Third Party & Independents: Archives

Considering it is a GOP Congress, I wasn’t too surprised, but, I was angry.

I’m a Democrat, but there are some rephrehensible additions to that bill from my side of the fence.

Occasionally I wonder if Tom Clancy’s idea - run a 747 into the Capitol during the State of the Union and start over with Jack Ryan running everything - wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Heh. :-/

ceejayoz, yes, I saw that, too! But, when a party has the majority, that party has the power to stop such abuses of the public trust. This time around it is the Republican Congress with the power, and these ‘borrow and spend’ Republicans are making a ‘tax and spend as you go’ Democratic Congress damn near look appealing again.

ceejay, just an afterthought. This is a prime example of bi-partisan ‘you scratch my back, I will scratch yours’ dealings that steal from the many to benefit the few (in the home district).

Federal spending is out of hand, and except for a few tongue in cheek conservatives looking for reelection, and even fewer Congresspersons of integrity, none are proposing bills to do anything to stop the bankrupting freight train called Congress and Bush.

***Just a thought; I actually do think that in some ways the tower’s bricks of the left are getting more and more interchangable with those of the ‘right’. And the tower’s bricks of the right more ‘left’ compatible.

We are really becoming one party, soon to be without hallmark distinctions outside of issues that garner fundementalist religious votes, the working female vote and ofcourse the traditional hawkish debates. We are partisan to a conclusion that both must encompass the same to be viable as a candidate, geared by a TV media that creates more homogeny than descent with it’s highly editorialized and re-editorialized news style.

Ofcourse left and right want each other’s votes but there is also the prowess of the lobbies that are dictating the terms. Such as with Gore in the last election he lost (Yes Lost) due to all the hard, soft and bundled monies that kept the dems from speaking on a host of issues. They couldn’t address Healthcare, Pharmeceutical prices, price gouging in many sectors why because the lobby dollars that Clinton and the DNC/DLC raised wouldn’t tolerate the descent. We are in a sorry state of things when still our needs are being overrun by corporate interest dollars and the desire to get the other party’s swing.

How responsive is Kerry really going to be he may be great with talking to crowds in a Q&A session format(being that his prepared speeches have been known to induce vomitting) but are we going to get someone who will shut-up long enough to listen to us domestically? or even understand that what may be a good solution for say, NY state may not be good for somewhere like West Virginia or Kentucky.

Both are apparently going to give us tax cuts(Kerry’s the more responsible) and both won’t take the time out to stop trying to override their values over our reallities in states where those values don’t have relevence.

With essentially one concensus television media that espouses the same supposedly viable conformed notions the rights of descent are thwarted and anything contrary to the pull of ‘coventional notion’ are treated as outside the norm. And here’s the ass-kicker our government are giving them the media deregulation to make sure that nothing can rival such forms of NEWS-FO-TAINMENT.

(Sorry, I’ve been saving these rants up like Marlboro miles.)

David:

I agree that both parties are creating a spend spend spend attitude. I’d disagree a bit that its the Republicans fault, especially since Democrats have been historically in power, and the same kind of excesses occurred under their reign.

I do think there is a problem with politics in our country. We all complain about it, and then nobly run off to the election booth to re-elect our congressman or senator, apparently blithely oblivious to the fact that they are part of the problem. We see their shining smiles as a sign that they are above the fray, when in reality, they ARE the fray.

We need to boot em all out and start fresh, though I cant condone ceejay’s or clancy’s methods, however effective it might be. I wont be voting for any incumbents this year (except in one case, and many have said that he actually isnt an incumbent, but rather a selection, so that’s a whole different story).

I just dont see it changing though, since the ones able to make changes are also the ones most affected by the change they would make. So they will cover themselves in rhetorical bullshit and continue fooling most of the people all of the time. Cynical?? Damn straight I am. Can anyone offer hope?

I think you’ll find pretty uniform disgust, across the political spectrum, at these pork-laden bills. Polls have demonstrated, though, that even while complaining bitterly about the general issue of spending on pork, voters tend to adore and become ever more dedicated to their own representatives when they bring home the legislative bacon. Democratic senator Moynihan, who even I liked, was a champion of this kind of thing—managing to get huge and unnecessary pet projects funded (including buildings that sat empty for years)

So what to do about it? I don’t know—I guess it’s just an undesirable by-product of Democracy, which always has and probably always will function to some degree as a kind of winner-gets-the-spoils system. Even a balanced budget amendment and strict spending caps will manage to be circumvented by these guys.

