RaysPoliticalBlog

It Is Time to "Duck and Cover"

2006-04-16T16:56:00.000-07:00

Especially if you are hunting with Dick Cheney... This born wrong the first time, inbred, evangelical fundamentalist extremist, Armageddon loving, President is bringing back the horror of nuclear Armageddon.

We learned how to "Duck and Cover" in the "old days". Now, Bush's "No Child Cared About" education reform will leave no child behind when it comes to teaching them to Duck and Cover, and Then Wrap Themselves in Plastic and Duct Tape. (Note to self, entrepreneurial opportunity to develop and market "Ducked Tape" for those "special times" when your idiot president starts a nuclear war. Advertising campaign: Ducked Tape - It is totally useless and won't stick to anything, but if you need it - you won't need it - because - when we are talking about nuclear war - uh - we are really talking about the eternal peace of eternal death - so... it never fails. Ducked Tape - It Never Fails)

Once upon a time, in a universe where common sense ruled, the United States and other nuclear powers made pledges not to use nukes against non-nuclear powers. See: Nuclear Pledge. This assured non-nuclear powers that they did not need to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent because they were not in danger of being attacked. But then the thoughtless Bush regime thought the unthinkable. See: Nuclear Pledge, and Plan to use Nukes Preemptively, for elaborations of their thoughtless idea-logic idiocy. They make many completely illogical and unsupported assertions, like: our pledge not to use nuclear weapons actually inspired other countries to develop them. Yea sure, like being threatened would not make other countries all the more convinced that they needed them? Please.

Then Santa Bush proceeded to make a list, and check it twice, to find out who he could label as an axis of evil, and then told the listees, that they that we were coming after them one by one, and that they were next. These heavy handed tactics did effectively separate the men from the boys. Moammar al Qaddafi became one of the "boys." Although he had been headed that way for a long time, as a result of the diplomacy of previous Presidents. Unsurprisingly, Iran and North Korea went the other way.

Now into this cauldron of Bush regime inspired geopolitical instability comes the Bush regimes "operational" plans for nuclear war with Iran (that is "operational" not just contingency). Granted, operational plans are still contingent on the Presidents order to execute them - but they are real plans, presented as real options, for real consideration, to kill real people, and really make the U.S. the first - and second - nation to use nuclear weapons. This is real folks. (Note to self, entrepreneurial opportunity, develop and niche market black latex hazmat suits with white lace and white rabbit fur for those intimate moments when you clutch your radiation poisoned beloved as their life force slowly seeps away. Niche marketing.. it is the bling thing.)

Notice of coarse, that operation "Chicken Hawk" to use nuclear weapons, is not threatened against North Korea - only Iran. Notice that - and know that leaders of other countries all over the world are smart enough to to infer why this chicken hawk president is so much more aggressive toward Iran than he is against North Korea. Know that all countries around the world are reevaluating their need for nuclear deterrence in order to protect their sovereignty - even our boy Moammar.

As bad as this is, the thoughtless idea-logic idiots of the Bush regime have found new and creative ways to destabilize nuclear non-proliferation. I have an imbecilic idea-logic idea, let's let India ramp up their military nuclear program in exchange for mangoes. Helping India to increase the speed of making warheads two or three fold will not encourage politically unstable radical wahabist Islamist nuclear proliferator Pakistan to speed up their program - oh wait it will. Pakistan cannot afford an arms race with India. They will be forced to proliferate to all comers in order to finance the inevitable arms race with India.

Bush wants to teach our kids to duck and cover, but he is leading by example. What better way to distract the American people from lies, incompetence, and corruption than to "Duck and Cover" by starting a little nuclear war with little nukes, and once again wrapping himself in the flag as wartime Commander and Chief. The evil genius Rove has probably figured out that this bold decisive move is the best long shot hope of preserving the Republican majority in Congress thereby preventing effective Congressional oversight and avoiding prison for high crimes. He is probably correct. The American people are in love with their phallic false power of military might instead of their real power of love, peace, courage, justice, equality, nobility, tolerance, and diplomacy. They love the big "stick" but they have forgotten the wisdom and courage of walking softly with a carrot.

The Democrats Do Not Have a Unified Plan for Iraq

2006-04-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Republicans create an impossible mess with no good answers and then want to criticise the Dems for not having a unified answer. How exactly are we supposed to have a unified answer for a problem that has no good answers? We don't know what to do. Well, we have a plan - I guess, but it is not really a plan, plan. See: Democratic Plan

