Third Party & Independents: Archives

Sol:

Im not sure what the hullabaloo is all about. Here are the official rebuttals to the three issues you brought up. We can then examine which we choose to believe.

Breaking constitutional law: Bush used money that had been appropriated for the “war on terror” by Congress. He used them outside Afghanistan, but for the same war on terror. A possible mislead, but certainly no broken law.

Allowing foriegn nationals to see state secrets: Every president decides what to divulge and what not to, and to whom. I’m sure there were top-secret documents during WWII that FDR shared with Churchill—and I’m damn glad he did. Powell disputes that Bandar knew before he did, while Woodward says thats how it went down. I’ll take Powell’s version.

Collusion with foriegn nationals to manipulate elections: I’d expect my president to be working continually with the Saudis and OPEC to bring gas prices under control. If he were NOT working to do so, I’d have a problem. Now, if its truly an election ploy, then of course it would be 100% wrong. But that part of it is only supposition on Woodward’s part.

So…on the whole, I dont see any big issue in Woodward’s book. I think it actually is a mostly fair minded book, with a couple suppositions about what might be going on.

Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That’s the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”

Here’s the beauty behind Woodward’s piece. If prices do go down (for whatever reason), the press and the clueless think “It’s GWB’s war for oil doing it!” If prices stay the same or go up, it will be spun as “See, Bob Woodward got them and they can’t lower prices like they would have in their secret neo-con conspiracy”.

Of course, seeing as how every fall prices fall back because supply naturally increases with the end of the driving season will most likely be overlooked by the press….

There is nothing “natural” about OPEC, they are a cartel…

cartel: A combination of independent business organizations formed to regulate production, pricing, and marketing of goods by the members.

This kind of torpedos the accusations of the immense, dark, conspiritorial secrecy supposedly employed by this administration to hide it’s actions from the American people. Letting Bob Woodward have free access to administration officials?

1. The Bush administration has publicly asked OPEC not to cut production. As has every President since Carter.
April 1st, 2004.
Feb. 11th, 2004.
March 17th, 2000

2. All those who don’t want to vote for Bush should volunteer to pay more for their gas.

All those who don’t want to vote for Bush should volunteer to pay more for their gas.

What on earth does that mean? Isn’t it enough that voting for Kerry is a vote for terrorists? Now you’re saying voting for Kerry is voting for higher gas! What does this mean? What is this other than a baseless attack?

For many years I’ve been asking myself why the heck Bob Woodward hasn’t revealed the identity of Deep Throat. Now I know: As a result of his loyalty and consistent secrecy, people in high places still seem to trust him to keep their identities secret.

I suspect that the Bush administration arrogantly thought that the facts they told Woodward would make them look good. I suspect that they didn’t realize that, taken as a whole, they were actually damning.

The Bush team probably didn’t even realize until just this week that the $700 million wasn’t theirs to just play around with - they literally might not have thought they were doing anything wrong (although it seems fishy that they didn’t ever actually see fit to tell Congress).

They probably didn’t even think twice about telling Prince Bandar about the decision to attack Iraw before telling Colin Powell - they might in fact have considered it perfectly acceptable - indeed, even decisive! - to keep the Secretary of State (who happens to also be the military mastermind of Gulf War I) out of decisions pertaining to war.

(It reminds me of the Showtime cable network’s comically blatant pro-Bush propaganda movie from last year entitled “DC 9/11”, a film that went out of its way to show Bush in a good light, but in so doing inadvertently revealed disturbing realities about the president’s post 9/11 actions: he literally waited for days before speaking with Putin on the phone. How crazy is that? He should have, within the first few hours after the attack, been on the phone with Russia, China, Britain, France, Japan, India, Pakistan, Israel. You can be damn sure Clinton would have.)

I found Woodward’s appearance on 60 minutes profoundly and deeply disturbing. I am more frightened than ever about this administration and what it is doing to our country and to the world. In fact, almost everything I suspected about them before the election - that Bush is a religious nut; that Powell is a token and that his advice would never, ever be heeded; that Cheney actually ran the show; that Rove is consulted on every decision; that the Bushes have a creepy relationship with the Saudi royal family; that Bush would eventually turn away from his father… all of my fears have come true.

