Shouzer

Eight years ago, I distinctly remember making an argument that, while his qualifications were meager in comparison to Al Gore, George W. Bush would make a good presidential choice. After all, his father was a former president, he had Colin Powell on his side, and he ran with a well-publicized inner-circle of strategists, experts, political leaders. Surely, this team would not fail.

I was wrong.

And I won’t be fooled again. Sarah Palin has given an opinion, spoken, writen or otherwise, about the war in Iraq, how to fix the economy, or international relations. She is going to need a gigantic team of advisers feeding her every line in every speech and in every town hall and in every debate. She is not ready to lead, and I highly doubt she will ever be ready to lead. The candidates themselves must be ready to govern the country and represent it in world affairs, not a committee of party insiders. It doesn’t work. The past eight years have proven is doesn’t work.

And a word of advice, if you happen to be a community organizer, I guess you should just quit your job and go the unemployment line. What a laughable role in this country you have! You deserve no respect.

I want to warn everybody that this post is a sort of random, stream of thought rant…  With that out of the way, here goes.

I’m sitting here watching Rudy Giuliani talk at the RNC as I type.  What it makes me realize is that I can’t stand the Republican party whatsoever these days.  Scott mentioned below that we’re raised to hate the opposing party, and I think that’s true to an extent.  But it’s the Republican’s hypocritical divisiveness that makes me dislike them.  Most of his speech has been bashing Obama and his “lack of experience”, yet he’s going to be followed by Sarah Palin who has about 20 months experience as the governor of Alaska.

He’s talking about how Obama wants to expand the government, but forgets to mention that his party created the Department of Homeland Security, his party created the national ID, his party is for warrantless wiretaps.  More government, more government, more government.

Giuliani talked a bit about how McCain wants to lower taxes to stimulate the economy.  He’s somehow forgotten how well that went when Bush did it.  The economy is doing pitifully, and the national debt is the worst it’s ever been.

Oh, now he’s talking about the “executive experience” that Sarah Palin has; she’s got more than the democratic ticket combined.  Yeah, because the mayor of a town of 5000 really has to make some tough decisions.  Fuck, the president of most universities deals with more people.  Oh yeah, then there was her 20 months as governor of Alaska.  The entire state has a population of like 600,000.  Woohoo!  Yeah!  Sorry, that’s not very impressive when I live 15 miles from Seattle, which has a larger urban population all by itself.  I don’t consider the mayor of Seattle as a viable candidate for president.  I doubt he does, either.  Yet McCain’s focus thusfar has been how “unqualified” Obama is.

There’s always the fact that Obama is a “flip-flopper”.  What’s an example?  He said he’d accept public financing, then he changed his mind.  Right.  My guess is that when McCain got married, he made a promise to be faithful to his wife.  Then he cheated on her.  Talk about “flip-flopping”.  Talk about family values…

Now we get to listen to Sarah Palin.  She points out that Obama can give a whole speech about the war, but not mention the word victory.  Oh, I’m sorry you naive moron..  We haven’t achieved victory there.  Would you rather him lie to you, like Bush did?  You remember the “Mission Accomplished” sign?  That was a few years ago.  Then, only a year ago, we sent 30,000 new troops there.  Oh yeah, mission accomplished indeed.  It doesn’t sound like a victory to me.

I could go on and on, but it just depresses me that people can actually stand this shit.

I am writing this in response to Jared’s News Bits post. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say about this topic as I have lots of friends in that city. Normally, I’d put this in a comment, but it’s probably going to be pretty long. I thought it deserved its own post.

Jared already linked you to a news article about the situation so I’m not going to repeat that, but I think it’s worth giving my take on the situation. The group in control of the government right now, the People Power Party (PPP), is accused of coruption by the opposing political parties which have come together under a common banner under the name People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD). About two years ago, the military ousted the Thai Rak Thai (Thai Love Thai) party, and then ruled the country under a military junta for about a year. The coup was supported by street demonstrations by the then newly-formed PAD group. The military and the PAD strongly believed that the Thai Rak Thai government was corrupt and had come to power by buying rural votes. Now, the PAD is making the same accusation against the PPP as well as claiming that the PPP is merely a puppet of the dismantled Thai Rak Thai and its leader, Thaksin Shinawatra. This time, however, the military is refusing to intervene in the conflict, stating that another coup would be bad for the country. The PAD is refusing to back down until the PPP is removed from power, and they have mobilized many unions, particularly in the transportation sector, around the country to cripple its infrastructure.

