What Obama needs to do to get my vote.

If the president thinks it’s tough dealing with congressional Tea Party freshmen from the hinterland, he’s going to have real trouble winning my vote in the months ahead.

Here’s what it’s going to take.....

Call out the super-rich, every day. I mean publicly shame them. Sorry, but I think that’s what it is going to take. Make it so that the fat cats can run, but they cannot hide.

If it’s Monday, profile the extravagance and greed of CEO #1. If it’s Tuesday, move on CEO #2 etc.

Obama needs to lay out his vision of equity and fairness. He needs to level the income playing field. He needs to connect the dots between the rich and a corrupt and collusive American political system.

In short, he must propose to drastically increase taxes on the rich and super-rich. Shut down off-shore accounts. Stop corporate welfare. Restore the estate tax and raise capital gains taxes.

Replace the current plutocracy with a true democracy.

Some constitutional reform would help. States with 10 percent of the population in this country can block reformist legislation thanks to the filibuster.

“Close the circle” on the Tea Party. By that I mean expose its contradictions and redirect the anger to the real source of our problems. Revive true populism.

Anyone in the administration who has made (or makes) more than $250,000 annually and has wealth of more than $1 million (that includes the president) has a choice. Be fired, resign or sell the mansions, yachts and third homes and give the excess above $1 million away to certified humanitarian organizations serving the poor and the working poor.

Call out the Supreme Court. When the court is worthy of respect, they will get it. We know politics even when it is cloaked in black robes.

End our wars and shut down our military installations here and abroad. We will no longer play the “cop on the block” to the world.

Cut the “defense” budget by two-thirds.

Get non-violent offenders out of the prisons. The exception: white collar criminals. Use the money saved to support education. Not "schools" and the "schools establishment," but education, which needs serious rethinking in the computer age.

Push universal health care. No more fun and games with the health insurance industry.

Get tough with China and Russia on human rights. Link trade with Human Rights. The message: If you want to trade with us, do not oppress your people. That goes for Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel, etc. If it gets no response, the result would go a long way to returning jobs to these shores.

Whom will I vote for if none of this happens? I’m writing in Bernie Sanders, or maybe me or my cat.

Beyond one-dimensional politics

Politics in this country consists of well-fingered beads strung along a thin, frayed thread.

It is a short thread indeed. It stretches mere inches from liberal-centrist to conservative. We aren’t even sure what those terms mean beyond slogans. Most slogans in this political season come from the Right. “Big” government, "tax cuts," and “nanny state” dominate a campaign notable for its lack of serious, civil and thoughtful debate.

There’s plenty of reason for voters to be frustrated and angry. I’m one of them, but my frustration and anger are over this campaign season's lack of substance and solutions.

I’m also frustrated that the extreme political Right has managed to capture the support of my fellow frustrated and angry Americans by using bogus bromides that will only make matters worse. How do you lower the deficit by cutting taxes and fighting costly wars?

And I’m frustrated with the liberal centrists for their failure to stand for anything beyond tinkering with "fiscal mechanisms" and throwing gobs of our money at banks and insurance companies.

Our narrow, one-dimensional way of viewing politics doesn’t allow us to even frame the problems, let alone find solutions.

Where, for instance, does global warming and destruction of the planet fit along the spectrum? The oil interests would like to tar climate change as a “liberal” issue, and so, with large infusions of oil money, it has become politicized — to the peril of us all.

What about inequity in everything from schools to health care to income. Why isn’t the Tea Party taking on inequity? Instead of attacking reforms, it should be calling for more of them. Could the answer be that the Tea Party is paid for by the self-serving rich with their private schools, their platinum health care plans, their gated third homes, and their grotesque compensation packages?

The Tea Party folks need to ask who the real beneficiaries will be if the Tea Party wins in November?

(Full disclosure: I'm hardly rich but I've benefited from a private school education. I've used that education and my experience to teach at community colleges and state universities.)

With a former community organizer in the White House you might expect some discussion about community. This country was once seen as a nation of vibrant barn-raising communities. But what does it mean to be a community in today's Wal-Mart world? If communities really exist, how can they solve their own problems?

What about corporate control of communication? Is the control of media by corporations destructive of our society and its values? Have media brainwashed us into our narrow, dumbed-down thinking — political and otherwise? And I'm not just talking about FOX News.

The answers are clearly yes. but what can be done about it?

We need to get down to non-partisan basics.

Let's ask what would it take to make people in this country truly free. Free of poverty, free of ignorance, free from prejudice, free of war, free of debt, free of homelessness? What would it take to make this truly a land of equal opportunity?

Does government have a role in achieving these ends? If so, what should it be? And at what cost — to freedom and to our pocket books?

In this frenzied election season of frustration and anger, I haven’t heard a single political voice that is fresh and independent, that addresses my own frustration and anger. I haven't heard a single voice that poses basic questions offers innovative answers to the colossal problems we face.