In democracy, voters get the form of government they deserve. They are lured into traps by pork dangling in front of their noses to where they don’t notice their wallet being lifted out of their back pockets. When said voters are educated and lucid enough to not fall for such scams, the civilization comprising their voices tends to rise to greatness. The converse is more common.

Good point, ciggy, but I do wonder when and where voters didn’t fall for such scams and their civilizations rose to greatness? Honestly, I can’t think of anything. Politics by pork is as old as the pyramids (literally—the pyramids were one helluva of a public works project to take on when most of your citizens lived in mud huts).

joe, I agree the tax and spend Democrats are responsible for the ripping off the public in the past. It is the Republicans ripping us off today. There is no way one can blame the Democrats for the choices that have been made to take a 4+ trillion dollar debt and make it 7 trillion in just a little over 3 years.

The debt was going down under Clinton and deficit spending had ended. 9/11, the Afghanistan invasion, the Iraq war all contributed to the debt. But, according to CBO, the single greatest factor for the deficits and debt rise were not these items, but, the tax cuts. I am not saying that some tax cuts were not warranted. They were to stimulate the economy. But the extent of the tax cuts went too far as the deficits and debt now attest. 10 Trillion plus will be the debt before the end of this decade if Bush’s tax cuts are made permanent even if the economy is good.

10 Trillion divided 100 million work force, comes out to $100,000.00 debt for each and every working American. Let’s be realistic, that is mortgaging workers earnings for a generation or more in taxes. The greatest duping of Americans was not the rational for invading Iraq, it was the notion that tax cuts were going to put more money in American’s pockets. Truth is, what we get in our pockets today, we will pay back in taxes with interest about 30 fold if Bush remains in office.

And how politically adept of Bush to structure it all so the bill does not come due until the end of his presumed second term. WOW! History books will not be kind.

I don’t think pork is necessarily a bad thing, as long as Congress doesn’t have to borrow the money to pay for it!

I just dont see it changing though, since the ones able to make changes are also the ones most affected by the change they would make. So they will cover themselves in rhetorical bullshit and continue fooling most of the people all of the time. Cynical?? Damn straight I am. Can anyone offer hope?

Maybe not hope, but help. The most effective thing you can do is write letters, and circulate and send petitions to your elected representatives.

James Carville (critique the message, not the messenger) has a campaign finance plan that would keep politicians concentrating on their jobs rather than chasing after money like cheap whores. Send your Congressperson the link. Better yet, print it out and get some signatures on it, then give it to your Congressperson.

You can cry about pork & influence if you want; I’m gonna do something.

Martin, there are good public works and bad public works, and debatable public works. Aqueduct: good. Fortress: good. Highway to nowhere: bad. Pyramid: debatable. It left an astonishing legacy of greatness and awe and wonder but it did nothing to either feed Egyptians or strengthen their defense posture against invading Hittites, Assyrians, and ultimately the Greeks who fully conquered them. Perhaps that tradeoff of physical survival for historical persistance, was worth it to them.

I think looking at rocks on Mars are our modern pyramids. It’s not going to help us to survive, but perhaps the data we collect will make us remembered by future scholars, in some way. “The American civilization contracted enormous debt so they could wander the solar system and answer burning questions of whether other planets had water, at the same time they were being blown up by terrorists. Let us sit back in awe of these people!”

Pork pork pork pork pork. Even most of the military budget is pork. The DoD itself offered up a long list of bases it considered unnecessary, during the Clinton administration, for closures, and CONGRESS stepped in and defended all of the bases because it was pork in the form of sinecure-type jobs for people to maintain outdated weapon systems, build highways to nowhere on the bases, cut grass that will never be marched upon by military parades, and so forth. Half the new weapons procurements dreamed up by the Congress are things the DoD often (but not always) will candidly admit, are NOT HELPFUL to the military posture or defense capability of the Department.

And yes, there is CIA pork; Agriculture pork; Transportation pork; Social Security pork; name your Agency, it finds ways to lure Representatives into boondoggles to bring home the bacon, mortaging EVERYONE’s future for what can only be described as waste.

