The Politics Thread - Read the First Post

[Gatito Grande]

Thank you, Diebrock: the perfect story for the day after the "holy day" of the Fourth of July.



I've never forgotten these words of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (sometime in the late '80s, I think): "the United States of America is self-evidently good." In other words, if the U.S. does something, it must be good. If the U.S. does something, that makes it good.



The worldview of the USA is a wonder to behold. It's a melange of Millenial Christianity, mammon-idolatry, and never-examined platitudes. Intentionally politically-reinforced as a way to "Americanize" newcomers, it all combines to create an edifice of titanic Exceptionalism: the USA is "uniquely holy, uniquely blessed, uniquely envied and resented." We Americans are God's Elect, but ever-threatened w/ martyrdom for it.



No later than WWII, it has become politically untenable for any American politician to publically accept that the U.S. could be anything other than's The World's (Military!) Superpower. Not just more firepower than any other nation but, since the days of Reagan, more powerful than all other nations combined (in weaponry). Even under Clinton, the Doctrine of U.S. Overwhelming Military Supremacy was not seriously challenged (anyone remember the So-Called Peace Dividend? ) Then, apropos of nothing, Bush ran in 2000 on the platform that the U.S. military was near collapse, but that (thanks to himself and the administration's other draft dodgers---Powell excepted) "Help is on the way!"*



The thing is, thanks in large part to the US's "Elect-Martyrs Complex," America does become uniquely resented---hence September 11, and then here we are in the mess we're in: sinking in deeper and deeper into the Iraqi quagmire, but too arrogant to ask for real help---if it means sharing Our Divinely-Ordained Authority there (or anywhere else).



[See www.smirkingchimp.com/art...d&order=0, and numerous other articles at http://www.smirkingchimp.com, a treasure-trove of truth in troubled times]



I don't have any answers here : many if not most Americans count their appallingly ill-informed status as itself a sign of their "American-ness," and hence a guarantee of their possession of The Truth---that carping cowards abroad are incapable of understanding. "We should be exempted from the World's Laws---we're better than The World: we're American. Boo-yah!"



GG But if we're better than everybody else, our blood is more precious, too. How many American soldiers is the U.S. electorate willing to see blown away in Baghdad convoys, before we say enough is enough? (Whether what comes next is any better for the Iraqis or not?) Out



*NB: this is a longer subject than I can go into now, but it's a fact that conservative southern whites are way disproportionate in the U.S. military---and the culture it engenders both within the active forces and among veterans. This is significantly due to economic realities and, absent the draft, I'm not exactly sure what to do about it. However, it (and the disproportiate numbers of African-Americans as well) is *extremely* unhealthy for the American Body Politic, in both foreign and domestic policy.



Why not the draft? Well, it says we solve the military's (lack of) diversity problem by putting more kinds of people In---whereas I want to keep conservative southern whites (and African-Americans, and most everybody else, eventually) Out---w/ the economic opportunities to make that feasible, of course.

[darkmagicwillow]

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And we all know what happened to Rome.

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I do, and it doesn't support the point the article's attempting to make. The Romans included the known world in their civilization and eventually granted Roman citizenship to all free men. Good point, bad argument.



As for Liberia, I don't know enough about the situation yet to know whether the US should intervene or not, though my uninformed reaction is no both because civil wars make it impossible to find a right side and the US is already invested in extensive overseas military commitments at the moment.



As for the draft, I'd say it's unconstitutional under the involuntary servitude clause of the 13th amendment, though the federal government loves its power and would never allow such an interpretation. I also think that it's important not to have a draft in order to allow the people to vote with their feet on whether to go to war or not. If not enough people are willing to volunteer to fight, then the country shouldn't go to war.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Diebrock]

Quote:

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"For some, especially the European countries, it's fine for the United States to be the world's policeman so long as we only patrol in places where we have no strategic interest," he said. "It is as if our interventions are only legitimate so long as they do nothing to advance American foreign policy goals or increase our own security."

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If they have no strategic interest, one can be reasonably sure that killing civilians and poor draftees, dropping bombs and contaminating the land is not motivated by baser reasons such as financial gain or securing military bases, but truly to ease the suffering of the people.



I won't comment on what I think of advancing "American foreign policy goals" through wars of aggression.





A commentary on the subject:

Quote:

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Liberia may get lucky

Matthew Riemer



In one of the BBC News World Service regular features entitled "Have your say," where readers from around the world e-mail in their thoughts on a given subject, a recent topic was U.S. intervention in Liberia. Typically, from amongst a collection of dozens of short, written responses arguing for a specific solution, several fundamental arguments emerge. Well-represented in this particular thread was an observation/argument that is always heard whenever the United States is urged to intervene somewhere in the world: The U.S. can't win -- whenever Washington does intervene, critics cry foul, but when they don't, they are begged to do so.



The following posts from the BBC's "Have your say" epitomize such sentiments:



"I feel so terrible for the Liberian people, a nation many Americans feel close ties to. But I fear if we send troops, it will be just a matter of time before the anti-America lobby will add Liberia to the list of so-called atrocities we are accused of."

Jeremy, US



"The anti-Americans will use it as an excuse to stir up worldwide hatred. There is no way we can intervene in an ugly situation like this without getting our hands dirty."

Susan, USA



"Funny how everyone likes to take pot shots at America and call us bullies and tyrants when we do intervene, but when we don't, we are begged to do so and told we have a duty to help. We can't win."

Gretchen, USA



"It is so typical that the world should cry for the U.S. to get involved in another third world disaster. And in the same breath we hear the president of the United States belittled and the U.S. chastised when the U.S. does get involved. Where is the E.U.? China? Russia? The holier-than-thou Scandinavians?"

LR Voss, Switzerland



"Funny how we always get yelled at for foreign intervention, and yet, the U.S. is expected to 'naturally' lead a peacekeeping operation in Liberia."

Chris Kozlowski, Virginia, US



Comments like these are to be expected from those who espouse "American exceptionalism" and base their arguments upon and employ logic reflective of a highly self- and class-centered view combined with a distorted take on history.



One of the more basic flaws in these arguments is the implicit homogenization of all world conflicts. The situation in Liberia as well as most of sub-Saharan Africa couldn't be more dissimilar than the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we choose to include some South American conflicts in the analysis -- Colombia, Venezuela -- we see another set of unique conflicts emerging, with neither ties to African turmoil nor Mideast tension.



