This thread self-destructs on 3 November 2004

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:09 am

The true threat to our liberty is a lazy electorate.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 26, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Glue of In-ism
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Boston — If anything can concentrate the mind of Democratic partisans, it is four interminable years suffering Republican leadership in the House, Senate and White House - the political equivalent of service in the Siberian gulag.

As a result, Democrats are assembling in Beantown for their most argument-free out-of-power convention in memory. Deeply rooted policy differences and personality clashes that provided all the excitement of lusty, newsworthy Democratic conventions past - and that surely exist today - have been submerged in the fervent desire of the Outs to Get Back In. The driving ideology is In-ism.

That's why we see business executives strolling across the Commons arm in arm with the trial lawyers who are driving them out of business. And why Deaniacs are silently swallowing the new Kerry deference toward the principle of pre-emptive war. And why Clinton welfare reformers are willing to abandon hope of a Hillary Restoration next time around.

All the traditional, internal party anger - evoking derision as "a firing squad lined up in a circle" - is now redirected outward. The party-unifying target is That Man in the White House and his coldblooded coterie of warmongering neocon homophobic tax cutters.

Unaccountably, the only Democratic group left out in the cold by the Shrumbums (the affectionate sobriquet that Toots Shor would have applied to acolytes of Kerry's eloquence grise, Robert Shrum) is the tree-hugging set. Can you imagine a Democratic platform document without a single mention of global warming?

I'm told that there was quite a struggle over that litmus-test phrase, but the smokestack set won out. That hands Ralph Nader an opening to exploit here in Boston. He will surely find the pragma-greens angry at him for being the skunk at the garden party and will use global warming to embarrass them, which is precisely what he needs to stir up a modicum of news-making controversy in this frozen sea of tranquillity.

The legion of thumbsuckers who far outnumber delegates is certain that come the day after election - no matter who wins - the familiar intraparty scraps among slightly left, far left and whoopi left will break out again. That's a fair bet, but expect counterpressure to conform from the groupthink tanks.

Consider the way the Boston Democrats have embraced the quick-fix of our intelligence weaknesses with an intelligence czar (or, not to be sexist, czarina). Perhaps misadvised by the inadverter whose nickname is now the same as the Clinton White House cat, John Kerry proposed this easy palliative months ago.

With great fanfare, the 9/11 commission amplified that call for a super-spymaster. This rush to "reform" is stampeding otherwise sensible senators into writing a czarist bill to combine the spying techniques of secret surveillance with the law-enforcement power of the F.B.I., invading the unsuspected citizen's privacy under the rubric of fighting terrorism.

With this fear-driven new groupthink spurred, booted and in the saddle, nobody at this convention stops to ask: Would John Kerry, if elected, be well served by a fixed-term, "cabinet level official" who does not serve, as other members of the cabinet do, "at the pleasure of the president"? What if, in some crisis about pre-emption, they disagreed - would the unelected official prevail? Who would really be in charge?

And suppose one person had budget authority over intelligence-gathering and evaluation as well as F.B.I. investigations - what would become of the rules of evidence that protect the innocent accused? What the czar wants, the czar gets - and one day he could just as easily be a John Ashcroft as a Lee Hamilton.

One looks in vain for a Democrat here in the Boston lovefest to break out of the groupthink enough to say: "Hold on. In the spirit of the 9/11 bestseller, let's use our imagination to discern hidden dangers in unrestrained dot-connecting." Won't happen; in a time of fear, civil liberty butters no political parsnips.

With dissent suppressed, we can expect a well-behaved convention. With "values" rhetorically devalued, no speech will be permitted without the words "strong" and "respect." You can tune in with your children; there will be no breast-baring or breast-beating or frenzied Bush-bashing. Why? Because the angry Outs have been seized by In-ism.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

DVD Burner · Post by **DVD Burner** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:13 am

This thread self-destructs before then.

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:46 am

What DVD Burner said...

And it's interesting that Safire slams the Dems for proposing to do what the Administration is already trying to do...

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:09 am

Allow me to clarify...

We don't need an intelligence czar/czarina as stated by Mr. Safire below...

or put another way... do we want another J.Edgar Hoover type bureaucrat?

Consider the way the Boston Democrats have embraced the quick-fix of our intelligence weaknesses with an intelligence czar (or, not to be sexist, czarina). Perhaps misadvised by the inadverter whose nickname is now the same as the Clinton White House cat, John Kerry proposed this easy palliative months ago.

With great fanfare, the 9/11 commission amplified that call for a super-spymaster. This rush to "reform" is stampeding otherwise sensible senators into writing a czarist bill to combine the spying techniques of secret surveillance with the law-enforcement power of the F.B.I., invading the unsuspected citizen's privacy under the rubric of fighting terrorism.

