Friday, October 29, 2004
This is just a beautiful sight
The Boss and Kerry in Madison. DailyKos links from this page to Althouse, a Bush supporter who attended and took more photos. DailyKos's point is spot on - you'll notice Bush supporters with Bush posters in attendance - no one bothered them, they weren't required to sign "loyalty" pacts in order to be allowed in to a Kerry event. It's almost... hell, it's almost democratic!
Thursday, October 28, 2004
Kerry Haters for Kerry
I've heard this line again and again from Republicans, "Y'know, most democrats don't even like Kerry that much." (Unstated is how many Republicans don't like Bush all that much either...)
I'm like, HELL IF I CARE if they don't like him, as long as they vote for him! We're an inclusive people! And here's just the site for that grouchy, unhappy but Kerry-voting lot. As for me, sure, I'd love a straightforward charmer like Clinton who just seems to live and breathe the charm of a natural born pol. As we all learned, that charm had its downside. Personally, call me nuts, I like Kerry. Maybe it's personal, because he reminds me of an old very good friend from high school, in so many ways(actually, my old debate partner). But when Kerry hits it, I think he's extremely powerful. (Granted, as a supporter, one certainly wishes he could hit it on a more predictable basis...)
And please, anything, anything at all, to see an actual human with a real tangible soul dancing behind his eyes in the White House again, who - to put it in its most cynical terms - can at least convincingly ACT as though he actually gives a shit about anyone or anything beyond his personal power and his reputation. I'm willing to grant that my fear and loathing of nearly the entirety of Bush's whole being, essence, and manner comes from a blood level, something pre-verbal or pre-rational, but when the Pope worries that Bush is the anti-Christ, I honestly only scoff with HALF my brain...
What DO people see in Bush? I honestly wish I could comprehend it, to see him through eyes that honestly imagine him to be a man of steadfast integrity and boldness and blahdiblahdiblah... All I ever see is a massively underequipped used car salesman with some enormous pain in his soul willing to take it out on the world... and don't ever tell him that he's wrong OR ELSE. Four years along and my initial instincts about the man have gotten nothing but thorough confirmation again and again and again. To me he's little more than a bully and a thug, and the worst kind - the kind that always sends out others to do his dirty work and never ever takes responsibility for his acts. A man who has no problem allowing the worst smears and lies to cover all those who might stand in his way. A man who has no concerns about making sure that his own following is as misinformed as possible, as long as it helps him at the polls. How can you respect, much less like, a man like that? (And much, much less, allow him to govern this great country?)
I'm like, HELL IF I CARE if they don't like him, as long as they vote for him! We're an inclusive people! And here's just the site for that grouchy, unhappy but Kerry-voting lot. As for me, sure, I'd love a straightforward charmer like Clinton who just seems to live and breathe the charm of a natural born pol. As we all learned, that charm had its downside. Personally, call me nuts, I like Kerry. Maybe it's personal, because he reminds me of an old very good friend from high school, in so many ways(actually, my old debate partner). But when Kerry hits it, I think he's extremely powerful. (Granted, as a supporter, one certainly wishes he could hit it on a more predictable basis...)
And please, anything, anything at all, to see an actual human with a real tangible soul dancing behind his eyes in the White House again, who - to put it in its most cynical terms - can at least convincingly ACT as though he actually gives a shit about anyone or anything beyond his personal power and his reputation. I'm willing to grant that my fear and loathing of nearly the entirety of Bush's whole being, essence, and manner comes from a blood level, something pre-verbal or pre-rational, but when the Pope worries that Bush is the anti-Christ, I honestly only scoff with HALF my brain...
What DO people see in Bush? I honestly wish I could comprehend it, to see him through eyes that honestly imagine him to be a man of steadfast integrity and boldness and blahdiblahdiblah... All I ever see is a massively underequipped used car salesman with some enormous pain in his soul willing to take it out on the world... and don't ever tell him that he's wrong OR ELSE. Four years along and my initial instincts about the man have gotten nothing but thorough confirmation again and again and again. To me he's little more than a bully and a thug, and the worst kind - the kind that always sends out others to do his dirty work and never ever takes responsibility for his acts. A man who has no problem allowing the worst smears and lies to cover all those who might stand in his way. A man who has no concerns about making sure that his own following is as misinformed as possible, as long as it helps him at the polls. How can you respect, much less like, a man like that? (And much, much less, allow him to govern this great country?)
Kerry Vindicated
Thank God this happened before the end of the week when news gets ignored. David Kay comes on CNN and completely annihilates the White House story on the missing explosives at Al Qaqaa, and then adds some enormously damning observations of his own. I can't wait to see the White House try to paint yet another of their own as partisan...
How the hell is this so close?
