August 31, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DO YOU SEE THE IRONY?
Reports are that Hurricane Gustav may turn into another Category 5 hurricane. New Orleans has been evacuated in anticipation that Gustav is going to slam the Gulf Coast. It brings back memories of Hurricane Katrina from three years ago. The right wing has consistently denied the reality of global climate change. One of the consequences of climate change is monster storms like Katrina and Gustav.
John McCain has picked as his running mate a woman who denies the man-made causes of global climate change. McCain and Palin are supposedly headed to the Gulf Coast region. Gustav is even being used as an excuse for Bush and Cheney to ditch the convention. If McCain and Palin want to invoke God, I wonder why God is disrupting their convention? I wonder in human history when we've had such frequent occurrences of Category 5 hurricanes.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
August 30, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN PICKS FRONTIER WOMAN
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN PICKS FRONTIER WOMAN
Here we are in the 21st century, but John Sidney McCain clearly has a hankering for the past. McCain talks almost incessantly about being a POW in Vietnam. His policies hue to the laissez-faire rugged individualism me first tradition of Republican reactionary politics. It's a politics that comes down to a might is right philosophy. If you've got a military, solve differences with military responses. You steer government policy to benefit corporations and the rich. You oppose freedom of choice for women.
So we have a somewhat ironic selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate. If a woman were selected for the right reasons, I would at least give a favorable nod to McCain for that. But this is a selection that has "pandering" written all over it. Palin is virulently anti-choice, which appears to be her major appeal. She will enthuse the evangelicals who haven't been thrilled with McCain. She believes in what Mike Malloy has called "the talking snake theory of creation." She's anti-environment and doesn't believe human activity is causing global warming. She's a NRA member and hunter. Her history doesn't suggest someone who is in tune with the challenges of the 21st century. But neither does McCain's history, for that matter.
I can almost see Palin wearing bandoliers of bullets for a rifle and clutching a big hunting knife, still dripping from a fresh kill. I wonder if she churns her own butter and takes on grizzly bears bare-fisted.
This shows McCain's ultimate contempt for the American people and especially for women.
This column by Gail Collins is at www.nytimes.com:
John McCain has a low opinion of the vice presidency, which he’s frequently described as a job that involves attending funerals and checking on the health of the president. (Happy 72nd birthday, John!) There’s a lot we don’t know yet about Palin, and I am personally looking forward to deconstructing her role in the Matanuska Maid Dairy closing crisis. But at first glance, she doesn’t seem much less qualified than Tim Pawlenty, the governor of Minnesota who most people thought was the most likely pick. Unlike Joe Lieberman, Palin is a member of the same party as the presidential candidate. And unlike Mitt Romney, she has never gone on vacation with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.
However, I do feel kind of ticked off at the assumptions that the Republicans seem to be making about female voters. It’s a tad reminiscent of the Dan Quayle selection, when the first George Bush’s advisers decided they could close the gender gap with a cute running mate.
The idea that women are going to race off to vote for any candidate with the same internal plumbing is both offensive and historically wrong. When the sexes have parted company in modern elections, it’s generally been because women are more likely to be Democrats, and more concerned about protecting the social safety net. "The gender gap traditionally has been determined by party preference, not by the gender of the candidate," said Ruth Mandel of the Eagleton Institute of Politics.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
August 26, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN=COLD WAR AGAIN
About all that John Sidney McCain has going for him is his record as a POW in Vietnam. Prior to getting shot down and captured, McCain dropped bombs from several thousand feet. He wasn't there on the ground to see the blood and carnage he created. That distance from blood and carnage is a part of his foreign policy. He can joke blithely, "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" without considering all the innocent civilians who would be slaughtered. McCain is part of the whole neocon cabal that wants endless war against any perceived enemies, whether they be terrorists, Russians, or Chinese. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:
Another casualty of McCain’s endless Middle East wars, which soon could include Iran, would almost surely be America’s volunteer army. Though McCain officially opposes a restoration of the draft, it is nearly impossible to envision how his multiple wars could be waged without one.
