I've made my beliefs regarding the Trinity Administration widely known, so I won't comment on the comparison of the ascendency of the modern Republican party to the rise of the Third Reich. I think I already did :)
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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
American Politics: Fascism Vs. Marxism?
I watched John Dean talking to Jon Stewart about his new book (Dean is a former Nixon Administration guy, you know, like Chuck Colsen). Anyway, his point was regarding the Conservative Movement's swing toward fascism, and the danger that poses to our nation. It was mentioned how there is a root of fascism at the core of modern conservatism and one of marxism at the heart of liberalism. So, deep down, that means American politics is really Hitler vs. Stalin. That scares the shit out of me, mostly because there is an element of truth to it. We have so lost sight of the lessons of history that we seem doomed to repeat its mistakes. The demonization of corporate America by the left certainly has anti-capitalist sentiment at its core, and that is because our regulation mechanisms have so failed Americans, it appears to the average liberal that the free market is to blame when our markets are anything but. We live in the land of monopolies, and it's killing us.
I've made my beliefs regarding the Trinity Administration widely known, so I won't comment on the comparison of the ascendency of the modern Republican party to the rise of the Third Reich. I think I already did :)
I've made my beliefs regarding the Trinity Administration widely known, so I won't comment on the comparison of the ascendency of the modern Republican party to the rise of the Third Reich. I think I already did :)
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
R.I.P. Democracy and Freedom
Just a quick recounting of where we're at:
1. A never-ending war on an idea with no official Declaration of War made by the Congress and no specific enemy, but necessitating a wholesale infringement on individual freedoms in order to protect the public from this unseen enemy.
2. Suppression of the press through threat of prosecution and imprisonment when they report on the mechanisms employed illegally in waging the above-mentioned "war."
3. A President who has given himself the power of a line-item veto so that he can unilaterally rule pieces of legislation he doesn't like "Unconstitutional," effectively usurping the role of both the Legislative and Judicial branches, and therefore nullifying the Will of the People.
4. A Congress willing to forgive and/or ignore all of the above, except in specific instances where Executive encroachment may interfere with their ability to hide their own illicit activities.
5. An opposition party willing to ignore whatever illegal activities its opponent may have used to rig the election process.
6. A situation where only a third of the population at best actually votes, making the majority of the public captive to the minority.
7. Widespread jerry-mandering that makes ousting incumbents realistically impossible.
8. A regulation infrastructure for the most part run by the industries it is supposed to be regulating, in many cases stifling smaller companies/innovative technologies that may be disruptive to the status quo, i.e. hurt the bottom-line of existing monopolies.
9. And let's not forget, a President who lost the POPULAR vote but won the Presidency anyway. More Americans voted for his opponent (Al Gore) than for him, but he won regardless.
This is a Democracy? Under what definition? How are we different from Putin's Russia?
1. A never-ending war on an idea with no official Declaration of War made by the Congress and no specific enemy, but necessitating a wholesale infringement on individual freedoms in order to protect the public from this unseen enemy.
2. Suppression of the press through threat of prosecution and imprisonment when they report on the mechanisms employed illegally in waging the above-mentioned "war."
3. A President who has given himself the power of a line-item veto so that he can unilaterally rule pieces of legislation he doesn't like "Unconstitutional," effectively usurping the role of both the Legislative and Judicial branches, and therefore nullifying the Will of the People.
4. A Congress willing to forgive and/or ignore all of the above, except in specific instances where Executive encroachment may interfere with their ability to hide their own illicit activities.
5. An opposition party willing to ignore whatever illegal activities its opponent may have used to rig the election process.
6. A situation where only a third of the population at best actually votes, making the majority of the public captive to the minority.
7. Widespread jerry-mandering that makes ousting incumbents realistically impossible.
8. A regulation infrastructure for the most part run by the industries it is supposed to be regulating, in many cases stifling smaller companies/innovative technologies that may be disruptive to the status quo, i.e. hurt the bottom-line of existing monopolies.
9. And let's not forget, a President who lost the POPULAR vote but won the Presidency anyway. More Americans voted for his opponent (Al Gore) than for him, but he won regardless.
This is a Democracy? Under what definition? How are we different from Putin's Russia?