This editorial from Newsday captures my sentiments exactly: how the hell, with an incoherent bumbler like Bush in the White House, with a shambles of a war with endless and gorwing evidence of abysmally bad planning, the first record of job loss in seventy years, a massive and growing deficit, increasing poverty, decreasing wages, more people losing their health care, and on and on - why is there even a chance in HELL that he could get re-elected? And it really comes down to the fact that the Republicans have done a massively effective bit of voodoo on the middle American mind. I was listening to a woman explain why she was voting for Bush yesterday and she said it was because she didn't like the way Democrats spent her money. I had to explain to her that contrary to her ideas, government has grown under Bush more rapidly than under any president since Johnson, and that Bush had turned what had been a sizeable budget surplus into a series of deficits that keeps breaking its own record year after year. But would she believe me? Not when Fox had told her differently... It's like some weird brainwashing - no, not like, it IS some massively strange brainwashing. And standing on the outside of it, I'm sorry, but has sanity actually become a partisan issue?
Frankly Kerry should have seen this coming
My favorite new Republican hypocrisy is the combination of Bush accusing Kerry of the infamy of blaming the missing explosives from Al Qaqaa (say it with a straight face) on the troops -which Kerry didn't of course, he was accusing Bush of bad war-planning - combined with Giuliani - with the blessing of the Bush campaign team - BLAMING IT ON THE TROOPS! Ya gotta hand it to Republicans, they really truly are devoid of all shame. It's really kind of an inverse purity...
Which is yet another reason I wish Kerry would have hit far more, FAR FAR MORE, on the domestic situation this last two weeks. The whole reason that Republicans want focus on "national security" and the "war on terror" is because it's a huge ruse to obscure their absolute failures on the domestic scene. (This is why, in the Eminem video for Mosh, the shot of Osama bin Laden turning into a cardboard cutout hiding Rumsfeld and Cheney talking is so brilliant.) While no one in America really has a grasp of these realities in Iraq, and how the Bush team bungled the planning - everyone can understand LESS JOBS, ENORMOUS DEFICITS, INCREASED POVERTY, LESS PEOPLE WITH HEALTH COVERAGE. Etc. No one understands this more than the Bush-Cheney team. Why Kerry didn't force domestic issues to take a far more prominent place in the dialogue, why he let the Republicans dictate the direction of the dialogue, is something that frankly bothers the hell out of me. I'm not saying he'll lose necessarily as a result, but he sure as hell would have done himself a favor casting a more constant light on these obvious failures, as opposed to the murky, obscure ones overseas.
Which is yet another reason I wish Kerry would have hit far more, FAR FAR MORE, on the domestic situation this last two weeks. The whole reason that Republicans want focus on "national security" and the "war on terror" is because it's a huge ruse to obscure their absolute failures on the domestic scene. (This is why, in the Eminem video for Mosh, the shot of Osama bin Laden turning into a cardboard cutout hiding Rumsfeld and Cheney talking is so brilliant.) While no one in America really has a grasp of these realities in Iraq, and how the Bush team bungled the planning - everyone can understand LESS JOBS, ENORMOUS DEFICITS, INCREASED POVERTY, LESS PEOPLE WITH HEALTH COVERAGE. Etc. No one understands this more than the Bush-Cheney team. Why Kerry didn't force domestic issues to take a far more prominent place in the dialogue, why he let the Republicans dictate the direction of the dialogue, is something that frankly bothers the hell out of me. I'm not saying he'll lose necessarily as a result, but he sure as hell would have done himself a favor casting a more constant light on these obvious failures, as opposed to the murky, obscure ones overseas.
Pope fears Bush is Anti-Christ
As a lapsed Catholic whose very Catholic parents are adamant Bush-supporters, I have to say this article - as questionable as it might be - was an interesting little head-scratcher... I guess if I were going to accuse any Prez of being the anti-Christ, the apparently soulless W would be the one. But still...
Win or lose
we have to keep the game in play. Harold Meyerson, in the LA Weekly, talks about the tremendous ground swell amongst progressives that has occurred in 2004. We have to keep it going. In fact, if Bush wins (God forbid) it's likely that he will run ever further to the right and further toward the same disastrous policies that he's followed the last four years, which can only mean that eventually - when people wake up to the fact that the approach simply isn't working (to say the least) - the progressive movement will be ready and fully operational to move on in and start amassing an actual base of power.
In any case, this is a very encouraging article, and I think it's good to keep in mind that no matter how much it might FEEL that way, the world does not begin and end next Tuesday.
In any case, this is a very encouraging article, and I think it's good to keep in mind that no matter how much it might FEEL that way, the world does not begin and end next Tuesday.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Now it begins
News item from a secret memo taken from Republican campaign headquarters in Florida. The voter intimidation begins.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Blindfolds for Bush
In honor of the PIPA findings, I think this This Modern World cartoon is dead on (do the Salon Day Pass, it's worth it).
Republicans Really DON'T Know What They're Talking About
Not that we really needed this confirmed, but it is now statistically proven that, yes indeed, Republicans (not all of them of course but way too damn many) don't know what the hell they're talking about. Not that Dems are completely on the ball either, but the differences in these statistics is striking.
Is there some reason a law can't be passed insisting that a certain level of public knowledge must be demonstrated before a person is granted the right to vote? I'm just sayin....
Is there some reason a law can't be passed insisting that a certain level of public knowledge must be demonstrated before a person is granted the right to vote? I'm just sayin....
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