Saturday, March 26, 2005
The Republicans have discovered life.
I was going to title this piece: The Republicans have Discovered the Sanctity of Life, but I realized that it goes much further than sanctity. The Republicans have discovered life. They have discovered life in Terri Schiavo. They have decided, as in the case of Peggy Noonan, that if it is about life, then there need be no purpose, "then life is the point".
And if life is the point, then this, of course, raises many interesting possibilities. I predict the republicans will begin to discover the cruelty of the death penalty. They will begin to value the lives of those on death row.
If life is the point, then the lives of our soldiers will begin to take on a new and illuminating existence. If we wish to preserve their lives, it will be determined that the best, and only way to accomplish this is to begin an immediate withdrawal of our soldiers from Iraq.(Many democrats will learn from the republicans on this issue.)
If life is the point, then the lives of Iraqis killed in this war will begin, suddenly, to matter. The republicans will conclude therefore, that the immediates cessation of hostilities, directed towards the Iraqi people, is the only way to preserve and protect life.
If life is the point, then Americans who suffer, and possibly die, from inadequate health care in this country, will immediately begin to take on great significanse. Republicans will respond by creating universal health care for all.
Ahhh, but the above predictions, I realize, may be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.
Because if life is the point, then what happens to quality of life? The quality of Terri Schiavo's life is not important, if life is the point. And with the denial of the importance of the quality of one's life, This will justify the continuance of policies by the administration that do much to damage the quality of life for people all over the globe. I would say that American democracy is on life support.
The republicans may try to save our lives to prove life is the point, but they are shitting in our backyards, at night, when we aren't looking.
And if life is the point, then this, of course, raises many interesting possibilities. I predict the republicans will begin to discover the cruelty of the death penalty. They will begin to value the lives of those on death row.
If life is the point, then the lives of our soldiers will begin to take on a new and illuminating existence. If we wish to preserve their lives, it will be determined that the best, and only way to accomplish this is to begin an immediate withdrawal of our soldiers from Iraq.(Many democrats will learn from the republicans on this issue.)
If life is the point, then the lives of Iraqis killed in this war will begin, suddenly, to matter. The republicans will conclude therefore, that the immediates cessation of hostilities, directed towards the Iraqi people, is the only way to preserve and protect life.
If life is the point, then Americans who suffer, and possibly die, from inadequate health care in this country, will immediately begin to take on great significanse. Republicans will respond by creating universal health care for all.
Ahhh, but the above predictions, I realize, may be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part.
Because if life is the point, then what happens to quality of life? The quality of Terri Schiavo's life is not important, if life is the point. And with the denial of the importance of the quality of one's life, This will justify the continuance of policies by the administration that do much to damage the quality of life for people all over the globe. I would say that American democracy is on life support.
The republicans may try to save our lives to prove life is the point, but they are shitting in our backyards, at night, when we aren't looking.
# posted by scorpiorising : 5:22 AM |
Friday, March 18, 2005
"Mr. Magoo Goes to Washington"
Salon.com's title was so great, I had to reprint it, and a teaser from the article on the Bush nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank. Apparently,
one needs to help lead the nation in a disastrous, bloody war, in order to be president of the World Bank (a la Robert MacNamara):
The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World Bank, following his commission of a long and costly series of blunders as deputy secretary of defense in George W. Bush's first term, comes as no surprise to those familiar with his career. Wolfowitz is the Mr. Magoo of American foreign policy. Like the myopic cartoon character, Wolfowitz stumbles onward blindly and serenely, leaving wreckage and confusion behind.
Critics are wrong to portray Wolfowitz as a malevolent genius. In fact, he's friendly, soft-spoken, well meaning and thoughtful. He would be the model of a scholar and a statesman but for one fact: He is completely inept. His three-decade career in U.S. foreign policy can be summed up by the term that President Bush coined to describe the war in Iraq that Wolfowitz promoted and helped to oversee: a "catastrophic success."
