Let me first say that I don't blame my parents, they're just about perfect! ;-) I see some qualify Boomers as '46-'64, but my 'rents are slightly older, and very responsible. Don't worry, the author gives each generation their due.
To me, it's shocking that one generation could be so blatantly irresponsible as to leave such a broken system to its children. It's one thing to exploit other people, and - as much as I loathe racism or sexism or colonialism - it's a little easier for me as a social scientist to wrap my head around the idea of abusing others whom we first take care to differentiate, objectify and demonize on the basis of some arbitrary primordialist factor. But our own kids? Wow. And, actually, it's far worse than that. Using the term ‘irresponsible' here to describe what has happened is far, far too generous. This is not a case of negligence. This was a knowing theft, and our own children were the victims. While they slept, late at night, we crept into their rooms, stole the piggy bank, smashed it to pieces, then used the proceeds to buy some leisure time for sipping beer and watching "American Idol", or some bullets to destroy the lives of an innocent Iraqi family somewhere. Yep. No doubt about it. It's the feel-good story of the century, my friends.
What is most astonishing about the whole thing is that I detect almost nothing in the way of anger from the victims. When I try to talk to my students about how my generation is ripping off their generation, somehow I'm always the angriest guy in the classroom, by far. Probably I should just keep my mouth shut, eh? I mean, I've paid into Social Security since I was sixteen years old, and I'd like it to be there when I'm an old geezer, unable any longer to fool some hapless university into paying me to scandalize yet another generation with my Maoist, anticlerical, sexually deviant, radical environmentalist revolutionary dogma. I'm okay with their generosity, but, to be totally truthful, I wouldn't exactly blame the next generations for saying "Screw you, pal. You guys had your party already, and we're not paying for it twice. Fund your own freakin' retirement." God knows we have that coming.
...there is another rendition of the story of modern conservatism, one that doesn't begin with Goldwater and doesn't celebrate his libertarian orientation. It is a less heroic story, and one that may go a much longer way toward really explaining the Republican Party's past electoral fortunes and its future. In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn't run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. It centralizes what one might call the McCarthy gene, something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office, and because it is genetic, it isn't likely to be expunged any time soon.
The basic problem with the Goldwater tale is that it focuses on ideology and movement building, which few voters have ever really cared about, while the McCarthy tale focuses on electoral strategy, which is where Republicans have excelled.
...
Reagan's sunny disposition and his willingness to compromise masked the McCarthyite elements of his appeal, but Reaganism as an electoral device was unique to Reagan and essentially died with the end of his presidency. McCarthyism, on the other hand, which could be deployed by anyone, thrived. McCarthyism was how Republicans won. George H.W. Bush used it to get himself elected, terrifying voters with Willie Horton. And his son, under the tutelage of strategist Karl Rove, not only got himself reelected by convincing voters that John Kerry was a coward and a liar and would hand the nation over to terrorists, which was pure McCarthyism, he governed by rousing McCarthyite resentments among his base.
Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That's why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama's relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.
And that is also why the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come. There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes.
I don't agree with every sentiment in this article, but my Republican friends might want to perk their ears up for this one. I always liked the intellectual conservatives like William F. Buckley and to a lesser extent George Will, but voices like those have disappeared from the Republican Party altogether. I used to think of Republicans as smart folks, economic intellectuals even. Now I have a hard time arguing with responses to the article like this one from voxclamantis:
I have begun to suggest to my Republican friends that they might be happier if they would buy some bib overalls and move to Mississippi, the spiritual center and demographic redoubt of paranoid conservatism in America. In our southern swamplands you don't have to make subtle racist jokes or defend preposterous tales about how liberals are to blame for the Bush disaster or try to convince everybody that Mexican immigration is polluting our culture. Down there in GOP Hollow you can relax, get yourself some spider web tattoos, shave your head, marry your sister, set crosses afire and drink homemade whiskey with like minded people.Friends, this article offended me too.... I have often considered myself a Reagan Democrat, and Gabler put me in my place, too. I do think he makes many valid points, and I think the good Republican Party is doomed if they continue down the McCarthy/Palin route. Maybe this will be the way to get to a 3 party system? If so, it will be SO worth it. I encourage the intellectual wing of the Republican Party to stand up, do something, lest snake handlers take control.
