This post is like sneaking a cigarette. I'm trying to quit, honest!
But the news has a GOP debate wrap-up, and I don't have time to read it, and I wish I did. This is the best part of the campaign: Before the corporate machine tightens the reins, when diverse ideas are bravely put forth, when someone who might actually have ideas has the national ear. But I don't know who that is, because I can't read up on it.
Won't matter. I quit the party and can't vote in the primary. I spent twenty six years trying with my primary vote to pull the Republicans in a sane direction and though they went this way and that, in the end my votes did no good at all. The question then is, repudiate my repudiation and try again, or go Democrat? But I won't go Democrat. Even worse than empowered Republicans growing government and trampling the Constitution are newly-encouraged Democrats turning the current global struggles into a global war on their own President. I dislike Bush, but Reid and Pelosi have cemented my disgust with the post-Clinton Democratic Party. Their swift unraveling of Western attempts to isolate proven war-monger Syria and announcement that victory against America is easily achieved if you kill enough random civilians leaves me unable to accept that history won't treat them with utter contempt. Not now, but certainly after the broad warfare and social disruption their outlook is bound to generate.
Yes, for all our mistakes we've been trying to cap the bottle, while they want to hand it to those who would smash it open.
Oh, there I go again. I need to learn to STFU, don't I? Instead I should talk about how I just spent a few days in South Florida. I am liking my job, by and large. All I saw of Boca Raton was out the windows of a conference room or an airplane. Even so it was neat to smell the air of a different climate, experience the driving patterns of another culture, find out how horrible a "taco salad" can be when manufactured in some brand new stripmall "alehouse" three thousand miles away, and discover that the Floridian accents consists mainly of Cuban and second-generation transplanted Brooklynese. Also that there, at least, they understand that Castro has gotten away with his privations in large part because the Cuban people don't get to bear arms. Well, one Cuban transplant and fellow engineer offered that opinion anyway, and it was refreshing to hear an unsolicited and simple truth for once.
Oh, there I go again. Damn these soapboxes anyway. This was a bit more than three minutes! Shame on me.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Don
I'm too serious
Tell me, tell, me, if you think you know
Labels
- About Me (15)
- aminals (25)
- architecture (3)
- burningman (41)
- ceaseless self-examination (19)
- history (17)
- inchoate entrepreneurialism (2)
- kid stuff (24)
- long unedited essays (22)
- music (4)
- NaNoWriMo (29)
- nanowrimocrastination (3)
- oh my godless (2)
- OMG IM OCD (4)
- people are strange (2)
- people are stupid (11)
- people what matter (18)
- perpetual picture-taking (24)
- politics (67)
- random life events (59)
- random whining (14)
- reading (4)
- San Francisco (11)
- shameless sexism (1)
- short fiction (3)
- short unedited essays (10)
- society (14)
- sports (2)
- thinking too much (9)
- Thursday Thirteen (6)
- travel (53)
- wha-a-atever (25)
- wordless wednesday (6)
- work (34)
- writing (15)
- xmas (13)
14 comments:
I was fixin' to say you sure do type fast.
I recommend this article by Matt Taibbi for an astute take on the campaign process re: Democrats.
I also subscribe to the tenets of The Florida Project (well maybe not THE Florida Project): "Push It Off!"
" Their swift unraveling of Western attempts to isolate proven war-monger Syria and announcement that victory against America is easily achieved if you kill enough random civilians leaves me unable to accept that history won't treat them with utter contempt"
I guess the dogma is harder to shrug off than the party, eh? I have to wonder what Cuba would be like today if we hadn't had this useless policy of "isolating" them for the last 40+ years. Snubbing other countries does not generally make them change their ways and pursue us like lapdogs. I guess that's one difference between us and a hot teenage cheerleader.
And I'm not sure how we've been really trying to cap the bottle, what with "conservatives" all over saying that talking to Syria and Iran is stupid and we just need to start bombing them. It's easy to see why much of the world, including the allies that this administration has squandered, see US as the warmongers.
You DO have another option, though, Don. Go independent. I'm not a Republican OR a Democrat. It's true... despite what both parties want the country to believe, you don't have to side with one or the other.
Also that there, at least, they understand that Castro has gotten away with his privations in large part because the Cuban people don't get to bear arms.
Do you really think that we could stop our government with our "right to bear arms" if the gov't chose to (try to) suppress us? What good would any of our little weapons (AK47s and the like) be against the weapons of the U.S. military?
Perhaps the "right to bear arms" should include *all* types of armaments?
O'Tim - That column was pretty good.
