Senator Barack Obama worked for three years as a community organizer on Chicago’s blighted South Side, so he knows all about the real poverty that exists in the US. He knows that in one of the world’s richest nations, 37 million people live in poverty, a far higher proportion than in Europe’s wealthy nations. Yet Obama’s campaigning has focused on “Main Street” and tax cuts for the middle class, bypassing the issue of what to do about poverty.
It’s not as if Obama has no policies for helping the poor. Go to his Web site, click on “The Issues” and then on “Poverty.” There you will find a set of thoughtful proposals ranging from raising the minimum wage to establishing model “Promise Neighborhoods” that will attempt to turn around areas with high levels of poverty and low levels of educational achievement by providing services such as early childhood education and crime prevention. Go to Senator John McCain’s Web site, and you won’t even find “poverty” among the list of issues to click on — although “Space Program” is there.
So why isn’t Obama speaking up about an issue on which he has so much more first-hand experience than his opponent, and better policies, too? Perhaps not enough of the poor vote, or they will vote Democratic anyway. Moreover, his researchers presumably have told him that independent middle-class voters are more likely to be won over by appeals to their wallets than to concern for the US’ poor.
If the US’ poor don’t rank high among voters’ concerns, it is no surprise that the poor abroad are virtually invisible. Again, Obama has both the background — with his family ties to Kenya — and a promising policy, to increase the US’ foreign assistance to US$50 billion by 2012, using the money to stabilize failing states and bring sustainable growth to Africa.
Currently, of all the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development donor nations, only Greece gives a lower percentage of its gross national income than the US does.
But when Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, was asked in his debate with his Republican counterpart, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, what proposals an Obama-Biden administration might have to scale back as a result of the US$700 billion Wall Street bailout, the only specific proposal he mentioned was the increase in foreign assistance. McCain has never gotten down to specifics about how much foreign aid he would like the US to give.
Both candidates refer to deaths of US military personnel in Iraq, but there has been less attention to the war’s civilian causalities.
In her debate with Biden, Palin actually attacked Obama for saying that, in her words, “All we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians.”
She called that comment “reckless” and “untrue,” because, “That’s not what we’re doing there. We’re fighting terrorists, and we’re securing democracy.”
Of course, killing civilians is not all that the US and its NATO allies are doing in Afghanistan, and if Obama implied that it was, his rhetoric was careless. But what is extraordinary about Palin’s comment is that, despite being a strong proponent of the sanctity of human life, in criticizing Obama she did not pause to deplore the serious loss of innocent human life that US air strikes in Afghanistan have caused.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly expressed outrage at US air strikes that have killed civilians — most recently in August, when he said that 95 Afghans, including 50 children, were killed in the bombing of a village.
The global ethical challenge that has been most prominent in the campaign is climate change. Here, the candidates’ goals are virtually identical: they both support a cap-and-trade system to make deep cuts in US greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. Obama wants the goal to be an 80 percent reduction and McCain says 66 percent, but, since the next president will leave office no later than 2016, that difference is irrelevant.
Interestingly, one ethical issue on which neither candidate has campaigned has been shown to have the potential to move voters. A group called Defenders of Wildlife has been running an ad graphically highlighting Palin’s support for shooting wolves from aircraft. A study of Republicans, Democrats and independents showed that viewing the ad led to greater support for Obama.
According to Glenn Kessler, the head of HCD research, which conducted the study with the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, whereas recent ads from both parties have had little impact among voters, “This is the first ad in over a month that seems to have broken through.”
Consistent with that finding, an historic ballot initiative in California to ban cruel forms of animal confinement on factory farms, including the battery cage system of keeping hens, is also showing strong support.
Peter Singer is professor of bioethics at Princeton University and author of several books.
COPYRIGHT: PROJECT SYNDICATE
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
When Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) first suggested a mass recall of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators, the Taipei Times called the idea “not only absurd, but also deeply undemocratic” (“Lai’s speech and legislative chaos,” Jan. 6, page 8). In a subsequent editorial (“Recall chaos plays into KMT hands,” Jan. 9, page 8), the paper wrote that his suggestion was not a solution, and that if it failed, it would exacerbate the enmity between the parties and lead to a cascade of revenge recalls. The danger came from having the DPP orchestrate a mass recall. As it transpired,
Sitting in their homes typing on their keyboards and posting on Facebook things like, “Taiwan has already lost its democracy,” “The Democratic Progressive Party is a party of green communists,” or “President William Lai [賴清德] is a dictator,” then turning around and heading to the convenience store to buy a tea egg and an iced Americano, casually chatting in a Line group about which news broadcast was more biased this morning — are such people truly clear about the kind of society in which they are living? This is not meant to be sarcasm or criticism, but an exhausted honesty.
Much has been said about the significance of the recall vote, but here is what must be said clearly and without euphemism: This vote is not just about legislative misconduct. It is about defending Taiwan’s sovereignty against a “united front” campaign that has crept into the heart of our legislature. Taiwanese voters on Jan. 13 last year made a complex decision. Many supported William Lai (賴清德) for president to keep Taiwan strong on the world stage. At the same time, some hoped that giving the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) a legislative majority would offer a
RSS