August 10, 2004
Boiled and Oiled
I had some corn last night and it was so good that I had to mention it. There are times when the comfort taken from the simplest foods are the only thing that can make us happy. I had that food, one of my favorites since childhood in the company of three of my grandchildren, my wife and my favorite youngest daughter and her husband. These are among the few people out of some six billion on this planet that keep me happy and interested in life. So it seems to be for most of us, the whole world boils down to those who we love the most. So it is for those in Iraq and Palestine and Israel and the USA too.
There is a lot of corn of all kinds being passed around at political events these days; we are in the throes of a presidential election. There are also a lot of mean-spirited attacks on both major party candidates being run as advertisements or news. The level of cruelty and dishonesty that we descend to during these campaigns has gotten worse and worse over my lifetime. It is cruel to demean a person by mocking his speech patterns. It is cruel to mock a man’s integrity and deny his honor after a lifetime of service to his nation. It is dishonest to say that you were there with him and that you know his medals are lies when in fact you never served with him on the same swift boat at all. It is dishonest to deny that any of the things done by this President were done for the benefit of the people of his nation. We are not going to succeed as a nation if we continue to destroy the validity of everyone who ever runs for President in this way.
It is easy to believe a lie, Mark Twain’s quote is much in the news lately, the one about lies and truth. It goes something like this, “A lie will make it around the world before the truth can get its pants on”. That is often true because the carefully discerned truth is usually complex and well told lies are very simple. We all learn early on in life about the need to make lies simple. I lied to my mother many times in my life and she noticed those lies most when they were elaborate and complicated. When I told her a simple lie she would casually reach out her hand and swat me on the mouth. When I told an elaborate lie she would mock me in front of my friends and siblings and then swat me on the mouth. She never tried to remove my teeth with one of those swats, they hurt but they were mostly a reminder of the fact that my mouth was being misused when I lied.
I want to swat the mouths of more than one of the people on TV that I see speaking for both parties today. I think a reality talk show where a little old lady with a fly swatter stands by every “spokesperson” and swats them on the mouth every time they tell a lie would work. My siblings and friends always found my travails entertaining. There would be hundreds of spokespersons vying for a chance to be swatted in public and the ratings of that show would be astronomical, believe me. Nothing would make me happier than to see Ann Coulter and James Carville across from one another being swatted frequently for their comments. The fly swatter is a great leveler of liars and it could really improve the level of discourse in this nation if it were used in this way. When you are washing out your mouth after having been swatted in public it does clarify the difference between a lie and the truth for a short time in even the most recalcitrant minds.
The jobs report was bad this month and the Democrats are rejoicing, but very quietly. The bounce in their step propelled by this bad news is kind of like that of a child that made it out of the kitchen without being assigned a real task; like solving the Medicare funding shortfall. You don’t want your head to pop up too high or you might just get called back and told that your job today is to clean out the outhouse and balance the budget once again. This election is really all about who gets to appoint the next members to the Supreme Court. If the next President stays in office even four years the court could change dramatically. If a Democrat is elected and reelected the eight years could see five justices replaced during that double term. That will change the nature of the court for a long time to come.
Of course no one is clearer on that fact than the Republican majorities in the House and Senate and the current President. The first term was about the war on terror, the second will be about replacing the current court with one that will change the law in a more conservative direction. Of course with one voting age citizen out of thirty two either in prison or on Probation do we need a more severe outlook on justice? I read that astonishing number in the LA Times last week. They quoted a number of adult people somewhere over six million either incarcerated or on probation or parole, isn’t that a dainty dish of blackguards? I think we need to rethink our legal system a little and our drug laws could use some cleaning up too. Crimes that have no victims do not need incarceration so much as treatment in most cases. The drugs themselves are not as bad as the society that keeping drugs illegal engenders. Our society is broken by laws that punish people for misuse of substances less potent than those prescribed every day by doctors for people too old to know better than to take them.