Judging from what I saw in Bangkok, I would say it is extremely believable that the PPP is corrupt. There were physical signs of corruption all around Bangkok such as decades-old half-completed highways that were never completed because someone stole the money that was budgeted to build them. However, it is hard to see what the PAD truly hopes to accomplish. The PPP maintains strong popularity in rural Thailand, and they would probably win again if another election was held today. Presumably, then, the PAD is advocating for some sort of non-democratic government; ironic considering their name.

I find shocking similarity to our own government situation. We, too, have a party in power that is largely supported by rural voters and hated by the urban citizens. We, too, have large protests that turned violent (at the Republican National Convention). I think the biggest difference is toppling the government is seen as a viable option in Thailand because it is how they have historical dealt with political problems as a country. In the US, we had the good fortune of having forefathers who fought for revolution and then turned around and created a strong central government. That is an amazing feat when you compare the US to other democratic upstarts around the globe.

I look at the PAD with a certain amount of admiration. I question their end goal, but at least they care enough to fight for their country and do something. My personal apathy is truly appalling. I’m not suggesting when should start a sit-in at the White House demanding the impeachment of Bush, but maybe a little revolution would be healthy in our country. Our human nature as Americans is not better than that of the Thais. The only thing separating us is a historic precedent.

I was chatting with a certain friend of mine in Bangkok following the government declaration of the state of emergency yesterday, and she brought a fresh perspective that amazed me. I asked her which side she supported, and she answered “I am Thai. Everyone is Thai.” I realized today that this viewpoint has been completely eliminated from the American discourse. We are programmed to divide along party lines. One either supports the left or the right. The only other option is to support neither and hate both, a category I find myself in. The never-ending criticism constantly fueling the fires of negativity, insisting that we hate the opposing party. I hear so much of it that it makes me hate them both.

Somewhere that fourth choice of sorrowful disagreement has been lost in the haze. When two brothers fight, a strong family grieves for the lost love and urges reconciliation. They do not stoop to the level of the combatants and join the fray. Obviously, criticism is both necessary and healthy, but perhaps we take it too far and inadvertently add division and destruction to the American political arena. Perhaps instead, our refrain should be, “I am American. Everyone is American.”

I’m having trouble formulating this thought into words and sentences in my head, so the following could be a mess.

What’s so wrong about voting for someone who appears to be smarter than you? Better yet, should that not be our collective mission? When electing someone to public office, especially that of the executive branch, I’m quite certain that it is in my best interest to mark the box next to the name of the person who is least likely to be at the same aptitude level as my friends and neighbors. I want someone who is overly intelligent, whose education far exceeds my own, who, when faced with a decision that affects the lives of millions, would be better equipped than me to lead in the right direction.

Nevertheless, popular opinion seems to reflect that this is not something to be desired in running for office. That “aw shux,” “just one of the guys” act was probably one of the biggest reasons that our current president was elected over either of his opponents. How has that worked out? Again, what is the appeal? When one candidate attacks another for being “elitist,” that should be almost a backhanded compliment. “Thank you very much, yes, I do consider myself to be well-educated, and knowledgeable about many things in which you are not.”

That is my thought for the day. If presidential decisions were easy enough to be made by the guy whose locker was next to mine in high school, then the framers of the constitution probably wouldn’t have been so concerned about it. But things are not that way. One of our candidates has graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law, was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, has over a decade of experience in Chicago politics and the U.S. Senate, and picked a VP mate who has been in the Senate for over 35 years, heading up multiple committees. Those two men are WAY more equipped than me to do almost anything. But that makes them the lesser candidates, according to some… I just don’t get it.

Over the weekend, Obama announced that he had chosen Joe Biden as his running mate. Biden is an experienced, six term senator from Delaware, currently serving on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. You’d think that’d be a good thing, right?

