A Promised Land

America as a Developing Country

People Power, from Manila to Pennsylvania

Canvassing in bellwether counties, I saw how Harris’s campaign echoes a historic pro-democracy drive...which is why she could win.

Campaign door-knocking doesn’t always go this nicely, but it could prove crucial.

What does a popular uprising in an Asian nation decades ago have to do with Kamala Harris’s campaign today?

A lot.

Nearly Forty Years Later…

In 1986, after Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos stole his country’s presidential election, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos demonstrated in what came to be known as “People Power”: They jammed Manila’s streets to block his tanks from crushing a pro-democracy military rebellion. His regime’s collapse days later capped months of opposition mobilization throughout the nation.

In 2024, Harris is similarly mobilizing massive numbers of supporters across America. Many thousands of volunteers are knocking on doors, making phone calls and otherwise doing get-out-the-vote grunt work down the home stretch. She closed her powerful D.C. speech tonight by emphasizing that “each of you has the power to turn the page.” Here’s the Harris campaign link, to pitch in; even at this late date, such help could prove pivotal in an excruciatingly close election.

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Will, Harper, Donald and Transgender People

A new Will Ferrell film on Netflix is a testament to friendship, pride, progress and pain as Trump attacks transgender people.

One of my earliest memories from my 1987-93 stint working in the Philippines was a beauty pageant I attended in a smallish provincial city with two American colleagues. One was a female co-worker at the foundation that employed me and the other a young, male agricultural engineer.

The several hundred-strong audience, comprising both men and women, was enthusiastic but polite, with the engineer cheering loudly for the prettiest contestants – and being met, for reasons we’d soon understand, with chuckles from the Filipino crowd.

It was only when the event ended that we realized both that it was a transgender competition and how normal that was in Philippine society.

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Harris Hits a Home Run

At a pivotal moment in American history, she was positive, passionate and presidential. But most of all, she was strong.

I’m leaving for the airport in three hours, haven’t packed, and have all sorts of other things to do before taking off. But I’m so high on account of Kamala Harris’s debate performance this evening that I have to post.

Up to the Task

Did she have it in her? I’ll confess to having had that doubt before the debate. I didn’t fear that she was up to being president. Rather, it was whether tonight she could best a sociopathic master of manipulation.

She didn’t just best him. She hit the ball out of the park.

Now, I’ll grant that there were several moments that I wish she’d handled a bit better – for instance, her failure to blast Trump for repeatedly praising Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban, who’s taking his great country down the tubes. But that’s easy for me to say; I wasn’t up there on stage staring down the living, breathing embodiment of a brutal banana republic, someone who’d take our country and our world backwards as best he can.

And much more to the point…

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Fly Me to the Moon

In a blast from the past, a hopeful film resonates as Kamala's campaign takes off.

 

For a fun, relaxing time the other day, my wife and I went to see Fly Me to the Moon, the lighthearted Scarlett Johansson/Channing Tatum flick about an attempt at faking the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing. Despite the enjoyable escapism, I couldn’t help comparing it with our troubled times.

A Time of Darkness, Division, Promise and Progress

I’ll start, though, by acknowledging that 1969 was far from untroubled. We were in the depths of the Vietnam war, wreaking havoc on that country while absorbing over 50,000 deaths of our own. The war and a host of other issues bitterly divided the United States. President Richard Nixon was hardly a unifying figure.

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Kamala’s Prospects: The Good, the Bad and the Maybe

Summing up how Harris can win, can lose and what she needs to do.

Good things Harris has going.

Humanity. It’s a cliche for a politician to play up their human qualities, especially in the context of a campaign ad, but this one offers an insight about Harris that’s personal, poignant and a powerfully clear contrast with her opponent:

Enthusiasm. I’d bet that many of us have never experienced a surprising, joyous, politically driven emotional leap like we did the moment we learned that Biden dropped out; I’ll never forget getting my wife’s “OhMyGosh!” text.

Change. In a year when a vast number of voters were sick of their two alternatives, which this Jon Stewart rant aptly and furiously framed as a choice between a “megalomaniac and a suffocating gerontocracy,” Harris is a breath of fresh air compared to the tired, toxic cloud that’s Trump.

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