Saturday, April 24, 2004

Posted here Saturday, April 24, 2004 at 2:18:00 PM     Here's why I think much trouble lies ahead. The Wall Street Journal editorial of April 20 is a case in point. Declaring Fallujah had to be "cleared out as a terrorist sanctuary" and condemning the ceasefire, it warned the White House: "The fastest way for Mr. Bush to lose support at home would be if Americans see soldiers restrained from doing what it takes to win by UN statements or political control. That's when his own base begins to walk. Republican senator John McCain summed up the mood sweeping Washington in a speech yesterday. Calling for another 10,000 troops to be sent to Iraq and for greater military spending, McCain declared Iraq was the "biggest foreign policy test in a generation", that would be "very expensive, difficult and long". http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/apr2004/iraq-a23.shtml ********

Posted here Saturday, April 24, 2004 at 11:54:55 AM     One way to understand why Bush is president is by looking at alternatives . A few months ago I proposed that Bush might have gotten many votes because he was more likely than Gore to use government power to protect the wealth gained during the Clinton years . But we can go further. What would have happened if Bush had not been elected ? The issue is larger than Gore . We had an opportunity in 2000 to face a new millennium and cope with the issues left over from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries . These had to do with the damage done by colonialism to people, cultures, and environment . There was the issue of justice in the United States and the ridiculousness of our having 2.3 million people in jail . It had to do with justice and the economy where the increasing skew of resources towards the rich was making life difficult for a very large number of people . But taking on these issues would have threatened the kind of society that many people had adapted to , the society of individual loneliness and a stress on economics . So Bush can be seen as being the way the country chose not to face those issues, with all their ambiguity  and unknowns . It was the choice of safe . That Gore had written a book on the environment and was super smart made him actually suspect . Likey to use it for something unpredictable. That he abandoned any loyalty to Clinton reinforced the idea that he was not bound by emotional commitments . So looking at what people avoided by voting for Bush may help explain his eletion. I think we see some of the same logic working against Kerry but Kerry seems to be playing this fairly well as a determinedly middle of the road candidate who can defend what we have better than Bush. it was actually Bush's radical weirdness through which he turned out not to be the candidate people thought they had elected . ********

Posted here Saturday, April 24, 2004 at 6:41:11 AM     Large forces revealed in small details. People on the list might like to know that the trees on the grounds of Voltaire's Ferney are being taken down despite some considerable public oppostion. This "massacre" is even picking up speed -- as the opposition gets stronger. A fait accompli appears to be the idea. Here is a local site which tells about the damage: http://www.ferney-a-venir.com/ Here are press reports: http://news.google.fr According to an email on a small 18th century French lists I'm on: "Official Swiss safety reports have identified 40 trees as posing an infinitesimally small threat to adjacent aviation. The State is cutting down 4000 trees, notably along a line which coincides, according to leaked documents, with the proposed line of a new road designed to serve industrial development in Ferney... The officer primarily responsible, the Préfet de l'Ain, described as "stubborn" by his friends, is not easily contactable by email. His number two for the Pays de Gex is less well protected: sous-prefecture-de-gex@ain.pref.gouv.fr Drop him an email if you have a moment. A copy on http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/fr/p.cfm?ref=6959 would do no harm at all." ********