-Cf

I will go on record to say that gasoline SHOULD be expensive. It should make three realities hit home:

1) Petroleum is not an unlimited resource, and alternatives will have to be found sooner or later. Greater consumer pressure and demand for more efficient or alternative-powered vehicles, WILL be met by the market, once it appears. But if you still see guzzling SUVs flying off the lot at the dealerships, that’s not much of an incentive for auto makers to change.
2) Due to political realities in the Meddle East (mispelling intentional), the “sooner” option of point #1, above, is better.
3) There is this little thing call the “air” which we breathe, and the burning of fossil fuels has a tendancy to turn it into a carcinogen. Not good. I’m no great knight in shining armor for kangaroo rats or the spotted owl, but when environmental issues affect air quality, I get rather “green” rather quickly.

And a vote for Kerry is not a vote for terrorists. It’s a vote for Europe’s lost Iraqi money-train being restored to Saddam-era levels, in order to buy their cooperation, which thanks to Bush’s miscalculation, is now very necessary. It’s annoying to see Europe profit from anything at all, but that’s the way it goes.

The very fact that Bandar was brought in to discuss war plans with Iraq at this particular juncture in time and events is damning in itself. The administration freely admits they discussed oil and war plans in the same Bandar visit. These facts alone constitute a quid pro quo. Bandar gets privileged information in exchange for discussions about lowering prices in an election year (the administration certainly was not asking for increased prices, right?)

Woodward has a long, distinguished, and venerable career and has earned the respect for his word. The administration has a litany of questionable actions in the last 3 years not the least of which is pandering for votes to insure reelection.

My money is on Woodward, and as Nader says, it only takes on Congressperson to call for an impeachment inquiry. This would appear to insure there will be one Congressperson at least to make the call.

Christopher:

Is it always your contention that simply because something is said or written that it must be true?
Or is it only when that something is negative towards George Bush?

I’ll not discuss your entire post, but rather focus on your second claim: “They probably didn’t even think twice about telling Prince Bandar about the decision to attack Iraw before telling Colin Powell”.

Powell and Bandar have both refuted this, yet you choose—-yes CHOOSE—to believe Woodward’s version rather than Powell or Bandar’s version. Why is that, I wonder? I doubt you have any addtional information than any one else has, in which case you dont have any valid reason to disbelieve Powell and Bandar.

I suspect, from having read this and other posts you’ve written, that you judge information in this simple manner: Clarke was against Bush, ergo he must be telling the truth. Woodward says things that could hurt Bush, ergo it must be true.
Etc Etc Etc. On the flip side, Powell (who has always been tentative about going to war, and has typically been considered an honorable man) says something to support the Bush version, and you discredit it immediately with no premise.

It’s possible that Woodward’s version is true—and also possible that Powell’s version is true. Its also possible that some of what Woodward had to say is tinged with opinion, and the real truth lies somewhere in the middle. I think I’ll wait for further information to emerge before making a final decision. Christopher, you go right ahead and make yours—-I suspect it was already made BEFORE the Woodward book even came out.

How wonderful partisanship must be.

All those who don’t want to vote for Bush should volunteer to pay more for their gas.

Have gas prices not gone up since Bush went into Iraq to “stabilize” the region?

As for the constitutionality of diverting funds from fighting in Afghanistan to developing a war plan for Iraq, it again brings up questions about whether the Bush administration saw what it wanted to see of whether intelligence was really that bad. Senate Joint Resolution 23,Authorization for Use of Military Force clearly states that force may be used to go after those responsible for the September 11 attacks.

That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

Seeing as there have never been any ties between al Queda’s attacks of Sep. 11 and Hussein regime, the use of funds meant to fight terrorists responsible for Sep. 11 for other purposes would have violated the bill as passed.

Thanks for you candor Ciggy. It’s good to hear someone take ownership of their agenda. Most Democrats squak and squeel when gas prices go up. Calling for hearings and talking about gouging…

On the other hand they declare automobiles are, “posing a mortal threat to the security of every nation that is more deadly than that of any military enemy we are ever again likely to confront.”

Consistancy would beg for them to call for higher gas prices.

I’m speculating, but how can you say that no aircraft launched from Kuwait were used in Afganistan? It seems that an air base in that area would be a tremendous asset in the war on terror.

Rob, I know you are just trying to justify things (no matter how outlandish your explanation), but I don’t buy it. Even if I were to ignore the fact that any of those planes would have to fly through Iran, then through Pakistan, instead of just taking off in Pakistan where we have an air base. Even if I were to ignore the fact that a round trip would be horribly wasteful on resources. Even if I were to ignore the fact that we also have air bases in Uzbekistan.

So if I ignore all that, then yeah, it makes loads of sense to build a $700M+ facility in Kuwait with money eartagged for Afghanistan.

Most Democrats squak and squeel when gas prices go up. Calling for hearings and talking about gouging…

Only because that usually turns out to be the case. The California “energy crisis” was manufactured by Enron and other power companies “gaming” the system with the full knowledge of Bush’s FERC, who are supposed to stop that kind of thing.