And McCain also had made clear that he favors a neo-Cold War confrontation with Moscow over another part of the neocon agenda – the encircling of Russia with pro-U.S. regimes and the placement of strategic missile systems near Russia’s borders.
The fencing in of Russia fits with the goals of the neocon Project for the New American Century that envisions an endless era of U.S. military dominance that tolerates no potential rivals, whether an emerging China or a resurgent Russia. The recent Russian-Georgian conflict underscores the risks from this neocon concept.
Containing Russia in this way ultimately would require dangerous brinkmanship. And the McCain/neocon belligerence – like McCain’s melodramatic declaration “we are all Georgians” – would guarantee that one of these swaggering showdowns eventually would push the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN=COLD WAR AGAIN
About all that John Sidney McCain has going for him is his record as a POW in Vietnam. Prior to getting shot down and captured, McCain dropped bombs from several thousand feet. He wasn't there on the ground to see the blood and carnage he created. That distance from blood and carnage is a part of his foreign policy. He can joke blithely, "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" without considering all the innocent civilians who would be slaughtered. McCain is part of the whole neocon cabal that wants endless war against any perceived enemies, whether they be terrorists, Russians, or Chinese. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:
Another casualty of McCain’s endless Middle East wars, which soon could include Iran, would almost surely be America’s volunteer army. Though McCain officially opposes a restoration of the draft, it is nearly impossible to envision how his multiple wars could be waged without one.
And McCain also had made clear that he favors a neo-Cold War confrontation with Moscow over another part of the neocon agenda – the encircling of Russia with pro-U.S. regimes and the placement of strategic missile systems near Russia’s borders.
The fencing in of Russia fits with the goals of the neocon Project for the New American Century that envisions an endless era of U.S. military dominance that tolerates no potential rivals, whether an emerging China or a resurgent Russia. The recent Russian-Georgian conflict underscores the risks from this neocon concept.
Containing Russia in this way ultimately would require dangerous brinkmanship. And the McCain/neocon belligerence – like McCain’s melodramatic declaration “we are all Georgians” – would guarantee that one of these swaggering showdowns eventually would push the world to the brink of a nuclear confrontation.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
August 24, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN THE REACTIONARY
Nostalgia is a powerful thing. You can easily get caught up in the idea that things just aren't the way they used to be, that somehow that past was better. I will grant there are things about the past I like better.
But there are many things about the past we would not want again. We don't want the Cold War back. We don't want racial segregation back. We don't want women forced into back alley abortions. We don't want the Gilded Age, although we've been living through a version of the Gilded Age in the past eight years. John McCain represents all the bad things about the past.
We need a country without a chasm existing between the rich and poor. We need a country that uses diplomacy to solve problems and not military responses. We need a country that cares about the environment and about providing for the needs of all its citizens. This column by Frank Rich is at www.nytimes.com:
How we dig out of this quagmire is the American story that Obama must tell. It is not a story of endless conflicts abroad but a potentially inspiring tale of serious economic, educational, energy and health-care mobilization at home. We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they’re too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.) Americans must band together for change before the new century leaves us completely behind. The Obama campaign actually has plans, however imperfect or provisional, to set us on that path; the McCain campaign offers only disposable Band-Aids typified by the “drill now” mantra that even McCain says will only have a “psychological” effect on gas prices.
Even as it points to America’s future, the Obama campaign also has the duty to fill in its opponent’s past. McCain’s attacks on Obama have worked: in last week’s Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll, Obama’s favorable rating declined from 59 to 48 percent and his negative rating rose from 27 to 35. Yet McCain still has a lower positive rating (46 percent) and higher negative rating (38) than Obama. McCain is not nearly as popular among Americans, it turns out, as he is among his journalistic camp followers. Should voters actually get to know him, he has nowhere to go but down.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
MCCAIN THE REACTIONARY
Nostalgia is a powerful thing. You can easily get caught up in the idea that things just aren't the way they used to be, that somehow that past was better. I will grant there are things about the past I like better.