Civilizations cannot survive when they are wasteful. That’s just a lesson of history, though, so I’m not expecting any voters to learn from it anytime soon.

David, you just better hope that peanut butter isn’t mistaken for anthrax or some other biological agent!

blipsman, I have left instructions with my wife to contact everyone at WatchBlog if I should disappear. If I do, you all may want to consider leaving Amurika and moving to Canada, home of the free and unoppressed, because Amurika no longer will be.

There was absolutely nothing illegal about what I did. If they can send crap to my home and ask me to pay for it, I should be able to send a little peanut butter back to em’. If their lack of humor is sufficient cause to declare a U.S. citizen a terrorist or arrest them, then this will no longer be even remotely the kind of America we grew up to love.

David, The world is no longer the world we thought (in our post-WWII innocence) we could “protect”.

We’re in a transitional period right now trying to figure out how we can survive and still be what we once were, to some degree.

Ciggy, I agree to a point. The world of the 20th century was also an extremely dangerous century for America, but, we didn’t trample the Constitution to make it safer too much.

Also, as horrific as it was to lose about 3000 Americans in an attack upon our soil, it was only 3000 of 190 million. Even if a single nuclear weapon were released in America god forbid, more than 180 million people would still be left in America requiring and desperately needing the safety and security of our Constitution to protect us from the only real power capable of destroying our nation altogether, our own government.

Terrorists are a major threat. But, the biggest threat to ending America for what it uniquely is comes from our own government, not a foreigners. The American people should revisit the warnings and predictions of our founding fathers who knew first hand what the greatest threat was, and is, to American freedom and liberty, our own Government.

Warning: The surgeon general has determined that marlboro miles and peanut butter may be hazardous to your health :)

David, yes, the world of the 20th century was dangerous in a different way than it is now, but to a similar degree, and to meet the challenge of those dangers the U.S. government did things that made the Patriot Act look like a .00001% property tax levy.

If you scratch the surface of U.S. propaganda in the era of WWII you will see plenty of violation of the Constitution. The propaganda itself suspended freedom of speech and made all news outlets march in lock-step with the war effort. 4,000 U.S. Marines die in ONE of the battles of Iwo Jima, and when we finally do take the island it’s considered a great victory. In a milieu of “free speech” it would have quite simply ended the war right there. In fact, the Kasarene Pass debacle in North Africa would have nipped our whole war effort right in the bud, right there. You’d see John Kerry types who might have served in WWI using their military bona fides calling for an end to all hostilities and giving the Axis powers everything they want, “in order to avoid further bloodshed”.

Also in WWII, the government simply seized any property it saw fit to seize in order to enhance war production. And have we all forgotten the internment of Japanese-Americans, in our very own version of concentration camps?

The danger and challenge of terrorism is a threat to the acceleration of liberty we’ve become accustomed to (which catalyzed in the 1960s), but to say it’s some sort of a “new” phenomenon of our history, is supremely disingenuous. If we find ourselves back to a 1940s level of freedom, we’ll just have to reenact the 1950s and 1960s to bring it back up, after a final victory over oil-funded radical Islam.

Ciggy, the only major tramplings of the Constitution in the 20th that I recall are the Japanese American internments, violation of American Indian treaties, and Civil Rights. Yes, it is a lot, but, only the Japanese internments were a result of war with a foriegn power.

You are absolutely right in my opinion, if we step back to 1940’s - 1950’s thinking and acting in this country we will have another 60’s and 70’s starting us in the face at some point.

But the main problem today is fear. Reminds me of the ancient Greeks when they were about to be invaded by the Alexandrian, the citizens were all alarmed and afraid but only up to a point. When the call went out for volunteers, the shopkeeers said no, no, I have business to conduct. The tradespeople said they had customer orders to fill. And the bakers said who will eat if I do not bake? And they all said, why should I fight, we have been paying the Spartans for decades to protect us, let them go do the protecting. This despite, the urgent message that the 5000 or so Spartans were wholly insufficient to meet the impending threat of invasion.