If the numbers quoted above are accurate we no longer have a viable society courtesy of our war on drugs. I shudder to think what a forty year war on terror will bring us if this is the current “successful” result of our forty year war on drugs. I am glad my grandchildren will have to deal with that problem and not me. I want to walk quietly off into my own personal final sunset long before we get to that point. Our candidates for President are trying to out-optimism one another and three percent of our citizens are currently criminals under our existing legal system? What will they be campaigning on when we reach five percent? The euphoria ticket? God bless and take care of our optimists, some think they need a little touch of reality, just a smidgen. ©Henri Reynard/GoldenBrush Interactive
Posted by Henri Reynard at August 10, 2004 12:48 PMBoiled and Oiled. Protest Songs.
Is this a real blog? or is Ashton Kutcher sitting in a van somewhere starting these topics.
I know I am being rude, speaking off topic….but gosh darnit… sometimes we need to put away the protest songs, get out of the Volvo, put down the latte, and fight.
For those few who don’t already know about the purging of black voters in Florida. 2000.. here is what happened.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/politics/main520754.shtml
The purge is back
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040517&s=palast
How they could steal the election
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger
Lets make sure we get a fair election. then we can go back to our protest songs.
-ChicagoJack
Posted by: ChicagoJack at August 10, 2004 01:38 PMAs Clinton said on The Daily Show last night, “As long as the negative ads are effective, politicians will continue to use them.”
So the question is, how do we make negative ads less effective?
Posted by: Cameron Barrett at August 10, 2004 03:28 PMCameron, Education! Our educational system in far too many parts of this country is abyssmal. Here in Texas the schools teach via rote to the test to insure funding. And thus, our children learn to mime what others say, especially authority figures, without ever asking if what is said is valid or not.
Multiplication tables should be taught rote. Not civics and history. Of course logic is a cornerstone of teaching by methods other than rote. Regretfully, most elementary teachers I have ever known would not know how to begin teaching logic in their courses. And it should be taught as part of almost every course. But of course, logic depends upon knowing and adhering to the definitions of words as set down in dictionaries. I find in my daughter’s school that spelling is far more important than definitions - it is not important if she knows what hindsight means, just how it is spelled. Spelling is a good first step, but, it is anathema to education to teach a young person how to spell a word without teaching them also its definition and useage.
Filtering credible from incredible comes naturally to those who have been educated well. Education is in my opinion, the only long term answer to negative advertising and its huge audience.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 10, 2004 04:51 PMHenri, I hope this failed war on drugs and the huge costs to our society resulting from its failure will become a debate issue between the candidates. The public must know what the costs are and what each candidate intends to do to reduce them. More of the same is no longer a viable answer.
And you are so right to point out the humanity of those living in Iraq, Sudan and other places. It is all to easy for the military who must not view humanity in their victims if they are to kill them with impunity, but, the 4th estate has an obligation to insure that the voters never lose sight of the humanity of all persons in those areas we find ourselves embattled. For that is the check and balance upon the military so necessary to insure hostilities end.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 10, 2004 04:59 PM“Henri, I hope this failed war on drugs and the huge costs to our society resulting from its failure will become a debate issue between the candidates.”
Don’t bank on it. I went to a Kerry/Edwards rally in KC on friday, and Edwards started going off on drug lords. I changed my vote to the Libertarian candidate Badnarik immediately. He drew 5% from a poll in New Mexico recently. It makes me wonder what kind of national percentage Badnarik would draw if they replaced his name with Nader. Unless the Missouri polls are extremely close before the election, I will not vote for Kerry because of the drug war.
Posted by: entertainment news at August 10, 2004 05:14 PMMy local paper recently covered the failure of our war on drugs,
The US drugs czar has admitted that Washington’s anti-narcotics policy in Latin America has so far failed.Mr John Walters, who heads the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, acknowledged that billions of dollars of investment over many years have failed to dent the flow of Latin American cocaine onto US streets
Of course Walters then goes on to say, “The estimate is in the next 12 months, we will see a reduction in the availability of cocaine in the United States.” But he said that last year, too.