I know a lot of U2 fans that did this....once Rattle & Hum came out, U2 was crap. Too bad they didn't stay tuned, what a great ride it's been in the U2 camp since then.
At some point, the left will have to relinquish its love affair with marginalization. We'll have to stop behaving like those people who have a favorite band they love, and even damn near worship, until that day when the band actually begins to sell a lot of records and gain a measure of popularity, at which point they now suck and have obviously sold out: the idea being that if people like you, you must not be doing anything important, and that obscurity is the true measure of integrity. Deconstructing the psychological issues at the root of such a pose is well above my pay grade, but I'm sure would prove fascinating.
The simple fact is, people are inspired by Obama not because they view him as especially progressive per se (except in relation to some of the more retrograde policies of the current president, and in relation to where they feel, rightly, McCain/Palin would have led us), but because most folks respond to optimism, however ill-defined it may be. This is what the Reaganites understood, and for that matter it's what Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement knew too. It wasn't anger and pessimism that broke the back of formal apartheid in the south, but rather, hope, and a belief in the fundamental decency of people to make a change if confronted by the yawning chasm between their professed national ideals and the bleak national reality.
In other words, what the 60s freedom struggle took for granted, but which the cynical barbiturate left refuses to concede, is the basic goodness of the people of this nation, and the ability of the nation, for all of its faults (and they are legion) to change.
Oh, he goes on from there. Republicans owe it to themselves to read this one.An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble."
"Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.
I'm not sure that I've actually come out and said these words, but I heartily endorse Barack Obama for President of the United States.
I encourage everyone to vote for Obama.
If you insist that you simply could not vote for him for one reason or another -a-hem-, then I politely suggest you don't vote this time. McCain's time has come and gone, my right-leaning conservative friends. Wish y'all had nominated him in 2000 though, he would have won a landslide and handled 9/11 better than W.
It's too late now. You've seen him. You've heard him go back on most of his maverick principles. You saw how he wanted to handle the bailout... you know we could do better with Obama. Or at least let the Dems screw themselves and y'all can run better in '12. ;-)
David Corn has a really interesting article over at Mother Jones about Alan Greenspan's testimony before Congress last week. I don't think it got enough attention from the media. The economic Godfather of the past 40 years was wrong. Majorly wrong. And, he admitted it. As bad as the news is, at least it is refreshing to hear a decision-maker take some of the blame. Anyway, here's a quote from the article for ya:With members of the House oversight and government reform committee blasting Greenspan for his past decisions that helped pave the way for the current financial crisis, he acknowledged that his libertarian view of markets and the financial world had not worked out so well. "You know," he told the legislators, "that's precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well." While Greenspan did defend his various decisions, he admitted that his faith in the ability of free and loosely-regulated markets to produce the best outcomes had been shaken: "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."
In other words, whoops—there goes decades of Ayn Rand down the drain.
Billions here, billions there.... you know what they say.On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another appropriations measure.)
The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of these wars. (The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also included a 3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5 billion in pork-barrel projects not even requested by the administration or the secretary of defense. It also fully funds the Pentagon's request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.
My friends, John McCain has suspended his campaign, but he'll still take your $$ for his campaign. And it looks like McCain won't show for Letterman tonightNEW YORK (CNN) – John McCain and Sarah Palin’s meeting with Bono was canceled Wednesday due to scheduling reasons, according to the campaign.
Instead, McCain and Palin will chat with Bono by phone this afternoon about the ONE Campaign, the U2 front man’s initiative to raise awareness of AIDS and global poverty.
Unlike McCain and Palin’s other meetings with dignitaries in New York this week, most of which had been open to reporters and photographers, the Bono meeting was listed as closed to the press, at the rock star’s request.
EXCLUSIVE: LETTERMAN MOCKS MCCAIN CANCELLATION
Wed Sep 24 2008 17:41:58 ET
David Letterman tells audience that McCain called him today to tell him he had to rush back to DC to deal with the economy.