A lot of us have good ideas - but no consensus. That is the whole point. This incompetent president has led us into a no-win situation. We went to war for the wrong reasons. We went to war in the wrong way. We fought the war in the wrong way. We managed Iraq in the wrong way after we "won." We iced out international partners that could have helped. And now there is little doubt that we will leave Iraq in the wrong way. There is no "right way" to leave Iraq.
The best metaphor that I can think of for this Republican created mess is: You meet a women. You seduce her with vows to love, honor, and cherish until the end of time. She enters a deep psychosis and you dump her. Except in this case we date raped Iraq to begin with (Rumsfeld's idea of seduction) - no wonder she is nuts. We probably do need to leave her - she'll kill us if we don't. But she will stalk us if we do. It is a mess. There is no good answer. The divorce will be expensive and ugly. She is going to take all of our treasure. But what are we going to do? Our friends tried to tell us to stay away from her... They said she was nothing but trouble... But we had to listen to our "little head" (Bush) - (he has the brains of a penis) - (some vulgar person might say dickhead) - (and the Downing Street Memo proves that he was certainly hot for her).
We went to war for the wrong reasons:I actually cannot support this assertion. I cannot support it because we really do not know why we went to war. We know that Bush / Cheney / Rumsfeld were in a headlong rush to war from the very start of the Bush regime. We know that they were not straight with the American people. (Maybe that is why they are so "freaked out" by gays - because they are not "straight" - sorry - couldn't resist the play on words - anyhow...) We know that they cherry picked intelligence and played games with the UN and the UN inspectors... Maybe Baby Bush wanted to "show up" his daddy... Maybe the reason's were idiotic idea-logic... Maybe the reasons were geopolitical oil politics and war profiteering... Maybe there was a good reason (probably not)... We just don't know. We know that the real reasons were not presented to the American people. We sent our beloved sons and daughters to die in far off lands on the basis of lies - for reasons unknown.
We went to war in the wrong way:In the commentary thread to Jack's article titled, "The good guys are winning in Iraq" which he posted on 10-21-05, I wrote:

The problem is this: This worthless #$^%%# dry drunk piece of $%^$## incompetent commander and chief is rapidly creating a situation where we cannot win. As listed above the American people were not adequately prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to win. The American people are losing patience with the war and will soon demand our withdrawal. We went in without enough troops.

To that I would add that, as a result of our refusal to allow the UN inspectors to finish their work - because we already had a date penciled in to start bombing - we failed to build a real coalition. We sent our troops in without enough armor. We had a great plan for war, but no plan for peace. Well our great plan worked. We have got war.
We fought the war in the wrong way: In the same commentary thread from Jack's article listed above, I wrote:

We disbanded the Iraqi army there by leaving weapons all over the country for insurgents and creating millions of unemployed disaffected young men. We gave no-bid contracts to Haliburton instead of employing Iraqis. Bush either knew or should have known about the torture in Abu Ghireb. The list is just endless.

It is possible that we will still have a good outcome in Iraq in spite of the incompetence, lies and amorality of this corrupt administration... however if we do have a good outcome, 100% of the credit belongs to the courageous American soldiers and to the noble intentions of the American people who may win this in spite of President King George the Second. It steadily becoming increasingly unlikely… less troops then the Generals wanted, Rumsfeld setting the preconditions for torture at Abu Ghireb and Gitmo, failing to train Iraqi security forces fast enough, disbanding the Iraqi Army, giving no bid contracts to Haliburton instead of local Iraqi contractors, failing to rebuild, failing to create a real coalition, lies, lies and more lies, and on and on,

We managed Iraq in the wrong way after we "won." Of coarse this overlaps with; no-bid contracts, disbanding the Iraqi Army, AbuGhireb, not enough body armor, and not enough troops, but I would add: Micro-managing the war by political civilian leadership (Rumsfeld), for political civilian reasons, that prevented the military from making the necessary strategic and force adjustments to deal with the mess that we sent them into. The same mistake we made in Vietnam... If you are going to tell the Generals to fight a war - you need to take the "gloves off" and let them fight it. Bush does a good job of giving lip service to this idea, but the reality is quite different. For example, they did not send in enough troops because of the political ramifications. They needed to convince the American people that it would be quick, cheap, and easy. In reality, competent leaders, if they were going to lead us to war, would have done the exact opposite. They would have prepared the American people by explaining in detail that it would or could be long, extremely costly, and painful. But the American people would not have supported the truth so they micro-managed the military for political purposes - and they got their war - and now our sons and daughters are dying in far lands on the basis of lies, for reasons unknown.
We iced out international partners that could have helped.Even after the war, we could have gotten France, Germany, and Russia to support the rebuilding of Iraq, but we wanted all of the plunder for Haliburton, so we iced them out of the rebuilding contracts. God, we could use them now - but now - it is too late. We wanted the plunder - instead - our treasure is being plundered. Senator Joe Biden still thinks that it would possible to get regional powers to participate int he stabilization of Iraq - but it won't happen until we have "regime change" in Washington DC. See: Biden Video.
And now there is little doubt that we will leave Iraq in the wrong way.Bush is already drawing troops out. Iraq is descending into civil war, and he is drawing the troops out. And... he is probably right... as mentioned above - I don't know what to do - but it is obvious that he is drawing them out for political reasons - because the war is unpopular - which is the wrong reason. We need competent leadership, like Biden, Murtha, or Weasley Clark

