'I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk.'
The author of this lethally nonsensical statement was assistant to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld from 1975-77, and arms control director under President Reagan.
AND, he is also now another...wait for it...ENDORSER of Senator Obama!
With friends like these...
21 October 2008
20 October 2008
Regarding the Vastly Vaunted Endorsement of Senator Obama by Colin Powell...
The media is rewriting history and I find that terrifying.
When I worked in intelligence, I became very familiar with the compelling insidiousness of propaganda, all the while I was clothed in the lofty knowledge that our country was largely above such devious and deceitful methods of dealing with its populace.
We've come a long way, Citizens.
Now I'm not so naïve as to think our media is free of proselytism, or ever has been, but we have now arrived at a place where the majority of facts are not just being parsed, or slanted, or omitted, or ignored—ALL of which describe what the Fourth Estate has done in this last shocking decade--but rather, invented. Our national media is taking it upon themselves to rewrite history.
As Blue Lyon cogently says on her blog, the Colin Powell of yesterday's endorsement bears little resemblance to the Colin Powell we all know and love. She also discusses the hypocrisy of the left in their embrace of a sometimes-reviled Republican, but as the left barrels remorselessly down its path of no-return, I'm learning to step out of the way rather than be mown down.
I've no such compunction with our national media. It continues to be an outrage of the highest order that our sources of information—FACTS—can be wholly controlled by an increasingly powerful corporatocracy with everything but Americans' interests at heart.
For reasons that I still cannot thoroughly refine in my mind, it serves our media best to elect Senator Obama to the presidency. For this, it will pervert and scorn any and every 'fact' that comes its way. The latest incarnation of this is the glow that surrounds Colin Powell. To listen to the media, he is the most respected voice in America, the voice of reason, the final say.
So let's go back a lot of years. I liked him. He seemed fine, upstanding, honest, honorable. That was until he joined the Bush team and then Colin 'Macbeth' Powell went over to the dark side. And in the worst way possible. He used the esteem of the military and his laudatory service in it to dupe the countries of the world. If smarmy Cheney had made that same presentation at a plenary session of the UN, postulating the lethality of Iraq's intentions, there might have been some hesitancy to sign on. But Powell is a soldier, endowed with all the dignity, honor, and respect of his military career and years. When C.L. Powell speaks, people listen.
And with his help, the Iraq slaughter was born. He betrayed the troops who would die for years to come by using the honor of his uniform and all that entails. I find that insupportable.
Disgraceful too, is the betrayal of his oath. It is incumbent on every officer to desist from obeying an unlawful order. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) says,
'An order which is unlawful not only does not need to be obeyed, but obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution of the one who obeys it. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders -- if the order was illegal.'
The last I heard, the order to lie is illegal. He knew what he was doing when he lied straight into the eyes and ears of the world, watching and trusting what he would say.
And this is the man who has now endorsed Obama, the man whose endorsement is the final jewel in the crowning of the media candidate, the man who holds all sway over our voting choice because he and his honorable career are unimpeachable.
Nice invention, media. I marvel that you think you may rewrite a history that is still ongoing.
Our kids are still dying in Iraq and Powell's words helped put them there.
Rewriting history only works if we let it.
When I worked in intelligence, I became very familiar with the compelling insidiousness of propaganda, all the while I was clothed in the lofty knowledge that our country was largely above such devious and deceitful methods of dealing with its populace.
We've come a long way, Citizens.
Now I'm not so naïve as to think our media is free of proselytism, or ever has been, but we have now arrived at a place where the majority of facts are not just being parsed, or slanted, or omitted, or ignored—ALL of which describe what the Fourth Estate has done in this last shocking decade--but rather, invented. Our national media is taking it upon themselves to rewrite history.
As Blue Lyon cogently says on her blog, the Colin Powell of yesterday's endorsement bears little resemblance to the Colin Powell we all know and love. She also discusses the hypocrisy of the left in their embrace of a sometimes-reviled Republican, but as the left barrels remorselessly down its path of no-return, I'm learning to step out of the way rather than be mown down.
I've no such compunction with our national media. It continues to be an outrage of the highest order that our sources of information—FACTS—can be wholly controlled by an increasingly powerful corporatocracy with everything but Americans' interests at heart.
For reasons that I still cannot thoroughly refine in my mind, it serves our media best to elect Senator Obama to the presidency. For this, it will pervert and scorn any and every 'fact' that comes its way. The latest incarnation of this is the glow that surrounds Colin Powell. To listen to the media, he is the most respected voice in America, the voice of reason, the final say.
So let's go back a lot of years. I liked him. He seemed fine, upstanding, honest, honorable. That was until he joined the Bush team and then Colin 'Macbeth' Powell went over to the dark side. And in the worst way possible. He used the esteem of the military and his laudatory service in it to dupe the countries of the world. If smarmy Cheney had made that same presentation at a plenary session of the UN, postulating the lethality of Iraq's intentions, there might have been some hesitancy to sign on. But Powell is a soldier, endowed with all the dignity, honor, and respect of his military career and years. When C.L. Powell speaks, people listen.
And with his help, the Iraq slaughter was born. He betrayed the troops who would die for years to come by using the honor of his uniform and all that entails. I find that insupportable.
Disgraceful too, is the betrayal of his oath. It is incumbent on every officer to desist from obeying an unlawful order. The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) says,
'An order which is unlawful not only does not need to be obeyed, but obeying such an order can result in criminal prosecution of the one who obeys it. Military courts have long held that military members are accountable for their actions even while following orders -- if the order was illegal.'
The last I heard, the order to lie is illegal. He knew what he was doing when he lied straight into the eyes and ears of the world, watching and trusting what he would say.
And this is the man who has now endorsed Obama, the man whose endorsement is the final jewel in the crowning of the media candidate, the man who holds all sway over our voting choice because he and his honorable career are unimpeachable.
Nice invention, media. I marvel that you think you may rewrite a history that is still ongoing.
Our kids are still dying in Iraq and Powell's words helped put them there.
Rewriting history only works if we let it.
16 October 2008
Kindergarten Promises
Do you ever feel like you're back in grammar school and the candidates for school president are promising you hot and cold running chocolate in the water fountains if you'll vote for them?
'Hot and cold running tax cuts in a globally tanking economy. Just vote for me.'
Yeppirs.
'Hot and cold running tax cuts in a globally tanking economy. Just vote for me.'
Yeppirs.
15 October 2008
The World According to Hard Facts, or Thank You Again, Senator Clinton
Surprise, surprise...
'[Hillary] Clinton dropped out of the race four months ago, but her presence looms large at tonight’s final McCain-Obama debate being held, appropriately enough, in her adopted state of New York.
Clinton was arguably the first candidate in either party to grasp the transformative political effect of the economic crisis, and her onetime rivals have been borrowing — liberally — from her policy and rhetorical playbooks.'
Here's a quote from a pollster...
“Everything in this election is being washed away by this stock market and economic stuff ... and she was the one who came out first with specific policies to deal with this, so she’s clearly having an influence on both of them.”
...from a Clinton aide...
”She was the first one to really pay attention to people’s anxieties, and both Obama and McCain have been playing catch-up ever since.”
...from a McCain aide...
“McCain said he had been motivated by [her proposal to have the federal government buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate terms more favorable to homeowners on verge of default]...he was very complimentary about what she had proposed and wanted to know more.”
...from an Obama aide...
...oops...
An Obama spokesman had no comment.
That may be because he's already chewing on his comments and they're not at all tasty.
On Monday, Obama told a crowd in hard-hit Toledo, Ohio, that he wanted to impose a 90-day freeze on foreclosures by banks that partake in the $700 billion rescue plan.
When Clinton proposed a package that contained a similar measure in January, Obama nixed it. At the time, his staff posted news stories denouncing the freeze on his campaign Web site, including a Fortune magazine story that tagged it “perhaps the dumbest solution to the current mortgage mess.”
And that's all I have to say about that.
'[Hillary] Clinton dropped out of the race four months ago, but her presence looms large at tonight’s final McCain-Obama debate being held, appropriately enough, in her adopted state of New York.
Clinton was arguably the first candidate in either party to grasp the transformative political effect of the economic crisis, and her onetime rivals have been borrowing — liberally — from her policy and rhetorical playbooks.'
Here's a quote from a pollster...
“Everything in this election is being washed away by this stock market and economic stuff ... and she was the one who came out first with specific policies to deal with this, so she’s clearly having an influence on both of them.”
...from a Clinton aide...
”She was the first one to really pay attention to people’s anxieties, and both Obama and McCain have been playing catch-up ever since.”
...from a McCain aide...
“McCain said he had been motivated by [her proposal to have the federal government buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate terms more favorable to homeowners on verge of default]...he was very complimentary about what she had proposed and wanted to know more.”
...from an Obama aide...
...oops...
An Obama spokesman had no comment.
That may be because he's already chewing on his comments and they're not at all tasty.
On Monday, Obama told a crowd in hard-hit Toledo, Ohio, that he wanted to impose a 90-day freeze on foreclosures by banks that partake in the $700 billion rescue plan.
When Clinton proposed a package that contained a similar measure in January, Obama nixed it. At the time, his staff posted news stories denouncing the freeze on his campaign Web site, including a Fortune magazine story that tagged it “perhaps the dumbest solution to the current mortgage mess.”
And that's all I have to say about that.
03 October 2008
An Intimidating Woman, Part II
I just started writing this little blog with a laudatory sentence about Governor Sarah Palin. Then, almost without thinking, I backspaced right over it. Why, I immediately asked myself, did I do that?
The answer is frightening.
I have been so barraged by vituperative attacks on this Alaskan--both in person and by email--that my own self-defense mechanism shot unbidden from my brain to my fingers before I had a conscious chance to weigh in on its advisability.
Well, pardon me, brain. I'm short-circuiting that little foray right here and now. And I'm going to say it loud and clear.
Last night, Governor Palin was a credit to herself, her family, her state, her country.
She conducted herself with dignity, wit, intelligence, humor, and grit. We could have expected all those admirable qualities in Senator Clinton, had she not been unfairly deprived of the chance to be behind the presidential candidate podium. Instead, we have another woman--one with whom Hillary Clinton has little in common. In fact, only one major thing: gender.
And that's enough to link them inextricably. You see, they're just TOO. Senator Clinton was too hard, too experienced, too loud, too connected, too intelligent, and how dare she tear up...! Governor Palin is too folksy, too inexperienced, too friendly, too conservative, too likable, too family-y, and how dare she smile engagingly and say something witty and pithy...!
Are you getting my sad parallel here? In the space of less than a year, we've been treated to two of the most riveting individuals the feminine gender has to offer in the world of American politics. And, let me put it bluntly:
There is nothing they can do right.
Today I read that the most touching moment last night was when Senator Biden teared up. Senator Clinton was crucified for the same thing.
And Governor Palin? She hasn't had the temerity to show her emotions. All she's done is speak, act, and behave like herself. This is how a 44-year-old woman democrat describes the governor's debate performance: “I still don’t like that pandering to the folksiness: the winking, the dropping the Gs, the shout-outs to third graders. She didn’t completely bomb, but politically, I’m so opposite of what she stands for.”
And the way she talks, of course, is what she stands for.
Right.
Funny thing. I can't recall the particulars of Biden's, McCain's, Obama's, Bush's, Carter's, Reagan's, ad nauseum, cadence of speech, indulgence in winks, or their propensity to mention anyone they knew during debates...a shout-out sort of thing. I wonder how we ever figured out what they stood for.
So here's a shout-out to you, Governor Palin, and you, Senator Clinton, and you, women of America...
Fight on. Lead with your intelligence. Stick to who you are and what you believe. And always remember what one of Jane Austen's heroines said...I live by it....
'My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.'
The answer is frightening.
I have been so barraged by vituperative attacks on this Alaskan--both in person and by email--that my own self-defense mechanism shot unbidden from my brain to my fingers before I had a conscious chance to weigh in on its advisability.
Well, pardon me, brain. I'm short-circuiting that little foray right here and now. And I'm going to say it loud and clear.
Last night, Governor Palin was a credit to herself, her family, her state, her country.
She conducted herself with dignity, wit, intelligence, humor, and grit. We could have expected all those admirable qualities in Senator Clinton, had she not been unfairly deprived of the chance to be behind the presidential candidate podium. Instead, we have another woman--one with whom Hillary Clinton has little in common. In fact, only one major thing: gender.
And that's enough to link them inextricably. You see, they're just TOO. Senator Clinton was too hard, too experienced, too loud, too connected, too intelligent, and how dare she tear up...! Governor Palin is too folksy, too inexperienced, too friendly, too conservative, too likable, too family-y, and how dare she smile engagingly and say something witty and pithy...!
Are you getting my sad parallel here? In the space of less than a year, we've been treated to two of the most riveting individuals the feminine gender has to offer in the world of American politics. And, let me put it bluntly:
There is nothing they can do right.
Today I read that the most touching moment last night was when Senator Biden teared up. Senator Clinton was crucified for the same thing.
And Governor Palin? She hasn't had the temerity to show her emotions. All she's done is speak, act, and behave like herself. This is how a 44-year-old woman democrat describes the governor's debate performance: “I still don’t like that pandering to the folksiness: the winking, the dropping the Gs, the shout-outs to third graders. She didn’t completely bomb, but politically, I’m so opposite of what she stands for.”
And the way she talks, of course, is what she stands for.
Right.
Funny thing. I can't recall the particulars of Biden's, McCain's, Obama's, Bush's, Carter's, Reagan's, ad nauseum, cadence of speech, indulgence in winks, or their propensity to mention anyone they knew during debates...a shout-out sort of thing. I wonder how we ever figured out what they stood for.
So here's a shout-out to you, Governor Palin, and you, Senator Clinton, and you, women of America...
