Notes on how things seem to me from out here in Hollywood... As seen from Just Above Sunset
OF INTEREST
Click here to go there... Click here to go there...

Here you will find a few things you might want to investigate.

Support the Just Above Sunset websites...

Sponsor:

Click here to go there...

ARCHIVE
« November 2004 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30
Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
Contact the Editor

Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







Site Meter
Technorati Profile

Monday, 22 November 2004

Topic: Iraq

It's not OUR fault!

The Washington Post gives us this on Saturday, November 20 -
Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government. After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from `wasting,' a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.
Eric Alterman says this the following Monday -
So the next time some one asks you if you're glad that we've removed Saddam Hussein from power, you might want to ask them if they're glad that, after we've spent 200 billion dollars and killed tens of thousands of people, 400,000 Iraqi children are now suffering from acute malnutrition. That and oh yeah, the world hates us and the pool of Al Qaeda recruits has been vastly increased. And oh yeah, I'm betting on a draft.
I say Eric has a bad attitude.

But he's not alone - Jeanne at Body and Soul adds this -
The main reason seems to be continuing lack of access to clean water, which can cause chronic diarrhea. Other things hurt as well: humanitarian organizations like CARE and Doctors Without Borders have had to leave as it became more and more dangerous to work there; Iraqi doctors are prime targets for criminals. But mostly children are malnourished because we've done a worse job than Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War in getting clean water to them.

News like this continues to stun me because even though I opposed the war, and even though I realized, after reading about the neglect of Afghanistan, that no one in the Bush administration knew or cared anything about humanitarian work, and even though I worried about the way they were undercutting NGOs before the war even began, I thought that repairing the infrastructure would be a high priority - one that we paid more than we should for, because there had to be a little sugar on top for the FOGs (otherwise known as the Friends of George), but nevertheless I was certain that even the FOGs realized that they had to do a better job than Saddam Hussein at filling basic human needs.

I was horribly na?ve. I thought they were con artists, not thugs.

The war fans will whine that there's nothing we can do while we're under attack, but that's getting everything backwards. If you're taking credit for "helping" Iraqis then the first priority - the only real priority - is getting food, water, and medicine to people who need it. Nothing else matters if you don't succeed at that. No excuses are acceptable.

... the only interest this story has generated is among conservatives condemning the Washington Post for blaming America for problems caused by insurgents.
So it's not OUR fault - if you believe the guys we reelected for their moral values.

Yep. Right.

And this?

It Hurts, but Don't Stop
Michael Kinsley, The Washington Post, Sunday, November 21, 2004; Page B07
Has there ever before been a war that so many people disapproved of but so few wanted to stop? Have the reasons for starting a war ever been so thoroughly discredited without turning into reasons for ending it?

[ ... fascinating body of text follows that argues there is no anti-war movement because after Vietnam we decided we had to "support the troops" and now we cannot oppose, or even criticize, any war we get into, however stupidly we get into it, no matter how badly it's run and no matter how much real damage it does, because we have to support the troops ... ]

... The lead headline in last Monday's Los Angeles Times was "Iraqi City Lies in Ruins." That would be Fallujah, a metro area of 300,000 people that many Americans had never heard of until we felt impelled to destroy it. And our reasons were neither trivial nor contemptible. They followed with confident logic from the premise that Saddam Hussein was an intolerable danger to the United States. If so, he had to be taken down. And if that destabilized the country, we had to occupy it for a while and calm it down. And you can't run a national occupation with rebels occupying a major city, so you have to besiege the city and kill a lot of people and leave the place "in ruins."

An American general in Vietnam famously said, "We had to destroy the village to save it." This has become the definitive expression of the macabre futility of war. Last week we destroyed an entire city to save it (progress!), but our capacity to find that sort of thing ironic seems to have become shriveled and harmless.
We've been here before. We're here again. But we have no antiwar movement. But we have messed up. Big time.

Time to start a revolution, and line them all up against the wall.