Then in the middle of the taping Dave got word that McCain was, in fact just down the street being interviewed by Katie Couric. Dave even cut over to the live video of the interview, and said, "Hey Senator, can I give you a ride home?"
Earlier in the show, Dave kept saying, "You don't suspend your campaign. This doesn't smell right. This isn't the way a tested hero behaves." And he joked: "I think someone's putting something in his metamucil."
"He can't run the campaign because the economy is cratering? Fine, put in your second string quarterback, Sara Palin. Where is she?"
"What are you going to do if you're elected and things get tough? Suspend being president? We've got a guy like that now!"
Bono's keeping a blog this week, at the Financial Times.Obama advisers, for example, are considering how to provoke Sen. McCain into anger or showing what they say is how out of touch, or old, he is.I suggest Obama find a way to say "Trollop" or maybe even "comb-over", it's worked before. (warning: McCain calls his wife a couple of bad words)
Palin, the Alaska governor who Republican presidential nominee John McCain picked to be his running mate earlier this month, will meet with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on Wednesday. She has meetings with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the same day. The appointments are in addition to meetings the campaign previously confirmed for Palin on Tuesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Colombian President Alvaro Uribe as well as a sit-down with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Palin will also meet with U2 lead singer and activist Bono on Wednesday.And look who Bono took to church in NYC yesterday:
"I'm with him based on the fact that I have great knowledge of John McCain. Also, this is not the right time for tax increases. And Obama wants to increase your taxes drastically.”
Well, maybe not your taxes. But certainly The Donald’s: Obama would repeal President Bush tax cuts for households making more than $250,000."
"She and her husband, Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild of the prominent Rothschild banking family of England, split their time between New York and a British country estate. ...With supporters like these, who needs enemies?
In a July interview with CNN, Rothschild explained why, despite Clinton's calls for party unity, she couldn't back Obama. "I don't like him," she said. "I feel like he is an elitist.""
"For several years now, American pundits have commented sadly on the alleged rise of anti-Americanism abroad.
I am not aware of any such anti-Americanism. What has been growing is resentment of and opposition to certain, current U.S. government policies. America itself still stands tall in international eyes as a stronghold of democratic values and the ideals of individual liberty. All that remains is for informed citizens to stand up in November and call the country back to its roots."
The US Has 761 Military Bases Across the Planet, and We Simply Never Talk About It
The article is rather long, but this is one of those stories that deserves more attention than the lipstick-laden pig.You would think that all of this would be genuine news, that the establishment of new bases would regularly generate significant news stories, that books by the score would pour out on America's version of imperial control. But here's the strange thing: We garrison the globe in ways that really are -- not to put too fine a point on it -- unprecedented, and yet, if you happen to live in the United States, you basically wouldn't know it; or, thought about another way, you wouldn't have to know it.
In Washington, our garrisoning of the world is so taken for granted that no one seems to blink when billions go into a new base in some exotic, embattled, war-torn land. There's no discussion, no debate at all. News about bases abroad, and Pentagon basing strategy, is, at best, inside-the-fold stuff, meant for policy wonks and news jockeys. There may be no subject more taken for granted in Washington, less seriously attended to, or more deserving of coverage.
Since the 2004 election, I've been wondering about the intelligence of the American voter. In large part, the Mainstream Media is responsible for our collective lack of knowledge on important issues that face the country. Here's an idea that Republicans might like since it has worked so well for teachers:
From Common Dreams: "Perhaps, we can introduce a system of merit pay for reporters and news producers in which their pay depends on their success in educating the public on key issues, just as many school districts make the pay of schoolteachers dependent on how well their students perform.
Schoolteachers whose students perform badly don't get raises and could even get fired. Imagine that we applied the same standards to CBS, NBC, NPR and The Washington Post. If their audience couldn't answer basic questions about important public policy issues, then the reporters responsible get their pay cut. If the audiences are especially poorly informed, then the reporters get fired.
