Category: Political

Categories
Political

Pushing buttons and pulling out

Originally I wasn’t going to give the name of the person I would vote for in the Democratic Primary. To be honest, I didn’t care that much as long as they were a candidate that could beat Bush. Still, with Clark entering the race I decided that I do have strong opinions about who I want to be the Democratic candidate…and Clark isn’t it. I’m putting my support behind Howard Dean.

Why Dean? Why not Clark? For starters, I’ve read Clark’s previously written essays and articles and I’ve formed the picture of a man who is extremely intelligent, savvy, and a brilliant strategist. However, I’ve also seen the picture of a man who is arrogant and indifferent to the concerns of this country but just itching to go in and solve the crises abroad. His economic plan is vague and caters to the noisy Democratic party members because it seems like the thing to do, and that’s not necessarily a good thing. His protests against Bush’s handling of Iraq seems contrary to previously written viewpoints, and leaves one confused about where he really stands in regards to the so-called ‘War on Terror’. Most importantly, what this country does not need right now, is another man in office who believes he’s right no matter what. Give me a president who’s willing to admit a mistake if it will help find a solution. We don’t need no more ego in the White House.

I still have some concerns about Howard Dean, foremost among them is his inability to handle criticism well. Every time his buttons get pushed by the other candidates during a debate, he comes off as “Did not! Did not!” What he needs to do is spin the negative attacks into positive statements.

Dean is for rolling back all the tax cuts, including those for the middle income families. This isn’t a negative; this is a man acknowledging that our country is in serious financial trouble, and that the few hundred dollars the middle class will get in their refunds won’t matter a bit to the economy – but added up could make a major dent in that atrocious deficit.

Dean made a statement years ago that Medicare is badly administered. Well, this is true – it is badly administered. It needs to be overhauled, as there is too many abuses of the system and not enough people getting the treatment they need. And who else is better able to deal with the growing health crises in this country than a man who is a physician, and who has seen the problems with the system up front, close, and personal?

However, I’ve noticed that Dean is getting better about using humor in his campaign. I liked the following quote in Boston.com, regarding the Balanced Budget Amendment:

Acknowledging his have-it-both-ways approach with a smile, Dean said: “So you can put me down as waffling on the balanced budget amendment.

“I’m already down as waffling on that one. I’ve waffled before. I’ll waffle again,” he joked.

I lived in Vermont while Dean was governor there. Vermont is the most individualistic, stubborn state in the union. It’s one of the few states that is just as likely to vote an independent into office as a Democrat or Republican. Vermonters are a people who make do with little, take care of their own, and have little use for Big Government; a state full of what could be seen as Libertarians, but they think Libertarians are full of shit for the most part. I loved Vermont for its independence, but I also disliked it for being one of the most unfriendly states I’ve ever lived in. All in all – not an easy state of which to be governor.

What Dean brings from his tenure in Vermont is a no nonsense approach to government, and a frugal attitude about spending. That’s going to help. What he also brings is a strong bias against American Corporations and their public image of rah rah Americanism – including an absolutely unbelievable red, white, and blue cereal – while behind closed doors and in the murkiness of Republican tolerance, they ship jobs to sweatshops in other countries. Dean is not a man who is going to be blackmailed by these same Corporations threatening that they’ll move their operations overseas if the government doesn’t take care of them – because he knows they’ll do it anyway.

The biggest challenge to Dean is reflected in this quote from a Democrat, covered in this the Washington Post article:

“I think Clark can win,” Taylor said. “I don’t think Dean can win. I think Dean’s going to be pegged as too liberal. He doesn’t have the kind of military background and some of the strength that Clark seems to have.”

A poll in CNN today shows that Bush would still win over any of the Democratic candidates. In spite of the worst deficit in history, an appalling and unworkable economic plan, the worst job losses since the depression, damaging the foundations of freedom on which this country is based, and pulling us into a unilateral invasion of Iraq – he would still win over Dean, Clark, Kerry, and all the other candidates.

Fear. This is all because of fear. We are slowly killing this country from within if we don’t get over our fear. Because of it, we allowed our President and his paranoid cabinet to invade Iraq without UN support, and look at the results. Please don’t quote me polls about how the Baghdad residents are so happy we’ve come in, and how things are really so much more positive over in that country. All I see in Iraq is the potential for failure, regardless of the sudden surge of those waving flags of joy joy news. (“No, it’s really great in Iraq. No problems. Everyone’s happy. Only a few trouble spots. No seriously. It’s all the media’s fault.”)

