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Brief thoughts on Presidential Candidates

Brief thoughts on Presidential Candidates

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I haven’t been posting on the Presidential race, mostly because the discourse is depressing. The change/experience framing is trite, and I’m already more than sick of it. But here are some random thoughts about the presidential candidates across the board.

Democrats

I would support Dennis Kucinich, but I honestly don’t think he has a chance.

So far, I’ve been supporting John Edwards. I was disappointed to see John Kerry slap him in the face with his support of Barack Obama. I like his message a lot, and I think he would be a great president. He would do more for everyone from the middle class on down than any other candidate. Big interests dislike him – a very good sign.

My next choice is Hillary Clinton. I think she has the savvy that is required these days in politics, and I think that we might salvage our international reputation if she were president. My only real reservation about her is a big one, though. She is still very much tied up with some of the very corporate interests that have taken control of our government. Fundamentally, I have a trust issue with her.

Barack Obama is very moving, a charismatic and very smart kind of guy. But I think there isn’t enough substance there. I don’t like the fact that he misrepresents himself as a grass roots guy. He’s not, and all you have to do is look at his academic credentials. I am often blown away by this speeches, but I want to know what his foreign policies would be. I did not like what he has said about Iran. His race is not an issue for me one way or another – my idealism in that respect was – finally – destroyed by Condi Rice. It really doesn’t matter. Charisma is not enough, and in some ways it can be blinding. His followers are too… following, if you know what I mean.

I was sad to see Bill Richardson go. I thought that he had a lot to contribute to the debate, whether or not he was successful in his bid.

Republicans

Obviously, I don’t support any Republicans. I’m pretty liberal. I do have a couple of thoughts about them, however.

Ron Paul. I have a lot of respect for him, and I agree with some of his positions, especially on the war and on civil liberties. But like most libertarians, he won’t take a stand on people who do not have the bootstraps to pull upon. Help them? Kill them? Let natural selection take its course?

John McCain isn’t going to go for torture. That you can count on. He’s looking pretty old, so if he successful, you’ll want to look very very carefully at his choice for VP. It could be a setup. He has been successful in the past on getting some bipartisan initiatives passed. Of the candidates on the right, he would be the only one who might be able to revive the central Republican agendas. They don’t like it, though.

I have to say that although I think he would be a disaster as President, I like Mike Huckabee. I just like him. It would be funny to have a President named “Huckabee” – it might make us more humble. I’d like to have him over for dinner. He comes across as more authentic than the other candidates. He would look good in black and white, like the old news programs. Of course, there are obvious church-state and gender issues with Huckabee’s positions, and I don’t think we could afford for him to be directing foreign policies. Obviously he appeals to the pseudo-religious right, but he’s a bit more Christian (I think) than many of them are – maybe too much so for them to swallow. The neocons aren’t pleased, for sure.

Speaking of neo-cons, Fred Thompson, wow. I’m glad it looks like he can’t compete.

Giuliani – did you _hear_ him in that Republican debate? Can you say “fascist”? I give Giuliani credit for standing up and saying the right things when 9/11 happened. He was the leader there. On the other hand, he really should have known that the towers would be targeted again, and he turned around and cut support for the first responders that he had praised. I won’t go into the possible issues regarding his sex life, relationship with family. Nobody really remembers the Jimmy Hoffa thing either, and I think it’s funny that he likes to dress up as a woman. But I will say that his cleanup of New York City had a cost: when the psychiatric hospitals were emptied, and then the homeless shelters were closed in the middle of winter – that was the measure of his regard for human life.

Smooth salesman Mitt Romney… what can I say? He scares me, in a primal way that defies explanation, so I won’t go there. New England knows Mitt. Even among politicians, I believe that he’s a consummate liar. He hasn’t switched his positions so much as people think – he has only expressed positions as they will help him at the time. How did you _expect_ him to win the position of governor in Massachusetts?

MoveOn Controversy? Gimmee a Break

MoveOn Controversy? Gimmee a Break

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I hear “betray us” whenever they say General Petraeus’ name too, but yeah, it was a bit cheap to play on the name. Making a stink about the childishness of of that would be fair, but the comments I’m hearing are really over the top. And with all of the concentration on the word play, the actual point of the ad was lost.

Then there’s all this babbling about how the Democrats are “afraid” of irritating the members of Moveon.org. Makes ’em sound like pansies, doesn’t it? Actually, one area where the Democrats have showed spine is in risking a lot of their voter base to try to compromise realistically in areas where there is significant disagreement and anger. Maybe they should be a little more afraid of irritating them sometimes….