Unfortunately, this sort of accountability in the media doesn't exist. Most political reporters sound like high school drama coaches as they spend their time talking about candidates' appearance and speaking mannerisms. They almost never bother to discuss the positions advocated by the candidates - that might require a few minutes of real work."
If the MSM did this, news on TV would be worth watching!
In a bold attempt to attract a younger, more beautiful and enthusiastic audience, John McCain shocked the world and tapped NBC sitcom star Tina Fey for the VP slot.
i.
"For two weeks, a team of four reporters-including Alan Smith, who broke the Donna Rice scandal-staked out Hunter's OB/GYN office until she was spotted and snapped outside a nearby grocery store on December 12. "The picture you see where she looks like Camilla Parker Bowles took fifteen days," reporter Alan Butterfield, who was at the scene, remembers. "We sat in our car."
Before publishing the photograph on December 19, the Enquirer pressed Edwards to confirm the story, Perel says. Edwards's attorney offered to provide a sworn affidavit that his client hadn't fathered Hunter's child, but, according to two former Edwards staffers, Edwards never signed one. Perel says the paper also offered Edwards the chance to take a polygraph test; if he passed, Perel would kill the story. Edwards declined the offer."
It could have ended there, everybody was covering up pretty good. Then came the incident at the Beverly Hills Hilton. Read the whole article, but amaze yourself with this moment first:
"Shortly after 2 a.m, Hitchen saw McGovern return to the lobby. Expecting Edwards to take the elevator to the basement where he could escape through a rear stairwell, the reporter positioned himself at the bottom of the stairs. Edwards popped out of the elevator and started up the stairs.Then Hitchen pounced. "Mr. Edwards, Alexander Hitchen, from the National Enquirer. Would you like to say why you were at the hotel this evening to see your mistress Rielle Hunter and your love child?" he asked. Edwards froze and "turned pale," Hitchen remembers. Edwards made a move for the top of the stairs but Butterfield, standing with a photographer, was blocking the exit. "He ducked, tucked, and ran," Butterfield says. The Enquirer reporters ran after him, Hitchen asking questions all the while. "Do you think for the sake of your child, you should admit paternity?" he said.
Edwards said nothing."
Update:
If there's any comic relief in the war between Russia and Georgia, it's this statement from Randy Scheunemann, John McCain's top foreign policy adviser: "In the twenty-first century, nations don't invade other nations." Coming from America's No. 1 advocate for invading Iraq -- Scheunemann headed the neocon-inspired Committee for the Liberation of Iraq in 2002 -- that's rich. Or perhaps Scheunemann thinks the US invasion of Iraq happened in an earlier century.
What's not funny, though, is Scheunemann's ties to Georgia. Where's the outrage? Why isn't there a congressional investigation of the McCain's adviser's entanglements?
It's no laughing matter that McCain's top adviser is multiply connected to Georgia, whose ill-advised assault on Russian positions in South Ossetia fully qualifies it as the first, overtly American-allied "rogue nation."....
...Indeed, there's a nice Iraq-Georgia connection through Scheunemann: the offices of Orion Strategies shared the same address as the neocon-inspired Iraqi National Congress, founded by charlatan Ahmed Chalabi
But now @U2 is making me a whore. That's right, I'm selling the soul of the watts4u2 blog to enter a contest to win 3 CDs I already have (well, I have the unremastered versions), plus a few songs that didn't make the cut originally, and one or two that were added to recently in some fashion. I hear the boxes and artwork are nice though, and since I have virtually everything they've ever released and then some, I sure would like to win those.For those interested in the Russian/Georgia conflict, Ted Galen Carpenter at CATO has a tasty scouring for our current policy:
Let me put it this way.... if we decided the border with Mexico was a military problem, if we decided to enforce our border down there.... what the hell business is that for Russia? Would we allow them to use military transport to bring humanitarian aid to say, Tijuana? Let's go a step further.... let's say Russia also is building "missile defense" systems for El Salvador, Colombia and Venezuela."One passage in the president's statement is cause for alarm, however. He announced that he was directing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to execute a "humanitarian mission to the people of Georgia, headed by the United States military." Bush stated that a C-17 transport plane loaded with humanitarian supplies was already on its way, and that in the days ahead U.S. military aircraft and naval forces would be tasked with delivering aid.