Posted by Alan at 20:55 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
home

Tuesday, 16 November 2004

Topic: Photos

Going dark -

Since returning to the workforce fulltime on 4 October I have found it increasing difficult to post once or twice each day to this web log. My new position leaves only a few hours each evening for a review of current events and assembling commentary, and the new job involves frequent trips to Northern California that make even a glance at the commentary in the domestic and international press on those travel days difficult.

Rather than post here daily, my efforts will from this point forward be directed to the weekly parent site Just Above Sunset - the online magazine-style site with addition features like multiple pages and extensive photography sections - and a complete archive with a search feature.

The latest edition of Just Above Sunset was posted to the web two days ago, and that would be Volume 2, Number 45 for Sunday, November 14, 2004.

There you will find political analyses - like a discussion of whether the United States should split in two so no one is unhappy - along with comments on the new uses of religion, and a incisive commentary from one of our readers. And more.

Bob Patterson this week shifts from politics to cars - and Two Lane Blacktop was, by the way, a really awful movie. His Book Wrangler column covers the French and the Germans in startling ways.

Two items from Paris - one on why French women are so slim and the other on, well, beekeeping at the opera.

The photography? In keeping with Bob's shift to automotive journalism - actually cultural musings - one of the two photography sections covers Hollywood cars. It's a guy thing. There's a pretty flower in the other section for this distaff side.

Here are the direct links to specific pages.


Current Events ________

Out of Outrage: Election Fraud? A Draft? Ah, such pathetic losers...

Religion: The Limits of Being Snide

Tribal Warfare: So what happened this month with Alabama Amendment Two?

Irreconcilable Differences: Should Certain States Now Be Forced Out Of The Union?

Counterargument: Rick Brown on why what was said last week was wrong, or inadequate...

Sidebar: British Busybodies


Bob Patterson ________

WLJ Weekly: Automobile museums and suggestions and other assorted car related material. (For taking our minds off politics...)

Book Wrangler: S?sslichschmerz und Ceux de le Resistance (CDLR)


Features ________

The French Paradox: One more time...

Paris Notes: But George Feydeau was talking about a flea in her ear - not a bee!

Photography: Today's Botanical and Signs

Automotive Photography: California Cars

Quotes: Of the automotive sort...


And from this week's issue...



Posted by Alan at 21:30 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
home

Tuesday, 9 November 2004

Topic: NOW WHAT?

Out of Outrage

Scanning the November 10 issue of The Onion you will find three items that capture a malaise that is spreading this week on the blogs.

The first?
Bush Promises To Unite Nation For Real This Time

WASHINGTON, DC--A week after winning a narrow victory over Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, President Bush promised to "unite the divided nation, but for real this time." "Just as I pledged in 2000, I promise to bring the two halves of this nation together--only this time I'm really gonna do it," Bush said Tuesday. "I'll work hard to put an end to partisan politics. Seriously, though. This term, I will." Bush then requested the support of all Americans for his agenda of cutting taxes and extending America's presence in Iraq.
Funny? Maybe not. Just more of the same. Sometimes it is hard to differentiate satire from straight news.

Then there is this...
Liberals Return to Sodomy. Welfare Fraud

BERKELEY, CA--No longer occupied by the 2004 election, liberals across the country have returned to the activities they enjoy most: anal sex and cheating the welfare system. "I've been so busy canvassing for the Democratic Party, I haven't had a single moment for suckling at the government's teat or no-holds-barred ass ramming," said Jason Carvelli, an unemployed pro-hemp activist. "Now, my friends and I can finally get back to warming our hands over burning American flags and turning kids gay." Carvelli added that his "number-one priority" is undermining the efforts of freedom-loving patriots everywhere.
And this sounds like a straight news item on Fox News these days. Did I say straight? Sorry.

