Dog's Breakfast

Creationism - I'm all for it

2004-11-14T23:23:00.000-08:00

There’s a movement afoot by those who somehow managed to miss living through the 20th century to take us back to the 19th in the area of civil rights, economics, and war, not to mention the rule of early Victorian self-serving hypocritical religion. In fact, they seem to want to go right back to the good of days of the Spanish Inquisition.

Well, they want to live in the 15th century? Great, let them.

They sternly warn us that “evolution” is just a theory? Fine. They don’t have to believe in evolution. But they also need to stop using electricity – electrons and electromagnetic forces are just a theory, based on all kinds of little bitty invisible things not even hinted at in the Bible. In fact, that means they need to stop using not only computers and the internet, but electric lights, telephones, television, all aspects of modern medicine – since all those drugs were concocted on the basis of complex biochemical theories, not to mention the theory of light on which diagnostic microscopes are based, and weird unBiblical things like electron microscopes and magnetic resonance imaging and nuclear radiation, which are used in diagnosis and treatment of so-called “diseases” like cancer – a disease which these people obviously don’t believe in anyhow, since they’re very happy to undo the environmental protections that were put in place to keep more modern people from getting cancer.

They need to stop sending mail, which gets shunted mysteriously around the planet using vehicles that are suspiciously unlike horses, camels, and donkeys. For sure, they need to stop driving cars – not only do cars require electricity to work, but they’re also crammed with absurd theories concocted by some guy named Isaac Newton, who came up with notions not only about gravity and light (used in microscopes) but so-called “laws” of “physics,” ideas like “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” without which an internal combustion engine could not exist.

In fact, they’ll have to go back to fighting the wars they love so much with Biblical weapons like slingshots, because modern weapons are all based on theories about chemical interactions, the molecular qualities of depleted uranium, and those pesky Newtonian theories about force again. As for putting nuclear weapons in space, why, forget rockets – can’t use ‘em, Newtonian theories again; and subatomic particles are obviously blasphemous.

And the earth would spring back into much better shape if all those who disbelieve in those theoretical chemical reactions destroying the ozone layer, as well as building up carbon dioxide to theoretically cause global warming, had to stop producing all the pollutants that are feeding those reactions.

Yes, I think this would be perfectly fair. Let the people who base their science on the Bible stick with Bible science in all ways, and we will have a safer world. You can kill a guy by hitting him on the head with a rock, but it’s really, really difficult to destroy the planet without the theories of modern science. Those should only be wielded by people who are capable of understanding them, and more importantly, their consequences.

Well, it's obvious now

2004-11-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

Democracy in this country is dead. I don't know how many elections of the past have been tampered with, but for sure all major ones in the future will be. Maybe they'll starting fixing things right down to the county level once they really get a foothold.

It makes me laugh to see so many Democrats blaming Kerry as a weak candidate and spinning themselves into the ground with "Where did we go wrong? We'll run a better campaign next time!" Kerry certainly had his flaws as a candidate, but I would say George Bush had a few as well.

All your campaigning and getting out the vote is just an extremely expensive and soul-sapping distraction. The elections themselves can't be trusted, and so there is no democracy. My suggestion is, in the next election, nobody in the opposition vote. Let George or whoever their next front man is, win with 100% of the vote like the rest of the dictators. Why help them disguise it?

Fix the electoral system or nothing else you do will matter.

Attack the Real Enemy

2004-10-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

It’s really not George Bush that Kerry is running against. He’s running against Karl Rove. It would be a highly educational move for the public if the Kerry campaign were to explain this, because although probably many people recognize “that those ads are full of lies,” it’s not likely that they realize to what degree.

I don’t understand why Karl Rove is so feared and considered to be such a genius. He’s not a genius. He’s simply unscrupulous and criminal. There’s nothing too low for him to pull. Plus he’s worked out a few simple tricks that have been successful time after time merely because they’re unbelievable. He has a pattern of attacking somebody directly on his strengths. Who would imagine – I’m sure Kerry didn’t – that Rove would have the guts to attack Kerry on his war record? Because it’s so outrageous, and because the innocent public probably imagine that nobody would simply invent from scratch such a massive lie, they think there must be something behind it.