That is a reckless move. The supposed cease-fire that was proclaimed on Tuesday seems largely ineffectual. Without a reliable truce in place, U.S. military forces would be entering a volatile war zone. Moreover, there was no indication that Bush was asking the Russians for permission. Indeed, his statement had all the characteristics of a demand — or a dare. "We expect Russia to ensure that all lines of communication and transport, including seaports, airports, roads, and airspace remain open for the delivery of humanitarian assistance."
The arrogance of that position is breathtaking. When a major cyclone created widespread devastation in Burma earlier this year, some proponents of humanitarian aid urged the U.S. military to compel delivery even in the teeth of opposition from the Burmese junta. American leaders rejected their pleas, however, deeming such an operation to be too dangerous. Apparently that situation was considered more dangerous than barging into a war zone where the military forces of a nuclear-armed power are conducting military operations.
Washington is creating a situation in which one nervous or trigger-happy Russian soldier could ignite an extremely ugly and perilous confrontation."
Really interesting article from someone who has known McCain for almost 50 years."Most of us who survived that experience are now in our late 60's and 70's. Sadly, we have died and are dying off at a greater rate than our non-POW contemporaries. We experienced injuries and malnutrition that are coming home to roost. So I believe John's age (73) and survival expectation are not good for being elected to serve as our President for 4 or more years.
I can verify that John has an infamous reputation for being a hot head. He has a quick and explosive temper that many have experienced first hand. Folks, quite honestly that is not the finger I want next to that red button."
Dear Colin,
You have said you regret the “blot” on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.
If you were blindsided, well, here’s an opportunity to try to wipe off some of the blot. There is no need for you to end up like Lady Macbeth, wandering around aimlessly muttering, Out damn spot…or blot.
It has always strained credulity, at least as far as I was concerned, to accept the notion that naiveté prevented you from seeing through the game Vice President Dick Cheney and then-CIA Director George Tenet were playing on Iraq.
And I was particularly suspicious when you chose to ignore the strong dissents of your own State Department intelligence analysts who, as you know, turned out to be far more on target than counterparts in more servile agencies.
It was equally difficult for me to believe that you thought that, by insisting that shameless George Tenet sit behind you on camera, you could ensure a modicum of truth in your speech before the U.N. Security Council. You were far savvier than that.
That is certainly the impression I got from our every-other-morning conversations in the mid-80s, before I went in to brief the President’s Daily Brief to your boss, then-Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger, one-on-one. ...
I've liked Edwards for the most part during his brief political career. A few of of my first blog posts were about Edwards back when he shone like a meteor, taking his Senate seat to the national stage, contending for two presidential nominations. Now he is gone. Toast. Worm meal. Lower than a crawdad's belly in a sink full of soaking hot seaweed.
....on foreign policy, calls him worse than Bush. Yes, worse than George W. Bush."The foreign policy that John McCain now advocates is reckless and promiscuously interventionist. If he were a university student majoring in international relations or security studies, he would deserve a resounding F for his analysis of the crucial issues that the United States has confronted over the past 14 or 15 years. After a promising start, his performance has steadily deteriorated. The last thing that America needs is an even more aggressive and incompetent steward of foreign policy than George W. Bush has been."
Andy has some of the best fake news around, check out his site.Liberal Bloggers Accuse Obama of Trying to Win Election
Nominee Called Traitor to Democrats' Losing Tradition
The liberal blogosphere was aflame today with new accusations that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill) is trying to win the 2008 presidential election.
Suspicions about Sen. Obama's true motives have been building over the past few weeks, but not until today have the bloggers called him out for betraying the Democratic Party's losing tradition.
"Barack Obama seems to be making a very calculated attempt to win over 270 electoral votes," wrote liberal blogger Carol Foyler at LibDemWatch.com, a blog read by a half-dozen other liberal bloggers. "He must be stopped."
But those comments were not nearly as strident as those of Tracy Klugian, whose blog LoseOn.org has backed unsuccessful Democratic candidates since 2000.