There’s another reason why I like Dean, and it’s that he knows we can’t just pull out of Iraq, though I know this is going to be horribly unpopular with the liberals. There was a demonstration yesterday throughout the world – US get out of Iraq now. Now, exactly what do you all think will happen if we were to suddenly pull out? Aside from bloody civil war, possible invasion from Turkey in the North and Iran from the East, and eventually the formation of another religously oppressive country?

Sorry, but my sympathies are with the women in Iraq. I think about them being forced back into their head gear, and no longer being able to hold the same jobs as men, or get the same education, or able to even walk the streets without being accompanied by male members of their family. What the hell do you think will happen to these women if we ‘just pull out now”?

Do we need to be reminded of Amina Lawa about now?

I did not want us to enter Iraq. I wrote a long time ago and more than once that if we were going to invade Iraq to ‘help the people’, then we couldn’t keep bringing up terrorism and WMD. The two types of war are different. I also wrote that if we were going to end oppression then we, as a world, need to commit to this across all countries. Even my own. But the act’s been done. We’re there. We can’t just pull out.

I think I’m just as tired of the liberal element in this country as I am the conservative one. So much bombast and rhetoric and banner waving and mouthed words about ‘freedom’, but how does the song go? “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Yeah, tell that to Lawa.

I read over at Norm Jenson’s (make sure to read the comments) about a weblogger whose brother reacted to a neighbor’s display of American and Christian flags by printing out an article and banner about religous freedom and attached them to the neighor’s door. The weblogger was aghast when they came home and found the whole family out putting little flags all over the yard. “This man needs psychiatric help”, the weblogger cries out.

Who exactly needs help? The person who plastered red, white, and blue all over his yard? Or the person who couldn’t stand seeing someone else not share their own appalled sense of what’s happening, to the point of going on to the neighbor’s property and posting material on their door?

I wouldn’t agree with that neighbor, but if I believe in freedom, I have to support his flying American and Christian flags and wrapping yellow ribbons about his property, or everything we say about freedom is a joke, and a mockery.

If I were to stand in front of both houses and be asked who I’d want as neighbor, I think I’d take the folks in Iraq.

I believe in ‘freedom’, too, but I also believe in taking responsibility for our mistakes, and we made a big ass one in Iraq. We are there, a fact I bitterly regret but at least accept as fact. We can’t just pull out because it’s expedient, or costs too much, or is costing American soldier’s lives. But we need to get help from the world, from the UN, from the Iraqi people, and their neighbors and if we have to ask for it hat in hand, then let’s ask – not let the Toy Airman in the White House pugnaciously tell the world, “We don’t need your stinking help.”

Dean. This was about Dean, wasn’t it? And that’s why I support Dean – seems to me he put both his toys and his ego away years ago. I have a feeling he won’t be hesitant to tell the world, “We screwed up. Can you help us?”

PS As for Dean’s use of the Internet and weblogging – the day I vote for a President just because he’s a ‘blogger’, is the day I check myself into the nearest home for the mentally incompetent.

Categories
Critters Political

The American Way

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

We couldn’t protect the Iraqi people, the children and old people who died because of accidental fire as we liberated them.

We couldn’t protect the unique and precious Iraqi antiquities even though the soldiers were begged for help and the US government was warned about the dangers of their loss.

We can’t protect the religious and political leaders or the UN (though we seem to do a good job protecting the executives from Halliburton); nor can we protect the women who can no longer go out without covering their heads after being reduced to second class citizens.

We can’t protect our own soldiers, and we fire on the local police mistaking anyone with a gun for a terrorist.

Now, we can’t even protect the rare and endangered animals held in what’s left of the Iraqi zoo.

This story – soldiers who decided to visit the Iraq zoo after closing time to have a drunken party shot and killed a rare bengal tiger after it attacked a soldier who put his arm through the cage bars.

How can we ‘control’ terrorism if we can’t even control the behavior of the service people – and I don’t want to hear the crap about boys far away from home blowing off steam. This isn’t the behavior of fine service people, but the behavior of louts and thugs. This is what war does to fine service people when they don’t understand why they’re fighting, and they just want to go home. This is what happens to fine service people when they’re in a country surrounded by people who hate them; when they’re led by an man who lies about when they can come home, and cuts their pay and benefits while granting huge sums to good old buddies back home.

