Tag: News, Politics, Events

Moral Majorities

The US after this election is witnessing the results of an effort which has taken the best part of forty years through which socially conservatism has become mainstream. It has been a comprehensive effort which has worked its way through the media, economics, academia, the churches and government to succesfully make that which was utterly unappealing in the mid-60s pop culture today. The rise of country music, pick-up truck manufacture, shift in church attendence, an attack on prudent taxation and an assertion of moral cause for whatever one does are all aspects of this shift.

What is the centre and left to do? One thing it must do is start. Fortunately in Canada, we know that any rightist thought beyond the centre is marginal, as recent elections show. Where 51% of the US population votes for the God-fearing friend of commerce, Canadians can’t get up enough interest in them to get them into the 30% range – because we know they are nuts or are Albertans. Our centre and left (known in the States as the far-left/liberals/socialists/pinkos) only have a problem merely of fragmentation as opposed to purpose. Yet, it is still at risk…so perhaps setting some general principles of the true moral majority would help as ground work for the 2016 US election when the House, Senate and White House might all reasonably be expected next to fall back into our southern neighbour’s Democratic hands:

  • You have to express and assert moral values. The centre and left must recognize that it is the steward of the moral core of liberty and learn to express that convincingly. Currently, the right is asserting a faith-based conception of politics which is set up as opposed to “realty”, whatever that is supposed to mean. One principle that is key in understanding the success of the US right is that the abandonment of thought is not the fulfillment of any relationhip to faith. It is just abandonment to unthought so get into that Bible and point out that Jesus had no time for the bankers and bean-counters in authority, knocked down the temple and wanted the feet of the poor into some reasonable footwear. The centre and left also need to erode what are described as faith-based approaches through asserting that faith and reason are not anti-thetical, that morality and thought is better than morality and not thought. As you Mom said when you couldn’t find your bike – God gave you a brain for something…USE IT!

  • Fiscal prudency. Since the earliest days of Margaret Thatcher, the core economic principle of the right has been imprudence. Favouring the few, wasting natural resources for today, cutting taxes mindlessly and racking up public debt are all rightist economic cornerstones. As a result, the centre and left need to embrace prudence…no, not Prudence, just prudence. Being the best money managers, safe-guarding of the public purse, keeping an eye on the long term, are all key. It is a wide-open field and frankly the one you’ve been sitting in the middle of for years, all the while being told by the misfits, the foxes in the chicken coop, that you are incapable. You believed them. Maybe because of the suits, who knows. Calling this new approach something grand and geographically friendly yet obtuse, like, say, the Houston School, will help. It will not cause fear and may be allowed to infiltrate for the required decade or more without anyone noticing, taking time for adherents to become pundits and then policy makers.

  • Last, the centre and left in North America have to come to believe in themselves. In Europe this is easy having been ravaged by the extremes of the Nazis and Soviets for decades. It is only in the last three years that North America has taken to consider itself the victim of the world. In asserting itself as having risen from that great wrong it has been uneven, a bit unsteady so that we now see that liberty has been protected by cutting back on it fencing it in. Time for the bloom to force itself again. It is good to be free and the centre and left have to make that meaningful again. Next time someone craps on “liberals” say “did you say Liberace? Why would you say that about Liberace? I suppose you didn’t care for Ed Sullivan either, or apple pie and you believe cheating on your taxes isn’t much like cheating on your wife. Are you still cheating on your taxes? Har-har-har!” You can take it from there. Look around your leftie life, stake out what is good and wholesome and, then, proclaim it as the salvation for the nation. A good lesson to remember from the right on this point is it doesn’t have to be true, you just have to say it a lot. It is, though, likely true.

Some will think this scatter-brained and some just copying. But that is what it is going to take to get that 51% needed to keep out the fringe. See, you don’t have to befriend the Ayn Rand set, with their calls to stop pampering children by keeping the out of the work force. You just just have to convince that nice centre-right family on the next street. There you go. You know them. Invite them over for cups of tea, leave out the Toronto Star and New Yorker, maybe put on play a little reggae quietly and see what develops. Remember, you have a decade or two to pull this off so no rush. Find some friends and start a circle – avoid the word “cell” as you do this, please. Adopt the bollo tie as your secret sign. Next time you see someone wearing one, give them a wink. The revolution has begun.