With this fear-driven new groupthink spurred, booted and in the saddle, nobody at this convention stops to ask: Would John Kerry, if elected, be well served by a fixed-term, "cabinet level official" who does not serve, as other members of the cabinet do, "at the pleasure of the president"? What if, in some crisis about pre-emption, they disagreed - would the unelected official prevail? Who would really be in charge?

And suppose one person had budget authority over intelligence-gathering and evaluation as well as F.B.I. investigations - what would become of the rules of evidence that protect the innocent accused? What the czar wants, the czar gets - and one day he could just as easily be a John Ashcroft as a Lee Hamilton.

Wake the fuck up folks... it is time for the Legislature to re-awaken and assume their equal role in governance of this country...

Are you getting what I am putting down?[/quote]

THE ORIGINAL DIGIMAN · Post by **THE ORIGINAL DIGIMAN** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:36 am

it's time to get rid of governments, period.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 11:58 am

THE ORIGINAL DIGIMAN wrote:it's time to get rid of governments, period.

I don't see that happening in the near or distant future....

Next.

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:32 pm

Rian:

I started to write in response to Joel on his 'Self-Destruct' thread, but then I thought that it would just suck me into something that I didn't want to be a part of: that primate propensity for name calling and hooting at each other in the trees, but I had pretty much writen most of this when I figured this out. Anyway, I wanted someone to read this, and you got picked. Please read this and flush it... It means less to me than the grocery list I wrote this weekend. Sam

I keep wanting to respond to this (This thread self-destructs on 3 November 2004), trying to be the voice of reason, getting people to be calm, look at both sides, take it easy so that they can be effective... and then I have this image of a tar baby, just sitting there, waiting for some idiot to come along and put his two cents worth in and getting slammed for it, so then he puts his two bits worth in, and through a series of escalations, winds up so immersed in the issue that not even he (or she) can tell the difference between himself and what he is arguing. That is utter foolishness.

After the last election, I have retained no illusions about the effectiveness of voting. If the village idiot can get the office, even after getting less votes than his opponent, then what is the use? The game is rigged, and it is only a sucker who puts his money down and thinks he can still win.

What I will do is vote. Period. I will vote my conscience, and despair. Maybe it will be less than a drop in the ocean, but I will vote, not out of any hope of actually changing anything, only as a raised middle finger against apathy... that creeping slug that has already devoured most of America. My vote is me, dropping my pants on the White House lawn and challanging G.W. to a pissing contest. My vote is my voice saying "I know it doesn't matter, so, I'm doing it anyway as an act of rebellion!"

I'm sure that this little missive is simply the predictible rant of a cranky old man who is getting crankier day by day, and that this rant is worth less than my vote... but I don't care. I am exercizing agressive apathy in the face of overwhelming abuse of the political process, and I am saying, "Fuck You, you shit sucking power brokers!!! I don't give a shit how powerful you are... I am voting against you"

And I take my little rowboat, jam it up against the prow of the huge aircraft carrier, and begin rowing... trying to turn the huge mass away from where it's going.

At least its exercize.

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 4:41 pm

This is the culmination of my Monday: Posting a reply that I was trying to erase. ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!

Off to the FUCK! thread....

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 6:44 am

I actually agree with a whole lot of what Sam wrote... to include comments about having a poopy Monday.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 7:21 am

July 27, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Kerry at the Wheel
By DAVID BROOKS

It was a winter's night in Iowa, round about midnight. John Kerry should have been wrapping up a town meeting, but he'd decided to go into his "I'll answer every question'' mode. Most everybody desperately wanted to go home, and insects and other small life forms were perishing from boredom. Every time he'd launch into another Castroite soliloquy - on the history of the Middle East or the pay structure of the civil service - the audience would groan. I sat there listening to this drone, thinking, "If this man becomes president, I have to stop being a pundit because I know nothing about politics."

I didn't realize that tediousness is John Kerry's greatest trait. I didn't realize that a country barraged by a decade of Gingrich, impeachment, hanging chads and war may actually be looking for a Brezhnev to give it a break.

I didn't realize how much this campaign would feel like George Bush's run for a third term. So much stuff has happened over the past four years, he's already built up two terms' worth of animosity among his foes and two terms' worth of exhaustion in his friends.

It's not that voters will ever love Kerry, but it could be that if you presented them with some variety of an interesting candidate, they would recoil and like that candidate even less.

I also didn't sense that the Democratic Party is just sober enough to realize it needs a designated driver like John Kerry to get it home at night. This is a whacked-out party that has spent the past year throwing back Howard Dean hurricanes, being gripped with Michael Moore fever and indulging in Whoopi-esque animosity binges.