Even the greatest statesman makes some mistakes. But Wolfowitz is perfectly incompetent. He is the Mozart of ineptitude, the Einstein of incapacity. To be sure, he has his virtues, the foremost of which is consistency. He has been consistently wrong about foreign policy for 30 years.
one needs to help lead the nation in a disastrous, bloody war, in order to be president of the World Bank (a la Robert MacNamara):
The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World Bank, following his commission of a long and costly series of blunders as deputy secretary of defense in George W. Bush's first term, comes as no surprise to those familiar with his career. Wolfowitz is the Mr. Magoo of American foreign policy. Like the myopic cartoon character, Wolfowitz stumbles onward blindly and serenely, leaving wreckage and confusion behind.
Critics are wrong to portray Wolfowitz as a malevolent genius. In fact, he's friendly, soft-spoken, well meaning and thoughtful. He would be the model of a scholar and a statesman but for one fact: He is completely inept. His three-decade career in U.S. foreign policy can be summed up by the term that President Bush coined to describe the war in Iraq that Wolfowitz promoted and helped to oversee: a "catastrophic success."
Even the greatest statesman makes some mistakes. But Wolfowitz is perfectly incompetent. He is the Mozart of ineptitude, the Einstein of incapacity. To be sure, he has his virtues, the foremost of which is consistency. He has been consistently wrong about foreign policy for 30 years.
# posted by scorpiorising : 7:46 AM |
Thursday, March 17, 2005
"Scenes from a Cultural Revolution"
From Billmon:
The Left has taken over academe. We want it back.
Mike Rosen, Rocky Mountain News columnist
CU is Worth Fighting For
March 4, 2005
In this great Cultural Revolution, the phenomenon of our schools being dominated by bourgeois intellectuals must be completely changed.
Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum
August 1966
_____________________________
I have undertaken the task of organizing conservative students myself and urging them to protest a situation that has become intolerable.
David Horowitz
The Campus Blacklist
April 18, 2003
Students on University campuses were organized into groups of “Red Guards” and were given the chance to challenge those in authority. Students quickly turned their attacks on their closest adversaries, their teachers and university administrators.
Therese Hoffman
The Chinese Cultural Revolution:
Autobiographical Accounts of a National Trauma
2001
_____________________________
Thomas Jefferson knew "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing" for America; David Horowitz knows it also is good for college campuses.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The Last Days of Intellectual Oppression
February 23, 2005
Mao came forward with the new slogan: “Rebellion is justified,” which encouraged [students] to assault officials and institutions indiscriminately.”
Stanley Karnow
Mao and China
1972
_____________________________
It is refreshing that conservative students are increasingly fighting back against academic intolerance. Some conservative students at the University of Texas have begun compiling a "Professor Watch List" to warn students about professors who use their classes for liberal indoctrination.
Phyllis Schlafly
Confronting The Campus Radicals
January 12, 2004
Large numbers of revolutionary young people . . . have become courageous and daring path breakers. Through the media of big-character posters and great debates, they argue things out, expose and criticize thoroughly, and launch resolute attacks on the open and hidden representatives of the bourgeoisie.
Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum
The Left has taken over academe. We want it back.
Mike Rosen, Rocky Mountain News columnist
CU is Worth Fighting For
March 4, 2005
In this great Cultural Revolution, the phenomenon of our schools being dominated by bourgeois intellectuals must be completely changed.
Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum
August 1966
_____________________________
I have undertaken the task of organizing conservative students myself and urging them to protest a situation that has become intolerable.
David Horowitz
The Campus Blacklist
April 18, 2003
Students on University campuses were organized into groups of “Red Guards” and were given the chance to challenge those in authority. Students quickly turned their attacks on their closest adversaries, their teachers and university administrators.
Therese Hoffman
The Chinese Cultural Revolution:
Autobiographical Accounts of a National Trauma
2001
_____________________________
Thomas Jefferson knew "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing" for America; David Horowitz knows it also is good for college campuses.