Illegal Wiretapping is Illegal

2006-04-04T19:51:00.000-07:00

We must fight to force Bush II to accept the rule of law...to accept that he must not spy on Americans without Constitutionally mandated oversight from the Congress and the Judiciary. Republican Senator Arlen Spector seems to be the only Senator with real power fighting for American civil liberties. The Democrats can do virtually nothing because they do not control congress. Senator Spector's attempt to fashion legislation is hampered by the fact we still do not know what the Bush Administration is actually doing. His legislation is also pointless until the Bush Administration either agrees, or is forced, to accept the rule of law, and accepts that its executive powers are not limitless. We must have a full investigation and find out exactly what the Bush Administration is doing. Under questioning by Senator Joeseph Biden before Arlen Spector's committee Attorney General Alberto Gonzalas admitted that he could not certify that the full extent of the NSA wiretapping program has been disclosed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/06/AR2006020601001.html.

We do know that there are other domestic spying programs including illegal Pentagon spying http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24010res20060201.html and illegal spying by the FBI and the JTTF http://www.aclu.org/safefree/spyfiles/24011res20060131.html. There seems to be a pattern of violating basic American civil liberties here.
Many Americans believe that we must chose between being tough on terrorists and protecting our Constitutional Fourth Amendment rights. This simply is not true. It is true that we must be tough on terrorists. It may even be true that the FISA law may need to be updated. There will doubtless be some Republicans who will use the same tired line that we Democrats are soft on terrorists. But fighting for American civil liberties - as our founding fathers fought for American civil liberties - has nothing to do with being soft. The Republicans have all of the power in this government. Why does there only seem to be one that is really fighting for us?
This (Bush admins spin) idea that we should not be concerned about domestic spying as long as we have nothing to hide is ridiculous. He, or some future president, could use this awesome power to spy on political rivals, and use the information to political advantage, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. He, or some future president, could use this excessive Unconstitutional power to spy on journalists in order to get advance warning of negative news stories so that he can be prepared to lie and politically spin the situation, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. "Power corrupts." If this massive, unbalanced, power is successfully gathered into the Presidency, with no Judicial oversight - with no Congressional oversight - with absolutely no checks and balances... some future President will abuse it.

More of Ray's Brief Dictionary of Political Buzz Words

2006-03-20T08:13:00.000-08:00

Bush (Bŭsh΄) Adjective. Democratic meanings: See Failure. 1.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as incompetent. 2.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as dishonest. 3.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as Nazi. 4.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as President. 5.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as stupid. 6.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as chicken hawk. 7.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as idiot, dry drunk, gun slingin, no account, failure. 8.) Filthy four letter word, loosely translated as King George the Incompetent. 9.) Filthy four letter word… period. Republican meanings: 1.) Simple, revered, bold, courageous – misunderstood, innocent, slandered, moral - wise, flawless, patriotic, straight forward, common sensical underdog. The Republicans are a naïve lot.

More of Ray's Brief Dictionary of Political Buzz Words

2006-03-20T07:28:00.000-08:00

Fatwa (Făt΄-wă) noun. 1.) Osama's ravings. 2.) The opinion of an Islamic leader. 3.) A rational for killing innocent people. 4.) An order for warrantless wiretaps. 5.) An excuse to subvert The Constitition of the United States of America 6.) Republican, for the ravings of Godless hordes of non-Christians. 7.) Pat Robertson calling for the assassination of a democratically elected foreign leader while he has a mass murdering dictator as a business partner.

Faith (Fāth) noun. 1.) Belief in things unseen, but known in one's deepest core. As in: I have faith that the Bush Regime is lying to the American people. 2.) The idea that George Bush will not abuse the awesome power of warrantless wiretaps and the Unitary Executive to subvert The Constitution of the United States of America. 3.) The idea that some future President will not abuse the awesome power of warrantless wiretaps and the Unitary Executive to subvert The Constitution of the United States of America, if George the Second gets away with consolidating that much illegal, unbalanced, unchecked, unconstitutional power in the office of the Presidency. 4.) The belief by neo-cons that George the Incompetent is above the law. 5.) The blind belief that Dick Cheney will not shoot you, if you go hunting pet birds with him, after he has been drinking. 6.) The cute, naive, innocent quaint, and blind belief by neo-cons that creating a democracy in a country full of people that hate us will produce a country that loves us. 7.) A comforting belief to have when your life is passing before your eyes after Dick Cheney has shot you in the face and heart. 8.) The idea that electronic voting machines with no paper trails are actually posting your vote in the same way that you cast it. 9.) A comforting, uplifting, meaningful belief in God. 10.) A religion that turns its rigid fundamentalist dogma into a craven image of God. See Pat Robertson. See Osama bin Laden. 11.) The neo-con idea that you can force somebody to be free.