And yet there's that moment when you are drinking, before you get really blotto, when you realize that you have just enough sobriety for one last lifesaving act of responsibility. For the Democrats, nominating Kerry is that act - and now he's running a professional, disciplined campaign.

If the convention program reflected the collective party subconscious, the first night would feature a life-size rubber Dick Cheney doll, and the speakers would take turns throwing it around the stage. And yet the Kerry party elite is insisting that everybody wear a responsibility corset. Restrain yourself. Be positive. This is sound advice from a man who never met an emotional tide he didn't opt out of.

This could be the only political environment in recent memory in which it actually helps to have spent 20 years in the U.S. Senate. The Senate is like the "Top Gun" school for bores. It takes people who have certain natural facilities for pomposity and it turns them, by putting them through years of pointless droning, into weapons of mass narcolepsy.

Look up Kerry's radio address from Saturday. No banality is left behind. If a soporific sentiment is hit upon, it must be repeated. Kerry has the virtues of a fine bore. He is steady, persevering, deliberate, unflappable and safe. This could serve him well.

He has unified the party through sheer force of prolixity. Bill Clinton pandered by telling you what you wanted to hear. John Kerry panders by never telling you what you don't want to hear. This is negative pandering; he talks a lot without really ruling anything out so you can draw your own conclusions.

Over the last few days I have spoken to Democrats who are firmly convinced he is a hawkish free-trading fiscal conservative who believes that life begins at conception, that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that the U.S. should bulk up its forces in Iraq. I've also spoken to other Democrats just as convinced the Kerry is really a protectionist, socially liberal dove who actually opposes the war and supports gay marriage and nationalized health care.

Kerry has been talking for years, and yet such is the thicket of his verbiage that he has achieved almost complete strategic ambiguity.

All this may work. But there is still more to learn. Is Kerry a little dull because he is steady and sensible, or is he just incapable of making up his mind? Is he prudential because in times of crisis the nation needs a steady hand, or is he cautious because he simply doesn't grasp that we're in a new world, confronted by a rabid ideological foe?

This is what I'm hoping to discover in the next few days. Either way, if he wins, I'm not quitting my job. In this age of Kerry, I'm flip-flopping on that one.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 9:22 am

Damn it, Samtzu, now you've done it. Now they are all going to realise that you and I are in cahoots thorugh PM to take over the world. Then our kerfuffle will come prematurely, and you know what happens when things are premature.... um, never mind.

On to more serious matters, I have to agree that voting does little good anymore. Working within the system at all seems to do little. When your votes are stolen, the system is outdated, and there is nearly no difference between the candidates, voting seems silly, like giving some credence to a sham rather than exposing it. That said, i'll do it anyway, on the off chance that it works. But i sure can't vote for either Bush or Kerry. I mean, last election a LOT of people chose 'the lesser of the two evils' and it didn't do any good. I'm not going to vote for anyone whose policies i loathe.

at least i know my vote would have been wasted anyway.

and then, at the end if the day, when your vote is worthless all that's left is to make your life that rowboat.... or to sink.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:22 am

not participating is a form of passive approval or mere resignation....

i think i will participate.

Lark · Post by **Lark** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 10:28 am

samtzu wrote:After the last election, I have retained no illusions about the effectiveness of voting. If the village idiot can get the office, even after getting less votes than his opponent, then what is the use? The game is rigged, and it is only a sucker who puts his money down and thinks he can still win.

Rian Jackson wrote:I have to agree that voting does little good anymore. Working within the system at all seems to do little. When your votes are stolen, the system is outdated, and there is nearly no difference between the candidates, voting seems silly, like giving some credence to a sham rather than exposing it.

Disenfranchise the left once, then they'll disenfranchise themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the agenda all along. I share your frustration, but buying into the idea that voting doesn't make a difference will deliver Bush a re-election on a silver platter. The debacle in Florida was manipulated to the point where only a few hundred votes decided who was elected President. My greatest fear is that people have become convinced that their ballot might as well not be cast, so they will effectively silence themselves in the election process.

samtzu wrote:What I will do is vote. Period. I will vote my conscience, and despair. Maybe it will be less than a drop in the ocean, but I will vote, not out of any hope of actually changing anything, only as a raised middle finger against apathy... that creeping slug that has already devoured most of America. My vote is me, dropping my pants on the White House lawn and challanging G.W. to a pissing contest. My vote is my voice saying "I know it doesn't matter, so, I'm doing it anyway as an act of rebellion!"

Rian Jackson wrote:That said, i'll do it anyway, on the off chance that it works.