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The Last Days of Intellectual Oppression
February 23, 2005
Mao came forward with the new slogan: “Rebellion is justified,” which encouraged [students] to assault officials and institutions indiscriminately.”
Stanley Karnow
Mao and China
1972
_____________________________
It is refreshing that conservative students are increasingly fighting back against academic intolerance. Some conservative students at the University of Texas have begun compiling a "Professor Watch List" to warn students about professors who use their classes for liberal indoctrination.
Phyllis Schlafly
Confronting The Campus Radicals
January 12, 2004
Large numbers of revolutionary young people . . . have become courageous and daring path breakers. Through the media of big-character posters and great debates, they argue things out, expose and criticize thoroughly, and launch resolute attacks on the open and hidden representatives of the bourgeoisie.
Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China
Resolutions of the Eleventh Plenum
# posted by scorpiorising : 4:25 PM |
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
As Always, it is best to let the Iraqis speak for themselves.
Riverbend has this to say about the "accidental" shooting on the car carrying Sgrena to safety, and the subsequent kiling of the Italian intelligence agent sent to protect her. I'll include a teaser on Riverbend's thoughts on the recent election:
We are relieved the Italian journalist was set free. I, personally, was very happy. Iraqis are getting abducted these days by the dozen, but it still says something else about the country when foreigners are abducted. Iraqis have a fierce sense of hospitality that can border on the obnoxious sometimes. When people come to our houses, we insist they have something to drink and then we insist they stay for whatever meal is coming- even if its four hours away. We cringe when journalists and aide workers are abducted because it gives us the sense that we’re bad hosts.
People are always wondering why they abduct journalists, and other innocents. I think its because the lines are all blurred right now. It’s difficult to tell who is who. Who is a journalist, for example, and who is foreign intelligence? Who is a mercenary and who is an aide worker? People are somewhat more reluctant to talk to foreigners than they were at the beginning...
...What it seems policy makers in America don’t get, and what I suspect many Americans themselves *do* get, is that millions of Iraqis feel completely detached from the current people in power. If you don’t have an alliance with one of the political parties (ie under their protection or on their payroll) then it’s difficult to feel any affinity with people like Jaffari, Allawi, Talbani, etc. We watch them on television, tight-lipped and shifty-eyed after a meeting where they quarreled about Kirkuk or Sharia in the constitution and it feels like what I imagine an out-of-body experience should feel like.
In spite of elections, they still feel like puppets. But now, they are high-tech puppets. They were upgraded from your ordinary string puppets to those life-like, battery-powered, talking puppets. It’s almost like we’re doing that whole rotating president thing Bremer did in 2003 all over again. The same faces are getting tedious. The old Iraqi saying sums it up nicely, “Tireed erneb- ukhuth erneb. Tireed ghazal- ukhuth erneb.” The translation for this is, “You want a rabbit? Take a rabbit. You want a deer? Take a rabbit.”
Except we didn’t get any rabbits- we just got an assortment of snakes, weasels and hyenas.
This American woman will add, perhaps it is best for everyone concerned with personal safety, to stay out of the country and out of the war. If a journalist, I would offer okay, fearing for my own personal safety, I will stay out of Iraq (that is what "they" want, of course, the social isolation of the Iraqis while America and its allies consolidate their power), but I will refuse to print any so-called "good" news, unless I can see it and observe it for myself, because you are asking me to take your word for it, and I simply can't do that and look my face in the mirror each morning.
ON another note, Riverbend also introduces us to another Iraqi blogger, Free Iraq.
We are relieved the Italian journalist was set free. I, personally, was very happy. Iraqis are getting abducted these days by the dozen, but it still says something else about the country when foreigners are abducted. Iraqis have a fierce sense of hospitality that can border on the obnoxious sometimes. When people come to our houses, we insist they have something to drink and then we insist they stay for whatever meal is coming- even if its four hours away. We cringe when journalists and aide workers are abducted because it gives us the sense that we’re bad hosts.