Now it looks like US oil companies are doing the same thing.

OPEC countries are flooding the market to take advantage of high oil prices. Does that make any sense? If the spigots are fully open, shouldn’t oil prices be decreasing? In a free market, yes. With OPEC control of price and supply, no.

Lee,

You should be happy when gas prices go up. The automobile is the evil of our age. Didn’t you get Al Gore’s memo?

I actually bought that book, “Earth in the Balance.”

The higher gas prices are, the less we’ll use our evil internal combustion engines. And isn’t that what’s funding terrorism? Oil? It’s the root of all evil.

The second, which opens on a man at a gas station, features a cute kid’s voice-over throughout: “This is George.” Then we see a close-up of a gas pump. “This is the gas George buys for his car.” Next we see a guy in a suit. “This is the oil company executive who makes money on the gas George buys.” Close-up on al-Qaida training film footage: “This is the terrorist organization supported by money from the country where the oil company does business.” It’s followed by footage of 9/11: “We all know what this is.” And it closes on a wide shot of bumper-to-bumper traffic: “The biggest weapon of mass destruction is parked in your driveway.” Pretty effective.

Can the administration seriously deny that oil dollars do, actually, finance a spreading slick of evil in the world today? In Iraq, oil money has kept Saddam’s repressive regime afloat even in the midst of tough U.N. sanctions. According to a report just released by the CIA, Saddam has been spending his oil money on conventional arms and weapons of mass destruction, while starving and torturing his own people.

In Saudi Arabia, our second largest foreign supplier of oil, the money you spend at the pump over here pays for a feudal monarchy that gorges itself on excess while bankrolling terrorist mischief abroad with its support of suicide bombers. -Arriana Huffington

Eric, just to fact-check you a bit here, I’m not a Democrat. In fact, I get called a “right winger” by Democrats for not supporting a few pet issues of theirs, or for not being fanatically rabid in an extreme hatred of Bush. (Remember when the Democrats were calling Republicans “hateful extremists” while criticizing Clinton? They just wanted the chance to mimick that same behavior they were diagnosing as psychotic in others.) I do criticize some key decisions Bush has made, but I don’t fall into the rhetorical landslide of comparing him to Hitler, etc.—a landslide which only destroys the credibility of those indulging in it.

Anyway, you mentioned “consistency” in agenda. This is amusing if you observe how Republicans talk the talk of smaller government, and walk the walk of larger government. Are you a Republican, and prepared to defend that inconsistency, or are you a Third Party type kibbitzer-pundit like me?

Ciggy,

I am a Republican. I was registered as a libertarian at one time. So I am kind of a monstrous hybrid.

I am upset with Bush about the size of government. Even though he is characterized as an arch-conservative he certainly hasn’t acted that way domestically. I guess you could call that an attempt to be bi-partisan in the beginning, the whole compassionate conservative thing, but it doesn’t profit him much.

By now I would expect that Republicans, with control of the House, the Senate, and the White House would have at least cut the budget in half. At the very least, dissolved a department or two.

But there are enough moderate Republicans to make that distinction moot and everyone has an interest to protect. Far too often Republicans are more interested in not offending anyone, and holding on to what they have, than actually doing what they should.

Obviously, the war kind of trumps that for me. And I certainly see Bush as a far better choice than Kerry.

I’d go so far as to say that if 9/11 hadn’t happened Bush would have certainly had primary competition and he might actually have been given a run for his money.

Eric, if I were a Republican that’s pretty much the assessment I would have given. Thank you for your candor.

I’ll continue in my curiosity: In light of recent problems in the war, and no foreseeable way out, indicating a probable quagmire, does the Mess O’Potamia trump 9/11 as an internal Republican issue? Or is there fanatical support for being an unwelcome presence in a place that frankly did not deserve to be “liberated” to begin with?

In light of recent problems in the war, and no foreseeable way out, indicating a probable quagmire, does the Mess O’Potamia trump 9/11 as an internal Republican issue? Or is there fanatical support for being an unwelcome presence in a place that frankly did not deserve to be “liberated” to begin with?

For me George Bush made the right decision on Iraq. I agreed with the decision to remove Saddam and help create a free Iraq. I also remember clearly the estimates, forecasts, and predictions from the left of the thousands of body bags we were going to need for our troops when we invaded. They were completely wrong on that. Of course nothing is said about that now.

There’s is a definate revision of history going on about ‘what we knew and when we knew it.’

Who said, “If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program”?