But there are many things about the past we would not want again. We don't want the Cold War back. We don't want racial segregation back. We don't want women forced into back alley abortions. We don't want the Gilded Age, although we've been living through a version of the Gilded Age in the past eight years. John McCain represents all the bad things about the past.
We need a country without a chasm existing between the rich and poor. We need a country that uses diplomacy to solve problems and not military responses. We need a country that cares about the environment and about providing for the needs of all its citizens. This column by Frank Rich is at www.nytimes.com:
How we dig out of this quagmire is the American story that Obama must tell. It is not a story of endless conflicts abroad but a potentially inspiring tale of serious economic, educational, energy and health-care mobilization at home. We don’t have the time or resources to go off on more quixotic military missions or to indulge in culture wars. (In China, they’re too busy exploiting scientific advances for competitive advantage to reopen settled debates about Darwin.) Americans must band together for change before the new century leaves us completely behind. The Obama campaign actually has plans, however imperfect or provisional, to set us on that path; the McCain campaign offers only disposable Band-Aids typified by the “drill now” mantra that even McCain says will only have a “psychological” effect on gas prices.
Even as it points to America’s future, the Obama campaign also has the duty to fill in its opponent’s past. McCain’s attacks on Obama have worked: in last week’s Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll, Obama’s favorable rating declined from 59 to 48 percent and his negative rating rose from 27 to 35. Yet McCain still has a lower positive rating (46 percent) and higher negative rating (38) than Obama. McCain is not nearly as popular among Americans, it turns out, as he is among his journalistic camp followers. Should voters actually get to know him, he has nowhere to go but down.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
August 19, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IF YOU WANT A LOUSY ECONOMY, VOTE MCCAIN
A few days ago a typical right-wing letter to The Fresno Bee claimed that Democrats haven't learned that increasing taxes on the rich is just bad, bad, bad. The writer claimed it's not tax cuts for the rich that drive deficits, but spending. The problem is that constructive spending, things like education, health care, infrastructure, and protecting the environment isn't going on. We have too little spending on the crucial segments of our economy. We spend plenty on weapons and on military bases. History shows that Republican economics are a disaster. They've been a disaster since the days of Herbert Hoover. It's time the richest people in this society and corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. It's also time that money be spent legitimately. This article by Dean Baker is at www.commondreams.org:
Senator McCain now faces a similar situation in this election. He is stuck running on the record of a president who is presiding over an economy that is sinking into recession and is facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. By contrast, Senator Obama can claim the legacy of the strong economy of the Clinton years.
Tarred with the most dismal record of job creation and income growth of any president since the Great Depression, it would be reasonable to expect that Senator McCain would be defensive on the economy; but not in Swift Boat America.
Instead Senator McCain is filling the airwaves with commercials telling the public that Obama’s tax increases will slow growth and cost the economy jobs. It’s pretty scary stuff to anyone who takes it seriously.
Of course, there’s no truth to Senator McCain’s Swift Boat economics. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, when rich people paid the same tax rates proposed by Senator Obama, the private sector added 15.8 million jobs. By contrast, in the seven years and six months of the Bush administration, when rich people paid the Bush-McCain tax rates, the private sector has added just 3.5 million jobs. And, it is losing jobs at the rate of almost 100,000 a month as President Bush prepares for retirement.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IF YOU WANT A LOUSY ECONOMY, VOTE MCCAIN
A few days ago a typical right-wing letter to The Fresno Bee claimed that Democrats haven't learned that increasing taxes on the rich is just bad, bad, bad. The writer claimed it's not tax cuts for the rich that drive deficits, but spending. The problem is that constructive spending, things like education, health care, infrastructure, and protecting the environment isn't going on. We have too little spending on the crucial segments of our economy. We spend plenty on weapons and on military bases. History shows that Republican economics are a disaster. They've been a disaster since the days of Herbert Hoover. It's time the richest people in this society and corporations start paying their fair share of taxes. It's also time that money be spent legitimately. This article by Dean Baker is at www.commondreams.org:
Senator McCain now faces a similar situation in this election. He is stuck running on the record of a president who is presiding over an economy that is sinking into recession and is facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. By contrast, Senator Obama can claim the legacy of the strong economy of the Clinton years.
