Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Cherry picking
I don't expect there to be a word of truth in political ads. But do they have to be so egregious? Of course they do, since even when people know you're lying, they'll eventually accept what you say if you repeat it often enough in an impressive fashion. That's been the Bush administration's strategy about everything, not just elections, and it appears to work for them (which I must say has nearly convinced me that America is not ready for democracy).
Anyhow, they're pulling the same cherry-picking routine on Kerry's record as they pulled on the so-called "intelligence" about WMDs in Iraq -- go through the record and pull out tiny facts (which may or may not actually be true, but you found them someplace), manipulate and distort them, and then blow them wildly out of proportion by ignoring the ten thousand other facts which contradict or make better sense of these wonderfully alarming and nonsensical "facts" you're solicitiously presenting to the public for its better understanding of the situation.
The simple truth is that if Kerry really had such an insanely destructive voting record, he'd have been booted out long ago. Meanwhile, who's screaming out the facts about Bush's pathetic record as governor of Texas, not to mention as failed businessman and, of course, inept president of the U.S.? They don't have to distort the facts about him.
If this Kerry person doesn't start dissecting the attacks against him soon, as well as going heavily on the offensive with truth not lies, it's going to be too late. You must not let the enemy define you to the public and keep you on the defensive. He's been in war, he ought to know when to attack!
It's not just I who can't face another four years of George Bush et al. I don't think the planet can. I don't have much respect for "politics as usual" in this country, but to go back to the usual buying, selling and trading of politicians would be a genuine relief after the unchecked looting we're enduring right now.
I don't expect there to be a word of truth in political ads. But do they have to be so egregious? Of course they do, since even when people know you're lying, they'll eventually accept what you say if you repeat it often enough in an impressive fashion. That's been the Bush administration's strategy about everything, not just elections, and it appears to work for them (which I must say has nearly convinced me that America is not ready for democracy).
Anyhow, they're pulling the same cherry-picking routine on Kerry's record as they pulled on the so-called "intelligence" about WMDs in Iraq -- go through the record and pull out tiny facts (which may or may not actually be true, but you found them someplace), manipulate and distort them, and then blow them wildly out of proportion by ignoring the ten thousand other facts which contradict or make better sense of these wonderfully alarming and nonsensical "facts" you're solicitiously presenting to the public for its better understanding of the situation.
The simple truth is that if Kerry really had such an insanely destructive voting record, he'd have been booted out long ago. Meanwhile, who's screaming out the facts about Bush's pathetic record as governor of Texas, not to mention as failed businessman and, of course, inept president of the U.S.? They don't have to distort the facts about him.
If this Kerry person doesn't start dissecting the attacks against him soon, as well as going heavily on the offensive with truth not lies, it's going to be too late. You must not let the enemy define you to the public and keep you on the defensive. He's been in war, he ought to know when to attack!
It's not just I who can't face another four years of George Bush et al. I don't think the planet can. I don't have much respect for "politics as usual" in this country, but to go back to the usual buying, selling and trading of politicians would be a genuine relief after the unchecked looting we're enduring right now.
Monday, March 29, 2004
Stupid stupid politics
Headline:
"Poll: Kerry 48%, Bush 46%; With Nader It's a Tie:
Bush Preferred If Terror Hits US"
(Sorry, I didn't keep the newspaper link, got to get better at this.)
1. Once again, Nader is deluding himself if he thinks his votes will come from Bush supporters. (And although he's right about many things, anybody who votes for Nader in this election is deluding themselves even more!)
2. "Bush preferred if terror hits U.S."?? The American public has good horse sense - when the barn's on fire, quick run back into your nice safe stall!
2(a). Seems like sort of an incentive for us to have another terror attack shortly before the election, don't it? It'd be even better if it hit that other evil non-Bush-supporting locale, Hollywood, Los Angeles... Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
3. Currently looking for countries that are not yet completely around the bend...
Headline:
"Poll: Kerry 48%, Bush 46%; With Nader It's a Tie:
Bush Preferred If Terror Hits US"
(Sorry, I didn't keep the newspaper link, got to get better at this.)
