For eons man has questioned the existence of GOOD and EVIL existing in tangible, physical form within our world. And for eons, man has argued each and every answer given.
Today, we see the tangible existence of both in a single object...
Stout.
How can anyone imagine a more perfect (thus GOOD) brew to be consumed amongst friends that a pint of cold, dark stout? What could be better than repeating that consumption time and time again while discussing and solving the problems of the world? If something can't be improved upon, then it must epitomize GOOD, correct?
It is the morning-after that defines EVIL... how does one compare the feeling of hopelessness and despair felt knowing there is no cure but time? What other object is cursed to the same level as the drink itself? It is the drink that we swear we will NEVER imbibe again... not that we WON'T over-indulge, or drink in moderation. It is the STOUT that we blame utterly... and we call it EVIL.
In short...
It's 2 PM, I've had a terrific breakfast, a nap, a hot shower and a close shave, I'm getting ready for another night at the casino, and I still feel crappy...
Must have been a good night!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Regarding "A World in Flames"...
You know what pisses me off about the coverage of these tragic events?
For all the media hype and the thousands upon thousands of articles and clips available for viewing online... there is almost NOTHING substantive that can be found about WHO did this, WHY they did it, and WHAT is being done about it.
The Indians seem to have done a more than adequate job responding initially to the crisis, but the more Pakistan is found to be involved, the less likely the Indian Army is going to be objective... or even functional... in the role of "problem solver".
My only hope is that the US Feds release a partial NIE report for us to review very soon, because waiting for the wire services or the major news companies to cough up a REAL insight into the crisis is frigging killing me!
And in reference to your definition of "mujahid" as one who participates in "jihad" is applicable, I wanted to make one small point... not to counter Ryan, but to clarify his point:
Islam is called the "Religion of Peace" because ALL forms of military combat are forbidden by the Qu'aran... except the "struggle of Allah" (JIHAD) against the infidels. To fight a "war" in an Islamic state is as close to a sin as you are going to find in the Muslim world... literally. Allah would then be expected to abandon the blessings of that nation, according to Muhammad.
Why is this detail important or relevant?
Because of the above being true, ALL armed struggles where an Islamic nation participates in open combat with another nation MUST be declared a "holy war" so as not to contradict the Law of Allah. ANY Muslim that dies in the effort of "holy war" is assured his place in Paradise by the same words of the Prophet Muhammad.
This is the quagmire that is Islamic extremism... the "Catch 22" of modern international terrorism. ANY imam (or secular leader, for that matter) can declare a "holy war"... and then the combatants have the added bonus of "the 7th heaven" waiting for them at the end of the day. What in the West do we have to counter that kind of incentive? When the majority of western governments and media decry ANY religious aspect of national politics, how do we refute or respond to the heart-felt belief that dying for the Islamic cause will win the "mujahid" instant and never-ending bliss in the presence of Allah himself?
Tough days ahead for Obama...
For all the media hype and the thousands upon thousands of articles and clips available for viewing online... there is almost NOTHING substantive that can be found about WHO did this, WHY they did it, and WHAT is being done about it.
The Indians seem to have done a more than adequate job responding initially to the crisis, but the more Pakistan is found to be involved, the less likely the Indian Army is going to be objective... or even functional... in the role of "problem solver".
My only hope is that the US Feds release a partial NIE report for us to review very soon, because waiting for the wire services or the major news companies to cough up a REAL insight into the crisis is frigging killing me!
And in reference to your definition of "mujahid" as one who participates in "jihad" is applicable, I wanted to make one small point... not to counter Ryan, but to clarify his point:
Islam is called the "Religion of Peace" because ALL forms of military combat are forbidden by the Qu'aran... except the "struggle of Allah" (JIHAD) against the infidels. To fight a "war" in an Islamic state is as close to a sin as you are going to find in the Muslim world... literally. Allah would then be expected to abandon the blessings of that nation, according to Muhammad.
Why is this detail important or relevant?
Because of the above being true, ALL armed struggles where an Islamic nation participates in open combat with another nation MUST be declared a "holy war" so as not to contradict the Law of Allah. ANY Muslim that dies in the effort of "holy war" is assured his place in Paradise by the same words of the Prophet Muhammad.
This is the quagmire that is Islamic extremism... the "Catch 22" of modern international terrorism. ANY imam (or secular leader, for that matter) can declare a "holy war"... and then the combatants have the added bonus of "the 7th heaven" waiting for them at the end of the day. What in the West do we have to counter that kind of incentive? When the majority of western governments and media decry ANY religious aspect of national politics, how do we refute or respond to the heart-felt belief that dying for the Islamic cause will win the "mujahid" instant and never-ending bliss in the presence of Allah himself?
Tough days ahead for Obama...
Regarding "Playground Antics"...
As painful as it is for me to say this... I think Obama is doing the best thing he could be doing.
Personal feelings aside, ANY President Elect facing a tanking economy, continuing violence against Americans abroad, and a divided electorate, I would expect and counsel nothing LESS than every effort be made to focus attention away from the things he promised MOST to fix once he was elected President.
Obama had the answers for a failing economy. Obama was going to "reach out" to those who would do violence against us and make them understand that America is good and wholesome. Obama was going to be the President that would "unite" Washington politics and end partisan fighting that defined the last 55 years of Federal history.
The longer he can make people think this is Bush's mess, the longer he doesn't have to face the music as the guy that is going to fix it. This gets him the best of both worlds... he can keep a positive and uncluttered public eye on HIM, while the media and news outlets show Bush's policies failing (and falling) around our ears, and if thing begin to improve BEFORE January 20th (Obama's Inauguration) he can claim credit due to the positive "vibe" his election has brought to Washington and the world. If things continue to tank, or even stay the same, he can say "See, this is what Bush has done, and this is what McCain would have continued"... deflecting ANY heat from himself.
No, if Mac had won, I'd be telling him to do the exact same thing Obama is doing... it's the smart way to transition in today's media-driven political reality, and while it may ignore good manners and tradition... it wouldn't be the first time tradition has been flaunted and ignored by a new President. Reagan, Nixon, Ike and Wilson all did the same thing, in one way or another, when they took office, too.
Personal feelings aside, ANY President Elect facing a tanking economy, continuing violence against Americans abroad, and a divided electorate, I would expect and counsel nothing LESS than every effort be made to focus attention away from the things he promised MOST to fix once he was elected President.
Obama had the answers for a failing economy. Obama was going to "reach out" to those who would do violence against us and make them understand that America is good and wholesome. Obama was going to be the President that would "unite" Washington politics and end partisan fighting that defined the last 55 years of Federal history.
The longer he can make people think this is Bush's mess, the longer he doesn't have to face the music as the guy that is going to fix it. This gets him the best of both worlds... he can keep a positive and uncluttered public eye on HIM, while the media and news outlets show Bush's policies failing (and falling) around our ears, and if thing begin to improve BEFORE January 20th (Obama's Inauguration) he can claim credit due to the positive "vibe" his election has brought to Washington and the world. If things continue to tank, or even stay the same, he can say "See, this is what Bush has done, and this is what McCain would have continued"... deflecting ANY heat from himself.
No, if Mac had won, I'd be telling him to do the exact same thing Obama is doing... it's the smart way to transition in today's media-driven political reality, and while it may ignore good manners and tradition... it wouldn't be the first time tradition has been flaunted and ignored by a new President. Reagan, Nixon, Ike and Wilson all did the same thing, in one way or another, when they took office, too.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Ahem...
Look, I'm at least 8 pints into the evening, on top of a HUGE meal of turkey, potatoes, dressing, gravy, corn, buns, pies, cakes and cookies... but I have to interupt Ryan here.
First off, I'm not a secularist. I am the kind of person that feels that "holiday" should still mean "holy day" in our national calendar. I am a realist, though, and I know that isn't going to happen anytime soon.
So, when the nation takes a day to celebrate the things in life they feel "thankful" for, I expect EVERYONE here to take notice and celebrate. "Thankful" literally means "grateful for something received"... and whom are we grateful to for the "blessings" in our life? Is it Bush or Obama that we thank for our families, our homes, our livelyhoods? Do we thank ourselves for the "gifts" we were endowed from birth? If we thank our parents, whom do we thank for them?
Let's face it... there are NO other secular holidays that FORCE this society to acknowledge the FACT of God than Thanksgiving. It is a tradition based in the history of our religious past, and though it is very non-religious now... the premise it asks us to consider in its makeup IS very religious. It asks us to thank God for the goodness and bounty he has given us as individuals, as a nation, and as a society.
So, without further adieu...
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that reads this!
I, myself, an thankful for my wife, my family, my friends, and my new life here in NEPA. I am thankful that I have been allowed to see the Hand of God at work in my life on an almost daily basis over the last 3 years. I am thankful that I live in a nation that allows me to question the status quo without fear of reprisal, and where I am guaranteed my right to voice my say in government.
The new President and the terror attacks are big discussion items, I know... but let's keep our priorities in order, and NOT miss a chance to put God back into the Thanksgiving equation at every opportunity, okay?
First off, I'm not a secularist. I am the kind of person that feels that "holiday" should still mean "holy day" in our national calendar. I am a realist, though, and I know that isn't going to happen anytime soon.
So, when the nation takes a day to celebrate the things in life they feel "thankful" for, I expect EVERYONE here to take notice and celebrate. "Thankful" literally means "grateful for something received"... and whom are we grateful to for the "blessings" in our life? Is it Bush or Obama that we thank for our families, our homes, our livelyhoods? Do we thank ourselves for the "gifts" we were endowed from birth? If we thank our parents, whom do we thank for them?
Let's face it... there are NO other secular holidays that FORCE this society to acknowledge the FACT of God than Thanksgiving. It is a tradition based in the history of our religious past, and though it is very non-religious now... the premise it asks us to consider in its makeup IS very religious. It asks us to thank God for the goodness and bounty he has given us as individuals, as a nation, and as a society.
So, without further adieu...
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that reads this!
I, myself, an thankful for my wife, my family, my friends, and my new life here in NEPA. I am thankful that I have been allowed to see the Hand of God at work in my life on an almost daily basis over the last 3 years. I am thankful that I live in a nation that allows me to question the status quo without fear of reprisal, and where I am guaranteed my right to voice my say in government.
The new President and the terror attacks are big discussion items, I know... but let's keep our priorities in order, and NOT miss a chance to put God back into the Thanksgiving equation at every opportunity, okay?
A world in flames.
And so in the last 24 hours Islamic fascists have reminded us all that whether or not the free world "wants" to be at war matters very little ... for it is.
Have you seen the still photos of the subway transportation station? Blood strewn across the floor amidst the luggage can get your attention very rapidly.
Yesterday in a coordinated 8 location para military terrorist attack, members of the Deccan Mujahadin stormed into a major metropolitan city - Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India - and attacked in force various locations frequented by Westerners ... in search of Americans and Brits. Not with bombs or in a quest for the 72 virgins, but with guns blazing. They lined victims up and asked for "papers", executing people at point blank range, at will ... like a scene from 1939 Poland.
101 are now confirmed dead, including "6 foreigners" according to a senior Mumbai police spokesman. I can only assume they will not rlease the nationalities until they've contacted next of kin; but I have a sinking suspicion that there is another reason for the hesitation - one or more is an American.
This appears to NOT be a Pakistani/Indian feud. Why look specifically for Americans and subjects of the British Crown? Clearly they killed in a manner indiscriminate to race or nationality, but there can be no question - they were quite literally hunting Americans. THAT can not stand. How long, were we to pull out of Iraq and "back off" the Patriot Act, would it be do you suppose, before this story reappears in Brooklyn ... Seattle ... Las Vegas? Does anyone really believe they'll stop in Mumbai if left unconfronted?
According to the World Britannica:
Arabic: mujāhidūn - "those who engage in jihad."
Have you seen the still photos of the subway transportation station? Blood strewn across the floor amidst the luggage can get your attention very rapidly.
Yesterday in a coordinated 8 location para military terrorist attack, members of the Deccan Mujahadin stormed into a major metropolitan city - Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India - and attacked in force various locations frequented by Westerners ... in search of Americans and Brits. Not with bombs or in a quest for the 72 virgins, but with guns blazing. They lined victims up and asked for "papers", executing people at point blank range, at will ... like a scene from 1939 Poland.
101 are now confirmed dead, including "6 foreigners" according to a senior Mumbai police spokesman. I can only assume they will not rlease the nationalities until they've contacted next of kin; but I have a sinking suspicion that there is another reason for the hesitation - one or more is an American.
This appears to NOT be a Pakistani/Indian feud. Why look specifically for Americans and subjects of the British Crown? Clearly they killed in a manner indiscriminate to race or nationality, but there can be no question - they were quite literally hunting Americans. THAT can not stand. How long, were we to pull out of Iraq and "back off" the Patriot Act, would it be do you suppose, before this story reappears in Brooklyn ... Seattle ... Las Vegas? Does anyone really believe they'll stop in Mumbai if left unconfronted?
According to the World Britannica:
Arabic: mujāhidūn - "those who engage in jihad."
I wonder aloud in dread ... can our next Commander-in-Chief spot an act of war when he sees one? An enemy? A just fight? The trepedation I feel when asking these questions is superceeded only by their answer.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Playground antics ...
I don't mean to nit-pick, but this REALLY sticks in my craw. For the third day in a row Mr. Obama has held a press conference in which to announce his cabinet suggestions to the Senate. Ok, fine. I guess I just haven't actually watched these "pressers" as they call them, rather listened to pieces of them on the radio, from where I draw the bulk of my news along with the Internet (I prefer these sources for I can get subject-specific commentary and updates, whereas on television I'm subjected to the latest Paris Hilton has done, thrown in with Russian war ships in Venezuela ... but I digress).
Today, the TV was left on and there was Barak, at a podium, and the podium read "something" on the front, and as I walked up to confirm what it was the broadcast ended (I was in the kitchen). I thought to myself, "did that podium read what I thought it did? Noooo. That would be silly." So I popped online, and sure enough ... the podium of the next president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, has a sign hanging from it that read: THE OFFICE of the PRESIDENT ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Excuse me? What the hell is wrong with them? You will be the "actual" president in less then 60 days, and have the REAL insignia. This struck me as so silly, so juvenile as to be almost laughable. And the president shouldn't be a laughable figure. First off, THERE IS NO FRIGGIN OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT ELECT, of the United States or any place else! Namely Barry ol' pal, because you have no, read: ZERO constitutional authority. They made this thing up out of whole cloth, and he looks just plane silly standing there behind it. And what's worse, some teenager may be watching and assume there IS such an office (along with assuming that the PoTUS simply "picks" his cabinet, and that's the end of it rather then be confirmed by the Senate - which is the way its discussed on television news).
Maybe I'm being too critical. You be the judge. You can see the podium, with him behind it, within the first 47 seconds of the video in this link - ANNOYING.
Today, the TV was left on and there was Barak, at a podium, and the podium read "something" on the front, and as I walked up to confirm what it was the broadcast ended (I was in the kitchen). I thought to myself, "did that podium read what I thought it did? Noooo. That would be silly." So I popped online, and sure enough ... the podium of the next president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world, has a sign hanging from it that read: THE OFFICE of the PRESIDENT ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Excuse me? What the hell is wrong with them? You will be the "actual" president in less then 60 days, and have the REAL insignia. This struck me as so silly, so juvenile as to be almost laughable. And the president shouldn't be a laughable figure. First off, THERE IS NO FRIGGIN OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT ELECT, of the United States or any place else! Namely Barry ol' pal, because you have no, read: ZERO constitutional authority. They made this thing up out of whole cloth, and he looks just plane silly standing there behind it. And what's worse, some teenager may be watching and assume there IS such an office (along with assuming that the PoTUS simply "picks" his cabinet, and that's the end of it rather then be confirmed by the Senate - which is the way its discussed on television news).
Maybe I'm being too critical. You be the judge. You can see the podium, with him behind it, within the first 47 seconds of the video in this link - ANNOYING.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Say Hello to my little friend
I had heard that Gen Jones was on the short list. I hope he takes it. Would be nice to have a Marine in that position. I haven't looked to see if anyone else was announced today (phone has been ringing off the hook) but will look after work.
I also saw where Colin Powell is on the list for Secretary of Education. That one baffles me too LOL.
At least he's keeping it entertaing and giving us alot to talk about.
I also saw where Colin Powell is on the list for Secretary of Education. That one baffles me too LOL.
At least he's keeping it entertaing and giving us alot to talk about.
Hey, Baddboy!
Retired Lt. Gen. James L. Jones, USMC, is on the short list for the role of National Security Advisor.
Decorated Vietnam combat vet, first Marine to fill the boots of Supreme Allied Commander Europe, fluent in French and functional in German, fingered TWICE by Condi Rice to be her ASoS, but declined (NOT political reasons, seemingly) and was also courted by Rummy as a possible Joint Chief.
I think this guy might know what he is doing...
Decorated Vietnam combat vet, first Marine to fill the boots of Supreme Allied Commander Europe, fluent in French and functional in German, fingered TWICE by Condi Rice to be her ASoS, but declined (NOT political reasons, seemingly) and was also courted by Rummy as a possible Joint Chief.
I think this guy might know what he is doing...
Good post!
Great interview! I didn't know the man had passed away... too, too bad. Want to hear something really scary? He doesn't look that different than Frank Buckles did when I met him, and Frank HAD to be 20 years older... incredible, huh?
"Lip." "Ya?" "You're standing on my hand."
"Oh ... I'll get you another purple heart for it."
Okay, I chirped in on good "Will" getting verbally hunted (by Titus) in the comment section under Titus' most recent (bet you never anticipated running into casino employees better versed in socioeconomic discourse then your Brown professor's ... did you, young William?); so I will now go into how and why an internal beef has been settled - because I'm a founding member, and I can. Not to mention - I fear were I to tackle the lad formerly known as Will any more directly, our high minded prose as demonstrated by Titus will devolve into that reminiscent of an early 20th century Rusky in search of bread ...
The Bund has always been not just a political debate site, but a historical debating club, if you will. We not only appreciate historical insight, details and knowledge, we RELISH it (if any Brown graduates are reading this, forgive me for offending your ivy league sensibilities when ending my sentence in a preposition).
For a couple of days Jambo and I (and recently badboy) have been debating when (if at all) Captain (eventually Major) Winters took sole command control of 2nd Battalion, which had 3 companies, including Easy. Jambo claimed it was when Sink promoted him during Crossroads after the capture/kill of the two SS companies. Badboy agreed, I did not. For goodness sake Colonel Strayer was in command well into Bastogne (the region and the episode). Well, I found the answer ...
