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Monday, August 16, 2004 |
A Day in the Life of Joe, Middle-Class Republican
Now here's an essay that is posted all over the place. I first saw it on the Dylan Pool, where it got as much comment, and as much predictable comment, as it has in the other forums where it was posted (on the Dylan Pool, I especially laughed at the post from the guy who talked about the "abortion industry").
By John Gray
Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.
All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe�s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees.
Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe�s employer pays these standards because Joe�s employer doesn�t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed he�ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some liberal didn�t think he should loose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe�s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe�s money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten Mortgage and his below market federal student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.
Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration because bankers didn�t want to make rural loans. The house didn�t have electric until some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn�t belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn�t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home. He turns on a radio talk show, the host�s keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. Joe agrees, �We don�t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I�m a self made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have�.
Joe probably just wants the government to leave him alone, too.
2:31:23 PM Permalink
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John Gilmore vs. Ashcroft begins today
Bill sez: "On the 16th of August 2004, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals begins work on the Gilmore vs. Ashcroft case. At stake is nothing less than the right of Americans to travel freely in their own country -- and the exposure of 'secret law' for what it is: an abomination.
"The man who is fighting the good fight is named John Gilmore. John made his fortune as a programmer and entrepreneur in the software industry. Whereas most people in his position would have moved to a tropical island and lived a life of luxury, John chose to use his wealth to protect and defend the US Constitution.
"On the 4th of July 2002, John Gilmore, American citizen, decided to take a trip from one part of the United States of America to another. At the airport, he was told he had to produce his ID if he wanted to travel. He asked to see the law demanding he show his 'papers' and was told after a time that the law was secret and no, he wouldn't be allowed to read it.
"He hasn't flown in his own country since."
Another program which depends on showing ID is the Watch List and No-Fly List. Airlines are issued these lists by the federal government and are required to request ID from their passengers in order to check them against the lists. This has resulted in countless citizens with names similar to bad people being harrassed, arrested, or prevented from travelling by air—including every person named 'David Nelson'.
Link [Boing Boing]
12:06:25 PM Permalink
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Bush choked on 9/11 . Bill...
Bush choked on 9/11. Bill Maher has an excellent op-ed column in the New York Daily News, entitled "Bush blew it the morning of 9/11." In it, he points out the sheer, breathtaking stupidity of Bush's actions on that fateful day. It wasn't just the seven minutes of deer-in-the-headlights panic memorialized in Fahrenheit 9/11. No, it's much worse.
The fact that Bush wasted 27 minutes that day -- not only the seven minutes reading to kids but 20 more at a photo op afterward -- was, in my view, the most outrageous thing a President has done since Franklin Roosevelt tried to pack the Supreme Court.
[...]
Republicans are tying themselves in knots trying to defend Bush's actions that morning. The excuses they put forward are absurd:
- He was "gathering his thoughts." This was a moment a President should have imagined a thousand times. There is no time in the nuclear age for a President to sit like Forrest Gump "gathering thoughts" after an attack has begun. Gathering information is what he should have been doing.
- From the White House press secretary: "The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening." I agree that gaining a better understanding of what was happening should have been his goal. What I don't get is how that goal was reached by just sitting there instead of getting up and talking to people. Is he a psychic? Was he receiving the information telepathically?
- "He didn't want to scare the children." Vice President Cheney has said of Kerry, "The senator from Massachusetts has given us ample reason to doubt the judgment he brings to vital issues of national security." So Kerry's judgment is suspect, but at a moment of national crisis, Bush's judgment was: Better not to scare 20 children momentarily than to react immediately to an attack on the country!
If he had just said, "Hey, kids, gotta go do some President business - be good to your moms and dads, bye!" my guess is the kids would have survived.
I cannot see how someone who considers himself a conservative can defend George Bush's inaction. Conservatives pride themselves on being clear-eyed and decisive. They don't do nuance, and they respect toughness. Keep this one in your arsenal of talking points. The next time you're in a discussion with a conservative friend or family member, lay this one on them. Plant the seeds of doubt. Tell them if they're not sure, they can look it up in the 9/11 Commission report. It's all documented in Chapter 1. As a bonus, tell them they should read Chapter 8, too. WHat ush did, and did not do, during that 27 minutes will stand as a mute testimony to his Presidency in the years to come. Kerry sees a man sees a Senator apparetly having a heart attack and quickly makes the right decision, saving a life. Bush did nothing but wait for others to tell him what to do. Aides held up a sign telling him to say nothing until they figured out what he should say. And this is resolute leadership? Too bad for him it was caught on videotape. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]
9:30:29 AM Permalink
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What is Conservatism and What Is Wrong With It
Phil Agre writes an insightful, strong polemic against conservatism:
Q: What is conservatism?
A: Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
Q: What is wrong with conservatism?
A: Conservatism is incompatible with democracy, prosperity, and
civilization in general. It is a destructive system of inequality
and prejudice that is founded on deception and has no place in the
modern world.
...The tactics of conservatism vary widely by place and time. But the most central feature of conservatism is deference: a psychologically internalized attitude on the part of the common people that the aristocracy are better people than they are. Modern-day liberals often theorize that conservatives use "social issues" as a way to mask economic objectives, but this is almost backward: the true goal of conservatism is to establish an aristocracy, which is a social and psychological condition of inequality. Economic inequality and regressive taxation, while certainly welcomed by the aristocracy, are best understood as a means to their actual goal, which is simply to be aristocrats. More generally, it is crucial to conservatism that the people must literally love the order that dominates them. Of course this notion sounds bizarre to modern ears, but it is perfectly overt in the writings of leading conservative theorists such as Burke. Democracy, for them, is not about the mechanisms of voting and office-holding. In fact conservatives hold a wide variety of opinions about such secondary formal matters. For conservatives, rather, democracy is a psychological condition. People who believe that the aristocracy rightfully dominates society because of its intrinsic superiority are conservatives; democrats, by contrast, believe that they are of equal social worth. Conservatism is the antithesis of democracy. This has been true for thousands of years.
9:06:18 AM Permalink
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Another reason to despise Bush and his...
Another reason to despise Bush and his ilk  Suppress the Vote? by Bob Herbert
(...)
State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd "investigation" that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.
The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March.
Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.
"We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation," said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.
The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.
I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.
"I can't talk about that," he said.
I asked if all the people interrogated were black.
"Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,'' he said.
He also said, "Most of them were elderly."
When I asked why, he said, "That's just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview."
Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.
Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city's black vote.
The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, who is 73 years old. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.
The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. [more]
[Craig's BookNotes]
8:58:43 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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