The there is this...
Political Blogger Mass Suicide To Be Discovered in Two Weeks

BOSTON--By examining web-traffic data for left-leaning DailyKos.com, researchers have predicted that the mass suicide of 14 political bloggers will likely be discovered sometime in mid-December. "After months of doing nothing but sit alone in our rooms at our computers, trying to get our message to the people, we lost the election anyway," read the still-unread suicide pact posted Nov. 3. "We'd rather be dead than live in a country as fucked up as this one." The bodies will most likely be found by property managers, long-estranged parents, or neighbors returning copies of Joe Trippi's The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Ah yes. Bob Patterson, ace columnist for Just Above Sunset did warn about this. Once the election is over what is there to say? Indeed, it is hard to get inspired. Perhaps a week or two of not talking about it all is called for.

Things one could examine?

One might be was the election "stolen" or some such thing. Over at MSNBC you will see that Keith Olbermann is addressing that. And you can catch his investigation and interviews on his show, Countdown. But that's a dead end.

As one fellow (Atrios) explains here -
Yes, there are serious problems with the way we count the votes in this country. Yes, no electronic voting machines without paper trails should exist. Yes, all machine counted votes should have random audits to ensure their reliability even if the election isn't thought to be close. Yes, no one should stand in line for 4 hours to vote. Yes, the media should be demanding, and the authorities providing, answers to obviously legitimate questions about various anomalies, such as more people voting in a county than were apparently registered. And, yes, I'm sure I can think of a few more things.

But, irregularities and questionable results are not necessarily "proof" of "fraud" and "proof" that the "election was stolen. " If people want this issue to be taken seriously they need to stop thinking that any of the information floating around right now - and yes, I've seen it all multiple times - provides proof of any such thing. Yes, legitimate questions have been raised, but I fear people on "our side" have started to confuse the legitimate questions with the answers to those questions they've imagined. I'm fully ready to believe that everything was corrupt in Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere, but thinking and knowing are different things entirely.

It is entirely true that there are a sufficient number of either weird or clearly unacceptable things which happened during this election. It's entirely true that the media should be following up more of these stories; the integrity of our democracy is seriously at stake. But, the cause is not helped by touting inconclusive statistical studies as "proof" or screaming, "Kerry won! Kerry won!" every five seconds.

A "smoking gun" may yet appear, but until that time we need to differentiate between legitimate questions and manufactured answers. And, the cause of improving things by '06 is not helped by turning legitimate questions into conspiracy theories.

There's never anything wrong with raising questions. There is something wrong with believing you have answers to those questions that are not supported by the evidence.
And so far? It's all bullshit.

That's a dead end.

And then there is this "overwhelming majority" business about the election - and the best review of who is echoing that is here. The Bush victory was NOT and overwhelming majority vote - it was, damn it, a tad more than fifty-one percent. But what does it matter? That's the current meme.

So what to consider? A federal appeals court stops the Guant?namo tribunals, cold. This is just illegal, under our laws and under international laws. The Bush administration is asking for a stay - we need to get these guys, even if they are the wrong guys and the process is fascist and we're being stupid. Hey! These are the bad guys, we think. Well, the could be the bad guys.

Yawn. Playing fair is so pre 9/11 and all that.

I suspect we just have to deal with this. The election is over. Playing by the rules is for losers.

And note this -
Two days after the worst election defeat in decades for Democrats, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger referred to them as "losers" in response to a reporter's question about tax increases.

... `Why would I listen to losers? the governor asked. "Let's be honest."
Okay. That's the playing field now.

There lots of talk on what the Democrats should do now - see this and this for example. But it doesn't matter much.

Of course Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his resignation saying this: The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.

Right.

And the neoconservative National Review has started the call to pressure the Bush administration to name Zell Miller the new Secretary of State, replacing the traitorous Colin Powell.

Whatever.

Hunker down. Say little. Let it all play out.

And we will take Fallujah. And then?

Topics not covered? Economics and the dollar. The privatization of Social Security - where shared risk is dumped din favor of individual responsibility.

And on it goes.

But I should mention the war and its implications - a draft, as we are running out of troops.

Bob Patterson throws this in the mix -
If Bush starts up the draft again, will gays be drafted?

If they are going to be the object of nation wide disapproval, is it a good idea to put them into military units? Should there be all gay units just like the all Japanese Nisei battalion in WWII?