Joe - Call it dogma if you want but I mostly listen to NPR and read at random and draw my own opinions. I don't understand the isolation of Cuba. We don't isolate Vietnam. Difference is in votes I guess (i.e. pride of a certain demographic). I don't hear any talk of bombing myself, and would have none of it. And I guess I am independent by default. There are no other parties I would join.
Wigs - Suppression has to go a long way before tanks and warplanes are involved. Most suppression is at the police level. Think death squads. Think outspoken individuals being dragged off one at a time while family and neighbors look on helplessly. When citizens can bear small arms they not only can form a quick protective militia, but also will tend to have more social solidarity with the police in the first place, i.e. not such a great power divide.
Where do you get this bullshiat from, man?
Pelosi followed a trail of Republicans to Syria. And Condi's going there now. No one is isolating Syria. That would be a disastrous policy, and luckily it's not one your government, even, is stupid enough to follow. Calling Syria a "proven warmonger" is fucking hilarious from an American who supported the illegal war in Iraq.
The notion of the "debate" as the free exchange of ideas is also hilarious. You clearly have no idea what these debates are for, and none at all of the content. You make yourself a laughingstock with posts like this.
This:
"Also that there, at least, they understand that Castro has gotten away with his privations in large part because the Cuban people don't get to bear arms."
is just breathtaking though. Even the most demented wingnuts would hesitate to say something *so* stupid. Point one, the "privations" in Cuba are largely an outcome of America's blockade of that nation. Still, the achievements of Castro's Cuba are astonishing. A one-dimensional view doesn't allow you to see that. And the idea that allowing everyone to bear arms in any way inclines a nation to democracy is too ridiculous to show for the utter bullshiat that it is.
Dude, try a dose of reality. God knows where you're getting this fucking nonsense from, but it's deranged. I just can't imagine what dimension you are in where Nancy Pelosi is the bad guy and the Repugnicunt candidates -- every one lining up to suggest that they have no problem with an authoritarian government that has prosecuted an illegal war for nefarious ends, that they hate women and don't believe they should have rights over their own bodies, in some cases that they don't "believe" in science (or evolution, whatever) as though it was another fairy story and not our means of inquiry into the natural world... dude, wake up!
And you know, Joe the Troll is right. (hey, even a stopped clock... innit)
This rightwing noise about Syria is aimed at creating the atmosphere for more bombing, more death, more destruction. If you think the people of Syria are better served by having their nation smashed to pieces than by having a regime that calls Dubya a popinjay, dude, where's your humanity? That's the problem with you wingnuts. You think it's a virtue that you don't have any.
Too much morning coffee too fast, ey, Zen ol boy? I oppose any bombing and said so. I don't care if you think "noise" about Syria is meant to encourage it. It could also be meant to encourage recognition of a brutal regime that crushes dissent, murders Lebanese, and provides material support for irregulars who kill Israeli and Iraqi citizens. Pelosi's visit was openly intended as a foreign policy move in opposition to the President's, thus encouraging countries who have sworn "death to America" to see us as divided and irresolute. Politics used to end at the water's edge. But Pelosi et al. are more interested in weakening Bush than in American (and by extension, Western) security. Imagine the irony when a Democratic president faces the possible consequences.
I did not say the debate was a free exchange of ideas. I said this is the interesting time when the corporate election machine hasn't yet narrowed the message. Do try to keep up.
Blaming Cuba's financial ruin on el bloqueo is fashionable but simplistic. Castro's is a totalitarian regime, and ineffectual pseudo-Marxist economic policies are what prevent them from overcoming lack of access to American capital. There is no shortage of trade with Latin America except as American third-party trade rules restrict it, and though those rules ought to be abolished, if applied to a country that wasn't run by a dictatorial madman they wouldn't have nearly so great an effect. The privations I referred to are social and political, not based on, say, food, of which Cuba ought to be able to grow plenty.
Lessee, what else, oh yeah. "... the idea that allowing everyone to bear arms in any way inclines a nation to democracy ..." It is in fact a cornerstone. Power to the people, bro. The collapse of the fake post-Soviet Cuban economy didn't lead to "democracy" in significant part because for lack of general access to arms, those prison camps and mobs of propaganda-inspired thugs were just a wee bit too likely to prevail. As in thug-torn Iraq today, people say and do what is in their best interests, especially including a calculation of what actions are likely to succeed (this is why our indecision and "weakness" have created much of the violence). Why you would interpret obedience to a dictator as a preference for him escapes me.
Everyone running for POTUS 2008 makes me TUALIMM. Since I hate them all, I'm going back to voting a straight pro-choice ticket. Primary? I don't know. Probably Hillary, blech. I'd vote for Gore if he'd run. And you CAN vote in the primary as a DTSer, Don! (I'm one too.)
