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09/09/2003 Archived Entry: "If you're anywhere near a TV right now,"
If you're anywhere near a TV right now,
You must put C-SPAN on. Paul Wolfowitz is getting hammered by the Armed Services Committee. Ted Kennedy has Wolfy by the ears and is making him say uncle. Must-see TV.
C-SPAN Web TV Feed (RealMedia)
Replies: 9 people speak up
i had to leave for a little while. when i was watching senator byrd was tearing down richard meyers in a very slow methodical plodding fashion, which was great, because you could see meyers, and wolfowitz actually rolling their eyes. it looks like the democrats might actually be waking up from their self induced slumber. of course, at this rate, they might be ready to really take off the gloves and go after bush somewhere around 2008. i would really like to vote for a democrat in 2004, but they make it very hard when none of them are willing to actually say anything (except kucinich, who is a no-chance candidate). it makes me sick when they bitch about how the democratic party has been hijacked by the left, as opposed to what? democrats are supposed to be liberals, if they arnt, they should get the fuck out and call themselves something else. i dont know what is worse, a neo conservative, or an old fashioned conservative like leiberman?
either way, its nice to see the senate doing something.... i bet caligula still gets his $87 billion though, they arnt that awake yet
Posted by justin @ 09/09/2003 01:30 PM NY
Justin,
The Dems really are waaaay out on the left. Way to the left of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.
"i dont know what is worse, a neo conservative, or an old fashioned conservative like leiberman?"
The difference is that the neo-cons tend to smirk most of the time while the old-fashioned conservatives tend to shake their heads to and fro.
Caligula will get his 87 billion talents. I'll bet he could intimidate the Senate into appointing his dog as Consul.
Must...resist...urge...to...use...analogies...to...Ancient...Rome...
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 09/09/2003 01:40 PM NY
well, if we dont use analogies to rome, then all that leaves us with are hitler analogies, which are equally valid, but give bush way too much credit.
Posted by justin @ 09/09/2003 02:07 PM NY
Justin, have you been listening to Howard Dean at all? He's been taking it to Bush from day one of his candidacy AND he's the frontrunner now. You might want to check him out. www.deanforamerica.com
Posted by Jason @ 09/09/2003 02:09 PM NY
yeah, ive heard dean. i dont like him. ill vote for him,if he gets the nomination, but i dont trust him. he strikes me as a clintonesque centrist wearing a liberal mask. if im going to actively support a candidate, he has to come out actively against the WTO and the IMF, he has to come out against defense spending, he has to come out against the continued occupation of iraq, and he has to promise to repeal the patriot act, come out for gay marriage, strongly support a womans right to chose. promise to institute socialized healthcare, vow to make all records regarding 9/11 public, stop the media consolidation that is taking place, and repeal the death penalty. legalizing marijuana wouldnt hurt either. that should be the liberal agenda. any candidate who doesnt live up to those standards will not get my time, effort, and support, they will however get my vote, because anyone is better than bush (except maybe leiberman, who i wouldnt vote for with a gun to my head)
Posted by justin @ 09/09/2003 02:52 PM NY
Justin,
You're dreaming. Yeah, it's a beautiful dream (one which I share), but a dream nonetheless.
P.S. I'd like to see SUV's outlawed, super-stringent fuel-efficiency standards imposed on all vehicles, and a culture change in which the internal combustion engine is viewed with the same contempt as cigarettes.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 09/09/2003 03:26 PM NY
i was strictly listing my criteria for a candidate i would actually volunteer for. ralph nader actually supported everyone of those platforms, as well as your environmental ideas, but he was a 3rd party candidate, so he had no chance of winning in our political system. im not saying that a candidate has to accomplish all of those things to get my support, simply the courage of expressing that agenda would be enough for me. no leader can accomplish everything he or she wants, it is enough to try to live up to your own convictions, which the current democratic party doesnt seem capable of. corporate feudalism is corporate feudalism, regardless of whether it takes place under democratic or republican leadership. they all serve the same masters, and those whome they serve have a far different agenda than the one i have spelled out. im going to vote democratic in this election, because i have no other choice, whichever of these losers wins would be better than bush.
Posted by justin @ 09/09/2003 03:46 PM NY
Sorry to take over the comments with this totally off topic discussion, but the Inspiration Fairy struck me.
Justin, that platform would only work in Super Fantasy Bizarro World. The key word to American politics is compromise.
As for the WTO and IMF, they are good in theory but need alot of tweaking. Just abandoning them and pretending the rest of the world and the economic bonds that tie us don't exist is isolationist and silly. Dean supports making all trade deals based on fair trade and the other countries that we trade with supporting an international standard of workers rights.
Come out against defnese spending? What, disband our military? That is incredibly.. naive. Almost as dumb as Kucinich's "Department of Peace". Now, coming out for rational military spending and reconfiguring our military and its spending for the 21st centruy, that would be smart. So far no one really has said much about that.