Phew - crisis averted. I can only hope that everyone will make the same decision. Sam, I know you didn't mean to post this message, but I'm glad you did. I think your "little missive" was perfectly eloquent, and I hope others follow in your act of rebellion.

I don't care who you vote for, just so long as you vote. I myself supported Nader last time around. I live in Michigan, so I listened to my inner pragmatist and "traded" my vote with a friend in Maryland, where Gore had a healthy lead. This year, I cannot support Nader's candidacy. I still support the quest to establish a significant third party, but the 2004 presidential election is not the time to do it. Too much is at stake. I believe the Greens are on the right track: winning elections here and there, gradually introducing the American people to the idea that their candidates can be legitimate officeholders with legitimate ideas who can work within the system and try to re-establish some sense of democracy in this country.

However, no third party is currently in a position to win the Presidency, so we are ultimately faced with a choice between two candidates. That's my opinion. I supported Dean before he canned Joe Trippi, but I'm swallowing my pride and voting for Kerry. Do I believe he's the best candidate to represent the Democrats? Hell no. But I certainly think he's better than Bush; to equate them is ludicrous and simply uninformed. And if you think Bush is bad now, imagine how his administration will behave if they win re-election; they'll consider it a show of support for corruption, lies, further tax cuts for the wealthy, corporate welfare, etc.

Vote your heart, vote your mind; vote the establishment, vote the outsider; vote your ego, vote your id. I don't care how or why you decide, just make sure you vote.

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:39 am

It's not just the one time that 'the left' has been disenfranchised. (I think I'd say there are MANY lefts but that's another issue) Voters have been ignored and overrun countless times by public officials... we have a lovely history in Seattle of the people calling for one thing and the government doing the opposite.

Part of the problem, though, is that people seem to think that voting is enough and that they don't need to take part in their community, their process, and their world more than that. It's not up to me to decide if that's enough for my neighbour (though I might talk to them about it) but it's not enough for me.

As far as Bush and Kerry being the same, their international policies seem to be strikingly similar. Kerry would probably be a tiny bit more liberal on environmental and social domestic issues, but i think the real difference is that people wouldn't see what Kerry was doing as well.

I kinda like Bush 'cause at least he's uber-transparent. Bush has managed to get millions of folks politicized, actually caring about what their country is doing.... because whatever you do end up thinking about it, my personal opinion is that it's good to give a damn one way or the other.

Both Kerry and Bush will, to varying extents, follow the same basic path this country has had for 50 years. This will continue until there is enough will in the American people to overcome the status quo, by whatever method people choose.... vote, revolution, or....?

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:39 am

The only meaningful way to have election (an by extension, political) reform in the U.S. is to do away with the fucking Electoral College!!!! Until we do, we are stuck with a two party system. Or, as Gore Vidal said many years ago, "... a single party system with a left and right wing..."

The electoral college ensures that the power of the governement is contained by hand picked individuals in a contained system. You either toe the Democrat line, or you toe the Republican line. Either/Or. Black and White. No shades in between. Which means... no real choice.

Removing the Electoral College means that a president is elected by a 'true' majority of the votes. It won't do away with voter fraud (I don't see how that could ever happen) but it does allow a more free expression of the voter's will. You would know that the person in the Oval office was put there by the will of the people. And it would allow third (fourth, and fifth!) party candidates a true shot at the presidency. This would be more in the spirit of a true democracy.

I don't know if we would really want a true republic (such as France, England, and Israel) have, but we could sure use something bettter than what we have here.

By the way... I may just vote for Chickenfish this year. Tastes like chicken, smells like fish? Boy, I'm face first into that!

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 11:51 am

samtzu wrote:The only meaningful way to have election (an by extension, political) reform in the U.S. is to do away with the fucking Electoral College!!!!

There is a process by which to make this a reality... be my guest.

samtzu wrote:...it would allow third (fourth, and fifth!) party candidates a true shot at the presidency. This would be more in the spirit of a true democracy.

yes, but would we get better candidates?

samtzu wrote: I don't know if we would really want a true republic (such as France, England, and Israel) have, but we could sure use something bettter than what we have

To be perfectly frank with you... I wouldn't wish that (French, British or Israeli) citizenship on anyone.

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Tue Jul 27, 2004 1:56 pm

Joel wrote:

samtzu wrote:
The only meaningful way to have election (an by extension, political) reform in the U.S. is to do away with the fucking Electoral College!!!!
There is a process by which to make this a reality... be my guest.

There is a process. It starts with education: educating our friends, neighbors, enemies, everyone, about the evils of the Electoral College. Step two is to educate the people that we have elected to look out for our interests, to actually look out for our interests and make it possible to elect a president by popular vote. Hmmm. I'd sure like to know how to do that.