That Crossroads promotion gave Winters the XO position, second in command of 2nd Battalion. If you remember Sink mentions that, "Col Strayer could use some help." And Strayer remains Batallion CO through Bastogne. After the assault on Foy Sink promoted Col. Strayer to his (Sink's) regimental staff, and made Winters acting CO of 2nd Battalion, and then gave him his oak leafs at Hageneau (sp?). Subsequent to this revelation it is my and Jambo's contention that Sink simply wanted Winters, his best man in the field, in charge of 2nd, so he promoted Strayer to get him out of the way for Dick. Not that Strayer was incompetent or anything approaching a Dike, but Winters was simply a better commander, period.
Further news ... Dike's father was a New York State Supreme Court Justice (there's the initial "connected" aspect of Dike's military career). And after the assault on Foy he was promoted to General Taylor's staff, as an aide. He died in 1985 ... in Switzerland. How's that for irony, THE quintessential neutral country.
Now having jawed on about this with Jambo he and I happen to mention how spry Carwood Lipton looked in those B.o.B interviews, and that we wouldn't mind meeting him. I looked it up. Sadly "Lip" died December 16th, 2001. He was intricately involved in both the book and HBO miniseries though. For your reading pleasure, one of his last interviews (with an entertainment correspondent named, "Jen"):
JEN: Do you think that the Stephen Ambrose book, Band of Brothers, is a fair and accurate portrayal of what it was like in E Company?
LIPTON: It's a very accurate portrayal of E Company and the men in E Company. Yes.
JEN: What do you think is the biggest misconception about war?
LIPTON: The biggest misconception might be that men getting wounded has a pronounced effect on those who are still alive. Soldiers have a job to do and when some are killed and some are wounded, you can't let that bother you. You don't let that bother you. You go on to get the job done that you're there to do. Most civilians feel that the wounds or the people getting killed have a profound effect on the other men but it doesn't have that effect.
JEN: Do you think that the general public tends to glamorize war?
LIPTON: I think that probably they do. Combat is something that you can't imagine, can only experience it. Before you experience combat, you can't know what it's like and you don't even know what effect it will have on you. You don't know how you will react to combat, but in combat situations funny things happen. Soldiers remember those funny things. When we get together, we talk about those funny things. The public does glamorize combat more than it should be glamorized. Combat is dead serious as far as the actual fighting is concerned. Funny things do happen on the periphery though.
JEN: How do you think that being in E Company changed you?
LIPTON: When I went into the army, I was...I call myself a loner. I accomplished things on my own. I felt that I...I was quite confident that I could accomplish many things, but I did it on my own. In the army I saw Captain Winters, Captain Speirs and the other officers were able to motivate a group of men and inspire a group of men, get those men to work together as a team and accomplish much more than the men could do individually. I was very impressed by their ability to organize men and motivate those men so I taught myself to do it in the army and I've done it all my life after that. Instead of trying to accomplish things on my own, I've organized groups of people to accomplish it. I've done that the rest of my life since the army. That's the biggest change, I think, that the army had on me.
JEN: Do you think that the HBO special is a fair and accurate portrayal of what it was like in E Company?
LIPTON: Oh yeah. It's about as accurate as you can get in pulling a group of people together in front of cameras. In combat, of course, there isn't much standing up and moving around. If you wanna show combat the way it really is, you'd have to have a camera on each person because men are acting individually. In trying to portray that in combat, you have to show more than one man. So you have to have more moving around than takes place in actual combat, but the spirit of combat is what they captured perfectly in "Band of Brothers."
JEN: Do you think they portrayed you correctly?
LIPTON: I think so. Donnie Wahlberg portrayed me and Donnie and I talked several times a week on the telephone. He was in England and I was here. We talked several times a week and some of the conversations would go on for almost an hour. What Donnie was always trying to do was get inside my thoughts, into my feelings about the various things that took place and that they were filming. He would tell me what they intended to film the next day or the next several days. Donnie worked very hard. He was very dedicated on doing the part correctly and so we did all that talking with each other to enable him to do that.
JEN: Do you feel that he was the right actor to portray you?
LIPTON: I can't think of another that would be better than Donnie. He has become a close friend over these months. I really like Donnie. I can't think of another. I've looked at the others, the other actors portraying the other E Company men and Donnie was the right one for me.
JEN: What was it about him [Donnie] that made him the right person to portray you?
LIPTON: I think he has somewhat the appearance I had. Not that I have now, but the appearance I had back then. His general attitude. His dedication to the part just as I was dedicated to the army. His general reactions, actions and reactions to the different situations were a lot like my own.
JEN: So they did a good casting job?
LIPTON: Not just with me, but the actors for the other men. Those actors were right for those men. Those various actors would not have been right for me, but they were right for the others. I thought that was a wonderful casting job.
JEN: Is there anything you felt that the book and/or miniseries got wrong?
LIPTON: The book of course we didn't allow anything to be wrong in the book. Ambrose didn't write that alone. He corresponded regularly with us. We corresponded with each other. We got together in meetings. So we were very careful, all of us, to make sure the book portrayed things accurately. The miniseries got some small things wrong that I would have changed but nothing glaringly wrong.
JEN: What would you have changed?
LIPTON: After we had taken the town of Foy outside Bastogne...in the series they had the men get together in a group and sing. We could not do that in combat. If we got together in a group like that, the Germans would have sent artillery shells at us. That was an example of something I would have changed. It was not of major significance.
JEN: I was told another problem you had with the series is that they used the "F"-word too much.
LIPTON: You know you're right on that. Not only the "F"-word, but other profanities. We just didn't talk that way. That came later, I guess, in the Vietnam War. In World War II we didn't talk that way. But it was in the Ambrose book as well. I can remember in a certain place there, he says that these young men away from home, quite independent used a lot of profanity (Band of Brothers p. 18), but he was wrong in that. We didn't catch that and we didn't talk to him about leaving that out of the book because it wasn't true. We didn't talk that way.
JEN: Did it surprise you when you learned that they wanted to make the book into a miniseries?
LIPTON: Well it surprised me and pleased me. I knew that E Company was an outstanding company. There were many outstanding combat companies in World War II. It so happened that the book was written about E Company. So when it was decided and we heard that HBO would make a miniseries on it, of course we were quite pleased and I would say surprised.
JEN: If you could go back, would you participate in E Company again?
LIPTON: Without a doubt. Great group of guys.
(Ha! Notice who has the better head of hair!)
Okay, I chirped in on good "Will" getting verbally hunted (by Titus) in the comment section under Titus' most recent (bet you never anticipated running into casino employees better versed in socioeconomic discourse then your Brown professor's ... did you, young William?); so I will now go into how and why an internal beef has been settled - because I'm a founding member, and I can. Not to mention - I fear were I to tackle the lad formerly known as Will any more directly, our high minded prose as demonstrated by Titus will devolve into that reminiscent of an early 20th century Rusky in search of bread ...
The Bund has always been not just a political debate site, but a historical debating club, if you will. We not only appreciate historical insight, details and knowledge, we RELISH it (if any Brown graduates are reading this, forgive me for offending your ivy league sensibilities when ending my sentence in a preposition).
For a couple of days Jambo and I (and recently badboy) have been debating when (if at all) Captain (eventually Major) Winters took sole command control of 2nd Battalion, which had 3 companies, including Easy. Jambo claimed it was when Sink promoted him during Crossroads after the capture/kill of the two SS companies. Badboy agreed, I did not. For goodness sake Colonel Strayer was in command well into Bastogne (the region and the episode). Well, I found the answer ...
That Crossroads promotion gave Winters the XO position, second in command of 2nd Battalion. If you remember Sink mentions that, "Col Strayer could use some help." And Strayer remains Batallion CO through Bastogne. After the assault on Foy Sink promoted Col. Strayer to his (Sink's) regimental staff, and made Winters acting CO of 2nd Battalion, and then gave him his oak leafs at Hageneau (sp?). Subsequent to this revelation it is my and Jambo's contention that Sink simply wanted Winters, his best man in the field, in charge of 2nd, so he promoted Strayer to get him out of the way for Dick. Not that Strayer was incompetent or anything approaching a Dike, but Winters was simply a better commander, period.
Further news ... Dike's father was a New York State Supreme Court Justice (there's the initial "connected" aspect of Dike's military career). And after the assault on Foy he was promoted to General Taylor's staff, as an aide. He died in 1985 ... in Switzerland. How's that for irony, THE quintessential neutral country.
Now having jawed on about this with Jambo he and I happen to mention how spry Carwood Lipton looked in those B.o.B interviews, and that we wouldn't mind meeting him. I looked it up. Sadly "Lip" died December 16th, 2001. He was intricately involved in both the book and HBO miniseries though. For your reading pleasure, one of his last interviews (with an entertainment correspondent named, "Jen"):
JEN: Do you think that the Stephen Ambrose book, Band of Brothers, is a fair and accurate portrayal of what it was like in E Company?
LIPTON: It's a very accurate portrayal of E Company and the men in E Company. Yes.
JEN: What do you think is the biggest misconception about war?
LIPTON: The biggest misconception might be that men getting wounded has a pronounced effect on those who are still alive. Soldiers have a job to do and when some are killed and some are wounded, you can't let that bother you. You don't let that bother you. You go on to get the job done that you're there to do. Most civilians feel that the wounds or the people getting killed have a profound effect on the other men but it doesn't have that effect.
JEN: Do you think that the general public tends to glamorize war?
LIPTON: I think that probably they do. Combat is something that you can't imagine, can only experience it. Before you experience combat, you can't know what it's like and you don't even know what effect it will have on you. You don't know how you will react to combat, but in combat situations funny things happen. Soldiers remember those funny things. When we get together, we talk about those funny things. The public does glamorize combat more than it should be glamorized. Combat is dead serious as far as the actual fighting is concerned. Funny things do happen on the periphery though.
JEN: How do you think that being in E Company changed you?
LIPTON: When I went into the army, I was...I call myself a loner. I accomplished things on my own. I felt that I...I was quite confident that I could accomplish many things, but I did it on my own. In the army I saw Captain Winters, Captain Speirs and the other officers were able to motivate a group of men and inspire a group of men, get those men to work together as a team and accomplish much more than the men could do individually. I was very impressed by their ability to organize men and motivate those men so I taught myself to do it in the army and I've done it all my life after that. Instead of trying to accomplish things on my own, I've organized groups of people to accomplish it. I've done that the rest of my life since the army. That's the biggest change, I think, that the army had on me.
JEN: Do you think that the HBO special is a fair and accurate portrayal of what it was like in E Company?
LIPTON: Oh yeah. It's about as accurate as you can get in pulling a group of people together in front of cameras. In combat, of course, there isn't much standing up and moving around. If you wanna show combat the way it really is, you'd have to have a camera on each person because men are acting individually. In trying to portray that in combat, you have to show more than one man. So you have to have more moving around than takes place in actual combat, but the spirit of combat is what they captured perfectly in "Band of Brothers."
JEN: Do you think they portrayed you correctly?
LIPTON: I think so. Donnie Wahlberg portrayed me and Donnie and I talked several times a week on the telephone. He was in England and I was here. We talked several times a week and some of the conversations would go on for almost an hour. What Donnie was always trying to do was get inside my thoughts, into my feelings about the various things that took place and that they were filming. He would tell me what they intended to film the next day or the next several days. Donnie worked very hard. He was very dedicated on doing the part correctly and so we did all that talking with each other to enable him to do that.
JEN: Do you feel that he was the right actor to portray you?
LIPTON: I can't think of another that would be better than Donnie. He has become a close friend over these months. I really like Donnie. I can't think of another. I've looked at the others, the other actors portraying the other E Company men and Donnie was the right one for me.
JEN: What was it about him [Donnie] that made him the right person to portray you?
LIPTON: I think he has somewhat the appearance I had. Not that I have now, but the appearance I had back then. His general attitude. His dedication to the part just as I was dedicated to the army. His general reactions, actions and reactions to the different situations were a lot like my own.
JEN: So they did a good casting job?
LIPTON: Not just with me, but the actors for the other men. Those actors were right for those men. Those various actors would not have been right for me, but they were right for the others. I thought that was a wonderful casting job.
JEN: Is there anything you felt that the book and/or miniseries got wrong?
LIPTON: The book of course we didn't allow anything to be wrong in the book. Ambrose didn't write that alone. He corresponded regularly with us. We corresponded with each other. We got together in meetings. So we were very careful, all of us, to make sure the book portrayed things accurately. The miniseries got some small things wrong that I would have changed but nothing glaringly wrong.
JEN: What would you have changed?
LIPTON: After we had taken the town of Foy outside Bastogne...in the series they had the men get together in a group and sing. We could not do that in combat. If we got together in a group like that, the Germans would have sent artillery shells at us. That was an example of something I would have changed. It was not of major significance.
JEN: I was told another problem you had with the series is that they used the "F"-word too much.
LIPTON: You know you're right on that. Not only the "F"-word, but other profanities. We just didn't talk that way. That came later, I guess, in the Vietnam War. In World War II we didn't talk that way. But it was in the Ambrose book as well. I can remember in a certain place there, he says that these young men away from home, quite independent used a lot of profanity (Band of Brothers p. 18), but he was wrong in that. We didn't catch that and we didn't talk to him about leaving that out of the book because it wasn't true. We didn't talk that way.
JEN: Did it surprise you when you learned that they wanted to make the book into a miniseries?
LIPTON: Well it surprised me and pleased me. I knew that E Company was an outstanding company. There were many outstanding combat companies in World War II. It so happened that the book was written about E Company. So when it was decided and we heard that HBO would make a miniseries on it, of course we were quite pleased and I would say surprised.
JEN: If you could go back, would you participate in E Company again?
LIPTON: Without a doubt. Great group of guys.
(Ha! Notice who has the better head of hair!)
Sunday, November 23, 2008
How about this guy
Well this whole thing has been bothering me so my brain has been going round and round trying to find a better person for the post of Homeland Security Secretary and I think I have come up with someone that noone else has thought of.
Richard Carmona, MD. I'm not kidding, look at his credentials. Former Green Beret, New York City Police officer, Board Certified Trauma Surgeon and former Surgeon General Of the United States. Most importantly he is the man that wrote the book on response to CBR incidents within the United States and is friendly with the law enforcement and intelligence communities. He is well known and highly respected in these communities and since this office should be non-partisan his former affiliations should have no bearing.
Just a thought
Richard Carmona, MD. I'm not kidding, look at his credentials. Former Green Beret, New York City Police officer, Board Certified Trauma Surgeon and former Surgeon General Of the United States. Most importantly he is the man that wrote the book on response to CBR incidents within the United States and is friendly with the law enforcement and intelligence communities. He is well known and highly respected in these communities and since this office should be non-partisan his former affiliations should have no bearing.
Just a thought
I'm sorry, but I just have to say this...
Having spent the better part of the day splitting time between laundry, kitchen duty, a 5-year-old with conjunctivitis, and general household duties so the Birthday Girl could bust her hump painting the OTHER birthday girl’s bedroom, I did manage to do some reading on our new friend’s BLOG.
Without making too much of a mess, I thought I’d post some of what I found most “interesting” here, in the hopes of initiating a dialogue with a real, honest-to-God liberal activist.
Mr. Pasley’s most recent posts have a lot of focus on “profit” as a bad thing. When profit is the sum of all existence (as it is for some people), then it most certainly can be a bad thing… I agree. My problem is from Mr. Pasley’s insistence that profit is the root of all evil in the modern world, and that he equates profit with “capitalism”.
“Capitalism” is a Marxist term… literally. The first time it was coined was in the writings of Karl Marx as he defined capitalism as the “highest” order of social organization contemporary with the author. It was a necessary step in the process of social development that any society would have to work through on the “inevitable” path to socialist equality… according to Marx, anyway. The modern definition of the term is a little more objective than Marx’s original… it is the PRIVATE ownership of the means, manner, and material result of production and distribution of material or economic assets.
Socialism puts the MEANS of production in the hands of the State. Communism puts the MEANS and the RESULT of production into the hands of the State, with only the actual LABOR of the individual as their own. Neither socialism nor communism requires an individual’s interest in the MEANS or the RESULT of production… only in the LABOR of that production. No private ownership of land, manufacturing, distribution, or utilization can exist outside of the organs of the State.
Let’s pretend I am a baker, and I bake bread for a living here in the US. I am expected to purchase flour, salt, pans and an oven (making the MEANS and RESOURCES of production my own). I then mix the flour and salt with water, place the dough in the pan, and bake the dough in the oven. The resulting bread is then MINE, which I can use to feed myself and my family, or I can TRADE for other needed items like shelter, additional food, clothing, or more flour and salt to make more bread.
So, I make bread day in and day out, and make a moderate living for myself and my family. However, I want my children to be able to live a BETTER life than I am living now, so I choose to stop making bread, and to instead dig ditches for a wage that is twice what I was making living on the fruits of my bread-making efforts. I am now SELLING my labor for a WAGE that I determine to be profitable to myself and my family. Had the wage for digging ditches not been adequate to increase the level of prosperity I deemed necessary to change my “job”, I am under no compulsion to change my job… I can always make my bread and live within my moderate means. It is completely up to me.
Now, let’s pretend I am a baker in the Soviet Union (the closest historical example we have to the “utopia” that Marx envisioned). The flour, salt, pans and oven I need to ply my trade are provided for me, but since I have no say in the procurement of those items, the quality of those items is also out of my ability to control. So, I make my bread. When the components are of good quality, the bread is good and people will buy it. That should mean that with good ingredients, I could expect to make a good living, but the PRODUCT I am making (bread) is not mine to sell or trade… it is the STATES, because they own the MEANS of production and thus, they own the RESULTS of production… the bread. They also determine at what PRICE I can sell the bread I made, rather than allow the people BUYING the bread to determine if it is good enough to warrant 25 kopeks a loaf, or only 10 kopeks if the bread is poor quality do to the ingredients that I had no say in gathering. The State may decide that, because there are twice as many loaves of bread as are needed, and the Government is running at a deficit, they will charge one ruble per loaf generate extra revenue, even though NO ONE WILL BUY THE BREAD at all.
(NOTE: If you think I am exaggerating in my example, the above situation happened no less than FIVE times between 1917 and 1927, and resulted in “bread riots” that killed an estimated 250,000 people across the former USSR.)