It’s almost impossible to defend yourself against a completely baseless accusation. (As Lyndon Johnson famously recognized, insinuating that his opponent was a little too intimate with farm animals.) The attacked person flounders and looks foolish. Well, the correct way isn’t to refute the lie, especially since the press isn’t much interested in refutations. They like attacks. So what you do is attack the correct target, and attack with truth, not lies. Attack George Bush – but more than that, bring the fight directly to the real enemy, Karl Rove. Don’t let him hide in the background! Give him the celebrity he deserves! You probably can’t prove what he’s doing in this particular election. But pick out every filthy trick he’s been shown to have done in the past and draw the parallels. Show how Bush via Karl has fought election after election with jaw-dropping lies. Detail them. They make great copy. Let’s see the Bushies do some refuting for a change.

Remember that most people are ignorant about both Bush and Kerry and everything that’s been going on under their noses. They probably base their voting decision on only one or two bits of information they picked up somewhere – something memorable. If you can memorably discredit Bush’s whole campaign he will have nobody left but his groupies to re-elect him. And it’ll be a lot harder for Karl Rove to push through outrageous lies when everybody’s saying, “Oh, here comes another illegitimate black baby!”

The upcoming debacle

2004-10-18T02:19:00.000-07:00

I guess you could say I’m pessimistic, but I’m really not looking forward to November.

I’m certain now that the only way the Republicans are going to win this presidential election is if they cheat. And you know they’re going to, there’s evidence that they’ve been doing it already one way or another in a number of locations – that we've heard about. Throwing away Democratic voter registrations in several states, sloughing off thousands of alleged “felons” in Florida – again – intimidating elderly black people, etc., etc., etc. Trying all the same old tricks again. And who knows what other tricks we haven’t heard about yet. And of course, all this is not to mention the very real fears most of us have about those weird little gambling gadgets they’re calling touchscreen voting machines.

The real horror is going to begin after the polls close on November 2 – when every damn precinct in the country erupts with some kind of lawsuit. Okay, maybe only two-thirds of them. I’m afraid the upcoming election aftermath is going to make the 2000 one look like a snooze on the beach.

You already know that the Republicans, if they lose the Presidential race, will flatly refuse to admit defeat. They’re not going to abandon power merely because they were outvoted. And the Democrats, if they lose, will be profoundly, unshakably suspicious they were cheated. It’s going to be a knock-down, drag-out brawl, and I’m afraid that however the results come out, this country will be more divided than ever.

If Kerry becomes President, you know the Bush true believers will never give him even the chance that Clinton got. Let’s hope he at least has a Democratic majority in the Senate to work with. Regardless of that, it’ll be nag, nag, nag, lie, lie, lie, squabble, squabble, squabble, for his entire term, no matter what he does. If Bush stays on, the whole world will turn its back on us, and half of this country will be in hysterics. Or there’ll be an unprecedented emigration. And if in fact it is finally decided that Kerry is going to take over in January, God knows what the neocons will come up with in the time remaining before they have to go. After all, the last thing this administration is going to want to happen is to have somebody come in who hasn’t already agreed to grant them amnesty for every move they made over the last four years.

Come to think of it, maybe Kerry should simply volunteer to do that right up front. Although the administration will scream and yell and scoff, it might calm them down a little in the long run. Maybe. On the other hand, it’ll more likely be taken as a sign of weakness and he’ll just be attacked that much harder once the crooks have made their getaway.

No... I’m definitely not looking forward to November. Or the next four years. And – my goodness, if he does actually become President, look at the catastrophic mess the poor man is going to have to clean up! Poor John Kerry, I feel for you. I feel for us all.

Sigh 2

2004-09-04T23:04:00.001-07:00

I cannot stand any more. I was feeling a bit hopeful about the November election, but it’s almost certain to me right now that nothing is going to stop the Bush administration from stealing it. Or rather, whoever is behind the Bush administration, as they are only the tip of the iceberg. I don't know the whole story and I doubt anyone does, but it's very obvious that Bush is merely the anointed front man, though his family has major connections with power.

The main reason they’ll get away with it is simply that they’ve learned, obviously, that they can just go ahead and do what they want, right out in the open (or nearly), and there won’t be more than a twitch of criticism. People don’t even see what they do. It’s the most freaking unbelievable thing. They will stop people from voting (blacks mostly) and they’ll get away with it 90%. They will rig electronic voting machines which are well recognized by election officials as being easily rigged and/or hacked and in any case highly untrustworthy even when not tampered with. They’ll miscount ballots and obfuscate when called on it. Like that ludicrous nonsense at the last election, when perfectly obvious ballots were tossed out as “can’t figure out what the voter wanted,” and even Pat Buchanan admitted that all those elderly Jews sure didn’t vote for him. They’ll make sure they win in several key states while everybody’s obsessed with watching Florida, though for reasons of pride I expect they’ll make sure they win in Florida as well.