Commanders of service people are responsible for their actions, and the buck starts and ends at George Bush.

We are killing that country, piece by piece, soul by soul, day by day.

Categories
Political

How to talk like a pyrate

Ye be a sorry lot and not a True Pyrate amongst ye! Me thinks it’s because ye can’t talk like a pyrate. How can ye be a True Pyrate if ye can’t talk like one, I says to meself.

A few lessons in how to Talk like a Pyrate for the Pyrate Impaired:

From Maritime Pirates

Cackle Fruit – hen’s eggs

Hempen Halter – hangman’s noose

Nelson’s Folly – rum

Run a rig – play a trick

Dick Cheney:

“There has been significant success in putting Iraq back together again. … Most of Iraq is stable and quiet.”

From Pyrate Talk:

To Go on Account – a pleasant term used by pyrates to describe the act of turning pyrate. The basic idea was that a pyrate was more “free lance” and thus was, more or less, going into business for himself.

Take a Caulk – on deck of a ship, between planks, was a thick caulk of black tar and rope to keep water from between decks. This term came to mean to “take a nap” either because sailors who slept on deck ended up with black lines across their backs or simply because sailors laying down on deck were as horizontal as the caulk of the deck itself.

Quarter – deriving from the idea of “shelter”, quarter was given when mercy was offered by the pyrates. To give no quarter was to indicate that none would be spared. Quarter was often the prize given to an honourable loser in a pyrate fight. If enraged, however, a pyrate would deprive the loser any such luxury.

Rumsfeld:

“In that instance, we had been in the country for about 15 seconds; sometimes I overstate for emphasis …. I should have said, ‘I believe they’re in that area’” around Tikrit and Baghdad.’”

From The Olympian:

Aye, aye: “I’ll get right on that sir, as soon as my break is over.”

Arr: “Yes,” “I agree,” “I’m happy,” “I’m enjoying this beer,” “My team is going to win it all,” “I saw that television show, it sucked!” and “That was a clever remark you or I just made.”

Beauty: The best possible pirate address for a woman. Always preceded by “me,” as in “C’mere, me beauty” or even “me buxom beauty.”

Lubber: This is short for landlubber and is the seaman’s version of land lover, mangled by typical pirate disregard for elocution.

Ashcroft:

“(The government)…should be looking for ways to improve the safety and security of American liberty.”

From The Pirate’s Realm:

Avast – “Avast Ye!” from the Dutch term for ‘hold fast’ and means “Stop and pay attention.”, like, “Get a load of this.”

Black Spot – a death threat among pirates made of a black spot or mark on a scrap of paper with more specific detail sometimes written on the other side, referred to in the story, Treasure Island.

Black Jack – large drinking cups made of leather that were made stiffer with an application of tar

Bumboo – A drink of the West Indies made with watered rum and flavored with sugar and nutmeg

President Bush:

Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front. Enemies of freedom are making a desperate stand there – and there they must be defeated. This will take time and require sacrifice. Yet we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure.

Arrr.

More on how to talk like a pirate and the upcoming presidential candidates at Salt Lake City Tribune. Tis a fine group of privateers.
Categories
Political Weblogging

Vote for Whitey, he weblogs

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Harold Kurtz covered some of of the current buzz about the Democratic candidates, the California recall election, and even Bush’s recent speech. It’s a great recap of quotes from other publications, interspersed with humorous and pithy asides. More importantly, though, it highlights some articles worth following, such as a Salon article that’s worth a serious read or two by all the people who think that Dean’s election is in the bag because he weblogs.

Though you might need to sit through an ad to read it, the Salon article by Farhad Manjoo quotes people from the Dean campaign that are growing concerned that perhaps there is too much emphasis on Dean’s online presence. On TV, it’s beginning to look like his followers are primarily of a specific race, economic level, and educational background.

For instance, the article reflects concerns by Dean supports, such as Steve Chaffin, an unofficial coordinator for Dean in Ohio:

Chaffin … worries that because Dean has relied greatly on the Web as a campaign tool, the candidate’s message has not been widely received by “blue-collar people” and minorities. This concern, which has popped up repeatedly in the media, is shared by many other Dean supporters, including Richard Hoefer, a San Francisco filmmaker who believes that the campaign has been too “blog-centric.” Asked if he thinks there’s a homogeneity to Dean’s base, Hoefer responds, “You mean whitey?”