No one -- at least those who don't wish to be seen as overly dogmatic and want to be listened to -- has ever argued as an absolute rule that foreign powers should never or always intervene in international conflicts, because to do so implies that the circumstances of all conflicts are identical. Moreover, inherent diversity of global conflicts is well known: Sometimes foreign powers support the entrenched government; sometimes they support the guerrilla/rebel forces. Sometimes they act aloofly through sanctions, funding, and arming; sometimes they act directly through training or a military presence. Sometimes the country in question is of militarily strategic importance; sometimes it's not. Sometimes the country in question has strong economic ties to the United States, Japan, or Western Europe; sometimes it does not. Sometimes conflicts are fueled by ethnicity, sometimes by religion, sometimes by nationality, but almost always they are some complex blend of all three.



Because of this, it is not inconsistent or illogical for, say, France to oppose bitterly U.S. military action in Iraq but to ask Washington to bring stability to Liberia. Just as it is not hypocritical for the Bush administration to go to war in Iraq but to ignore a live war taking place in Western Africa. In fact, on the Bush administration's part, it's typically consistent not to intervene in Liberia. The region as a whole is not terribly strategic for the United States and offers little immediate threat to U.S. interests locally or globally.



Though now, perhaps to coincide with President Bush's first trip to Africa, any U.S. decision to intervene may be more of a propaganda campaign, the 2004 elections in mind as much as the suffering of the Liberian people. After all, Liberia was founded by freed slaves from the United States and its capital is named after James Monroe -- what perfect rhetorical fodder for the super-patriotism that permeates the Bush administration's propaganda.



However, the risk in this Rovian move would be the over-extension of U.S. forces at a time of great uncertainty: the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate as casualties are incurred on a daily basis (since May 1st, 58 U.S. servicemen have been killed and about 75 injured including 19 on July 3rd alone); Afghanistan remains an unsuccessful operation for the U.S., as neither stability nor a viable, centralized government is remotely a reality.



The United States will make its decision about whether or not to intervene in Liberia and to what degree by considering its own interests, just as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq; the human rights or democratic potential of Liberia, and more broadly, West Africa, are essentially moot concerns. And, perhaps, there is nothing wrong with this inherently cynical and self-centered approach to politics, though it is how it works and should be recognized as such.



Why would Iraq and Liberia be compared, anyway? Iraq has almost eight times the population of Liberia. The U.S. has an intimate history of involvement with modern day Iraq, from the CIA's buoying the Ba'athists to power to Donald Rumsfeld visiting with Saddam Hussein while the Iraqi regime was actively using chemical weapons, from the first Gulf War to the brutal sanctions regime kept in place single handedly by a desperate U.S. This is a level of familiarity and influence not shared with Liberia, even when taking into account the symbolic connection Liberia has to the United States.



Liberia is not like Iraq, just as Iraq is not like Nazi Germany, and the same criteria cannot be used to judge rightly the prospect of intervention there. Those who like to imply that all conflicts are the same and whine when supposed "mixed signals" come from countries like France or institutions like the United Nations should drop the dogmatism a notch or two so as to be able to see a bit more clearly.



The question should be asked: What would the reaction of the world be if the U.S. intervened in a country where there was nothing to be gained, not even a propaganda victory, nothing? There would probably be widespread shock and incredulousness. This is the real issue the aforementioned BBC commentators completely miss. The more the U.S. has at stake in a given country (strategically, economically), the less of a reason there is for believing that such an intervention is altruistically motivated. Conversely, the less opportunity there is for strategic gain, the more altruistic a given intervention must be seen as being.



Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Indonesia are all perfect examples of situations where atrocities far greater than anything in Iraq were taking place and nothing was done. It is these conflicts for which critics most often criticize the lack of U.S. intervention. Now, in a rare situation, Liberia may well get lucky if the interests of the civilian population turn out to be tethered tightly to those of the Bush administration's agenda.

found here

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_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[darkmagicwillow]

The New Yorker has a new article on business-method patents. These are the new type of patent which courts allowed starting in 1998 where someone can lay claim to the idea of delivering packages overnight or selling auctioned items at a fixed price. Sound ridiculous? eBay is being sued over a patent on the latter business method patent right now. Here are a couple more examples of such patents:

One inventive soul won a patent for a system of using pictures to train janitors. Another got one for describing a way to cut hair with both hands.

The final paragraph summarizes my view of the problems we're facing with copyrights, patents, and trademarks today:

Americans have traditionally been chary about intellectual-property rights. Thomas Jefferson, who served on the nation’s first patent board, wrote, “If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea.” Although we have always had a vibrant patent system, we’ve managed to strike a balance between the need to encourage innovation and the need to foster competition. As Benjamin Day, Henry Ford, and Sam Walton might attest, American corporations have thrived on innovative ideas and new business methods, without owning them, for two centuries. In the past decade, the balance has been upset. The scope of patents has been expanded, copyrights have been extended, trademarks have been subjected to bizarre interpretations. Celebrities are even claiming exclusive ownership of their first names (consider Spike Lee’s objection to Viacom’s cable channel Spike TV). The new regime’s defenders insist that in today’s economy such vigilance is necessary: ideas are the source of our competitive strength. Fair enough. But you don’t compete by outlawing your competition.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Diebrock]

Not sure if this is the right thread for this.



This has to be read to be believed.

It kind of reminds me of the forced virginity tests that are unofficially and illegally still performed in Turkey. But I never would have thought anyone that isn't a parent would or better could do something like this in our oh so civilised Western World (TM). Nevermind the lawsuit after the fact, but how could they order that to begin with without resistance? How much control over their students do the schools have in America anyway? I really don't understand.



Lawsuit: School forced pregnancy, STD tests

_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[Gatito Grande]

Thanks, Diebrock, for another informative link.



Schools in the U.S. are very much tied to the philosophy of in loco parentis: "in place of the parents." But in New York City in particular (I used to live not far from this neighborhood, and frequented that hospital quite often), there's been a rather torturous history of conflict between the public schools and ethnic minorities.



Looking at the names of the administrators being sued, I couldn't help but notice that they were very likely different from the names of the students (which is to say, the names weren't Hispanic, as Washington Heights is a heavily Hispanic, and particularly, Dominican neighborhood). Where there is this kind of difference between school professionals and parents (who may have limited English proficiency and/or illegal immigrant status), the rights of the latter (to say nothing of the students) are often diminished, if not stripped altogether. In this situation of power inequality, it is not difficult to believe that something like this could happen---if the administrators in question were really stupid/immoral enough to have demanded these tests.



GG And don't get me started on U.S. Puritanical morality where sex is concerned! Out

[darkmagicwillow]

Here are some excerpts from a Morning News article:

Curiously, many of those who fought the hardest for the SBCEA were those who had benefited the most from the public domain. Disney, afraid of losing exclusive control of Mickey Mouse (who first appeared in 1928 and would have gone public this year), lobbied vigorously for the 20-year extension, despite having made billions off such classic characters and stories as Cinderella and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Also in favor of the extension was the Motion Picture Association of America, the same institution that oversaw the production of the aforementioned LXG, a film that adds Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray to the comic book’s original roster.