No, apparently in politics it underscores the fact that Obama isn’t ready to be president.  Why else would he have chosen somebody who had so much more experience than him?  Oh, it also shows that Obama can’t deal with other countries.  That’s why he needed somebody with Biden’s experience in foreign relations.  Mmmhmm.  That’s how it works.

Obama’s selection couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that he believed Biden might be the right person for the job.  No, of course not.  Realistically, he probably could have picked somebody who would deliver more votes (ala Edwards).  Instead, it looks like he focused on choosing somebody that deserved to be vice-president (that should not be taken as a shot against Edwards).

This is why politics is stupid.  Rather than focusing on who Biden is and what he brings to the table, everybody’s analyzing the choice and coming to dumbass conclusions.  What a waste.

1. After the Bush administration, the country will have an extremely lopsided election with 100% of democrats and a fair amount of republicans and independents voting blue, no matter the candidate.

Recent evidence shows that I was far too hopeful, and I am still surprised. I thought most people wanted to stop losing lives in Iraq. I thought most people were being hurt by the economy. My assumptions must have been wrong. I now see that there are still many, many voters who want to stay in Iraq, and many, many voters who want the same leadership in the economy. I also thought that universal healthcare would be be a welcome matter, but here again, I was incorrect.

2. People who support Hillary Clinton are doing so because of her stance on issues.

This one is just as big of a surprise to me, because statement #2 is clearly false. If it were true, we would see every single HRC voter throwing his/her weight behind Barack Obama; as far as issues go, they are nearly in complete alignment. However, HRC supporters are taking stabs at Obama, threatening not to vote in the GE, and backing the stance “McCain in ‘08, HRC in ‘12″. Someone please explain this to me. It is utterly inconceivable. It’s like wanting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with grape jelly, but you only have strawberry, and instead of eating the strawberry jelly, you eat peanut butter and mayonnaise until your mom gets back from the store in 4 years. It’s f–king fruit jelly, and you’ll probably never know the difference! Eat that sh-t, so you don’t have to swallow the mayonnaise!

Further, if HRC supporters think that Obama primary voters were sexist, what do they call not voting at all? Is it not also sexist to abstain from voting for a man because you favor a woman?

Someone explain these things to me…

So it turns out that it only took 7.5 years, but I finally agree with Bush about something.  Basically, Congress voted to stop filling the strategic petroleum reserve in an effort to lower gas prices.  Bush is opposed, because he doesn’t believe it would affect oil prices, and he thinks national security is more important.

Now, granted, Bush has taken ‘national security’ to the extreme in his tenure as president, but I think he’s right about this one.  Yes, gas is expensive, and it pisses me off.  I just don’t think this is the right move.  Overzealous military man or not, he’s right that we shouldn’t put ourselves at risk (however small) over this.  I also don’t personally believe that this will affect oil prices in the least.

I’ve pretty much stopped paying attention to any political news lately, which would probably be fairly surprising to anybody who knows me.  I was trying to figure out why, and I realized I think it’s because I just can’t stand Hilary.  She just pisses me off.  I’m not sure exactly what it is, honestly, but anytime I hear her talk I want to rip off my ears.  And that can’t be a good sign.

I’m really surprised that Hilary’s even still around.  It doesn’t seem like anybody really likes her more than Obama, and yet she keeps get votes.  I hear talk about people being inspired by Obama and believing he can make a real change in the country.  I don’t hear the same  things about Hilary.  So who the fuck keeps voting for her?  For real, Hildog, I wanna know what your game is.

Suppose we are at war, and I take you prisoner. Let’s say I believe you have information that may be valuable to me, but you won’t divulge it with my ordinary interrogation tactics. So then I strap you down, cover your face with a cloth, and pour water on you to simulate the experience of drowning. Is that torture? Better question: how is that not torture? Apparently, though, it is not.

Take the quiz at GlassBooth. For the second time in 4 years, I’m closely aligned with John Edwards. Here are my top 5.

1. 84% John Edwards
2. 80% Barak Obama
3. 76% Hillary Clinton
4. 71% Dennis Kucinich
5. 64% John McCain

Those were followed by Mike Gravel, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Rudy Guliani, and Duncan Hunter.