In some ways Dean’s campaign reflects the same audience I’ve seen at tech conferences and symposia – white, primarily urban, middle/upper class, white collar, professional, highly educated. The only difference from what I can see is that there is more equal distribution of men and women than in these other venues.

Some of this is leading to concern that Dean is focused too heavily on webloggers, and that would be a mistake. In St. Louis there are probably about 2000 webloggers, at most. Yet there are close to 250,000 registered voters in this city. Rather than reaching out to the 200,000+, is Dean’s strategy focused primarily on that 2000?

According to the article:

The danger that supporters appear most wary of is “preaching to the choir” – bringing the pro-Dean message only to folks who are already inclined to accept it. Indeed, Richard Hoefer calls this the biggest pitfall of Dean’s blog strategy. “I’ve been at odds with Dean for America because I criticize them for being too blog-centric,” he says. “I think they preach to the converted, and it bugs me because I think they’re missing the boat. I think Dean has incredible appeal to blacks, Latinos, minorities – but the message hasn’t gotten out there yet because they have been too focused on the blog.”

If the registered voters in this city follow along racial lines, 51% will be black.

Manjoo says, no worries, because the webloggers are on top of the problem. In fact, if there is one major criticism I have of the article, it is the authors constant rah rahing of webloggers, and how we’re aware of this danger and how we’re doing something about it. He writes:

The self-awareness of the potential shortcomings of Dean’s campaign is exactly the kind of thing you might expect from people as well-educated and affluent as Dean supporters tend to be.

Everyone in the audience who’s affluent, please raise your hand.

There is also an assumption in the article, and elsewhere, that once Dean bags the Dem nomination, the minorities and the women will fall in line, little ducks in a row; the good thing about the online presence is it’s attracting that most fickle of voters – white men:

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the proprietor of the popular lefty blog Daily Kos and a consultant to the Dean campaign’s Web efforts, says that even if Dean is failing to appeal to minorities now, they will come to him if he wins the nomination. Meanwhile, Moulitsas says, polls show that Dean is currently attracting a crowd that the Democratic Party has had trouble with in recent elections – white males. This is partly because of Dean’s use of the Web, Moulitsas says, but mainly because “he’s a very aggressive candidate in his speaking style, and the anger. Nobody wants a president that’s a wimp, and Dean sounds tough, he sounds like he’s ready to kick some ass, and I think that really fires men up.”

Well, shucks, son. If you want to talk tough, our man Bush dressed up in a pilot’s suit and landed on an aircraft carrier. I reckon his toy gun is bigger than Dean’s, what say?

If this is a typical Dean supporter speaking out, and this is the type of advice Dean is getting, he hasn’t rat’s tail’s chance in a room of rocking chairs of taking the election away from Bush.

I have some numbers for you:

Alabama 9
Colorado 8
Texas 32
Arizona 8
Mississippi 7
Kentucky 8
Minnesota 10
Louisiana 8
Indiana 12
Illinois 22
Missouri 11
Nebraska 5
Idaho 4
Alaska 3
Kansas 6
Iowa 7
Georgia 13
Oklahoma 8
Ohio 21
South Dakota 3
Tennessee 11
Utah 5
Wyoming 3

These are electoral votes for the other states. The quiet ones, the insignificant one. These are the states populated by people that quietly watch the debates in Washington DC, and the demonstrations in New York, and the protests in San Francisco and see the tongue rings and cluck their own tongues at the foolishness of these kids. These are states made up of blue collar and white collar workers, blacks and whites and native Americans and Hispanics and Asian-Americans and Indian-Americans and Arab-Americans. They’re Christian for the most part, with some Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish people. A Buddhist or two. Maybe. Even some folk with tongue rings, because it is a free country, son.

There are some webloggers here, but not as many on the coasts because the Internet just never had the impact here as it did elsewhere. These states count themselves thankful, too, as they watch California’s unemployment exceed 10% in some areas due to the Dot Com implosion.

These states don’t have the electoral punch of California or Florida or New York, but combined these states are enough to elect a president. Half these states with New York, or Florida, is enough.

I think of those yellow ribbons and American flags I saw in Kentucky, in the towns along the way, through Indiana and Missouri and I know that behind those doors are union members and blacks and women – traditional Democratic voters. I also know that while Dean is meeting with the white, educated, internet savvy males at a Weblogger Meetup in San Francisco (earning some more Internet bucks), Bush is speaking at a plant that builds bombs here in St. Louis, giving an uncomplicated speech that’s equal parts patriotism, anger, hope, and fear.