Joel wrote:

samtzu wrote:
...it would allow third (fourth, and fifth!) party candidates a true shot at the presidency. This would be more in the spirit of a true democracy.
yes, but would we get better candidates?

No, but if the candidates saw that there was a real alternative to their sillyassed bullshit, it might make them more aware of what the voters really wanted, and then we might get better candidates.

Then again, we might get pigs flying out my ass....

Joel wrote:

samtzu wrote:

I don't know if we would really want a true republic (such as France, England, and Israel) have, but we could sure use something bettter than what we have
To be perfectly frank with you... I wouldn't wish that (French, British or Israeli) citizenship on anyone.

Amen, Brother!!! I listed those as alternatives to sanity... especially Israel.

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Wed Jul 28, 2004 9:02 am

July 28, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Great Straddler
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Boston — Too-careful politicians think the best defense is giving no offense. To avoid offending any voters, John Kerry has come down foursquare on both sides of three social issues.

1. He says he opposes the death penalty - except for terrorists.

To a principled minority that believes government must never take a human life, this Kerry straddle is untenable. It makes no sense to hold that society has no right to execute a rapist-murderer whose DNA proves guilt, nor a confessed serial killer or genocidal dictator - but if the killer's motive is to terrify, then execution is in order.

You can take an honest stand against the death penalty, as Mario Cuomo did despite the political cost, but as soon as you begin to equivocate - making exceptions based on the degree of heinousness or public fear - you erode your moral position.

2. Kerry has long identified himself with a woman's right to choose abortion, but recently revealed to a supporter that he believed "life begins at conception."

People who are resolutely pro-choice believe that life begins at birth, and that a woman has a right to abort what is taking place in her own body any time during a pregnancy. People who are resolutely pro-life believe that life begins at conception and that aborting that embryo or fetus is akin to murder.

Though the two sides disagree about when life begins, they agree on what they are arguing about. You can be pro-choice with no restrictions on abortion, or pro-life with absolute restrictions, or - like most Americans - comfortable enough with current law discouraging late-term abortion. But most find it difficult in logic to be for both extremes at the same time.

That has relevance to today's debate about federal funding for stem cell research. If you hold that life begins at conception, you have a rational basis for arguing that taxpayer dollars should not be used to augment private support for medical research that extracts stem cells from even a tiny blastocyst already destined for destruction.

Kerry is making a campaign issue out of his desire to add federal funds to this lawful research at this convention. That's the vote-getting view (and my own as well), but he will not risk disavowing his contradictory belief that "life begins at conception" lest he seem indecisive or mistaken or anti-pro-life. And so his straddle goes on.

3. He says he is against same-sex marriage, on one hand, and against a constitutional amendment to ban it, on the other. His position: leave it to the states to battle out.

Pollsters show this neat dodge to be popular. But the Supreme Court may well declare the federal Defense of Marriage Act, signed by Clinton, unconstitutional. If not, the Supremes are likely to decide that marriages legal in one state cannot be illegal in any other. To overturn that decision would require amending the Constitution, and the necessary huge majority for that is not there.

This Kerry straddle works; he can say he opposes same-sex marriage (appealing to the majority) while opposing doing what it would take to stop it (which also polls well). Bush, contrariwise, seriously opposes it and is willing to put his opposition to a test that Congress and the state legislatures would decide.

What pattern emerges from these three issues? What difference does it show in the leadership quality of the two candidates?

On the death penalty, Bush is for and Kerry straddles. On abortion, Bush is against and Kerry straddles. On same-sex marriage, Bush is demonstrably against, while Kerry is rhetorically against but cleverly finds a policy resting place that allows him to straddle.

It happens that I agree with Bush on the death penalty, prefer the Supreme Court compromises on abortion and disagree with him on a same-sex amendment. But in all cases, this president takes a stand and makes clear what it is. Bush is not trying to be, in the biblical phrase, all things to all men.

Contrariwise, these Kerry straddles are troubling in one who aspires to trustworthy leadership. I won't be watching his acceptance speech tomorrow for war stories, Clintonian crowd appeal or sudden, soaring eloquence. An end to the straddling would help.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 10:03 am

July 29, 2004

The New Macho: Feminism
By BARBARA EHRENREICH

The Dems couldn't be more butch if they took to wearing codpieces. Every daily convention theme contains the words "strength" or "strong," and even Hillary has been relegated to the role of wife. The idea, according to the pundits, is that with more than half of the voters still favoring Bush as the guy to beat bin Laden, Kerry needs to show that he's macho enough to whup the terrorists. Of course, everyone knows that the macho approach is notably less effective than pixie dust - otherwise, we wouldn't be holding our political conventions under total lockdowns.