Fight on. Lead with your intelligence. Stick to who you are and what you believe. And always remember what one of Jane Austen's heroines said...I live by it....
'My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.'
23 September 2008
For a World Weary of Worries...MUSIC!
Shakespeare wrote, 'Sleep, that knits up the raveled sleeve of care...'
Perhaps, but music is surely the reason that careworn sleeve doesn't ravel irretrievably before one can sleep...
And so, my daughter has added music to my blog. She set it so it plays on, heedless of whether the reader wishes it to, but I hope you'll turn it down--or UP!--according to your wont. There's an eclectic choice in this inaugural lot:
From John Lennon's anthem to Linkin Park's anguish, I'm heavily influenced by my kids these days--but not in the choice of These Days! My daughter grimaced at that one. She added the Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20, both of which I love. Serj Tankian is my son's ante--a striking singer who's often over the top, but right on the mark with these anti-war songs. And as for 100 Years...I send this beautiful song out to all of you from where it sits next to Pachelbel's Canon in my soul.
May you dance.
Perhaps, but music is surely the reason that careworn sleeve doesn't ravel irretrievably before one can sleep...
And so, my daughter has added music to my blog. She set it so it plays on, heedless of whether the reader wishes it to, but I hope you'll turn it down--or UP!--according to your wont. There's an eclectic choice in this inaugural lot:
From John Lennon's anthem to Linkin Park's anguish, I'm heavily influenced by my kids these days--but not in the choice of These Days! My daughter grimaced at that one. She added the Goo Goo Dolls and Matchbox 20, both of which I love. Serj Tankian is my son's ante--a striking singer who's often over the top, but right on the mark with these anti-war songs. And as for 100 Years...I send this beautiful song out to all of you from where it sits next to Pachelbel's Canon in my soul.
May you dance.
22 September 2008
Letters of Hope and Futility
Dear readers,
Please check out another excellent post about our economic woes at Blue Lyon, http://bluelyon.wordpress.com/
Signed,
Fiery Side
Dear neighbor,
Take heart. I'm writing to some people who can still help you.
Signed,
Cathylee
Dear democrats in power,
After all the betrayal you--Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and all the rest of the congressional democrats--have inflicted on us, I'm sitting here, willing you to do the right thing. Climbing on board one last time to hope there's a shred of decency in our REPRESENTATIVES.
Finally, at long last, prove me right, democrats. Convince me that I haven't been a proud Democrat all these years of my life for nothing. After validating the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the bankruptcy bill, the Supreme Court justices, THE IRAQ OCCUPATION--just to name a few--give us something to believe in again.
Don't let Paulson put the CEOs and Wall Street in the lifeboats.
Put Americans back in their homes, instead.
Start with my neighbor, could you please? He's about 60, disabled, and spends his days drinking in order to forget he's got only a short time left to spend in the house he bought a couple of decades ago. Maybe you could just save his garage for him. It's filled with a lifetime of tools, machines, and stuff he's collected. It's all that really matters to him.
Try this, democrats: put a face on your actions. Make them real. Think of my neighbor.
For once, after all these years of rolling over, backing off, and, in the case of the democratic nomination, lying and cheating--for once and finally, DO THE RIGHT THING.
Now. Please.
Signed,
The Woman Who Lives Next Door To Another Soon-To-Be-Homeless-Person
Please check out another excellent post about our economic woes at Blue Lyon, http://bluelyon.wordpress.com/
Signed,
Fiery Side
Dear neighbor,
Take heart. I'm writing to some people who can still help you.
Signed,
Cathylee
Dear democrats in power,
After all the betrayal you--Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and all the rest of the congressional democrats--have inflicted on us, I'm sitting here, willing you to do the right thing. Climbing on board one last time to hope there's a shred of decency in our REPRESENTATIVES.
Finally, at long last, prove me right, democrats. Convince me that I haven't been a proud Democrat all these years of my life for nothing. After validating the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the bankruptcy bill, the Supreme Court justices, THE IRAQ OCCUPATION--just to name a few--give us something to believe in again.
Don't let Paulson put the CEOs and Wall Street in the lifeboats.
Put Americans back in their homes, instead.
Start with my neighbor, could you please? He's about 60, disabled, and spends his days drinking in order to forget he's got only a short time left to spend in the house he bought a couple of decades ago. Maybe you could just save his garage for him. It's filled with a lifetime of tools, machines, and stuff he's collected. It's all that really matters to him.
Try this, democrats: put a face on your actions. Make them real. Think of my neighbor.
For once, after all these years of rolling over, backing off, and, in the case of the democratic nomination, lying and cheating--for once and finally, DO THE RIGHT THING.
Now. Please.
Signed,
The Woman Who Lives Next Door To Another Soon-To-Be-Homeless-Person
18 September 2008
Get Thee Behind Us, Woman!
This one's for you, Gram.
When I was a little girl, I got to sit at my first real desk, stamping and sealing envelopes. I was proudly introduced to all who passed, and I was even more proud to claim the tall, red-haired business woman beside me as my gram.
Her name was Opal Else Free Kotson. She was an executive at Montgomery Ward. She worked her way up from the bottom with acumen, tenacity and smarts. She did it all on an eighth grade education and sheer determination. Because you see, even with all those names after her given name, she lived a single life caring for two children without help. If she couldn't cut it, they didn't eat.
It wasn't until I was in my twenties and she'd retired that I learned the cold, hard facts about her career. She had made it to the top echelon of management in Montgomery Ward. There were three positions higher than hers. I asked why she hadn't tried for those.
She had.
That was when she was told there would be no further movement in her career. Women were not allowed in the top three management slots.
I remember looking aghast at my gram. And I remember to a tee what I felt...ineffable sorrow that this vital, intelligent woman had spent so many years of her life gazing through that glass ceiling while giving that company every iota of her effort and allegiance...and heartfelt relief that society was past that horrible hurdle—it wasn't going to cripple me, nor any daughters I would have.
Well, I did have a daughter, and when she was eight months old, my gram had just about finished her walk through this world. I raced home with my son and my daughter from where we were living in Germany, but to no avail. She departed our grasp while we were somewhere over the North Atlantic.
So my daughter never got to know her great-gram, though I'd like to think she carries a bit of Opal Else's spirit within her. But certainly, my daughter would travel an equal road with her male counterparts, thanks to the painful trails my gram, and so many like her, blazed.
Au contraire.
Just like my gram, women have reached the plateau of top management in politics. And just like her, so woefully many decades ago, women are being told, unequivocally, that's quite far enough...
'Uh, uh, uh! Not so fast! You can hang with us up here, but don't be thinking you get to be our boss. No way, no how, not gonna happen. And if you persist in your efforts to run the show, we'll send you packing. And it ain't gonna be pretty. So be nice, back off, and
...get thee behind us, woman.'
When I was a little girl, I got to sit at my first real desk, stamping and sealing envelopes. I was proudly introduced to all who passed, and I was even more proud to claim the tall, red-haired business woman beside me as my gram.
Her name was Opal Else Free Kotson. She was an executive at Montgomery Ward. She worked her way up from the bottom with acumen, tenacity and smarts. She did it all on an eighth grade education and sheer determination. Because you see, even with all those names after her given name, she lived a single life caring for two children without help. If she couldn't cut it, they didn't eat.
It wasn't until I was in my twenties and she'd retired that I learned the cold, hard facts about her career. She had made it to the top echelon of management in Montgomery Ward. There were three positions higher than hers. I asked why she hadn't tried for those.
She had.
That was when she was told there would be no further movement in her career. Women were not allowed in the top three management slots.
I remember looking aghast at my gram. And I remember to a tee what I felt...ineffable sorrow that this vital, intelligent woman had spent so many years of her life gazing through that glass ceiling while giving that company every iota of her effort and allegiance...and heartfelt relief that society was past that horrible hurdle—it wasn't going to cripple me, nor any daughters I would have.
Well, I did have a daughter, and when she was eight months old, my gram had just about finished her walk through this world. I raced home with my son and my daughter from where we were living in Germany, but to no avail. She departed our grasp while we were somewhere over the North Atlantic.
So my daughter never got to know her great-gram, though I'd like to think she carries a bit of Opal Else's spirit within her. But certainly, my daughter would travel an equal road with her male counterparts, thanks to the painful trails my gram, and so many like her, blazed.
Au contraire.
Just like my gram, women have reached the plateau of top management in politics. And just like her, so woefully many decades ago, women are being told, unequivocally, that's quite far enough...
'Uh, uh, uh! Not so fast! You can hang with us up here, but don't be thinking you get to be our boss. No way, no how, not gonna happen. And if you persist in your efforts to run the show, we'll send you packing. And it ain't gonna be pretty. So be nice, back off, and
...get thee behind us, woman.'
14 September 2008
Palin, Preludes, and Priorities
I've now received no less than 15 anti-Palin emails.
They deride her qualifications, plead with the reader to send out a global alarm, and urge all women to protest the governor's appearances.
Imagine if the same energy had been put into stopping the slaughter in Iraq.
They deride her qualifications, plead with the reader to send out a global alarm, and urge all women to protest the governor's appearances.
Imagine if the same energy had been put into stopping the slaughter in Iraq.
11 September 2008
In No WoMan's Land
I've come to a fascinating, tragic place.
'Fascinating' because I'm seeing things so crisply clearly as to be a wonderment.
'Tragic' because I never wanted to be here and wish I wasn't.
And where I am is in that 'neutral' area between opposing trenches. No WoMan's Land. Having been on the Left Trench since forever, I find it sad to report on my new digs, but there you are. Couldn't say whether I was evicted from the Left Trench or whether I vacated it of my own volition—I just know I left it kicking, screaming, and desperately clinging to any fair outcropping I could find...till there were simply none left.
I want to stress that I am not intending to, and avowedly never will, move to the Right Trench. The terrain from No WoMan's Land up to the Right Trench is forbidding indeed, being devoid of outstretched arms to help one up if one slips and falls. In addition, the embankment is dangerously covered with gun emplacements for each new war, as well as hidden mines from all the wars that are not yet finished. Also, choice here seems to lie principally with the men, being doled out only incrementally to the women.
So, while I know real estate is going cheap on the Right Trench and it's a buyer's market, I'm certain it's like those inexpensive printers that voraciously eat ink that corporate America got us all to buy—you don't pay much up front but you'll pay through the nose for years and years to come.
Thus, I'm in a dilemma. I am smarter than to fall for the 'printer ruse' and buy on the Right Trench, but I refuse to go back to the Left Trench, where every day, from sunrise to weary sunset, one must march in lock-step with everyone else there. If one does not, one endures ostracism, hostility, and eventually, eviction. This is particularly true for the strong, free-thinking women on the Left Trench.
So here I sit in No WoMan's Land, watching the tracers from the Right and Left Trenches fly over my head. This is where the fascinating clarity of vision comes in...I'm certain those tracers were always tracking across this sad, isolated land, but darned if I ever saw them leave the Left Trench. All we would yell from there was, 'Incoming!' Now, I'm not saying there was no outgoing, but I'd always proudly lived there because our outgoing was in the form of intelligent answers, reasoned responses, and a world order that believed in helping the world keep order. For every last one of us.
Alas and alack. I regret to say, with crystal clear acuity of vision, that the slugs and pellets zipping overhead are indistinguishable from each other. Those from the Left Trench match—and lately surpass—the Right Trench in nastiness and hate. In fact, of late, the ammo sent right-ward are sexist-tipped bullets, incredibly narrow and heedless of collateral damage.
I don't like it here. But hell if I'm going to climb back into the Right Trench, whatever pretty intentions they offer up. And as each day passes, with the volleys of anti-distaff shot in anger and desperation from the Left Trench, hell if I'm going back there.
Not without a mass exodus of present leaders and lots of the lock-steppers.
I guess we here in No WoMan's Land can just keep relating our individual books about the good old days on the Left Trench. Until we're all allowed to remember them again.
'Fascinating' because I'm seeing things so crisply clearly as to be a wonderment.
'Tragic' because I never wanted to be here and wish I wasn't.
And where I am is in that 'neutral' area between opposing trenches. No WoMan's Land. Having been on the Left Trench since forever, I find it sad to report on my new digs, but there you are. Couldn't say whether I was evicted from the Left Trench or whether I vacated it of my own volition—I just know I left it kicking, screaming, and desperately clinging to any fair outcropping I could find...till there were simply none left.
I want to stress that I am not intending to, and avowedly never will, move to the Right Trench. The terrain from No WoMan's Land up to the Right Trench is forbidding indeed, being devoid of outstretched arms to help one up if one slips and falls. In addition, the embankment is dangerously covered with gun emplacements for each new war, as well as hidden mines from all the wars that are not yet finished. Also, choice here seems to lie principally with the men, being doled out only incrementally to the women.
So, while I know real estate is going cheap on the Right Trench and it's a buyer's market, I'm certain it's like those inexpensive printers that voraciously eat ink that corporate America got us all to buy—you don't pay much up front but you'll pay through the nose for years and years to come.
Thus, I'm in a dilemma. I am smarter than to fall for the 'printer ruse' and buy on the Right Trench, but I refuse to go back to the Left Trench, where every day, from sunrise to weary sunset, one must march in lock-step with everyone else there. If one does not, one endures ostracism, hostility, and eventually, eviction. This is particularly true for the strong, free-thinking women on the Left Trench.
So here I sit in No WoMan's Land, watching the tracers from the Right and Left Trenches fly over my head. This is where the fascinating clarity of vision comes in...I'm certain those tracers were always tracking across this sad, isolated land, but darned if I ever saw them leave the Left Trench. All we would yell from there was, 'Incoming!' Now, I'm not saying there was no outgoing, but I'd always proudly lived there because our outgoing was in the form of intelligent answers, reasoned responses, and a world order that believed in helping the world keep order. For every last one of us.