...

Disney’s arguments notwithstanding, I find it hard to believe that Steven Spielberg or John Grisham would change vocations knowing that their great-great-great-grandchildren would miss out on some royalty checks, or that J.K. Rowling would scrap her series without reassurance that Harry Potter wouldn’t guest star in a comic book within 69 years of her own dying day.



And at some point lengthening the copyright term surely stifles more creativity than it fosters.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Diebrock]

One point that hasn't been raised yet in regards to patents and intellectual property protections is that it sometimes can have deadly consequences.

www.commondreams.org

Quote:

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President Bush is doing a barnstorming tour of Africa to call attention to his administration's commitment to addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the continent.



One problem: He's simultaneously trying to impose on African countries enhanced patent protections that would undermine their ability to gain access to affordable medicines.



(Actually, there are lots of problems -- denial of debt relief, water privatization, insistence on the failed IMF "structural adjustment model," and much more -- but those are topics for another day.)



The administration has just commenced free trade agreement negotiations with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), which consists of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland.



Among the key U.S negotiating aims, announced U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, is to "establish standards that reflect a standard of [patent] protection similar to that found in U.S. law and that build on the foundations established in the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS Agreement)."



Pushing for equivalent patent standards in Africa will severely limit countries' ability to take appropriate measures to address HIV/AIDS and other serious health problems.



It also happens to run contrary to repeated U.S. promises.



An Executive Order promulgated by President Clinton but kept in effect by Bush first established the principle that the U.S. would not ask African countries to provide patent protections beyond those required by TRIPS.



In 2001, all of the WTO countries, including the United States, agreed on the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. The Declaration affirmed that the TRIPS Agreement "can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO members' right to protect public health and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all." The Declaration emphasized the flexibilities inherent in TRIPS and countries' right to use them to the fullest extent possible. "We reaffirm the right of WTO members to use, to the full, the provisions in the TRIPS Agreement, which provide flexibility for this purpose," the declaration states. The U.S. goal in Southern Africa is to force countries to sacrifice these flexibilities.



The Trade Act of 2002, which gave the President fast-track trade negotiating authority for the U.S.-SACU negotiations, as well as for other free trade deals, specifically establishes respect for the Doha Declaration as a principal negotiating objective of the United States in trade negotiations with other nations.



To all that, the Bush administration has opted for the Emily Latella approach: Never mind.



If other U.S. free trade agreements are any indication, the U.S. will push in its negotiations for a wide range of patent hyperprotections. These will be cloaked in technical language that won't mean much to most people, but will have enormous consequences for healthcare delivery in Africa.



To take just one example. TRIPS provides countries with complete freedom to determine the grounds for granting a compulsory license (authorizing price-lowering generic competition while a product is still on patent). Several U.S. free trade agreements have limited compulsory licensing to a very restricted set of cases, making it extremely difficult to undertake compulsory licensing in the private sector. That means non-governmental aid agencies, private insurers and private employers, among others, will not be able to purchase and distribute lower-priced generic versions of AIDS and other essential medications, until patents expire. That, in turn, will translate into fewer people treated.



For one of the SACU member countries, the stakes are higher still. Lesotho is a least-developed country. The Doha Declaration stipulated that least-developed countries do not need to enforce pharmaceutical patent protections whatsoever until 2016.



The Southern African region suffers from the highest rates of HIV infection in the world. "National adult HIV prevalence has risen higher than thought possible, exceeding 30 percent" in much of the region, notes UNAIDS. HIV prevalence rates are 38.8 percent in Botswana, 31 percent in Lesotho, and 33.4 percent in Swaziland. South Africa has the world's largest population of people with HIV/AIDS.



Bush's AIDS initiative recognizes the imperative of treatment for people with HIV/AIDS. Treatment is expensive, but massive savings are available through use of generic medicines and reaping the benefits of generic competition. Indeed, it will not be practicable for poor countries to provide treatment, or for donors to support treatment efforts, unless lower-priced medicines -- only obtainable through generic competition -- are used.



Yet the intellectual property measures likely included in a U.S.-Southern Africa Free Trade Agreement will work to delay the entry of generics, and defer the day when consumers and procurement agencies can reap the benefits of generic competition.



This threatens to impede dramatically the effort to provide treatment to people with life-threatening HIV/AIDS, as well as other diseases, with deadly consequence for millions.



Offering a simple solution to these problems, Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres, Oxfam, Africa Action, Health GAP, Consumer Project on Technology, Global AIDS Alliance, ACT-UP Paris and Essential Action have called on the administration to exclude intellectual property from the U.S.-SACU negotiations.



The Bush administration has a simple choice: Heed their paymasters in the brand-name pharmaceutical industry, or deliver on their commitment to provide treatment to two million people with HIV/AIDS. They can't do both.



by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[justin]

There has been mention in this thread of the capture and rescuse of PFC Lynch. I have just read an article at the BBC's website which is, to say the least rather interesting.





The report is at Saving Private Lynch story 'flawed'



It claims that rather than having been captured in an ambush PFC Lynch had in fact been injured in a traffic accident and was being treated for her injuries in an Iraqi hospital. It then says that the hospital staff had made arrangements for her to be returned home but the ambulance she was in was forced to retreat when it was opened fire on by American soldiers.



American forces then mounted the rescue operation firing blank rounds at the hospital in order to give the appearance of a dramatic rescue, despite knowing that there were no Iraqi soldiers at the hospital.



There's another report at US rejects BBC Lynch report which shows the response to these claims. Basically they say that any misinformation is the result of speculative reporting by the media and that the Pentagon never released any reports about what happened to PFC Lynch because they didn't know what had happened.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[Gatito Grande]

Isn't it funny (funny=strange) how Dubya is bringing back all those Oldies-But-Goodies from the early 70s? Vietnam-type "quagmires," and now Nixon-like "credibility gaps"!



To wit:

Quote:

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Bush Aides Seek to Put Out Credibility Firestorm

Reuters

Jul 13 2003 2:07PM



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top aides to President Bush insisted on Sunday he did not hype Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction as they sought to put out a political firestorm ignited by a disputed statement he made in his case for war.



But questions about Bush's credibility persisted, threatening to further erode public support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq and create more difficulty at home for U.S. ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair.



Appearing on Sunday television shows, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld repeated that it was a mistake for Bush to cite in his State of the Union address a British finding -- one that U.S. intelligence has been unable to confirm -- that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein sought to buy uranium from Africa for Iraq's nuclear program.