And Bush isn’t some governor from some tiny state that allows gays to marry (as they’ll see it) and has all those independents who betray their party (as they’ll see it); and he isn’t some weblogger who works at Harvard in Boston or a software company in LA. Bush comes from Texas, that’s about as American as you can get. He worked in his Daddy’s business, he believes in God and Country and he’s one of us, these people will think. Even though they might be union members and blacks and women, they may in the quiet of that voting booth hesitate over Dean’s lever; hesitate and move on and pull down the one next to Bush’s name because he’s a man more like them, though they can’t stand him, and really don’t trust him.

Better the devil you know, then the devil you don’t.

Categories
Political

Admission

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I woke up this morning after listening to Bush, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld’s speeches in the last few days and I thought to myself, I don’t need to fight Bush’s re-election – he’s doing a good job of not getting himself elected all by himself.

After all, there’s not a one of us who isn’t aware that Iraq was no direct threat against the United States; that there weren’t stockpiled Weapons of Mass Destruction lying about; there was no need for such a quick dismissal of the UN process and even quicker entry into the war. We’re all aware that the post-war planning was based on assumptions that the Iraqi were going to be so happy to see us invade their country, that they would shower our soldiers with flowers and immediately set aside their deep religious differences and create a new and democratic governing order, quickly putting an untouched oil business in gear to pay for it.

And now, we’re hearing the price tag, 87 billion dollars. This is enough money to provide adequate medical care for every person in this country; enough to bring all of the closed schools back to their strength; enough to, well, do a lot of things that would have some positive impact here in this country. But we’ve invaded Iraq, and destroyed the infrastructure of the country at the same time – we have a responsibility so we have to foot this bill and listen to news about people getting killed, but I assumed that we’d be a bit peeved at the President for getting us into this mess.

And then there’s Ashcroft, with his traveling Tear Down the Constitution tour. After all, we’re a country that prides ourselves on our freedom and our privacy and any laws that would allow the FBI to search homes without notification, to obtain library records for people who are suspect, to hold people without due process of law, would surely not play in among the corn fields of Iowa.

From North Carolina, the Herald Sun wrote:

During an abbreviated press conference, Ashcroft, who provided individual interviews for television media but only a group interview for the press, avoided questions about the act’s effect on illegal immigration and the strain the act has placed on local budgets.

When asked about detentions of foreign citizens, Ashcroft said, “We don’t detain people without charges.” He then added, “I no longer supervise most of the immigration process. Most of those functions are now under the Department of Homeland Security.”

This sounded very much like Rumsfeld’s dismissal of not finding WMD in Iraq with stating that this was really the responsibility of the CIA, not the Defense Department. This was in addition to him saying that to criticize President Bush’s Iraq policy was aiding and abetting terrorism. Something to do with Somalia.

I would think that all of this, combined with the worst employment situation since the Depression and the worst deficit in history, would be enough to throw Bush out of office; but I bet I could sit down in any coffee shop, from sea to glorious shining sea, and hear from American after American defending Bush and defending our policy in Iraq and hear about how the economy is improving, we just have to be patient. Why? Because to do otherwise would be to admit our own errors.

The same members of Congress donned little American flag buttons and stood behind the President at the White House as good little Americans and provided blanket support for his actions.

Congress voted on the tax cut when any schoolkid with a calculator knew it would be economically disasterous.

We’ve forgotten the names of all the Americans detained without legal counsel in this country because of the war on terror.

Americans gave Bush a 78% approval rating of his handling of the War on Terror.

The same Americans believe, 2 to 1, that Saddam Hussein was behind the Twin Towers act, thought there’s never been one iota of proof.

We rewarded our leaders for lying to us, we lied to each other, we lied to ourselves. We screwed up. Not just Bush. Not just Rumsfeld. Not just Ashcroft. We screwed up, and we’re not going to admit it.

When I visited smalltown Kentucky this last weekend, there wasn’t a store billboard that didn’t say “Support our Troops. Support our President”. There wasn’t a home that didn’t have a yellow ribbon, right next to that big American Flag. These are not stupid people who don’t know how to read, but these are people who believe, “My Country. Right or Wrong.”

And that’s who Bush, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft play to and that’s who the rest of us dismiss. We have a huge fight on our hands to prevent four more years of that Man in the White House.