Alas and alack. I regret to say, with crystal clear acuity of vision, that the slugs and pellets zipping overhead are indistinguishable from each other. Those from the Left Trench match—and lately surpass—the Right Trench in nastiness and hate. In fact, of late, the ammo sent right-ward are sexist-tipped bullets, incredibly narrow and heedless of collateral damage.
I don't like it here. But hell if I'm going to climb back into the Right Trench, whatever pretty intentions they offer up. And as each day passes, with the volleys of anti-distaff shot in anger and desperation from the Left Trench, hell if I'm going back there.
Not without a mass exodus of present leaders and lots of the lock-steppers.
I guess we here in No WoMan's Land can just keep relating our individual books about the good old days on the Left Trench. Until we're all allowed to remember them again.
07 September 2008
An Intimidating Woman
A good friend of mine recently sent me a link to an opinion piece in the New York Times. It was by a Judith Warner and it was titled, 'The Mirrored Ceiling'. I'll quote from the very first paragraph of the essay, to give you an idea about it:
“It turns out there was something more nauseating than the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate this past week. It was the tone of the acclaim that followed her acceptance speech.”
So that's the lay of the land on what follows. I invite you to go to the link and read it in its entirety, http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/the-mirrored-ceiling/?em but I'll confine myself to just one aspect of it here, with a good faith effort to agree with someone who is as rudely incendiary as the media can offer.
If we turn to the contempt-soaked paragraphs that deal with a woman as an 'intimidating presence'...
“....I think, they find her acceptably “real,” because Palin’s not intimidating, and makes it clear that she’s subordinate to a great man.
That’s the worst thing a woman can be in this world, isn’t it? Intimidating, which appears to be synonymous with competent. It’s the kiss of death, personally and politically.
But shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there? If she isn’t, at least on some level, off-putting, if her presence inspires national commentary on breast-pumping and babysitting rather than health care reform and social security, then something is seriously wrong. If she doesn’t elicit at least some degree of awe, then something is missing.
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. In fact, this—shouldn't a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there?--most perfectly describes Hillary Clinton.
And just look what they did to her song.
“It turns out there was something more nauseating than the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate this past week. It was the tone of the acclaim that followed her acceptance speech.”
So that's the lay of the land on what follows. I invite you to go to the link and read it in its entirety, http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/the-mirrored-ceiling/?em but I'll confine myself to just one aspect of it here, with a good faith effort to agree with someone who is as rudely incendiary as the media can offer.
If we turn to the contempt-soaked paragraphs that deal with a woman as an 'intimidating presence'...
“....I think, they find her acceptably “real,” because Palin’s not intimidating, and makes it clear that she’s subordinate to a great man.
That’s the worst thing a woman can be in this world, isn’t it? Intimidating, which appears to be synonymous with competent. It’s the kiss of death, personally and politically.
But shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there? If she isn’t, at least on some level, off-putting, if her presence inspires national commentary on breast-pumping and babysitting rather than health care reform and social security, then something is seriously wrong. If she doesn’t elicit at least some degree of awe, then something is missing.
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. In fact, this—shouldn't a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there?--most perfectly describes Hillary Clinton.
And just look what they did to her song.
06 September 2008
Before You Cut Governor Palin Off At The Mukluks, At Least Take An Instant To Understand Whence She Comes
I'm a Nevadan. Now. But I grew up in Colorado, Oregon, Massachusetts, California, Washington, Illinois, Texas, Arizona, Hawaii...and I learned that each state has its own personality and its own slate of residents that adore it.
Well, my son was born in Alaska. I spent two years there. Up in North Pole, Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks. And I learned a lot about that unique state and how one comes to feel about it. Let me illuminate my readers...which is more than what the sun does for Fairbanks for a good chunk of the year.
In a nutshell, Alaska is as beautiful as it is harsh and those that stay there like the trade-offs just fine, thank you very much.
Let me give you a glimpse of the harsh: my son was born in October (under a midnighty sky at 3PM) so he accompanied me as an infant on my trips to the store throughout the winter. No big deal, you might think. Uh, uh. Here's the routine...I'd pull up to the store and strap on my baby carrier, then pull on my coat (warm down to -60 degrees). Thus armed, I'd get out of my door, plug in my car, then climb into the back door where my son was in his car seat. After strapping him into the baby carrier on my chest and zipping up my coat so that he was concealed inside it, I got out of the car again and headed for the store. Once inside, I'd shed the coat and let my son surface. Then, when we'd finished shopping it was time to do it all again in reverse. Sounds like a process, but in truth, it got to be routine with my only constant worry being whether I'd blocked every square inch of cold from my son's head, which was silly because that head was always sporting a cozy cap.
Of course, you don't want to stay too long in the store in the particularly cold weather because, while plugging in the engine block saves your car, the tires can actually square themselves to the ground if they are immobile for hours. I always had a perverse curiosity to actually see that happen but, happily, never got the chance to test it.
On the flipside of the year, an Alaskan deals with critters. And I'm not talking about the moose that walk up driveways or the bears that pad by. I mean the little critters that suck the fun out of the sunshine as well as the blood from your veins. I once wrote an article comparing them to Air Force jets: first come the big, slow-moving skeeters—the ones that over-winter as adults. They're the B-52's. They never get ya since you can swat 'em like flies. But watch out, next come the F-15's...with their targets locked on, they seldom miss. But the Fairbanksian isn't through yet. After the Eagles soar past, in come the Stealth Fighters. These you don't see. But you sure hear 'em, usually right in your ear just as you're about to drop off to sleep.
Yep, just when you've had enough of wearing six layers of clothing and want to welcome that almost 24-hour sun and 80 degree days...you have to wear jeans and a jeans shirt because I found Levi's to be the only thing that effectively thwarted the Skeeter Armies.
And try to shop the catalogs or online in Alaska. I dare ya. Do you ever notice the fine print in advertisements, speaking to shipping terms? Along the lines of '...except for Alaska and Hawaii' or '...offer not valid in Alaska and Hawaii'. These clauses translate to 'You're going to pay almost as much in shipping as you are for the product you want, my prettys....!'
For those who think the windfall of the permanent fund (my son received his first cheque before he was four months old) is a tidy little operation—it's not. It doesn't even hint at offsetting the daily costs of living in the American version of the Outback.
But what you get from all this is not frustration or misery, but a sort of strength that only heightens with each new challenge that nature presents. And as well, you connect with the elements in an armed detente sorta way.
Most importantly though, is the camaraderie that comes from sharing a land that never makes things very easy. More so than most states in which I've resided, the denizens of the 49th feel more like a vast family. You can hear it when an Alaskan takes a vacation beyond the state's borders: he or she is 'going outside'. If you're relatively new to the state, you're a 'cheechako' until you earn the respected moniker of 'sourdough'.
Governor Palin is a sourdough. And her husband, a native son, is even sourer. And, as in Nevada, a real burr in a sourdough Alaskan's side is the fact that most of the state is owned and operated by the federal government. (In point of fact, the government has its teeth in almost 85% of Nevada while almost 70% of the Land of the Midnight Sun is public land. To all you states without this widespread infusion of federal intrusion, please do not sit in judgment.) Well, Alaska, like Nevada, chafes constantly at the federal bit and is unrelenting in its determination to run its own state, without government interference. When that government interference comes in the form of aid, though, Alaskans are no different than any other state's residents.
So now come the accusations that Governor Palin was for the 'bridge to nowhere' before she was against it. Of course she was for it. (Until it became the poster child for excess earmarks, at which time she wisely tossed it back.) As an example: here in Nevada we have the wonderful and unique V & T Railroad. As is the case with so many historical things, the rails were torn up many decades ago and now we're busily trying to put them back, for so much more money than it cost to put them down originally it's not even funny (though it's certainly ironic). Now do you think if the federal government, the same one that runs 85% of our state, offers us many millions to restore our V & T...do you think our lawmakers would decline the funds? (If you do, I got a bridge to sell ya...)
And the governor of Alaska wants to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. No duh. It's in their state, they figure, and why shouldn't they benefit from it? Funny thing—I spent a short time in Juneau lobbying to keep ANWR pristine and untouched and now I look back on it, man, was I a cheechako. And a hypocrite. Nowadays, I have very little patience with out-of-staters that come to Nevada and tell us we must accept the country's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
So it's all in how you look at things, I guess. But it helps if you paint a landscape behind the subject.
Well, my son was born in Alaska. I spent two years there. Up in North Pole, Alaska, just outside of Fairbanks. And I learned a lot about that unique state and how one comes to feel about it. Let me illuminate my readers...which is more than what the sun does for Fairbanks for a good chunk of the year.
In a nutshell, Alaska is as beautiful as it is harsh and those that stay there like the trade-offs just fine, thank you very much.
Let me give you a glimpse of the harsh: my son was born in October (under a midnighty sky at 3PM) so he accompanied me as an infant on my trips to the store throughout the winter. No big deal, you might think. Uh, uh. Here's the routine...I'd pull up to the store and strap on my baby carrier, then pull on my coat (warm down to -60 degrees). Thus armed, I'd get out of my door, plug in my car, then climb into the back door where my son was in his car seat. After strapping him into the baby carrier on my chest and zipping up my coat so that he was concealed inside it, I got out of the car again and headed for the store. Once inside, I'd shed the coat and let my son surface. Then, when we'd finished shopping it was time to do it all again in reverse. Sounds like a process, but in truth, it got to be routine with my only constant worry being whether I'd blocked every square inch of cold from my son's head, which was silly because that head was always sporting a cozy cap.
Of course, you don't want to stay too long in the store in the particularly cold weather because, while plugging in the engine block saves your car, the tires can actually square themselves to the ground if they are immobile for hours. I always had a perverse curiosity to actually see that happen but, happily, never got the chance to test it.
On the flipside of the year, an Alaskan deals with critters. And I'm not talking about the moose that walk up driveways or the bears that pad by. I mean the little critters that suck the fun out of the sunshine as well as the blood from your veins. I once wrote an article comparing them to Air Force jets: first come the big, slow-moving skeeters—the ones that over-winter as adults. They're the B-52's. They never get ya since you can swat 'em like flies. But watch out, next come the F-15's...with their targets locked on, they seldom miss. But the Fairbanksian isn't through yet. After the Eagles soar past, in come the Stealth Fighters. These you don't see. But you sure hear 'em, usually right in your ear just as you're about to drop off to sleep.
Yep, just when you've had enough of wearing six layers of clothing and want to welcome that almost 24-hour sun and 80 degree days...you have to wear jeans and a jeans shirt because I found Levi's to be the only thing that effectively thwarted the Skeeter Armies.
And try to shop the catalogs or online in Alaska. I dare ya. Do you ever notice the fine print in advertisements, speaking to shipping terms? Along the lines of '...except for Alaska and Hawaii' or '...offer not valid in Alaska and Hawaii'. These clauses translate to 'You're going to pay almost as much in shipping as you are for the product you want, my prettys....!'
For those who think the windfall of the permanent fund (my son received his first cheque before he was four months old) is a tidy little operation—it's not. It doesn't even hint at offsetting the daily costs of living in the American version of the Outback.
But what you get from all this is not frustration or misery, but a sort of strength that only heightens with each new challenge that nature presents. And as well, you connect with the elements in an armed detente sorta way.
Most importantly though, is the camaraderie that comes from sharing a land that never makes things very easy. More so than most states in which I've resided, the denizens of the 49th feel more like a vast family. You can hear it when an Alaskan takes a vacation beyond the state's borders: he or she is 'going outside'. If you're relatively new to the state, you're a 'cheechako' until you earn the respected moniker of 'sourdough'.
Governor Palin is a sourdough. And her husband, a native son, is even sourer. And, as in Nevada, a real burr in a sourdough Alaskan's side is the fact that most of the state is owned and operated by the federal government. (In point of fact, the government has its teeth in almost 85% of Nevada while almost 70% of the Land of the Midnight Sun is public land. To all you states without this widespread infusion of federal intrusion, please do not sit in judgment.) Well, Alaska, like Nevada, chafes constantly at the federal bit and is unrelenting in its determination to run its own state, without government interference. When that government interference comes in the form of aid, though, Alaskans are no different than any other state's residents.
So now come the accusations that Governor Palin was for the 'bridge to nowhere' before she was against it. Of course she was for it. (Until it became the poster child for excess earmarks, at which time she wisely tossed it back.) As an example: here in Nevada we have the wonderful and unique V & T Railroad. As is the case with so many historical things, the rails were torn up many decades ago and now we're busily trying to put them back, for so much more money than it cost to put them down originally it's not even funny (though it's certainly ironic). Now do you think if the federal government, the same one that runs 85% of our state, offers us many millions to restore our V & T...do you think our lawmakers would decline the funds? (If you do, I got a bridge to sell ya...)
And the governor of Alaska wants to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. No duh. It's in their state, they figure, and why shouldn't they benefit from it? Funny thing—I spent a short time in Juneau lobbying to keep ANWR pristine and untouched and now I look back on it, man, was I a cheechako. And a hypocrite. Nowadays, I have very little patience with out-of-staters that come to Nevada and tell us we must accept the country's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
So it's all in how you look at things, I guess. But it helps if you paint a landscape behind the subject.
05 September 2008
Speak Up For Equal Rights, Americans! Even When Your Party Forgets To Do So
Just a few passages to encapsulate the last few freaky days...
“After decades of pushing equal rights and treatment for women, the Left is backtracking. Suddenly motherhood – well, at least too much motherhood or too-complicated motherhood – is incompatible with executive responsibility. Fathers with little children or complex family issues – even some who cheated on their wives – have held office without having to justify their continuing careers. Yet women once again face a very different standard.
Who knew that beyond the glass ceiling feminists vowed to shatter there existed another barrier, imposed by feminists themselves? What happened to choice? To having it all? Have we had a paradigm shift since Aug. 29? What's to stop Governor Palin from doing it all?”