Answer: former President Clinton on Feb. 17, 1998.

Who said, “Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face”?

Answer: Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright on Feb. 18, 1998.

In November 2002, Sen. Ted Kennedy said, “We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction.” However, on Sept. 18, 2003, he said, “There was no imminent threat. This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership, that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud.” -military.com

To expect a fully fledged democracy after one year is asking too much. I am incredulous at criticism of Bush on Iraq. I think we have actually done very well so far. Most Iraqi’s are still waiting patiently. They must be assured that we are going to leave as soon as possible. That they will run their own country. That their future will be in their hands.

I don’t see a Vietnam scenario here. Far from it. The insurgents are simply making themselves targets for our troops. We should be happy that they are playing their hand now and not after we redeploy out of there.

I certainly wouldn’t say that a majority of the Iraqi people didn’t want to be liberated and rid of Saddam. Baathist loyalists may not be happy now, but even they lived in fear that they could be killed at any time under Saddam.

Who said, “If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program”?

Answer: former President Clinton on Feb. 17, 1998.

Who said, “Iraq is a long way from [here], but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face”?

Answer: Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright on Feb. 18, 1998.

Then Clinton pulled the UN inspectors out of Iraq and bombed the crap out of all suspected WMD sites.

Republicans promptly yelled, “Wag the dog!”

The insurgents are simply making themselves targets for our troops. We should be happy that they are playing their hand now and not after we redeploy out of there.

Isn’t that a Westmoreland quote? :)

> It’s possible that Woodward’s version is true—
> and also possible that Powell’s version is
> true. Its also possible that some of what
> Woodward had to say is tinged with opinion, and
> the real truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Absolutely. My post was liberally peppered with qualifying expressions like “I suspect”, “probably”, “might have”, “I fear”. I don’t think that I could have made it any clearer that my entire post was my own personal speculation and not arguments about facts.

My personal assumptions are, in fact, based on a guess that the truth lies somewhere in the middle of Woodward’s reportage and the rebuttals by the administration.

> I’ll not discuss your entire post, but rather
> focus on your second claim: “They probably
> didn’t even think twice about telling Prince
> Bandar about the decision to attack Iraw before
> telling Colin Powell”.

Perfect example. My post was inspired by some deep thinking about how it could be possible that Woodward could have received this impression from his interviews, especially given the very tight grip this Administration imposes on its internal team’s interactions with the press. It is terribly unlikely that anything scandalous whatsoever would be imparted/revealed to Woodward by members of the Administration unless one of the following ocurred:

(a) Bush miscalculated the loyalty of one or more members of his team. This “traitor” either told Woodward things that were patently lies, or he told Woodward things that he wasn’t allowed to tell.
(b) Bush’s team didn’t have their stories straight, and although they had hoped to benefit from Woodward’s coverage yet again like they did for the glowing “Bush at War” book, they ended up blowing it and giving Woodward contradictory facts, or even accidently diverging secrets that weren’t meant to be in the official story.
(c) The Bush team didn’t even realize that the things they told Woodward were potentially scandalous. Now they do realize it, and they are backpedalling.
(d) One or more people made serious factual mistakes or mis-remembered a whole lot of stuff.
(e) Woodward himself made it up.

Although you don’t give me credit for having a brain, Joe, I do have one. I did examine all of these aforementioned possibilities before posting. I concluded that (c) was the most likely explanation (A, B, and D are uncharacteristically sloppy given this administration’s media paranoia, and to beleive E would require nothing less than an act of faith). It is entirely characteristic of this Administration’s behavior on almost any issue you can name to act independently and decisively, and to have no patience or tolerance of dissent or debate.

> On the flip side, Powell (who has always been
> tentative about going to war, and has typically
> been considered an honorable man) says
> something to support the Bush version, and you
> discredit it immediately with no premise.

Powell’s rebuttal was pretty half hearted. He didn’t claim that Woodward was lying.

Here’s what might have happened: They told Powell “The decision is made. we’re going to war. We’re not sure exactly when, but we are going to do it”. Quite honestly, it seems likely that everyone in the Administration knew this decision was inevitable months before it was formally made, so actually getting on the phone and telling Powell may have legitimately seemed pretty silly. Then, when they finally chose the date, they may very well have told Bandar before telling Powell. This seems plausible to me, and it’s totally consistent with Powell’s half-refuation. And it is totally consistent with my theory (c) above. They didn’t think what they did was problematic. Only when you hear the story told on 60 Minutes to an incredulous Mike Wallace does it seem scandalous. But within the Administration, where (you gotta admit) Colin Powell’s opinions are almost never heeded, the idea that he should be kept constantly informed of developing war plans might actually seem a little unnecessary.

