Pinko Magazine Hedonism + Activism

Claire has been an exceptionally good sport these past three weeks, opening up her in-box (whoa) to Pinko for a look at her efforts to swing her fence-sitting, potentially McCain-voting relatives. We got word last week that her grandmother was voting Obama(!), but Claire was still reticent about talking to her extended family in Nevada about the election. Yesterday her boyfriend Carl came up with a compromise: write a group email to your whole family instead of confronting those one or two potential McCainiacs head on. It’s more “hey, here’s what I think” and less “look bitch…,” and it might just encourage a few of her conservative relatives a chance to take in the points offered without feeling attacked. Claire’s fabulous email is after the jump. I’m sending mine tonight.
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Claire  
Date: Sun, Nov 2, 2008 at 1:09 PM
Subject:
To: [email redacted. what a great word, redacted.]

Dearest cousins, aunts, uncles, and family friends,

I don’t normally do this kind of thing. In fact, I’d been debating sending this letter for a few weeks now, and didn’t work up the courage until yesterday to actually write it. We don’t tend to talk politics in our family, at least in my experience.

That said, fair warning: this is a letter about the election. If you don’t want to go there, feel free to stop reading.

I’m writing this not because I don’t trust you, who I love, to make the decision you feel is right on Tuesday. I love you, and I trust you. I’m not writing this as some kind of zealous, glazed-eyed follower. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’ve done a lot of reading. If you’ll hear me out, I’d like to share with you the reasons I’m voting for Barack Obama for president.

Still with me? Okay. One: I am convinced he’s the guy who will have my back as a working American. He grew up working-class (with a single mom, like me) and succeeded at places like Harvard Law because he was smart and diligent, not because of his (nonexistent) money or family connections. His economic platform, particularly his progressive tax plan, is not the so-called “socialist” bogeyman some have made it out to be. (If you read just one of these links, read the one above – it made me realize Obama’s ideas about economics are not at all the classically “left” or “liberal” ones many assume them to be.) The progressive tax plan basically means that the lower your income, the fewer taxes you pay, and the more you make , the more you pay – just like we do now. It was a concept first introduced by Teddy Roosevelt – a Republican hero of Senator McCain’s. Senator Obama would only repeal tax cuts to what they were before Bush took office – tax cuts that have widened the gulf between the rich and everybody else in this country. If you make under $200,000, you’ll see a cut in your taxes. If you make between $200,000 and $250,000, you won’t see a change in your taxes. Over $250,000, you’ll see an increase – but nothing you weren’t paying back in 1999.

I think John McCain is out of touch with what it means to aspire to the middle class. I have a Master’s degree and a union contract, and with real estate, food prices, and student loans being what they are, I don’t feel any closer to the middle-class American dream than I did when I was on food stamps. Incomes in the middle have stagnated, and the truly rich have gotten richer. I think we need someone in the White House who understands that, who isn’t in the back pocket of corporations – someone who will cut my taxes, and those of everyone I know, and raise them, not astronomically, on the folks who live in the multi-million-dollar apartments across the street. (On my block, there are housing projects, a luxury apartment building, my nondescript 80s apartment building, and old tenements. And a convent. New York is funny.)

With McCain’s privileged background, his pandering to corporations and big oil, his consistent voting against sensible regulations on Wall Street (which is what got us into the mess we’re in), and his failure to reassure me, as a working person who wants to someday buy a house and raise a family, that he’s looking out for us, I think he’s really bad news – not just for the working and middle class, but for the economy as a whole. At an interview with Rick Warren at Saddleback Church, Pastor Warren asked McCain, “Define rich.” McCain said that a “rich” person, is someone who makes over “five million” dollars. That comment made me feel so. Very. Poor. This is a person who plans to give billions of dollars in tax breaks to Exxon Mobil – where does that leave the rest of us?

Two: I was on the phone with a dear friend the other night, someone who is in her nineties. We were talking about the election, and presidents in general, and she said, “I think the measure of a president is whether he’s a moral man. That’s who I vote for.” Like her, I believe that person is Barack Obama. I like his character. Not only would I have a beer with him, but I’d trust him to decide whether or not to send someone’s son or daughter to war. I trust him to make sound, rational, well-thought-out decisions. He isn’t hot-tempered, egomaniacal, or sloppy. I trust his advisors. I’ve read about his policies, and they strike me as coming from a moral, just place. He’s run a fair, dignified, truthful campaign. He isn’t a liar. I like his wife, and he seems like a great dad. As a teacher, I like where he stands on education – give schools and teachers more resources, pay teachers higher salaries and bring some dignity to the profession, and hold them accountable for their students’ success. Both my local teachers’ union, the UFT, and the national union, the AFT, have endorsed him for president.

When he speaks, I believe him – and I’m pretty cynical. In fact, I have never in my life felt so moved by a candidate. He’s not perfect, and he’s not going to solve everything – it ain’t gonna be easy getting out from under this economic mess or out of these wars abroad – but for the first time, I feel like we might get somewhere.

So – I’m voting with my pocketbook, my heart, and my gut, and Obama’s my guy.

Thanks for reading. Go vote.

Love,
Claire

About The Author - Ben Wyskida is a writer, activist, conscientious hedonist and political communications strategist living in Brooklyn. - Visit Ben's site.