Lincoln, Shmincoln. Barack Obama announced today his candidacy for President, in a speech outside the Illinois state capitol building (which is perhaps the ugliest capitol in the Nation), because Abraham Lincoln made a famous speech there, hostile to slavery. The introduction to that story said Obama compared himself to 'what many regard as America's greatest President'.
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I have never understood the preposterously extravagant praise for Lincoln, who achieved nothing positive but just barely held the Nation together. For three years he appointed incompetents as top general, and we came extremely close to simply walking away from the Civil War and letting the South go, because democracies have very little patience, and cannot fite long wars. Lincoln's reputation rests on a surprisingly flimsy basis, little more than the Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation (a profoundly inadequate document that has been ritely criticized by multitudinous observers), and his unrealized hopes for national reconciliation:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

— March 4, 1865 - Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

One month and 11 days after that call for reconciliation, Lincoln was dead, murdered by an unreconciled Southern scumbag.
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As almost happened with the (first) Civil War, the Nation ran out of patience with our second Civil War, "Reconstruction", and let the slime of the Confederacy drive out the Union soldiers and restore de facto slavery and intimidation of blacks in the form of the Ku Klux Klan and state-mandated racial segregation and injustice.
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I defy anyone to explain to me why Abraham Lincoln is our greatest President.
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No, our greatest President (to date) is George Washington. Almost everything he did lasted long beyond his death, from the very creation of the Nation to the tradition of the President's serving no more than two terms (violated only once, and then made into law by Constitutional amendment). Only since World War II have we thrown to the winds his caution about "entangling alliances", and we are not better off for that.
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My city, Newark, NJ, has a distinguished statue of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mount Rushmore, outside the Old Essex County Courthouse, which in turn is by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the United States Supreme Court building and Woolworth Building.

But we also have a distinguished statue of Washington, by Scottish-American sculptor J. Massey Rhind, who is represented in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall. (Fotos are my own.)

Both Lincoln and Washington spent time in Newark. I'm prouder of the Washington connection.
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All that aside, I suppose Barack Obama could have done worse in choosing a site for his long-expected and thus anticlimactic announcement for the Presidency. He compared himself to Lincoln, which is perhaps a bit proud, not to say "arrogant". His being black (well, half-black to be more precise) and speaking freely at the site of a speech by the Great Emancipator probably played well with the "African-American" portion of the electorate. Of course, Obama is genuinely "African-American", since his father really was from Africa. The great preponderance of black Americans have no real connection of any kind with Africa, and wouldn't in a million years even dream of moving there.
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They might not have had as much choice as they'd like had Lincoln lived, because he was no friend of the black wo/man. He did not believe blacks the social or intellectual equal of whites, and favored repatriation of blacks, back to Africa. Not that we could know, even then, where exactly in Africa to send them — just as long as they didn't stay here!
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My neighbor across the street is from Liberia, a country established by American freedmen who did want to 'go back' to Africa, even tho they might not actually have been born there. As you can see from my neighbor's present home, some Liberians didn't want to be in Africa. Would Lincoln have smiled upon the return of freed slaves who went to Africa but didn't like it? Fortunately for Lincoln's reputation, we don't have to ask such questions, because Lincoln was killed on what is now Tax Day, 1865, long before he would, in his second term, have had to deal with what exactly to do with all those blacks he (pretended to) emancipate. (The Emancipation Proclamation actually freed no one, because it applied only to the states temporarily joined in the Confederacy, over which the Union had no actual power. In the states where the Feds did have power, Lincoln freed no one.)
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Never mind that none of Obama's ancestors came here in chains. Barack's father was a student from Kenya, who came to this 'land of racism' of his own free will to study, got married, had a child, got divorced, then returned to Africa, never to see his son again.
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One must wonder about the political savvy of a perceived-black politician who will almost certainly need Southern votes to become President, in comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln, a man despised by much of the South to this day. The South may be happy to take the Presidency from faithful Americans term after term, and to dominate the U.S. Congress, but that doesn't keep the South from cherishing the treason of their ancestors and proudly displaying the Confederate battle flag everywhere they are not stopped from showing it.
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Perhaps Obama believes in that fantasm, the "New South". Yeah, right. There's a New South. Of course, it looks pretty much identical to the Old South. In 20 years or so, once migrants from Latin America have taken citizenship and start to vote in large numbers, there may well be a New South. Not today. And not in November 2008. So where are enuf votes to come from to elect a Northern black man? Darned if I know.
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Is Obama's candidacy to be taken as a serious attempt to win the White House, or as an educational experience, a historic first to make way for some future successful black candidate? Does Obama see himself as succeeding, as actually becoming President? Or does he see himself as the Rosa Parks of Presidential politics, someone breaking a barrier (nomination by a major party), not as the actual winner of the ensuing contest? I don't know. Does he?
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Plutocratic Obscenity. Fifteen members of the superrich committed an unprecedented crime against decency today, when they paid $30,000 — each — for a single meal. Some of the diners had trouble finishing the 10-course meal. Did they get a doggy bag?
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As ABC News tells it:

Deepak Ohri, ... one of the event's organizers[,] admitted $30,000 is a lot to pay for a meal.