Well, I've been reading bin Ladin - Carmen, that is, not her brother-in-law Osama (she spells the last name with an "i") - and I'd like to present a brand-new approach to terrorism, one that turns out to be a lot more consistent with traditional Democratic values. First, let's stop calling the enemy "terrorism," which is like saying we're fighting "bombings." Terrorism is only a method; the enemy is an extremist Islamic insurgency whose appeal lies in its claim to represent the Muslim masses against a bullying superpower.

But as Carmen bin Ladin urgently reminds us in "Inside the Kingdom," one glaring moral flaw in this insurgency, quite apart from its methods, is that it aims to push one-half of those masses down to a status only slightly above that of domestic animals. While Osama was getting pumped up for jihad, Carmen was getting up her nerve to walk across the street in a residential neighborhood in Jeddah - fully veiled but unescorted by a male, something that is illegal for a woman in Saudi Arabia. Eventually she left the kingdom and got a divorce because she didn't want her daughters to grow up in a place where women are kept "locked in and breeding."

So here in one word is my new counterterrorism strategy for Kerry: feminism. Or, if that's too incendiary, try the phrase "human rights for women." I don't mean just a few opportunistic references to women, like those that accompanied the war on the Taliban and were quietly dropped by the Bush administration when that war was abandoned and Afghan women were locked back into their burkas. I'm talking about a sustained and serious effort.

So John and John: Announce plans to pour dollars into girls' education in places like Pakistan, where the high-end estimate for female literacy is 26 percent, and scholarships for women seeking higher education in nations that typically discourage it. (Secular education for the boys wouldn't hurt either.) Expand the grounds for asylum to all women fleeing gender totalitarianism, wherever it springs up. Reverse the Bush policies on global family planning, which condemn 78,000 women yearly to death in makeshift abortions. Lead the global battle against the traffic in women.

I'm not expecting these measures alone to incite a feminist insurgency within the Islamist one. Carmen bin Ladin found her rich Saudi sisters-in-law sunk in bovine passivity, and some of the more spirited young women in the Muslim world have been adopting the head scarf as a gesture of defiance toward American imperialism. We're going to need a thorough foreign policy makeover - from Afghanistan to Israel - before we have the credibility to stand up for anyone's human rights. You can't play the gender card with dirty hands.

If Kerry were to embrace a feminist strategy against the insurgency, he'd have to start by addressing our own dismal record on women's rights. He'd be pushing for the immediate ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which has been ratified by 169 countries but remains stalled in the Senate. He'd be threatening to break off relations with Saudi Arabia until it acknowledges the humanity of women. And he'd be thundering about the shortage of women in the U.S. Senate and the House, an internationally embarrassing 14 percent. We should be aiming for at least 25 percent representation, the same target the Transitional Administrative Law of Iraq has set for the federal assembly there.

In my dreams, you say, and you're probably right. Maybe Kerry will surprise me in his speech tonight, but it looks as if the Democrats are too frightened of being labeled "girlie men" by the party of Schwarzenegger to do what has to be done. If you want to beat Osama, you've got to start by listening to Carmen.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 12:49 pm

Items in bold indicate comments I agree with.

July 29, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Guided by History
By KEN HECHLER

My fellow Americans, we cannot escape history.

The founding fathers of our country envisioned a new nation, which in Lincoln's words was "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.''

From Lexington and Concord to the final victory at Yorktown, courageous patriots paved the way for the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights - the very bedrock of this great nation of ours.

Tonight I pledge to you my unshakable dedication to these two principles of Thomas Jefferson's: Equal rights for all; special privileges for none.

I will also seek equal and exact justice for all human beings. And in the words of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I deeply believe that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The Kerry-Edwards administration pledges its total support of the statement by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

This generation of Americans must have the vision and foresight to protect the rights of generations yet unborn. We must not squander our resources today, and force future generations to pay the bill for recklessly created debts.

We believe in a decent respect for the opinion of all nations in this world. We must unite wholeheartedly in a joint effort with all nations to eliminate terrorism and exert leadership to bring peace and justice to all mankind.

Finally, I am unalterably committed to a "government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Where there is no vision, the people perish. I have a vision for a strong America, and with your help we will win the victory in November.

Ken Hechler, a special assistant to President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, represented West Virginia for nine terms in the House of Representatives. He is the Democratic nominee for secretary of state in West Virginia.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:07 pm

Joel: Thanks for that last one. That is exactly what is needed on the entire planet; EDUCATION! The rampant sexism that covers this place needs to be discarded and replaced with enfranchisment for all...