If they are not wanted in the military, then you will have a strange situation where the straights will be fighting and dying for the right to exempt gays and pass a constitutional amendment forbidding gays to get married (and possibly even forbidding civil unions for legal purposes?)
How would that make the straights feel?

Will gays be drafted when the draft starts back up? (Is there any doubt that it will not become necessary to start the draft up by next summer? If anyone has any reasons for serious doubt about that, then that might be a new topic, but I think the crux of the question is: will gays get drafted or will they be exempt.
And Nico in Montr?al replies -
If America drafts gays, will gays be willing to answer the call to be the first-line of defense as second-class citizens, or will they start pouring over the border into Canada, along all the other disenchanted northern democrats?

Fewer liberal minded people will further weaken America's ability to mount any political alternatives and entrenching the Bush dynasty into perpetuity.

If you exempt people from the draft for being gay, it will become fashionable to be gay, and that wouldn't sit well with Bush and all those supporting moralists in Jesusland.
Yep. An issue.

But what to make of it all? The die are cast. Four more years.

Posted by Alan at 22:11 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
home

Sunday, 7 November 2004

Topic: Photos

Redirection: Some things that didn't make it to this web log....

The new issue of Just Above Sunset, the parent site to this web log, is now on line - and that would be Volume 2, Number 44 for Sunday, November 7, 2004

So just where does Le Figaro say is the best place in Paris to get an authentic, greasy American-style hamburger? You could check out PARIS BURGER this week. But the bulk of the issue is devoted to the presidential election. And this time, rather than pointing to pundits and making comments, readers from all over provide the commentary and analysis, from the expatriate Hollywood fellow in Paris and also there, the Australian woman, to two voices from deep in the South, in Georgia, to three writers from New York. This is commentary exclusive to Just Above Sunset. You will have to guess which one teaches in the MBA program at a major university, which manages a Borders bookstore, which is the mason and jazz musician, and which is the one who was in on CNN when it started - and which one is a PhD insurance executive. And there is that fellow from Cincinnati. And there is of course the famous travel writer in Paris. The four AFTER TUESDAY dialogs below are lively.

Did you know there is no war on terror? Find out here. And is the Enlightenment officially over? And what about sex, God and the Republican right? It's all here.

Bob Patterson of course gives his unique take on this all as "The World's Laziest Journalist" - and the quotes for this week are appropriately cynical. The photographs are moody, as befits the week's events.

Have fun - and here are the direct links to the ELECTION ISSUE.


Before Tuesday ________

Reality Check: Listen up! There IS no War on Terror! I repeat: There IS no War on Terror! None! We have all been conned!

Warming Up: Bush as Robespierre?


After Tuesday ________

The Day After the Election: "You need to disengage your need to be right." (extended from this web log)

The Day After the Day After: Martyrs and God and Money and Gays and the Press (extended from this web log)

At the End of the Week: Summing Up (extended from this web log)

Next Steps: No Concessions? (new - not from this web log)

Paris Burgers: Maybe relations with France can be saved... (new - not from this web log, mostly in French)


Bob Patterson ________

WLJ Weekly: The World's Laziest Journalist - Be careful what you dream... (new - not from this web log)


Features ________

Photography: Gloom in Liberal Hollywood (new - not from this web log)

Quotes: Useful Pithy Observations... Bertolt Brecht, Ambrose Bierce, Joseph Conrad - and a Brazilian fellow...

___

And this in the shadow of this CNN bureau in Los Angeles...



Posted by Alan at 19:59 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
home

Saturday, 6 November 2004

Topic: Election Notes

At the End of the Week

Joseph, our American in Paris, looks back on the dialogs - starting with the idea from several friends that it is now time for the Democrats to win over the religious "values" folks of the heartland.
Wow. Apres moi, la deluge. (Louis XIV)

Really, I will address all of this seriously next week. I'll just say that I'm neither suggesting that we become them nor fake it. We didn't get out our base. Bush did that for us. They didn't get out their base; we did. Republicans have been able to keep their fringe quiet, and he quietly rewards them. Our fringe elements mistakenly thought that it was time to go for all the marbles. They were wrong. Their base is bigger than ours. Accept it, and deal with it. Martyrdom is a choice one makes to lose everything just because one can't have it all. That isn't noble.