Why, the democrats!
They wish.
“A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters....The new data also shows significant increases in the number who say McCain made the right choice and the number who say Palin is ready to be President. Generally, John McCain's choice of Palin earns slightly better reviews than Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden.”
I guess all that invective spewed by Ed Schultz and all that condescension disgorged by Rachel Maddow were colossal wastes of time. Or perhaps not...
“51% of Americans believe that most reporters are trying to hurt Palin's campaign, a fact that may enhance her own ratings.”
Oh yeah! Fight back, Americans!
“Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin's favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year..."
Imagine that.
Despite all the efforts of the democrats to assure there would be no woman near the Oval Office in 2008, it just might happen. And if it does, the republicans are going to get to take the honors, not only for breaking the glass ceiling, but for shattering the concrete the dems have now erected there, as well.
And they're still pouring that concrete—and getting more and more wild-looking and desperate-sounding as they do it. The name of Palin elicits such facial contortions as to be entertaining.
But as my party goes after Governor Palin's audacity to run for vice president, with, omigosh!, children to be cared for at home, and omigosh!, a daughter who's pregnant but not married, and omigosh!, a husband who collected a DUI 20 years ago, and great balls of fire!, have you seen that shade of pink she was wearing?....
Well, it looks like voters are having none of it.
“After decades of pushing equal rights and treatment for women, the Left is backtracking. Suddenly motherhood – well, at least too much motherhood or too-complicated motherhood – is incompatible with executive responsibility. Fathers with little children or complex family issues – even some who cheated on their wives – have held office without having to justify their continuing careers. Yet women once again face a very different standard.
Who knew that beyond the glass ceiling feminists vowed to shatter there existed another barrier, imposed by feminists themselves? What happened to choice? To having it all? Have we had a paradigm shift since Aug. 29? What's to stop Governor Palin from doing it all?”
Why, the democrats!
They wish.
“A week ago, most Americans had never heard of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Now, following a Vice Presidential acceptance speech viewed live by more than 40 million people, Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters....The new data also shows significant increases in the number who say McCain made the right choice and the number who say Palin is ready to be President. Generally, John McCain's choice of Palin earns slightly better reviews than Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden.”
I guess all that invective spewed by Ed Schultz and all that condescension disgorged by Rachel Maddow were colossal wastes of time. Or perhaps not...
“51% of Americans believe that most reporters are trying to hurt Palin's campaign, a fact that may enhance her own ratings.”
Oh yeah! Fight back, Americans!
“Perhaps most stunning is the fact that Palin's favorable ratings are now a point higher than either man at the top of the Presidential tickets this year..."
Imagine that.
Despite all the efforts of the democrats to assure there would be no woman near the Oval Office in 2008, it just might happen. And if it does, the republicans are going to get to take the honors, not only for breaking the glass ceiling, but for shattering the concrete the dems have now erected there, as well.
And they're still pouring that concrete—and getting more and more wild-looking and desperate-sounding as they do it. The name of Palin elicits such facial contortions as to be entertaining.
But as my party goes after Governor Palin's audacity to run for vice president, with, omigosh!, children to be cared for at home, and omigosh!, a daughter who's pregnant but not married, and omigosh!, a husband who collected a DUI 20 years ago, and great balls of fire!, have you seen that shade of pink she was wearing?....
Well, it looks like voters are having none of it.
02 September 2008
And the Contempt For Women Marches On
Without missing much more than a three-week beat, the democrats (my party! MY party!) segued from Senator Clinton to Governor Palin. I'm incredulous. I'm mortified.
I'm indignant. What the hell has happened to my eclectic party that welcomed all with open arms? My party that was synonymous with equal rights for women, with a woman's right to choose, with a woman's right to walk any path she chose?
Well, Governor Palin chose a belief in all life. I read that as one of the choices in the array of 'a woman's right to choose'. And Governor Palin chooses to advocate for the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And Governor Palin chooses to believe in creationism or some degree of it and might advocate to have it taught in schools. And Governor Palin chooses to wear her hair up quite often. And Governor Palin chose to run for public office—from mayor to governor to vice president.
I am in agreement with exactly one of her choices, the latter. As for the rest, I do not concur, though I occasionally wear my hair up, too. But I'm downright thankful for that latter choice. The fact that this strong, caring woman decided to devote her life to the pluses and vagaries of public life betters us all, especially us women.
As for all the things she believes: are these deal-breakers? Bush does not believe in a woman's right to choose...have we lost Roe vs Wade in these dark years? Bush has whined and begged to open ANWR for eight years...is it open? Bush would have creationism taught in the schools in an instant...did it happen in this last decade? And, who, might I fiercely inquire, has the right to judge her hairstyle, let alone have the supremely vile taste to put words to the judgment—in public, no less. (I won't even dignify with more than these words the rest of the garbage slung her way by salacious radio hosts and gleefully hateful callers--dealing with the colors she wears and the like. I've no doubt missed the dark treatises on the inappropriateness of her kids' names and the ugliness of the cars she drives. Omigosh.)
But as to those wedge issues...why has Bush lost all the battles on them? I wish I could say it was because we have a strong and caring Congress, filled with principled democrats, but...it's because vast numbers of Americans, large majorities in some cases, simply don't want these things. And another executive will get no further with these wedges, either. The only thing he or she would be able to manage is what Bush managed—to put another close-minded conservative on the highest court.
And that's major damage. But the way to deal with that is to oust the senators—like Dodd, Leahy, Levin, Lautenberg, Feingold—who voted for one of those conservative Bush picks, and load our Congress with democrats that give a flying ferkin about all of us.
And while we're at it, let's oust the pretenders that have taken over our party. You know who I mean...the ones that nowadays wallow in cesspools of superficial criticism, engage in blatant misogyny, and (I actually heard this from a democrat) tell women to forget their dreams of working for the public good and go home and care for their children.
Jeepers, I miss the democrats.
I'm indignant. What the hell has happened to my eclectic party that welcomed all with open arms? My party that was synonymous with equal rights for women, with a woman's right to choose, with a woman's right to walk any path she chose?
Well, Governor Palin chose a belief in all life. I read that as one of the choices in the array of 'a woman's right to choose'. And Governor Palin chooses to advocate for the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And Governor Palin chooses to believe in creationism or some degree of it and might advocate to have it taught in schools. And Governor Palin chooses to wear her hair up quite often. And Governor Palin chose to run for public office—from mayor to governor to vice president.
I am in agreement with exactly one of her choices, the latter. As for the rest, I do not concur, though I occasionally wear my hair up, too. But I'm downright thankful for that latter choice. The fact that this strong, caring woman decided to devote her life to the pluses and vagaries of public life betters us all, especially us women.
As for all the things she believes: are these deal-breakers? Bush does not believe in a woman's right to choose...have we lost Roe vs Wade in these dark years? Bush has whined and begged to open ANWR for eight years...is it open? Bush would have creationism taught in the schools in an instant...did it happen in this last decade? And, who, might I fiercely inquire, has the right to judge her hairstyle, let alone have the supremely vile taste to put words to the judgment—in public, no less. (I won't even dignify with more than these words the rest of the garbage slung her way by salacious radio hosts and gleefully hateful callers--dealing with the colors she wears and the like. I've no doubt missed the dark treatises on the inappropriateness of her kids' names and the ugliness of the cars she drives. Omigosh.)
But as to those wedge issues...why has Bush lost all the battles on them? I wish I could say it was because we have a strong and caring Congress, filled with principled democrats, but...it's because vast numbers of Americans, large majorities in some cases, simply don't want these things. And another executive will get no further with these wedges, either. The only thing he or she would be able to manage is what Bush managed—to put another close-minded conservative on the highest court.
And that's major damage. But the way to deal with that is to oust the senators—like Dodd, Leahy, Levin, Lautenberg, Feingold—who voted for one of those conservative Bush picks, and load our Congress with democrats that give a flying ferkin about all of us.
And while we're at it, let's oust the pretenders that have taken over our party. You know who I mean...the ones that nowadays wallow in cesspools of superficial criticism, engage in blatant misogyny, and (I actually heard this from a democrat) tell women to forget their dreams of working for the public good and go home and care for their children.
Jeepers, I miss the democrats.
28 August 2008
What Really Awaits You If You Vote For McCain
Let's tackle this incendiary question of a vote for McCain.
The democrats are painting such a vote as one for Lucifer himself. Heck, they're prophesying the end of civilization as we know it. Surely, if McCain is elected president, heaven and earth will tremble in the final throes of a decimation begun almost a decade ago and all we hold dear will finally disappear....poof!
Poppycock.
First of all, we still have three branches of government. The next president is not the be all and end all of our republic. A president can do a lot of damage—witness Bush—but Bush couldn't have wrought a tenth of his misery without the overwhelming, sycophantic aid of Congress.
And McCain won't be able to do so, either. Not if we have a decent Congress. THAT is where all the hoopla and pleas and threats should be focused. Why is it continually lost on the populace that we have THREE branches? That they do a sort of wobbly balancing act? That it is critical to vote in senators and representatives to whom integrity is integral? Instead of the attention draped ad nauseum over the presidential election, what if we heard from each of the individuals running for almost 470 seats this election? Imagine the downright democracy that would flow from that.
Secondly, McCain is not Bush. No matter how vehemently the democrats want you to believe that. (I fervently hope NO ONE is EVER like Bush. This man is one sorry ass mistake of the human race.) Nor is McCain propped up on all sides by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Mukasey, and Ridge. (Perhaps he'd offer an array worse than that, but I can't imagine anything quite so horrifying.)
Before I continue, let me set one thing very straight here. I don't like McCain. I don't agree with him on most things and I really disagree with his war stance. I don't even know if I'd call him an honorable man, though he was unquestionably an honorable soldier.
(Aside: I was shocked and infuriated yesterday when I heard Mike Malloy on Air America rip into McCain. He said, 'yes, he was a POW but did you also know he was rat? Yeah, he ratted out everyone including his mother'. Then Malloy launched into a grammar school attack on physical McCain, 'he has cancer on his face and he can't raise those useless little arms...' All I can say is, better useless arms than a hateful, awful soul, Mr. Malloy.)
But the question is whether McCain is Bush, and all that entails. And I do not believe that to be so. For many reasons. But that's another blog, perhaps.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the Democratic Party is mincemeat. Funny, all the prognosticators claimed the Republican Party was slowly expiring, having reached its apex and squandered it. But from where I sit, I can barely hear the heart of the Democratic Party.
It started fluttering in 2007 when the dems voted more money to kill people in Iraq. It went into respiratory jolts each time the democrats demurred from doing anything to stop the Bush Humvee obliteration of rights, lives, joys. But it checked into the cardiac ward in January 2008. That's when it became apparent that our party, the one we've worn like a badge next to our kids' pictures, had already decreed the presidential nominee. Everyone else was dirt.
We didn't know it, though. We all thought we were still in a game with rules and sidelines and goals and cheering sections. But as the game went on, slowly, many of us started to realize our voices were being silenced. The fix was already in. Dorky us.
The party we'd loved had moved on without us. At least all of us who didn't jump on the designated nominee bandwagon. Not only were we cast aside, but all the rules and regulations and cheering sections were jettisoned, too (I miss those cheering sections! It was a good thing being a part of a party that was going to fix the world, instead of using and misusing it...)
So, back to my point. Our party is mincemeat. And as a particularly astute commenter on my blog pointed out, if John McCain wins this year, we can 'ensure that the current Democratic party dies, and along with it all those who took our democratic system and flushed it away'.
That about says it all.
Getting pretty dark here. It will be at its darkest when I vote for McCain. That'll be just before the dawn.
The democrats are painting such a vote as one for Lucifer himself. Heck, they're prophesying the end of civilization as we know it. Surely, if McCain is elected president, heaven and earth will tremble in the final throes of a decimation begun almost a decade ago and all we hold dear will finally disappear....poof!
Poppycock.
First of all, we still have three branches of government. The next president is not the be all and end all of our republic. A president can do a lot of damage—witness Bush—but Bush couldn't have wrought a tenth of his misery without the overwhelming, sycophantic aid of Congress.
And McCain won't be able to do so, either. Not if we have a decent Congress. THAT is where all the hoopla and pleas and threats should be focused. Why is it continually lost on the populace that we have THREE branches? That they do a sort of wobbly balancing act? That it is critical to vote in senators and representatives to whom integrity is integral? Instead of the attention draped ad nauseum over the presidential election, what if we heard from each of the individuals running for almost 470 seats this election? Imagine the downright democracy that would flow from that.
Secondly, McCain is not Bush. No matter how vehemently the democrats want you to believe that. (I fervently hope NO ONE is EVER like Bush. This man is one sorry ass mistake of the human race.) Nor is McCain propped up on all sides by the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Rice, Mukasey, and Ridge. (Perhaps he'd offer an array worse than that, but I can't imagine anything quite so horrifying.)
Before I continue, let me set one thing very straight here. I don't like McCain. I don't agree with him on most things and I really disagree with his war stance. I don't even know if I'd call him an honorable man, though he was unquestionably an honorable soldier.
(Aside: I was shocked and infuriated yesterday when I heard Mike Malloy on Air America rip into McCain. He said, 'yes, he was a POW but did you also know he was rat? Yeah, he ratted out everyone including his mother'. Then Malloy launched into a grammar school attack on physical McCain, 'he has cancer on his face and he can't raise those useless little arms...' All I can say is, better useless arms than a hateful, awful soul, Mr. Malloy.)
But the question is whether McCain is Bush, and all that entails. And I do not believe that to be so. For many reasons. But that's another blog, perhaps.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the Democratic Party is mincemeat. Funny, all the prognosticators claimed the Republican Party was slowly expiring, having reached its apex and squandered it. But from where I sit, I can barely hear the heart of the Democratic Party.
