departments. They are avid in seeing America increase and extend its imperial footprint around the globe and especially in the oil rich Middle East.

A new administration — McCane or Obama — will not be able to replace those operatives fast enough to completely stop them from advancing the disastrous initiative they created in the Bush administration.

And some of those people, because they are vital to daily operations or because they have powerful benefactors, will inevitably be allowed to stay on to “insure a smooth transition”. Its how the system works.

Then there are the American oil companies and their partners in the Arab world; Dick Cheney and his buddies who want to secure control over Iraq’s oil exports.

The Bush administration’s negotiations to secure 50 permanent American bases in Iraq is intended to secure that source of supply and profits for American companies.

If George W. Bush is able to create a document that our Congress might approve, then he will have established generations-long American imperialism and the neo-conservatives will have achieved their original goal. Then the United States will be burdened with running an imperial empire to support international corporations, and American military men and women will continue to die unnecessarily for generations.

But there’s more. The oil industry will be followed by other corporations eager to keep the war machine alive. John McCane can talk about being a maverick but he is going to need money — lots of money — to finance his campaign. And he will take it gladly from all sorts of corporations that have an interest in providing military supplies, hardware, security services in war zones, along our borders and elsewhere.

There are also the research and development companies at work on new military hardware, much of it untested and outdated even before it is finally designed.

Although many of those programs have bloated budgets, questionable value and poor management, you can be sure that lobbyists and Members of Congress who want Federal money spent in their districts will pressure a McCane administration to show its gratitude to the people who helped finance his campaign.

And when it comes to reducing our troop strength in Iraq or withdrawing entirely, which will never happen in a Republican administration, a President John McCane would be acting against everything his party and he, through his entire adult life, has stood for.

And that ain’t gonna happen!

(You can comment on Gerald Plessner’s comments at his BLOG at geraldplessner.com.)

Of course it helped that I went through college in the same dorm with some of them — veterans of the Korean War, mostly — and a rowdy and randy bunch of characters they were! I was just a kid out of high school and they were men of the world who told great stories and raised a little good-natured Hell!

But as I grew older and formed the political outlook I have today, I realized how profoundly wise the G. I. Bill really was.

Not only did it give deserving ordinary Americans a chance to climb up the ladder to economic success and a better life. It also gave our country a burst of knowledge, intellect, creativity and initiative that led to things like computers, Silicon Valley, the Space Age, today’s quality of life, great new literature and art and just about everything good(and some of it questionable), that the United States has given to the world over the last 50 years!

And it did all that by helping every kind of American, male or female, black, white or brown, urban or rural, rich or poor.

Some of that money was wasted and there was fraud in some education that wasn’t delivered, but overall I still believe that the G. I. Bill was the best social legislation in history!

And that’s probably why George W. Bush(and John McCain) are opposed to it.

They say they are concerned that making a free college education so attractive will cause young people in our military to not re-enlist and that’s probably right.

But that’s like admitting it will discourage young people in the military from aspiring to a better life and that’s wrong!

(If you think I’m being racist or classist just look at the next list of Americans lost in Iraq and count how many come from small towns or count how many Senators or Congressional Representatives have children in the military.)

We must begin to understand one truth about our current national policy and how it impacts upon other issues.

The war on Iraq, and many other military activities are acts of imperialism and imperialistic states need professional rather than citizen militaries. A professional military will, of necessity, require large numbers of younger, less educated, lower class recruits.

Giving those recruits the chance to secure advanced education and move back to civilian life will make it much more difficult to maintain a professional military.

And that’s why you shouldn’t be surprised by the president’s position. I won’t be surprised by conservatives who will agree with him.

But you think they should just get over it? Should my fellow Jewish Americans just get over what Hitler and his German followers did to our people in the Holocaust?

Should Armenian-Americans just get over what the Turks did to their ancestors a century ago?

Should we just not care about the hatred spewed by religious zealots against our young people who might have a life style those bigots detest but that their God or heredity or evolution made our young people who they are?

Isn’t it time to begin to understand and appreciate the histories, cultures and concerns of all American ethnic groups? This country, like no other in human history, has taken in the persecuted, the hated and the dispossessed from around the world and we did this while limiting the horizons of our own African American underclass. Shouldn’t we be concerned about that after more than 225 years of history?

And finally (I hope) should we be angry about the thinly-veiled hate speech spread across the land by people like Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity or Dennis Prager against African Americans, liberals and others as they attack Barack Obama?

Now that most talk show loud-mouths are again comfortable attacking and ridiculing African-Americans, not even bothering to screen their bigotry, should we be angry because they make big money keeping your uncle Henry angry by spreading fear and hatred?

Think about the words of Barak Obama’s pastor, saying “God damned America” for sins he believes we committed against African Americans. Then pause for a moment and reflect on the words of the white Evangelical Pat Robertson, who said that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were caused by God’s anger at America for abortion and our disrespect for Him. Wasn’t Pat Robertson saying that God damned America?  At lleast he seemed to be spreading the idea that God should do so.

Did the radio talking heads or any respected Republican condemn Pat Robertson or Jerry Fallwell who said much the same thing?  Or is there a double standard when it comes to bigotry too?