People are always wondering why they abduct journalists, and other innocents. I think its because the lines are all blurred right now. It’s difficult to tell who is who. Who is a journalist, for example, and who is foreign intelligence? Who is a mercenary and who is an aide worker? People are somewhat more reluctant to talk to foreigners than they were at the beginning...
...What it seems policy makers in America don’t get, and what I suspect many Americans themselves *do* get, is that millions of Iraqis feel completely detached from the current people in power. If you don’t have an alliance with one of the political parties (ie under their protection or on their payroll) then it’s difficult to feel any affinity with people like Jaffari, Allawi, Talbani, etc. We watch them on television, tight-lipped and shifty-eyed after a meeting where they quarreled about Kirkuk or Sharia in the constitution and it feels like what I imagine an out-of-body experience should feel like.
In spite of elections, they still feel like puppets. But now, they are high-tech puppets. They were upgraded from your ordinary string puppets to those life-like, battery-powered, talking puppets. It’s almost like we’re doing that whole rotating president thing Bremer did in 2003 all over again. The same faces are getting tedious. The old Iraqi saying sums it up nicely, “Tireed erneb- ukhuth erneb. Tireed ghazal- ukhuth erneb.” The translation for this is, “You want a rabbit? Take a rabbit. You want a deer? Take a rabbit.”
Except we didn’t get any rabbits- we just got an assortment of snakes, weasels and hyenas.
This American woman will add, perhaps it is best for everyone concerned with personal safety, to stay out of the country and out of the war. If a journalist, I would offer okay, fearing for my own personal safety, I will stay out of Iraq (that is what "they" want, of course, the social isolation of the Iraqis while America and its allies consolidate their power), but I will refuse to print any so-called "good" news, unless I can see it and observe it for myself, because you are asking me to take your word for it, and I simply can't do that and look my face in the mirror each morning.
ON another note, Riverbend also introduces us to another Iraqi blogger, Free Iraq.
# posted by scorpiorising : 6:33 AM |
Friday, March 04, 2005
The Internet is threatened.
A campaign finance law is to be extended to the internet, and, in the process, political punditry online is threatened. Outrageous.
How can the government place a value on a blog that praises some politician?
How do we measure that? Design fees, that sort of thing? The FEC did an advisory opinion in the late 1990s (in the Leo Smith case) that I don't think we'd hold to today, saying that if you owned a computer, you'd have to calculate what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.
It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did. And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in. Line drawing is going to be an inherently very difficult task. And then we'll be pushed to go further. Why can this person do it, but not that person?
If the FEC succeeds in silencing the political debate online, fascism will have won. This is outrageously unconstitutional, oppresses freedom of speech, and will be challenged.
How can the government place a value on a blog that praises some politician?
How do we measure that? Design fees, that sort of thing? The FEC did an advisory opinion in the late 1990s (in the Leo Smith case) that I don't think we'd hold to today, saying that if you owned a computer, you'd have to calculate what percentage of the computer cost and electricity went to political advocacy.
It seems absurd, but that's what the commission did. And that's the direction Judge Kollar-Kotelly would have us move in. Line drawing is going to be an inherently very difficult task. And then we'll be pushed to go further. Why can this person do it, but not that person?
If the FEC succeeds in silencing the political debate online, fascism will have won. This is outrageously unconstitutional, oppresses freedom of speech, and will be challenged.
# posted by scorpiorising : 5:48 AM |
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Hillary Clinton favors outsourcing...
if it wins her friends with the power brokers in India. Looks like I may never vote in another presidential election. She is free trade all the way.