I’ve talked about this before, and it looks like it’ll soon become a reality. It’s amazing to me the things this (notice I’m very careful not to say our) government will do in the name of security.

Jefferson said, “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” That’s something I agree with rather strongly. I’ve been to the airport a fair bit lately either dropping people off or flying myself, and it’s pretty shitty that whoever is flying has to go and wait at the gate by themselves. Surely there’s got to be a better way to ensure security than how they currently do it.

As I’m sure you’re all aware, I’ll almost positively (can’t ever too too sure) be voting for a Democratic presidential candidate in the next election. However, I’ve got to say that I hope that candidate isn’t Hilary Clinton. I can’t stand her. She’s never said a single thing that didn’t seem politically motivated. I have a feeling she’d do about as much good as another Republican president would.

I still think it’s ironic. Republicans are for small government, but our government has gotten bigger. Hell, we added an entirely new department (Homeland Security). Republicans are for fiscal responsibility, and yet we’ve got a monstrous deficit, despite Clinton putting us on track to be out of debt within the next couple years. Republicans are pro-life, but Roe vs Wade wasn’t challenged, much less overturned. What expectations could have persuaded one to vote Republican that have been seen through to fruition?

This story on CNN was just crazy. I mean seriously? People are allowed to get away with this shit? Good thing our government is all buddy buddy with the Saudi royal family.

I’m not sure how many of you folks have heard, but Stephen Colbert announced he’s running for president (…in South Carolina, heh). According to Jordy, he plans to run as both a democrat and republican, which makes it just that much better.

I happened to be flipping through the channels the other day, and I caught O’Reilly talking about it. He had some “behavior analyst” person or something on, too. It was hilarious. The conclusion good ‘ol Bill came to was that Colbert is “just trying to be hip.” Oh thanks, Billy. I guess that’s your attempt to belittle him, eh? He must be doing something right…

I’ve been trying to stay abreast of the news at home, although I admittedly don’t do a very good job of it. Of course, I didn’t do a great job of it when I was still there, but that’s beside the point. I’ve read some about the tussle between Barack and Hilary over national security, and I don’t particularly like what I see. I read this article today, and it really scares me that these are our two mostly likely candidates for president.

According to the article, Barack wants to withdraw from Iraq, send more troops to Afghanistan and invade Pakistan. Maybe invade isn’t the right word there. It isn’t clear what level of troop commitment he is looking to make there. Still though, do we really need to attack another country? I just don’t see the point of this. Why can’t we have a leader that realizes you can’t fight a war of ideals with bullets and bombs?

Barack also stated that he would never use a nuclear weapon against terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and Hilary pounced on it say, “‘I don’t believe any president should make blanket statements with the regard to use or nonuse’ of nukes”. Well I don’t see why they shouldn’t make a blanket statement about the use of nukes. What possible scenario can she envision in which it would be a good idea to drop a nuclear weapon on terrorists in either of those countries?

Politics depress me.

I happened to catch Michael Moore on The Daily Show the other day.  It was ok, I guess.  I don’t really care for Michael Moore as an interviewee.  Mind you, I happen to thoroughly enjoy his movies.  Crazy fuckin’ communist or not (as Team America seems to make him out to be), I think he makes some good sense.  Bush == Bad.  Hurray, I agree!  I guess it doesn’t take much…

That being said, I don’t think he makes for a great interview.  He tries to be funny, and he’s really not.  That alone ruins it.  Despite this, his new movie SiCKO should be something most Americans can rally behind.  I find it hard to believe there’s a lot of people out there (particularly those in the middle class) who think the healthcare system in the US is as good as it should be.

So I have to admit I was surprised to hear from Moore that he was bumped from Larry King for Paris Hilton.  Paris fucking Hilton.  That’s just sad.  Probably more than healthcare, that’s the thing wrong with America.  She shouldn’t be news.  Ever.  EVER.  Apparently the interview brought in the highest ratings Larry King has ever gotten, so I guess I can’t blame him, though he’s basically feeding the monster.

Whatever.