The White House first acknowledged the error last week. CIA Director George Tenet accepted responsibility, saying his agency should not have signed off on the one-sentence inclusion in the president's speech last January.



But Rice and Rumsfeld brushed off suggestions Bush had manipulated intelligence in making his case for war.



"The notion that the president of the United States took the country to war because he was concerned with one sentence about whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa is clearly ludicrous," Rice told CBS's "Face the Nation." "And this has gotten to that proportion."



On CNN's "Late Edition" Rice also said Tenet should not step down. "Absolutely not. The president has confidence in George Tenet," Rice said.



"End of story," Rumsfeld declared on ABC's "This Week."



Yet, with recent polls showing an erosion of support for the Iraqi operation, there were more questions and assertions, some by Democrats who would like to replace Bush in the White House in 2004.



"This is not an issue of George Tenet. This is an issue of George Bush," said Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, a Democratic presidential hopeful.



"The American people have not been let in to understand what is going on," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press."



"There was a selective use of intelligence -- that is, that information which was consistent with the administration's policy was given front-row seat," Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said.



Blair arrives in Washington on Thursday for talks with Bush. Rice went to lengths to state that the British intelligence was not inaccurate, just unproven by the United States because the British could not share the specifics.



"We have never said that the British report was wrong," Rice said.



Blair and Bush have been criticized for overplaying intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, one of the prime justifications cited in the attack on Iraq. Three months after Saddam's fall, no such weapons have been found.



"I think we will find them (the weapons) ... because I've got confidence in our intelligence community and the intelligence communities in other countries," Rumsfeld told the NBC program.



Graham said, "I hope we will find weapons of mass destruction ... because if we don't ... the credibility of the United States around the world and inside the United States with its own citizens will be seriously eroded."



A Washington Post/ABC News poll on Friday found 50 percent believed the administration had exaggerated its evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A Newsweek poll said on Saturday public approval of Bush's handling of Iraq had dropped about 20 points, to 53 percent, since U.S. forces took Baghdad in April.

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my.aol.com/news/news_stor...0748215349



and

Quote:

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CIA Stopped Iraq Nuclear Mention in Oct. Speech

Reuters

Jul 13 2003 11:09AM



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA intervened to stop the White House from making a reference to Iraq seeking uranium from Niger in a presidential speech last October, according to senior U.S. officials, the Washington Post said on Sunday.



Three months before a less specific reference to the same intelligence was used in President Bush's January State of the Union address, CIA Director George Tenet argued to White House officials it should not be used because it came from only a single source, the newspaper reported, citing one senior official.



The Post cited another senior official with knowledge of the intelligence as saying the CIA had doubts about the accuracy of the documents underlying the allegations, which turned out to be forged.



The report said it was unclear why Tenet personally intervened to prevent the intelligence about Niger from appearing in the earlier presidential speech but did not do so again for the State of the Union address in January.



Speaking in Abuja on Saturday, Bush said he had confidence in Tenet and considered the controversy over false U.S. claims to be closed. Tenet took responsibility on Friday for the claim by Bush over Iraq's nuclear ambitions.

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my.aol.com/news/news_stor...0917215015



I think the appropriate emoticon-response is



Meanwhile, still no WMD found (senior Brits are privately admitting that they're almost certainly never going to find any), more Americans---not to mention Iraqis---dying. The only thing conceivably positive going on is the meeting of the new Iraqi puppets . . . excuse me, "advisory council."



GG This is all playing out just like every thinking person feared . . . doesn't make it any less disturbing, though. Out

[Diebrock]

Quote:

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The only thing conceivably positive going on is the meeting of the new Iraqi puppets . . . excuse me, "advisory council."

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Who had nothing better to do than declare a new national holiday as their first official act.

Getting rid of Saddam or Baath holidays is understandible in trying to break with his dictatorship. Still, I'm not sure it was so urgent that they had to devote their very first decision to it (which has a lot of symbolic character, after all).

And am I the only one who thinks that making April 9 wasn't totally the idea of the Iraqis? I mean, c'mon, they are a very proud people. I can't imagine that they can't wait to celebrate their defeat at the hands of the Americans every year. It doesn't matter if that also is the start of your people's freedom, it is always a humiliation to be the weaker side. Even more so in the Arab world, I suspect.

Plus, let's face it, it is a holiday that celebrates the achievement of others and the inability/impotence to do it themselves.

I think they should have waited until the Iraqi people had managed to achieve something themselves (eg their own government or constitution or something like that).



Of course, I am probably influenced by my history. I would imagine that April 9 for the Iraqis would be similar to May 8 for the Germans. It is not our national holiday but it is a day of remembrance. It was the official end of the war and thus the end of the Nazi dictatorship. Which is all of the good and certainly worth celebrating. But no matter all the overwhelming positive things and implications of this day, it also marks the day of Germany's unconditional surrender and total defeat. That doesn't mean that people would wanna change that (well, most anyway ), but it also understandible that it's not anything to feel joyous or proud about.

I can't remember who, but someone once said that there was only one thing that could have been worse than us (Germany) losing the war, and that would have been us winning the war.

I think that pretty much describes my feelings about May 8 and April 9.



Excuse my ramblings.

_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

[maudmac]

It's been a long time since I trusted my government. If I ever really did, seeing as how much of the collective American trust in the fundamental goodness of government and, especially, the presidency, was shattered before I was even born. But I know I didn't used to be so cynical about it. But for some time now, I have been operating on the assumption that if the President of the United States is speaking, he's lying.



So I'm not at all surprised that we just went and killed a lot of people over what was probably only a rumor or even an outright lie. I was amused (in a dark, dark way) to see on the news several weeks ago what appeared to be a ring of metal that had been, I think, dug up out of someone's yard in Iraq. Could be part of a centrifuge!!! they said. Evidence of the presence of a piece of machinery that could be used to make material for weapons of mass! destruction!! they said. Please. Centrifuges are a dime a dozen, worldwide.



Anyway, all that to say that it pains me to have my expectations of the US government met again and again and again like this.



So I'm extra stoked about the upcoming election. I was reading up on Dean and I really liked what he was saying about a lot of things...until I found out what a fiscal conservative he is. Nobody's perfect, but I'm now looking for a new favorite Democratic candidate.



If anyone cares to talk about it, I think a discussion of the pros and cons of our two-party system would be interesting. Be nice to hear from some folks who live in places with many political parties, because that's hard for Americans to imagine, I think. It seems to me that having five or ten parties could be good in ways and bad in others.