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Post-World Cup Impression of Football
So the hoopla is over, but there remains the on-going row over France's Zidane. I just wanted to chime in with my blatantly American sentiments, which are quite possibly hopelessly buggered (I'm trying to throw in all the UK slang I've picked up from the BBC). Basically, the World Cup turned me off to the sport. I kept hearing about how athletes routinely fake injury or fouls, relying on the fact that often referees aren't able to see exactly how bad of a foul took place. And then this whole incident with Zidane. The question I'm left asking is, why hasn't anyone scrutinized the player who was hurling insults? I understand that reacting with violence to verbal abuse is not appropriate or sportsmanlike, but employing a strategy to provoke the opposing team's star into getting red carded is complete and total bullshit. It's the height of un-sportsmanlike behavior.
Reflecting on the entire sport, it seems to me that it's more about zealous nationalism than about sport. The football culture seems to accept an "anything goes as long as you're not caught" attitude as appropriate, and it's fueled by a nationalistic fervor that seems completely unhealthy. For crying out loud, players have been killed for making mistakes that lead to their opponents scoring. It's completely out of control.
I may be wrong, but I suspect that the Italian player who was taunting Zidane was doing so in a very unprofessional and unsportsmanlike manner. You know in a situation like the World Cup, these players are already adrenaline and testosterone-filled. It doesn't excuse Zidane's behavior, but I'm sure that his tormentor was making completely inappropriate remarks in an attempt to obtain the outcome he did. I believe that in sport, the only correct and ethical way to shake your opponent's confidence is to outplay them. Hurling racial or ethnic slurs is, in my opinion, a worse offense than a head-butt.
Of course I'm biased, but one of reasons I love baseball so much is that part of the game is respect. That's in the game's DNA. Certain behavior is not just uncalled for, but against protocol and will cause your reputation among your peers to diminish. Look at Julian Tavarez. His one wrong move this spring still haunts him every time he hits a batter. There simply is no place for unsportsmanlike behavior. I know that all sports have their ugly moments, and I know that in baseball benches clear, and that my heroes have been party to less than respectable behavior (our feud with the Devil Rays and the Yankees come to mind). And I realize that this was a very important game, and tensions were running high. I remember the famous game where A-Rod ran out of the baseline when Arroyo was about to tag him. That was a totally gay moment.
I'll cop to my biases, but I've got to be honest. I don't like the anything-goes culture that seems endemic in professional football culture, and I don't understand why the Italian player was allowed to get off scott-free. I've yet to become a fan.
Reflecting on the entire sport, it seems to me that it's more about zealous nationalism than about sport. The football culture seems to accept an "anything goes as long as you're not caught" attitude as appropriate, and it's fueled by a nationalistic fervor that seems completely unhealthy. For crying out loud, players have been killed for making mistakes that lead to their opponents scoring. It's completely out of control.
I may be wrong, but I suspect that the Italian player who was taunting Zidane was doing so in a very unprofessional and unsportsmanlike manner. You know in a situation like the World Cup, these players are already adrenaline and testosterone-filled. It doesn't excuse Zidane's behavior, but I'm sure that his tormentor was making completely inappropriate remarks in an attempt to obtain the outcome he did. I believe that in sport, the only correct and ethical way to shake your opponent's confidence is to outplay them. Hurling racial or ethnic slurs is, in my opinion, a worse offense than a head-butt.
Of course I'm biased, but one of reasons I love baseball so much is that part of the game is respect. That's in the game's DNA. Certain behavior is not just uncalled for, but against protocol and will cause your reputation among your peers to diminish. Look at Julian Tavarez. His one wrong move this spring still haunts him every time he hits a batter. There simply is no place for unsportsmanlike behavior. I know that all sports have their ugly moments, and I know that in baseball benches clear, and that my heroes have been party to less than respectable behavior (our feud with the Devil Rays and the Yankees come to mind). And I realize that this was a very important game, and tensions were running high. I remember the famous game where A-Rod ran out of the baseline when Arroyo was about to tag him. That was a totally gay moment.
I'll cop to my biases, but I've got to be honest. I don't like the anything-goes culture that seems endemic in professional football culture, and I don't understand why the Italian player was allowed to get off scott-free. I've yet to become a fan.
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Saturday, July 08, 2006
It's Addington... He doesn't care about the Constitution
Well said, Colin "house slave" Powell. He's referring to David Addington, AKA The Man Who Betrayed America. Thanks to Jane Mayer’s article in the July 3rd issue of The New Yorker, Americans finally have the integral missing puzzle piece we have been searching for. I’m about as hardcore an amateur political aficionado as you’re likely to find: Government & Politics major, live in D.C. metro area, watch CSPAN and listen to NPR, but even I had no idea who the fuck David Addington was before reading this article. Recall my brief polemic against Alberto Gonzalez, placing the blame for our nation’s decline largely on his shoulders. Well Alberto, I think I owe you an apology. As Mayer explained on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Gonzalez, like the rest of the lawyers in the Trinity Administration, is little more than Addington’s stooge. For those who haven’t yet copped the article, David Addington is The Father’s chief of staff and legal advisor. How on earth could the Vice President’s chief of staff possibly be at the helm of the dismantlement of the freedoms so many brave Americans gave their lives for? That’s the million dollar question, baby.