"Increasingly, Barack Obama's message is becoming more accessible, appealing, and yes, potentially successful," he wrote. "Any Democrat who voted for Dukakis, Mondale or Kerry should regard this as a betrayal."
Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said that he was "sympathetic" to the concerns of bloggers who worry that their nominee seems stubbornly bent on winning the election, but he warned them that the DNC's "hands are tied."
"If Sen. Obama is really determined to win, I don't think any of us can talk him out of it," Mr. Dean said.
Liberal bloggers said that they would be watching Sen. Obama's vice-presidential selection process "very closely" for signs that he is plotting to win the election.
"Barack Obama still has a chance to pick someone disastrous as a sign that he wants to lose this thing," Ms. Foyler wrote. "If not, he should brace himself for some really mean blog posts."
Has there ever been a war McCain wanted to end? Seems to me he wants American troops in every country across the globe. Hey, we're most of the way (70%!) there!
"... McCain's entire career has been dedicated to the idea that America must always have the right to solve its problems by force. Throughout his political career, he has argued for increased use of force in virtually every military engagement the U.S. has been involved in since Vietnam. He complained about Bill Clinton's "excessively restricted air campaign" in Kosovo, campaigning strenuously for a ground invasion. During the 1994 flap over Pyongyang's nuclear program, he called for "more forceful, coercive action." Even before the latest Iraq War, McCain argued way back in 1999 that the only way to deal with Saddam Hussein was "to strike disproportionate to the provocation."
The most frightening example of McCain's fondness for force is on display in his own book, Faith of My Fathers, when he complains about the politicians who refused to allow pilots like him to attack, say, Soviet ships unloading arms in Vietnamese port cities. "We thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots," he writes.
Bombing Soviet ships, of course, would probably have started World War III, but McCain's vision, then and now, encompasses war as a way of life. There is significant evidence that McCain believes war is something righteous and necessary, a tonic for the national soul, intrinsically "noble" irrespective of context (he is still one of the only politicians to apply that word to the Iraq conflict). That is why it's no joke when McCain says casually, "There's gonna be other wars," or when he sings, "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran." We have to assume that he will jump at the chance to expand this conflict and hit those politically sensitive targets his "complete idiot" civilian commanders once barred him from going after in Vietnam."
"For the first time in U.S. history, more than one in every 100 adults are in jail or prison, according to a new report documenting America’s rank as the world’s No. 1 incarcerator. It urges states to curtail corrections spending by placing fewer low-risk offenders behind bars.
Using state-by-state data, the report says 2,319,258 Americans were in jail or prison at the start of 2008 - one in 99.1 adults. Whether per capita or in raw numbers, it’s more than any other nation."
Hey, we're #1!!!!
Consider this next time McCain says he wants us to stay in Iraq for an undetermined length of time. If McCain had been in Nixon's shoes, we might still be fighting in Vietnam. And he would think that was a good thing. The choice is clear, folks.
"The most pertinent issue is not what McCain did or didn’t do during the war in Vietnam, but what he learned from that searing, incredibly bloody and wholly unnecessary failure of U.S. policy. Clearly he learned that torture is morally wrong, illegal and counterproductive, and he has spoken with great moral authority on that issue. But listening to him now and over the past decade or so, he also seems not to have learned why that war itself was a tragic mistake — and why we needed to leave Vietnam long before we did.
Indeed, what is most striking about McCain’s attitude toward Vietnam is his insistence that we could have won — that we should have won — with more bombs and more casualties. In 1998, he spoke on the 30th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. “Like a lot of Vietnam veterans, I believed and still believe that the war was winnable,” he said. “I do not believe that it was winnable at an acceptable cost in the short or probably even the long term using the strategy of attrition which we employed there to such tragic results. I do believe that had we taken the war to the North and made full, consistent use of air power in the North, we ultimately would have prevailed.” Five years later, he said much the same thing to the Council on Foreign Relations. “We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight, because we did not understand the nature of the war we were fighting, and because we limited the tools at our disposal.”
