Wesley Clark's criticism of McCain.
I love the crocodile tears being shed by Republican operatives about Wesley Clark's comments that because McCain was a prisoner of war he is not necessarily qualified to be president. This from the people who have slimed veteran after veteran, including Max Cleland of Georgia who gave limbs in service. Secondly, I am tired of this BS about how veterans are untouchable. I am sorry. Volunteering for the military is just one of many choices people make, though statistics (look them up if you don't believe me) show it is a choice made most often by those who are on the low end of the pay scale. To hold up veterans as these magic good people is a crock. Some no doubt are good and patriotic people and others violent sociopaths who like to make naked piles of prisoners and massacre villages My Lai style. Being a veteran neither should give one a free pass nor additional scrutiny. What is especially funny to me is that the loudest voices denouncing Democrat veterans and religiously defending Republican ones tend to be silver spoon fed business elites who've never been near the military except to sell them equipment or pose for political pictures.
It is true that McCain served and was tortured, but before we hold him up as a paragon of virtue we have to wonder just how many Vietnamese civilians were blown up, or chemically poisoned or shot to pieces by the ordnance loaded on McCain's aircraft before they shot him down. It doesn't make torture right obviously, anymore than those police who beat the hell out of actual violent criminal suspects before arresting them is, but it should temper our enthusiasm. Then again, this is America and the death of foreigners is utterly unimportant to us. We simply don't care. We are the most selfish people on Earth. When we were attacked the world sympathized with us. When the Spanish were attacked we were most concerned with whether they'd bring their troops home from Iraq, not at all about broken Spanish families whose lives were destroyed that day because their government followed us into military imperialism.
I hate the fact that so many Americans are utterly devoid of logic and facts that you can't even argue with them. I am not sure who said it but I saw a reference to the notion that some smart-minded people shouldn't even argue with the ignorati just ridicule them and I for one feel quite the temptation to do so. Interestingly enough, I find a high corollary between white Americans with racist feelings and their "support" for all things military and imperialistic.... hmm... I wonder what that illustrates. Oh wait I know what that illustrates, that people who are utterly ignorant about their own fellow citizens also blindly follow the patriotism which defends this country even those same fellow citizens they look down upon for reasons of skin color, religion etc.
Whoops divergence. Anyway, John McCain was a fighter pilot who admitted he doesn't know a lot about economics. This does not make him qualified to be president. Of course this isn't saying that Barack Obama is "more qualified." It is simply a false argument to speak of "qualifications." There are some basic ones, spelled out in the Constitution, 35 years old, born in the United States. Both men fit, thus both men are qualified. I am tired of this BS about being "experienced" or "qualified" enough. President Bush was the Governor of Texas and President of the Texas Rangers (who traded Sammy Sosa) plus failed CEO of several oil companies. Republicans weren't concerned about experience then. Does this mean that they are now repudiating "unqualified" candidates like our current "worst president in US History"? No it just means they are banking on the short attention span of our media to feed the short attention span of the voters to whom they condescend, rally up and then whose needs they ignore when in power.
In short, those people complaining about Wesley Clark's comments. Go do a hitch in Iraq patrolling Sadr City and then talk to me about "qualifications" or put more succinctly F$^%# YOU!
Following Israel's Lead.
So I read this article today at the New York Times online site. This is just an excerpt:
Israel and Hamas Agree to a Cease-Fire, Egypt Says
JERUSALEM — Israel and the Islamist group Hamas have agreed on a mutual cease-fire to take effect Thursday following negotiations brokered by Egypt, Egyptian state media announced on Tuesday.
The official Egyptian state-owned news agency MENA and state-run television quoted an unidentified senior Egyptian official as saying that the truce would start at 6 a.m. Thursday. Israeli officials would not immediately confirm or deny that any agreement had been reached.
Talks, brokered by Egypt, have been proceeding intensively between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza. Both sides have appeared keen on achieving a cease-fire, but until the truce comes into effect neither side is likely to stop exchanges, and on Tuesday three Israeli airstrikes hit targets in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Army said.
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So, I seem to remember John McCain and other Republicans condemning Barack Obama as naive and foolish for explaining that he would talk with anyone including Hamas. He was denounced as stupid and naive. Jimmy Carter was denounced as a traitor for meeting with them as well. We were told that we were selling out our Israeli allies, negotiating with terrorists, etc.
Now, lo and behold it turns out that the Israelis were speaking with Hamas the entire time..... hmm interesting. So I guess the Israelis must be naive and traitors to their own nation for talking with Hamas....? It goes to show how distorted and asinine American politics and way too many American politicians are. Israel is doing the exact thing that Obama was called a traitor for doing or worse, some even suggested he was anti-Semitic. Well I wonder McCain and the rest of the Christianist End-of-World politicians are saying now? Is Israel foolish? Uh oh, I think McCain and the Christianists must be anti-Semites because they called people anti-Israel and foolish who would speak with Hamas and that label clearly extends to the Israeli government and Israeli Army... I guess that is the definition of a self-loathing Jew huh?