It's stupid!

It has been obvious for some time that the senate and house were going down the pipe. With this reality, was Kerry going to be able to extricate us from Iraq? Answer: at this point, no one can.

Was he going to be able to roll back the tax cuts, which even the executive-controlled Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says is mostly to blame for the spiraling deficit? Same answer.

After four years of problems deepening, we have W (or someone like him) again. Do you think whoever comes next for the Republicans isn't going to hire Karl Roverher? Guess again. Where is our Karl Rove, anyway? Where is our Forest Gump? Isn't it enough to be right, and have some access to power? Is it better to feel right and have NONE?

By the way, comparing Bush to Hitler or Nero is shrill and silly. Things are bad, but not that bad. "Forrest Gump", now that's fair. Seriously though, this does us no good. True, I have compared Rove to Goebels, but that was with grudging admiration more than contempt. [Note: see this in these pages where a fellow says. "To a person used to living in France, the country that invested joie de vivre, America seems like a grim and terrified place, and its leader like Forrest Gump with rockets."]

More to come.

Regarding the limeys saying we're dumb: well, maybe. [See The Day After the Day After - bottom of the column.] But who is the bigger fool, the fool who leads or the fool who follows? Ouch.

I really will make a case cogently next week.

But for now, QUOTE DAY!

"I would rather be right than be president." Henry Clay, who lost THREE TIMES! (Get my drift?)

And on my contention that the Democrats supporting gays came at a great cost, I'll riff on Gary Schandling: "I've never burned a flag. Then again, I've never put one out either."
Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, has a direct response to all this -
I think there is something to be said about them getting out our base, but the reverse is not true. It's been fairly well documented by now that Karl Rove, the "architect," had engineered the evangelical vote for the last four years, and was able to keep it pretty quiet up until the last moment.

And I don't know what you've been hearing over there in Froglandia, but I think there's really been not much noise heard from "our [so-called] fringe elements" over here - by which I assume you mean gays, especially those pushing for gay marriage and such, as I gather from your other message. In fact, I do believe all that state constitutional amendment stuff, too, was engineered by Rove, leaving the rest of us with nothing to do but sit back and quietly watch it all happen.

But also, I think to suggest that gays were somehow overreaching, especially in an election when the vast majority of the real talk was about Iraq, is like saying that the Jews may have had a legitimate gripe against the Nazis but that that was no reason for them to become whiners about it.

Their base is bigger than ours?

I don't see real evidence of that, only that they showed up to vote in larger numbers this year. It wasn't necessarily that big in 2000, and what goes up this election must eventually come down, which it may do in 2008.

Accept it, and deal with it?

How would you want it to be dealt with? What are you suggesting we all do? If this is one of those "learn to deal with your grief" or "get over it" things, I've never bought into that sort of thing. It may make one feel better for the moment, but I think misses the point in the long run.

You say, "Martyrdom is a choice one makes to lose everything just because one can't
have it all. That isn't noble. It's stupid."

Although (and I'm not being coy here) I honestly don't know how martyrdom enters into this -who are the martyrs in this, and what are they doing to make themselves martyrs? - but I do disagree with your characterization of martyrdom. In reality, martyrdom is a sacrifice one makes of oneself, for the benefit of others. It's sort of like what I.F. Stone says in his recent quote being floated, that you have to fight and fight, even knowing you will lose and lose, because years from now, someone will end up winning that fight. [See The Day After the Day After - top of the column - for the Stone quote.]

But yes, Stone says you must not feel like a martyr in doing it, but do it because you like it. Maybe so. Whatever. Noble? Maybe, maybe not. But stupid? Not.

After all, had Henry Clay decided to be president instead of being right, there's a very good chance he would have ended up being neither, and then we would never heard of him! Now that would have been a stupid waste of a life on his part!