And that’s not counting the ridiculous, blatantly lying smear campaigns they’ll go on running right up until the election. Every time one begins to lose steam or be too heavily discredited they’ll come up with another one out of left field. Because nobody could ever imagine the chutzpah of these people. They invariably attack a guy on his strongest points. The thing neither he nor anybody else could ever have imagined was a weakness, they’ll come out with wild lies about. As happened to John McCain, Max Cleland, and now John Kerry. And as with Kerry, the media that is supposed to protect our right to know will obediently accept this blatant political maneuvering as interesting and controversial, and give tons of play to it, and make little or no attempt to systematically investigate its truth or falsehood, leaving people with the impression that there must be something in it or they wouldn't promulgate it in that fashion.

The media is the biggest criminal in this whole affair, but that’s not by accident or even their own stupidity. That was carefully engineered by the powers that be some time ago. Honest journalists lose their jobs, like those two who did an expose on Monsanto and BGH (bovine growth hormone) a couple of years ago. I believe they actually worked for Fox. (That's another story for another time.)

I doubt that the Republicans will even find it necessary to have a terrorist attack. They might bring out Osama or some other guy they play up as being the big enemy, but that’s just for fun. I don’t know if they could actually engineer a major attack, but they can easily blow up some little incident (as they’ve been doing all along, grabbing people and waving them around and sticking them in jail [later to be released without fanfare by less party-loyal judges]) or receive some “great intelligence” about an attack, or whatever. Even though lots of people can see through that obvious manipulation, people likely to vote for Bush evidently can’t.

Sometimes it looks as though the Democrats are doing their best to actually help their own defeat along. I doubt this, though there are probably spies and moles and plants in the Democratic party from the other guys. It’s just that these people are not capable of seeing what’s in front of them and what kind of fight they have to put up to have even a chance of winning. Even though millions of their supporters can... Maybe they are throwing the fight, after all. There’s so much truth they don’t reveal. Maybe that will change now that Kerry can spend some money again.

It’s discouraging to see the stupidity, naivete, and utter lack of judgement or ability to observe, of the American public. If even close to half of this country is willing to vote for George Bush, that’s a terrible sign. But in the end it won’t matter. I have a feeling these Bushite characters can turn a landslide around and make it go back uphill.

The long and the short of it is that they do what they want, in broad daylight, and nobody hears about it. Or only a whisper of it. And they don’t find that out until it’s too late to do anything. (Look what happened with Greg Palast’s expose about the 2000 election, nobody in the U.S. would publish it until the election was settled. It’s blatantly criminal.) I just wonder if there will be rioting if Bush “wins.” (I do not believe that he can possibly win fairly. There are a lot of deluded sheep in this country, but I don’t think it’s an actual majority.)

We’ll get a “kinder, gentler” brand of fascism than that of Hitler or Mussolini. At least for a while, for most people. For some, the fascism has already set in. But propaganda is a finer art nowadays than it was back then, although the basic principles haven’t changed. They can make themselves look good (apparently). And remember, for a long time, lots of people both in and out of Germany thought Hitler was just great. Probably lots of people still do. If you changed his name and took away his moustache, and had him do lame wisecracks instead of ranting speeches, even more people would love him. He’s good for the economy, and good for the pride of the German people, and above all, he’s optimistic! And he’s going to get those other guys who are a threat to the German people!

Or maybe we’re really being taken over by an emperor. In ancient Rome, at least they knew they had switched from a republic to an empire. We won’t find out for a while. Maybe once they stop bothering to have more than one party on the ballots.

Sigh

2004-09-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Don’t get me wrong, I know Clinton had many faults as a President. He was under the thumb of the corporate masters like all the rest. But he wasn’t wildly emptying out all the nation’s pockets to them like our current shill-in-chief. He did try to do his job from time to time.