When I initiated a discussion with my coworkers this afternoon of this sick collaboration between G.W. Bush and Congressional heavyweights, including the Democrats we elected on the basis of their promises to end our wars, not extend them, my liberal friend said, “So?” “Are you surprised? What’s the big deal? This is what we do; it’s what we’ve always done.” And true, too, of course, but never before in our history has the citizen, the voter, had the opportunity to discover so readily and clearly what terrible, illegal, immoral things are perpetrated in his or her name. We must not, I perhaps somewhat heatedly replied, relinquish our ability to be disgusted and outraged; we must not accept such foul business, such a sellout of our decency as “the way things are.” It is our duty to read such articles and commentary as Mr. Hersh and The New Yorker can supply, to disseminate such revelations, to provoke our neighbors and friends and family.This is why I blog. It's rarely OK to bring up such subjects in polite company, but I say we must. I can't always say these things out loud to people I come across everyday, so I put it here. I try to highlight stories that don't get enough attention. But whatever I do with this blog, it's because I believe it is Patriotic to speak up about America, and even better to point out problems so we can get to the solutions.
We had a chance to reshape the world after the Cold War, after 9/11.... but this isn't what I had in mind at all! What have we become with our insane foreign policies? We need to get back to basics and have our government act within the bounds of the Constitution. That alone would have prevented the Iraq debacle. We need more talk about these big themes, and that's why I liked Ron Paul. Barry would do well to adopt some of these broader ideas and reignite the real patriotism of the Founders, rather than this false patriotism we see today from the likes of Sean Hannity."That guiding idea of nonintervention -- developed by the colonists in rebellion, espoused to great effect by the brilliant pamphleteer Thomas Paine, and crystallized as a national treasure in the final speech to the nation of George Washington -- is as fresh and viable a construct as any of the great ideas that have guided our governance. Washington's Farewell Address, actually a carefully considered letter to the American people crafted in close consultation with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, is one of our great treasures, but although read each year in the U.S. Senate to mark Washington's legacy, it contains a caution largely ignored by those same senators as they gleefully approve massive spending to enable international meddling of every sort. Their failed responsibility to limit the president's declaration of war has become a farce that as much as anything mocks Congress' obligations as laid out in the Constitution."
"Thanks in part to McCain's vigilance, a defense contracting scandal he exposed resulted in a Pentagon procurement officer and the CFO of Boeing being sentenced to federal prison when it was revealed that the Air Force was leasing unneeded air tankers at an initial cost of $30 billion.
It was not the first time that McCain had risen on the Senate floor to accuse the Pentagon of being in cahoots with defense industry lobbyists, and he does deserve high marks for being one of the few members of Congress willing to hold the military-industrial complex accountable. But we hear little from that McCain these days as he goes on and on praising a pointless war in Iraq that has become the main excuse for wasting trillions in so-called defense dollars.
This last is the deal breaker. It is simply not possible to be a genuine small-government-give-taxpayers-a-break president while planning to pour trillions more down that rathole of failed imperial adventures."
This is my biggest problem with McCain. He knows we're wasting trillions of dollars in Iraq, and how bad that is for our economy, and the future of our country. He's long been critical of wasteful spending, and that's great. But we could stop a thousand "bridges to nowhere" and still be stuck with huge debt from Iraq alone. We're not going to solve our debt crisis unless we leave Iraq, or find a way to take all their oil. What's it gonna be, John?
"McCain may be attempting to hide why the Navy was in fact slow to promote him upwards despite his suffering as a POW and his distinguished naval heritage.
One possible reason: After McCain had returned from Vietnam as a war hero and was physically rehabilitated, he was urged by his medical caretakers and military colleagues never to fly again. But McCain insisted on going up. As Carl Bernstein reported in Vanity Fair, he piloted an ultralight single-propeller plane -- and crashed another time. His fifth loss of a plane has vanished from public records, but should be a subject of discussion in his Navy file. It wouldn't be surprising if his naval superiors worried that McCain was just too defiant, too reckless and too crash prone.
Regardless, McCain owes it to the country to release his complete naval records so that American voters can see his documented history and make an informed decision."