Faith Based (Fāth Bās-dŭ) noun. 1.) A belief that does not make any sense and therefore must be taken on faith. 2.) The antonym of fact based. 3.) The Republican agenda. 4.) A belief, program, or initiative based on religion.5.) Attempting to base one's life on one's understanding of God's will.

The Invisable Hand of the Market Place

2006-03-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

We should be promoting the best interest of the American people in international trade. The Bush Regime, the Republicans, and even to a lesser extent the Democrats, all serve the interests of the global multinational corporate oligarchy.

I believe in free trade. The policies of this regime have always been ideally suited to serving the interests of the rich powerful and privileged elite against the interest of the working class, poor and disenfranchised.

China does not allow their currency to float. They hold the price of their currency artificially low relative to the dollar. They allow corporations to rape the environment and unfairly exploit their workers. These are subsidies. We pay a hidden price when corporations rape the environment in China because we live in one world - one ecology - and the winds carry the pollution here.

The corporations do not want true free trade. They want labor (slave labor) and hidden environmental subsidies, and when subsidies exist, everybody loses. The corporate mantra for free trade is actually an Orwellian chant meaning; let us rape, destroy, and exploit for short term profit and pleasure, without having to concern ourselves with the long term costs that our descendants will be forced to pay.

So, the protectionist are naive but they are reacting to those real loses.

I would suggest a free trade, invisible hand of the market place, compromise that would be at least an improvement on the current situation. We know that our government - Democratic or Republican - is as a result of our campaign finance situation - pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of big business. So we cannot trust the government to enforce human rights, environmental, or child labor rules. International agencies are even less effective.

I think a good free market approach to this problem would be to create seals of approval sort of like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Create a child labor seal of approval. Create an environmental seal of approval. Create a human rights seal of approval. Pass a law that requires products sold in the U.S. to clearly display two sets of the seals on it, or on its packaging. One set would relate to the raw materials that where used to manufacture the product. The other set would relate to the manufacturing of the product.

Companies would be free to lie and put any seal on thier product that they wanted to. But give child labor, environmental activists, and human rights groups the right to sue any corporation that sells products in the U.S. - in order to force the company into accurate compliance with the seals of approval. Do not allow any monetary damages in the law suits - only the right to obtain court orders forcing accurate seal of approval labeling - this would prevent frivolous law suits and ensure that activists only brought suits against violators.

The child labor seal of approval for example could contain three levels - green, yellow, and red. Green would be a certification that no child labor was used. Yellow would certify that any child labor that was used at least met some minimum standard of safety and human rights. Red would indicate that child slave labor was used to obtain the raw material or manufacture the product. Then let the American people decide whether they wanted to buy the product or not. Let the child labor activist groups police the issue and sue the most egregious violators. When company "A" saw that their competitor, company "B" was cheating the system, company "A" would inform and support the appropriate activist group, in order to force company "B" into accurate compliance with the seals of approval.

The same sort of thing could be done with environmental and human rights issues.

This would not constitute a trade barrier. Any country or company is free to manufacture their products where ever and however they want, and to sell those products in the U.S. But they have to display the seals of approval and they are subject to legal action in a U.S. Court if they lie. Any country or company has the ability to make sure that their products are manufactured without child labor, environmental rape, or human rights violations. Countries can control their country and companies can control where their products are manufactured, how they are manufactured, and who they hire to manufacture them. The same applies to the raw materials that are used to manufacture the products.

I just used child labor as one example. We don't have an efficient way of knowing which companies and products use child labor. We know that globally we do have a major problem with child labor. Globally we also have major problems with slavery, human rights and environmental abuse. The following links for child labor, human rights, and environmental abuse involving Coke and Nike are two examples. Of coarse, these have been in the news but forcing companies to put labels on their products would make consumers much more well informed at time that they make their purchases.

Nike

Coke

These is a complicated problem. Protectionism and isolationism does not work. But we can give all of our work away through so called free trade, and redistribute all of our wealth, and the world is still going to be poor, and so will we. Shipping our work to low wage countries drives our wages down but also provides inexpensive products for us. I think most of those cost savings go into the pockets of corporate profits. Still, the profits do get distributed through stock dividends. But much of the dividends that are paid go to the rich, and increasingly to foreign countries as result of the massive trade deficits that we run which gets reinvested in American stocks. As a result of the way we finance campaigns these multinational (American) corporations have an excessive amount of power and essentially form an oligarchy that controls our country. Inexpensive products and corporate profits create cash flows that can be reinvested in the U.S. and around the world which can expand production - bake a bigger pie - for all of us to share. So this is not a static problem. It has many variables and is extremely dynamic. Every change that you make has many intended and unintended (often unexpected) effects.

I think that my idea, that I listed above, of creating mandatory seals of approval for child labor, environmentalism, human rights, and perhaps also one for the fair trading practices of the country of manufacturing origin, should be given more serious consideration. It would be one way to at least begin to level the playing field to some slight degree without creating trade barriers.