Shit! This stuff works me up!!!

samtzu · Post by **samtzu** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:10 pm

Well, the one before that last one... I need to post a little faster...

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:27 pm

Sam,

I am really amazed at the lack of advocacy by women on the e-playa....

makes me wonder if they (those women) are content with the status quo...

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 1:53 pm

Which things would you like us to advocate for, specifically?
(Within the context of women's rights, i assume...)

I suppose it is also worth noting that aside from a few glaring cases (guilty as charged) there's very little 'advocacy' here at all....on any topic.... a little for human rights, a little for liberation, a little for the environment....

Rian Jackson · Post by **Rian Jackson** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:06 pm

Here's my answer, since you keep asking:

I only have two hands. I only have two legs. I only have one mouth.
And while I often launch them into overtime for the sake of advocacy and justice, I must choose which things i intend to focus on. Not because i don't care about the rest, not because they are not important. Frequently because there is already a body of knowledge and understanding in the community at large and i would have little to add to it.

Perhaps if more people in the world bothered to care about someone other than themselves then those that do could stop working overtime.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:39 pm

the evils of the Electoral College

what difference does it make?

lets say we abolish the electoral college but keep the current system of campaign finance in place. We aint gonna get better candidates. We aint gonna get better parties. We live in a country with blatant, shameless quid pro quo financing and policy making. I fail to see how changing the way my vote is allocated will put a stop to this.

stuart · Post by **stuart** » Thu Jul 29, 2004 2:41 pm

moreover, what does the EC have to do with the crooks in Congress?

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Sat Jul 31, 2004 5:55 am

July 31, 2004

All Things to All People
By DAVID BROOKS

BOSTON — There were so many military men at the Democratic convention I almost expected John Kerry to mount the stage in full body armor and recite the war speech from "Henry V." As it is, he called for bulking up the military, doubling the size of the Special Forces and crushing the terrorists. He hit Bush from the right, and when he got around to bashing the Saudis, I thought I'd wandered into a big meeting of The Weekly Standard editorial board.

Not only that, Kerry's speech followed an all-hawk medley. Gen. John Shalikashvili called for appreciably increasing the size of the Army. Joe Lieberman called for muscular and idealistic internationalism. Joe Biden said we must "win the death struggle between freedom and radical fundamentalism." Gen. Wesley Clark said we're in "a life or death struggle" against terrorists seeking nuclear weapons.

John Edwards gave a speech that eschewed talk about Halliburton, W.M.D., misleading the country into war - the entire liberal catechism. Instead he talked about defeating "every enemy in this new world" and confronting Syria and Iran so they don't interfere with the emergence of a democratic Iraq.

Around the arena I spotted some of the people most often talked about as senior officials in a Kerry administration: Richard Holbrooke, Biden, Rand Beers and Dick Gephardt. On the international economy side: Roger Altman, Steve Rattner, John Spratt. On Thursday night I saw Mr. Sober and Serious himself, Robert Rubin, sitting next to Teresa. These are tough centrists from the Washington-Wall Street axis who would be heroes in any crisis.

And so I dared to dream. Maybe the Democratic Party is going to recapture the security policy credibility it had during the Truman and Kennedy years. Maybe this display of McCainiac muscular moderation is not just a costume drama, but the real deal. Maybe hope is really on the way!

I should never have gone back and read the speech again. I should never have gone back on Friday morning, in the unforgiving light of day, and re-examined the words Kerry had so forcefully uttered the night before.

What an incoherent disaster. When you actually read for content, you see that the speech skirts almost every tough issue and comes out on both sides of every major concern. The Iraq section is shamefully evasive. He can't even bring himself to use the word "democratic" or to contemplate any future for Iraq, democratic or otherwise. He can't bring himself to say whether the war was a mistake or to lay out even the most meager plan for moving forward. For every gesture in the direction of greater defense spending, there are opposing hints about reducing our commitments and bringing the troops home.

He proves in the speech that he can pronounce the word "alliances," and alliances are important, but alliances for what? You can't base an entire foreign policy on process.

Then I remembered that, of course, the Great Co-opter has to try gauzily to please everyone. He has to play to the 86 percent of the delegates who say the U.S. should have stayed out of Iraq, as well as the Clintonite foreign policy elites who supported the war. He has to play to the Sharptons as well as the Liebermans.

And it all brings back the memories of Kerry the senator. For though convention viewers may not be aware of it, Kerry has actually had a career since his four months in Vietnam - mostly in the Senate. It's not true that Kerry is a flaming lefty (he's a genuine budget hawk and he voted for welfare reform), but he was wrong about just about every major foreign policy judgment of the last two decades. He voted against the first gulf war, against many major weapons systems. He fought to reduce the defense budget. He opposed the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe in the early 1980's. He supported the nuclear freeze. His decision to authorize war in Iraq but vote against financing the occupation is the least intellectually coherent position of all possible alternatives.