1. Once again, Nader is deluding himself if he thinks his votes will come from Bush supporters. (And although he's right about many things, anybody who votes for Nader in this election is deluding themselves even more!)
2. "Bush preferred if terror hits U.S."?? The American public has good horse sense - when the barn's on fire, quick run back into your nice safe stall!
2(a). Seems like sort of an incentive for us to have another terror attack shortly before the election, don't it? It'd be even better if it hit that other evil non-Bush-supporting locale, Hollywood, Los Angeles... Not that I'm paranoid or anything.
3. Currently looking for countries that are not yet completely around the bend...
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
The solution to all our problems
The Total Information Awareness bill, and the PATRIOT act that reorganizes a huge chunk of government bureaucracies into one immensely overinflated government bureaucracy, these are part of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a more responsive, proactive government that wields greater power over the American people, for its own good of course.
However, in all this government upgrading, there is one desperately needed post that has not yet been filled, a post which is of vital importance in maintaining the balance of our national sanity.
What we need is someone who can bring things to rights when they get off kilter, someone who can see instantly through the excuses, the make-wrongs, the whining, the fibs, the general B.S. Someone who rules with an iron hand and is not misled by cries of “He started it!” or “I didn’t do it!” Someone who can balance the books and put a firm hand on over-spending; who can put misbehaving persons on notice until they figure out how to act civilized. Someone who will quell lies with an eagle-like glare and worm out the truth from even the most recalcitrant.
What this nation desperately needs, particularly given the current administration in Washington, is a White House Mom.
The post should be open to any one of any creed, colour, or gender. There is no real reason why a White House Mom couldn’t be a man. However, on the other hand, the government is largely in the hands of men right now and I don’t see any of them performing the above duties. All that aside, White House Mom is a position of extreme national importance, and the method of choosing the candidate would need to be carefully considered.
First of all, no one in the administration would be permitted to have any say in the decision. This is obvious, as the White House Mom is senior to all of these positions, including, of course, the President. Furthermore, the candidate would have to be elected by the public at large, by a gross national vote (not state-by-state), so as to be determined entirely by raw numbers. No contributions to the White House Mom’s campaigns would be permitted from any source; a reasonable set-aside would be made from public funds on a federal and perhaps on local levels, for a modest campaign for each applicant up to a number of five finalists. Choice of the finalists might be conducted on TV by telethon, by a process of elimination over a period of weeks, then having the final national election. No large PR firms would be permitted to be involved in the campaign advertising; very strict guidelines for the campaign advertising would be demanded, including no music, no flag-waving, no fancy graphics, just the candidate talking about his or her ideas and goals for the job. The whole business must be kept on as amateurish and home-grown a level as mothering always, at its best, is.
The White House Mom may not have any party affiliation but must run on personal qualities and beliefs alone. Political issues not related to the White House Mom’s specific duties would not be allowed to be discussed in the election - questions such as opinions on security, abortion, crime, the environment, taxes, etc., would be entirely irrelevant to the job. The White House Mom’s task is purely to keep the brats in Washington in line and doing their jobs - which do involve dealing with the above political issues. Currently, there is no one in Washington preventing the administration, or the Congress and Senate for that matter, from neglecting its homework, running off to play with naughty corporations, starting gang wars, piling up bills on other people's credit cards, and fooling around with drugs, chemical weapons, and guns.
Above all, the White House Mom would see to it that politicians kept their election promises. What if George Bush actually was forced to be the “compassionate conservative” and “uniter, not divider” that he gleefully sold himself as before the election? “Now George, you know you promised. You get in there and do what you said you would do, and none of this slacking off just pretending to do it!”
The White House Mom would be the voice of ethics in a milieu that hasn’t the faintest conception of the meaning of the word. Maybe, after s/he knocked enough heads together enough times they would get the idea, and might eventually become ready to move out into the real world and act like real adults. As it is, I don’t think very many of them would survive for long without their current generous unearned allowances.