Tarred with the most dismal record of job creation and income growth of any president since the Great Depression, it would be reasonable to expect that Senator McCain would be defensive on the economy; but not in Swift Boat America.
Instead Senator McCain is filling the airwaves with commercials telling the public that Obama’s tax increases will slow growth and cost the economy jobs. It’s pretty scary stuff to anyone who takes it seriously.
Of course, there’s no truth to Senator McCain’s Swift Boat economics. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, when rich people paid the same tax rates proposed by Senator Obama, the private sector added 15.8 million jobs. By contrast, in the seven years and six months of the Bush administration, when rich people paid the Bush-McCain tax rates, the private sector has added just 3.5 million jobs. And, it is losing jobs at the rate of almost 100,000 a month as President Bush prepares for retirement.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
August 16, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE DEADLY CONSEQUENCES OF STUPIDITY
The United States has a long history of anti-intellectualism. It baffles me that people don't like smart people. Maybe it's some kind of inferiority complex. But stupidity is costing us dearly. It allowed the most stupid man ever to occupy the Oval Office to assume power and proceed to wreck everything: the economy, foreign policy, environmental stewardship, and civil liberties. The war in Iraq has cost thousands upon thousands of innocent lives and disrupted the region. Lack of principle and ethics often go together with stupidity. This interview with Susan Jacoby is at www.alternet.org:
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Barack Obama finally said it.
Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them -- and us -- unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society.
American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.
Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE DEADLY CONSEQUENCES OF STUPIDITY
The United States has a long history of anti-intellectualism. It baffles me that people don't like smart people. Maybe it's some kind of inferiority complex. But stupidity is costing us dearly. It allowed the most stupid man ever to occupy the Oval Office to assume power and proceed to wreck everything: the economy, foreign policy, environmental stewardship, and civil liberties. The war in Iraq has cost thousands upon thousands of innocent lives and disrupted the region. Lack of principle and ethics often go together with stupidity. This interview with Susan Jacoby is at www.alternet.org:
"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant." Barack Obama finally said it.
Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them -- and us -- unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society.
American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes "the jury is still out" on evolution.
Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on "The Colbert Report." Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn't actually list the commandments.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
August 12, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
REPUBLICANS AND POVERTY
Do you remember the song that said, "Love and marriage go together like a horse a carriage"? It's not quite so romantic with Republicans and poverty, but there is a definite relationship. Under the "trickle down" economics we saw during the Reagan-Bush years and now under George W. Bush poverty has dramatically increased in the United States. This article notes that Fresno has the highest working poverty rate in the country. Fresno, the home of freerepublic.com and an infestation of right-wingers. What a surprise. This article by Tim Jones is at www.chicagotribune.com:
The percentage of working poor in large metropolitan areas soared by 40 percent during the first half of the decade, reversing gains from the 1990s in the fight against poverty, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution.
THE OVERVIEW
The study covered 1999 through 2005 and examined 58 metro areas, finding that 34 reported increased rates of "concentrated working poverty," a measurement of low-income workers and families living in high-poverty neighborhoods. Twenty-four areas registered declining rates. Old industrial areas like Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cleveland recorded some of the highest poverty rates. The Midwest and Northeast recorded higher average rates than the South and significantly higher rates than the West.
The note about Fresno:
Detroit and its suburbs in 2005 had the highest concentrated working poverty rate in the Midwest: 27.5 percent, followed by St. Louis (21.6 percent), Cleveland (21.5 percent) and Chicago—plus its Illinois and Northwest Indiana suburbs—at 17.9 percent. The highest rate in the Northeast was the Philadelphia metropolitan area, at 25.5 percent.