The chief question I came away from Mayer’s article with was, “If these guys dislike the Constitution’s system of checks and balances so much, why don’t they leave?” Look, this is America. If you don’t like it, get the fuck out. For such a miniscule number of ideologues to be able to dismantle 230 years of hard-won liberties is revolting. The only other action in recent times that rises to this level of vomit-worthiness I can think of is Congress’ inaction on the topic.
This piece has so many OMFG! moments it’s hard to assemble highlights, but particularly instructive was a quote by the Navy’s chief JAG, Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who described how even the military’s expertise was scorned for ideological extremism: “We were warning them that we had this long tradition of military justice, and we didn’t want to tarnish it. The treatment of detainees was a huge issue. They didn’t want to hear it.” This is further confirmation of what so many former generals have been saying. This Administration, so chock-full of chicken-hawks, was unwilling to listen to the previous Administration, unwilling to listen to their military advisors, unwilling to listen to Democrats, unwilling to listen to anyone not in lock-step with their extremist ideological positions rooted firmly in a belief system disrespectful of reason, logic, and common-sense. Their guiding principle has been unadulterated ideology.They should all be lined up and shot. Trying to understand how such a tiny group of people have managed to so blatantly destroy the fundamental underpinnings of so many decades of combined wisdom is akin to trying to understand how the German people were made complicit in the rise of the Third Reich. We will be implicated in this debacle. Although some may try to rationalize, saying that this President came to power not through the will of the people but by manipulating the election process twice, our failure to investigate that fraud fully means that we still remain complicit.
How it came to be that so many seemingly respectable and ethical people have allowed this atrocity to be perpetrated is a case study in the ills of human nature, and it seems we need new legislation to prevent the kind of groupthink and ass-covering that seems to have silenced any real dissent. Let’s face it: Republicans like their power. I’m certain many dislike what they see happening, but their loyalty to their party and their unwillingness to accept the consequences of doing what is right has silenced dissent.
Perhaps we need automatic triggers, akin to many states’ three strike rules. A mechanism must be in place to force action in the face of zero political will. These issues must be dealt with, but I’m afraid of what might happen if we simply switch extremes. If Democrats win back Congress, and then the Presidency, might we end up with the same problem all over again?
LOL that was a good one. A Democrat wins the Presidency. Hah!
The chief question I came away from Mayer’s article with was, “If these guys dislike the Constitution’s system of checks and balances so much, why don’t they leave?” Look, this is America. If you don’t like it, get the fuck out. For such a miniscule number of ideologues to be able to dismantle 230 years of hard-won liberties is revolting. The only other action in recent times that rises to this level of vomit-worthiness I can think of is Congress’ inaction on the topic.
This piece has so many OMFG! moments it’s hard to assemble highlights, but particularly instructive was a quote by the Navy’s chief JAG, Rear Admiral Donald Guter, who described how even the military’s expertise was scorned for ideological extremism: “We were warning them that we had this long tradition of military justice, and we didn’t want to tarnish it. The treatment of detainees was a huge issue. They didn’t want to hear it.” This is further confirmation of what so many former generals have been saying. This Administration, so chock-full of chicken-hawks, was unwilling to listen to the previous Administration, unwilling to listen to their military advisors, unwilling to listen to Democrats, unwilling to listen to anyone not in lock-step with their extremist ideological positions rooted firmly in a belief system disrespectful of reason, logic, and common-sense. Their guiding principle has been unadulterated ideology.
How it came to be that so many seemingly respectable and ethical people have allowed this atrocity to be perpetrated is a case study in the ills of human nature, and it seems we need new legislation to prevent the kind of groupthink and ass-covering that seems to have silenced any real dissent. Let’s face it: Republicans like their power. I’m certain many dislike what they see happening, but their loyalty to their party and their unwillingness to accept the consequences of doing what is right has silenced dissent.
Perhaps we need automatic triggers, akin to many states’ three strike rules. A mechanism must be in place to force action in the face of zero political will. These issues must be dealt with, but I’m afraid of what might happen if we simply switch extremes. If Democrats win back Congress, and then the Presidency, might we end up with the same problem all over again?
LOL that was a good one. A Democrat wins the Presidency. Hah!
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