Thus, the only component of the production formula that is actually MINE is my labor. The bad part of this is that they don’t need MY labor to produce the bread… the State owns the oven, the pans, and the ingredients, so all they need is someone to mix the dough and put it in the oven. No consideration is given to quality (labor has no quality control inherent in its makeup), so almost no skill is required.
I can thus very easily be directed by the State to dig ditches instead of baking bread, based only on the needs of the State. They have lots of bakers, and not enough ditch-diggers, so I am fingered to dig… at the same wage as the baker. Where the job of ditch-digger draws a wage twice that of the baker in the US, in the USSR, the wage is determined by the State according to my “ability” to produce labor… not ditches or bread.
Now, I know this is a juvenile and terribly simple example of a very complex topic of study… but it works.
Mr. Pasley seems to think that the Industrial Revolution was a “bad” thing in regards to the development of society. Obviously, extreme examples of abuse or greed can be found, but looking at it from an historical perspective, what can we definitively say about the results of the Industrial Revolution on the common man?
Prior to 1800, the value of a day’s labor hadn’t changed much at all in the 1,300 years since the fall of the Western Roman Empire (with some glaring exceptions, I know… I’m making general statements here). As a rule of thumb, the wage for a day’s labor was a day’s keep (food, shelter and protection for one day). The “profit” came from an individual’s ability to “sell” his labor at a rate greater than he was spending it, and this was very difficult. This is why Bede writes of a “denarii deum” (sp?) in the 8th Century as the wage of a day’s work and it is still applicable and understandable to the readers of Poor Richard’s Almanac when they read “A penny saved is a penny earned”… referring to the daily wage of Georgian England.
Then, we look at post-Industrial England. No longer hampered by the fact that most of the arable land in England was owned by the aristocracy and able to earn a wage in the very busy and very profitable textile factories and iron works, the average wage in 1830 in England is 2s2d (2 shillings and 2 pennies, or just under 30 pennies). By 1870, the average was up to 4s3d, or 51 pennies.
Now, does this equate to instant wealth and prosperity? Obviously not. With increased wages we see increased cost in housing and food, both of these often supplied exclusively by the employer. However, monopolies and cartels are NOT something that pure “capitalism” advocates as beneficial to the system. Simply read Smith’s Wealth of Nations and you’ll see that he (and the age he stemmed from) understood the importance of a free market economy to the individuals’ well being.
I am perfectly aware that abuses and tragic examples exist of the failings of our own free market system here in the US, just as any free market system would have failings and short-comings. I am also perfectly aware the every single example of a socialist or communist system of socioeconomic ideology has failed utterly and completely to achieve its promised goals.
My questions to the critics of OUR system are these: Which ideology do you think has MORE examples of success and individual prosperity, socialism or free market capitalism? Can one find an equivalent example within a free market society to the 6-10 million people that died of famine and starvation between 1928 and 1936 in the Soviet Union? Is there a capitalist system failure to compare to the 19 million deaths due to malnutrition and disease in Communist China between 1949 and 1958? Where is the capitalist counter to the 1994-1997 famine casualties, numbering 1.7 million souls, resulting from the domestic agendas of the socialist programs in North Korea? Why is it that the POOREST 1% of the American population can still live a lifestyle that gives them access to better housing, health care, and dietary intake than 65% of the population of the entire Southern Hemisphere… at NO COST to them?
I want to see the undeniable examples of the horror of our free market system when compared with the socialist "ideal" I hear so much about... then I will honestly consider the converation as "two-sided" and rational in its make up.
Without making too much of a mess, I thought I’d post some of what I found most “interesting” here, in the hopes of initiating a dialogue with a real, honest-to-God liberal activist.
Mr. Pasley’s most recent posts have a lot of focus on “profit” as a bad thing. When profit is the sum of all existence (as it is for some people), then it most certainly can be a bad thing… I agree. My problem is from Mr. Pasley’s insistence that profit is the root of all evil in the modern world, and that he equates profit with “capitalism”.
“Capitalism” is a Marxist term… literally. The first time it was coined was in the writings of Karl Marx as he defined capitalism as the “highest” order of social organization contemporary with the author. It was a necessary step in the process of social development that any society would have to work through on the “inevitable” path to socialist equality… according to Marx, anyway. The modern definition of the term is a little more objective than Marx’s original… it is the PRIVATE ownership of the means, manner, and material result of production and distribution of material or economic assets.
Socialism puts the MEANS of production in the hands of the State. Communism puts the MEANS and the RESULT of production into the hands of the State, with only the actual LABOR of the individual as their own. Neither socialism nor communism requires an individual’s interest in the MEANS or the RESULT of production… only in the LABOR of that production. No private ownership of land, manufacturing, distribution, or utilization can exist outside of the organs of the State.
Let’s pretend I am a baker, and I bake bread for a living here in the US. I am expected to purchase flour, salt, pans and an oven (making the MEANS and RESOURCES of production my own). I then mix the flour and salt with water, place the dough in the pan, and bake the dough in the oven. The resulting bread is then MINE, which I can use to feed myself and my family, or I can TRADE for other needed items like shelter, additional food, clothing, or more flour and salt to make more bread.
So, I make bread day in and day out, and make a moderate living for myself and my family. However, I want my children to be able to live a BETTER life than I am living now, so I choose to stop making bread, and to instead dig ditches for a wage that is twice what I was making living on the fruits of my bread-making efforts. I am now SELLING my labor for a WAGE that I determine to be profitable to myself and my family. Had the wage for digging ditches not been adequate to increase the level of prosperity I deemed necessary to change my “job”, I am under no compulsion to change my job… I can always make my bread and live within my moderate means. It is completely up to me.
Now, let’s pretend I am a baker in the Soviet Union (the closest historical example we have to the “utopia” that Marx envisioned). The flour, salt, pans and oven I need to ply my trade are provided for me, but since I have no say in the procurement of those items, the quality of those items is also out of my ability to control. So, I make my bread. When the components are of good quality, the bread is good and people will buy it. That should mean that with good ingredients, I could expect to make a good living, but the PRODUCT I am making (bread) is not mine to sell or trade… it is the STATES, because they own the MEANS of production and thus, they own the RESULTS of production… the bread. They also determine at what PRICE I can sell the bread I made, rather than allow the people BUYING the bread to determine if it is good enough to warrant 25 kopeks a loaf, or only 10 kopeks if the bread is poor quality do to the ingredients that I had no say in gathering. The State may decide that, because there are twice as many loaves of bread as are needed, and the Government is running at a deficit, they will charge one ruble per loaf generate extra revenue, even though NO ONE WILL BUY THE BREAD at all.
(NOTE: If you think I am exaggerating in my example, the above situation happened no less than FIVE times between 1917 and 1927, and resulted in “bread riots” that killed an estimated 250,000 people across the former USSR.)
Thus, the only component of the production formula that is actually MINE is my labor. The bad part of this is that they don’t need MY labor to produce the bread… the State owns the oven, the pans, and the ingredients, so all they need is someone to mix the dough and put it in the oven. No consideration is given to quality (labor has no quality control inherent in its makeup), so almost no skill is required.
I can thus very easily be directed by the State to dig ditches instead of baking bread, based only on the needs of the State. They have lots of bakers, and not enough ditch-diggers, so I am fingered to dig… at the same wage as the baker. Where the job of ditch-digger draws a wage twice that of the baker in the US, in the USSR, the wage is determined by the State according to my “ability” to produce labor… not ditches or bread.
Now, I know this is a juvenile and terribly simple example of a very complex topic of study… but it works.
Mr. Pasley seems to think that the Industrial Revolution was a “bad” thing in regards to the development of society. Obviously, extreme examples of abuse or greed can be found, but looking at it from an historical perspective, what can we definitively say about the results of the Industrial Revolution on the common man?
Prior to 1800, the value of a day’s labor hadn’t changed much at all in the 1,300 years since the fall of the Western Roman Empire (with some glaring exceptions, I know… I’m making general statements here). As a rule of thumb, the wage for a day’s labor was a day’s keep (food, shelter and protection for one day). The “profit” came from an individual’s ability to “sell” his labor at a rate greater than he was spending it, and this was very difficult. This is why Bede writes of a “denarii deum” (sp?) in the 8th Century as the wage of a day’s work and it is still applicable and understandable to the readers of Poor Richard’s Almanac when they read “A penny saved is a penny earned”… referring to the daily wage of Georgian England.
Then, we look at post-Industrial England. No longer hampered by the fact that most of the arable land in England was owned by the aristocracy and able to earn a wage in the very busy and very profitable textile factories and iron works, the average wage in 1830 in England is 2s2d (2 shillings and 2 pennies, or just under 30 pennies). By 1870, the average was up to 4s3d, or 51 pennies.
Now, does this equate to instant wealth and prosperity? Obviously not. With increased wages we see increased cost in housing and food, both of these often supplied exclusively by the employer. However, monopolies and cartels are NOT something that pure “capitalism” advocates as beneficial to the system. Simply read Smith’s Wealth of Nations and you’ll see that he (and the age he stemmed from) understood the importance of a free market economy to the individuals’ well being.
I am perfectly aware that abuses and tragic examples exist of the failings of our own free market system here in the US, just as any free market system would have failings and short-comings. I am also perfectly aware the every single example of a socialist or communist system of socioeconomic ideology has failed utterly and completely to achieve its promised goals.
My questions to the critics of OUR system are these: Which ideology do you think has MORE examples of success and individual prosperity, socialism or free market capitalism? Can one find an equivalent example within a free market society to the 6-10 million people that died of famine and starvation between 1928 and 1936 in the Soviet Union? Is there a capitalist system failure to compare to the 19 million deaths due to malnutrition and disease in Communist China between 1949 and 1958? Where is the capitalist counter to the 1994-1997 famine casualties, numbering 1.7 million souls, resulting from the domestic agendas of the socialist programs in North Korea? Why is it that the POOREST 1% of the American population can still live a lifestyle that gives them access to better housing, health care, and dietary intake than 65% of the population of the entire Southern Hemisphere… at NO COST to them?
I want to see the undeniable examples of the horror of our free market system when compared with the socialist "ideal" I hear so much about... then I will honestly consider the converation as "two-sided" and rational in its make up.
Homeland Security and our future leader
I have been trying to find in my research where Janet Napolitano has had experience in the past with security, defense or any other experience in this field. I have foune NONE. She is a lawyer and accomplished at that. Two term governor of Arizona, State Attorney General and so on but nothing that would say that she is qualified to lead what has become one of the single most important divisions of government. No military background, no security background, no history of even being involved in these matters at all. If she was pegged for Attorney General I may not be making this post but it's kind of odd that this is his pick for Homeland Security.
I keep getting this feeling of impending doom the more research I do on these matters. Why no Colin Powell. This is a man that understands defense, logistics and threats to our national security intimately. Why not one of the Police Chiefs from one of our Major cities, why not someone from the FBI who has similar credentials when it comes to these matters.
Am I the only one confused by this potential appointment?
I keep getting this feeling of impending doom the more research I do on these matters. Why no Colin Powell. This is a man that understands defense, logistics and threats to our national security intimately. Why not one of the Police Chiefs from one of our Major cities, why not someone from the FBI who has similar credentials when it comes to these matters.
Am I the only one confused by this potential appointment?
Shhh... so she can't hear us...
My wife turns 40 today...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love you, little girl... even if you are old enough to warrant an "antique" label...
{kiss}
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love you, little girl... even if you are old enough to warrant an "antique" label...
{kiss}
"Yeah... kids."
Since everyone else is running with the BoB quotes, I thought I'd keep the game going, too...
As to Jambo's last rant...
I, too, encourage ANYONE that wishes to comment on and join in with the debates and discussion we have going on here at the Bund... Mr. Pasley, especially, since he has shown a degree of maturity in his ability to discuss differing opinions that is rare, even among the Bund!
However, after reading James' post, I am inclined to think that he won't return.
There is little doubt in my mind that his particular political view will never mesh with, or even tolerate discussion with, the likes of ANY of ours... but especially Ryan's. I find it impossible to imagine Ryan patiently listening to someone who is sympathetic to (let alone actively involved in) the politics of the SDS.
This is not a criticism, however. Mr. Pasley is perfectly capable of making his own determinations about where his sympathies and preferences reside... in the words of my mentor, "he's old enough to drink, drive and vote" so surely he's entitled to his opinion.
I fear only that he would misunderstand our own, rather unique and certainly rare ability to DEFEND our own political views in a (usually) rational and objective manner inside of a debate/discussion forum as CRITICISM.
While I detest generalisms as a rule, it is impossible for me to avoid using them in the course of an "online discussion". There is no basis for the formulation of opinion OTHER than the words written on the screen, so when I am asked to take another person's words into the conversation, I have to take them at face value... anything else would be unfair to the discussion as a whole. Thus, when I see Ryan making posts defending the position of a specific person or ideology (usually "conservatism" in its most contemporary usage), I tend to assume that he is also defending ALL the positions associated with that person or ideology... which isn't always true, I know.
Truth be told, Mr. Pasley reminds me more of Ryan than would probably make Ryan comfortable. He is a young idealist... just as Ryan was when I first met him. I know Ryan recalls the day very well... so convinced that all his Reagan-esque wet dreams would be realized with the election of G W Bush, the continued control of Congress by the GOP, and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court... even though he was barely old enough to REMEMBER the Reagan Presidency.
What is impossible for the supporters of the liberal agenda to understand seems to be the simple, immutable fact that ANY socialist agenda, no matter how big or small it is, reduces all common results to the lowest common denominator. If the effort in question is health care, then the BEST health care that will be available will equal the lowest-level of care provided within the system. That is the undeniable truth of the old saying "a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link". The longer the chain, the less load it can carry.
Now, as much as I hate generalisms... I'm also very nervous of analogy. However, the "chain" analogy is very appropriate in regards to socialism. That being said, I have another analogy that is very applicable to a conservative point of view:
Archimedes is attributed with the saying "Give me a big enough lever, and I can move the world!" If the "lever" is opportunity, then the individual's ability to best determine AND obtain his/her own prosperity and success in life is the "world"... and no other hand need be involved. Human's only need the opportunities provided to us all by God Himself to succeed in life... anything else to the contrary is an excuse for mediocrity and dependency. This is as true now as it was when Man first walked the Earth.
I am convinced that even RYAN would agree that the US Government, as it stands right now, holds a degree of responsibility to the general welfare of the American public. The debate arrises ONLY when we discuss the DEGREE of that responsibility. The more responsibility we place on the Government for the public's welfare, the less responsibility we are able to take for our own lives and futures.
Every responsibility we surrender to the Government means we have surrendered a Right along with it. We are guaranteed the RIGHT to free speech, but we have the responsibility to not shout FIRE in a crowded theater just for a gag. We are guaranteed the Right to keep and bear arms, but that doesn't mean we can use the arms in irresponsible or illegal ways. We are guaranteed the Right to public assembly, but not if that infringes Rights or safety of others. Surrender the responsibility of the action, and you surrender the Right of the act.
How many times have I heard liberals (but not Mr. Pasley, to be perfectly fair) say that they do not want their tax dollars going towards the waging of an "immoral" war... yet they scoff at the thought of a conservative saying he doesn't want HIS tax dollars going towards someone else's abortion or drug abuse treatment or depression counseling as "greedy" or "selfish" or "uncaring", when in fact it is NO DIFFERENT than the liberal's position... no different at all. The difference lies with the definition of MORAL, not RESPONSIBILITY.
I DO hope Mr Pasley continues to check in and comment... a fresh and contrary point of view is very nice, and even necessary (according to Jefferson) from time to time... and I DO hope he will take the time to discuss his points of view with us, in an attempt to make US see things as HE does.
He would be the first "liberal" to ever do so... ever.
As to Jambo's last rant...
I, too, encourage ANYONE that wishes to comment on and join in with the debates and discussion we have going on here at the Bund... Mr. Pasley, especially, since he has shown a degree of maturity in his ability to discuss differing opinions that is rare, even among the Bund!
However, after reading James' post, I am inclined to think that he won't return.
There is little doubt in my mind that his particular political view will never mesh with, or even tolerate discussion with, the likes of ANY of ours... but especially Ryan's. I find it impossible to imagine Ryan patiently listening to someone who is sympathetic to (let alone actively involved in) the politics of the SDS.
This is not a criticism, however. Mr. Pasley is perfectly capable of making his own determinations about where his sympathies and preferences reside... in the words of my mentor, "he's old enough to drink, drive and vote" so surely he's entitled to his opinion.
I fear only that he would misunderstand our own, rather unique and certainly rare ability to DEFEND our own political views in a (usually) rational and objective manner inside of a debate/discussion forum as CRITICISM.
While I detest generalisms as a rule, it is impossible for me to avoid using them in the course of an "online discussion". There is no basis for the formulation of opinion OTHER than the words written on the screen, so when I am asked to take another person's words into the conversation, I have to take them at face value... anything else would be unfair to the discussion as a whole. Thus, when I see Ryan making posts defending the position of a specific person or ideology (usually "conservatism" in its most contemporary usage), I tend to assume that he is also defending ALL the positions associated with that person or ideology... which isn't always true, I know.
Truth be told, Mr. Pasley reminds me more of Ryan than would probably make Ryan comfortable. He is a young idealist... just as Ryan was when I first met him. I know Ryan recalls the day very well... so convinced that all his Reagan-esque wet dreams would be realized with the election of G W Bush, the continued control of Congress by the GOP, and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court... even though he was barely old enough to REMEMBER the Reagan Presidency.
What is impossible for the supporters of the liberal agenda to understand seems to be the simple, immutable fact that ANY socialist agenda, no matter how big or small it is, reduces all common results to the lowest common denominator. If the effort in question is health care, then the BEST health care that will be available will equal the lowest-level of care provided within the system. That is the undeniable truth of the old saying "a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link". The longer the chain, the less load it can carry.
Now, as much as I hate generalisms... I'm also very nervous of analogy. However, the "chain" analogy is very appropriate in regards to socialism. That being said, I have another analogy that is very applicable to a conservative point of view:
Archimedes is attributed with the saying "Give me a big enough lever, and I can move the world!" If the "lever" is opportunity, then the individual's ability to best determine AND obtain his/her own prosperity and success in life is the "world"... and no other hand need be involved. Human's only need the opportunities provided to us all by God Himself to succeed in life... anything else to the contrary is an excuse for mediocrity and dependency. This is as true now as it was when Man first walked the Earth.