Henri, good post. I really like the fly-swatter idea. I wonder if we could come up with an online version. :)
And David, I saw a report recently that found more than 40% of high school students don’t know how to critically assess information they find on the internet. You’re right that it’s all about education. But if you point out that fill-in-the-bubble tests are not appropriate for every subject, you get labeled as nuanced and a flip-flopper. :)
Henri’s corn-fed epiphany: “This election is really all about who gets to appoint the next members to the Supreme Court. If the next President stays in office even four years the court could change dramatically. If a Democrat is elected and reelected the eight years could see five justices replaced during that double term. That will change the nature of the court for a long time to come.”
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) any Supreme Court Justices appointed during the coming four years are going to have to be completely bland enigmas even to whatever president appoints them. They’ll have to have the most vanilla wishy-washy records imaginable to even make it out of commitee.
The reason for this, obviously, is the new standard set by the Democrats for judicial appointments. If you don’t have a super-majority in the Senate, then no dice. I’ve seen no projections that suggests either party may come out of 2004 with 60 Senators. If Bush is elected, he’ll never be able to nominate and see a pro-life judge comfirmed. If Kerry is elected, it will be pay-back time and nothing short of renominating Bork will have a snowball’s chance.
Posted by: Martin at August 11, 2004 12:19 AMThey’ll have to have the most vanilla wishy-washy records imaginable to even make it out of commitee.
How is that bad? I thought you guys were the ones that didn’t want “activist judges”.
Martin said, “Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view) any Supreme Court Justices appointed during the coming four years are going to have to be completely bland enigmas even to whatever president appoints them.”
I sure hope you are right about that Martin. The alternative is too nightmarish to contemplate.
The reason for this, obviously, is the new standard set by the Democrats for judicial appointments.
That is an old standard that has been around for ages, Martin. The Dem’s simply insisted upon its implementation, as I understand it. The Republicans contemplated changing it, but, could not get the vote to do it, if I recall correctly.
BTW, it was nice to see the Dem’s do something right for a change after that vote to let Bush go to war with anyone Bush deemed terrorist, or harborers/supporters of them. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for a number of now Nader supporters.
Well, David, from a narrow and legalistic standpoint you are absolutely correct—the Democrats were not doing anything “new” but merely exploiting an old fine point of Senate procedure in a new way.
They’ve found a way to to prevent an up or down vote on appointees who otherwise would be comfirmed by a majority of Senators. So good for them. They’ve found a way to impose a minority view on the majority.
If Kerry becomes president, do you suppose the Republicans will now refrain from treating his appointees in the same manner? Of course not. And if Republicans aren’t the majority in the Senate anymore (which is itself unlikely), there’s no chance whatsoever of the Democrats reaching the 60 Senator supermajority.
This isn’t a partisan observation, is it? I’m just observing that no matter who the President is, no one who is obviously “liberal” or obviously “conservative” has any chance of surviving the nomination process.
So good for them. They’ve found a way to impose a minority view on the majority.
That’s a telling point of view, Martin. It’s interesting to note that our founding fathers set up the system so that the majority couldn’t trample all over the minority. It’s frustrating, but necessary.
But don’t worry. Bush is abusing his recess appointment power in new ways, too. He’s making twenty of them this time.
No, Martin. They have not “found a way to impose a minority view on the majority.” They have found a way to curb majority excesses which do not reflect a majority electorate view. Which was one of the Jeffersonian checks and balances written into the procedures for just such occasions.
Posted by: David R. Remer at August 12, 2004 11:08 PMOkay David. Once you tell me how we establish what the “majority elecorate view is” without reference to how the majority actually votes, I’ll concede your point.
This idea that some elite group possesses knowledge of the “majority view” though that view is not expressed by the actual members of the Senate that living breathing voters have chosen at the ballot box is TOTALITARIAN ideology. It demands us to accept there is some “higher truth”
not represented by the voters that is the secret knowledge of a minority. How can you not see this?
Checks and balances are mechanisms that function BETWEEN branches of goverment—they’re not means for the minority within one branch to impose their will on the majority of members within the same branch.