It started fluttering in 2007 when the dems voted more money to kill people in Iraq. It went into respiratory jolts each time the democrats demurred from doing anything to stop the Bush Humvee obliteration of rights, lives, joys. But it checked into the cardiac ward in January 2008. That's when it became apparent that our party, the one we've worn like a badge next to our kids' pictures, had already decreed the presidential nominee. Everyone else was dirt.
We didn't know it, though. We all thought we were still in a game with rules and sidelines and goals and cheering sections. But as the game went on, slowly, many of us started to realize our voices were being silenced. The fix was already in. Dorky us.
The party we'd loved had moved on without us. At least all of us who didn't jump on the designated nominee bandwagon. Not only were we cast aside, but all the rules and regulations and cheering sections were jettisoned, too (I miss those cheering sections! It was a good thing being a part of a party that was going to fix the world, instead of using and misusing it...)
So, back to my point. Our party is mincemeat. And as a particularly astute commenter on my blog pointed out, if John McCain wins this year, we can 'ensure that the current Democratic party dies, and along with it all those who took our democratic system and flushed it away'.
That about says it all.
Getting pretty dark here. It will be at its darkest when I vote for McCain. That'll be just before the dawn.
27 August 2008
As We Bid Farewell, Let's Not Forget the Facts
I note the stunned reactions of those who watched Senator Clinton's stunning speech last night, and I'm not at all stunned.
Not by the depth and breadth of Hillary Clinton's intelligence, competence, and magic; nor by the media's bewilderment at those qualities. She's never been given her due and we can all argue about the reasons why, but chief among them, in my book, is her gender.
But that's not the focus of this blog. Before the one candidate for president who could have truly pulled us back from the brink slips out of our grasp, I'd like, one last time, to remind everyone of the principal reason why she's not being nominated tonight.
The caucuses. And the mangling of them.
By their nature, they're unrepresentative but a smart tactician (or campaign) could game the system with knowledge, numbers and strategies set in place at each location. And that's exactly what Senator Clinton's opponent did. With the eager aid of the Fourth Estate, Senator Obama gloriously gamed the flawed system.
His campaign knew that those who could spend the rigorous hours of daylight at the caucuses could largely be targeted as the young, male, college-educated. Hmmm. Those aren't the segments of population that are likely to favor Senator Clinton...
So his campaign expounded on that fact and then pulled out the dirty deeds. They bussed people in to the caucuses. They locked others out. They bullied the Clinton delegates and told them to go to the wrong rooms. They ran out of ballots...too many standing for Clinton? Imagine that!
Then, a funny thing happened on the way to state...Clinton delegates were often intimidated and sent letters with reasons why they shouldn't attend. So lots didn't. But the Obama delegates did, so numbers out of counties that looked like this—13 for Obama, 12 for Clinton—became this at the state level—14 for Obama, 11 for Clinton.
Another funny thing happened on the way to national...out of Iowa, there were 15 Clinton delegates, 16 Obama delegates, and 14 Edwards delegates. When the counts went national, magically, Obama had 25, having been given 10 of Edwards, while Clinton lost one.
Finally, two interesting facts: Senator Obama won 13 of 14 caucuses. He lost 21 of 28 primaries. Fascinating thing that when people could step up to the voting machine and cast private, safe ballots...they chose Senator Clinton.
Senator Clinton, you are stunning. Your courage and determination are surpassed only by the strength and grace with which you've gifted us at the close. I'm not surprised, but I'm proud.
Live to fight another day.
Not by the depth and breadth of Hillary Clinton's intelligence, competence, and magic; nor by the media's bewilderment at those qualities. She's never been given her due and we can all argue about the reasons why, but chief among them, in my book, is her gender.
But that's not the focus of this blog. Before the one candidate for president who could have truly pulled us back from the brink slips out of our grasp, I'd like, one last time, to remind everyone of the principal reason why she's not being nominated tonight.
The caucuses. And the mangling of them.
By their nature, they're unrepresentative but a smart tactician (or campaign) could game the system with knowledge, numbers and strategies set in place at each location. And that's exactly what Senator Clinton's opponent did. With the eager aid of the Fourth Estate, Senator Obama gloriously gamed the flawed system.
His campaign knew that those who could spend the rigorous hours of daylight at the caucuses could largely be targeted as the young, male, college-educated. Hmmm. Those aren't the segments of population that are likely to favor Senator Clinton...
So his campaign expounded on that fact and then pulled out the dirty deeds. They bussed people in to the caucuses. They locked others out. They bullied the Clinton delegates and told them to go to the wrong rooms. They ran out of ballots...too many standing for Clinton? Imagine that!
Then, a funny thing happened on the way to state...Clinton delegates were often intimidated and sent letters with reasons why they shouldn't attend. So lots didn't. But the Obama delegates did, so numbers out of counties that looked like this—13 for Obama, 12 for Clinton—became this at the state level—14 for Obama, 11 for Clinton.
Another funny thing happened on the way to national...out of Iowa, there were 15 Clinton delegates, 16 Obama delegates, and 14 Edwards delegates. When the counts went national, magically, Obama had 25, having been given 10 of Edwards, while Clinton lost one.
Finally, two interesting facts: Senator Obama won 13 of 14 caucuses. He lost 21 of 28 primaries. Fascinating thing that when people could step up to the voting machine and cast private, safe ballots...they chose Senator Clinton.
Senator Clinton, you are stunning. Your courage and determination are surpassed only by the strength and grace with which you've gifted us at the close. I'm not surprised, but I'm proud.
Live to fight another day.
26 August 2008
Slip-Sliding Away
With my son duly college-enrolled, my daughter to follow in what seems like a blink of time, and the world to inherit them both so very soon—I'd like to weigh in on the historic presidential election upon us.
I say 'historic' because it's the first one in which I won't be throwing a democratic vote for president the nominee's way. Had the Democrats followed the rules, distributed delegates fairly, allowed the voters to honestly choose whom they wished to represent them, I'd have ante-ed up. Whether I liked the nominee or not.
However, all this business about unity and coming together and getting behind the nominee only works if we got to the goal with integrity. I vehemently refuse to validate cheating and lying and sliming with my vote.
But that conviction places me in the minority. And that's what alarms me. Here's why:
When we say the system is corrupt, or it's faulty, or it rewards the undeserving, and yet we must do the best we can to work within it—it continues it! It validates it. It negates what came before.
But you, the voter, see no other way. So you shrug your shoulders, take a deep breath, and vote the party line. With that action, you erase what you know to be right. You accept the flawed process and you bow to the inevitability of an increasingly flawed and corrupt system for each and every time to come.
But here's something to think about. WE are the system. WE are the party, the voters, the delegates. We are not, contrary to the democratic leaders of a wrecked party, puppets on a string. WE ARE THE SYSTEM. So when we vote to validate, we vote to degenerate.
I get this picture...we're sitting on a long seat in a subway train. 'We' are the system, the voting populace, the families that want to hand a good world over to their children. And each time we accept the adulteration of our rules and our integrity, we get shoved down the bench.
...the Supreme Court has the right to step into an American election...oops...slipped down that bench a bit...
...habeas corpus can now be withheld by the president....oops...slide a little farther...
...three equal branches of government can be negated by signing statements and executive orders issued from one branch...oops...slip-slidin' here...
...Iraq did not attack us and yet we did not rise up in the streets, even when that knowledge was officially confirmed...oops...
...Geneva Conventions? Archaic!...oops...
...one contender for president gets all the marbles, regardless of votes—sorry, other contender! (Women just aren't yet ready for prime time, or so we're told in relentless, countless ways)...oops....
....and so on....
So here we are, in my little picture. Hanging off the subway bench. On every one of the bullets above, the Democrats had the chance, no, the responsibility, to speak up. To right us. To shove us back down the honorable bench. They didn't.
We're just hanging there. Almost on the floor. And our next move is to vote for the product of stealing delegates, lying unabashedly, cheating to be the nominee?
OOPS.
I say 'historic' because it's the first one in which I won't be throwing a democratic vote for president the nominee's way. Had the Democrats followed the rules, distributed delegates fairly, allowed the voters to honestly choose whom they wished to represent them, I'd have ante-ed up. Whether I liked the nominee or not.
However, all this business about unity and coming together and getting behind the nominee only works if we got to the goal with integrity. I vehemently refuse to validate cheating and lying and sliming with my vote.
But that conviction places me in the minority. And that's what alarms me. Here's why:
When we say the system is corrupt, or it's faulty, or it rewards the undeserving, and yet we must do the best we can to work within it—it continues it! It validates it. It negates what came before.
But you, the voter, see no other way. So you shrug your shoulders, take a deep breath, and vote the party line. With that action, you erase what you know to be right. You accept the flawed process and you bow to the inevitability of an increasingly flawed and corrupt system for each and every time to come.
But here's something to think about. WE are the system. WE are the party, the voters, the delegates. We are not, contrary to the democratic leaders of a wrecked party, puppets on a string. WE ARE THE SYSTEM. So when we vote to validate, we vote to degenerate.
I get this picture...we're sitting on a long seat in a subway train. 'We' are the system, the voting populace, the families that want to hand a good world over to their children. And each time we accept the adulteration of our rules and our integrity, we get shoved down the bench.
...the Supreme Court has the right to step into an American election...oops...slipped down that bench a bit...
...habeas corpus can now be withheld by the president....oops...slide a little farther...
...three equal branches of government can be negated by signing statements and executive orders issued from one branch...oops...slip-slidin' here...
...Iraq did not attack us and yet we did not rise up in the streets, even when that knowledge was officially confirmed...oops...
...Geneva Conventions? Archaic!...oops...
...one contender for president gets all the marbles, regardless of votes—sorry, other contender! (Women just aren't yet ready for prime time, or so we're told in relentless, countless ways)...oops....
....and so on....
So here we are, in my little picture. Hanging off the subway bench. On every one of the bullets above, the Democrats had the chance, no, the responsibility, to speak up. To right us. To shove us back down the honorable bench. They didn't.
We're just hanging there. Almost on the floor. And our next move is to vote for the product of stealing delegates, lying unabashedly, cheating to be the nominee?
OOPS.
18 August 2008
...Got Tons to Say....Just Around the Schoolhouse Corner...
Just a note to any dear readers who check my blog and find I've not no new posts after a day or so...
Among other things, my son is beginning college imminently and my daughter is just as imminently off to her sophomore year in high school, so I'm lately lost in a flurry of beginning school year sorts of things.
Nevertheless, I'm listening daily to accounts of the run-up to the democratic convention--including the ongoing and never-ending berating of Hillary Clinton beside the incessant and stomach-turning idolizing of Barack Obama,--the explosive situation in Georgia, the mounting meaningless deaths in Iraq, the daily lawless stunts by Bush and company, the increasing evidence that the democratic 'presumptive' nominee has gotten there through a massive campaign of bullying, intimidation, disenfranchisement, and more--that continues right down the line to the staged convention...
...stay tuned.
I'll explode soon.
Among other things, my son is beginning college imminently and my daughter is just as imminently off to her sophomore year in high school, so I'm lately lost in a flurry of beginning school year sorts of things.
Nevertheless, I'm listening daily to accounts of the run-up to the democratic convention--including the ongoing and never-ending berating of Hillary Clinton beside the incessant and stomach-turning idolizing of Barack Obama,--the explosive situation in Georgia, the mounting meaningless deaths in Iraq, the daily lawless stunts by Bush and company, the increasing evidence that the democratic 'presumptive' nominee has gotten there through a massive campaign of bullying, intimidation, disenfranchisement, and more--that continues right down the line to the staged convention...
...stay tuned.
I'll explode soon.
16 August 2008
C'mon and Play 'Foreign Relations, American Style'!
"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 20th century."
No, they're not acceptable. I must like the individual quoted here. Wonder who it is?
"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia."
Yep, I agree again. Who IS that?
"The world has watched with alarm as Russia invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatened a democratic government elected by its people. This act is completely unacceptable to the free nations of the world."
Uh oh. Qualifications? ...'a democratic government'...unacceptable to the free nations of the world...
Now who is it that qualifies everything in that manner? At first it sounded like an intellectual sophisticate, dismayed at uncivil responses in a striven-for civil world. But then the hint that only 'democratic' nations deserve not to be bullied. And I can hear an undercurrent of authoritarianism, can you feel that? Or is it a touch of moral authority, rooted in religion...?
Ummm. Let me think.
Who might opine on a foreign stage about his or her adoration for democratic governments?
Who uses the word 'free' so freely that 'freedom' no longer really means the state of being free or at liberty?
Who thinks he or she has the right to tell other countries what is unacceptable?
Oh, I've almost got it! It's on the tip of my pen. Blast, who could that be? Give me one more hint.
"Russia's signing of a cease-fire plan with Georgia [is]'a hopeful step'. At the same time, HE (Aha! It's a guy!) warns Russia not to make claims on two disputed parts of the former Soviet republic. HE says there's 'no room for debate' on the matter."
Ohhhh! Who is that guy who thinks he can dictate to other nations?
I've got it! I've got it! The idea that someone can 'warn' another nation not to do something and declares 'there's no room for debate'...that gave it away.
Couldn't be anyone but our self-crowned king, George.
No one else can...preemptively start a war on someone else's land,
invade that country's governmental offices,
dismiss its standing army,
depose the leader,
lay claim to billions of dollars of oil for himself and his cronies,
murder thousands of Americans under the guise of freedom,
neglect the veterans he creates,
cause hundreds of thousands of civilians to die...
...and then tell someone else they can't do it.
No, they're not acceptable. I must like the individual quoted here. Wonder who it is?
"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia."
Yep, I agree again. Who IS that?
"The world has watched with alarm as Russia invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatened a democratic government elected by its people. This act is completely unacceptable to the free nations of the world."