I am convinced that even RYAN would agree that the US Government, as it stands right now, holds a degree of responsibility to the general welfare of the American public. The debate arrises ONLY when we discuss the DEGREE of that responsibility. The more responsibility we place on the Government for the public's welfare, the less responsibility we are able to take for our own lives and futures.
Every responsibility we surrender to the Government means we have surrendered a Right along with it. We are guaranteed the RIGHT to free speech, but we have the responsibility to not shout FIRE in a crowded theater just for a gag. We are guaranteed the Right to keep and bear arms, but that doesn't mean we can use the arms in irresponsible or illegal ways. We are guaranteed the Right to public assembly, but not if that infringes Rights or safety of others. Surrender the responsibility of the action, and you surrender the Right of the act.
How many times have I heard liberals (but not Mr. Pasley, to be perfectly fair) say that they do not want their tax dollars going towards the waging of an "immoral" war... yet they scoff at the thought of a conservative saying he doesn't want HIS tax dollars going towards someone else's abortion or drug abuse treatment or depression counseling as "greedy" or "selfish" or "uncaring", when in fact it is NO DIFFERENT than the liberal's position... no different at all. The difference lies with the definition of MORAL, not RESPONSIBILITY.
I DO hope Mr Pasley continues to check in and comment... a fresh and contrary point of view is very nice, and even necessary (according to Jefferson) from time to time... and I DO hope he will take the time to discuss his points of view with us, in an attempt to make US see things as HE does.
He would be the first "liberal" to ever do so... ever.
A total aside...
You guys KILL me!
There is a slot attendant at the joint named (here) Bob. Bob dealt dice in AC for a couple of years, then got out of the business and tried to make it in the "real world" until THIS casino opened, and he jumped back in.
Anyway... of all the people I work with at this house, VERY few have any actual dealing experience. My boss is one, and Bob is the other. Lot's of people with CASINO experience, but no dealers, if you get my drift. So, on those rare occassions that I get a chance to sit with Bob in the break room... we both have some serious fun "talking shop".
As with any specialized industry, there is a lingua franka used in casinos that allows ANYONE to understand what you are saying, but if you measure your time in the pits in decades, rather than years, terms like "stick", "toke", "hump", "wheel jack" and "puck wax" all roll off a tongue as easily as bad language in a good bar.
Sometimes, however, I fall into the habit of using terms from my previous life in the pits in my NEW job as a Director in NEPA. When I'm at a budget committee meeting sitting around a big table with lots of "suits" that make lots more money than I do, I find that I sometimes use terms that need to be defined for the bean-counting college kids or the marketing-degree flunkies that make up the bulk of the room I'm in.
Last OpCo meeting I had to sit through, I'm parked next to one of the senior hosts (a 23-year-old nerd that has never known the touch of a woman other than his mother), and the speaker makes a comment about something costing "$4400 times nine". Everyone laughs, as if this was some unimaginably hard calculation beyond the realm of possible solution without Big Blue on hand. I turn to the "nerd" and say "I didn't think $39,600 was enough to make that big of a difference." I must have said it lauder than I thought, because suddenly the speaker wanted to know how I knew the amount he was talking about...
"Last time I humped a table, we still paid a $44 "hard 8" $396... did something change in the casino business since the last time I was late from break?" I thought it would draw a giggle... but NO ONE got it.
Someone from that meeting asks my boss what the hell I was talking about, so she calls me to her office. I get there, and there is a room full of the same "break-ins" that still have wet ink on their marketing and bean-counting diplomas, and she makes the challenge that anyone that can offer a number between 1 and 1000, multiplied by a number of HER choosing (she dealt in AC, too) that I can't give an answer to immediately, WE'D buy lunch. If I did it, THEY'D buy lunch.
So, the numbers came from around the room... 788 x 35 (easy)... 17 x 11... (REALLY easy)... 543 x 9 (easier)... lots and lots of them. Then my boss started with her own challenges... what's $672 on the EIGHT pay? ( $784) What's an eighteen hundred dollar snapper pay? (twenty seven hundred) What's $170 straight up and $250 split pay? ($10200... 595 plus 425 x 10).
They really liked the "keys"... 11x, 17x, 9x, C and E, 6 and 8 placed, is a number a "proper bet" on the 6 and 8?
I eat free for a MONTH at this house! Until I gave them the keys, they thought I was RainMan, for Christ's sake.
There is a slot attendant at the joint named (here) Bob. Bob dealt dice in AC for a couple of years, then got out of the business and tried to make it in the "real world" until THIS casino opened, and he jumped back in.
Anyway... of all the people I work with at this house, VERY few have any actual dealing experience. My boss is one, and Bob is the other. Lot's of people with CASINO experience, but no dealers, if you get my drift. So, on those rare occassions that I get a chance to sit with Bob in the break room... we both have some serious fun "talking shop".
As with any specialized industry, there is a lingua franka used in casinos that allows ANYONE to understand what you are saying, but if you measure your time in the pits in decades, rather than years, terms like "stick", "toke", "hump", "wheel jack" and "puck wax" all roll off a tongue as easily as bad language in a good bar.
Sometimes, however, I fall into the habit of using terms from my previous life in the pits in my NEW job as a Director in NEPA. When I'm at a budget committee meeting sitting around a big table with lots of "suits" that make lots more money than I do, I find that I sometimes use terms that need to be defined for the bean-counting college kids or the marketing-degree flunkies that make up the bulk of the room I'm in.
Last OpCo meeting I had to sit through, I'm parked next to one of the senior hosts (a 23-year-old nerd that has never known the touch of a woman other than his mother), and the speaker makes a comment about something costing "$4400 times nine". Everyone laughs, as if this was some unimaginably hard calculation beyond the realm of possible solution without Big Blue on hand. I turn to the "nerd" and say "I didn't think $39,600 was enough to make that big of a difference." I must have said it lauder than I thought, because suddenly the speaker wanted to know how I knew the amount he was talking about...
"Last time I humped a table, we still paid a $44 "hard 8" $396... did something change in the casino business since the last time I was late from break?" I thought it would draw a giggle... but NO ONE got it.
Someone from that meeting asks my boss what the hell I was talking about, so she calls me to her office. I get there, and there is a room full of the same "break-ins" that still have wet ink on their marketing and bean-counting diplomas, and she makes the challenge that anyone that can offer a number between 1 and 1000, multiplied by a number of HER choosing (she dealt in AC, too) that I can't give an answer to immediately, WE'D buy lunch. If I did it, THEY'D buy lunch.
So, the numbers came from around the room... 788 x 35 (easy)... 17 x 11... (REALLY easy)... 543 x 9 (easier)... lots and lots of them. Then my boss started with her own challenges... what's $672 on the EIGHT pay? ( $784) What's an eighteen hundred dollar snapper pay? (twenty seven hundred) What's $170 straight up and $250 split pay? ($10200... 595 plus 425 x 10).
They really liked the "keys"... 11x, 17x, 9x, C and E, 6 and 8 placed, is a number a "proper bet" on the 6 and 8?
I eat free for a MONTH at this house! Until I gave them the keys, they thought I was RainMan, for Christ's sake.
I swear, some of them aren't even old enough to shave.
Bear with me. This is going to be a rant.
Three things are going on. Number one, our visitor Will has made me think about the nature of opposition, protest and identity. Number two, Ryan was bitching up a storm about his work's employee rally. And last, I just endured a monster tough night dealing dice, maybe one of my toughest eight hour stints since learning the freaking game nine years ago.
Our Constitution gives everyone the right to bitch. If they feel strongly enough and organize, this bitching becomes a protest. Early American writers from Thomas Paine to Alexander Hamilton to Jefferson to Henry David Thoreau to pick your modern Hunter S. Thompson have captured the essence of the American right and responsibility to bitch and protest. Organized protests against whatever, be it taxation without representation, unjust foreign wars, unjust domestic policies concerning economics, race relations, the environment, what have you, create an identity for that particular generation. My mother is a Kennedy Democrat, a true believer in Camelot still, after 40+ years, two assassinations, and the betrayal of every single seated Democrat in government aged 55 and younger. That is her identity. She didn't need to find it. She was born with it. My father, same age, is an Eisenhower Republican, voted for Nixon both times, a social conservative and a believer in strong foreign policy. That is his identity. He didn't need to find it. Point to any member of the Bund and you'll see who we are and why. No searching. It's found.
Edith Stein told Hemingway a while back that his was "the generation lost." They were the disillusioned veterans of WWI, those left out or behind, caught up in the roaring twenties, lacking identity, lacking vision, lacking a goal. Which proved to be one of the most untrue statements in literary history. Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to a certain extent John Steinbeck and a host of others I'm not giving credit to or mentioning due to the lateness of the hour and the fact that I'm three beers behind in my comfort buzz, these authors are DEFINED not by the fact that they're lost, but by the fact that THAT WAS WHO THEY WERE. Edith Stein was wrong. They may have been lost in her eyes, and they may have been lost in their own eyes, but that SEARCHING was who they were. If that is who you are, a searcher, a seeker, then great. Remember that. There is no shame in being a searcher or a seeker, for whatever. But by that very definition a searcher or a seeker cannot protest, because they have NO CORE, no definitive sense of identity.
Which brings me to our visitor Will. WELCOME! It is nice to see someone new, someone with a different opinion. Ryan was our resident baby and you've got him beat by a decade and THAT'S NICE. You said on your blog that you were an activist in his early twenties trying to figure out his life. Again, absolutely nothing wrong with that, in no way am I casting a negative judgement on this, thrilled to the point of rapture you take the time to read our blog let alone contribute, but to what are you an activist of, and what are you trying to figure out? I was unable to take the time to read your blog with the depth it deserves. I saw the two posts, one concerning Brown University, (Titus and I attended the University of Wisconsin, Ryan attended both Southern Mississippi and UNLV, and Baddboy attended the University of the United States Military, three branches, drop and give me 500. A degree in Master Sergeant chew your ass in a second, but we keep him under lock and key most the time.)and one concerning your hope in Barack Obama's potential of not being a centrist. Your sheep's clothing analogy dovetailed nicely with the same analogy you used in your "Who is a Christian" articles, especially the second one, haven't seen the promised third yet. Don't get us started on theology. Are you concerned about Barack "selling out?" Not being "left" enough? And if you're trying to figure out your life, how do you KNOW that "left" is okay, proper, or, pardon the pun, right?
Bearing with me? We're one third of the way done.
Ryan was bitching up a STORM about his employee rally he had to attend. In dealing, casino table games lingo, he found it appalling twenty year veterans were being told how to do their jobs by a company run by HR wannabes, Guest Service pukes and anal retentive suits who never pushed a check and couldn't pay a six dollar six. I was bent over, watching my virgin box person lose his mind while our dice game bled directly from the aorta to the tune of 225k (nine o'clock crew) by midnight, listening to my break in stick person ask me how much red I was going to dish out (my answer? Till it was all gone.) and not convert to these no tipping check changing pricks, pondering Ryan's rant of a few days ago, and I had an epiphany. The reason those twenty year vets at places like Caesars, MGM, pick your old casino do what they do? Because it's 1) who they are, and 2) all they're going to be. Being crusty isn't necessarily a good thing. Flexibility, adaptability, the willingness to achieve compromise at a level that does not rob you of your soul, these are necessary in all facets of life. Not just careers. I'm not defending you-ra-ra bullshit rallies, but you are far too young, Ryan, to be crusty. I have socks that have been in the business longer than you. That is not a shot on your ability. That is a shot at your ego. When you've been there long enough to get your name sewn on your shirt, you get to be crusty. Not before.
Which moves us to the nature of opposition, believe it or not. I will admit to a certain sense of anticipation when first reading Will's post. I am somewhat ashamed at the fact that "fresh meat" did cross my mind several times, both at the fact that Will was young and at the fact he was embracing an opinion and belief that was SO different from mine. My almost forty year old mind was honing the debating knives, ready to fillet Will on the grounds of opposition. And the same blown up dice game I just described, (okay, a little later in the night, 2:30, and the bleeding is near 400k now after TWO changes of dice) a second epiphany blinds me. What is BAD about a different opinion? Why can't Will look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, look at 12 years of Bush Sr. and Jr.'s administration as abject failures, as mistakes, as policies contrary to our nation's best interests? My answer? He can.
But then he gets to defend his position. And in defending he gets to maintain an open mind to the possibility he's wrong. At the same time I, and all the other Bund members, get to maintain an open mind to the possibility that we're wrong. And in the use of our debating knives, we get to use rational discourse to achieve a shared understanding of a common truth, perhaps a common goal. Which is the whole reason we do this in the first place, right?
So, back to young Will, (does that sound condescending, me referring to Will as "young" Will? I'm checking my caring meter. Nothing.)the activist. I am SO WAITING for your response! Measurable and specific policies that Obama NEVER made in his campaign. You could be his apologist, his defender, his champion. You are the voice of the CHANGE Obama shouted for, then backed away from during his victory speech. Jump in! We'll be nice, I promise. Look at how courteous Titus was, and he's the biggest crap head here!
In the end, the game lost just shy of 500k. For all that sweat equity I put into that game, we may have dropped 2k in the toke box. I think it was less than 1k, but the other salty dealer I had on my crew, Jason, said it was more and I trust him. Only once was I overtly rude to a player, and then promptly committed the unheard of act on a dice game and apologized for offending. (Got $100 toke for that.) I presented myself as a professional even though the entire night SCREAMED for me to lose my mind and go full whig on every asshole on the game, and the asshole sitting box. I didn't, and in the end that made me the better dealer, associate, and human being. Allowing young Will, (I am a pretentious FUCK!) the chance to state his position and defend it gives all of us the same opportunity.
Come on, WILL! We're waiting already!
(Five beers. Solid.)
Three things are going on. Number one, our visitor Will has made me think about the nature of opposition, protest and identity. Number two, Ryan was bitching up a storm about his work's employee rally. And last, I just endured a monster tough night dealing dice, maybe one of my toughest eight hour stints since learning the freaking game nine years ago.
Our Constitution gives everyone the right to bitch. If they feel strongly enough and organize, this bitching becomes a protest. Early American writers from Thomas Paine to Alexander Hamilton to Jefferson to Henry David Thoreau to pick your modern Hunter S. Thompson have captured the essence of the American right and responsibility to bitch and protest. Organized protests against whatever, be it taxation without representation, unjust foreign wars, unjust domestic policies concerning economics, race relations, the environment, what have you, create an identity for that particular generation. My mother is a Kennedy Democrat, a true believer in Camelot still, after 40+ years, two assassinations, and the betrayal of every single seated Democrat in government aged 55 and younger. That is her identity. She didn't need to find it. She was born with it. My father, same age, is an Eisenhower Republican, voted for Nixon both times, a social conservative and a believer in strong foreign policy. That is his identity. He didn't need to find it. Point to any member of the Bund and you'll see who we are and why. No searching. It's found.
Edith Stein told Hemingway a while back that his was "the generation lost." They were the disillusioned veterans of WWI, those left out or behind, caught up in the roaring twenties, lacking identity, lacking vision, lacking a goal. Which proved to be one of the most untrue statements in literary history. Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, to a certain extent John Steinbeck and a host of others I'm not giving credit to or mentioning due to the lateness of the hour and the fact that I'm three beers behind in my comfort buzz, these authors are DEFINED not by the fact that they're lost, but by the fact that THAT WAS WHO THEY WERE. Edith Stein was wrong. They may have been lost in her eyes, and they may have been lost in their own eyes, but that SEARCHING was who they were. If that is who you are, a searcher, a seeker, then great. Remember that. There is no shame in being a searcher or a seeker, for whatever. But by that very definition a searcher or a seeker cannot protest, because they have NO CORE, no definitive sense of identity.
Which brings me to our visitor Will. WELCOME! It is nice to see someone new, someone with a different opinion. Ryan was our resident baby and you've got him beat by a decade and THAT'S NICE. You said on your blog that you were an activist in his early twenties trying to figure out his life. Again, absolutely nothing wrong with that, in no way am I casting a negative judgement on this, thrilled to the point of rapture you take the time to read our blog let alone contribute, but to what are you an activist of, and what are you trying to figure out? I was unable to take the time to read your blog with the depth it deserves. I saw the two posts, one concerning Brown University, (Titus and I attended the University of Wisconsin, Ryan attended both Southern Mississippi and UNLV, and Baddboy attended the University of the United States Military, three branches, drop and give me 500. A degree in Master Sergeant chew your ass in a second, but we keep him under lock and key most the time.)and one concerning your hope in Barack Obama's potential of not being a centrist. Your sheep's clothing analogy dovetailed nicely with the same analogy you used in your "Who is a Christian" articles, especially the second one, haven't seen the promised third yet. Don't get us started on theology. Are you concerned about Barack "selling out?" Not being "left" enough? And if you're trying to figure out your life, how do you KNOW that "left" is okay, proper, or, pardon the pun, right?
Bearing with me? We're one third of the way done.
Ryan was bitching up a STORM about his employee rally he had to attend. In dealing, casino table games lingo, he found it appalling twenty year veterans were being told how to do their jobs by a company run by HR wannabes, Guest Service pukes and anal retentive suits who never pushed a check and couldn't pay a six dollar six. I was bent over, watching my virgin box person lose his mind while our dice game bled directly from the aorta to the tune of 225k (nine o'clock crew) by midnight, listening to my break in stick person ask me how much red I was going to dish out (my answer? Till it was all gone.) and not convert to these no tipping check changing pricks, pondering Ryan's rant of a few days ago, and I had an epiphany. The reason those twenty year vets at places like Caesars, MGM, pick your old casino do what they do? Because it's 1) who they are, and 2) all they're going to be. Being crusty isn't necessarily a good thing. Flexibility, adaptability, the willingness to achieve compromise at a level that does not rob you of your soul, these are necessary in all facets of life. Not just careers. I'm not defending you-ra-ra bullshit rallies, but you are far too young, Ryan, to be crusty. I have socks that have been in the business longer than you. That is not a shot on your ability. That is a shot at your ego. When you've been there long enough to get your name sewn on your shirt, you get to be crusty. Not before.
Which moves us to the nature of opposition, believe it or not. I will admit to a certain sense of anticipation when first reading Will's post. I am somewhat ashamed at the fact that "fresh meat" did cross my mind several times, both at the fact that Will was young and at the fact he was embracing an opinion and belief that was SO different from mine. My almost forty year old mind was honing the debating knives, ready to fillet Will on the grounds of opposition. And the same blown up dice game I just described, (okay, a little later in the night, 2:30, and the bleeding is near 400k now after TWO changes of dice) a second epiphany blinds me. What is BAD about a different opinion? Why can't Will look at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, look at 12 years of Bush Sr. and Jr.'s administration as abject failures, as mistakes, as policies contrary to our nation's best interests? My answer? He can.