The so called invisible hand of the market place can work to resolve many issues but there are too many things that are not accounted for in the economic system like the environment, the safety of children, and human rights. What is the economic value or cost of Coca-cola plant managers having eight union leaders killed in Columbia? How does one account for that in the economy? It saves Coke money, therefore it is good for the economy - unless it costs them sales - which it can if it gets publicised. My seal of approval idea, as listed above, would force Coke to publicise it.

UAE - Ports - and Free Trade

2006-02-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

Free markets are necessary for free trade but not quite the same. In order for free trade to exist between countries both countries must have free markets. If only one country has a free market then free trade is impossible.

I am one of the few "economics" enlightened liberals that believes in free trade. While there will always be individual winners and losers free trade - real free trade that is - benefits everyone. But here is the problem, China does not have an open free market. Japan does not have an open free market. Central America does not have a free market. And the UAE does not have a free market.

What happens when a free market economy like the U.S. trades with a closed economy like Japan, China, or Mexico? What happens is that the free market economy (that would be us) gets cheated. Take Mexico or China as examples. Both countries allow multinational corporations to evade environment laws and basic rights of workers to collective bargaining, as well as, health and safety. So, so called American multinational corporations - which are granted full human rights status as people under the U.S. Constitution - including the right to $$$free speech$$$ - but which have no moral or patriotic commitments to the United States can go to these countries and rape the environment that everyone in the world depends on for survival - and they can rape, cripple, kill, and unfairly exploit the workers. These factors create defacto subsidies for these corporations to move production to these countries. Therefore these countries are not practicing free trade. They are subsidising the corporations to move production to their country. This puts downward pressure on the ability of American workers to earn a living wage under survivable working conditions. It is a race to the bottom.

In true free trade, production would move to these countries, but they would need pollution control equipment - standard of living and wages would rise - which would create new markets for American products - which would create new economic opportunity for Americans. That is not happening. More and more of our productive capacity - more and more of our economic power - more and more of our "equity" and ownership of our own country, is transferred over the border as we borrow more and more money to buy more and more products from more and more countries that cheat us in international trade by subsidising our amoral multinational corporations to transfer production to their countries without giving us a fair opportunity to sell our products to them.

Japan is a little different case. They invaded our markets while keeping their markets closed to us. Their markets are still largely closed to us. They cheated us starting in the 70s and they are still cheating us.

Increasing industrial productive capacity in China combined with decreasing industrial capacity in the U.S. will make China into the worlds only super-power.

So... it is clear that the real agenda of the Bush Regime is to serve the amoral UnAmerican American multinational corporations, and that this regime does not care about the real interests of the American people.

So... the UAE does not practice free trade and that is reason enough to deny them this deal.

It has been pointed out by others that this company is tied to the UAE government. That being the case, it is reasonable to look at the UAE and question their intentions and sympathies. Others have pointed out that there is clear evidence to suspect that the UAE has terrorist sympathies. It has already been pointed out by others that even assuming that this company is innocent it is reasonable to wonder if they have been infiltrated.

If I were Osama, and I wanted to be able to ship WMD around the world, I would like to have some friends in the shipping business. The easiest way to infiltrate the shipping industry would be to infiltrate the Arab shipping industry and then migrate from there. Now that is all speculation - yes - but reasonable suspicion.

Sure the Coast Guard provides security. The police provide security on your street, but they don’t know what really goes on on your street as well as you do. Your boss controls your office, but does he really know what people talk about the water cooler. He probably does. He probably spies on you. The point is simply this, people on the inside have access to inside information - hence the term inside job.

So this is clearly an issue that raises security concerns, and the fact the this Regime would rubber stamp this deal without a full blown investigation is, at the very least, another example that Bush is still reading “MY PET GOAT.” It is “hard work”, sounding out all of those big words. That is the best face that you can put on this.

A little more of Ray's Brief Dictionary of Political Buzz words and Phrases

2006-02-19T21:37:00.000-08:00

Estate Tax (Ĕstāt΄ Tăx) noun. 1.) The fair tax levied against the rich for the explicit purpose of leveling the playing field from one generation to the next and preventing the establishment of virtual Royalty in the United States of America. As in: America is the land of opportunity and someone who has the privilege of becoming rich should pay an estate tax, thereby donating much of their riches back to the public good when they die, and allow their children to become rich the old fashioned way – by working for it.

Ethics (Ĕth-ēēks΄) Adjective. 1.) An archaic term describing something that has not existed in the Whitehouse for over fifty years. 2.) A class that President George Bush the Second has ordered taught, in order to restore honor and dignity to the Royal Court… er… um… Whitehouse… 3.) Core traditional Republican values. 4.) Core traditional Democratic values. 5.) Doing “not just what is legal” but “doing what is right”. 6.) The types of political processes used by President George Bush to advance the administration’s agenda. As in: We got values – you see. 7.) The opposite of Karl Rove. 8.) The opposite of Dick Cheney. 9.) The opposite of… Oh… you get the point.