So now I'm disillusioned. What the Democratic Party is going through is not yet a genuine muscular centrist revival. As a friend joked, from the voters of Iowa to the delegates in Boston, there's been a vast left-wing conspiracy to present a candidate who looks like a muscular moderate, but they picked someone who is not in his heart of hearts a muscular moderate, or anything else.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:48 am

TALK ABOUT GETTING RELIGION!
by John Leo

Rub your eyes. Did we just see a Democratic convention brimming with flag-waving patriotism, respect for the military, and references to God and values? Why, yes, I believe we did.

Barack Obama, the impressive new African-American star of the Democratic Party, told us how blue-state Americans "worship an awesome God," the implication being that Democrats generally are deeply committed to religion and overcome by the power and majesty of God. Even semi-alert people who follow politics with one eye shut know this isn't really the case. As umpteen scholars have pointed out, the Democrats are morphing into a secular, or nonbelieving party, while the most fervent nonminority Christians are moving into the Republican column.

Obama's second heresy was to announce that "there is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America." This was a not-very-credible repudiation of the politics of multiculturalism and separatism that Democrats have been busy forcing into the schools and into the law, often while expressing contempt for assimilation and the one-America ideal that Obama celebrated in his talk. The theme of the convention, "E pluribus unum" -- "Out of many, one" -- was an obvious way of trolling for unwary moderates, but Al Gore's flub in 1994 more accurately reflects the party's priority. Gore got "E pluribus unum" backward, translating it as "from the one, many."

The Boston convention was a festival of values that the Democratic Party either does not hold or does not want mentioned much in the public arena. Has any Democratic gathering paid so much positive attention to the Pledge of Allegiance? Obama promoted the pledge. Ted Kennedy offered an improbable (for him) twofer: By using the phrase "under God," he invoked both faith and the pledge. The party platform announced that the "common purpose" of Americans is to "build one nation under God." But the pledge has been under heavy fire from Democrat pressure groups for years, both for the "under God" line and the sheer fact that it is said in schools. Millions of Americans view the pledge as an affirmation of community and national commitment. Among Democratic groups, it is usually viewed as mandatory patriotism.

The same is true of the flag. Colleges and schools frequently resist the flying of the flag or simply ban it as narrow or too provocative. After 9/11, Lawrence Summers, the president of Harvard, asked the academic world to rethink its reflexive hostility to patriotism and urged the "coastal elites" (aka the Democratic establishment) to move closer to mainstream values. That hasn't happened in real life, but in Boston it happened in the world of political marketing.

Summers also urged the elites to show respect for people in uniform, the military, police officers and firefighters. He complained that Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government was not giving awards to anyone in uniform. (In the three years since 9/11, the Kennedy school gave one such award.) John Kerry's impressive service in Vietnam inoculates the Democrats against the charge of indifference and hostility toward the military, at least for this election cycle. But largely Democratic cohorts keep military recruiters and ROTC units off many campuses, usually without a peep of protest from those who staged last week's military pageant and the "night of the generals" display in Boston. Applause for retired officers, evidently, is perfectly compatible with policies that keep the military from recruiting.

Perhaps the most jarring of the "values" themes in Boston was the convention's attempt to identify with religious voters. Come to the Democratic convention and sing "Amazing Grace." Many religious people, of course, are Democrats. But the secular elites who control the party have worked long and hard to marginalize religion in America and to banish it from the public square.

Two political scientists, in a 2001 study published in the Public Interest, concluded that the origins of the culture war can be traced to "the increased prominence of secularists within the Democratic Party and the party's resulting antagonism toward traditional values." The authors, Louis Bolce and Gerald De Maio, describe a "secularist putsch" among the Democrats, explaining that it made the Republicans the traditionalist party "by default more than by overt action."

According to Bolce and De Maio, the secularist constituency is as important to Democrats today as organized labor. Under these circumstances, invoking God (seven mentions in the Democratic platform) drags marketing to the point of hypocrisy. Get used to it. The Democrats will be strongly religious -- right up until Nov. 2.

COPYRIGHT 2004 JOHN LEO

Simply Joel · Post by **Simply Joel** » Thu Aug 05, 2004 9:55 am

Items in bold indicate comments I agree with.

August 5, 2004

Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

A nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.

These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.

People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.

Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."

It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.

Bruce Springsteen is a writer and performer.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

This thread self-destructs on 3 November 2004

This thread self-destructs on 3 November 2004

Strategic Ambiguity

Your thoughts?????