But then he gets to defend his position. And in defending he gets to maintain an open mind to the possibility he's wrong. At the same time I, and all the other Bund members, get to maintain an open mind to the possibility that we're wrong. And in the use of our debating knives, we get to use rational discourse to achieve a shared understanding of a common truth, perhaps a common goal. Which is the whole reason we do this in the first place, right?
So, back to young Will, (does that sound condescending, me referring to Will as "young" Will? I'm checking my caring meter. Nothing.)the activist. I am SO WAITING for your response! Measurable and specific policies that Obama NEVER made in his campaign. You could be his apologist, his defender, his champion. You are the voice of the CHANGE Obama shouted for, then backed away from during his victory speech. Jump in! We'll be nice, I promise. Look at how courteous Titus was, and he's the biggest crap head here!
In the end, the game lost just shy of 500k. For all that sweat equity I put into that game, we may have dropped 2k in the toke box. I think it was less than 1k, but the other salty dealer I had on my crew, Jason, said it was more and I trust him. Only once was I overtly rude to a player, and then promptly committed the unheard of act on a dice game and apologized for offending. (Got $100 toke for that.) I presented myself as a professional even though the entire night SCREAMED for me to lose my mind and go full whig on every asshole on the game, and the asshole sitting box. I didn't, and in the end that made me the better dealer, associate, and human being. Allowing young Will, (I am a pretentious FUCK!) the chance to state his position and defend it gives all of us the same opportunity.
Come on, WILL! We're waiting already!
(Five beers. Solid.)
Friday, November 21, 2008
Who'd have thought?
I had really hoped that I'd never live to see the day when an effort to change an election outcome would go back to (or surpass) the "hanging chad" syndrome... but here we are. For God's sake, how desperate are these people? Not only is this ballot being "questioned" as having been cast for Coleman... but the Franken camp wants it counted for THEM because the "voter" obviously wanted to change his vote from Coleman to Franken... but forgot to VOTE for Franken after "crossing out" his Coleman vote.
Baddboy is right... it's the same old Democratic politics that we saw back in 2000, AND back in '94... hell, all the way back to 1980! It's never enough... it always has to be MORE. That is the new mantra of the DNC.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
CHANGE IS COMING!!!!!!.....??????
Ok for all of the Obama fans out there...Where the hell is the change? Have you seen his prospective cabinet? Where is the change. It's just a whole lot more of the same losers that have been hanging around Washington for years. Even one who couldn't get re-elected in his own state is going the be Health and Human Services Secretary. What a bunch of shit. This guy is going to be a puppet not a president. This guy is owned by some of the biggest losers in the history of American politics.
When do I start clicking my ruby slippers together so I can get out of this nightmare?
When do I start clicking my ruby slippers together so I can get out of this nightmare?
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Will Pasley said...
We've had a visitor, and he posted a comment I thought warranted a full post. Here it is:
"The path to hell is paved with good intentions. While they wanted to end what they saw as an immoral war and the system that generated it, they went about it in a wholely immoral way. I bet Weather saw the dominating tactics used by governments and their affect, so they decided to try to imitate them. Only they did not see the behind the scenes diplomacy and reconstruction efforts that accompany war and are able to create stable situations out of the chaos of war. I wonder, should we expect people in the countries we have invaded to react any differently to our violence than we have reacted to the Weather Underground's violence?"
Mr. Pasley, my answer to your question is quite simple... NO.
There is absolutely NO reason to think that people in any nation we have fought in (or invaded, if you prefer... but we didn't invade Vietnam, or Korea, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan... at least, not in the manner you mean) that are of the same caliber of mind and morals as Mr. Ayers should react any differently than he did... or than they have, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can say that because I really see NO difference between Mr. Ayers and any of the fanatics that are actually responsible for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorism and sectarian violence against innocent civilians.
Mr. Ayers has shown a fanatical (there is no other word for it, is there?) adherence to the dream of a communist/socialist society in which ALL people are FORCED to conform to a government-determined and mandated level of success and prosperity, and any that do not conform are to be removed from that society. Prairie Fire made that portion of his personal vision rather clear, I thought.
History shows us that this kind of "utopia" is not only politically impossible to achieve... it goes against the very grains of human nature itself. No parent on Earth could WANT to see their children relegated to the same status (literally, the exact SAME status, from education to job to domicile, to retirement... THAT is socio-economic equality, after all), generation after generation! We WANT our children to have MORE than we do... to work LESS than we do... to travel farther... and socialism in it's purest form CANNOT allow that to happen, to ANYONE. William Ayers doesn't want it to happen to anyone... period. He, and those like him, want all aspects of our lives permanently reduced to the lowest common denominator... not out of spite or for personal gain, but because that is what socialism is, pure and simple. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is the hallmark of the end of every society that has made it a part of it's creed.
Mr. Pasley, I do agree that "Hell is paved with good intentions" (a quote often attributed to Samuel Johnson, but actually from St. Bernard of Clairvoux... quite nice to see a good Catholic quote here at the Bund!)... and I sincerely hope that some of those very same pavers aren't the promises of one Barack H. Obama to his American constituency.
"The path to hell is paved with good intentions. While they wanted to end what they saw as an immoral war and the system that generated it, they went about it in a wholely immoral way. I bet Weather saw the dominating tactics used by governments and their affect, so they decided to try to imitate them. Only they did not see the behind the scenes diplomacy and reconstruction efforts that accompany war and are able to create stable situations out of the chaos of war. I wonder, should we expect people in the countries we have invaded to react any differently to our violence than we have reacted to the Weather Underground's violence?"
Mr. Pasley, my answer to your question is quite simple... NO.
There is absolutely NO reason to think that people in any nation we have fought in (or invaded, if you prefer... but we didn't invade Vietnam, or Korea, or Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan... at least, not in the manner you mean) that are of the same caliber of mind and morals as Mr. Ayers should react any differently than he did... or than they have, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can say that because I really see NO difference between Mr. Ayers and any of the fanatics that are actually responsible for the tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorism and sectarian violence against innocent civilians.
Mr. Ayers has shown a fanatical (there is no other word for it, is there?) adherence to the dream of a communist/socialist society in which ALL people are FORCED to conform to a government-determined and mandated level of success and prosperity, and any that do not conform are to be removed from that society. Prairie Fire made that portion of his personal vision rather clear, I thought.
History shows us that this kind of "utopia" is not only politically impossible to achieve... it goes against the very grains of human nature itself. No parent on Earth could WANT to see their children relegated to the same status (literally, the exact SAME status, from education to job to domicile, to retirement... THAT is socio-economic equality, after all), generation after generation! We WANT our children to have MORE than we do... to work LESS than we do... to travel farther... and socialism in it's purest form CANNOT allow that to happen, to ANYONE. William Ayers doesn't want it to happen to anyone... period. He, and those like him, want all aspects of our lives permanently reduced to the lowest common denominator... not out of spite or for personal gain, but because that is what socialism is, pure and simple. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is the hallmark of the end of every society that has made it a part of it's creed.
Mr. Pasley, I do agree that "Hell is paved with good intentions" (a quote often attributed to Samuel Johnson, but actually from St. Bernard of Clairvoux... quite nice to see a good Catholic quote here at the Bund!)... and I sincerely hope that some of those very same pavers aren't the promises of one Barack H. Obama to his American constituency.
To "Ayer" may be inhuman ...
... or at least a disregard of the very humanity he claimed to be "defending."
Damn fine post buddy.
Stinging in its indictment of Ayers (and the University president/board of regents I might add) and cause for more then a brief pause when considering our new president-elect.
Either Barak has piss poor judgment in whom he associates with, OR he finds little quarrel with Ayers past. Considering Obama's litany of "questionable" associations, and at the most intimate of levels (enter "spiritual mentor" Wright), I fear the answer to that question will do nothing to belay my gravest concerns.
Damn fine post buddy.
Stinging in its indictment of Ayers (and the University president/board of regents I might add) and cause for more then a brief pause when considering our new president-elect.
Either Barak has piss poor judgment in whom he associates with, OR he finds little quarrel with Ayers past. Considering Obama's litany of "questionable" associations, and at the most intimate of levels (enter "spiritual mentor" Wright), I fear the answer to that question will do nothing to belay my gravest concerns.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
This is really sticking in my gut...
I really don’t care if Bill Ayers is a close, personal friend of Obama’s or not… both have admitted to a “friendly association” and both have voiced similar political views. The liberal left made the act of mentioning Ayers during the campaign tantamount to public slander… but a few organizations have made real efforts to show just how dangerous someone like Ayers is, especially in light of his current role as a Distinguished Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
A conservative think-tank in Appleton, WI has recently presented a series of articles in which they detail just how much false information has been given to the public about Ayers, both by his own words and interviews and by the mainstream media. The main article can be found HERE, but I’ll summarize the info here on the Bund for all of us, okay?
During the GMA interview of Ayers a couple of days ago, Bill Ayers AGAIN stated that the Weatherman did not kill anyone, and that he was in no way responsible for any deaths or injuries attributed to the Weatherman, the SDS, the RYM, or any other violently anti-American organizations of the 60’s and 70’s that he may have been associated with. He AGAIN defended his words and actions as “justified” in light of the era they were happening in… including the manufacture, placement and detonation of explosive devices in public places and buildings and calculated acts of deadly violence against police and civil authorities. Rather than voice any regret over the acts and words of the past, Ayers explained them away as “misunderstood” in the light of past perspectives.
This is what I KNOW to be true about William C. Ayers, Distinguished Professor and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago and “family friend” of President-Elect Barack H. Obama:
According to his memoirs, Fugitive Days, Ayers was instrumental in moving the radical anti-war group SDS towards violence and militancy through the efforts of his Midwest branch of the SDS, called the Jesse James Gang, during the years of 1968 and 1969. In 1969, Ayers participated in the construction and detonation of a bomb at a public statue in a Chicago-area park (with no reported injuries associated to it, I’ll admit).
By 1970, the FBI had determined that Ayers and his future wife, Bernadine Dohrn, were the de facto leaders of the “Weatherman”, which had assumed control of the SDS during the “Days of Rage” in 1969.
In December of 1970, the Weather Underground Organization (the name Ayers gave the Weatherman), wrote an “official” Declaration of a State of War against the government of the United States of America. Although never indicted, this constituted an Act of Treason against the United States, which carries the maximum penalty of death, and a minimum penalty of no less than 5 years in prison and a fine of $10,000… and has NO statute of limitations (click HERE if you doubt me). Ayers has never retracted that declaration, nor shown or stated any remorse for having made it.
In Fugitive Days, Ayers admits to being involved in the bombing of the New York City Police HQ in 1970, the bombing of the US Capitol in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972. No deaths resulted from these bombings, but the resulting damage was estimated at roughly $500,000 and took more than a year to repair and 17 people were hospitalized (in total).
Ayers wrote a 34-page defense of his “Smash Monogamy” theory, whereby all traditional monogamous relationships would be forced to split up, and individuals would join into large “group sex” events that would foster a sentiment of communal “sharing” of every aspect of privacy or intimacy. He has never retracted anything from that document, although he has been married to SDS radial Bernadine Dohrn for nearly 40 years.
In 1974, Ayers and Dohrn co-authored the manifesto of their movement, calling it Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism. This terribly disturbing book is something that every defender of Ayers should be forced to read, as it gives (in no uncertain terms) a clear blue-print of the Weathermen’s, and specifically Ayers and Dohrn’s, political and social agenda. The manifesto contains such quaint little tid-bits as:
A description of the Weathermen as an organization: “We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. We are deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism. Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside.”
An insight into the agenda of the Weathermen: “Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle. Without mass struggle there can be no revolution. Without armed struggle there can be no victory.”
A very insightful definition of the group’s ideology: “Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all.”
In the GMA interview, he defended his WUO associations as part of a broader “anti-war” effort. This is a far too simplistic view, though, I fear. Follow the links provided, and then tell me that man and his associates weren’t advocating violence and militarism against US society in general. Far too much of Ayer’s rhetoric is anti-American, and far too little is anti-war.
How can one be anti-war and still advocate the VIOLENT and MILITARISTIC overthrow of the US Government? How can one be an “avowed pacifist” (as he STILL claims to be) and admit to having PARTICPATED in the planting of as many as SEVEN BOMBS within the boundaries of the US… and all in public areas?
How does one determine that “violent action against racism” is any more of a defense of immoral action than those people formerly associated with the Ku Klux Klan that may have participated in the bombings BECAUSE of racism? BOTH are illegal and immoral acts, by any definition of the words, and both positions are indefensible, in my eyes.
Now, do I feel this is a pertinent subject for discussion because Ayers and Dohrn are associates of Obama? Yes, but not everyone may feel that way. However, EVERYONE should be concerned by the fact that both Ayers and Dohrn are STILL teaching for the State of Illinois, and BOTH have been commended PUBLICLY by Obama as far back as 8 years ago… well before the Presidential campaign kicked off in Ayer’s living room.
A conservative think-tank in Appleton, WI has recently presented a series of articles in which they detail just how much false information has been given to the public about Ayers, both by his own words and interviews and by the mainstream media. The main article can be found HERE, but I’ll summarize the info here on the Bund for all of us, okay?
During the GMA interview of Ayers a couple of days ago, Bill Ayers AGAIN stated that the Weatherman did not kill anyone, and that he was in no way responsible for any deaths or injuries attributed to the Weatherman, the SDS, the RYM, or any other violently anti-American organizations of the 60’s and 70’s that he may have been associated with. He AGAIN defended his words and actions as “justified” in light of the era they were happening in… including the manufacture, placement and detonation of explosive devices in public places and buildings and calculated acts of deadly violence against police and civil authorities. Rather than voice any regret over the acts and words of the past, Ayers explained them away as “misunderstood” in the light of past perspectives.
This is what I KNOW to be true about William C. Ayers, Distinguished Professor and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago and “family friend” of President-Elect Barack H. Obama:
According to his memoirs, Fugitive Days, Ayers was instrumental in moving the radical anti-war group SDS towards violence and militancy through the efforts of his Midwest branch of the SDS, called the Jesse James Gang, during the years of 1968 and 1969. In 1969, Ayers participated in the construction and detonation of a bomb at a public statue in a Chicago-area park (with no reported injuries associated to it, I’ll admit).
By 1970, the FBI had determined that Ayers and his future wife, Bernadine Dohrn, were the de facto leaders of the “Weatherman”, which had assumed control of the SDS during the “Days of Rage” in 1969.
In December of 1970, the Weather Underground Organization (the name Ayers gave the Weatherman), wrote an “official” Declaration of a State of War against the government of the United States of America. Although never indicted, this constituted an Act of Treason against the United States, which carries the maximum penalty of death, and a minimum penalty of no less than 5 years in prison and a fine of $10,000… and has NO statute of limitations (click HERE if you doubt me). Ayers has never retracted that declaration, nor shown or stated any remorse for having made it.
In Fugitive Days, Ayers admits to being involved in the bombing of the New York City Police HQ in 1970, the bombing of the US Capitol in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972. No deaths resulted from these bombings, but the resulting damage was estimated at roughly $500,000 and took more than a year to repair and 17 people were hospitalized (in total).
Ayers wrote a 34-page defense of his “Smash Monogamy” theory, whereby all traditional monogamous relationships would be forced to split up, and individuals would join into large “group sex” events that would foster a sentiment of communal “sharing” of every aspect of privacy or intimacy. He has never retracted anything from that document, although he has been married to SDS radial Bernadine Dohrn for nearly 40 years.
In 1974, Ayers and Dohrn co-authored the manifesto of their movement, calling it Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism. This terribly disturbing book is something that every defender of Ayers should be forced to read, as it gives (in no uncertain terms) a clear blue-print of the Weathermen’s, and specifically Ayers and Dohrn’s, political and social agenda. The manifesto contains such quaint little tid-bits as:
A description of the Weathermen as an organization: “We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men, underground in the United States for more than four years. We are deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism. Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside.”
An insight into the agenda of the Weathermen: “Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle. Without mass struggle there can be no revolution. Without armed struggle there can be no victory.”
A very insightful definition of the group’s ideology: “Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit. Socialism means control of the productive forces for the good of the whole community instead of the few who live on hilltops and in mansions. Socialism means priorities based on human need instead of corporate greed. Socialism creates the conditions for a decent and creative quality of life for all.”
In the GMA interview, he defended his WUO associations as part of a broader “anti-war” effort. This is a far too simplistic view, though, I fear. Follow the links provided, and then tell me that man and his associates weren’t advocating violence and militarism against US society in general. Far too much of Ayer’s rhetoric is anti-American, and far too little is anti-war.
How can one be anti-war and still advocate the VIOLENT and MILITARISTIC overthrow of the US Government? How can one be an “avowed pacifist” (as he STILL claims to be) and admit to having PARTICPATED in the planting of as many as SEVEN BOMBS within the boundaries of the US… and all in public areas?
How does one determine that “violent action against racism” is any more of a defense of immoral action than those people formerly associated with the Ku Klux Klan that may have participated in the bombings BECAUSE of racism? BOTH are illegal and immoral acts, by any definition of the words, and both positions are indefensible, in my eyes.
Now, do I feel this is a pertinent subject for discussion because Ayers and Dohrn are associates of Obama? Yes, but not everyone may feel that way. However, EVERYONE should be concerned by the fact that both Ayers and Dohrn are STILL teaching for the State of Illinois, and BOTH have been commended PUBLICLY by Obama as far back as 8 years ago… well before the Presidential campaign kicked off in Ayer’s living room.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Can you believe this?
This is the November 24th, 2008 issue of Time Magazine:
That noise you hear, is smoke steaming from Jambo's ears.
That noise you hear, is smoke steaming from Jambo's ears.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The home of A Prarie Home Companion.
Well, it's not a stretch to say that the fate of the country rests in the hands of Minnesotans.