The highest rates were recorded in Fresno, Calif., (30 percent) and Augusta-Richmond County, on the Georgia/South Carolina border (29.3 percent). Among the regions, the Northeast had the highest concentrated poverty rate at 17.6 percent, followed by the Midwest at 14.8 percent, the South at 13.1 percent and the West at 6.7 percent.
PRACTICE YOUR OWN ABORTION BELIEFS
I have not weighed in much on the subject of abortion. For one thing, I think abortion is a decision best left to pregnant women and those closest to them. I also think that people with religious objections to abortion who try to make their religious beliefs a part of secular law are violating the First Amendment provisions that prohibit establishment of a religion. Even people who believe in God and religion are divided on the subject of abortion. Some people object to all abortion; others believe abortion is justified when the woman's life is in danger or the pregnancy results from rape or incest. The Bible, if one wants to cite the Bible, doesn't even have much to say about abortion. The government should stay out of our personal lives, including the right to choice. This article by Caroline Arnold is at www.commondreams.org:
I can’t accept, either as a matter of personal conscience, or of my commitment to my neighbors and the planet we live on, that we should invest scarce resources, argue endlessly and fruitlessly, and punish women, neglect children and forestall medical research in order to keep every fertilized ovum alive.
I believe we have more important things to do — making sure children already born have enough to eat, medical care and education, and learning to live together without killing each other and consuming the planet we live on.
I don’t think the abortion question is about religion, except insofar as most religious people think that God doesn’t like it because it destroys a human life. What kind of a god worries about the destruction of some unviable human tissue but designs human reproductive systems with a 50 percent attrition rate? What kind of god gives males the choice to conceive a baby but doesn’t give females the choice to reject it? What kind of god allows older children to starve so that younger ones may be born, or permits babies to be born to a life of want, violence and fear? Not one I want to have anything to do with. And I won’t accept the “It was ever thus” argument about human frailty. Just because we humans have always done badly doesn’t excuse us from trying to do better, for ourselves, because we are all one family.
That said, however, I have to retreat a step. I do have a kind of religious faith, pretty much defined by what it is not. The Skeptic in me demands that the utilitarian condition must be satisfied — God cannot be less than as source of Goodness — love, grace, fulfillment — that is available to all creatures and living systems. But my Resident Mystic keeps insisting that a God worthy of human experience must be more than a bearded old man obsessed with sex and virgins, strewing goodness about while withholding it from sinners and showering wealth on entrepreneurial men, handing down Ten Immutable Rules for human behavior, torturing the wicked, and advising George W. Bush on how to conduct his war on terror. I believe we are called to imagine a God of Truth and Uncertainty, Beauty and Disorder, Joy and Loss, while we are challenged to love our neighbors and seek to live with them in peace.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
REPUBLICANS AND POVERTY
Do you remember the song that said, "Love and marriage go together like a horse a carriage"? It's not quite so romantic with Republicans and poverty, but there is a definite relationship. Under the "trickle down" economics we saw during the Reagan-Bush years and now under George W. Bush poverty has dramatically increased in the United States. This article notes that Fresno has the highest working poverty rate in the country. Fresno, the home of freerepublic.com and an infestation of right-wingers. What a surprise. This article by Tim Jones is at www.chicagotribune.com:
The percentage of working poor in large metropolitan areas soared by 40 percent during the first half of the decade, reversing gains from the 1990s in the fight against poverty, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brookings Institution.
THE OVERVIEW
The study covered 1999 through 2005 and examined 58 metro areas, finding that 34 reported increased rates of "concentrated working poverty," a measurement of low-income workers and families living in high-poverty neighborhoods. Twenty-four areas registered declining rates. Old industrial areas like Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Cleveland recorded some of the highest poverty rates. The Midwest and Northeast recorded higher average rates than the South and significantly higher rates than the West.
The note about Fresno:
Detroit and its suburbs in 2005 had the highest concentrated working poverty rate in the Midwest: 27.5 percent, followed by St. Louis (21.6 percent), Cleveland (21.5 percent) and Chicago—plus its Illinois and Northwest Indiana suburbs—at 17.9 percent. The highest rate in the Northeast was the Philadelphia metropolitan area, at 25.5 percent.