Uh oh. Qualifications? ...'a democratic government'...unacceptable to the free nations of the world...
Now who is it that qualifies everything in that manner? At first it sounded like an intellectual sophisticate, dismayed at uncivil responses in a striven-for civil world. But then the hint that only 'democratic' nations deserve not to be bullied. And I can hear an undercurrent of authoritarianism, can you feel that? Or is it a touch of moral authority, rooted in religion...?
Ummm. Let me think.
Who might opine on a foreign stage about his or her adoration for democratic governments?
Who uses the word 'free' so freely that 'freedom' no longer really means the state of being free or at liberty?
Who thinks he or she has the right to tell other countries what is unacceptable?
Oh, I've almost got it! It's on the tip of my pen. Blast, who could that be? Give me one more hint.
"Russia's signing of a cease-fire plan with Georgia [is]'a hopeful step'. At the same time, HE (Aha! It's a guy!) warns Russia not to make claims on two disputed parts of the former Soviet republic. HE says there's 'no room for debate' on the matter."
Ohhhh! Who is that guy who thinks he can dictate to other nations?
I've got it! I've got it! The idea that someone can 'warn' another nation not to do something and declares 'there's no room for debate'...that gave it away.
Couldn't be anyone but our self-crowned king, George.
No one else can...preemptively start a war on someone else's land,
invade that country's governmental offices,
dismiss its standing army,
depose the leader,
lay claim to billions of dollars of oil for himself and his cronies,
murder thousands of Americans under the guise of freedom,
neglect the veterans he creates,
cause hundreds of thousands of civilians to die...
...and then tell someone else they can't do it.
14 August 2008
You Get What You Vote For...As Well as the Consequences When You Don't
Nevada held its primary two days ago. Voter turnout, statewide, was 20%.
What do you suppose it might take for Americans to understand the criticality of their involvement in their world?
Let's see. I guess these little matters didn't do it:
Our children, and others' children, dying needlessly in Iraq,
People from here and away being held against their will and without recourse in Guantanamo,
The inalienable right of habeas corpus now alienated,
Gas resting at $4 a gallon while oil companies roar with laughter,
Countries around the world having passed the stage of incredulity at a president supremely ill-suited for power,
An education system bound inexorably toward the voucher system as No Child Left Behind creeps to its goal,
Larger and larger swaths of the population joining the ranks of the homeless,
Veterans neglected by an administration that is incapable of understanding the lifelong debt owed to the individuals who offered up their lives for lies,
Americans now left with no alternatives in the political process as the parties have become indistinguishable in their corruptness, self-aggrandizement, and heedless pursuit of their own private agendas,
More and more species of wildlife and tracts of land tossed off the preservation lists,
Crime after crime committed by public officials who sneer at the idea of answering to the citizens who put them there...
And no wonder they sneer. They know their careening, crashing, cataclysmic foray through the Constitution, our pocketbooks, our wildlands, and our honor will never be halted when 20% of the populace votes.
What do you suppose it might take for Americans to understand the criticality of their involvement in their world?
Let's see. I guess these little matters didn't do it:
And no wonder they sneer. They know their careening, crashing, cataclysmic foray through the Constitution, our pocketbooks, our wildlands, and our honor will never be halted when 20% of the populace votes.
12 August 2008
Winning, or Another Name for Not Dying
When I'm not being bombarded by pros and cons about the escalation of troops, oops, I mean SURGE, in Iraq, I'm being inundated with discourses on whether we're winning in that country.
Hmmm.
My first question would be: how does one 'win' an occupation?
My second would be: since when is 'winning' the measure of an advanced society?
As an Air Force intelligence officer, my job was not to 'win' the exercises in which I took part, but to 'accomplish the mission'. If I had a Euro dollar for every time I heard those three all-important words, I'd be manning my own site instead of blogspot blogging.
Now that I think of it, the Air Force tends to love and employ those trios of words often...'attention to detail'...'chain of command'...ACCOMPLISH THE MISSION...(remember that little banner thing on the carrier....)
Unless the military has changed beyond all recognition, there's not a soldier, airman or marine who has been sent to Iraq 'to win' but rather to accomplish the mission.
And yet, today I heard someone claiming the morale is so much higher in Iraq because the troops there feel they're 'winning'.
Perhaps, to play devil's advocate with myself, they are referring to winning against the terrorists, 'Winning the War on Terror'.
So my next question would be: how does one 'win' a technique or method?
And my next question would be: why did we accept such a humvee load of tripe as a 'war' on an amorphous definition of violence practiced by anyone, anywhere, anytime?
You know what? IF the morale is higher it's probably because there's been 'a slight downtick in violence' of late, and more of the troops are LIVING.
So my last question would be: when are we all going to get good and fed up with being fed this kind of crap?
Hmmm.
My first question would be: how does one 'win' an occupation?
My second would be: since when is 'winning' the measure of an advanced society?
As an Air Force intelligence officer, my job was not to 'win' the exercises in which I took part, but to 'accomplish the mission'. If I had a Euro dollar for every time I heard those three all-important words, I'd be manning my own site instead of blogspot blogging.
Now that I think of it, the Air Force tends to love and employ those trios of words often...'attention to detail'...'chain of command'...ACCOMPLISH THE MISSION...(remember that little banner thing on the carrier....)
Unless the military has changed beyond all recognition, there's not a soldier, airman or marine who has been sent to Iraq 'to win' but rather to accomplish the mission.
And yet, today I heard someone claiming the morale is so much higher in Iraq because the troops there feel they're 'winning'.
Perhaps, to play devil's advocate with myself, they are referring to winning against the terrorists, 'Winning the War on Terror'.
So my next question would be: how does one 'win' a technique or method?
And my next question would be: why did we accept such a humvee load of tripe as a 'war' on an amorphous definition of violence practiced by anyone, anywhere, anytime?
You know what? IF the morale is higher it's probably because there's been 'a slight downtick in violence' of late, and more of the troops are LIVING.
So my last question would be: when are we all going to get good and fed up with being fed this kind of crap?
07 August 2008
A Link to a Worthy Article
This is a phenomenal article. Do go to this site and read it.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/hillarys_growing_shadow.html
Contrary to the hopes of the ruling democratic echelon, Senator Clinton's shadow truly is lengthening.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/hillarys_growing_shadow.html
Contrary to the hopes of the ruling democratic echelon, Senator Clinton's shadow truly is lengthening.
06 August 2008
Baffled by the Purge, But More Baffled by the Purged
Regarding the 'purging' of Florida delegates...I'm baffled any candidate would reach down into duly chosen pools of individuals--selected through a long and careful process (from precinct to county to state) to honorably represent their neighbors—and arbitrarily replace them.
I'm baffled by the response of the replacements, complicit in the affair by their acceptance of the slots.
But I'm most baffled by the reaction of the replaced. I have to ask myself, would I still support a candidate that had so misused me? One who took my patient climb through the precinct and county and state conventions, faithful to the candidate I'd chosen—and summarily disposed of it?
I think I'd be knocking on the doors of 18 Million Voices, Just Say No Deal, PUMA, the Denver Group, Blue Lyon, Fiery Side....
I'm baffled by the response of the replacements, complicit in the affair by their acceptance of the slots.
But I'm most baffled by the reaction of the replaced. I have to ask myself, would I still support a candidate that had so misused me? One who took my patient climb through the precinct and county and state conventions, faithful to the candidate I'd chosen—and summarily disposed of it?
I think I'd be knocking on the doors of 18 Million Voices, Just Say No Deal, PUMA, the Denver Group, Blue Lyon, Fiery Side....
04 August 2008
It's All About the Money After All, Isn't It, Senator Obama?
I don't mean to keep harping on facts about Senator Obama, but...oh, yes I do. No use trying to skew my intentions as anything else, like someone else we all know...whose name starts with O.
I'm harping because now is the time to do it. If blogs such as mine do harp on the facts, then others will harp, and the circle will widen, and perhaps, just perhaps, real change will win out in time to eclipse Senator Obama's fake Change.
We are all quite aware of the sea tide of superdelegates that washed onto Senator Obama's shores following Senator Clinton's capitulation to what appeared to be a foregone conclusion. What was really foregone was the trail of money that led up to it.
Did you know that a non-partisan study showed that presidential candidates who gave the most money to superdelegates secured those superdelegate votes 82% of the time?
Senator Obama knew that little statistic. And he had the funds to make it a reality.
Did you know that in 2007 Hope Pac, Senator Obama's political action committee, gave out $299,000, compared to the non-existent amount given out by Senator Clinton?
Did you know that as of the end of March 2008, Senator Obama's PAC had given three times more ($711,000) to superdelegates than Senator Clinton ($236,000)?
Do you remember the mantra drilled into us by all who would see the nomination go to Obama: 'The superdelegates MUST vote in accordance with the popular vote and that vote is unarguably with the senator from Illinois”...?
Here are some facts I hope you'll all pass on, and, like widening circles in a global pond, may these facts speak volumes to the foregone conclusion.
All the following superdelegates endorsed Obama. I attach the monies received and the vote percentages in their states, not a one in accordance with the endorsement and every one defying the mantra.
Rep. Porter (NH)
$11,500 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
NH vote: Clinton 39%, Obama 37%
Rep. Hill (IN)
$12,500 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
IN vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%
Rep. Bingamon (NM)
$4,200 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
NM vote: Clinton 49%, Obama 48%
Sen. Lautenberg (NJ)
$9,500 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
NJ vote: Clinton 54%, Obama 44%
Rep. Klein (FL)
$11,000 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
FL vote: Clinton 50%, Obama 33%
Rep. Donnelly (IN)
$7,500 received from Obama
$0 received from Clinton
IN vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%
Rep. McNerney (CA)
$5,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%
Rep. Altmire (PA)
$10,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
PA vote: Clinton 55%, Obama 45%
Rep. Tsongas (MA)
$5,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
MA vote: Clinton 56%, Obama 41%
Rep. Cardoza (CA)
$4,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%
Rep. Giffords (AZ)
$9,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
AZ vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 42%
Rep. Costa (CA)
$4,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%
Now we all know that had Senator Clinton had the same kind of funds to bestow, she'd have spread the wealth, too. Yes, she took money from lobbyists. Yes, she accepted money from corporate giants many of us might find distasteful. And yes, she is no innocent when it comes to the influence of money in campaigns. But I never heard her claim to be doing anything beyond working within the system as it's regrettably grown to be.
Senator Obama, however, has billed himself as the Candidate for Change. He has promised us Change We Can Believe In. He has built his case to the American public on A New Kind of Politics and A New Way of Doing Business in our capitol.
Sounds like the same ol' slimy dealings to me.
I'm harping because now is the time to do it. If blogs such as mine do harp on the facts, then others will harp, and the circle will widen, and perhaps, just perhaps, real change will win out in time to eclipse Senator Obama's fake Change.
We are all quite aware of the sea tide of superdelegates that washed onto Senator Obama's shores following Senator Clinton's capitulation to what appeared to be a foregone conclusion. What was really foregone was the trail of money that led up to it.
Did you know that a non-partisan study showed that presidential candidates who gave the most money to superdelegates secured those superdelegate votes 82% of the time?
Senator Obama knew that little statistic. And he had the funds to make it a reality.
Did you know that in 2007 Hope Pac, Senator Obama's political action committee, gave out $299,000, compared to the non-existent amount given out by Senator Clinton?
Did you know that as of the end of March 2008, Senator Obama's PAC had given three times more ($711,000) to superdelegates than Senator Clinton ($236,000)?
Do you remember the mantra drilled into us by all who would see the nomination go to Obama: 'The superdelegates MUST vote in accordance with the popular vote and that vote is unarguably with the senator from Illinois”...?
Here are some facts I hope you'll all pass on, and, like widening circles in a global pond, may these facts speak volumes to the foregone conclusion.
All the following superdelegates endorsed Obama. I attach the monies received and the vote percentages in their states, not a one in accordance with the endorsement and every one defying the mantra.
Rep. Porter (NH)
$11,500 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
NH vote: Clinton 39%, Obama 37%
Rep. Hill (IN)
$12,500 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
IN vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%
Rep. Bingamon (NM)
$4,200 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
NM vote: Clinton 49%, Obama 48%
Sen. Lautenberg (NJ)
$9,500 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
NJ vote: Clinton 54%, Obama 44%
Rep. Klein (FL)
$11,000 received from Obama
$ 2,500 received from Clinton
FL vote: Clinton 50%, Obama 33%
Rep. Donnelly (IN)
$7,500 received from Obama
$0 received from Clinton
IN vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 49%
Rep. McNerney (CA)
$5,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%
Rep. Altmire (PA)
$10,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
PA vote: Clinton 55%, Obama 45%
Rep. Tsongas (MA)
$5,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
MA vote: Clinton 56%, Obama 41%
Rep. Cardoza (CA)
$4,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%
Rep. Giffords (AZ)
$9,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
AZ vote: Clinton 51%, Obama 42%
Rep. Costa (CA)
$4,000 received from Obama
$ 0 received from Clinton
CA vote: Clinton 52%, Obama 43%
Now we all know that had Senator Clinton had the same kind of funds to bestow, she'd have spread the wealth, too. Yes, she took money from lobbyists. Yes, she accepted money from corporate giants many of us might find distasteful. And yes, she is no innocent when it comes to the influence of money in campaigns. But I never heard her claim to be doing anything beyond working within the system as it's regrettably grown to be.
Senator Obama, however, has billed himself as the Candidate for Change. He has promised us Change We Can Believe In. He has built his case to the American public on A New Kind of Politics and A New Way of Doing Business in our capitol.
Sounds like the same ol' slimy dealings to me.
03 August 2008
Unity Only Counts When it Helps Obama
I've got to wonder when I'll stop being shocked by the actions of Senator Obama. Reason and a good memory would dictate that point to be sometime well past.