The American people are afraid, and to their credit they are willing to see their children’s taxes skyrocket to meet the threat. But, like the Greeks, it is so typically human to say like Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, it is time to reinstate the draft and send others to die so we can feel safer. So, typically human, to say, ‘Hey, what’s a few rights when we are so afraid’. And so typically human to, out of fear, fail completely to understand the threat and how to deal with it. It is a complicated threat that requires national border security. Nothing less will secure us from the threat of foreign launched terrorism in our own land. But, who in the Whitehouse, who in Congress, is calling for bringing our troops home and putting them on our borders? None.

Like Frank Herbert said in Dune, “Fear is the mind killer” and if we don’t face our fear and stand up to it eyeball to eyeball, we will fail to recognize that the greatest threat is not Islamic fundamentalists, but, our own fear.

David, I disagree with your premise that border security alone can protect us from terrorism. Many dangerous individuals are already within our borders.

The terrorists are able to foil our civil rights-oriented legal system primarily for the same reason that the rich are above the law: the terrorists have a lot of money, and can hire powerful lawyers to pore through all the loopholes and get them out of a trial, or get them acquitted if going to trial.

Induction of the legal profession as officers of the Court would kneecap that ability, with the colateral civilian benefit of reducing the ways a Michael Jackson or a John Ramsey can get away with horrible things. And no civil rights need be eliminated in the process: just equalize the APPLICATION of those civil rights to all defendants.

The key civil right that’s at stake in a lot of what counter-terrorist agencies want to do, is the right to privacy, i.e., there can be no investigation of a suspect without copious warrants, probable cause, etc. Domestic “spying” is bad. Well individuals spy on each other every day. Wives spy on their husbands. Parents spy on their children. Are we so joined at the hip to our own hypocrisy that we are willing to accept future 9/11 attacks because of it?

I say let the spies do their spying. Prohibit those spies from forwarding any NON-terrorism-related crime info to non-terrorist-fighting law enforcement, and then we would have the best of both worlds. The only possible way it could be intrusive or harrassing would be if you really WERE a terrorist.

David:
I have just one thing to say-more power to the peanut butter!

Ciggy said: “David, I disagree with your premise that border security alone can protect us from terrorism. Many dangerous individuals are already within our borders.”

Ciggy I never said nor even implied that border security alone would eliminate any threat of terrorism by foreigners. I said it is the single most effective method we could take to protect ourselves. I still advocate surgical military strikes and covert actions overseas. My point is that bringing the bulk of our troops home from Iraq and putting them on our borders would make us a 100 times safer from terrorists (give or take 50 times) than pursuing regime change and nation building around the globe.

And let us make no mistake, Rumsfeld and Bush are intent on eradicating regimes which may spawn terrorists and bring democratic freedom to all peoples around the globe as the administration has said this week. That puts China, Russia, the entire Middle East and some African nations on the table to war against.

The administration’s goal is neither possible, nor will it insure greater safety for Americans at home or around the globe. It is designed to put the U.S. on a war footing for decades if not a half century. That will bankrupt the American people, bring civil strife and division to the American people, and do nothing to effectively prevent terrorists from entering our nation.

Suhasini, Peanut Butter has so many wonderful uses, temporary glue, excellent with chocolate, an effective silencer of those who talk incessantly. It was fun finding a new use.

Hey David,

I think your analysis slightly off The American people aren’t being asked to make any personal sacrifices in this fight.

After 9/11, people were all fired up and willing to bear any burden to bring about the demise of al Qaeda and oter terrorists. Unfortunately, our president didn’t step up to the plate. He told us to trust that the government has everything under control, just support them and let them do their jobs. And, oh yeah, drive your gas guzzling SUV to the shopping mall and buy stuff.

It’s hard to fault the American people for their president’s failure to mobilize them. In fact, I’d argue that the president used the fear you talk about to manipulate them into backing all sorts of wacky ultra right-wing legislation and actions in the name of patriotism.

And to their credit, Americans fully supported their president.

David, I must have misinterpreted the wording of your assessment of border patrol activities. “Single Best” is not “only”. Gotcha. I would continue to disagree with your premise though. I would want a very active intelligence operation within the United States rooting out the terrorist cells which have already infiltrated, at the same time as border patrol employ real-time databases to detect intruders who want to rain down death and destruction upon us.

I do agree that regime change and nation building around the globe is the wrong tree up which to bark, for national defense.