I'm not happy with having to choose between the lesser of two evils in virtually all elections - local, state, national. I'm conflicted, however, because, as much as I want our other parties (particularly, for me, the Greens) to be represented on the ballot, I also won't vote for them when they are. If I'd voted my conscience in the last presidential election, I would have voted for Nader. But I didn't vote for him because I felt that doing so was tantamount to voting for Bush. And I was willing to do whatever was necessary to keep Bush out of the White House. Correct me if I'm wrong about this, but there would have been no room to even question the election results if Gore had gotten those Nader votes, right?



So, yeah, I think American government would work better with other parties better represented in office, but how can we achieve that when so many people, like me, perceive voting for one of those parties as essentially throwing a vote into the trash?

---

Pussy crack corn...and I don't care! -- Margaret Cho

[darkmagicwillow]

I think the two party system is the worst flaw of American government. The US's winner-takes-all voting system means that any third parties take away votes from the party that they are most closely allied to, causing the people's preferences to be interpreted in a manner opposite to what they are intended. That's simply wrong. Many Americans claim that the modern democracies were inspired by the US government, and in some sense that may be true, but almost all of them follow the British parliamentary system more closely than the American system.



Perhaps because of the contrary effect of minor parties, the two major parties passed laws making it more difficult for third parties to get on the ballot. Eliminating third parties as real contenders allows debate to be confined between the two narrowly separated viewpoints of the major parties. The major parties police their own candidates closely in the party caucuses to weed out dissenters before the public can see them in the primary. Finally, after the election, the votes are counted in ways determined by members of the two major parties and disputes are settled by bipartisan, not nonpartisan, committees, and we know how fallible and biased that can be from the Florida recount.



There's a famous quote by Stalin where he said that he didn't care about allowing the people to vote ... as long as he controlled the nomination process.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 7/13/03 6:07 pm

[justin]

Well in Britain we have lot's of parties but due to the first past the post voting system there are only two parties that count.



Actually scratch that, we only have one party at the moment, the Tory party. However this party comes in two flavours - there's Conservative Tories and there's labour Tories. Pretty much the only difference between them is that the leader of the Labour party is tall and has lots of hair, while the leader of the Conservative party is short and bald. So it's obvious who's going to win the next election (or maybe not)



We have an election system which is IMHO fundamentally flawed. The first problem is that if you live in an area where there is strong support for one party and you vote for a different one your vote's pretty much wasted. Then there's the problem that even without getting a majority of the vote it's still possible for a party to get a majority within the house of commons.



So I support a change to proportional representation. The funny thing is so did Labour, right up to the point that they started benefiting from FPTP.

Quote:

---

There's a famous quote by Stalin where he said that he didn't care about allowing the people to vote ... as long as he controlled the nomination process.

---

One example of that thinking was in the election for the London Mayor. The Labour party fixed the nomination process so that Ken Livingstone, the popular choice, wouldn't be nominated.



It backfired since KL stood as an independent candidate and won quite convincingly.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[darkmagicwillow]

While the US and Europe have often had opposing goals, they have drifted further apart since the collapse the USSR, especially since George Bush's unilateral approach to foreign affairs. European military power has been insignificant on a global scale since about 1943, when the US and USSR realized that they were could win on their respective fronts on their own whereas the UK had to selectively and carefully allocate its troops for maximum political effect and rely on skillful diplomacy rather than direct application of military power to obtain its goals.



America naturally uses its great military power to quickly and directly achieve goals, whereas Europe is restrained to use slower diplomatic methods. This is a reversal of the 19th century situation when a militarily powerful Europe dominated the world and a weak America sheltered behind the British fleet (as Europe sheltered behind American might in the Cold War) and attempted to use diplomacy and international law in foreign affairs.



Where does this leave us in terms of American-European relations? Will America continue to chart its own course heedless of the demands of others? Will the EU make the huge expenditures necessary to attain military parity?







Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order is an interesting book on the topic, but be very scared of what google turns up on this subject as there are some seriously odd people out there, like the ones GG mentions on the Religion thread who believe that the US is the chosen nation.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 7/14/03 5:01 pm

[cattwoman98111]

A friend emailed the to me not to long ago, right after gay pride here in Seattle. She wanted me to check out this Dennis Kucinich, whom is running for president. i have not had alot of time to research him but from what i can see he seems ok, is pro gay rights and affirmitive action as well. anyway if you get time check him out.



http://www.kucinich.net





Catt





I want it. Give it to me. I love it. 7-Year Bitch

[Gatito Grande]

. . . about damn time!

Quote:

---

'A firm basis for impeachment'

By Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times



Does the president not read? Does his national security staff, led by Condoleezza Rice, keep him in the dark about the most pressing issues of the day? Or is this administration blatantly lying to the American people to secure its ideological ends?



Those questions arise because of the White House admission that the charge that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger was excised from a Bush speech in October 2002 after the CIA and State Department insisted it was unfounded. Bizarrely, however, three months later — without any additional evidence emerging — that outrageous lie was inserted into the State of the Union speech to justify the president's case for bypassing the United Nations Security Council, for chasing U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and for invading and occupying an oil-rich country.



This weekend, administration sources disclosed that CIA Director George Tenet intervened in October to warn White House officials, including deputy national security advisor Stephen Hadley, not to use the Niger information because it was based on a single source. That source proved to be a forged document with glaring inconsistencies.



Bush's top security aides, led by Hadley's boss, Rice, went along with the CIA, and Bush's October speech was edited to eliminate the false charge that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger to create a nuclear weapon.



We now know that before Bush's January speech, Robert G. Joseph, the National Security Council individual who reports to Rice on nuclear proliferation, was fully briefed by CIA analyst Alan Foley that the Niger connection was no stronger than it had been in October. It is inconceivable that in reviewing draft after draft of the State of the Union speech, NSC staffers Hadley and Joseph failed to tell Rice that the president was about to spread a big lie to justify going to war.



On national security, the buck doesn't stop with Tenet, the current fall guy. The buck stops with Bush and his national security advisor, who is charged with funneling intelligence data to the president. That included cluing in the president that the CIA's concerns were backed by the State Department's conclusion that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are highly dubious."



For her part, Rice has tried to fend off controversy by claiming ignorance. On "Meet the Press" in June, Rice claimed, "We did not know at the time — no one knew at the time, in our circles — maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."



On Friday, Rice admitted that she had known the State Department intelligence unit "was the one that within the overall intelligence estimate had objected to that sentence" and that Secretary of State Colin Powell had refused to use the Niger document in his presentation to the U.N. because of what she described as long-standing concerns about its credibility. But Rice also knew the case for bypassing U.N. inspections and invading Iraq required demonstrating an imminent threat. The terrifying charge that Iraq was hellbent on developing nuclear weapons would do the trick nicely.