I just find it interesting that he gets no public credit whatosever for the fact that at least two major terrorist attacks were actively prevented during his watch, including a Millennium plan to blow up the Los Angeles airport; and that he at least tried to reorganize the FBI to prevent terrorism, recognized Osama bin Laden as an important threat to the U.S., did all he could to stop him, and attempted to warn the incoming Bush administration about him. Meanwhile, Bush is worshipped for having (despite many warnings) utterly failed to prevent, or even to take any steps towards preventing, the horrific 9/11 attack.

Now if Gore had been President and continued the Clinton procedures and managed to prevent the World Trade Center disaster, we’d probably still hear the media and Congress daily accusing the Gore administration of being “alarmist,” “obsessed with terrorism/Osama Bin Laden,” “wagging the dog,” and all that line (just as they kept saying about Clinton), as they tried to continue dealing with the terrorists.

And if Gore hadn’t managed to prevent it, we’d likely still be hearing daily attacks on him for his massive failure, if indeed the Republican Congress hadn’t already tried to impeach him. No uniting behind our great leader on this one! Yet I expect that, unless obstructed by Congress, actual valid measures to prevent future terrorist attacks would almost certainly have been put in place by now – although we’re still waiting for the Bush administration to put anything in place other than P.R. And more, the event would have been absorbed into our history rather than being a still-open wound, since Gore wouldn’t have been milking it to push through every irrelevant bee he had in his bonnet.

Though it might not be such a bad thing to use it to justify developing non-petroleum energy sources. (Why don’t we hear anything about biodiesel? And why are we wasting what petroleum is left on stupid things like burning it up in engines? It’s more useful in making plastics and other areas where it might be harder to replace. All right, all right, that’s another subject.)

Just fascinating.

2004-08-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

From The Guardian:

MPs are planning to impeach Tony Blair for "high crimes and misdemeanours" in taking Britain to war against Iraq, reviving an ancient practice last used against Lord Palmerston more than 150 years ago. [snip]

A number of Labour backbenchers are considering whether to back the motion, though it could mean expulsion from the party.

The MPs' decision follows the commissioning of a 100-page report which lays out the case for impeaching Mr Blair and the precedents for action, including arguments laid down in Erskine May, the parliamentary bible, on impeachments dating back to medieval times. [snip]

Mr Price said he believed the case was compelling. "To dust off Victorian constitutional histories and examine precedents from the time of Charles I and Chaucer may seem bizarre. But the conduct of the prime minister has left people and parliament with no alternative if we are to preserve the very basis of democracy."

On the same record, Blair gets impeached and George gets re-elected. That's the difference between our two glorious nations!

Let's hope it doesn't all play out that way.

Spin, spin, spin, gaaah

2004-07-31T04:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, am I getting this straight? This information is from snippets picked up at various times in passing from the radio, so I can't give specific references, but what I heard (starting early this week) was: An investigation was started because it appeared Sandy Berger might have walked off with some National Archive confidential documents or notes - in fact, right from the start, when this came up, I heard it was about his own handwritten notes which he might absent-mindedly have forgotten to get approved before he left. Then a day later I hear that he was supposed to have "stuffed documents into his socks" (try that sometime) and in short the whole thing was made to sound deliberate and sinister instead of accidental, unlike the first report. Then the kerfuffle squawked loudly on all this week while the Democratic convention was in progress. Then I hear that the investigation actually began months ago.

A day after the convention was over, I heard "Sandy is cleared of all wrongdoing."

How transparent can these characters get? (You know what characters I mean.) Why the hell does the media even pick up blatantly phony stories like this? It was never plausible in the first place that the guy would deliberately steal anything.

I worry about democracy in a nation where this kind of moronic nonsense repeats itself time and time again, where voters are so appallingly ignorant they will buy ads equating somebody like Max Cleland with Osama Bin Laden and vote him out. Do they want a government of nothing but stooges?

Exasperated

2004-07-27T12:24:00.000-07:00

'A spokesman for Gov. Jeb Bush accused those seeking audits of trying to "undermine voters' confidence," and declared, "The governor has every confidence in the Department of State and the Division of Elections." '
(NY Times)

The mere fact that Jeb Bush will not permit independent checking of voting machines in Florida should automatically invalidate Florida election results. The mere fact of ANY state refusing to ensure a paper trail of its voting machines should automatically invalidate that state's elections. Furthermore,the mere fact of voting results being put into the hands of a commercial corporation rather than bi-party government people should also invalidate an election. It's only common sense.