I disagree that military forces make ideal border patrol agents. For one thing, it wastes the combat capabilities of the military forces. If we free up their time to where they’re not playing hide and seek with insurgents in Iraq, they should be training for strikes on Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan or wherever else, not checking tourists’ purses or computer-scanning passports for signs of forgery.

Ciggy, by redeploying our troops on our borders, I did not have in mind putting them in our gateways. That responsiblity should still fall to the Border Patrol. My thinking was to place them in strategic positions along the borders where there are no checkpoints. THeir surveillance, tracking and detention capabilities are just what is needed to stop illegals from coming across the borders adjacent and distant from conventional border crossings. Let’s face it, if terrorists can’t get through a checkpoint, there is currently nothing stopping them from coming across where there is no checkpoint.

Okay, David, I can see using military capabilities to some degree in non-checkpoint areas of border patrolling. Infrared technology is great for that, although what I think I would prefer would be for Border Patrol as it exists today to use it cross-country with their own agents and employees, and if they happen upon a target that is heavily armed and giving them quite a rough day combat-wise, then call in a military response force.

What I think would be tragic would be if some military unit got trigger-happy and opened fire on some illegal Mexicans whom the Border Patrol would normally have just loaded up into the “pitch ‘em back bus” and sent them on back to the other side. It’s best to just have the advanced technology there for BP to use, and only call on military support if, for example, Al Qaeda decides to make a play and opens up with AK-47s and RPGs on BP agents only armed with .357s, etc.

While keeping border security in the province of the border patrol is not a bad idea, there just isn’t the cost effective manpower at this time for such a huge border to effectively deter terrorists from entering the country. It would require I believe, at least in the interim, the combined technology of the NSA, FBI, and military and a large number of military troops to do the job effectively, and more cost effectively. As to the cost, I am guessing that our cost for squad would be considerably lower than a comparable number of border patrol personnel.

Considering the job may take as many 60 or 70 thousand persons, I don’t think it would be cost effective to put that many additional personnel on the Government payroll at the GS level border patrol pay and benefits lay at.

As for trigger happy troops, I think while not out of the realm of possibility, the volunteer forces today and the court martial system would be a very effective deterrent form something like that happening.

Certainly better than the vigilante groups we have here in S. Texas who are literally getting away with murder protecting the border. I have yet to read where a single border vigilante in Texas has been identified and prosecuted. That is George Bush’s hand picked replacement Governor at work for us.

David, I’m unaware of vigilante groups murdering Mexicans at off-checkpoint border crossings, but I’ll take your word for it. Little of an extremist nature regarding Texas would surprise me, having lived there myself. (Texas is the place where they threw a soccer mom in jail for demonstrating sex toys to other soccer moms—without the required “novelty item” disclaimer!)

As to the manpower required to effectively patrol the borders, that is directly proportional to the number of illegal crossers needing to be picked up and pitched back. Certain areas would be very low-consumption of such resources, because scanning equipment could cover immense areas with a single human monitoring the readouts.

My objection to using military resources there has been about the waste that would represent, of the war-fighting training made available to them. But on further reflection, perhaps a Border Patrol Specialist MOS could be created within the Army, such that after Basic they would go to that targeted form of training, learning how to use infrared scanners, how to load up the pitch ‘em back buses, how to speak basic Spanish, etc. I’m debating within my mind whether the other aspects of Basic Training in the Army would be wasted on them—things like chemical warfare, firing LAW rockets, that sort of stuff; but I guess their getting that training wouldn’t really hurt.

Plus I suppose a Border Patrol force within the DoD would be an ideal place to park outdated vehicles that are determined to be “not so effective” in real modern combat. A thin-skinned Humvee should hold up okay against a patch of tumbleweed, even if it would shatter when hit by an RPG.

Okay, you’ve sold me on the idea, LOL.

Ciggy, here are a couple of links to stories about the border vigilantes.

Southern Poverty Law Center

and

La Voz de Aztlan.

There are quite a few more by searching ‘border vigilante’.

Oddly enough, I had the exact same reaction when I found an RNC letter adressed to me, an 18-year-old registered democrat. I wrote down several reasons why I will not be voting for Bush on the insert, inserted it into the pre-paid business reply mail envelope, and dropped it in my mailbox. Ahhhhh… satisfaction! I even blogged it…

Ahh, Seth, if only more voters would do the same, think of how many trees could be saved from whittling down those junk mailing lists. Good for you!