However, with the discrediting of the Niger buy and the equally dubious citation of a purchase of aluminum tubes (which turned out to be inappropriate for the production of enriched uranium), one can imagine the disappointment at the White House. There was no evidence for painting Saddam Hussein as a nuclear threat.



The proper reaction should have been to support the U.N. inspectors in doing their work in an efficient and timely fashion. We now know, and perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction program existed — not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons has been discovered. However, that would have obviated the administration's key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts that didn't exist.



And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

---

www.smirkingchimp.com/art...ed&order=0



GG . . . but, as some have counseled "Impeach Cheney First!" Out

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 7/15/03 5:48 pm

[xita]

It's amazing what a little time can do. I don't think that this would have been published a few months ago, but now we can finally see the media allowing the other side. Good for the LA times and Robert Scheer.

- - - - - - - - - - -
"The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last."

-Willie Wonka

[4WiccanLuv]

Quote:

---

The proper reaction should have been to support the U.N. inspectors in doing their work in an efficient and timely fashion.

---

Proper reaction = 12 years of U.N. lolly gagging and twiddling of thumbs



What can one expect from the L.A. Times?



That rag is so far Left, it makes Hillary Clinton seem down right conservative. Thank goodness, I cancelled my subscription years ago.



With the presidential election just around the corner, the Democrats must be chomping at the bit for anything to try and undermine the current administration‘s efforts in Iraq.



Hmm…I guess that means Bill Clinton also lied when he claimed Iraq had WMDs and decided to drop bombs and kill innocent civilians! Impeachment anyone?

_____________


"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty." - John F. JFK

Edited by: 4WiccanLuv  at: 7/15/03 9:59 pm

[Gatito Grande]

4WiccanLuv, I'd like to understand you. Really I would.



Maybe I could begin to, if you could explain your (Kitten) name to me? Because when I think of "WiccanLuv," and Willow-n-Tara, and Goodness . . . I think Left. I think of the political Left---that's what those things mean to me.



To the extent that Bill Clinton (or the Democrats in general) have done evil things (and they certainly have), it's precisely because they've failed to be True Leftists (please, please, don't confuse *my* Leftism w/ Stalin, or Mao, or even Castro. Their totalitarianism and militarism precludes them from that)



Bottom-line: Left = Good for Willow-n-Tara, and vice-versa (i.e., it wasn't Leftists decrying the legalizing of WT's love by the Supreme Court).



But maybe you have very different definitions of Left and Right (conservative)? I just want to understand. Thanks.



GG Looking for the ultimate Democratic Presidential nominee? "Tara Maclay in '04!" OK, so she's fictitious (and not 35, either): other than that . . . Out

[Diebrock]

Quote:

---

Proper reaction = 12 years of U.N. lolly gagging and twiddling of thumbs

---

Much better = 7000 Iraqi civilian deaths / 11000 military deaths / more than half a million casualties all together?



Even better = Contaminating Iraq even more by once again using Depleted Uranium munition



Results of the deployment of DU in the first gulf war:

Childhood leukemia and spontaneous abortions have become commonplace. According to a UN Sub Commission report, cancer in Iraq since the first Bush gulf war has increased 1000%, and deformities 600%. Depleted Uranium has rendered Iraqi lands infertile, entered the food chain and contaminated the ground water.



American War Crimes, anyone??? But don't worry, America doesn't accept the ICC. But maybe they will get the British...

According to an August 2002 report by the UN Sub Commission, the laws which are violated by the use of DU weapons include: the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva Conventions of 1949; and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which specifically bans the deployment of 'poison or poisoned weapons', and 'arms, projectiles or materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'.

Quote:

---

That rag is so far Left, it makes Hillary Clinton seem down right conservative.

---

Yep, already McCarthy knew it was those Communists. Even Berlusconi has realized that any criticism of him is just an attack of those leftist papers like the Financial Times.

Thank God the Almighty who favors the lowest American criminal more than saints from any other nationality, that he has blessed the US with FOX news to balance out all those lies from the left.

If you're lucky, the Bush administration will declare the LA Times a terrorist organization and make those writers and editors disappear for an undetermined amount of time without informing their families and without a trial. Then your sensibilities wouldn't get offended anymore.

Quote:

---

Hmm…I guess that means Bill Clinton also lied when he claimed Iraq had WMDs and decided to drop bombs and kill innocent civilians! Impeachment anyone?

---

Oh god! Clinton is still president????? Why didn't you tell the world? It would make you look a lot better than George "Bring it on" Bush does. Honestly, I don't understand why Bush appologists always have to bring in Clinton. If Bush is doing that and that then Clinton also did that and that. So what? I thought Clinton was the devil to the Republicans. The one who did everything wrong. You would think they would try to act better if they despised him so much.

This Clinton complex is getting so ridiculous. Do they really want Clinton to be the scale that all Republicans have to messure themselves by? Looks like that to me.





ETA:

Don't you just love her priorities?

Quote:

---

Despite the security concerns, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice insisted that progress is being made in Iraq.

"Oil is beginning to flow again. Electricity is being repaired. Police are being trained. Universities are being opened. And not surprisingly, the old Baathists are trying to attack that success," Rice told CNN.

---

_________________

How can you kill people who killed people, to show that killing people is wrong?

I've kissed her best friend. I've reached into her best friend's pocket and fished around for keys. And I gave her best friend my number. I must be doing something totally, totally wrong... - TBSOL by Dreams

Edited by: Diebrock at: 7/16/03 3:48 am

[Gatito Grande]

As the Bush rats scramble to escape the sinking ship, they just can't resist reverting to form: looking for a Likely Bogeyman to blame for the Iraq mess (anyone other than themselves).



To wit:

Quote:

---

'Let's blame Canada'

By Maureen Dowd, New York Times



They were wrong, of course. Soldiers should not go public in the middle of a conflict and trash-talk their superiors or ask for the resignation of the secretary of defense.



But it was inevitable that their gripes would bubble to the surface. Many American troops in Iraq are exhausted, and perplexed about the scary new guerrilla war they're caught up in. And they have every right to be scared, because the coolly efficient Bush commanders have now been exposed as short-term tacticians who had no strategy for dealing with a war of liberation that morphed into a war of attrition.



The Third Infantry Division, which spearheaded the drive to Baghdad and has been away from home the longest, has had its departure date yanked away twice. Last week, some soldiers from the Third in Falluja — a treacherous place where many Americans have been killed by guerrillas, including one on Friday — griped to the ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman. One soldier said, "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his resignation."



The complaints infuriated some in the Bush administration, and the new Tommy Franks, Gen. John Abizaid, suggested that field commanders might mete out "a verbal reprimand or something more stringent."