The Total Information Awareness bill, and the PATRIOT act that reorganizes a huge chunk of government bureaucracies into one immensely overinflated government bureaucracy, these are part of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a more responsive, proactive government that wields greater power over the American people, for its own good of course.
However, in all this government upgrading, there is one desperately needed post that has not yet been filled, a post which is of vital importance in maintaining the balance of our national sanity.
What we need is someone who can bring things to rights when they get off kilter, someone who can see instantly through the excuses, the make-wrongs, the whining, the fibs, the general B.S. Someone who rules with an iron hand and is not misled by cries of “He started it!” or “I didn’t do it!” Someone who can balance the books and put a firm hand on over-spending; who can put misbehaving persons on notice until they figure out how to act civilized. Someone who will quell lies with an eagle-like glare and worm out the truth from even the most recalcitrant.
What this nation desperately needs, particularly given the current administration in Washington, is a White House Mom.
The post should be open to any one of any creed, colour, or gender. There is no real reason why a White House Mom couldn’t be a man. However, on the other hand, the government is largely in the hands of men right now and I don’t see any of them performing the above duties. All that aside, White House Mom is a position of extreme national importance, and the method of choosing the candidate would need to be carefully considered.
First of all, no one in the administration would be permitted to have any say in the decision. This is obvious, as the White House Mom is senior to all of these positions, including, of course, the President. Furthermore, the candidate would have to be elected by the public at large, by a gross national vote (not state-by-state), so as to be determined entirely by raw numbers. No contributions to the White House Mom’s campaigns would be permitted from any source; a reasonable set-aside would be made from public funds on a federal and perhaps on local levels, for a modest campaign for each applicant up to a number of five finalists. Choice of the finalists might be conducted on TV by telethon, by a process of elimination over a period of weeks, then having the final national election. No large PR firms would be permitted to be involved in the campaign advertising; very strict guidelines for the campaign advertising would be demanded, including no music, no flag-waving, no fancy graphics, just the candidate talking about his or her ideas and goals for the job. The whole business must be kept on as amateurish and home-grown a level as mothering always, at its best, is.
The White House Mom may not have any party affiliation but must run on personal qualities and beliefs alone. Political issues not related to the White House Mom’s specific duties would not be allowed to be discussed in the election - questions such as opinions on security, abortion, crime, the environment, taxes, etc., would be entirely irrelevant to the job. The White House Mom’s task is purely to keep the brats in Washington in line and doing their jobs - which do involve dealing with the above political issues. Currently, there is no one in Washington preventing the administration, or the Congress and Senate for that matter, from neglecting its homework, running off to play with naughty corporations, starting gang wars, piling up bills on other people's credit cards, and fooling around with drugs, chemical weapons, and guns.
Above all, the White House Mom would see to it that politicians kept their election promises. What if George Bush actually was forced to be the “compassionate conservative” and “uniter, not divider” that he gleefully sold himself as before the election? “Now George, you know you promised. You get in there and do what you said you would do, and none of this slacking off just pretending to do it!”
The White House Mom would be the voice of ethics in a milieu that hasn’t the faintest conception of the meaning of the word. Maybe, after s/he knocked enough heads together enough times they would get the idea, and might eventually become ready to move out into the real world and act like real adults. As it is, I don’t think very many of them would survive for long without their current generous unearned allowances.
Thursday, March 11, 2004
The Bush 9-11 ads
A lot of fuss lately about Bush's self-congratulatory ads invoking 9-11.
It's not clear to me why this guy wants to take credit for 9-11, but heck, if that's what he wants... okay! Take credit for it! Brother Bush, you ignored the intelligence before it happened. You went on vacation for a month before it happened. You screwed up completely! You should be fired. Congratulations.
*sigh* I'll never understand politicians.
A lot of fuss lately about Bush's self-congratulatory ads invoking 9-11.
