wjmaggos
trippi still has something to say, and it was inspiring. kerry was good, but this would have made him amazing. i caught it too late, and i wonder if kerry did too.
need to read this, and i mean everyone including me (im halfway, i think)
“The election is a necessity,” Lincoln said. “We cannot have a free government without elections; and if the rebellion could force us to forgo, or postpone, a national election, it might fairly claim to have already conquered us.”
arlington heights parade today, and i got to thinkin on the drive back to laura’s. what are the core values of the parties? how should we live? what should be the guiding principal for setting up the society’s laws?
humanity is more than a beast. therefore, we should live by a structure that supports more than survival of the fittest. some say we should live by a code set forth by god. but can you govern all the people by the words of one god, when all the people do not wish to follow him?
i propose that our social structure should be one that accomodates both the basest and highest parts of our selves. we are selfish but also empathic. we need to address our completeness, be more holistic in our politics and governing. that is the great american community. we must reach that recognition.
moderate republicans and democrats mostly get it, but are simply still working out the equation. libertarians and communists forget one or the other. it is hard to blame the more religious fundamentalist cause they think they are right and just might be. id ask that they please give us some time.
when you hear the argument that we cannot overtax the rich, we must remember that they made their money in a system built on a theory that does not accomodate our complete human condition, but only the selfish part of it. but we should also not create a system that fails to accomodate and utilize that part either.
this human empathy that we all possess lies deep within almost every religion that i have ever heard of. i think it is the reason so many of us feel drawn to religion, because it help us to satisfy that part of ourselves. perhaps it is the other way though, that there is a divine and it is that connection in ourselves that gives us the empathy for others. i cannot claim to know. all i can say is that there is more than one religion, and perhaps as many views of the truth as there are people. we can thus never satisfy the exact word of all of them, but we may be able to satisfy much of their spirit. as we ever try to do so, we may be able to win support for unity over division. and in the end, make the life of each of us in our communities throughout the world more enjoyable and complete.
whats wrong with gephardt? besides that he might have made an agreement with kerry in iowa. it goes like this:
democrats wanted a candidate to solidify behind so badly because of bush. the conventional wisdom was that the winner of the first primary/caucus would gather up all of the thirsty dems pretty quickly. the establishment candidate was kerry, and he was the very early favorite. dean was a troublesome and much more independent upstart, and he was gaining massive momentum. he took the polling lead, before the first actual vote. he looked to be leading in iowa, with gephardt in second. dean got the attention, understandably. but in iowa, it was also understood that you should not go negative just before the caucus. gephardt had experience, and was from the nearby state of missouri. still, he attacked dean like every pundit said was suicide. dean foolishly responded inkind. gep took 4th, dean 3rd, and kerry took 1st. and now gep is getting VP consideration, while few people can give you any good reason why. sorry, but to me and most deaniacs out there, it sure looks like a deal was made between two longtime washington insiders. adding fuel to the fire, it was later released, because the law demanded it, that some of the negative ads ran against dean were funded by both gephardt and kerry supporters. kerry/gep might just make me ralph.
the following is my take on the jack ryan issue:
to begin, i think that the republicans are lying. the rumors were of exactly what came out. the republicans knew this was there. the shock is bullshit. i think jack ryan told them everything, and the other republicans are simply claiming they were lied to in order to convince their base that they thought ryan was a much better christian.
still, the republican party actions do make sense and also explain what they are really all about. in the primary, they had a good candidate who might or might not be derailed by these issues coming out. if they did not, he had a chance. that does not mean they did not exist, or are or are not true. this issue simply shows the real connection between the republican party and the religious conservatives. first, they feel dependent on the religious conservative vote. (exactly why dems need to work to neutralize it) second, the party does not really care about the religious issues, or they would have either not supported him if they thought these files might be true, or they would still be defending him and claiming the files are untrue. the party is completely selfish and in it only to win. they now realize that these files taint ryan whether true or not, and they are not willing to stand with him against them. they are more afraid that the files on ryan could taint the party and, along with the trouble for bush, keep the base from coming out. this could mean further defeats in other races in illinois, especially with obama exciting the democratic base. thats all.
what to do about iraq? the nation magazine makes a strong argumentfor dated withdrawal. they also detail many other reasons and issues to be aware of. i said much of the same when moveon asked its members’ opinions. disagreements follow: one is whether giving a target date does more good than the problematic message that missing that date would send. another is my question of whether the UN would involve itself or could be effective in such a large nation.
former president reagan passed last night. i was not a fan. one night, quite a while ago, i pulled over to spit on his statue in some town in illinois where he was either born or lived for a while. i like to think i respect the man more now. let me say i still abhor much of what he did in office. should one try to separate the man from the office, from his decisions and deeds? or is that separation, when applied to one’s self as a governmental representative, what allows people to do horrible things? i dont know. clinton says we need to say that we do not like bush’s policies instead of saying that we do not like him. while bush’s policies are nowhere near as bad as hitler’s, we would be ridiculed for parcing our language in his case. bin laden? somewhat of a different subject, but most americans say that they do not like clinton but liked his policies. word games…with bush, ill just say that his policies are evil.
i forgot. let us only remind those who can cast no critical eye on reagan or dubya about stem cell research. it may hold many cures, as nancy believes, and allowing further research would probably be the best way to memorialize the man. stand against the politics of the day, and bring light to those in darkness.
we might want to pay attention to voices like his. most would trace the major new trouble in iraq to our shutdown of his anti-american newspaper. freedom of the press. yeah, right. in that, we spoke a universal language. let us consider him as a leader of iraq. this guy breaks with the establishment islamic leaders, calling for concern for the poor from an islamic point of view. he is understood to be a true iraqi. he has had his family killed for political reasons by saddam. seems to me that working with him could lead a transformation of the middle-east. he could be a youthful, compassionate voice of islam to give the people of the region another option besides bin laden. it seems that he embodies all the change we should truly want in the region, except that he is anti-american. we need to face that it will be impossible to find anyone acceptable to them that is not. we could have worked for a political dialogue with him, about what he would like the country and the region to be. instead, we showed him that we do not accept disent but only respect violence.