The highest rates were recorded in Fresno, Calif., (30 percent) and Augusta-Richmond County, on the Georgia/South Carolina border (29.3 percent). Among the regions, the Northeast had the highest concentrated poverty rate at 17.6 percent, followed by the Midwest at 14.8 percent, the South at 13.1 percent and the West at 6.7 percent.
PRACTICE YOUR OWN ABORTION BELIEFS
I have not weighed in much on the subject of abortion. For one thing, I think abortion is a decision best left to pregnant women and those closest to them. I also think that people with religious objections to abortion who try to make their religious beliefs a part of secular law are violating the First Amendment provisions that prohibit establishment of a religion. Even people who believe in God and religion are divided on the subject of abortion. Some people object to all abortion; others believe abortion is justified when the woman's life is in danger or the pregnancy results from rape or incest. The Bible, if one wants to cite the Bible, doesn't even have much to say about abortion. The government should stay out of our personal lives, including the right to choice. This article by Caroline Arnold is at www.commondreams.org:
I can’t accept, either as a matter of personal conscience, or of my commitment to my neighbors and the planet we live on, that we should invest scarce resources, argue endlessly and fruitlessly, and punish women, neglect children and forestall medical research in order to keep every fertilized ovum alive.
I believe we have more important things to do — making sure children already born have enough to eat, medical care and education, and learning to live together without killing each other and consuming the planet we live on.
I don’t think the abortion question is about religion, except insofar as most religious people think that God doesn’t like it because it destroys a human life. What kind of a god worries about the destruction of some unviable human tissue but designs human reproductive systems with a 50 percent attrition rate? What kind of god gives males the choice to conceive a baby but doesn’t give females the choice to reject it? What kind of god allows older children to starve so that younger ones may be born, or permits babies to be born to a life of want, violence and fear? Not one I want to have anything to do with. And I won’t accept the “It was ever thus” argument about human frailty. Just because we humans have always done badly doesn’t excuse us from trying to do better, for ourselves, because we are all one family.
That said, however, I have to retreat a step. I do have a kind of religious faith, pretty much defined by what it is not. The Skeptic in me demands that the utilitarian condition must be satisfied — God cannot be less than as source of Goodness — love, grace, fulfillment — that is available to all creatures and living systems. But my Resident Mystic keeps insisting that a God worthy of human experience must be more than a bearded old man obsessed with sex and virgins, strewing goodness about while withholding it from sinners and showering wealth on entrepreneurial men, handing down Ten Immutable Rules for human behavior, torturing the wicked, and advising George W. Bush on how to conduct his war on terror. I believe we are called to imagine a God of Truth and Uncertainty, Beauty and Disorder, Joy and Loss, while we are challenged to love our neighbors and seek to live with them in peace.
Monday, August 11, 2008
August 11, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IT DOES TAKE A VILLAGE
Right-wingers argue that the society that works best is with government that works least. You can't have those nasty regulations. You can't have any social safety net because, you know, it makes people "dependent." Everything works best if it's privatized and it's every man for himself (women aren't much of a consideration in right-wing land). But the truth is that government has a vital role in providing and maintaining infrastructure, in providing a regulatory framework, and insuring that predators don't get free rein. This article by Joseph Stiglitz is at www.alternet.org:
Failures to promote social solidarity can have other costs, not the least of which are the social and private expenditures required to protect property and incarcerate criminals. It is estimated that within a few years, America will have more people working in the security business than in education. A year in prison can cost more than a year at Harvard. The cost of incarcerating two million Americans -- one of the highest per capita rates (pdf) in the world -- should be viewed as a subtraction from GDP, yet it is added on.