Hey, Did You Guys Hear About This?

Thanks to the night writers who stayed up for…nothing. Three states up in the air still and Ohio law appears to say, from what I heard at 2 am from the Secretary of State from there, that there are ten days to count the provisional votes. Power vacuum. If this was 1807, Canada would attack right now. Given that we would be crushed, crushed, crushed, now all we can do is send them the pamphlets we have collected from tours of legislative assemblies suggesting it is time to reconsider the Queen.

Moments Later, Still Before Coffee: So one strategy for 2008? How about relocating one million New Yorkers to five New New Yorks, model towns scattered amongst the swing states.

10:29 pm

I am under a denial of interest attack. Why can’t people in Ohio all vote before noon? Is it too much to ask?

On the upside the Daily Show is doing an hour long special.

Update: Gmail lives again.

Update: Why isn’t Alaska’s Peter Tosh memorial ballot measure being reported during this two hour break in anything interesting? Here is what it is about:

Would legalize the cultivation, use and sale of marijuana for persons 21 and older; the state and local government would regulate marijuana like alcohol and tobacco; doctors would be able to prescribe drugs to all patients, including children; public use laws could be enacted by the government as well as laws in the interest of public safety.

Interesting to see that Utah’s same sex marriage proposition (as it were) passed without the popular wording “that marriage consists only of the legal union between a man and a woman…or some women…related or otherwise”

Good Night: 198 Bush to 188 Kerry not counting another 18 for Kerry in Oregon and Washington. Which really makes it 198 Bush to 206 Kerry.

Miles to go. Larry King, who does not need sleep because he is an ALIEN, will be still talking at breakfast and Ohio will still be uncertain. Certainly it would be easier to be a Bush supporter at this moment than a Kerry one but it could all come down to the split allocation of electoral votes in Maine. What the hell did the neighbours do, portland? On the upside, the sofa is there for you and yours, our token political refugees.

Congratulations to Ian and Tessa who singlehandledly out-Ezekiel-ed the Mennonites of Lancaster County with tales from both the Book of Mormon and sin-centrals NY/Cali, swinging to the Democrats those confused but mightily good folk who run lovely train museums.

See you in the recounts.

Election Eve

Just 24 hours until I am stuck in front of the TV, ignoring the kids, eating junk food, forgetting I need to sleep, acting like a sports fan all for an election. I love an election.

And apparently the US election loves this the internets and especially this small bit which has misled people needing the real goods on Kerry’s policies or wanting to find a reliable US election pool. To those lost and finding themselves here…I have nothing for you but the comfort of letting you know that you are not alone, that the internet is a wasteland.

I can’t recall if I followed the 1996 US election on-line. I think I did and it slowed. I do recall the whole web-thang slowed down a whole lot the next time four years ago. Will the infrastruture be robust enough for all the new streaming audio bandwidth, the video and the incessant click-click-click of millions of nerds updating their RSS feeds every 23 seconds. I bet I’ll be listening to radio by 9:43 pm. Radio, the king of media.

US Election Pool IV

UPDATE: two more players Monday morning…names linkified…

OK. I’ve talked it up here, here and here. Two days to go and it is still on and you can still join. Prizes. Real prizes of little or no value. Stuff from around my house. Maybe.

Anyway, here are the picks so far:

Electoral Vote Prez Key States Senate Wild Card
Alan 285K/253B Kerry K: Fla, Pa, Mo, Oh;
B: Me, Co		 48-D, 50-R, 1-I Valesky, NYS, 49th
Hans 270K/268B Kerry K: Fla, Pa, Me, Oh;
B: Mo, Co		 50-D, 50-R, 0-I Delfino, Co Clerk, Roch., NY
Wayne 277B/261K Bush B: Fla, Pa, Mo, Oh;
K: Me, Co		 45-D, 55-R, 0-I Wash St. Aud
Wm Baker (R)
Nicholas 290B/240K/ 4N/1Bad Bush B: Fla, Mo, Co;
K: Me, Pa, Me		 53-R, 46-D, 1-I Smith. Somewhere someone called Smith beats the incumbent.
Ben 305B/233K Bush B: Me, Co, Pa, Mo, Oh;
K: Fla		 52-R, 47-D, 1-I Robert J. Smith, (D), NJ Rep, 4th loses
Ben #2 309B/239K Bush B: 1/3 of Me, Co, Pa, Mo, Oh;
K: 2/3 of Me., Fla		 52-R, 47-D, 1-I Robert J. Smith, (D), NJ Rep, 4th loses
Lisa 274B/264K Bush B: Fla, Co, Mo;
K: Me, Pa, Oh		 50-R, 49-D, 1-I Jim Jeffords. Somewhere he beats the incumbent.
Kateland 300B/238K Bush B: Fla, Co, Mo, Oh;
K: Me, Pa		 51-R, 48-D, 1-I Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, loses
Kim 273K/265B Kerry B: Fla, Mo
K: Me, Pa, Oh, Co		 52-D, 47-R, 1-I Mark Shurtleff, Utah A.-G. will win.
Rob 274K/264B Kerry B: Co, Mo;
K: Fla, Oh, Me, Pa		 50-R, 49-D, 1-I Mo Wiltshire, Ga, W. Dist. wins
David 227K/311B Bush B: Fla
K: Co, Mo, Oh, Me, Pa		 53-R, 46-D, 1-I Dave picks Wayne’s pick.

DIG THAT TABLE!!! First I ever created with my own blood, sweat and tears.

Once again, here are the rules:

  • Electoral College overall: 50 points for being spot on, one point lost for every electoral college vote off +/- for the winner. No points for being 50 or
    over off score.
  • President: 30 points for naming the winner.
  • Key States: 10 points for picking the winner in the following states correctly – Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, Missouri, Colorado.
  • Senate: 20 points for for being spot on, four points lost for every senate seat off +/- for the final count of the majority.
  • Wild card: Pick your own non-Federal race at any level down to local district attorney for an incumbant to lose. 20 points if you picked right.

Join in the fun. Play today. We give prizes.

Know Thy Enemy

From The New York Times this morning:

You’d think that seeing Osama looking fit as a fiddle and ready for hate would spark anger at the Bush administration’s cynical diversion of the war on Al Qaeda to the war on Saddam. It’s absurd that we’re mired in Iraq – an invasion the demented vice president praised on Friday for its “brilliance” – while the 9/11 mastermind nonchalantly pops up anytime he wants. For some, it seemed cartoonish, with Osama as Road Runner beeping by Wile E. Bush as Dick Cheney and Rummy run the Acme/Halliburton explosives company – now under F.B.I. investigation for its no-bid contracts on anvils, axle grease (guaranteed slippery) and dehydrated boulders (just add water). Osama slouched onto TV bragging about pulling off the 9/11 attacks just after the president strutted onto TV in New Hampshire with 9/11 families, bragging that Al Qaeda leaders know “we are on their trail.” Maybe bin Laden hasn’t gotten the word. Maybe W. should get off the trail and get on Osama’s tail.

What has been bouncing around my brain is what happened in Madrid. What if today, two days before the election, there was an attack which killed one thousand people. Who would be blamed? Who would benefit on Tuesday? In Spain the attack was taken to be the reason that the hard-line government was voted out. But wasn’t the attack proof that the hard-line government had failed – not only was it being perceived as lying to the populace but it had not kept a public space secure. Similarly, if an explosion were to occur in the next few days or hours, would it not be cause to reject the incumbant as incompetant? Or would it be the basis for staying the course, either as unthinking comfort or wisely choosing stability. It is a bit of a mug’s game, back seat driving. A country as resiliant as the USA ought to be able to face their fear with confidence and strength.

Apparently, the polls since the latest Osama tape show just that – no change in voting intentions is being noted. The wisdom of the people will play out regardless of what is being attempted outside the voting booth. What is more troubling is the effort to alter the results within the booth, to keep the legitimate electors out and to get illegitimate ones in. From the transcript of the rejected Republican effort to get over 900 people – all legitimate voters it turns out – off the voters list in Ohio:

Mr. Lou Wray, you challenged my husband, and we live in the same neighborhood. Okay? But you’ve never met us a day in our lives, hard-working individuals. My husband is a full-time student at Kent State University, where I also possess a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. We work hard just like you do, trying to make our livings, trying to prove ourselves in this world to get to the point where we’re 80 years old, like you. But you signed your name to 200 documents of people you have never, ever met a day in your life, challenging our right to vote. And you don’t even know whether we live? in Tallmadge, Ohio. You have no idea. Somebody just called you on the phone and asked you to do a favor and you said okay. And now you look foolish standing up here saying, “I don’t know. They just called me on the phone. I don’t have anything.” You look silly.