> I think I’ll wait for further information to
> emerge before making a final decision.

LOL, like heck you will.

> Christopher, you go right ahead and make yours
> —-I suspect it was already made BEFORE the
> Woodward book even came out.

I suspect you have already made your decision as well. How wonderful partisanship must be.

-Cf

I don’t understand what the hullabaloo is all about. It was totally obvious that the decision to invade Iraq had been made by Bush at the time Woodward says he made it.

There were already over 100,000 US troops in the region and tens of thousands more were told to get ready; two carrier battle groups were deployed and four more soon joined them. We were haggling with Turkey over jumping off points for the invasion. The US presentations to the UN were just that: presentations. There was no dialogue; no compromise, despite the fact that Iraq was cooperating with the inspectors.

It was totally obvious we were going to invade. Dems knew it, Reps applauded it, Saddam denounced it. If you didn’t see it coming, you weren’t paying attention.

> It was totally obvious we were going to invade.
> Dems knew it, Reps applauded it, Saddam
> denounced it. If you didn’t see it coming, you
> weren’t paying attention.

Actually, we weren’t supposed to invade until 1441 was thoroughly exhausted. Our deployment was supposed to be under the pretense of verifiable action should Iraq fail to comply.

This war was pushed in the name of WMDs, and for the Bush administration to have already decided to invade before inspectors had issued status reports on 1441 is VERY damning to this administration.

Eric, it’s not over, and body bag number 1000 is probably going to have to come out of the shrink-wrap very soon.

It’s difficult to express some things sometimes when you’ve served in combat and people on both sides of a civilian debate over combat get it wrong. The left will try to say any deaths at all should be reason enough to run away from a fight like scared little girls, and that is patently wrong. The right will try to say that no matter how many thousands of troops we lose, as long as someone in PNAC or Heritage says it’s the right plan, then by golly it’s the right plan. THINK, you people on both sides, THINK.

Ultimately, what do we want in Iraq, and what is it worth to us? Do we want to “force democracy down the throats of people who don’t want it”? Do we want to ensure they don’t have nukes? Both of those were floated as trial balloons by Bush and they both fall flat these days. No WMDs were found, and Iraqis are obviously not supporting our vision of what their future should be. So what does that leave us? A strategic outpost of bases from which to launch assaults against Al Qaeda cells? Couldn’t we have launched ‘em from Afghanistan or Kuwait? Why is that real estate so valuable that we’ll throw 1000+ GIs under the bus to keep it?

If it’s oil, or the prevention of an excessively free flow thereof, then we are absolutely barking up the wrong tree. We should spend that effort and strategic juice on alternative fuels here at home rather than try to control the black stuff overseas.

In areas where it’s a TRUE fight against Al Qaeda or other factions of Islam that want to kill us for not wanting to repeat a Jewish holocaust, then that there ought not to be stopped at any cost, and our freedom against that should indeed be defended to the last individual American who can wield an assault rifle.

But I remember the arguments going on on the Right, back in the days shortly after 9/11. Talk shows like Novak featured foreign policy snake-oil salesmen trying to sell antiterrorist hawks on the idea that Bin Laden’s war should sort of mark time for a while, and that a preemptive strike against Iraq should happen because Saddam could be the next Bin Laden. Many hawks at the time were arguing against that, and those voices have been vindicated, with a chorus of doves who are against any action anywhere and would probably have appeased Hitler if they lived in 1941 America. Precisely because of what the doves were saying, that alone brought most of the hawks on-board, for fear of agreeing with a lilly-livered spineless dove, LOL.

SoL, you are right. WMD threat was the big ticket Bush used to sell the war to people, and WMDs have fallen flat as a possible vindication. Close to a thousand GIs have died over what seems to have been an irrational obsession which has set back our efforts against real terrorists.

a chorus of doves who are against any action anywhere and would probably have appeased Hitler if they lived in 1941 America.

I’d just like to point out it was the Republicans who opposed going to war in Europe; not out of lily livered-ness, just bidness. Prescott Bush continued doing business with the Nazis until 1943.

Thank you. Carry on. :)

Indeed, the official policy of the United States was, indeed, appeasement. For nearly two years after the Nazis marched through Paris, and at least a year after they started bombarding London, the consensus political will in the USA was pretty much that we shouldn’t get involved and that Hitler would probably be happy when he ruled all of Europe. Not until Pearl Harbor did things change.

So, just for the record, the USA cannot ethically claim to be a nation with a long track record of opposing appeasement. We were just as mistaken as Neville Chamberlain.