For the second election cycle in a row not a single Democrat held seat in the Senate was lost. So as of now the current make up in the US Senate is as follows: 55 Democrats, with 2 Independents that caucus (align with) Democrats, giving Harry Reid at least a solid 57 seats come the next session. Now 1 of the 2 independents is Berney Sanders (S) VT, and yes, that "S" stands for his self described status as a socialist, no joke. The other being Joe Lieberman (I) CT. Obviously Lieberman is the MOST conservative member to caucus with the Democrats, and will oppose them probably as often as any moderate Republican. However, his caucus choice and his track record clearly suggests that he will not participate in any filibuster. And there is the key boys and girls - will Obama have a filibuster-proof Senate? 60 is the magic number to break any filibuster. GOP seats as of the 2008 election results stand currently at 40 even. Leaving 3 too close to call. Those 3 are in Georgia, Minnesota, and Alaska.
In Georgia Saxby Chamblis won the largest plurality of votes in a 3 way race, but in GA you must win a simple majority of the votes to win the seat, so in accordance with the state law the top 2 finishers go to a special election the first week of December. The other challenger was an Independent that garnered most of his votes from the Chamblis voter base, so everyone assumes that in a 2 way race, Saxby will win ... and they're right. In Alaska we have Ted Stevens. He was convicted as a felon due to a large state wide bribery and corruption probe that involved both parties and a particular oil company seeking preferential treatment. Apparently one aspect involved his son, whom is the state Senate President (or was). He was given $242,000 dollars by a Veco oil company executive, and part of the deal involved renovating his father's home (Ted Stevens), nearly doubling its size. Stevens was convicted of 7 felony accounts including making false statements to authorities. That case is on appeal, but it put his normally untouchabley safe seat in jeopardy. The closeness of election night results triggered a recount, and with only 12% left to recount, mostly in heavy Democrat favored areas, Stevens is losing by 814 votes to the (Anchorage mayor) challenger. Interestingly enough there, if Stevens pulls off the victory,he will be forced to resign by the GOP almost immediately, and Sarah Palin can appoint herself to the US Senate. But alas, she will probably not get that chance.
So, assuming those two races go the way they are trending, that puts the count at 58 Democrats to 41 Republicans. By the way, that is also why Reid rescinded his threat to remove Lieberman from the Homeland Security chairmanship - they need him now.
That leaves Minnesota. THIS is the most interesting race (and that's saying something given the other 2 consist of a run-off and a convicted felon!). Al Franken, the sad, sad little man we all know of, versus the incumbent Norm Coleman. On election night Coleman lead by 723 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. That triggered an automatic electronic recount because the margin of victory was less the 1 half of 1 percent. An electronic recount involves simply running the ballots back through the machine. Typically in any recount the first victor ends up hanging on to that victory because as you might of guessed, a few extra votes for each side are usually shaken out. However, now get this, in 3 heavy Democrat favored precincts near Deluth, they suddenly "found" a total of 517 previously uncounted ballots for Franken, one batch found in an election official's trunk! That's 3 precincts out of 4,130. And not even 1 previously uncounted vote for Coleman was found in any precinct whatsoever. That number, 517, constitutes more "newly found" ballots then every other precinct in every other race for 2008 in Minnesota, COMBINED. Your eyebrow raised yet? Add to that who the election executive officer is - a guy named Mark Ritchie. He, as in every state, guides the election process as the Secretary of State. Here's the problem: this guy has worked hand-in-hand with ACORN for years in MN before his political ascension (they even praise his cooperation on their web site) to SoS. He also refused to initiate investigations into ACORN when official complaints about voter registration irregularities were lodged against the group (fyi, there are ongoing FBI criminally fraudulent investigations into ACORN in at least 12 states at current). AND this Ritchie was elected to his seat via funding of a 527 group whose sole aim was to get Democrats elected to Secretary of State seats throughout the nation so as to avoid facing another Katherine Harris (from the Florida recount) certifying GOP victories as she did in 2000. Who founded and runs this 527, named "Protect Our Elections"? None other then former Moveon.org leader James Rucker.
So, you can every confidence in Ritchie's claims that those ballots were in a trunk ... huh? I mean this guy's long track record of bipartisanship is certainly confidence inspiring ... eh hem (large and loud throat clearing going on there).
It doesn't end there. Although the electronic recount has been certified with a Coleman victory of just 206 votes, the closeness of the recount margin triggers an automatic hand recount by a 5 person canvasing board. Guess who appoints the board members? Ritchie. He appointed 2 judges nominated by the current Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty (and we know that always means ideological loyalty, right Sooter?) and 2 judges appointed by a former Democrat governor. And of course, Ritchie appointed himself. This hand recount initiates 11/19/08, and is set to conclude by mid December. Ohhh ... and one other thing. Ritchie has announced this canvasing boards powers include the ability to "interpret intent" of the voter. You might think, what the hell? A hanging chad again? No. More like this: lets say a ballot is examined that has a vote for Barak Obama, and other Democrats down the line, but no choice (and I mean no mark whatsoever) was made for the Senate race. They intend to interpret that as a "aye" vote for Franken, because clearly the voter, whom voted down the line Democrat, "intended" to vote for Franken. It couldn't be an angry protest vote against Bush by someone who happened to like his own guy, his Senator Coleman. Naaahh. That couldn't be. That's why we need them, like a Johnny Carson bit holding the envelope to their head with an over sized genie hat on, interpreting "intent" for that voter, who didn't know what they were doing ... *sigh.*
With a Franken win it will give Reid and Obama a 59 seat majority. All they have to do is pick off one moderate Republican like Olympia Snow, Lamar Alexander, or dare I say it - John Sydney MCain, and there is your filibuster proof Senate. Hell, even if Franken loses they need only pick up 2 renegade Republicans. Among many other things this will probably mean that legal abortion is safe for another 25 years, for Barak will be able to get through ANY Supreme Court nominee fresh out of the ACLU pool, or ACORN's ranks.
3 words: elections have consequences.
I'm telling you something - the resurgence of the GOP is going to have to be fought in the trenches - state rep, state senate, and the other local office levels. Both to protect against such nonsense as in MN, AND to build our own talent pool from which future federal Senators, congressman and governors are plucked. And that's precisely the point I will make in my much promoted email to the NV RNC today ... he, he, he.
For the second election cycle in a row not a single Democrat held seat in the Senate was lost. So as of now the current make up in the US Senate is as follows: 55 Democrats, with 2 Independents that caucus (align with) Democrats, giving Harry Reid at least a solid 57 seats come the next session. Now 1 of the 2 independents is Berney Sanders (S) VT, and yes, that "S" stands for his self described status as a socialist, no joke. The other being Joe Lieberman (I) CT. Obviously Lieberman is the MOST conservative member to caucus with the Democrats, and will oppose them probably as often as any moderate Republican. However, his caucus choice and his track record clearly suggests that he will not participate in any filibuster. And there is the key boys and girls - will Obama have a filibuster-proof Senate? 60 is the magic number to break any filibuster. GOP seats as of the 2008 election results stand currently at 40 even. Leaving 3 too close to call. Those 3 are in Georgia, Minnesota, and Alaska.
In Georgia Saxby Chamblis won the largest plurality of votes in a 3 way race, but in GA you must win a simple majority of the votes to win the seat, so in accordance with the state law the top 2 finishers go to a special election the first week of December. The other challenger was an Independent that garnered most of his votes from the Chamblis voter base, so everyone assumes that in a 2 way race, Saxby will win ... and they're right. In Alaska we have Ted Stevens. He was convicted as a felon due to a large state wide bribery and corruption probe that involved both parties and a particular oil company seeking preferential treatment. Apparently one aspect involved his son, whom is the state Senate President (or was). He was given $242,000 dollars by a Veco oil company executive, and part of the deal involved renovating his father's home (Ted Stevens), nearly doubling its size. Stevens was convicted of 7 felony accounts including making false statements to authorities. That case is on appeal, but it put his normally untouchabley safe seat in jeopardy. The closeness of election night results triggered a recount, and with only 12% left to recount, mostly in heavy Democrat favored areas, Stevens is losing by 814 votes to the (Anchorage mayor) challenger. Interestingly enough there, if Stevens pulls off the victory,he will be forced to resign by the GOP almost immediately, and Sarah Palin can appoint herself to the US Senate. But alas, she will probably not get that chance.
So, assuming those two races go the way they are trending, that puts the count at 58 Democrats to 41 Republicans. By the way, that is also why Reid rescinded his threat to remove Lieberman from the Homeland Security chairmanship - they need him now.
That leaves Minnesota. THIS is the most interesting race (and that's saying something given the other 2 consist of a run-off and a convicted felon!). Al Franken, the sad, sad little man we all know of, versus the incumbent Norm Coleman. On election night Coleman lead by 723 votes out of nearly 3 million cast. That triggered an automatic electronic recount because the margin of victory was less the 1 half of 1 percent. An electronic recount involves simply running the ballots back through the machine. Typically in any recount the first victor ends up hanging on to that victory because as you might of guessed, a few extra votes for each side are usually shaken out. However, now get this, in 3 heavy Democrat favored precincts near Deluth, they suddenly "found" a total of 517 previously uncounted ballots for Franken, one batch found in an election official's trunk! That's 3 precincts out of 4,130. And not even 1 previously uncounted vote for Coleman was found in any precinct whatsoever. That number, 517, constitutes more "newly found" ballots then every other precinct in every other race for 2008 in Minnesota, COMBINED. Your eyebrow raised yet? Add to that who the election executive officer is - a guy named Mark Ritchie. He, as in every state, guides the election process as the Secretary of State. Here's the problem: this guy has worked hand-in-hand with ACORN for years in MN before his political ascension (they even praise his cooperation on their web site) to SoS. He also refused to initiate investigations into ACORN when official complaints about voter registration irregularities were lodged against the group (fyi, there are ongoing FBI criminally fraudulent investigations into ACORN in at least 12 states at current). AND this Ritchie was elected to his seat via funding of a 527 group whose sole aim was to get Democrats elected to Secretary of State seats throughout the nation so as to avoid facing another Katherine Harris (from the Florida recount) certifying GOP victories as she did in 2000. Who founded and runs this 527, named "Protect Our Elections"? None other then former Moveon.org leader James Rucker.
So, you can every confidence in Ritchie's claims that those ballots were in a trunk ... huh? I mean this guy's long track record of bipartisanship is certainly confidence inspiring ... eh hem (large and loud throat clearing going on there).
It doesn't end there. Although the electronic recount has been certified with a Coleman victory of just 206 votes, the closeness of the recount margin triggers an automatic hand recount by a 5 person canvasing board. Guess who appoints the board members? Ritchie. He appointed 2 judges nominated by the current Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty (and we know that always means ideological loyalty, right Sooter?) and 2 judges appointed by a former Democrat governor. And of course, Ritchie appointed himself. This hand recount initiates 11/19/08, and is set to conclude by mid December. Ohhh ... and one other thing. Ritchie has announced this canvasing boards powers include the ability to "interpret intent" of the voter. You might think, what the hell? A hanging chad again? No. More like this: lets say a ballot is examined that has a vote for Barak Obama, and other Democrats down the line, but no choice (and I mean no mark whatsoever) was made for the Senate race. They intend to interpret that as a "aye" vote for Franken, because clearly the voter, whom voted down the line Democrat, "intended" to vote for Franken. It couldn't be an angry protest vote against Bush by someone who happened to like his own guy, his Senator Coleman. Naaahh. That couldn't be. That's why we need them, like a Johnny Carson bit holding the envelope to their head with an over sized genie hat on, interpreting "intent" for that voter, who didn't know what they were doing ... *sigh.*
With a Franken win it will give Reid and Obama a 59 seat majority. All they have to do is pick off one moderate Republican like Olympia Snow, Lamar Alexander, or dare I say it - John Sydney MCain, and there is your filibuster proof Senate. Hell, even if Franken loses they need only pick up 2 renegade Republicans. Among many other things this will probably mean that legal abortion is safe for another 25 years, for Barak will be able to get through ANY Supreme Court nominee fresh out of the ACLU pool, or ACORN's ranks.
3 words: elections have consequences.
I'm telling you something - the resurgence of the GOP is going to have to be fought in the trenches - state rep, state senate, and the other local office levels. Both to protect against such nonsense as in MN, AND to build our own talent pool from which future federal Senators, congressman and governors are plucked. And that's precisely the point I will make in my much promoted email to the NV RNC today ... he, he, he.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
"Oh, I have every confidence in my scrounging abilities."
See ... told ya.
Having a text duel with ol' Jambo here, and I decided to post and save time.
The energy initiative Jambo spoke of a couple posts back ... yes, I agree that if you want a Reaganesque, history making long term defeat of our current enemies (Iran, Al Qeda) and "strategic competitors" (as in China), then energy independence will secure your legacy as PoTus in that vain, no question.
However, I am reluctant, to say the least, to embrace the prospect of a government works program to deal with this aspect of national security (energy independence). Jambo made the point that Reagan used the federal government via the military to defeat the Soviets. He infused our boys with funds that the Soviets simply couldn't match, and by definition, that was a government program given the military is part of the federal government under the command of the executive office. However, there is no energy department equivalent to the military. A highly professional, organized, motivated, successful organization with a proven track record is how I would describe our armed forces. Does anyone really believe that the federal government can duplicate that description in terms of creating a new energy department? I don't. So, infusing a federal program bent on energy independence via domestic production, with the cash and drive demonstrated by Reagan and the military in the 80's, would be a guaranteed disaster in my estimation.
Rather, I argue,the type of Reaganesque leadership needed here should take the form of using the bully pulpit of the presidency to 1.) focus attention on the need for domestic recovery of energy; 2.) massive deregulation legislation in terms of what it takes to get coal, nuclear, oil (refineries), and solar plants online; 3.) incentivize the tax code so as to make the prospect of getting these plants online even more attractive.
So even though you have a Reagan/military, or JFK/NASA style drive in terms of rhetoric, focus, and national expectations of success coming from the PoTUS, you legislate so as to make this energy recovery very attractive to the private sector professionals within the energy community, rather then directly participate in the recovery. NASA and the military are extreme exceptions to the litany of government program failures, and in my opinion have next to no chance of being duplicated with a new energy department or czar.
Oh ... and on that note. Obama has created the post of "Environmental Czar." He offered the post to Al Gore, the word is, but Al turned it down. Any one want to take odds on how much MORE DIFFICULT it just became for us to recover domestic energy? Ya ... that new position should scare the begeebees out of the Chinese and Iran ... huh?
Having a text duel with ol' Jambo here, and I decided to post and save time.
The energy initiative Jambo spoke of a couple posts back ... yes, I agree that if you want a Reaganesque, history making long term defeat of our current enemies (Iran, Al Qeda) and "strategic competitors" (as in China), then energy independence will secure your legacy as PoTus in that vain, no question.
However, I am reluctant, to say the least, to embrace the prospect of a government works program to deal with this aspect of national security (energy independence). Jambo made the point that Reagan used the federal government via the military to defeat the Soviets. He infused our boys with funds that the Soviets simply couldn't match, and by definition, that was a government program given the military is part of the federal government under the command of the executive office. However, there is no energy department equivalent to the military. A highly professional, organized, motivated, successful organization with a proven track record is how I would describe our armed forces. Does anyone really believe that the federal government can duplicate that description in terms of creating a new energy department? I don't. So, infusing a federal program bent on energy independence via domestic production, with the cash and drive demonstrated by Reagan and the military in the 80's, would be a guaranteed disaster in my estimation.
Rather, I argue,the type of Reaganesque leadership needed here should take the form of using the bully pulpit of the presidency to 1.) focus attention on the need for domestic recovery of energy; 2.) massive deregulation legislation in terms of what it takes to get coal, nuclear, oil (refineries), and solar plants online; 3.) incentivize the tax code so as to make the prospect of getting these plants online even more attractive.
So even though you have a Reagan/military, or JFK/NASA style drive in terms of rhetoric, focus, and national expectations of success coming from the PoTUS, you legislate so as to make this energy recovery very attractive to the private sector professionals within the energy community, rather then directly participate in the recovery. NASA and the military are extreme exceptions to the litany of government program failures, and in my opinion have next to no chance of being duplicated with a new energy department or czar.
Oh ... and on that note. Obama has created the post of "Environmental Czar." He offered the post to Al Gore, the word is, but Al turned it down. Any one want to take odds on how much MORE DIFFICULT it just became for us to recover domestic energy? Ya ... that new position should scare the begeebees out of the Chinese and Iran ... huh?
"Ol' Gonorrhea don't miss nothin."
Naaah ... I think there is still a bountiful supply of Band of Brothers quotes available .. he, he.
To follow up on Titus's post about the reality of the office dictating, or at least curbing the initial idealism of fundamental "change" that a new president campaigns on ... we have our first example, and president-elect Obama hasn't even been sworn in yet.
As we all know one of the most talked about campaign issues (at least prior to the economic surprise) was Iraq. In fact, that front in our global war against Islamo-fascism was THE hot button issue that President-Elect Obama and his supporters rallied around prior to mid September, when Freddie and Fannie tanked. And their rallying cry was simple: "GET OUT!" Time lines, withdrawals, responsible disengagement, redeployment - all phrases and words used by Obama. Titus aptly noted multiple historical examples of 180 degree shifts when the candidate becomes the president. Well, word is now that Obama has asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to stay on for the first year into his presidency. Now think about that ... this is a man (Obama) whom passed up no opportunity to describe our entry into Iraq as a mistake. Screamed for withdrawal, defeated Hillary largely based on her "aye" Iraq vote, opposed the surge categorically, said our presence is the source of violence, etc, etc, and here he is asking the Sec Def of the much demagogued "Dubya"to stay on. It is a RINGING ENDORSEMENT of the surge, and the need to stay until we are victorious and have a stable Iraq. And more importantly an endorsement of one George W. Bush's current policy - after having ran on opposing that very policy for over a year! It is a simply STUNNING 180 degree turn. Reports on this story are anemic at best, but as the subject line suggests, I caught it (the story that is, not the STD).
I would assume that any died in the wool Obama supporter would expect him to clean house up and down the federal food chain given the level of anti-Bush sentiment and flat out hatred eminating from his supporters, and especially in terms of changing our current Iraq policy. Yet here he is confirming not only that he will "maintain" the Bush course on the one issue that united his party prior to economics, but maintain the same team! Add to that he has indicated no intention to replace Cent Com commander General Patraeus. Both Gates and Patraeus are huge advocates of the surge and "finishing the job." I think Obama fanatics should prepare for severe disillusionment.
To follow up on Titus's post about the reality of the office dictating, or at least curbing the initial idealism of fundamental "change" that a new president campaigns on ... we have our first example, and president-elect Obama hasn't even been sworn in yet.