From the Asian Times article on her recent trip to India:
Hillary clears outsourcing air
Hillary Clinton made it apparent where she stood on outsourcing during
her India visit, in an attempt perhaps to clear the Indian misgivings
received during the Kerry campaign. "There is no way to legislate
against reality. Outsourcing will continue," she told an audience of
Indian big-wigs. She pointed out that there were 3 billion people who
feel left behind and are trying to attack the modern world in the hope
of turning the clock back on globalization. "It is not far-fetched to
imagine ... if the Indian miracle would be the one of choice of those
who feel left behind," said Hillary.
Hillary has been at the forefront in defending free trade and
outsourcing. During the height of the anti-outsourcing backlash in the
US last year, she faced considerable flak for defending Indian software
giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for opening a center in Buffalo,
New York. "We are not against all outsourcing; we are not in favor of
putting up fences," Hillary said firmly, despite inevitably invoking
the ire of the anti-free trade brigade.
Hillary further clarified her position during her recent visit as well
as solutions that could be beneficial to both countries. She urged
Indian industries to invest more in the US to allay negative
outpourings over outsourcing of American jobs to India. "I have to be
frank. People in my country are losing their jobs and the US
policymakers need to address this issue," she said. She ruled out that
the anti-India feeling was a reflexive reaction, and explained that the
feeling was more because of the imbalance in trade between the two
countries, which in turn caused anguish among Americans about the
nature of the economic relationship.
"In 2003, US merchandise exports to India was $5 billion, while India
exports to the US was $13.8 billion. Though the US understood that the
economic vibrancy of India was in its own interest, there are people
who feel left behind and might stir up negative feelings against India
because they do not understand the economic benefits of outsourcing,"
"If the feeling was to be arrested, Indian companies should invest more
in the US to create a balance in trade relations," she said. Hillary
added that she had personally wooed Indian companies to establish
partnerships with American counterparts. "In June 2002, TCS partnered
with the University of Buffalo to bring patented research to the market
place. I would like to see more of such partnerships," she said.
From the Asian Times article on her recent trip to India:
Hillary clears outsourcing air
Hillary Clinton made it apparent where she stood on outsourcing during
her India visit, in an attempt perhaps to clear the Indian misgivings
received during the Kerry campaign. "There is no way to legislate
against reality. Outsourcing will continue," she told an audience of
Indian big-wigs. She pointed out that there were 3 billion people who
feel left behind and are trying to attack the modern world in the hope
of turning the clock back on globalization. "It is not far-fetched to
imagine ... if the Indian miracle would be the one of choice of those
who feel left behind," said Hillary.
Hillary has been at the forefront in defending free trade and
outsourcing. During the height of the anti-outsourcing backlash in the
US last year, she faced considerable flak for defending Indian software
giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for opening a center in Buffalo,
New York. "We are not against all outsourcing; we are not in favor of
putting up fences," Hillary said firmly, despite inevitably invoking
the ire of the anti-free trade brigade.
Hillary further clarified her position during her recent visit as well
as solutions that could be beneficial to both countries. She urged
Indian industries to invest more in the US to allay negative
outpourings over outsourcing of American jobs to India. "I have to be
frank. People in my country are losing their jobs and the US
policymakers need to address this issue," she said. She ruled out that
the anti-India feeling was a reflexive reaction, and explained that the
feeling was more because of the imbalance in trade between the two
countries, which in turn caused anguish among Americans about the
nature of the economic relationship.
"In 2003, US merchandise exports to India was $5 billion, while India
exports to the US was $13.8 billion. Though the US understood that the
economic vibrancy of India was in its own interest, there are people
who feel left behind and might stir up negative feelings against India
because they do not understand the economic benefits of outsourcing,"
"If the feeling was to be arrested, Indian companies should invest more
in the US to create a balance in trade relations," she said. Hillary
added that she had personally wooed Indian companies to establish
partnerships with American counterparts. "In June 2002, TCS partnered
with the University of Buffalo to bring patented research to the market
place. I would like to see more of such partnerships," she said.
# posted by scorpiorising : 7:08 AM |
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