Wow, five planes! What a hero... or what a crappy pilot? Hard to say. And it was his plane that started the Forrestal tragedy. Surely these weren't all his fault, but hey, that's some bad luck.
Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.
If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.
There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.
Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?
If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.
Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.
Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.
Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
Get on the plane. Get on the plane." I say, "***** you, I'm getting IN the plane! IN the plane! Let Evil Knievel get ON the plane! I'll be in here with you folks in uniform! There seems to be less WIND in here!"Here's hoping GC's enjoying Cloud Eight. He's not getting any older!
Isn’t it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do “practice”?
What year did Jesus think it was?
Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time. (side note from watts4u2: I worked for two of these types, they are real.)
Cloud nine gets all the publicity, but cloud eight actually is cheaper, less crowded, and has a better view.
So far, this is the oldest I’ve been.
"The Edge seemed more interested in talking about the U.S. presidential race. Wondering whether "Americans really are ready for a black president," The Edge said he hoped so, but predicted "it's going to be very, very close ... perhaps as close as the one in 2000." Whatever the outcome, The Edge, like virtually every European I met the past two weeks, is convinced either Barack Obama or John McCain will greatly improve America's standing on the world stage."
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. --- Wayne Ellington, Danny Green and Ty Lawson have decided to withdraw from the 2008 NBA Draft and return to Chapel Hill for the 2008-09 season, head coach Roy Williams announced on Monday.
4. Hit McCain's policy reversals. This week, McCain didn't show up to vote for a climate change bill that he helped shape, and which he holds up as one of the great points of contrast with the Bush administration. (He said he probably wouldn't have voted for it even if he had shown up.) McCain has also refused to endorse his own immigration bill. He has also changed his mind on the Bush tax-cuts, torture and the Geneva conventions, and the rape-and-incest exception to the GOP's abortion amendment. These are matters of high principle, and not nearly enough attention has been paid to the lengths McCain went to in order to make himself acceptable to the GOP right. Obama frequently hits McCain on his support for tax cuts he once called unconscionable, and that's great, but he needs to expand the list. Moderates should realize that the McCain they once admired--I was one of them--is not the same man.Perhaps the best advice was from commenter 'Dan':
I would like to see Obama announce one cabinet appointment every week or two in the weeks or month preceding the convention. This would accomplish several things. First, it would give us a chance to see what his administration would look like. Second, it would reassure those who don't know Obama or have concerns about him what kind of people are advising him and which direction his administration will likely move. Third, announcing a high level appointment each week would create a drumbeat of news at a time in which there isn't much and would get Obama some positive attention in the press. Fourth, it would provide Obama with several heavyweight surrogates who can help defend him against unfair attacks during the general election. Imagine Obama selecting John Edwards as Attorney General, Bob Graham to head Homeland Security, Richard Gephardt as Secretary of Labor, Sam Nunn as Secretary of Defense, Joe Biden or Bill Richardson as Secretary of State. Most have already been vetted in national campaigns. Most are southerners and would appeal to whites who may have concerns about voting for a black president. This would also reduce the importance of the vice presidential pick. Instead of counting on one announcement to act as a magic bullet to appeal to all groups Obama needs to court, he can select a few people who can help him in different ways -- Biden on foreign policy, Richardson with Hispanics, Graham with Florida and so forth. Just a thought.Nice plan Dan, I like that thinking!
MSM still won't say Bush lied, just check out the synonyms in these headlines: Fellow North Carolinians, the time has come to place your vote, and I'm expecting better results from us than those smarty-pants folks in CA, NY, PA, OH, etc.
Yesterday after church, an older man came up to me and said he had seen me on Monday. At first, I thought he must have seen me driving around town or something.
But this gentleman had seen me at the Obama rally. He had waited in those long lines because he thinks Obama is the best chance we've ever had to make a difference. He thinks Obama is the one person who can best deal with the folks in the Middle East. He thinks Obama can make America great again. And I couldn't agree with him more.
I gave him some 3D glasses and some pictures from the rally, and implored him to go vote on Tuesday. His response: "I already have".
So fellow North Carolinians, I implore you, go vote tomorrow, and vote for a real change.