Somebody at the White House decided not to wait. Matt Drudge, the conservative cybercolumnist, told Lloyd Grove, the Washington Post gossip columnist, that "someone from the White House communications shop" told him about the ABC story and also about a profile of the Canadian-born Mr. Kofman in The Advocate, a gay publication. Mr. Drudge quickly linked the two stories on his popular Web site, first headlining the Advocate piece, "ABC NEWS REPORTER WHO FILED TROOP COMPLAINTS STORY — OPENLY GAY CANADIAN." Eight minutes later, he amended the headline to read, "ABC NEWS REPORTER WHO FILED TROOP COMPLAINTS STORY IS CANADIAN," leaving readers to discover in the body of the story what the Bush provocateur apparently felt was Mr. Kofman's other vice.



Now that the right wing's bête noire, Peter Jennings, has gotten his American citizenship, conservatives may have needed another ABC Canadian to kick around. And the Christian right is still smarting over the Supreme Court's telling police they could no longer storm gay bedrooms in search of sodomy.



Scott McClellan, the new Bush press secretary, said that if Mr. Drudge's contention about his source was true, it would be "totally inappropriate." He added, "If anyone on my staff did it, they would no longer be working for me." He said he had no way to trace an anonymous source.



But Bush loyalists regularly plant information they want known in the Drudge Report. Whoever dredged up the Advocate story was appealing to the baser nature of President Bush's base, seeking to discredit the ABC report by smearing the reporter for what he or she considers sins of private life (not straight) and passport (not American). Let's hope the fans of Ann (Have you no sense of decency?) Coulter aren't taking her revisionist view of McCarthyism too seriously and making character assassination fashionable again on the Potomac.



What we are witnessing is how ugly it can get when control freaks start losing control. Beset by problems, the Bush team responds by attacking those who point out the problems. These linear, Manichaean managers are flailing in an ever-more-chaotic environment. They are spending $3.9 billion a month trying to keep the lid on a festering mess in Iraq, even as Afghanistan simmers.



The more Bush officials try to explain how the president made the bogus uranium claim in his State of the Union address, despite the C.I.A. red flags and the State Department warning that it was "highly dubious," the more inexplicable it seems. The list of evils the administration has not unearthed keeps getting longer — Osama, Saddam, W.M.D., the anthrax terrorist — as the deficit gets bigger ($455 billion, going to $475 billion).



After 9/11, this administration had everything going for it. Republicans ruled Congress. The president had enormously high approval ratings. Yet it overreached while trying to justify the reasons for going to war.



Even when conservatives have all the marbles, they still act as if they're under siege. Now that they are under siege, it is no time for them to act as if they're losing their marbles.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

---

www.smirkingchimp.com/art...ed&order=0



GG Visualize Impeachment! Out

[justin]

Recently there has been a lot of discussion in the news about the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, a weapons expert who was an advisor to the ministry of defense.



It all stems from stories by two BBC reporters that they had been told by a member of the MoD that they had been pressurised to "sex up" the dossier about Iraq, in order to boost support for the war.



The BBC origionaly refused to name the source, however Dr Kelly's was leaked to the press by the MoD. A few days ago Dr Kelly was found dead, apparently having killed himself.



This whole affair has caused quite a commotion with an independent judicial enquiry having been set up. Though the goverment have said they want the enquiry to just focus on the events that lead to Dr Kelly's death, rather than investigating the claims that reports were falsified in order to support going to war.



Of course like Bush, Blaire is now downplaying the role of WMD's in the descision to go to war.



Regardless this whole affair is a tragedy and I hope that the enquiry will be able to shed some light on what actually happened.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[Isychos]

Left or Right. LA Times or Fox. It all boils down to the same thing, they are both biased. I just try to remember while reading these articles that there are three sides to every story, The left, the Right, and the truth. Unfortunately I dont think we will ever know the truth.

Quote:

---

I think the two party system is the worst flaw of American government.

---

I will respectfully disagree with this statement. I believe the electoral college is the worst flaw in modern times. Back in 17 and 1800's it served a good purpos, but US citizens have more resources today to educate themselves on political candidates and can make an educated decision on there own. Let the majority of the nation choose. Not the majority of the hand selected.

Quote:

---

I'm not happy with having to choose between the lesser of two evils in virtually all elections - local, state, national... If I'd voted my conscience in the last presidential election, I would have voted for Nader. But I didn't vote for him because I felt that doing so was tantamount to voting for Bush...there would have been no room to even question the election results if Gore had gotten those Nader votes, right?

---

I agree with every thing you said in this post. Now I will admit that I was happy that Bush was elected. But again, if I truly had any choice I would not have voted for him. I am in the same boat you are just on the opposite end. If I voted for Perot I would have been voting for Bill Clinton.

I think the biggest problem is the money. But how can you level the playing field? Sure the internet helps but it is not nearly as effective as TV ads or thousands of loyal goons posting your signs everywhere. Maybe by somechance, someday, an honest person will get in the whitehouse and can solve the delima.

The sky is blue and all the leaves are green. The sun's as warm as a baked potato. I think I know precisely what I mean, When I say it's a Shpadoinkle day.

[forrister]

Firstly I should make it perfectly clear. I am not an American. I am an Australian. I have never lived anywhere but Australia.



However I have studied the American system and I have some opinions I'd like to share.



I think the biggest problem is that in America you are big on 'rights' and small on 'responsibilities'. The law provides for the rights of the people, the Constitution is filled with rights, but there is almost nothing mentioned of responsibilities.



The biggest right in America is the right of every adult to vote. This is a mistake. The majority of Americans aren't even registered to vote and out of those who are on the electoral roll, a portion of these don't bother voting. Why? Because its a right, not a responsibility.



Here voting is compulsory. As a citizen you are required to be on the electoral roll and you must vote. Polling booths are readily available at many schools, community centers etc. Postal and absentee votes are easy to organise. People can be organised to visit you on polling day to take your ballot if you are an invalid. But you must vote. You can play noughts and crosses on your ballot paper, or add a vote for Mickey Mouse if you so desire, but you have to get off your butt and actually do something. That is how we get representative government. People have to make a choice - they can't just apathetically sit on the sidelines and do nothing.



I believe voting is one of the responsibilities of citizenship. Perhaps if all Americans had to vote then the quality of government would improve, and the government 'of the people, by the people, for the people' would be decided by all the people.



An nescis, mi fili, quantilla sapientia mundus regatur?

Don't you know then, my son, how little wisdom rules the world?

[justin]

I have to say that I disagree with that idea. I really think that voting should be a right rather than a responsibility.



Personaly I think that if people are voting because they have to rather than they want to then they won't be making an informed choice.