Extremist (Ĕx-trēm΄-ǐstss) noun. 1.) The other guy. 2.) Republican. 3.) Democrat. 4.) Pat Robertson. 5.) Dick Cheney. 6.) Donald Rumsfeld. 7.)Osama bin Laden 8.) Me.

Fag (Făg) See Karl Rove Adjective. 1.) A derogatory term used by homo-phobes (see Republican) to describe Godless hordes of homosexual men (see Democrat) that threaten to overwhelm the American way of life (see missionary position).

Electoral System

2006-02-18T12:08:00.000-08:00

I have lost respect for McCain because I think that he has sold out to Bush in order to position himself to run for President. I have lost respect for Hillary for the same reason - plus I just don't like dynasties at the Presidential level. Worse, I don't think that she is electable. I like Mark Warner, Joe Biden, or Wesley Clark.

I liked McCain (I might even have voted for him) and I thought McCain and Bradley would have been far better candidates in 1999. I thought Clark, Gephart, or Dean would have been better candidates in the last election. It is clear that McCain would have been more electable than George Bush. I also believe that Bradley would have been more electable than Gore. In our electoral system it is often the case that the best most popular candidates never get the opportunity to run.

This highlights one of the problems with our electoral system (Scientific American has some very good articles on this). Some decades ago there was a move toward open primaries in an attempt to democratise the choosing of candidates. Prior to that party bosses had a lot of influence in choosing the candidates. The problem is this, the party bosses at least had some connection to the grass roots base of the party. Now, with open primaries the so called "free speech" of big money special interests have a much louder voice in choosing the nominees. So, the process is actually less democratic. The current system means that candidates have to sell themselves to $special interst$ and to the party base instead of to the main stream of America. This is good for $$$special interest$$$, and it is good for party base activists like me, because our voices resonate more loudly. It is not good for the United States of America. The loudest voice by far in picking candidates, and in electing them, is the $$$free speech$$$ of special interests.

It has been a while since I read the articles in Scientific American, so my senile Reagan-esc mind is fuzzy on the all important details... but... one of the problems with the current system is that; if you like someone like Nader or Buchanan, you either have to throw your vote away by trying to vote for a "winner" or, you have to throw your vote away by voting for the obvious "loser". This is hardly democratic and will not express the real will of the people in either case.

One, of many alternatives, that addresses these and other problems is rank order voting. So, if there where 5 candidates - your first choice would get 5 points - your second, 4 points - and so on. The candidate with the most points would win. People would put their names on the ballot by meeting some minimum standard of popular support, then voters rank their order of preferences. This allows things like voting for anybody but Bush - or anybody but Hillary. It would allow people to express a mandate or support for the ideas of someone like Nader or Buchanan without throwing their vote away.

There are many voting schemes to consider. Each scheme has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Many other schemes would do a better job of representing the will of the people than our current system.

Some more of Rays Brief Dictionary of Political Buzz Words

2006-02-15T12:15:00.000-08:00

Economy (Ē-cŏn-nō-mē΄) noun. 1.) The Holy Temple of the Almighty Dollar. 2.) A system of organizing labor, capital, and resources to produce the goods and services that people need. 3.) A system for making the rich richer. 4.) Something that is far less important than making sure that two adult men do not have the right to enter in to a civil contract of marriage. As in: People will vote against there own best interest on the economy in order to prevent gays from getting married – because?... if two consenting adult men got married – that would just be the end of the world – for sure – because?... all the closeted fags in the Christian right coalition would become liberated?... and run off and marry each other?...

Economist (Ē-cŏn-nō-mǐst΄) noun. 1.) The High and Holy Priest of the Holy Temple of the Almighty Dollar. 2.) Someone who advocates for “free trade” agreements like NAFTA that allow a third world country to subsidize industry by not demanding reasonable environmental standards or that workers be empowered to be anything more than slaves. Also someone who advocates for “free trade” agreements that allow third world countries to subsidize industry by not requiring any health and safety standards for workers. 3.) Someone trained to understand the complex inter-relationships between labor, capital, resources, and, goods and services. 4.) Someone who knows how to make the rich get richer on the blood, sweat, and tears of the working class. 5.) A General in the class war against God fearing hordes of subhuman workers.

Editorial (Ěd-ǐ-tōr΄-ē-ǐl) adjective. 1.) See Ray’s Brief Dictionary of Political Buzz Words. 2.) The opinion of an opinionated person. 3.) Political spin. 2.) The insightful comments of real journalist. 3.) The lies told by Fox News. 4.) The exercise of free speech, some of which, would not be worth paying for.

Election (Ē-lĕct΄-shŭn) noun. 1.) A fraudulent process for choosing U.S. Presidents. 2.) An important element of Constitutional Democracy. 3.) Something that can be bought with $$$free speech$$$. 4.) A system of one man one vote - as long as the man is not black and does not have a vagina (see Republican).