But ZAP! He did it again. Lucky thing no one was in the opposite lane of traffic as I wandered into it while staring incredulously at the radio.
So sit back in your chairs to prevent falling out of them...
Today--after behaving thoroughly intractable, and without allowing even the hint of a compromise in the Florida/Michigan 'Dele-gate' affair--my friend the senator has written a letter to the co-chairs of the Democratic National Convention's Credentials Committee. He'd like, now, to give each delegate a full vote at the convention.
Never mind that his campaign was a full and participating party to the stripping and gifting of four Michigan delegates from Clinton to Obama.
Never mind that he chose, along with four other candidates, to remove his name from the Michigan ballot, then voraciously took not only the four delegates that belonged to Clinton, but the rest of the non-Clinton delegates that, minus the debacle of the name removal, would have been split between him and those other four candidates.
Never mind that, with both Clinton and Obama on the ballot in Florida, OBAMA LOST: Clinton got 857,000 votes to Obama's 569,000.
Never mind that in negotiations with the Credentials committee at the time, he steadfastly refused to accept the granting of full votes to either state.
Now he says, “I believe party unity calls for the delegates from Florida and Michigan to be able to participate fully alongside the delegates from the other states and territories”.
My shock has now been supplanted by sheer revulsion.
And hope.
Hope that this latest mendacious, audacious, outrageous maneuver will shake the delegates to their toes and WAKE THEM UP.
It's not too late!
But ZAP! He did it again. Lucky thing no one was in the opposite lane of traffic as I wandered into it while staring incredulously at the radio.
So sit back in your chairs to prevent falling out of them...
Today--after behaving thoroughly intractable, and without allowing even the hint of a compromise in the Florida/Michigan 'Dele-gate' affair--my friend the senator has written a letter to the co-chairs of the Democratic National Convention's Credentials Committee. He'd like, now, to give each delegate a full vote at the convention.
Never mind that his campaign was a full and participating party to the stripping and gifting of four Michigan delegates from Clinton to Obama.
Never mind that he chose, along with four other candidates, to remove his name from the Michigan ballot, then voraciously took not only the four delegates that belonged to Clinton, but the rest of the non-Clinton delegates that, minus the debacle of the name removal, would have been split between him and those other four candidates.
Never mind that, with both Clinton and Obama on the ballot in Florida, OBAMA LOST: Clinton got 857,000 votes to Obama's 569,000.
Never mind that in negotiations with the Credentials committee at the time, he steadfastly refused to accept the granting of full votes to either state.
Now he says, “I believe party unity calls for the delegates from Florida and Michigan to be able to participate fully alongside the delegates from the other states and territories”.
My shock has now been supplanted by sheer revulsion.
And hope.
Hope that this latest mendacious, audacious, outrageous maneuver will shake the delegates to their toes and WAKE THEM UP.
It's not too late!
31 July 2008
All's Quiet on the Iraqi Front
I note the headline, 'US toll in Iraq hits all-time low as month ends'.
And, 'Iraqis also are dying at dramatically lower numbers with the war in its sixth year'.
11 Americans and 510 Iraqi civilians and security personnel died in Iraq this month. Just think, that's an average of 16 Iraqis dying a day, compared with 65 each day in the same month last year. Only 16 men, women and children, compared to 65. Just 16.
And only 11 Americans. Just 11 families have lost a son, daughter, father, mother, uncle, aunt, cousin this month.
Only 11. An all-time low.
All's almost Quiet on the Iraqi Front.
And, 'Iraqis also are dying at dramatically lower numbers with the war in its sixth year'.
11 Americans and 510 Iraqi civilians and security personnel died in Iraq this month. Just think, that's an average of 16 Iraqis dying a day, compared with 65 each day in the same month last year. Only 16 men, women and children, compared to 65. Just 16.
And only 11 Americans. Just 11 families have lost a son, daughter, father, mother, uncle, aunt, cousin this month.
Only 11. An all-time low.
All's almost Quiet on the Iraqi Front.
28 July 2008
A Stunningly Sneaky Run for the Presidency
If there's anything I really dislike, it's slimy dealings. For the American media to harp incessantly on the 200,000 people who attended Senator Obama's speech in Berlin, all the while omitting the preceding two concerts by favorite European bands, AND free pizza, beer and bratwurst, is simply repugnant.
Evidently, this sort of modus operandi is not without precedent in the Obama camp. With respect and thanks to justsaynodeal.com, I excerpt a fragment of their comment on this mucky affair, and another, similar one:
“While coverage of Senator Obama's Berlin speech provided audiences here at home nothing less than a visual "shock and awe," it neglected to mention that the well-hyped speech had an opening act: a gratis concert by two wildly popular groups....
While we appreciate the Obama Campaign's hospitality, on behalf of furthering US-Germany relations, offering free bratwurst, pizza and even beer for three hours during the free rock concert, we question whether or not the monies might have been better spent here on financially strapped US citizens.
Similarly, back on May 20, 2008 in Portland, Oregon, Senator Obama took the stage following the critically acclaimed local band The Decemberists, who gave a rare free concert for 75,000 fans. While news stories generated by both appearances focused on the enormity of the crowd size, few mentioned the accompanying perks, leaving some to question whether revelers are showing up for Senator Obama or for free food and entertainment.
Without this additional information, Just Say No Deal contends that Americans are being misled about the presumptive Democratic nominee’s true popularity."
Misled? I'd certainly say so. Remember when we learned that a lie is still a lie when it's a fully cognizant omission? Guess the media missed that lesson.
Evidently, this sort of modus operandi is not without precedent in the Obama camp. With respect and thanks to justsaynodeal.com, I excerpt a fragment of their comment on this mucky affair, and another, similar one:
“While coverage of Senator Obama's Berlin speech provided audiences here at home nothing less than a visual "shock and awe," it neglected to mention that the well-hyped speech had an opening act: a gratis concert by two wildly popular groups....
While we appreciate the Obama Campaign's hospitality, on behalf of furthering US-Germany relations, offering free bratwurst, pizza and even beer for three hours during the free rock concert, we question whether or not the monies might have been better spent here on financially strapped US citizens.
Similarly, back on May 20, 2008 in Portland, Oregon, Senator Obama took the stage following the critically acclaimed local band The Decemberists, who gave a rare free concert for 75,000 fans. While news stories generated by both appearances focused on the enormity of the crowd size, few mentioned the accompanying perks, leaving some to question whether revelers are showing up for Senator Obama or for free food and entertainment.
Without this additional information, Just Say No Deal contends that Americans are being misled about the presumptive Democratic nominee’s true popularity."
Misled? I'd certainly say so. Remember when we learned that a lie is still a lie when it's a fully cognizant omission? Guess the media missed that lesson.
27 July 2008
An Escalation of The Surge
What a two-edged sword is language. It can express the finest of details in the most exquisite of manners. Or it can twist the truth into contortions of ugliness and mendacity.
The whole business with 'The Surge' falls into the latter category. I truly thought, at the outset of this blatant attempt to hide a dastardly deed behind a reworked word, that the deceit would be exposed.
Silly me.
From its inception in January 2007 till now, we have been 'surged' so thoroughly, that it would seem everyone has forgotten that what really happened a year and a half ago was an obscene ESCALATION of troops. Remember that word when it happened in Vietnam?
What we didn't have in the days of troop escalation in Vietnam, though, was a media so willing to sacrifice the integrity of the Fourth Estate in sycophantical deference to the Executive Branch. They've been so successful at it, that one can tune in to any radio frequency or TV news spot and hear 90% of the speakers enthusing over the excellent outcomes of The Surge, while 10% still hang back in their praise of The Surge.
But never will you hear the word 'escalation' uttered. It's been a true Newspeak success.
George Orwell would have been impressed.
The whole business with 'The Surge' falls into the latter category. I truly thought, at the outset of this blatant attempt to hide a dastardly deed behind a reworked word, that the deceit would be exposed.
Silly me.
From its inception in January 2007 till now, we have been 'surged' so thoroughly, that it would seem everyone has forgotten that what really happened a year and a half ago was an obscene ESCALATION of troops. Remember that word when it happened in Vietnam?
What we didn't have in the days of troop escalation in Vietnam, though, was a media so willing to sacrifice the integrity of the Fourth Estate in sycophantical deference to the Executive Branch. They've been so successful at it, that one can tune in to any radio frequency or TV news spot and hear 90% of the speakers enthusing over the excellent outcomes of The Surge, while 10% still hang back in their praise of The Surge.
But never will you hear the word 'escalation' uttered. It's been a true Newspeak success.
George Orwell would have been impressed.
26 July 2008
Governing...On the House
Over at wexlerwantshearings.com there are a quarter of a million people who've declared their desire for impeachment hearings against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. There's also an exhortation to contribute to the effort.
So, the American populace must sign on and contribute to the goal of impeachment.
Really.
Here's the way I thought it was supposed to work:
Article 2, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article I, Section 2, Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall...have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.
According to our Constitution, it appears launching of impeachment hearings is the sole purview of our House of Representatives. And despite unassailable evidence that there's been some pretty dicey goings-on in these past seven years, the House is disinclined to even ask questions about them, in the form of hearings. Oh, yesterday saw a half-hearted stab at it, but it was more an effort to pacify the undeterred Wexler and Kucinich than any real attempt to DO THEIR JOBS.
In fact, doing their jobs, or the lack it, seems to be the real problem here. Let's look at just a couple of their duties—for which, incidentally, they receive hefty compensation, the best, free medical care to be found in the United States, and an unending stream of perks:
To declare War...This duty was handily handed over to the Executive Branch a few years back.
To define and punish...Offenses against the Law of Nations..With respect to the Geneva Conventions, which tenets have been dismissed by the Bush administration, this duty requires the convening of impeachment hearings, which were pronounced 'off the table' in 2006.
Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...and provide for the...general Welfare of the United States...They've got the first part of this down but virtually ignore the second.
And here's a limit on the duties of Congress:
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it...This evaporated when our Congress blithely passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006. With a margin of 65–34 in the Senate and 250–170 in the House, our elected officials not only made it possible for our president to declare any one of us 'unlawful enemy combatants' and thereby forfeit our rights to habeas corpus, they defied the Constitution. They did the opposite of their jobs.
It's worth noting here that this Congress, since 2006, has a Democratic Party majority, albeit razor slim. Our loss of habeas corpus occurred on the Democrats' watch. The refusal to impeach has been on their time. One is battered consistently by the remonstrance that the Republicans are filibustering all good actions, but one must then wonder, where was the Democratic filibustering in the preceding Republican majority? If the Republicans are utilizing the tools of the minority to their advantage, I can only applaud the resourcefulness of one party and bemoan the lack of it in the other.
I'm not a fan of what our two-party system has become, but with a tip of my hat to reality, at the very least I'd like our elected officials to make a stab at doing their jobs, and quit asking us to do them for them...while they head off to their doctor visits—on the House.
So, the American populace must sign on and contribute to the goal of impeachment.
Really.
Here's the way I thought it was supposed to work:
Article 2, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article I, Section 2, Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall...have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Article I, Section 3, Clause 6: The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.
According to our Constitution, it appears launching of impeachment hearings is the sole purview of our House of Representatives. And despite unassailable evidence that there's been some pretty dicey goings-on in these past seven years, the House is disinclined to even ask questions about them, in the form of hearings. Oh, yesterday saw a half-hearted stab at it, but it was more an effort to pacify the undeterred Wexler and Kucinich than any real attempt to DO THEIR JOBS.
In fact, doing their jobs, or the lack it, seems to be the real problem here. Let's look at just a couple of their duties—for which, incidentally, they receive hefty compensation, the best, free medical care to be found in the United States, and an unending stream of perks:
To declare War...This duty was handily handed over to the Executive Branch a few years back.
To define and punish...Offenses against the Law of Nations..With respect to the Geneva Conventions, which tenets have been dismissed by the Bush administration, this duty requires the convening of impeachment hearings, which were pronounced 'off the table' in 2006.
Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises...and provide for the...general Welfare of the United States...They've got the first part of this down but virtually ignore the second.
And here's a limit on the duties of Congress:
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it...This evaporated when our Congress blithely passed the Military Commissions Act in 2006. With a margin of 65–34 in the Senate and 250–170 in the House, our elected officials not only made it possible for our president to declare any one of us 'unlawful enemy combatants' and thereby forfeit our rights to habeas corpus, they defied the Constitution. They did the opposite of their jobs.
It's worth noting here that this Congress, since 2006, has a Democratic Party majority, albeit razor slim. Our loss of habeas corpus occurred on the Democrats' watch. The refusal to impeach has been on their time. One is battered consistently by the remonstrance that the Republicans are filibustering all good actions, but one must then wonder, where was the Democratic filibustering in the preceding Republican majority? If the Republicans are utilizing the tools of the minority to their advantage, I can only applaud the resourcefulness of one party and bemoan the lack of it in the other.
I'm not a fan of what our two-party system has become, but with a tip of my hat to reality, at the very least I'd like our elected officials to make a stab at doing their jobs, and quit asking us to do them for them...while they head off to their doctor visits—on the House.
25 July 2008
Dear Readers of my Blog,
I'd like you to know how honored I am by your visits to my infinitesimal niche in cyberspace. I know very little about you, just that you've reached me on the great global computer brain in the last month not only from around the United States, but from India, Germany, South Africa, Israel, and Canada. My thoughts may not amount to more than a hill of bytes, but it means a lot to me that you're taking the time to read them.
Thanks. Write back if you like. I'll keep writing, if you keep listening.
Salut!
Cathylee
Thanks. Write back if you like. I'll keep writing, if you keep listening.
Salut!
Cathylee
24 July 2008
The Better Part of a Valorous Run for the Presidency
I'd like to ruminate a bit about Senator Obama's faux state visits abroad.