If people don't want to vote then rather than forcing them we need to understand why they don't want to. We need a system where people feel that by voting they are helping to choose a goverment that acurately represents them rather than just wasting their time. In particular we need to fight the idea that by voting you are choosing the lesser of two evils.



Another reason voting should be voluntary is that IMHO the number of people who choose to vote is a good benchmark of how effective the electoral system is seen as being.

I understand, you should be with the person you l-love


I am

[maudmac]

First, I want to say that David Kelly stuff just stinks. It reeks to high heaven of...I don't even know what, exactly...I just know it stinks. It's hard these days not to be a conspiracy theorist, I think. For me, anyway.



I agree about the electoral college. At its inception, in a time when hardly any voters would have been informed about the issues and candidates, sure, it makes sense. That time is long gone and the electoral college needs to go with it.



I think most Americans would bristle at the idea of us having compulsory voting. I definitely agree that every single person who is eligible to vote should register, stay registered as they move, and vote, vote, vote. It really grates my cheese to hear someone complaining about elected officials when she/he didn't even vote in that election. Didn't vote? Shut your mouth, then. You deserve what you get. But it wouldn't sit well with most Americans to have the government tell us we have to vote. We'd consider that to be the government overstepping its bounds, I think. (It's kind of like the way I always wear my seatbelt and I insist that everyone in my car do the same, but I don't think the government has the right to mandate the use of seatbelts for adults.)

---

Pussy crack corn...and I don't care! -- Margaret Cho

[darkmagicwillow]

I agree about the electoral college. At its inception, in a time when hardly any voters would have been informed about the issues and candidates, sure, it makes sense. That time is long gone and the electoral college needs to go with it.

I've seen this from a few people, and I'm still puzzled. Why do you think Revolutionary Era Americans were less informed than modern ones? I've seen several studies indicating that the literacy rate among voters was higher then than it is today. They didn't have mass media other than newspapers, but I'm don't thnk that indicates that they were less informed than we are today. Quite the contrary, in fact. The level of political discourse was much higher than it is today--read popular Revolutionary era works like The Federalist Papers or the later Lincoln/Douglas debates and compare them to today's sound bite presentations or even today's newspapers and popular political books.



While the electoral college is a problem, it has only caused issues with three elections in over two hundred years, while the winner takes all system and other mechanisms which prevent third parties from attaining noticeable success, have affected elections at all levels throughout American history. In fact, the electoral college is one such mechanism, so the two party problem with which I'm concerned is a more general problem.

We'd consider that to be the government overstepping its bounds, I think. (It's kind of like the way I always wear my seatbelt and I insist that everyone in my car do the same, but I don't think the government has the right to mandate the use of seatbelts for adults.)

I agree completely. Even if it was the government's responsibility, I'm not sure that the effect of adding millions of disinterested voters would improve American politics. Money sways the current electorate far too easily, and I expect it would be worse if voting were compulsory. 98% of House incumbents were re-elected in 1998 while outspending their opponents by a 5:1 ratio.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[Gatito Grande]

Voting, elections (rights, responsibilities): interesting topic. (All my comments below are on the U.S.)



Agree w/ everybody on the ridiculousness of the Electoral College: a holdover from the days of "we really want to reserve democracy to white, male, landowners." Out w/ it!



forrister, I think you raise some interesting issues (and I really appreciate non-Americans' views on El SuperPowerissimo), but I'm not sure that compulsory voting is the way to go. Democracy, at its root, is based on the will of the people. How can we talk about "will," when the expression of that will is forced? However, voting in the U.S. could be made a heck of a lot easier: flexible voting hours (inc. mail, on-line), same-day registration, Election Day made a national holiday. That should increase the voting percentage significantly. Beyond that, I think we should focus on rewarding voters, rather than punishing non-voters (some sort of tax rebate?).



[However, I am in favor of compulsory seat-belt and motorcycle helmet laws. We are not a laissez-faire society when it comes to motor-vehicle accident victims---nor would I want us to be. Therefore, if society is going to assume (at least some of) the costs of accident victims, society should have a say in minimizing the damage done, by way of the above-named laws).]



Generally speaking, I'm in favor of proportional representation (instead of winner-take-all, as so many of our elections are now). Certainly, Presidential elections should be made proportional. I'd also like to see experiments in other kinds of proportionality (as suggested by political philosopher Lani Guinere, whose DoJ nomination her so-called friend Bill Clinton abandoned), but that's going to be tough, when Americans are so tied to regional representation. (Little known fact: wanna know how rural---usually Republican---Congressional districts are way over-represented? They count the prisoners held in rural prisons: individuals---who almost always can't vote, of course---who are far more likely to have come from---usually Democratic---cities. This is the way it was in my former home of Pennsylvania. If these prisoners can't vote, why the heck are they counted for Congressional re-districting purposes? )



Finally, Isychos: you didn't vote for Perot, to avoid electing Clinton. I didn't vote for Nader, to avoid electing Dubya. We're just alike, right? Wrong. As I tried to explain in my post to 4WiccanLove, there is not a "moral equivalence" of Left and Right. Conservatism is the politics of greed---and usually the politics of homophobia. With rare exceptions, conservative Republicans---like Dubya---are Bad for Willow and Tara---and those who admire and/or emulate their love. You are of course entitled to believe otherwise, and to say so. But you can't make blase' allusions to voting for a homophobe like Dubya, w/o at least one Kitten calling you on your contradictions.



GG "Impeach Cheney First" Out



ETA: Geez, Louise, this keeps happening to me, dmw. I'll sit down to craft a response, and by the time I'm done, someone will have made another post that, at the very least, makes my post "technically (in)accurate" (as the Bushies are wont to say). So we Kittens don't all agree on the Electoral College. Sorry about the overlook!

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 7/22/03 11:07 am

[darkmagicwillow]

So we Kittens don't all agree on the Electoral College.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. I think it should be eliminated, but I went further and pointed out that there was never a reason for it to exist as early Americans were actually better informed than modern ones. I also noted that it's a fragment of the larger problem of the two party system. Why address something that expansive? Because you're not going to eliminate the electoral college with anything short of a constitutional convention; it's been tried many times before and it's always voted down as the small population states don't want to give up their disproportionate power in both the Presidency and Senate.

Little known fact: wanna know how rural---usually Republican---Congressional districts are way over-represented?

Interesting, thanks for bringing that up.

there is not a "moral equivalence" of Left and Right. Conservatism is the politics of greed

Why don't you tell us what you think Left and Right are as I have no idea what you're talking about? From your posts, it's clear that Left is good and Right it evil, but beyond that it's nebulous, especially when you say Leftist dictators don't exist but Rightist ones do. If you're talking about the two major American political parties, why not call them by name? They're both about greed and neither shows much support for the rights delineated in the Constitution.

--

"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."