A second major difference between left and right concerns the role of the state in promoting development. The left understands that the government's role in providing infrastructure and education, developing technology, and even acting as an entrepreneur is vital. Government laid the foundations of the internet and the modern biotechnology revolutions. In the 19th century, research at America's government-supported universities provided the basis for the agricultural revolution. Government then brought these advances to millions of American farmers. Small business loans have been pivotal in creating not only new businesses, but whole new industries.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IT DOES TAKE A VILLAGE
Right-wingers argue that the society that works best is with government that works least. You can't have those nasty regulations. You can't have any social safety net because, you know, it makes people "dependent." Everything works best if it's privatized and it's every man for himself (women aren't much of a consideration in right-wing land). But the truth is that government has a vital role in providing and maintaining infrastructure, in providing a regulatory framework, and insuring that predators don't get free rein. This article by Joseph Stiglitz is at www.alternet.org:
Failures to promote social solidarity can have other costs, not the least of which are the social and private expenditures required to protect property and incarcerate criminals. It is estimated that within a few years, America will have more people working in the security business than in education. A year in prison can cost more than a year at Harvard. The cost of incarcerating two million Americans -- one of the highest per capita rates (pdf) in the world -- should be viewed as a subtraction from GDP, yet it is added on.
A second major difference between left and right concerns the role of the state in promoting development. The left understands that the government's role in providing infrastructure and education, developing technology, and even acting as an entrepreneur is vital. Government laid the foundations of the internet and the modern biotechnology revolutions. In the 19th century, research at America's government-supported universities provided the basis for the agricultural revolution. Government then brought these advances to millions of American farmers. Small business loans have been pivotal in creating not only new businesses, but whole new industries.
Monday, August 04, 2008
August 04, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CONSERVATISM IS A DISASTER
If you like jobs going offshore, if you like tainted food and medicine, if you like gargantuan government deficits, if you like the housing crisis, if you like roasting due to global climate change, if you like the government spying on you, if you like getting involved in bloody and unnecessary wars, and if you think that torture represents us at our best, you must be a conservative. This article by Greg Anrig is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The single theme that most animated the modern conservative movement was the conviction that government was the problem and market forces the solution. It was a simple, elegant, politically attractive idea, and the right applied it to virtually every major domestic challenge -- retirement security, health care, education, jobs, the environment and so on. Whatever the issue, conservatives proposed substituting market forces for government -- pushing the bureaucrats aside and letting private-sector competition work to everyone's benefit.
So they advocated creating health savings accounts, handing out school vouchers, privatizing Social Security, shifting government functions to private contractors, and curtailing regulations on public health, safety, the environment and more. And, of course, they pushed to cut taxes to further weaken the public sector by "starving the beast." President Bush has followed this playbook more closely than any previous president, including Reagan, notwithstanding today's desperate efforts by the right to distance itself from the deeply unpopular chief executive.
But in practice, those ideas have all failed to deliver on the promises the conservatives made, and in many instances, the dogma has actually created new problems. Particularly after Hurricane Katrina, when Americans saw how hapless the Federal Emergency Management Agency was, the public has begun to realize that the right's hostility toward government has produced only ineffective government.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CONSERVATISM IS A DISASTER
If you like jobs going offshore, if you like tainted food and medicine, if you like gargantuan government deficits, if you like the housing crisis, if you like roasting due to global climate change, if you like the government spying on you, if you like getting involved in bloody and unnecessary wars, and if you think that torture represents us at our best, you must be a conservative. This article by Greg Anrig is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The single theme that most animated the modern conservative movement was the conviction that government was the problem and market forces the solution. It was a simple, elegant, politically attractive idea, and the right applied it to virtually every major domestic challenge -- retirement security, health care, education, jobs, the environment and so on. Whatever the issue, conservatives proposed substituting market forces for government -- pushing the bureaucrats aside and letting private-sector competition work to everyone's benefit.
So they advocated creating health savings accounts, handing out school vouchers, privatizing Social Security, shifting government functions to private contractors, and curtailing regulations on public health, safety, the environment and more. And, of course, they pushed to cut taxes to further weaken the public sector by "starving the beast." President Bush has followed this playbook more closely than any previous president, including Reagan, notwithstanding today's desperate efforts by the right to distance itself from the deeply unpopular chief executive.