It would be doing him a disservice to paint his efforts as distasteful, tasteless or in poor taste. Preposterous, embarrassingly offensive, asinine and inexcusable are more to the fore.
It's reported that official Obama campaign posters have appeared everywhere—including the most holy Western Wall--, his 'Change We Can Believe In' banners have accompanied his visits, and a spokesperson for the German chancellor has gone so far as to say officially, 'It is unusual to hold election rallies abroad. No German candidate for high office would even think of using the National Mall or Red Square in Moscow for a rally because it would not be seen as appropriate.'
Discreet, fact-finding visits to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Germany, and more would have been not only helpful to Senator Obama's application for the presidency, but would have indicated an individual who understood the powerful delicacy of the position he sought. Sadly, sentience and discretion would not seem to be players in the senator's vocabulary.
I have traveled the world and lived overseas many times and I find it personally discomfiting that a candidate for our presidency would campaign in countries other than the one he hopes to lead. Even my teenaged son compared it to a wannabe chancellor of Germany taking his or her campaign to New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Haven't we been mortified and shamed enough by our Bush years?
If this contretemps is any indication of what lies ahead, our public opprobrium may continue unabated.
It would be doing him a disservice to paint his efforts as distasteful, tasteless or in poor taste. Preposterous, embarrassingly offensive, asinine and inexcusable are more to the fore.
It's reported that official Obama campaign posters have appeared everywhere—including the most holy Western Wall--, his 'Change We Can Believe In' banners have accompanied his visits, and a spokesperson for the German chancellor has gone so far as to say officially, 'It is unusual to hold election rallies abroad. No German candidate for high office would even think of using the National Mall or Red Square in Moscow for a rally because it would not be seen as appropriate.'
Discreet, fact-finding visits to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Germany, and more would have been not only helpful to Senator Obama's application for the presidency, but would have indicated an individual who understood the powerful delicacy of the position he sought. Sadly, sentience and discretion would not seem to be players in the senator's vocabulary.
I have traveled the world and lived overseas many times and I find it personally discomfiting that a candidate for our presidency would campaign in countries other than the one he hopes to lead. Even my teenaged son compared it to a wannabe chancellor of Germany taking his or her campaign to New York, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Haven't we been mortified and shamed enough by our Bush years?
If this contretemps is any indication of what lies ahead, our public opprobrium may continue unabated.
21 July 2008
Euphemisms, Lies, and Leaders
Voilà, a sampling of rhetoric to gloss over Senator Obama's crafty, calculated, and utterly impolitic MOVE TO THE CENTER.
'The conversation is rising about what the left should properly do when the presumptive nominee appears to emphasize his moderate side...'
'Senator Obama is a nuanced, sophisticated speaker.'
'He's a good politician. He's doing all he can to make sure people know he would govern as a post-partisan moderate.'
'He’s being proactive by taking centrist stances on issues that are important to a lot of people in this country...Obama is doing what he has to do in order to win.'
What tripe.
I'm getting downright fatigued with the unscrupulous manipulation of language to disguise actions by politicians that are entirely self-serving and ineffably stupid.
Let's just speak plainly. The Senator from Illinois has lied. Either he lied when he laid out his stances on public campaign financing, wiretapping, the death penalty, free trade, diplomacy, immunity for telecoms, handguns, the 'surge', and more---or he's lying now.
I have two problems with that.
1.How am I to impress on my teenagers the dishonor brought to their lives by lying when our would-be leaders spew lies like stock in trade?
2.How can I vote for someone who lies, bold-faced and with impunity?
There's another thing I teach my children: when you compete in any venue, do it with honor. Win, but win with honor. Without it, any win will be empty and will do justice to no one. Witness the 'win' to which we've been subjected these last, long eight years. We are all the poorer, even those with lots more in the bank.
Is it too much to ask that our leaders possess an iota of integrity?
Can we not have a win with even the outward perception of honor?
'The conversation is rising about what the left should properly do when the presumptive nominee appears to emphasize his moderate side...'
'Senator Obama is a nuanced, sophisticated speaker.'
'He's a good politician. He's doing all he can to make sure people know he would govern as a post-partisan moderate.'
'He’s being proactive by taking centrist stances on issues that are important to a lot of people in this country...Obama is doing what he has to do in order to win.'
What tripe.
I'm getting downright fatigued with the unscrupulous manipulation of language to disguise actions by politicians that are entirely self-serving and ineffably stupid.
Let's just speak plainly. The Senator from Illinois has lied. Either he lied when he laid out his stances on public campaign financing, wiretapping, the death penalty, free trade, diplomacy, immunity for telecoms, handguns, the 'surge', and more---or he's lying now.
I have two problems with that.
1.How am I to impress on my teenagers the dishonor brought to their lives by lying when our would-be leaders spew lies like stock in trade?
2.How can I vote for someone who lies, bold-faced and with impunity?
There's another thing I teach my children: when you compete in any venue, do it with honor. Win, but win with honor. Without it, any win will be empty and will do justice to no one. Witness the 'win' to which we've been subjected these last, long eight years. We are all the poorer, even those with lots more in the bank.
Is it too much to ask that our leaders possess an iota of integrity?
Can we not have a win with even the outward perception of honor?
18 July 2008
A Plea to my Neighbors
Here I am, on again about this quaint idea of following the rules...
What might possess an elected official, upon taking leadership of a body of legislators, to proclaim one section of the Constitution negated?
It's rather like telling one's new boss in the firm, 'I will abide by all the rules here, except the one dealing with habeas corpus. That's off the table.'
Or perhaps it's like telling one's sergeant at the precinct, 'I will abide by all the rules here except the one about search and seizure. That's off the table.'
How about the second lieutenant who arrives at her new post, only to state, 'I'm happy to be here, eager to get to work, but don't even think about deploying me anywhere. That's off the table.'
I'd guess anyone reading this has figured out by now who's in my sights here. And of course this is all well-traveled territory. I bring it up now, not only because our disappointment of a Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had the misbegotten temerity to preemptively sweep the only constitutional remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors off the table, but because...
...she's up for re-election.
Dear friends in my neighbor state of California,
TOSS HER OUT!
PLEASE!
Love, Cathylee
What might possess an elected official, upon taking leadership of a body of legislators, to proclaim one section of the Constitution negated?
It's rather like telling one's new boss in the firm, 'I will abide by all the rules here, except the one dealing with habeas corpus. That's off the table.'
Or perhaps it's like telling one's sergeant at the precinct, 'I will abide by all the rules here except the one about search and seizure. That's off the table.'
How about the second lieutenant who arrives at her new post, only to state, 'I'm happy to be here, eager to get to work, but don't even think about deploying me anywhere. That's off the table.'
I'd guess anyone reading this has figured out by now who's in my sights here. And of course this is all well-traveled territory. I bring it up now, not only because our disappointment of a Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, had the misbegotten temerity to preemptively sweep the only constitutional remedy for high crimes and misdemeanors off the table, but because...
...she's up for re-election.
Dear friends in my neighbor state of California,
TOSS HER OUT!
PLEASE!
Love, Cathylee
17 July 2008
An Intention That is Almost a Promise...But Not Quite
To all who visited my inaugural post, and especially those who took the time to comment--
I truly regret the hiatus in blogs since. Life got hectic. But I've been brimming over with thoughts and things, and this blog silence just won't do. So I'm intending to write every day...or thereabouts...even if it's just a bit.
Thanks to all who have and will land at Fiery Side!
Be talking with you soon.
I truly regret the hiatus in blogs since. Life got hectic. But I've been brimming over with thoughts and things, and this blog silence just won't do. So I'm intending to write every day...or thereabouts...even if it's just a bit.
Thanks to all who have and will land at Fiery Side!
Be talking with you soon.
The Right Answer to the Real Question
When Senator Obama declined federal campaign funds totaling $84 million, there was a bit of a hue and cry. Some of the questions that flew included,
Why did he offer to take the federal funds?
Why did he turn them down, when his conditions for accepting them were met?
Why did he flip-flop?
What changed between the time he said he'd take them and then refused?
I got to thinking about those questions. And one very important one occurred to me but no one really asked it. And the more it wasn't asked, the more troubled I became. The answers to the well-trod questions seemed obvious.
In answer to the first, he said he'd 'aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.' We know now that at its most aggressive, it was a 45-minute discussion between counsels for Obama and McCain.
Why did he turn the funds down, flip-flop? Because he wants more money and he figures we'll soon forget the promise he made in November.
What changed since he said he'd take the federal funds? Nothing changed. Just his mind. Perhaps that's the one real Change We Can Believe In.
Simply put, Senator Obama refused the $84 million, squandered our trust, and lied about the reasons for it because he's convinced he can rake in record amounts of money by asking us for donations.
And what I mean by 'us' is we, the less-than-wealthy. That's how he managed to break all fundraising records in the first place. Almost half his donors are middle and lower working classes who gave less than $200. The ceiling for giving to a campaign is $2,300. The senator's campaign is positively gleeful about the fact that they can go back to these same donors for more.
I find this contemptible. And thoughtless in the extreme. At the end of eight long years, when the middle and lower classes have truly suffered and are continuing to do so, this man who would be president has no compunction about asking us to give over two grand of the precious little money we must stretch between soaring costs for almost everything.
So I'm going to ask the important question, the one that just keeps troubling me.
Why...
when gas is approaching $5 a gallon,
when grocery bills have doubled and tripled,
when health care is simply unaffordable for so many and so expensive for so many more,
when traveling has become prohibitive because our dollar is in a subterranean hole,
when so many of us are losing the roofs over our heads and whatever savings we've managed,
when we have already given enough of our small salaries to the Obama campaign to have allowed it to break all fundraising records,
and when so many of us must refuse our children so much,
why, why should we be asked to give more because Senator Obama slammed the door shut on $84 million in public funding?
The arrogance boggles the mind.
The exploitation of the electorate is shocking.
But the lordly, vainglorious callousness is unforgivable.
14 June 2008
I Will Not Unify as I Do Not Accept the Premise
In the twilight of the nomination season, words are flying. So are recriminations, protestations, condescensions, entreaties, —and more. I do not intend here to trivialize the validity of most said. But I would like to urge dear readers and dearer political activists to look beyond them for just a few minutes.
Look beyond to the larger picture. Look to where we now sit in the governance, the representation, and most importantly, the reality of this country. We are manacled to a violent occupation across the world. We have tens of millions of citizens without health care. We have lost too many civil rights to count, crowned by the loss of habeas corpus. We have become the purveyors of torture around the world. Our name, our credibility, and our honor have been slimed. I could go on and on. But you all know the dark place to which we have come.
I believed, despite ominous evidence to the contrary, that we could get ourselves and our country back. But it wasn't by restoring a democrat to the White House. It wasn't through an amorphous belief in 'change' that reinvigorated the democratic process. It wasn't even by improbably persuading the fourth estate to once again do its job. We could have once again realized the good invested in 200 plus years of our country by doing one thing. Just one.
Following the rules.
We didn't.
And now we're enmeshed in all those words, like unity and party and healing and winning and support and on and on and on. Well, I don't accept the premise. I don't accept the arguments for and against unity or the necessity to heal or the requirement to support the party. All those are mini-issues burgeoning with the importance laid on them by people who believe they can break, ignore, or trample every rule to get the prize. They're the distractions. If we accept them, we sign on to a new way of doing business, governed entirely by the whim of the politicians who choose the issues about which we are to get all hot and bothered.
Please don't let them distract you. Don't sign on to their bill of goods. Because it's not about parties and persuasion, or demographics and delivering the vote on election day. It's about playing fair, doing right, living with integrity, building good lives for our children...
It's about following the rules.
Here are a few. And some of the antithetical new twists visited upon us.
There are three branches of our government, all equal. However debatable that reality may be, there is surely an arguable parity between them, with no one branch more equal than the rest.
For instance, the checks and balances built into the system should not allow hundreds of foreign individuals to be held without charges, without attorneys, without end.
The head of the executive branch is simply that. The head of the executive branch. He or she is not the leader of the other branches.
For instance, the executive branch cannot refuse to testify before the legislative branch.
The head of the executive branch is not the head of the party to which he or she belongs, to the extent that all members of that party must rubber-stamp his or her actions.
For instance, the legislative bodies are not to mindlessly vote in lock-step with the president simply because he or she has an R or a D after his or her name.
The president is the commander-in-chief of the military. He or she is not the commander-in-chief of the country or anything else.
For instance, when a president calls himself, 'the commander guy', he's full of it.
The Congress declares war. Only the Congress has the power to engage our country, and therefore our children, in mortal combat.
For instance, if the Congress foolishly and illegally hands that power over to another branch, it is incumbent upon them to retrieve that power by refusing to fund an illegal action. Immediately. And that decision should have nothing to do with worries over electability in future races.
The Senate confirms justices to the Supreme Court.
For instance, the president does not 'get' his or her appointee to the third branch of government because he or she wants that person. The nominee is vetted by 100 representatives elected to do just that. And the vetting is to include more than party affiliation and wedge issues.
The elected representatives of states decide whether revotes or recounts are necessary.
For instance, deferring entirely to the whims of the last two campaigns standing is certain to disenfranchise large chunks of voters.
When a president commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the House of Representatives must vote to impeach.
For instance, when a CIA agent is outed by the executive administration, and perhaps the executive himself, impeachment proceedings are not optional.
Dear reader, if someone commits a crime, say stealing a TV, for instance, and someone else accepts and uses the TV, knowing it is stolen, doesn't that make the second someone complicit in the crime? If we accept the premise—the rearrangement of our government, the omnipresence of our parties in governance, the corruption of our judicial system by that partisan omnipresence—then are we not thoroughly complicit in the future that now stares us belligerently in the face?
Let's go back and read the rules. Then let's live by them, until such time as we'd like to change them. Ignoring them leads to a lot of very unhappy people and a government we do not want.
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