Maybe next week we'll continue this, but I'm guessing we won't be in the mood. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm getting tired of it already.)
And Dick in Rochester New York adds -
Tagging along behind Rick...

I believe that what lost this election and a whole bunch previously is Democrats letting Republicans define them - very successfully. I do not remember "liberal" being a real four letter word until Reagan pasted it all over Mondale and Ferraro. Reagan mentioned it against Carter, but did it in skywriting in '84. Bush I did same thing with Dukakis in `88. The Democrats have never reacted to change liberal to a positive. (Many of us still believe this. Civil rights, cross-culturalization, Affirmative Action, Social Security, Medicare and so on. Consanguinely, dems/libs have let rep/neo-cons successfully create wedge issues that capitalize on "good conservative values" and "squishy, godless liberal lack of values.")

Simply - the Republicans can do one syllable attack crap and Democrats respond with three paragraph rhetoric and the audience is already gone. Deomocrats have never made much effort to challenge why "tax and spend liberals" is not nearly as bad as "borrow and spend neo-conservatives."

It probably does not matter that much now as the doomsday clock is in overdrive.
And Joseph wraps up his points -
Damn if I'm not getting a little tired of this myself.

Think I'll just make a few points and drop the matter.

1. Alan cited an article saying the loss was not on the gay issue, but on terrorism. Baloney. Yes, that was also a factor, one of several. Another (my first thought after Iowa) is that Kerry is from Massachusetts . Don't the Democrats get it yet? Republicans can nominate a northerner, but Democrats cannot. Those who are thinking of Hillary for 2008 must really enjoy losing.

2. Yes, Rove worked the Christian angle, but the Democrats played into their hands in many ways. Witness the shrillness of Michael Moore, or the Guardian UK's adventure in Clark County, OH. Preaching to the converted, and driving MANY who were ambivalent into the arms of the President. Again, making comparisons to Hitler is not helping us. We need to tone it all down. Comparing gay marriage to the Holocaust, as someone just did, may play here or in Berkley or in the back bay, but in most of the country it does not.

3. The ground has shifted beneath our feet. It is time to recognize that Republicans are right - Democrats ARE out of step with the mainstream, or the mainstream is out of step with US, if that makes you feel better. The mainstream has lunged right leaving the Democratic Party almost irrelevant. While it is tempting to think of history as a gradual rise toward enlightenment, but even a cursory view proves this false. The trajectory of history more closely resembles the DJIA: seemingly ever upward in the long view, but a bumpy ride with many bear markets along the way. On must adapt or die. We ARE out of step. An anti-gay marriage amendment passed in Oregon. OREGON!!! And Oregon makes California look like Kansas. This should tell us something about the pulse of the nation.

One must tailor one's expectations accordingly. How did the civil rights movement fare in the '40s? Not very well. I imagine that Rosa Parks would have been thrown off the bus, or thrown in jail and that would have been the end of it. That's not to say that one should stop fighting, but one has to let the context determine how one fights. Sorry to say, but many of the things that lefties hold dear are ideals that will never be achieved. Some will be achieved, but very slowly, in fits and starts. This is simply not a time in history when one should expect great lurches forward towards enlightenment principles. Fight, but don't expect nor demand everything tomorrow. Okay, I may have been winding you all up a bit, but on this I am perfectly serious: Are gays not substantially worse off in much of the country than they were before? Worse off than they might have been had certain elements been less militant? Isn't there a fair chance that the issue opened an opportunity for putting these state amendments on the ballot for no other reason than to get a few million extra conservatives out to the polls? A chance that this made the difference? I think so.

And when Dan says that it made a big difference in Ohio, I for one believe him. Point: if we want to win the hearts and minds of the enemy, we need to listen to them and adjust our message rather than self-righteously talking AT them. Note to Michael Moore: just go away.