Electioneering (Ē-lĕct΄-shŭn-ēr-ǐng) verb. 1.) Republican meaning: To attempt to win votes by sending The Swift Boat Veterans for Lies onto TV talk shows. 2.) Democratic meaning: To get involved in a campaign.

Elected (Ē-lĕct΄-ǐd) verb. Republican Meanings: 1.) To get five Supreme Court Justices to vote for you in a close five / four election. 2.) To get your best Republican friend at Diebold to make electronic voting machines with no paper trail. 3.) To keep every Republican talking head to stick to, and continually repeat, exactly the same set of talking points, even after they have been proven to be flat out bald faced lies. Then there are the Democratic Meanings: 4.) To have five Supreme Court Justices vote against you in a close five / four election. 5.) To have no best Democratic friends that are in the business of manufacturing electronic voting machines without paper trails. 6.) Something that does not happen to Democratic Presidential candidates.

Endorsement (Ěn-dōrs΄-mĕnt) noun. Republican Meanings: 1.) The signature on the back of the government handout checks from no-bid contracts. 2.) President Bush’s signature on pork barrel bills that build bridges to no where. 3.) Tom Delay’s signature on bribery checks from Jack Abramoff. 4.) Political support from Fox News. 5.) Political support from closeted Christian Right Coalition fag-a-phobes. The Democratic Meanings: 6.) The signature on the back of welfare checks. 7.) The signatures on petitions demanding free and fair elections. 8.) The support of all ten people in the Rainbow Coalition and the women’s movement.

Evil (Ēv΄-ǐl) noun. 1.) Homosexuality. 2.) Sodom me (that is really evil), and Gum more a (especially a mans gums more on a man), (but giving oral or any other kind of pleasure to a women is also evil… see missionary position). 3.) A state of existence, behavior, or action that is characterized by extreme self-centered, self-serving, spiritually bankrupt greed (see Republican – see no bid contract – see Jack Abramoff - see Haliburton – see especially, Pat Robertson taking contributions for aid to Africa, pretending to load a plane with aid, then turning the cameras off, taking the aid off from the plane, reloading the plane with mining equipment, and shipping that mining equipment to his business partner, the savage, vicious, brutal, mass murdering, dictator of Liberia, Charles Taylor – see that – if you want to see evil – see that ). 4.) See bombing third world peasants so that Haliburton and the oil oligarchy can make record profits.

Evil Doer (Ēv΄-ǐl Dö-ĕr) noun. 1.) Bushism for Osama bin Laden… takes one to know one… nuff said.

Evolution (Evǐl΄-lü-shŭn) noun. 1.) The excuses for going to war in Iraq. 2.) A faith based belief that contradicts the science of intelligent design. As in: The belief in evolution is based on the ridiculous idea that events in a natural universe will have natural causes. 3.) Scooter Libby’s account of his actions relating to the treasonous outing of an undercover CIA agent. 4.) George Bush’s policies on how to handle anyone who leaked classified information. 5.) George Bush’s policies for restoring honor and dignity to the Whitehouse. As in: George Bush’s policy of “We will do not just what is legal, we will do what is right” has evolved… (left wing commie pinko fag Democrats would say devolved - but that is just semantics) …has evolved into Karl Rove is OK as long as you cannot prove that he has actually committed the moral equivalent of treason. 6.) George Bush’s understanding of what the meaning of torture is is. 7.) The American people’s understanding of what Bill Clinton actually means when he says “lick my cigar”. 8.) Something that George Bush says has never happened to him - and - upon due and careful consideration - I have to agree with him.

More recent Additions to Rays Brief Dictionary of Political Buzz Words

2006-02-07T20:03:00.001-08:00

Democrat (Dĕm-mŏk΄-krăt) verb. Street slang. 1.) Meaning to run a weak Presidential campaign. noun. Republican Meanings: 1.) Godless tree hugging queer. 2.) Godless anti-American fag. 3.) Godless nigger loving gay guy. 4.) Godless pro-terrorist homosexual. 5.) Godless liberal, lesbo loving, sissy boy. The Democratic Meaning: 6.) A person with the traditional American values of equality, liberty, diversity, civil liberties, environmental stewardship of God’s green earth, and fighting for the poor and disenfranchised against the overwhelming power of the rich and privileged elite.

Defense (Dē΄-fĕnss) noun. 1.) Justification for the military / industrial complex.

Defense Intelligence (Dē΄-fĕnss Ĭn΄-tĕl-ǐ-gĕnss) noun. 1.) A well thought out military campaign involving the use of enough troops to maintain stability after victory is complete. 2.) Sending troops into combat with adequate armor. 3.) Torturing Arabs so that they no longer even know what the truth is, and will tell us whatever they think that we want to hear. 4.) Drawing pictures of fictional mobile bio-weapons labs on semi-trucks. 5.) Warrant-less spying on American enemies of His Highness President George Bush the Second. 6.) Really cool little remote controlled planes with big assed missiles.