The fact is, despite killing and back and forth, Israel must speak with the Palestinians if there is ever going to be a permanent end to the bloodshed. It's been almost 100 years now (not thousands like the ignorati pretend it is)- 100 years of conflict because the British decided to divide and conquer the Middle East by putting two formally peaceable communities Arabs and Jews at each other's throats. Thanks Churchill!
Stupid Email Forwards.....
I once again received a pair of lies from my mom. They masquerade as telling the truth about Obama or Clinton or some liberal, because clearly this is a Right-wing tactic. They have destroyed this country's economy, let New Orleans drown, stand by as their croneys hack and slash all the natural world, and have destroyed not just Iraq but millions of lives there, but they write up some email about Obama keeping his hands folded and I am supposed to be outraged. The sad thing is that many people are outraged. Even sadder is that the people who are outraged can't sit in the cigar smoke-filled rooms and hear the laughter by these Republican political operatives who author these things and just get to laugh as the people whom they represent soak it up. I mean clearly, people who want to lie to the public and do so expecting them to believe it and want to manipulate them not only don't care about them, but actively hate them. You don't manipulate someone you about. These emails continue to circulate among the people and the people who wrote them continue to laugh at those people who circulate them, since once they've scared you into voting for them they will continue to hack and slash the environment, drive your gas prices up and reserve an ever large portion of the nation's wealth for themselves.
I mention the hack and slash because I am sure I can't be alone in noticing just how many more people seem to be dying in tornadoes and other extreme forms of weather. I suspect that highly destructive weather is the result not only of global warming but the fact as with New Orleans that natural barricades (in New Orlean's case the extensive swampy wetlands to the south of the city which used to absorb most of the hurricane fury) are being trashed leaving us exposed when a tornado does strike, or a wild fire breaks out etc. PS I know this post is absent many facts, except the New Orleans one, please check it!!!! However, as the emails I am complaining about seems to show facts aren't important.
Labels: politics emails bad weather
Have to brag....
So I remember in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when people were fleeing the city and certain unscrupulous partisan hacks were trying to keep certain Democrat-leaning populations away, yes the African-American population, I said that this was not going to work forever because New Orleans was about to begin a transformation into a Latino city as Mexican and Central American immigrants both legal and illegal would begin moving to the city to work the reconstruction. Today I read an article in Newsweek from a few weeks ago in which they casually mentioned that "Taco trucks may soon outnumber FEMA trailers." In other words I was right. I hate to be a braggart but unfortunately things are unfolding just as I expected them to unfold, but this is significant because the balance of political power always rested on Creoles both Black and White battling it out over racial and economic issues, but now that the Creoles are bailing out the new power might be within the hands of Latinos and this in one of America's most important economic cities. This is something that will make a difference though I am not sure how as yet.
Labels: New Orleans ethnic realignment politics
Obama's "Hispanic Problem"?
Um newsflash to the major media, Democratic primaries are different from general elections! The media are suggesting repeatedly that Barack Obama has a "Hispanic Problem" because Hispanics preferred Clinton to him... This is asinine on the face of it. Because Hispanics preferred Clinton doesn't mean they are going to automatically prefer McCain the candidate from the opposition party. In fact in many states, though sadly not all of them, the only people who got to choose between Obama and Clinton were registered Democrats which indicates a certain distrust of Republican values. I would like to suggest that Republicans, because of the very racist way which they discuss immigration issues (which could be discussed in a much more rational and less offensive way though, I guess not alarmist enough) would automatically have a "Hispanic" problem even if McCain has not stooped to the race-baiting which characterized many of his cohorts in the Republican race (Yes, I am speaking about you Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter).
The reality is that President Bush, early in his presidency, attempted to reach out to Hispanic voters and they rebuffed him and his party. McCain has a Hispanic problem because he is a Republican and despite Hilary outgaining Obama, Obama needs only say hello and I am not a racist SOB who wants to round you up in camps and deport you and he can lock up a big chunk of the Hispanic vote. I say big chunk and not all because of course the Cuban fanatics in Florida will never vote for Democrats who have the nerve to say that the Cuban blockade has not worked and that there are more productive ways to engage with world leaders whom we disagree with. And yes thankfully fewer and fewer Cuban Americans are fanatics, but the voting suggests a majority of them still are. It's a shame that Cubans will define their AMERICAN votes based upon whether the government hates Castro enough, but I guess there are other sub-groups obsessed with our government's love or hate for particular foreign nations.
So wake up. I am tired of stupid reporting that displays no sense of reality and even less of the way our country functions. To equate Hilary Clinton's strength with McCain's strength is the most profoundly stupid thing I have ever heard. If Clinton were just like McCain we wouldn't have heard so many Republican talking heads devising strategies specifically to defeat Clinton because they would have been at least as tolerant of Clinton as they are coming to being tolerant of McCain.
Let me say this obviousness again, Clinton doing well with Hispanics in the Democratic primaries means exactly nothing about whether Obama will win Hispanics against McCain (especially when her big win in Puerto Rico is completely meaningless because Puerto Rico residents aren't allowed to vote for president in general elections).
So let me call upon our media to pull their heads from their collective asses and see reality as reality is.
Labels: presidential politics pundits