If we pull out of Iraq altogether, it'll make things WORSE. What we need to do is get a good UN resolution and internation help so we don't go it alone in rebuilding of that country now that we've blown it to hell. We also need to get other nations in there - especially Arab nations. That's what Dean supports.
Dean has already come out as wanting to repeal the unconstitutional parts (which is most) of the Patriot Act.
Dean supports urging states to pass laws legalizing civil unions. It's a good first step. You can't just say to Americans that you want gay marriage - unfortuantely there are still alot of close minded people. Progress comes in small steps.
Dean is HUGE on pro-choice. Big time.
Like gay marriage, throwing the country's transmition into reverse and immediately saying you we will have socialized healthcare is a deathwish in an election and for the budget. Dean's proposal ties together existing programs with new spending to fill the gaps. It worked in Vermont and even better it won't drive us into even worse deficits. Again, progress comes in small steps.
Haven't heard Dean speak on 9/11 records, but with the way he's constantly attacking Bush's lies about 9/11 and the "war on terror" it wouldn't surprise me if he did.
Legalized marijuana is like gay marriage and socialized medicine. we need to take small steps towards that instead of shooting for the moon. Dean proposes sending marijuana as a drug to the FDC and having them evaluate it fairly as medication. A decent first step.
Fiscal responsibility is needed to promote social justice. If you just spend willy nilly on long term fairy tale wishes in the short term, the federal debt will grow so large that more and more of our yearly budget will be dedicated to not paying for services but for paying the interest on our debt. If we work on balancing our budget and paying off our debt, that will leave more room in the budget for more services without having to raise taxes. This is because you've eliminated or greatly reduced the amount of each year's budget that goes towards paying interest on the debt. That's a good thing.
Also, Dean isn't beholden to the "corporate feudalism", as you call it, as the other major candidates. His average contribution is on the order of $81 per person. This is 'average american' type numbers, not '$2000 a plate corporate dinner' numbers. If that doesn't fit your mold of breaking away from being financially dependant on corporations, I don't know what does.
Sorry for the length, editor. Like I said, inspiration hit me.
Posted by Jason @ 09/09/2003 04:26 PM NY
you are obviousely a dean man. i am not. however it is obviouse that we are both in fact on the same side. i know that my ideals are not practical. like i said, i dont expect any of them to be accomplshed completely, that kind of thing cannot be done in a democracy without a revolution (which also has its advantages, and disadvantages) like i said, i plan to vote for dean in the presidential election, that doesnt mean i have to like him. i feel that he is pandering to the left to get the nomination, but that he will swing way towards the center after the primary, just like clinton did (especially after he was elected)
now to answer a few of your points.
1) defense spending: i dont want to see defense sepnding eliminated entirely, but if we cut it just 20% we would still have a military that could roll right over any country on the planet, and it would save us close to $100 billion a year (which would fund any whacky liberal social programs we wanted to "waste" money on) and all this could be done without cutting the size of the army, military pay, or the quality of our equiptment. this could be done simply by reorganizing the defense department, weeding out corruption, and not showing such favoritism to the companies that happen to be involved with whoever happens to be in power at the time. i guarantee you that at least 20% of defense spending is wasted on corruption and just plain waste.
2)gay marriage: i know marriage is a touchy word, if you want to call it a civil union, thats fine, but it has to be changed (by the way im not gay) and soon, and it wouldnt cost anything, in fact it would save money, because they would be eligible for their spouses health care and other benefits that the government wouldnt have to deal with on medicare and social security.
3)legalizing marijuana: this is not something that requires baby steps. there are millions of people in jail for extreem amounts of time for non violent crime. america has more inmates per capita than any of the "brutal dictatorships" bush is so fond of threatening. the money we saved by ending the drug war would save the states from bankruptcy, and save so much money on a federal level that , once again, we could fund every social program this nation needs. the drug war is killing this country, and not slowly. whole generations of people have grown up in prison, and lost their futures. families have been destroyed. and it is even causing violent prisoners to be released onto the streets due to overcrowding. taking baby steps with this subject is like giving someone with cancer a little bit of chemotherapy every couple of years, it will kill us, and soon. (not to mention the fact that hemp is one of the most usefull renewable resources on earth, it can be used for everything from clothing to food to fuel, and im not just saying this because i want to smoke pot and not get arrested)
4)socialized health care: first of all, it has worked well in many other countries, but it would be expensive. however, if we trimmed the corruption out of the defense department, stopped the drug war, or hell, even if we just repealed the bush tax cuts, we could afford it. can we really afford not to have health care for every man, woman and child? in the worlds richest country, should people really be dying because they dont have any money? we cant afford not to have a healthy, sane and educated populace.
like i said i will vote for dean. i like some of his ideas, i just dont trust him at a gut level, and ive come to trust my gut, its never steered wrong (except for the overeating)
we could certainly do worse than dean for president, i just wish we could do better thats all
Posted by justin @ 09/09/2003 07:16 PM NY