As we all know one of the most talked about campaign issues (at least prior to the economic surprise) was Iraq. In fact, that front in our global war against Islamo-fascism was THE hot button issue that President-Elect Obama and his supporters rallied around prior to mid September, when Freddie and Fannie tanked. And their rallying cry was simple: "GET OUT!" Time lines, withdrawals, responsible disengagement, redeployment - all phrases and words used by Obama. Titus aptly noted multiple historical examples of 180 degree shifts when the candidate becomes the president. Well, word is now that Obama has asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to stay on for the first year into his presidency. Now think about that ... this is a man (Obama) whom passed up no opportunity to describe our entry into Iraq as a mistake. Screamed for withdrawal, defeated Hillary largely based on her "aye" Iraq vote, opposed the surge categorically, said our presence is the source of violence, etc, etc, and here he is asking the Sec Def of the much demagogued "Dubya"to stay on. It is a RINGING ENDORSEMENT of the surge, and the need to stay until we are victorious and have a stable Iraq. And more importantly an endorsement of one George W. Bush's current policy - after having ran on opposing that very policy for over a year! It is a simply STUNNING 180 degree turn. Reports on this story are anemic at best, but as the subject line suggests, I caught it (the story that is, not the STD).
I would assume that any died in the wool Obama supporter would expect him to clean house up and down the federal food chain given the level of anti-Bush sentiment and flat out hatred eminating from his supporters, and especially in terms of changing our current Iraq policy. Yet here he is confirming not only that he will "maintain" the Bush course on the one issue that united his party prior to economics, but maintain the same team! Add to that he has indicated no intention to replace Cent Com commander General Patraeus. Both Gates and Patraeus are huge advocates of the surge and "finishing the job." I think Obama fanatics should prepare for severe disillusionment.
A whole string of good posts...
Baddboy is correct. With the election behind us, it is more important now to begin to plan how to ensure that Congress doesn't run wild with a liberal agenda... not Obama.
ALL of us have forgotten what our "Presidential Report Cards" taught us: CICs don't have very much control over an economy the size of the US, and they can't write Laws at will. The Congress is the Law-maker, and as long as the controlling interests there lay with the far-left, I worry. Obama, however, can't do anything that can't be fixed four years later... with a few very real exceptions.
The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq before a stable, democratic and self-sufficient government is established would be catastrophic. The appointment of way-liberal judges to the Supreme Court would have a lasting effect on our nation. Abuse of the veto could deter traditional conservative values in America, too.
We can debate the intentions of the man all day long (and their probably wouldn't be much debate), but it isn't easy for ONE MAN to turn the US into a bastion of socialism... no matter how much he tries. If you doubt me, ask FDR... he tried for nine years, with only a marginally contrary Congress.
The REALITY of the Office will force ANYONE to an "America First" sort of position. We have had idealists win the White House in the past... Democrat and Republican... and all have been forced by the reality of the office to follow a "moderate" path during their terms. Let's look at just a few...
Lest anyone forget, Lincoln ran for office on the PROMISE to avoid conflict over the issue of slavery. He RAN on the PROMISE to preserve the Union, and said as much when he spoke these words during the Lincoln-Douglas debates: "I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." He would have worked to make the USA ALL slave, if he thought it was the only way to preserve the Union. Circumstances forced him to change his position, though, after he was elected... and he led the nation through the bloodiest conflict we have ever survived and won. If one has to compromise one's principals, it never hurts to do so in a way that ensures history is on your side.
Thomas Jefferson was convinced that the President DID NOT have the authority to do what HE did when he purchased 36% of the CONTINENT from France at $.03 per acre... but he did it anyway, because he was sure it was the right thing to do.
James Madison fought one of the most unpopular wars EVER in this nation's history... because it was the RIGHT THING TO DO. To maintain and assert US sovereignty, the US had to stand up to the abuses being perpetrated by the British on US ships and commerce... but there wasn't a business interest in the nation that thought Madison was doing the right thing... not ONE. It isn't very often that we get to see a sitting US President move in the 180 degree opposite direction from where the US financial moguls are telling him to go... and do it successfully! Jimmy Madison did it, though... even though his principals and pre-election politics told him it was the wrong thing to do.
Obama may have a vision for the future of America, and he may have managed to convince the majority of Americans that this vision is the right one for the country... but delivering on promises and principals is often far harder than anyone thinks prior to being sworn in. I have no doubt that circumstances will dictate a path that will force Obama to ensure an "America First" position in nearly everything he does, foreign policy-wise... and he will find the few GOP legislators still in Congress have a voice that can be heard even now. I won't rest on my hinder, waiting for my welfare and refunds... and I will not stand by and watch basic freedoms wash away either (specifically referring to small-arms bans here... 2nd Amendment infringements). We can keep him on a short leash by making sure the next mid-term goes the other way... or at the very least, LESS of the way it has been going.
ALL of us have forgotten what our "Presidential Report Cards" taught us: CICs don't have very much control over an economy the size of the US, and they can't write Laws at will. The Congress is the Law-maker, and as long as the controlling interests there lay with the far-left, I worry. Obama, however, can't do anything that can't be fixed four years later... with a few very real exceptions.
The withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Iraq before a stable, democratic and self-sufficient government is established would be catastrophic. The appointment of way-liberal judges to the Supreme Court would have a lasting effect on our nation. Abuse of the veto could deter traditional conservative values in America, too.
We can debate the intentions of the man all day long (and their probably wouldn't be much debate), but it isn't easy for ONE MAN to turn the US into a bastion of socialism... no matter how much he tries. If you doubt me, ask FDR... he tried for nine years, with only a marginally contrary Congress.
The REALITY of the Office will force ANYONE to an "America First" sort of position. We have had idealists win the White House in the past... Democrat and Republican... and all have been forced by the reality of the office to follow a "moderate" path during their terms. Let's look at just a few...
Lest anyone forget, Lincoln ran for office on the PROMISE to avoid conflict over the issue of slavery. He RAN on the PROMISE to preserve the Union, and said as much when he spoke these words during the Lincoln-Douglas debates: "I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." He would have worked to make the USA ALL slave, if he thought it was the only way to preserve the Union. Circumstances forced him to change his position, though, after he was elected... and he led the nation through the bloodiest conflict we have ever survived and won. If one has to compromise one's principals, it never hurts to do so in a way that ensures history is on your side.
Thomas Jefferson was convinced that the President DID NOT have the authority to do what HE did when he purchased 36% of the CONTINENT from France at $.03 per acre... but he did it anyway, because he was sure it was the right thing to do.
James Madison fought one of the most unpopular wars EVER in this nation's history... because it was the RIGHT THING TO DO. To maintain and assert US sovereignty, the US had to stand up to the abuses being perpetrated by the British on US ships and commerce... but there wasn't a business interest in the nation that thought Madison was doing the right thing... not ONE. It isn't very often that we get to see a sitting US President move in the 180 degree opposite direction from where the US financial moguls are telling him to go... and do it successfully! Jimmy Madison did it, though... even though his principals and pre-election politics told him it was the wrong thing to do.
Obama may have a vision for the future of America, and he may have managed to convince the majority of Americans that this vision is the right one for the country... but delivering on promises and principals is often far harder than anyone thinks prior to being sworn in. I have no doubt that circumstances will dictate a path that will force Obama to ensure an "America First" position in nearly everything he does, foreign policy-wise... and he will find the few GOP legislators still in Congress have a voice that can be heard even now. I won't rest on my hinder, waiting for my welfare and refunds... and I will not stand by and watch basic freedoms wash away either (specifically referring to small-arms bans here... 2nd Amendment infringements). We can keep him on a short leash by making sure the next mid-term goes the other way... or at the very least, LESS of the way it has been going.
Leadership is key!!!!!
The federal government is suffering from the same thing the US Air Force is suffering from. Lack of competent leadership. Without strong leadership we suffer from lack of direction. Regardless of party leadership is required.
You guys talk about previous Presidents and the ones that you talk most fondly about are the ones that took the reigns and led this country in the direction they thought it should go. They didn't let their VP or SecDef take control and run the show, or if they did we damn sure didn't know about it. The people want to know they have a strong person in that office regardless of race, sex or religion. They want decisive not complacent. They want a person that projects strength not weakness.
This is my way of saying that Obama won because he didn't waiver, he didn't apologize and he stood firm. He didn't give the appearance of weakness and by all accounts even when he was down in the polls you wouldn't have known it. People are attracted to that. I saw Obama on television, in the papers and heard about him on the radio alot more that Macain and he always gave off a positive attitude. You can argue he had alot more money to get that time but as far as I'm concerned that's irrelevent. If the RNC wanted to get that air time they could have.
I'm not an Obama fan and you guys know that but I'm not a Macain fan either. I had to pick the lesser of two evils as far as I was concerned so Macain got my vote. But from this mans perspective Obama put off the stronger appearance and got seen a whole lot more. He makes no apologies for what he believes or feels and he stands firm, I at least have to appreciate that.
You guys talk about previous Presidents and the ones that you talk most fondly about are the ones that took the reigns and led this country in the direction they thought it should go. They didn't let their VP or SecDef take control and run the show, or if they did we damn sure didn't know about it. The people want to know they have a strong person in that office regardless of race, sex or religion. They want decisive not complacent. They want a person that projects strength not weakness.
This is my way of saying that Obama won because he didn't waiver, he didn't apologize and he stood firm. He didn't give the appearance of weakness and by all accounts even when he was down in the polls you wouldn't have known it. People are attracted to that. I saw Obama on television, in the papers and heard about him on the radio alot more that Macain and he always gave off a positive attitude. You can argue he had alot more money to get that time but as far as I'm concerned that's irrelevent. If the RNC wanted to get that air time they could have.
I'm not an Obama fan and you guys know that but I'm not a Macain fan either. I had to pick the lesser of two evils as far as I was concerned so Macain got my vote. But from this mans perspective Obama put off the stronger appearance and got seen a whole lot more. He makes no apologies for what he believes or feels and he stands firm, I at least have to appreciate that.
It's the mark of a true soldier.
Reading Ryan and Titus' posts concerning the turn the Republican Party has taken made me think a little.
Reagan takes office January 1981. Leonid Breshnev was Premier of the Soviet Union and the face of the Warsaw Pact. (What, he's LESS photogenic than Erik Honnaker? Go figure.) He needs to beat the Warsaw Pact in the one way he KNOWS he can without sterilizing the face of the planet with nuclear bombs: Economically. So his defense spending is two pronged. #1) A lot of Americans are put to work in the defense industry. #2) Our armed forces haven't seen that kind of financial infusion since 1941. Reagan's slashing of federal government domestic programs created controversy but did nothing to balance the money he DID spend in defense. And in less than a decade his policy wins.
So here we are two decades later wondering what's going to happen next. There is no "outspending" Al Quieda. And in terms of sheer economic might we are facing an equal for the first time in a century: China. What policy, short of sterilizing the surface of the planet with nuclear weapons, gets us out of this mess?
Funny thing, free market. You dabble, you dip your toes, you stay in the shallow end of the pool, and hey! Water's fine. But there's no going back. The more China exposes its population to free markets the harder it is to maintain the type of central control China's been famous for for, well, a little over 2000 years. The same goes for Al Quieda. Hard to encourage fanaticism in a disenfranchised youth when that youth isn't disenfranchised.
What type of economic plan wins us this two front war?
Two words: Energy Independence.
If the next president, or the one after him, decides to invoke conservative change like Reagan did, then the kind of money Reagan put into defense needs to go into domestic energy production. In our quasi-free market, how much of an average family's gross income goes towards energy, for home and vehicle? If that were reduced substantially, not through redistribution of wealth, not through socialist policies, but through government energy programs, what does that do to our economic engine as compared to the Chinese? Or any OPEC nation?
I've sung this song a lot and I know it gets old to you guys, but think about it in the light of a failed "Dem light" election. A federal program of coal to gasoline refineries. A federal works project for solar and wind for private homes. A federal move to revitalize mass transportation on an interstate level. All in the name of a national security policy that states we are safest when we are strong.
And let me tell you, it's getting harder to yank B.O.B. quotes without repeating.
Reagan takes office January 1981. Leonid Breshnev was Premier of the Soviet Union and the face of the Warsaw Pact. (What, he's LESS photogenic than Erik Honnaker? Go figure.) He needs to beat the Warsaw Pact in the one way he KNOWS he can without sterilizing the face of the planet with nuclear bombs: Economically. So his defense spending is two pronged. #1) A lot of Americans are put to work in the defense industry. #2) Our armed forces haven't seen that kind of financial infusion since 1941. Reagan's slashing of federal government domestic programs created controversy but did nothing to balance the money he DID spend in defense. And in less than a decade his policy wins.
So here we are two decades later wondering what's going to happen next. There is no "outspending" Al Quieda. And in terms of sheer economic might we are facing an equal for the first time in a century: China. What policy, short of sterilizing the surface of the planet with nuclear weapons, gets us out of this mess?
Funny thing, free market. You dabble, you dip your toes, you stay in the shallow end of the pool, and hey! Water's fine. But there's no going back. The more China exposes its population to free markets the harder it is to maintain the type of central control China's been famous for for, well, a little over 2000 years. The same goes for Al Quieda. Hard to encourage fanaticism in a disenfranchised youth when that youth isn't disenfranchised.
What type of economic plan wins us this two front war?
Two words: Energy Independence.
If the next president, or the one after him, decides to invoke conservative change like Reagan did, then the kind of money Reagan put into defense needs to go into domestic energy production. In our quasi-free market, how much of an average family's gross income goes towards energy, for home and vehicle? If that were reduced substantially, not through redistribution of wealth, not through socialist policies, but through government energy programs, what does that do to our economic engine as compared to the Chinese? Or any OPEC nation?
I've sung this song a lot and I know it gets old to you guys, but think about it in the light of a failed "Dem light" election. A federal program of coal to gasoline refineries. A federal works project for solar and wind for private homes. A federal move to revitalize mass transportation on an interstate level. All in the name of a national security policy that states we are safest when we are strong.
And let me tell you, it's getting harder to yank B.O.B. quotes without repeating.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Republican for a reason?
This is rather timely given Titus just explained to us all the resons why he remains a registered Democrat.
This is a new site put up by the RNC entitled REPUBLICAN FOR A REASON, with a letter of introduction by the current RNC chairman, Mike Duncan:
Welcome to our newest grassroots Web site, Republican For A Reason.
As we regroup as a Party after the presidential election, we must reflect on what we have done well and what we can improve upon as we move forward.
The Republican Party has always been the Party of hope and the Party of ideas. I strongly believe we will continue in this tradition as we work to the future.
I thank everyone who volunteered their time, resources, and energy to elect John McCain, Sarah Palin and Republican candidates up and down the ticket. While we must acknowledge 2008 was a challenging year, we were able to hold critical House and Senate seats, raise more resources than ever before, and make gains in critical areas that would not have been met without your tireless efforts.
Moving forward and right here, you have the opportunity to reflect on the reasons why you are a proud Republican. Please tell us what you would like to see the Party focus on and address in the coming weeks and months. To learn more about the principles of the Republican Party, read our Party rules and Party platform ratified during the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota.
I look forward to your input and your ideas.
Best wishes,
Robert M. "Mike" Duncan
Chairman, Republican National Committee
Now my initial response is: you need a web site to help steer you towards what you stand for? What the f#%^&!!^)**^% !!!
This forum allows the user to post text or video. I posted a text. Now, after perusing through the other posts I noticed that the "clear commentary" lapse time is about an hour, so my comments won't appear just yet. And just in case their filter parameters do not allow the advertising of another site or link, I also posted without the reference to the driveway bund at the end. Here is my response, which I might add captures the mood of the vast majority of posts (of which there was 307 as of 4pm Eastern time, for 11/12/08):
Are you kidding? Mr. Duncan, Republican members of the House and Senate, you all, each and every one of you know exactly what we, the rank and file members of the GOP, think -THERE ARE NO MORE CONSERVATIVES leading our Party! It occurs to me that of the "big 3" issues within our political lexicon as a nation -national security, social policy (abortion etc), and fiscal policy - the GOP ranks a score of 2 out of 3 (AND THEN JUST BARELY). And while that may be sufficient to win a prize at carnival games, it hardly allows for the electoral success of a national Party. For the love of all that is holy and good - EMBRACE FISCAL CONSERVATISM. I invoke the name of Reagan to cast out this nonsense of bailouts, government bloating, and central planning that my Party has embraced. To say that Republicans spend like drunken sailors is an insult to inebriated salty dogs the world over! Getting back to our roots may be a cliche, but it's also the answer. Re-embracing Reagan conservatism is our only hope as a Party, and more importantly, our only hope as a country. And if you like, just such a course (along with other bristling, "cut through the clutter" political commentary) is delved into further on my site: http://drivewaybund.blogspot.com/
This is a new site put up by the RNC entitled REPUBLICAN FOR A REASON, with a letter of introduction by the current RNC chairman, Mike Duncan:
Welcome to our newest grassroots Web site, Republican For A Reason.
As we regroup as a Party after the presidential election, we must reflect on what we have done well and what we can improve upon as we move forward.
The Republican Party has always been the Party of hope and the Party of ideas. I strongly believe we will continue in this tradition as we work to the future.
I thank everyone who volunteered their time, resources, and energy to elect John McCain, Sarah Palin and Republican candidates up and down the ticket. While we must acknowledge 2008 was a challenging year, we were able to hold critical House and Senate seats, raise more resources than ever before, and make gains in critical areas that would not have been met without your tireless efforts.
Moving forward and right here, you have the opportunity to reflect on the reasons why you are a proud Republican. Please tell us what you would like to see the Party focus on and address in the coming weeks and months. To learn more about the principles of the Republican Party, read our Party rules and Party platform ratified during the 2008 Republican National Convention in Minnesota.
I look forward to your input and your ideas.
Best wishes,
Robert M. "Mike" Duncan
Chairman, Republican National Committee
Now my initial response is: you need a web site to help steer you towards what you stand for? What the f#%^&!!^)**^% !!!