If almost one thousand voters were to be put off the voters list because of efforts like this (and yes, equally, if as many illegitimate one added) or if almost one thousand people die in an evil act of terror geared to alter the outcome, are these not comparable attacks on democracy? That is as loaded as way of putting it as I could imagine reading but I can’t figure out how to say it less coarsely. Help me on this one if you can.

October Surprise II (…or perhaps ??)

If you have ceased all reading of non-amateur reporting it will be of no interest to you to click over to the Christian Science Monitor’s web site and its excellent canvassing of a large number of media outlets on this story about the missing 380 tons of explosives. Those both in pajamas and in the know certainly know that it had nothing to do with the Rumsfeld plan to invade Iraq with the least resources possible. The CSM round-up includes this interesting juxaposition:

The BBC points out two seemingly contradictory reports from NBC.

NBC television reported that one of its correspondents was embedded with the 101st Airborne Division which temporarily took control of the base on 10 April 2003 but did not find any of the explosives.

However, other US outlets, including NBC’s own news website, quoted Pentagon officials who said a search of the site after the US-led invasion had revealed the explosives to be intact.

The White House pointed to the NBC television report Monday as evidence the explosives may have disappeared before the war or before US troops arrived at the site, reports AP.

Some actual facts that are interesting include these:

IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said inspectors last saw the explosives in January 2003 when they took an inventory and placed fresh seals on the bunkers. The same AP report points out that Ms. Fleming said inspectors visited the site again in March 2003, but didn’t view the explosives because the seals were not broken.

We know from the first Gulf War that the British SAS were on the ground weeks before the invasion of Kuwait desert rat style, securing what needed securing. Surely they were up to the same thing this time. We also know that the US and UK had Iraq coated in surveillance planes right up to the mid-March and – surely to God – they must have had one plane dedicated to this spot.

So when did the locked up munitions go missing? When exactly was it that no one was looking?

Now, INDC points out as a fact that there was a million tons of ordinance floating around – though the story cited for that fact actually speaks of something a litle different ammunition (bullets to rockets) as opposed to a pure large playdough-like glob of elemental BOOM!!! So, given that, who cares about the odd 380 tons of easy-to-use easy-to-mould easy-to-hide explosive. Hmm…who might…hmm…not US soldiers on the ground…and certainly not insurgents. Let it go. Keep moving. I note that the Commissar is silent on the tale.

Later: …and just like that the Commissar waits and waits – then jumps in with facts. Excellent work, Tovarich.

US Election Pool III

Don’t forget to get some picks in for the elction pool. I know I said there was a deadline but seeing as the web is full of rightists and I am picking Kerry – and – as it looks like Kerry may actually win…well, I am just looking forward to the gnashing of teeth, the neo-con v. Tory accusations, the chicken little dire predictions.

Most of what you need to know is here at the Electoral Vote Predictor 2004. The rules once again are as follows with my picks as an illustration…

1.  Electoral college overall: 50 points for being spot on, one point lost for every electoral college vote off +/- for the winner. No points for being 50 or over off score. Total 538 so 270 needed to win.

My picks:  I say…um…285 Kerry and 253 Bush. I do not care if that combination is actually possible. Nearness is what matters.

2.  President: 30 points for naming the winner.

My pick: I obviously say Kerry…not because it is obvious he will win but because I gave him the most electoral votes.

3.  Key States: 10 points for picking the winner in the following states correctly – Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, Missouri, Colorado.

My picks: Kerry: Florida, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio; Bush: Maine, Colorado.

4.  Senate: 20 points for for being spot on, four points lost for every senate seat off +/- for the final count of the majority.

My picks: 49 Democrats, 50 Republicans and 1 Independent.

5.  Wild card: Pick your own non-Federal race at any level down to local district attorney for an incumbant to lose. 20 points if you picked right.

My picks: hmmm…this is tricky. I think in the 49th District of the New York State Senate, the Democratic Candidate David Valesky is goin’ to Albany!!!

He’s goiing to win because the right has split the vote with both Republican incumbant and Independent Conservative candidates. Has the right learned nothing from Preston Manning???

Did I mention there are prizes? I always give out prizes. More info here and here.