It's not clear to me why this guy wants to take credit for 9-11, but heck, if that's what he wants... okay! Take credit for it! Brother Bush, you ignored the intelligence before it happened. You went on vacation for a month before it happened. You screwed up completely! You should be fired. Congratulations.
*sigh* I'll never understand politicians.
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Some thoughts on September 13, 2001
This isn't a nicely organized essay at this point. I'm just posting it as some thoughts and observations I jotted down a couple of days after 9-11-2001.
***
It's horrible to see, after so many people have been brought together by this tragedy, expressing an impulse to help one another and the victims -- along with this, to see another stream of reaction, of forced alienation instead of help, of ugly bigotry and violence starting to erupt against innocent people who are as horrified by this tragedy as the rest of us. For anyone to think that just because someone is a Muslim that they had anything more to do with this act of terrorism than a Jew, a Christian, or a Buddhist, to see someone using this tragedy to justify ugly, degrading bigotry and violence, is to me even more upsetting than the act of terrorism itself. There really is no difference in the underlying impulse.
There are people in this country, as in every country, who are full of resentment for whatever personal or political reasons; and, our country having received an injury of the magnitude that it just has, all it takes is the slightest nudge for such a person to now think he has carte blanche to wreak whatever "revenge" he feels like. For this reason, it is the vital responsibility of the leaders of this country not to make statements that feed into this, not to go about talking of "vengeance" and "war" and so on, not to let their own feelings run away with them in the heat of the moment, not to say things that, after a couple of days of debate, they might see as not quite intelligent. I respect Mayor Guiliani for speaking out emphatically against such acts even before they happened, and our national leaders have the responsibility to take the same stand with even more emphasis.
Furthermore, for this country to take violent action, out of the emotion of the moment, that harms even one innocent person in the Middle East or anywhere else, is to degrade the United States to a level no higher than the terrorists themselves, and it would be committing an injustice that would raise the cycle of violence to unheard of levels, just as it has in places like Bosnia and Israel. There is no way to win a "war" against terrorism by brute force. You will never kill off everybody who is your enemy; you will just make more enemies in the process, and new terrorist leaders will arise, the violence will escalate, as it has in so many places around the world, and no one will suffer more in the process than the people of the United States; not only from terrorism, but from destruction of this country from within by the process of war and elimination of freedom. The crimes of a government against other countries are visited on its own people.
The terrorism that occurred in this country was an act of insanity and a crime and should be addressed as a crime, as it has been elsewhere in the world. To make it into a national war, would rebound against the people of the United States and is the worst thing this government could do. This situation needs to be handled in a much more intelligent, well-thought-out and very carefully planned fashion, using all the tools available to government; not just a hammer fist. The consequences of any action should be considered very realistically, and the will of the entire American people -- not just a few loud ones -- should be taken into consideration.
The population of Afghanistan has already suffered terribly under its current loathsome government. For the United States to now come in, in the name of "freedom," and destroy what is left of their country, would win us only more and more hatred in the world. Even if the threat of violence were used, bin Ladin should be extradited, or even kidnapped if necessary, and tried in a court of law. Anything less than this will degrade us to his level.
This isn't a nicely organized essay at this point. I'm just posting it as some thoughts and observations I jotted down a couple of days after 9-11-2001.
***
It's horrible to see, after so many people have been brought together by this tragedy, expressing an impulse to help one another and the victims -- along with this, to see another stream of reaction, of forced alienation instead of help, of ugly bigotry and violence starting to erupt against innocent people who are as horrified by this tragedy as the rest of us. For anyone to think that just because someone is a Muslim that they had anything more to do with this act of terrorism than a Jew, a Christian, or a Buddhist, to see someone using this tragedy to justify ugly, degrading bigotry and violence, is to me even more upsetting than the act of terrorism itself. There really is no difference in the underlying impulse.