"When we look at only dinner, yes, it is expensive," he told the AP. "But when you look at the whole experience, it's the experience of a lifetime."

That should have been the last thing that monster ever said. His throat should have been slit, and every organ that might be needed by decent people should have been chopped out of his still-warm corpse. But there is no justice, so he and the 15 vile hogs who spent $30,000 on a single meal will not be punished in any way for their monstrous gluttony. Oh, they knew that what they did was wrong:

Organizers told the Guardian the guests included executives from Fortune 500 companies, a casino owner from Macau and a Taiwanese hotel owner, but their identities were kept secret.

You don't keep secret something you're proud of, or even willing to admit to. You keep secret something bad, and this was extremely bad indeed.
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Let's put this in context. The CIA World Factbook reports that the per capita income of Thailand, where this obscene gorging occurred, is $9,100 per year. That's rite: the average Thai makes, in a full year, 1/3 of what those plutocratic beasts paid for a single meal. 1/3.
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It gets worse. Compare the plite of people in the world's 50 poorest countries:

In the second half of the 1990s the average per capita income in the world's poorest countries, when measured in terms of current prices and official exchange rates, was $0.72 a day and the average per capita consumption was $0.57 a day. This implies that on average there was only $0.15 a day per person to spend on private capital formation, public investment in infrastructure, and the running of vital public services, including health, education, administration, and law and order.

In 2001, 34% of the population aged between 15 and 24 was illiterate in the poorest countries.

About 60% of the poorest countries experienced civil conflict of varying intensity and duration in the period 1990–2001 that, in most cases, erupted after a period of economic stagnation and regression. In Rwanda, for example, average private consumption per capita fell by more than 12% between 1980 and 1993, the year before the genocide occurred.

The per capita income of the world's poorest country, strife-afflicted Afghanistan, is $800 per year. $450,000 (the total expenditure in one day for one meal by 15 paying diners) is the equivalent of the entire annual income of 562 Afghanis. The per capita income of the Central African Republic, which is only the 10th poorest according to Infoplease.com, is $1,100. The $450,000 spent on one meal by the superrich equates with an entire year's income for 409 people in the C.A.R.
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It gets worse.
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In this day and age, there are still huge numbers of people dying from acute (short-term) starvation and chronic malnutrition. Figures as to starvation — to death — on planet Earth today vary widely, from 16,000 a day to around 40,000 a day. Periodically we hear of one hotspot or another, be it Ethiopia or Darfur, where the figures are elevated, but, day after day, malnutrition takes a steady, unbelievable toll of millions, around 15 million a year, mostly kids.
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(You can do a little something about this. Regular readers of this blog will have seen mention of The Hunger Site, a website at which a visitor can click on a button, free, and a corporation will make a small contribution to feed the poor in the Third World. To date, that website has donated more than half a BILLION cups of staple grain to people in need. I make it part of my computer routine to go to The Hunger Site and its associated click-to-donate (free) websites every day, and hope you do too.)
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15 evil slobs spent a total of $450,000 — plus tax and tip — on one meal. What else might they have done with that much food money?
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The organization "World Vision" asks people to sponsor a child for $30 a month or a family for $40 a month. Sponsorship helps with much more than food. $30 a month works out to $360 a year. Thus, the $450,000 that 15 monstrous slobs spent on one meal could feed 1,250 children for a year. In similar fashion, "Save the Children" says that $28 a month ($336 a year) can not just feed a child in the Third World but also help with other needs. So with $450,000 Save the Children could take care of 1,339 kids for an entire year. "Feed the Children" says it can feed a child for a month for $8 ($96 a year). So, $450,000 could keep 4,687 kids alive for a year.
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There are multitudinous other charities active in every country that could make very good use of the $450,000 wasted on today's Bangkok obscenity.
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Marie Antoinette was beheaded for supposedly remarking casually, when the poor had no bread, "Let them eat cake." In 1793, there was no organ transplant technology available to give the poor some tangible and ongoing benefit from her death. We have such medical technology now.
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An updated version of Marie Antoinette's comment, using the menu for Bangkok's paean to obscene ostentation and gluttony, would be:

[Let them eat] Crème brulée of foie gras with Tonga beans ... tartar of Kobe beef with Imperial Beluga caviar and Belons oyster ... Mousseline of pattes rouges crayfish with morel mushroom infusion ... Tarte Fine with scallops and black truffle ... Lobster Osso Buco ... Ravioli with guinea fowl and burrata cheese, veal reduction ... Saddle of lamb "Léonel" ... Sorbet "Dom Pérignon" ... Supreme of pigeon en croute with cèpes mushroom sauce and cipollotti ... Veal cheeks with Périgord truffles ... [and] Imperial gingerbread pyramid with caramel and salted butter ice-cream[.]

Kill the rich, and chop them up for parts.
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,121 — for Israel.)



- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:26 PM