4. That doesn't mean abandoning principles. "What goes up must come down" is cute, but when? History suggests that we could be in for a long ride. What to do? Several answers: Don't sell policy, sell virtue. We have enough of it. The funny thing (and Dan, perhaps you will scoff) but I actually believe that the Democrats embody not only Christian new-testament principles better than the Republican party of today, but the conservative values of old: responsibility, caution, community. Funny, but in many ways WE are the party of Reagan! This would not be the first time the parties have completely reversed polarity. Sell THAT.

The Reps don't get hung up on policy details. And pragmatism impresses the wonks, but not in Peoria. Give me a candidate from the South who really is a Christian, not a faker. Someone who can connect and inspire. I don't care if he's dumb as a post. Give me Forrest Gump. We can always package him with smarter men. Works for them, and lefties will still vote for him. Republicans, ironically ARE more pragmatic in this regard: They know what kind of guy they need, and what he needs to say to get the office and trust that he'll do lots of stuff once he gets their that it was "better not to talk about while he was running." Again, we need to disengage our need to prove we're right, and just be right. Swallow the indignation and be effective.

5. Being "right" is a fine thing I suppose, but what good is wisdom if it's of no profit to the wise? David Mammet refers to this as the "great liberal fallacy": that it is sufficient to merely recognize an injustice and empathize. If we can temper the need to prove we're right, go quietly about doing what we do, keeping an eye on the big picture rather than parochial interests, be patient and keep divisive issues in the background, then we may achieve a position from which all this high-mindedness is actually put to some use. It works for them, and it can work for us. Mark Twain wrote "Thunder is fine; it is impressive. But it's the lightening that does the work". Being right is not enough, and if we let it get in the way of getting to do the work that is the real betrayal of principles.

6. The thing that is really troubling about the gay issue is that blacks and Hispanics, statistics show, are somewhat more homophobic than whites. I would like to see statistics on minority votes in the states with marriage amendments on the ballot. Democrats should have the Hispanic vote hands down, but we do not. This is one reason. There are others. Had Kerry chosen Bill Richardson he might not have won the election, but he would have won Hispanics for a generation.

7. Finally, someone recently wrote that this was not the massive loss the press is making it out to be, that it all came down to Ohio. Bullshit. Think about how dishonest that is. We lost by FOUR MILLION VOTES. Think of it. In four short years, we have gone from being outraged that one can lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College, to believing that the Electoral College is the only thing that counts. I assure you that had we won by four million votes, we would declare a mandate too. The public has spoken, and by a significant margin, it has said that we suck.
Oh.


Sex and God, Part Two

In the previous dialogs, Joseph had maintained that the Democrats' careful but tenuous alliance with the gay rights issues cost them the election, and Vince argued that that seemed to be the case in Ohio, and Emma was uneasy with gay couples raining children. That dialog continues with Dick in Rochester -
I believe that everyone is traveling obliquely around what I think is a core issue: why is everyone making "marriage" and legalization of a union synonymous? If you want all the legal shit, have a civil union. If you want a "marriage" that should be a church thing and if your church cannot accommodate you, get another church. As a church/state thing I could never understood what in hell gave the church the "power invested in me by the state." Certainly the Catholic Church has a hard time showing empirical expertise in both sides of marriage. No states require any special "marriage counseling" to become a minister. How is your priest (or rabbi or whatever) any more competent to legally bring two (or three or eight) people together than your plumber or service station attendant?

This never should have been an issue in the way it was presented.
Vince adds this -
Yes, but Dick, the argument isn't really ABOUT legal claims - despite your good logic.
The issue that swung Ohio and Georgia and the rest was FEAR - of people who are different than I AM!

American version of Jihad -- without the blood!

Instead it's paid with "political capital"! Aren't WE civil!!

Dick - on second thought - to trump my own comment - rather than fear of others, how about the whole gay thing being FEAR of OURSELVES - our own sexuality!

Now THERE'S a real John Wayne moment! A TRUE motivator!

But that may be giving too much credit to Karl Rove... then again, maybe not...
Well, Vince may be right.

But does it matter?

Posted by Alan at 14:15 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Saturday, 6 November 2004 14:23 PST home

Newer | Latest | Older