Department of Justice (Dē-părt΄-mĕnt ŏv Jăs-tǐss΄) noun. 1.) An important department in the U.S. government charged with the responsibility of finding legal justification for subverting the Constitution of the United States of America by legalizing torture and illegal wiretaps.

Diplomacy (Dǐ-plōm΄-ă-sēē) noun. 1.) Refering to something that the U.S. no longer does since we allowed an idiot jackass gun slingin Texan to shoot his way into the Whitehouse - mind you - a gun slingin Texan would be fine – but the idiot jackass has to go. 2.) A process of finding and working cooperatively with international partners to achieve national objectives - but it really is “hard work” – so George Bush does not like it. 3.) A fun pastime in the Whitehouse involving the treasonous “outing” of the undercover CIA wives of diplomats.

Dissembling (Dǐs-sĕm-blǐng΄) transitive verb. 1.) Politician talking to voters.

Dynasty (Dī-năstē΄) noun. 1.) American meaning. A group of Kings… er… Presidents from the same family line. 2.) The Bush family. 3.) The Clinton family? 4.) The Kennedy family – by the way - I might be a distant kissin cousin – on my sister / Mom’s side.

The World Can't Wait Protest in Washington

2006-02-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

News reports state that there were between 1000 and 2000 protesters at the World Can't Wait to Drive out the Bush Regime protest in Washington. Another source told me that there were about 4000. It certainly seemed to me that there were a lot more than 2000. In any case the turn out was disappointing to those of us who feel passionately about what the "Disgrace on the Presidency" has done to undermine and subvert our Constitutional Democracy and to defile the American flag that symbolizes all of our shared American ideals. There should be millions of people in the street. There were 4000. This is our country. This is our flag. We must fight to protect it. Where were you? Why weren't you marching with us?

We must fight to force Bush II to accept the rule of law...

to accept that he must not spy on Americans

without Constitutionally mandated oversight

from the Congress and the Judiciary.

Under the evil genius Karl Rove, the Bush Regime has became superb propagandists. They have used demonstrably misleading, false, repetitious, "proto-fascist big lie" style talking points to confuse many Americans into believing that we must chose between being tough on terrorists and protecting our Constitutional Fourth Amendment rights against being spied on without a warrant... without judicial oversight... without any checks on unbridled executive authority. The FISA Court would allow everything that Bush claims that he is doing, so, why does he want to set himself above the law, and claim this excessive, and unconstitutional executive power for the Presidency? Does he want to be King?

For the sake of argument, lets ( you) assume the very best. Assume that Bush really does just want this power in order to protect us from terrorists. Assume that he will not use this excessive Unconstitutional power to spy on political rivals, and use the information to political advantage, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. Assume that he will not use this excessive Unconstitutional power to spy on journalists in order to get advance warning of negative news stories so that he can be prepared to lie and politically spin the situation, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. Assume, if you must, that Bush will not use this massive Unconstitutional executive power to spy on powerful politicians, Supreme Court Justices, Journalists, high government and military officials, and business leaders, in an effort to find embarrassing or incriminating evidence that he could use to black mail them, there by undermining our Constitutional Democracy. Go ahead... you naive and foolish Republican... make all of these foolish and dangerous assumptions... fool... "Power corrupts." Excessive power corrupts excessively. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." Bush probably is abusing this power... but even assuming that he is not abusing this power... Once this awesome, massive, unbalanced, excessive, Unconstitutional power is successfully gathered into the Presidency, do you really want to trust that some future President - like maybe Hillary - will not abuse this power... you idiot Republican... Do you really want to trust Hillary with that kind of power? I am a Democrat, but it would scare the bahgeebees out of me to think of Hillary or any other Democratic President having that kind of power - with no Judicial oversight - with no Congressional oversight - with absolutely no checks and balances... Bush is probably abusing this power, but if he is not, some future President will... some Republican... some Democrat... The power will be abused. Our Constitutional Democracy is hanging by a frayed thread. Are you Republicans daft? I say again... Where were you? Why weren't you marching in the streets with us?

2006-02-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

Too much cold rain... soaked to the bone... too many speakers... it is time to march. DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME... www.worldcantwait.net

2006-02-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

Thad's sign.

2006-02-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

The world can't wait to drive out the Bush Regime.

2006-02-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

More police in front of the White House - if we accomplishished nothing else at least we got some overtime for our Boys in Blue.

2006-02-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

Cold, cold rain.

2006-02-06T11:30:00.000-08:00

Police in front of the White House.

2006-02-06T11:28:00.000-08:00

Cold rain - dedicated protesters.

2006-02-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

More signs.

2006-02-06T11:25:00.002-08:00

More signs.

2006-02-06T11:25:00.001-08:00

A Banner.

2006-02-06T11:25:00.000-08:00

Super Protester.

2006-02-06T11:24:00.001-08:00

More of the 4000 protesters against Bush on 2-4-06 in Washington D.C.

2006-02-06T11:24:00.000-08:00

Protest speaker (www.worldcantwait.net) 2-4-06