But in practice, those ideas have all failed to deliver on the promises the conservatives made, and in many instances, the dogma has actually created new problems. Particularly after Hurricane Katrina, when Americans saw how hapless the Federal Emergency Management Agency was, the public has begun to realize that the right's hostility toward government has produced only ineffective government.
Sunday, August 03, 2008
August 03, 2008
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IF YOU CAN'T WIN, SMEAR
John McCain isn't such a maverick after all. He's following in the "grand" Republican tradition of smearing his opponent rather than running honestly on issues. Of course, McCain hasn't got many issues to run on. Everything the Bush administration has touched has been a disaster, and McCain only promises more of the same. So McCain has turned to the Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, and Karl Rove playbook of running on non-issues. Attack your opponent and distract attention and maybe you can fool enough people to get elected. This article by By John Heilemann is at nymag.com:
For those not keeping score, a quick review of the McCain campaign’s lunge for Obama’s jugular. First, its new slogan: "Country first," with its inverse insinuation that Obama puts something else (i.e., his own ambition) ahead of the nation. Second, McCain’s accusation that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." Third, the McCain ad "Troops," which claims that Obama, while in Germany, "made time to go the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops—seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras." And, finally, the ad "Celeb," with its intercut images of Obama in Berlin, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears.
The strategy behind all this isn’t hard to discern: Drive up Obama’s negatives and render him unacceptable to pivotal voting blocs. Thus the depiction of him as too young, too feckless, and too pampered to be president. (In almost every shot in the McCain ads, Obama is smiling flashily, whereas McCain is pictured as weathered, sober, staring hard into the distance—a clever bit of jujitsu, using Obama’s pretty mug against him.) Thus the portrayal of him as precious, self-infatuated, and effete: "Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand ‘MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew—Black Forest Berry Honest Tea’ and worry about the price of arugula," wrote campaign manager Rick Davis in an e-mail announcing "Celeb." And thus the emphasis on Obama’s rock-star persona, designed to engender envy and contempt among the swath of Middle America for which hipness is no virtue but a sign of pretension.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
IF YOU CAN'T WIN, SMEAR
John McCain isn't such a maverick after all. He's following in the "grand" Republican tradition of smearing his opponent rather than running honestly on issues. Of course, McCain hasn't got many issues to run on. Everything the Bush administration has touched has been a disaster, and McCain only promises more of the same. So McCain has turned to the Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Roger Ailes, Rush Limbaugh, and Karl Rove playbook of running on non-issues. Attack your opponent and distract attention and maybe you can fool enough people to get elected. This article by By John Heilemann is at nymag.com:
For those not keeping score, a quick review of the McCain campaign’s lunge for Obama’s jugular. First, its new slogan: "Country first," with its inverse insinuation that Obama puts something else (i.e., his own ambition) ahead of the nation. Second, McCain’s accusation that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign." Third, the McCain ad "Troops," which claims that Obama, while in Germany, "made time to go the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops—seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras." And, finally, the ad "Celeb," with its intercut images of Obama in Berlin, Paris Hilton, and Britney Spears.
The strategy behind all this isn’t hard to discern: Drive up Obama’s negatives and render him unacceptable to pivotal voting blocs. Thus the depiction of him as too young, too feckless, and too pampered to be president. (In almost every shot in the McCain ads, Obama is smiling flashily, whereas McCain is pictured as weathered, sober, staring hard into the distance—a clever bit of jujitsu, using Obama’s pretty mug against him.) Thus the portrayal of him as precious, self-infatuated, and effete: "Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand ‘MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew—Black Forest Berry Honest Tea’ and worry about the price of arugula," wrote campaign manager Rick Davis in an e-mail announcing "Celeb." And thus the emphasis on Obama’s rock-star persona, designed to engender envy and contempt among the swath of Middle America for which hipness is no virtue but a sign of pretension.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)