This forum allows the user to post text or video. I posted a text. Now, after perusing through the other posts I noticed that the "clear commentary" lapse time is about an hour, so my comments won't appear just yet. And just in case their filter parameters do not allow the advertising of another site or link, I also posted without the reference to the driveway bund at the end. Here is my response, which I might add captures the mood of the vast majority of posts (of which there was 307 as of 4pm Eastern time, for 11/12/08):
Are you kidding? Mr. Duncan, Republican members of the House and Senate, you all, each and every one of you know exactly what we, the rank and file members of the GOP, think -THERE ARE NO MORE CONSERVATIVES leading our Party! It occurs to me that of the "big 3" issues within our political lexicon as a nation -national security, social policy (abortion etc), and fiscal policy - the GOP ranks a score of 2 out of 3 (AND THEN JUST BARELY). And while that may be sufficient to win a prize at carnival games, it hardly allows for the electoral success of a national Party. For the love of all that is holy and good - EMBRACE FISCAL CONSERVATISM. I invoke the name of Reagan to cast out this nonsense of bailouts, government bloating, and central planning that my Party has embraced. To say that Republicans spend like drunken sailors is an insult to inebriated salty dogs the world over! Getting back to our roots may be a cliche, but it's also the answer. Re-embracing Reagan conservatism is our only hope as a Party, and more importantly, our only hope as a country. And if you like, just such a course (along with other bristling, "cut through the clutter" political commentary) is delved into further on my site: http://drivewaybund.blogspot.com/
What dribble...
No one could read what I wrote and NOT see the facetious aspect of it (except Ryan, of course!), but I'll respond anyway...
Ryan was correct in that I really appreciate the position that Democrats like Miller, Taylor and Lieberman have taken since 2000... that the Democratic Party IS the "People's Party" and I am a proud member of the larger group known as the PEOPLE. I support national defense, national security, a moderate-to-low tax system, "free-market" health care, fiscal responsibility in government, and a greater emphasis on "State's Rights". Time was, these were "foundations" of the Democratic platform... now they make me sound like an ultra-right-winger.
I am NOT ready to abandone my Party to the likes of Pelosi and Reid and Obama... I WANT to be able to have a hand in shaping it's make-up via the primary elections and county causcuses here in PA. I will continue to do so.
My point in my post wasn't that such "blame-throwing" was happening at all... but taht it hadn't been seriously addressed by the GOP leadership until Mac went on the Leno show! Where was the Congressional GOP leadership? Where was Mac? Where were the GOP Governors of the lower 48 States? I didn't hear Savage or Mike Church defending Palin on the conservative talk-shows... where were they? Even Hannity and Limbaugh only lightly touched on the topic... no real heat to pressure brought to bear on those that made the accusations.
I'm not saying Palin is the "Great White Hope" of the GOP (there's a touchy choice of words, huh?) in 2012... but to suggest she ISN'T going to be a factor in 2012 is simply stupid... so WHY allow the Palin bashing to go on as long as it has? ESPECIALLY from the inside?
The GOP hasn't simply lost touch with the conservative "message" of Reagan/Bush... they have begun to measurably split into camps, and a divided Party NEVER wins.
They have (at best) three years to get their colelctive "shit" together... and the first two weeks haven't shown me much promise in that regard. If Ryan sees it, he must be looking somewhere I am not.
Ryan was correct in that I really appreciate the position that Democrats like Miller, Taylor and Lieberman have taken since 2000... that the Democratic Party IS the "People's Party" and I am a proud member of the larger group known as the PEOPLE. I support national defense, national security, a moderate-to-low tax system, "free-market" health care, fiscal responsibility in government, and a greater emphasis on "State's Rights". Time was, these were "foundations" of the Democratic platform... now they make me sound like an ultra-right-winger.
I am NOT ready to abandone my Party to the likes of Pelosi and Reid and Obama... I WANT to be able to have a hand in shaping it's make-up via the primary elections and county causcuses here in PA. I will continue to do so.
My point in my post wasn't that such "blame-throwing" was happening at all... but taht it hadn't been seriously addressed by the GOP leadership until Mac went on the Leno show! Where was the Congressional GOP leadership? Where was Mac? Where were the GOP Governors of the lower 48 States? I didn't hear Savage or Mike Church defending Palin on the conservative talk-shows... where were they? Even Hannity and Limbaugh only lightly touched on the topic... no real heat to pressure brought to bear on those that made the accusations.
I'm not saying Palin is the "Great White Hope" of the GOP (there's a touchy choice of words, huh?) in 2012... but to suggest she ISN'T going to be a factor in 2012 is simply stupid... so WHY allow the Palin bashing to go on as long as it has? ESPECIALLY from the inside?
The GOP hasn't simply lost touch with the conservative "message" of Reagan/Bush... they have begun to measurably split into camps, and a divided Party NEVER wins.
They have (at best) three years to get their colelctive "shit" together... and the first two weeks haven't shown me much promise in that regard. If Ryan sees it, he must be looking somewhere I am not.
Three meltdowns ...
1.) The GOP's.
All due respect Titus, your last post was utter unequivocal horse sh*t. Pungent equine fecal matter, draped here like so many sausages in a pork factory. "Every time I am confronted with the opportunity to change my Party affiliation", something like this happens? What the hell are you talking about? What was the reason the day before you heard of this Palin bashing business? The day before that? And the day before that? First off, this unfortunate, low class Palin criticism by elements of the McCain campaign staff are hardly representative of the Party as a whole. Second, after a stunning loss, no matter the Party, it is a grand American tradition that the losing Party form a circular firing squad and shake out the new direction and leadership they will take. Now it doesn't always work, but it nearly always happens after such monumental defeats. And to further insult your own intelligence, not to mention the other 3 of us, you state that there is "no difference between the two parties", because of limited post election behavior of some SR. staff members in the Mac camp? The very notion is laughable. Look, I'm the first in line to scream about our losses stemming from being "socialist lite", fiscally. But both in terms of national security and social issues (most prominently abortion) there is a HUGE chasm between the two parties, and YOU KNOW IT! To state without qualification something like this is the type of commentary I would expect from hapless, occasional political observers. And to state it in such a way, so generalizing as to condemn the entire GOP to the point of your denying them your membership is to duplicate the VERY BEHAVIOR of the McCain staffers that you intended to critique.
Shame on you. As I understood it you have remained in the Democrat Party low these many years - despite being on the polar opposite of almost every proposal and position since 2000 - for the same reason Zeoll Miller has publicly stated he remained a Democrat. He feels the Party more properly belongs to HIM, a Truman/JFK Democrat, and he will be damned if the extreme leftists that now run the Party will run him out, rather he will stay and attempt to run them out. And I get that. It's similar to the reason I voted for Gene Taylor, I want at least some responsible grown-up's in that Party for years precisely like the ones we now face. And while I'm at it, Zeoll's position makes sense because until his retirement he had a very prominent and public voice. Why YOU remain in the Party I have no logical answer to. Not that you agree with the GOP 100% (I'm not even there, who is?), but lets face facts - the GOP represents YOU a higher percentage of the time then the Democrat party, especially regarding the "big three" tiers: national security, social issues, and fiscal policy. At least the GOP ranks a 2 out of 3 on most days. And guess what buddy? This isn't a fad. This hard left turn of the Dems is not temporary, not passing. It is here to stay for probably the remainder of our lives. So as a rank and file there is absolutely ZERO reason for you to remain a member. At the very least you owe it to yourself to reregister as an Independent, or simply unaffiliated; for you may be able to post flimsy reasons as to why you can not join the GOP, and even kid yourself into believing them, but there is NO REASON to stay in the Democrat Party. So I'm calling you on the carpet - resign your affiliation. Let not tradition, nor length of years, nor the unavoidable ayre of your Mother prevent you from doing what you know is right. What the Democrat Party deserves. You need not join the GOP, but neither should you remain in the Democrat Party. They value neither life nor liberty. If the Republican Party is beneath your coveted membership, then HOW ON EARTH can the Democrat Party not be as well?
To stay even one day longer is to carry on with a charade, a fake marriage, an unholy alliance ... such a thing should be unpalatable to one whom values his intellectual honesty as much as you.
As to the GOP's fortunes ... there is but one option for success - conservatism. Embrace two of recent history's most successful Republicans - Reagan and Gingrich, and in that order. Then success will return, for such an ideology as espoused by these two men will serve as a breath of fresh air and common sense when contrasted with what we are about to see emerge from the White House and congress over the next 4 years.
****
2.) The financial bailout.
The long and short of it: it's turning into exactly the disaster we all predicted it to be. I even laid out a measurable and specific alternative to the bailout, but then again I'm smarter then most of the people working on Capitol Hill.
Surprise, surprise the banks and lending houses whom were allotted our money are sitting on it until such a time as it becomes less risk adverse to lend it. Now Representative Barney Frank (D) Massachusetts (a senior Dem leader and a man at the heart of protecting Freddie and Fannie during the years leading to their eruption) said today that because the banks are sitting on those federal dollars, the next $350 billion should be used to buy up bad mortgages DIRECTLY BY THE FEDS and write them down (meaning write them off as a loss immediately after purchase), making them as he described, "our houses." Meaning the government's. This was Mac's plan, as stated in that last debate, so I'm sure he won't get much of an argument from Senate Republicans (again, on fiscal policy the difference is rapidly evaporating ... although Obama may up the ante a level ... or ten).
Add to that the big three auto makers are asking for their own bailout. American Express asked to be recategorized as a holding bank so that they can get a piece of the $700 billion (and the feds said "sure"), and Mayor's such as the Democrat in Philadelphia are now lobbying for $50 billion to be cut out of that $700 for city's whom find themselves cash poor.
Lovely. It appears that socialism is contagious. And "Dr. Obama" insists we embrace an even more virulent strain in order to demonstrate our compassion as a nation. Nothing like a big bear hug from Typhoid Mary ...
****
3.) The gay and lesbian community.
This one is particularly interesting. As you may or may not know California had yet another "controversial" ballot initiative on November 5th. "Question 8" would amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, thus cutting activists judges off at the knees, given they can not rule a part of their own constitution, unconstitutional. They can do that with any passed or proposed law, but if it is an amendment to the constitution itself, THAT must be repealed by the state legislature, and can not be struck down by the courts. At any rate an odd (in political terms) alliance was formed to pass this ballot question. The primary driver behind it was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons (as I am). The "question" passed 52 to 48%, and in no small part to a particular ethnicity whom joined with Mormons. Outside of Latter Day Saints, the largest minority voting for the measure was African Americans. In particular evangelical blacks whom regularly attend "black" churches. They voted for it in the same margins they supported Obama, roughly 70%.
Now, the gay community as gone ape you know what, and has protested outside of Mormon Tabernacles. But rather then fill the streets outside of black churches with countless lisp laden chants, as they did to Mormons, they have attacked their traditional Democrat party coalition allies, black Americans, via the Internet. The usual suspects of left wing sites has gays viciously going after the black community in California, even employing the most extreme of taboo words: the dreaded "N" word (taboo that is unless you are a rapper, comedian, or black yourself).
Between 2000 and 2006 the GOP became so big, so dominant, so powerful that it self destructed. The tent got so big it became overcrowded and once the elbows began flying it didn't end until 7 days ago (assuming that was the bottom). We will now see the Democrat Party begin that same process. Hopefully, in the mean while, instead of popping pop corn and watching we will gather our conservative ideology into a single, cohesive message, and be ready to deliver it when the opportunity arises ... and it will. Obama will see to that. Our immediate task now is to clear the field of moderate Republican bodies, and resupply our forces via a conservative ideology.
And by the way, THAT is why they're going after Palin in my opinion. The moderate (via the McCain-iacs) vs conservative (Palin supporters) battle is now raging within the GOP, and on more fronts then just that one ... will Titus stand up and be counted within the one Party that still has a chance of standing for traditional American values? Or at the very least will he abandon the Party that has clearly abandoned him and his belief system? We will stay tuned and see ...
All due respect Titus, your last post was utter unequivocal horse sh*t. Pungent equine fecal matter, draped here like so many sausages in a pork factory. "Every time I am confronted with the opportunity to change my Party affiliation", something like this happens? What the hell are you talking about? What was the reason the day before you heard of this Palin bashing business? The day before that? And the day before that? First off, this unfortunate, low class Palin criticism by elements of the McCain campaign staff are hardly representative of the Party as a whole. Second, after a stunning loss, no matter the Party, it is a grand American tradition that the losing Party form a circular firing squad and shake out the new direction and leadership they will take. Now it doesn't always work, but it nearly always happens after such monumental defeats. And to further insult your own intelligence, not to mention the other 3 of us, you state that there is "no difference between the two parties", because of limited post election behavior of some SR. staff members in the Mac camp? The very notion is laughable. Look, I'm the first in line to scream about our losses stemming from being "socialist lite", fiscally. But both in terms of national security and social issues (most prominently abortion) there is a HUGE chasm between the two parties, and YOU KNOW IT! To state without qualification something like this is the type of commentary I would expect from hapless, occasional political observers. And to state it in such a way, so generalizing as to condemn the entire GOP to the point of your denying them your membership is to duplicate the VERY BEHAVIOR of the McCain staffers that you intended to critique.
Shame on you. As I understood it you have remained in the Democrat Party low these many years - despite being on the polar opposite of almost every proposal and position since 2000 - for the same reason Zeoll Miller has publicly stated he remained a Democrat. He feels the Party more properly belongs to HIM, a Truman/JFK Democrat, and he will be damned if the extreme leftists that now run the Party will run him out, rather he will stay and attempt to run them out. And I get that. It's similar to the reason I voted for Gene Taylor, I want at least some responsible grown-up's in that Party for years precisely like the ones we now face. And while I'm at it, Zeoll's position makes sense because until his retirement he had a very prominent and public voice. Why YOU remain in the Party I have no logical answer to. Not that you agree with the GOP 100% (I'm not even there, who is?), but lets face facts - the GOP represents YOU a higher percentage of the time then the Democrat party, especially regarding the "big three" tiers: national security, social issues, and fiscal policy. At least the GOP ranks a 2 out of 3 on most days. And guess what buddy? This isn't a fad. This hard left turn of the Dems is not temporary, not passing. It is here to stay for probably the remainder of our lives. So as a rank and file there is absolutely ZERO reason for you to remain a member. At the very least you owe it to yourself to reregister as an Independent, or simply unaffiliated; for you may be able to post flimsy reasons as to why you can not join the GOP, and even kid yourself into believing them, but there is NO REASON to stay in the Democrat Party. So I'm calling you on the carpet - resign your affiliation. Let not tradition, nor length of years, nor the unavoidable ayre of your Mother prevent you from doing what you know is right. What the Democrat Party deserves. You need not join the GOP, but neither should you remain in the Democrat Party. They value neither life nor liberty. If the Republican Party is beneath your coveted membership, then HOW ON EARTH can the Democrat Party not be as well?
To stay even one day longer is to carry on with a charade, a fake marriage, an unholy alliance ... such a thing should be unpalatable to one whom values his intellectual honesty as much as you.
As to the GOP's fortunes ... there is but one option for success - conservatism. Embrace two of recent history's most successful Republicans - Reagan and Gingrich, and in that order. Then success will return, for such an ideology as espoused by these two men will serve as a breath of fresh air and common sense when contrasted with what we are about to see emerge from the White House and congress over the next 4 years.
****
2.) The financial bailout.
The long and short of it: it's turning into exactly the disaster we all predicted it to be. I even laid out a measurable and specific alternative to the bailout, but then again I'm smarter then most of the people working on Capitol Hill.
Surprise, surprise the banks and lending houses whom were allotted our money are sitting on it until such a time as it becomes less risk adverse to lend it. Now Representative Barney Frank (D) Massachusetts (a senior Dem leader and a man at the heart of protecting Freddie and Fannie during the years leading to their eruption) said today that because the banks are sitting on those federal dollars, the next $350 billion should be used to buy up bad mortgages DIRECTLY BY THE FEDS and write them down (meaning write them off as a loss immediately after purchase), making them as he described, "our houses." Meaning the government's. This was Mac's plan, as stated in that last debate, so I'm sure he won't get much of an argument from Senate Republicans (again, on fiscal policy the difference is rapidly evaporating ... although Obama may up the ante a level ... or ten).
Add to that the big three auto makers are asking for their own bailout. American Express asked to be recategorized as a holding bank so that they can get a piece of the $700 billion (and the feds said "sure"), and Mayor's such as the Democrat in Philadelphia are now lobbying for $50 billion to be cut out of that $700 for city's whom find themselves cash poor.
Lovely. It appears that socialism is contagious. And "Dr. Obama" insists we embrace an even more virulent strain in order to demonstrate our compassion as a nation. Nothing like a big bear hug from Typhoid Mary ...
****
3.) The gay and lesbian community.
This one is particularly interesting. As you may or may not know California had yet another "controversial" ballot initiative on November 5th. "Question 8" would amend the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, thus cutting activists judges off at the knees, given they can not rule a part of their own constitution, unconstitutional. They can do that with any passed or proposed law, but if it is an amendment to the constitution itself, THAT must be repealed by the state legislature, and can not be struck down by the courts. At any rate an odd (in political terms) alliance was formed to pass this ballot question. The primary driver behind it was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons (as I am). The "question" passed 52 to 48%, and in no small part to a particular ethnicity whom joined with Mormons. Outside of Latter Day Saints, the largest minority voting for the measure was African Americans. In particular evangelical blacks whom regularly attend "black" churches. They voted for it in the same margins they supported Obama, roughly 70%.
Now, the gay community as gone ape you know what, and has protested outside of Mormon Tabernacles. But rather then fill the streets outside of black churches with countless lisp laden chants, as they did to Mormons, they have attacked their traditional Democrat party coalition allies, black Americans, via the Internet. The usual suspects of left wing sites has gays viciously going after the black community in California, even employing the most extreme of taboo words: the dreaded "N" word (taboo that is unless you are a rapper, comedian, or black yourself).
Between 2000 and 2006 the GOP became so big, so dominant, so powerful that it self destructed. The tent got so big it became overcrowded and once the elbows began flying it didn't end until 7 days ago (assuming that was the bottom). We will now see the Democrat Party begin that same process. Hopefully, in the mean while, instead of popping pop corn and watching we will gather our conservative ideology into a single, cohesive message, and be ready to deliver it when the opportunity arises ... and it will. Obama will see to that. Our immediate task now is to clear the field of moderate Republican bodies, and resupply our forces via a conservative ideology.
And by the way, THAT is why they're going after Palin in my opinion. The moderate (via the McCain-iacs) vs conservative (Palin supporters) battle is now raging within the GOP, and on more fronts then just that one ... will Titus stand up and be counted within the one Party that still has a chance of standing for traditional American values? Or at the very least will he abandon the Party that has clearly abandoned him and his belief system? We will stay tuned and see ...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