-Cf

Lee, times do indeed change. It also used to be the Democrats who were against civil rights for blacks. Now both parties, while supporting those civil rights, have different interpretations of what they should entail: on the left it amounts to reparations and racial discrimination against whites, and on the right it’s a stubborn adherence to Martin Luther King’s vision of content of character being more important than color of skin.

You just had to go there, didn’t you. ;)

Christopher, I’m talking post-12/7/1941, not pre-12/7/1941. As Lee and I both understand, times change.

Ciggy, you are right. But Democrats aren’t talking about reparations for slavery (not the white ones, anyhow). An apology? They deserve it. Some help overcoming discrimination? Of course. Financial breaks for education? Ok. Free money just because their ancestor was a slave? I don’t think so. Not from me, anyhow; my ancestors didn’t own slaves.

I’d also like to point out that Republicans wanted to confine US involvement in WWII to the Pacific after 12/7/1941. It was Hitler’s declaration of war on the US a week later that forced them to go along with FDR on the ‘Europe first’ plan (but they still didn’t like it).

You’re right, Ciggy, things change. Republicans got rid of Lott for looking too racist and Southerners don’t vote Democrat anymore. But I assure you one thing hasn’t changed: Americans will still go to war and bear any sacrifice if the cause is just.

Lee, how are you going to distinguish between “financial breaks for education” and “free money just because their ancestor was a slave”? Once they’re in college, if you think the complaining will stop you’re dead wrong.

I saw the Michael Moore documentary “The Big One” last night on TV, and while much of it was quite convincing in making Moore’s point about corporations and jobs, there was a very disturbing interlude at the Wisconsin State Capital building where some black welfare mothers were there to demand a reinstatement of their welfare benefits. The attitude they portrayed, that this welfare money was theirs for the taking, implying it to be a form of slave reparations, was quite scary, and a glimpse of what’s in store for race relations. The look on Michael Moore’s face was PRECIOUS! It was sort of a look of “oh God, please don’t ruin this event by playing the race card!!!” He looked like he really didn’t want to be there at all.

This is as good a place as any to plug in a long rant. This is my own individual platform, not so much a “manifesto” in the way a Marx or an Ayn Rand would present, but sort of a work in progress for what I would like to see happen:

A Blueprint for Evolutionary Socialism

Founding Principles:
1. Survival, prosperity, and progress of the civilization as a whole are the paramount concerns.
2. In order for a civilization to survive, prosper, and progress, a civilization must encourage industriousness and discourage laziness in its population, by means proven effective in history.
3. There is a counterbalancing imperative on a civilization to provide assistance to those who are in need of it, as a disincentive to crime, and out of a core foundation of morality.

To the end of the above principles, the following structures of an evolving society are advocated:

I. INDIVIDUAL TAX REFORM.
i. Filing Frequency. Tax returns are to be filed MONTHLY. The format of the return will be greatly simplified, with only a few amounts to fill in.
ii. Filing Statuses.
1. Qualified Assisted. This filing status has the following categories:
a. Retired (at an age to be voted on by referendum every four years)
b. Full-time Student
c. Handicapped
2. Taxpayer. A taxpayer is an individual who earns income above the Living Standard Level (see below for how that Level is calculated). An individual who might otherwise qualify for Qualified Assisted status would still be considered a Taxpayer if their income is above LSL.
3. Assisted Worker. An assisted worker is someone who is employed at any sort of employment, whose earned income falls below the Living Standard Level.
4. Transitionally Assisted. A transitionally assisted filer is someone who has filed as a Taxpayer within the last six months, or as an Assisted Worker within the last three months, but who currently doesn’t earn income.
5. Fully Assisted. A Fully Assisted filer is able to work, has had ample time to FIND work, and apparently refused to DO work. Individuals in this status, and all of their dependants, will have to file certification of a sterilization procedure at a public clinic, in order for Full Assistance to be paid to the filer. The filer’s dependants will be recorded at the Social Services office as “available for adoption” by any interested potential adoptive parents who are in Taxpayer status, who don’t have a criminal record. The compassion to assist the lazy and needy should not extend to a willingness to subsidize the long-term presence of their genes in the gene pool. Any people receiving Full Assistance should be considered the last in their genetic line to do so (a core tenet of Evolutionary Socialism!)
iii. Living Standard Level (LSL)
1. Each zip code of the nation will be evaluated annually for the base cost of living, to include, but not limited to:
a. Health insurance premiums (if national health care is not implemented)
b. Basic transportation (public transit if available, or prorated costs of owning a used car, etc.)
c. Housing
d. Basic food (groceries)
e. Utilities
f. Clothing
2. The LSL for a given zip code will be given on a per-individual basis (1 for the filer, 1 for each registered dependant)
3. For filers in the full-time student category of Qualified Assisted status, the cost of tuition and books at an average college in the zip code evaluated, will be added to the LSL (if post-secondary public education has not yet been implemented)
4. For the handicapped, some additional costs may be added to the LSL depending on the nature of the disability.
iv. Income, Taxation, and Assistance calculations
1. All income is Income, regardless of source or amount. All amounts for the past reporting months must be reported. If an individual is the sole proprietor of a business or self-employed, business expenses will be deducted from Income the same way as they currently are, for business reporting. Such deductions will be closely audited for reasonable amount, valid business need, etc. Partnerships and LLCs deduct a proportion of business expenses commensurate with individual stake in the enterprise.
2. All filers in any Assisted class of filing status must deduct their income from the LSL. If their income exceeds the LSL, they must file as Taxpayers.
3. Taxpayers deduct the LSL from their Income. The remaining amount is Taxable Income. The Taxable Income is taxed at a FLAT RATE, a rate between 5% and 45%, to be voted on by referendum at each four-year Presidential election. The calculated tax must be paid in full, by check, money order, ACH, or credit card, by the 15th of the month following the month reported on. Failure to pay will result in the same penalties and procedures as current day tax evasion cases.
4. Assisted class filers received assistance checks biweekly, in the amount calculated for the latest monthly tax return on file. Emergency assistance can be requested at the nearest IRS office, but must be reported as Income in the following month’s tax return if the status changes to Taxpayer.
5. Because all public assistance will be administered through the IRS, the following agencies will be abolished and disbanded:
a. Social Security
b. Medicare
c. Medicaid
d. Agriculture (research mission to be privatized, subsidy to farmers to be replaced by the above process for sole proprietary or self-employed business owners, or partnerships or LLCs).
e. Health and Human Services (unless public health care system is implemented)
f. Any public assistance programs within any other federal agency. All business assistance programs immediately cease as well.
II. CORPORATE TAX REFORM
i. Calculate the income disparity between the corporation’s Senior Executives (those who must file with the SEC as corporate officers), and line workers; this is as currently calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (and the function of managing this information will transfer to the IRS), and reported internationally to global labor statistics organizations.
ii. Graduate or “drive” the taxation rate on the corporation based on the income disparity ratio (IDR). The tax rate will related to the IDR in the following way:
1. 1% for each 5:1 ratio of disparity.
2. For example, if a corporation mirrors the average Japanese IDR of 14:1, the corporate tax would be about 3%.
3. If a corporation is at the American average for IDR, of 350:1, the corporate tax would be about 70%.
iii. Export credit. Income derived by export outside the United States is tax-exempt, subject to U.S. compliance with international trade treaties. In principle, the U.S. will attempt to negotiate treaties in such a way that import duties reduction will replace domestic tax increase, as quid pro quo for foreign trade concessions.
iv. Exporting jobs overseas. In the scenario of a business that closes down U.S. operations and opens up foreign operations, in an effort to use cheap labor to produce goods for sale to U.S. markets, the IDR of that business would be dramatically increased and there would be no export credit on the income, such that the taxation level for the corporation in question would be punitively high, as it deserves. For the alternate scenario of a corporation expanding operations overseas in order to sell to overseas markets, the IDR would increase but would also be offset by the export credit.
III. PUBLIC EDUCATION. In principle, an evolutionary socialist society would recognize the role of education as a pathway from lower income levels to higher; as such, it would break the stranglehold the moneyed classes have on access to such education, by way of public assistance (in the above reform paragraphs) for full-time students, initially, but the ultimate goal would be for all post-secondary education to be a public system like the primary and secondary levels, with the difference that academic restrictions would increase, as the economic restrictions decrease.
IV. HEALTH CARE. Private health care costs and disparity can be accommodated by the above reforms in taxation and public assistance, but ideally the system would be brought under public control to limit the waste factors of malpractice lawsuits, collusion by doctors with pharmaceutical companies to push products for kick-backs, multiple and confusion sets of paperwork for disparate health insurance systems, and the cost-shifting of uncovered patients to covered medical plans.
V. JUSTICE. In America’s current legal system, Justice is for sale to the highest bidder. This is done by way of private practice attorneys, compensated heavily by wealthy defendants charged with crimes. Lower income citizens do not get the same legal protections due to unequal access to this class of powerful defense attorneys. To reform this disparity, ALL attorneys should be officers of the Court, in a fashion similar to Public Defenders. The organization and pay of the Defense branch of the legal system should be identical to the Prosecution branch. Similarly, the Defense branch should have equal means and resources in the area of investigation and evidence discovery, as the Prosecution. As an additional reform, because of the modern state of information broadcast, changes of trial venue are meaningless toward the goal of increased fairness of the trial by way of a less biased jury. A better safeguard in modern times is to require media to be even-handed and strictly factual in its reporting of cases not yet decided upon by a jury, or be charged with Obstruction of Justice.
VI. DEFENSE. Military budgets should be formulated and requested by military leadership and ONLY military leadership. In order to prevent a “pork barrel” phenomenon of unnecessary defense spending, the President and the Congress will be prohibited from adding items to the budgets requested by military leadership. The Congress will be able to deduct line items from the budget authorizations requested by the military leadership, as currently allowed. The President should be completely separated from the process of budgeting, military or otherwise. The President will have command and control powers over the military and other Executive Branch agencies, but all budgets are to be requested by non-appointed leadership in those agencies, to the Congress. For War Powers, the President should have power to assign military units to support Homeland Security operations for up to 90 days without Congressional authorization. Beyond 90 days, Congress must decide to either declare war or otherwise sustain the activity or defund the activity and require it to stand down. Overall defense posture for the future should place less emphasis on conventional warfare, and greater emphasis on intelligence and special operations activity. Large-scale conventional operations for such things as liberating oppressed peoples should be in concert with the international community. Homeland security operations should avoid constraining itself to international “permission” systems, but should also be limited to specific and verifiable security threats.
VII. TAXPAYER PRIVILEGES. As an incentive for individuals to be in Taxpayer status, the following privileges apply:
i. Taxpayers get TWO votes in the electoral system. Fully Assisted individuals get NO vote. The rest of the tax filing statuses of citizens gets ONE vote.
ii. Only Taxpayers may adopt children.
iii. Only Taxpayers may run for and hold political office.
iv. Only Taxpayers, Qualified Assisted, or Assisted Workers may sit on juries at criminal and civil trials.
v. Military Privileges. In times of a military draft in national emergencies, Fully Assisted, Transitionally Assisted, and Assisted Workers will be the first draftees, along with the children of Congressional and Executive Branch leadership (to prevent such leadership from being careless in their decisions to go to war). They will comprise the junior enlisted ranks of the draftee force. The NCO and Officer leadership cadre of the draftee units will be filled by a selective service lottery of Taxpayers.

