Courtesy of: Whatever It Is, I'm Against It

"I happen to believe free markets eventually yield free societies. One of the most -- one of the most pure forms of democracy is the marketplace"

     The Cold War, the conflict between the USA and the USSR from 1947 to roughly 1991, is the source of some major confusion.  Capitalism did not win, Communism did not lose.  What won was self-determination, the Aristocratic-Republican form of government over the dictatorship.  The idea that Americans were motivated for widely , while many Soviet citizens were motivated by fear.  We didn't win because we had more money.  We didn't win because of the totally fraudulent (to this very day) Star Wars defense system.  Maybe our success had a lot to do with the fact that our sphere was larger (more than half the world versus less than half).  But maybe our side was larger because, in the abstract, America stood for the better stuff.

     What should this be called, since I see it so often: the cold war confusion, the myth of the triumph of capitalism, the plutocrat's fantasy?

Put Up That Wall, Mr Bushachev

     Francis Fukuyama calls them neo-Leninists, and, although I don't think he's quite right, this news, here reprinted at Bloomberg, seems sorta Stalinesque

House Republicans rejected that proposal and instead approved legislation that would increase penalties for illegal immigrants and build 700 miles of barriers along the 2,000-mile-long border with Mexico.

War Mongering Jesus Freaks,
or, the Lesson of the Iraq War

     The UN sanctions and inspections regimes can work.

     No one can say for sure what Saddam would have done, with US troops heading straight for Baghdad, had Iraq actually had WMD.  Past that, let's say our ill-conceived regicidal "decapitation attack" in the first hours of the war had actually worked; would the remaining ranking military officers also restrain their hands, and not launch chem or bio weapons against the United States troops?

     I've mentioned it before, but fascist President Bush never has, that the United Nations deserves our thanks!  Bush has never mentioned it.  Bush has never (to the best of anyone's knowledge) saved US troops from a WMD attack, but the United Nations seemingly has.

     This is relevant in the context of Iran.  Yesterday a senior Russian official said, according to the Washington Post, "Iran's activities simply highlight the need to support U.N. inspectors' efforts to assess the country's nuclear intentions, not to threaten sanctions."  Meanwhile, the incompetent zealots over at BushCo obviously still haven't learned the lesson of the Iraq War.

Answering Senator Specter's Response to Senator Feingold's Censure motion

Do you, Sir
believe in Secret Laws?

The President,
rightly or wrongly
now asserts that FISA
unconstitutionally
limited the authority
of the Office of the President.

Let us grant
for the sake of argument
that it is so.

It can not be simply that the President
in secret
asserts that certain laws
do not apply.

If the President thinks
that a law passed by Congress
violates the Constitution
and he wants to act contrariwise
it patently obvious
that to do so secretly
is the same thing
as passing secret laws.

More Landmines For Afghanistan!

     The Pakistanis are behind an effort to make sure the Afghan-Pakistan border will be fenced and mined.

Flypaper, Magnet, Sandpaper

The Federal Bureau of Investigation
is looking for a volunteer city or town
to make attractive
to serial killers, mass murderers, and repeat rapists.

Once there
(and we, at the FBI, admit we aren't always perfect about catching criminals)
it'll be easier to catch them
and send them to prison.

We here,
here at the FBI,
expect to hear
from volunteers
from every community in America.

After all,
don't you want the FBI to catch criminals?

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No, seriously folks...

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The Generals and the White House say
"hearts and minds", "hearts and minds."
The Pundits and the White House say
to fight "them there" so we don't have to fight "them here."

And although
for years
Idiots have been saying both of these things
How come no one
noticed they are contradictory?

What sane Iraqi?  What Earthling?
Who would want to have their country used
as a global magnet,
as flypaper
for suicidal-homocidal characters?

How can you win,
a heart
or a mind
while inviting criminals
into the community
where they
and their families
and their extended families
live?

General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

     Liar.  He lies about the year-on-year data, which I present below.  He lies about the recent data, which is also presented in the graph below.  The following quote is from the official DoD transcript.

GEN. PACE: If you take it from a year ago to now, month-to- month, January to January, February to February, the attacks now are down compared to last year. However, if you look at the last month or two, the attacks have been up a little bit, but of a -- not of a magnitude that indicates a significant change. To answer your question, the attacks are terrorist attacks on the infrastructure and the leadership of the country.

Lobbying Reform

I believe
an important principle
of any popular government
or of any self-respecting government
or of any government which recognizes that great temptation is more difficult to ignore
   than mild temptation
is that punishments
for identical crimes
committed by different persons
of different roles
in society
should reflect
their position.

If a Congressperson
or a CEO
steals a dollar
their punishment should be proportionately higher

Fastow, for instance, helped steal billions
and he does very little time
and Cunningham
committed crimes against every single American
involving millions of dollars
and there are people
doing life in prison
for much less.

To Any War Supporter

To sell the war
to Australia and Britain
America decided on WMD

But what the leaked briefs reveal
is that the administration's goal
was "regime change."

To me, regime change means that
foreign governments exist at our pleasure
and that the alternative to our pleasure
is their destruction,
bluntly, regicide.

How do you feel about the principle,
central to the Bush administration's (I'd say primitive) thinking,
in at least Iraq, Haiti, and Venezuela,
of regime change?

If you support this idea,
how do you feel about President Bush?

If you accept the thesis that regicide, or regime change,
is acceptable if America wants it,
who else has the right to assassinate leaders?

Isn't the administration also authorized to kill....

The Strangest Thing You've Heard from A Progressive in a While?

     Let's pretend the Democrats get creamed in 2006.  That makes the Democrats the party out of power.  It is a natural position for the party out of power to be the party of State (over Federal) power. 

     If the Federal power is being mismanaged, we should ally ourselves with those States which do the right thing, and empower them, over the criminals in the Federal Government.

Education: Appealing to the Enemy

     Libertarians, as a general rule, want to end public education.  They have no end of invective for the institutions which brought America to where it is today.  Where will society go from now?

     Women's liberation, as it relates to economic opportunity in the job market (still imperfect, but far better), meant that brilliant women are not forced into nursing and teaching.  Nursing and teaching suffer for that lack.

     If the prevailing wage for teachers is below the median wage, society will generally fall.  In addition, there are certain social stigmas against teachers, which would suggest that to acheive a middling (level) social result from education, the prevailing wage would have to be higher than average.

     The spirit of education is central to any popular government.  Each citizen can be a voter or a juror.  This argument is designed to appeal to the libertarian-minded faction of the anti-intellectual party.

Support Secret Laws!

     Now, Brave Patriot John Ashcroft justified removing all American liberty, because the terrorists are trained to use our liberties against us. 

     I'd like to extend this thought further, and only the objectively pro-terrorist would be against this, and that's to extend it to support secret laws.  If al-Qaeda killer terrorist murderer anti-Americans know the laws, then they know what they shouldn't do, and they will use this knowledge to avoid getting arrested.  With secret laws, however, we no longer provide terrorists with this blanket assurance. 

     Blankets?  For terrorists?  You can be sure only traitors are against secret laws.

Who Massages the Refs?

     I am an anti-racist "neo-isolationist."  I am not for expanded trade, and I loathe racists.  I've been a lifetime Democrat not because of rational reasons like their foreign policy (blah) or tax policy (not too bad) but because I knew damn well which side the racists were on, and I didn't want to be there.