There are people in this country, as in every country, who are full of resentment for whatever personal or political reasons; and, our country having received an injury of the magnitude that it just has, all it takes is the slightest nudge for such a person to now think he has carte blanche to wreak whatever "revenge" he feels like. For this reason, it is the vital responsibility of the leaders of this country not to make statements that feed into this, not to go about talking of "vengeance" and "war" and so on, not to let their own feelings run away with them in the heat of the moment, not to say things that, after a couple of days of debate, they might see as not quite intelligent. I respect Mayor Guiliani for speaking out emphatically against such acts even before they happened, and our national leaders have the responsibility to take the same stand with even more emphasis.
Furthermore, for this country to take violent action, out of the emotion of the moment, that harms even one innocent person in the Middle East or anywhere else, is to degrade the United States to a level no higher than the terrorists themselves, and it would be committing an injustice that would raise the cycle of violence to unheard of levels, just as it has in places like Bosnia and Israel. There is no way to win a "war" against terrorism by brute force. You will never kill off everybody who is your enemy; you will just make more enemies in the process, and new terrorist leaders will arise, the violence will escalate, as it has in so many places around the world, and no one will suffer more in the process than the people of the United States; not only from terrorism, but from destruction of this country from within by the process of war and elimination of freedom. The crimes of a government against other countries are visited on its own people.
The terrorism that occurred in this country was an act of insanity and a crime and should be addressed as a crime, as it has been elsewhere in the world. To make it into a national war, would rebound against the people of the United States and is the worst thing this government could do. This situation needs to be handled in a much more intelligent, well-thought-out and very carefully planned fashion, using all the tools available to government; not just a hammer fist. The consequences of any action should be considered very realistically, and the will of the entire American people -- not just a few loud ones -- should be taken into consideration.
The population of Afghanistan has already suffered terribly under its current loathsome government. For the United States to now come in, in the name of "freedom," and destroy what is left of their country, would win us only more and more hatred in the world. Even if the threat of violence were used, bin Ladin should be extradited, or even kidnapped if necessary, and tried in a court of law. Anything less than this will degrade us to his level.
Saturday, March 06, 2004
Back around the time of the attacks on September 11, 2001, I wrote some essays which I had no idea what to do with. I didn't know about blogs at the time and I was too shy to send them in to newspapers.
But they sort of itch my hard drive, so I think I'll post them even at this late date. Looking at them now, my opinions of that time have only been validated by subsequent events (in my opinion anyhow!). Which doesn't surprise me, because it seemed thunderingly obvious even then that the U.S. government was haring off on a completely wrong track, in its usual misguided fashion. Much as I dislike the current U.S. administration, I have to say that what it's doing is not essentially different from the type of thing that has often been done by administrations before it, only more so.
This may not be the most appropriate place to post this sort of political stuff, but I guess it'll do for now. I've never been an intensely political person, but 9/11/01 changed that, much to my displeasure. In self-defence, I had to start gathering information. However, the essays I wrote back then were written before I had gathered very much if any.
I hate having to think about this kind of political stuff, frankly - my personal preference is to moon endlessly over the personal anguishes of fictional characters. Having to deal with reality is a bitch.
More to follow.
But they sort of itch my hard drive, so I think I'll post them even at this late date. Looking at them now, my opinions of that time have only been validated by subsequent events (in my opinion anyhow!). Which doesn't surprise me, because it seemed thunderingly obvious even then that the U.S. government was haring off on a completely wrong track, in its usual misguided fashion. Much as I dislike the current U.S. administration, I have to say that what it's doing is not essentially different from the type of thing that has often been done by administrations before it, only more so.
This may not be the most appropriate place to post this sort of political stuff, but I guess it'll do for now. I've never been an intensely political person, but 9/11/01 changed that, much to my displeasure. In self-defence, I had to start gathering information. However, the essays I wrote back then were written before I had gathered very much if any.
I hate having to think about this kind of political stuff, frankly - my personal preference is to moon endlessly over the personal anguishes of fictional characters. Having to deal with reality is a bitch.
More to follow.