Ciggy, I don’t agree nor believe your characterization of the left is anywhere close to being correct except for a fringe. Want to find peaceniks at all cost, look to the Green Party, they have a lot of them. Liberals in general and majority have no problems with self-defense, even offense as defense, provided it is clearly and unambiuously justified by attacks or imminent threat of attack.

I believe in avoiding war except as a last resort when all other methods for resolving a dispute prove insufficient to the task of self-defense. I don’t believe in diplmacy as a response to attack. Having lived around liberals most of my life, and reading and discussing issues with them regularly, I find them all to be pretty much in the same boat as I. I suspect, moderate conservatives on the right are probably positioned pretty much the same way.

So I think your reference might be more accurate if you used the terms extreme left and extreme right, both of which are minorities of each of the left - right camps.

David, the problem here is that each of the binary partisan parties are all over the board with regard to foreign policy. You have very arch-conservative pundits who were against the war from the outset, e.g., Pat Buchanan, and if you go only by foreign policy you would have us call him a “moderate”? That, to me, doesn’t work very well.

And on the so-called “left” you have a Kerry voting for it before they vote against it. Or something.

In the coming presidential election, you have a choice between a PNAC sock puppet on the one hand, and a UN sock puppet on the other. Both have claimed they will keep American troops in harm’s way and likely to continue to die. The UN sock puppet says he will say “pretty please with American dollars on top” to try to persuade blue-hatters of other nations to participate in the death-fest, but let’s be real here: that’s not going to play any better at the Security Council than Bush’s initial requests did, for legitimizing the illegitimate action. Foreign world leaders may LOVE Kerry to death, but don’t take that to mean they are willing to sacrifice their own youngsters to car bombs, just to show said support. There are limits to the European brand of adulation, y’know.

So what that leaves us is, American troops dying needlessly, or… American troops dying needlessly. Isn’t a “two party system” just GRAND?

Politics has three dimension but two parties only allow for one. There’s bound to be a vacuum of choices in that scenario, to a degree seldom distinguishable from a ONE party system.