Pelosi's visit was openly intended as a foreign policy move in opposition to the President's
And why not, especially when the chimp king has brought a FUBAR quality to practically everything he and his ilk have touched since U-turning from Afghanistan (which we likely would have mopped up by now had we stayed that course)? Bush's wholesale rejection of the ISG's recommendations further proves that his "plan" (or more accurately "way of thinking") is nothing more than lame neo-con subterfuge against which I hope the Dems can muster some balls (or tits in Madam Speaker's case). I confess to my doubts, however - it's all about the elections and who gets to control the moulah anyway.
"... the idea that allowing everyone to bear arms in any way inclines a nation to democracy ..." It is in fact a cornerstone.
Hmm. Not convinced - seems too simplistic. For inst, what happened in Nazi Germany? I thought I read that the Jews were only disarmed after the Nazi party was voted into power; the fact that the good ol' Aryan population still had armaments didn't seem to stop the fascists from seizing near complete control. Why? Perhaps a lot of the reason freedom is lost in a society is that the society starts to FEAR things (such as a particular group of people - those that wear special clothing, perhaps?) and laws are allowed to pass (hmm - such as PATRIOT ACTS) in a hurry by the gov't to "protect" the greater populace, stripping the privacy of the individual (what ethnic group is your fam... ring any bells?) That - and perhaps, tough economic times.
Hitler was ELECTED into power, yes?!
Yes, on TV right now I can see all those Frenchies firing their AKs in the air after voting...
oh no, hang on, they aren't, are they? They're managing to have a democracy without bearing arms. As do we here. And in nearly every democratic country in the world! Dude, you are really off your feed at the moment.
Your further thoughts on Syria and Cuba seem to be simple reiterations of the same absolute fucking nonsense you spewed in the first place.
But I will ask you to consider O'Tim's point. Given the disastrous foreign policy of the Decider, which has destroyed your reputation around the world, cost you billions of dollars to no good end and made your nation hated around the globe, don't you think *someone* should try another path? And dude, please, you have to think before whining about killing Lebanese. The US's proxy killed more than Syria have ever managed in one conflict last year. You just don't engage brain, do you, before spouting wingnut bullshit?
And dude, politics is impeaching a president for lying about a blowjob. Trying to fix the mess you cunts have made of your country, the Middle East and the world is good work, which we'd be insisting Pelosi and crew *should* be doing if they weren't doing it.
You know what *is* political? Attacking the Dems for wanting to clear away some of the shit, for wanting to bring back oversight, for wanting to make some of the bad guys face the music. But you don't care about any of that shit. All you care about is finding someone from "your side" who you can squint and pretend is almost human.
Trolling is an irresistable impulse for you, isn't it? Mangle ideas and see if the others bite.
So now I claim that countries which are remote from dictatorship cannot function without an armed populace? And that Israel is the US's proxy and last year's stupid war was about killing Lebanese? And that the third in line for the Presidency acting out her own foreign policy, explicitly to defy the president yet talk nothing of substance, is not thoroughly an act of domestic politics?
Lordy, I know you'd be smarter than all this if you weren't so pissed off all the time.
"Pelosi's visit was openly intended as a foreign policy move in opposition to the President's, thus encouraging countries who have sworn "death to America" to see us as divided and irresolute. "
I wasn't aware that the President had a foreign policy outside of that "Axis of Evil" bullshit. O'Tim is right - I'm glad we have someone in a high place that isn't goose-stepping to the Idiot's tune. And as far as the "divided and irresolute" thing goes, I'm glad I live in a country where we aren't all obligated to follow in the leader's footsteps, especially where the leader is so outrageously incompetent, and his decisions so utterly foolish. Why would anyone decry the "dictatorships" of other nations and then criticise people in Americans for not giving blind deference to the President, when the office of the President has never been entitled to such blind deference?
"But Pelosi et al. are more interested in weakening Bush than in American (and by extension, Western) security."
The fact that America is not secure is not Pelosi's or any Democrats' fault. The Republicans controlled the all three branches of government in 2001, and that just ended last year. Yet, still only 5% of the cargo coming into America is checked. Whose fault is that, Don? Still, anyone with nothing but a shirt on his back can walk across our southern border, making it obvious that anyone with funding and a dirty bomb can do the exact same thing. Do the Republicans want to fix that? NOOOOOO, they don't want to hurt the businesses that depend on "migrant labor". That's more important than security, isn't it? I mean, being safe is one thing, but this could cost the Republicans VOTES, and what's more important?
If America isn't secure enough for you, try blaming the people who have been in charge of it for the past 6 years, instead of someone who's been Speaker for 4 months. When something isn't working, it makes more sense to change the approach, rather than to just give what's been ineffective for years more time to turn itself around.
Post a Comment