It's inconceivable that any sane country would permit even the possibility of infringement of the integrity of its elections. What possible reason could there be for not ensuring complete transparency of voting results, except for corruption? Give me another plausible reason.

That line about corporate secrets cannot be applied to ELECTION RESULTS. How disingenuous can you get? Democracy is not a commercial product. There is no relationship between manufacturers and democracy. They are two entirely separate things. The free market, if there is one, is a nice thing, but it doesn't guarantee honest election results. That's not its purpose, and it should not be assumed that it can bear that burden.

2004-05-29T23:36:00.000-07:00

According to Salon.com, Kerry is gaining some momentum in his presidential campaign. Which is a good thing, certainly.

Seeing that today, however, I was struck by the realization that if Kerry really does start to get momentum, the other guys are going to HAVE to pull something. Something major. They're not going to let themselves be defeated just because they're losing the election. They've never let a little thing like that stop them before. And now, after all that they've done while they were in power, they have ten times the motivation not to lose than they had before. Now they have many mistakes and possibly even indictable crimes on their heads. If there is no longer a Republican majority in Congress and/or the Senate, especially, their heads might be on the line if investigations are started. Or they at least might fear so. After all, why shouldn't they think the Democrats are just as vengeful as they themselves are?

No, they're not going to simply lose the election and walk obediently away. The question is, what will they try to pull before the election? And how much will the Congress and Senate go along with it? The media, of course, almost certainly will.

I don't want even to begin to speculate about what these characters would be willing to commit. I don't like conspiracy theories although I must say some of the 9-11 ones circulating right now are propelled by a lot of very weird facts about how the government behaved at the time. Which I don't want to get into here, but why weren't fighter planes scrambled when those airliners went off course - especially when they knew that two hijacked planes had already hit buildings in New York, and another was headed for WASHINGTON of all places - why did Bush go into a children's classroom for a photo-op AFTER he already knew a building had been hit by a plane, how come the hole in the Pentagon is apparently too small for a plane to have crashed through, etc., etc. Just too much weirdness associated with the whole episode.

I do think, though, that these guys have no compunctions at all about anything. They haven't shown any so far.

2004-05-17T14:36:00.000-07:00

As if Americans torturing Iraqi prisoners weren't bad enough, we then have to listen to the cowardly excuses about it from the army brass and the Administration. And the fact that such actions have been condoned by these characters makes me wonder just how long this kind of behavior has been going on, pre-Guantanamo?

But I keep forgetting. We're not superior to the
Saddam regime or the terrorists because of anything we DO. We're better than them by definition. Because we're us. Whew. Lucky thing we're the good guys. Otherwise we might be in trouble.

2004-04-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, the Americans are now enthusiastically applying in Iraq, particularly Fallujah, the anti-terrorism techniques already perfected by the Israelis. You know, those techniques that have been so successful in eliminating all resistance from the Palestinians and creating a lasting peace. I can't wait.

Okay, maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe the Israelis originally learned the techniques from the Americans, I'm not sure.

2004-04-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

"April 7, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to be more careful in criticizing the war in Iraq after the Massachusetts Democrat called the conflict 'George Bush's Vietnam.'

"Kennedy 'should be a little more restrained and careful in his comments because we are at war,' Powell said Tuesday on Fox News Radio's 'Tony Snow Show.'"

***

I get it. So Bush gets us into an insane and pointless war, and now we shouldn't be critical of him because we're at war and we have to support the President. Sensible. Not to mention convenient.

Is that the logic that led Powell to make those ridiculous remarks about Iraq in front of the U.N. last year? Oh, but we weren't at war then, yet. So I still don't get that bit.

2004-03-30T16:19:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-03-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

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...

2004-03-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-03-11T16:01:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-03-10T17:43:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-03-06T18:40:00.000-08:00

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.

2004-02-19T06:03:00.000-08:00

Eh, yet another egotist arrives to dribble opinions in a little corner of the internet. Well, why not take advantage of the opportunity while it's still there. I expect it won't be much longer before the corporate squeeze sets in and squeezes most of us out.

In the meantime, I'll probably post some essays and rubbish and maybe some fiction I've written over the past couple of years and didn't know what to do with, and maybe the occasional opinion squeezed out of me by the antics going on in the asylum I'm currently locked up in (the U.S.A. that is). It's good at last to have a place to write these things out loud, even if nobody sees them. Though I'm really not sure yet what the nature of this little public conversation with myself will turn out to be.