But then consider everything the Republicans have to do in order not to “irritate” segments of their own voter base, especially the right-wing “Christian” voters. I doubt most imperialist neo-cons really care about abortion or homosexuality, but they throw out statements and bits of legislation. It keeps us fighting one another instead of realizing how we’re all getting robbed and losing any credibility in the world.

The bigger stink should be made about the brazen self-righteousness and hypocrisy of the ones pointing the finger, considering their own honored traditions in the history of smear (Ann Richards, Max Cleland, John Kerry, John McCain, etc etc).

Keith Olbermann makes a couple of very stunning points here about maintaining a tilted and anti-democratic playing field, and the politicizing of the military. To me, that’s the larger context and it isn’t being discussed nearly enough. If this story about MoveOn.org keeps on playing, then here are better “talking points” for the discussion.

Olbermann to Bush: “Your Hypocrisy Is So Vast” by Keith Olbermann, MSNBC “Countdown,” Thursday 20 September 2007

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj6s5M68Raw[/youtube]

A reaction to Thursday’s press conference: the president was the one who interjected Gen. Petraeus into the political dialogue in the first place.

So the President, behaving a little bit more than usual, like we would all interrupt him while he was watching his favorite cartoons on the DVR, stepped before the press conference microphone and after side-stepping most of the substantive issues like the Israeli raid on Syria, in condescending and infuriating fashion, produced a big political finish that indicates, certainly, that if it wasn’t already – the annual Republican witch-hunting season is underway.

“I thought the ad was disgusting. I felt like the ad was an attack not only on General Petraeus, but on the U.S. Military.”

“And I was disappointed that not more leaders in the Democrat party spoke out strongly against that kind of ad.

“And that leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like Moveon.org or more afraid of irritating them, than they are of irritating the United States military.”

“That was a sorry deal.”

First off, it’s “Democrat-ic” party.

You keep pretending you’re not a politician, so stop using words your party made up. Show a little respect.

Secondly, you could say this seriously after the advertising/mugging of Senator Max Cleland? After the swift-boating of John Kerry?

But most importantly, making that the last question?

So that there was no chance at a follow-up?

So nobody could point out, as Chris Matthews so incisively did, a week ago tonight, that you were the one who inappropriately interjected General Petraeus into the political dialogue of this nation in the first place!

Deliberately, premeditatedly, and virtually without precedent, you shanghaied a military man as your personal spokesman and now you’re complaining about the outcome, and then running away from the microphone?

Eleven months ago the President’s own party, the Republican National Committee, introduced this very different kind of advertisement, just nineteen days before the mid-term elections.

Bin Laden.

Al-Zawahiri’s rumored quote of six years ago about having bought “suitcase bombs.”

All set against a ticking clock, and finally a blinding explosion and the dire announcement:

“These are the stakes – vote, November 7th.”

That one was ok, Mr. Bush?

Terrorizing your own people in hopes of getting them to vote for your own party has never brought as much as a public comment from you?

The Republican Hamstringing of Captain Max Cleland and lying about Lieutenant John Kerry met with your approval?

But a shot at General Petraeus, about whom you conveniently ignore it, was you who reduced him from four-star hero to a political hack, merits this pissy juvenile blast at the Democrats on national television?

Your hypocrisy is so vast that if we could somehow use it to fill the ranks in Iraq you could realize your dream and keep us fighting there until the year 3000.

The line between the military and the civilian government is not to be crossed.

When Douglas MacArthur attempted to make policy for the United States in Korea half a century ago, President Truman moved quickly to fire him, even though Truman knew it meant his own political suicide, and the deification of a General who history suggests had begun to lose his mind.

When George McClellan tried to make policy for the Union in the Civil War, President Lincoln finally fired his chief General, even though he knew McClellan could galvanize political opposition which he did when McClellan ran as Lincoln’s presidential opponent in 1864, nearly defeating our greatest president.

Even when the conduit flowed the other way and Senator Joseph McCarthy tried to smear the Army because it wouldn’t defer the service of one of McCarthy’s staff aides, the entire civilian and Defense Department structures, after four years of fearful servitude, rose up against McCarthy and said “enough” and buried him.

The list is not endless but it is instructive.

Air Force General LeMay – who broke with Kennedy over the Cuban Missile Crisis and was retired.

Army General Edwin Anderson Walker – who started passing out John Birch Society leaflets to his soldiers.

Marine General Smedley Butler – who revealed to Congress the makings of a plot to remove FDR as President and for merely being approached by the plotters, was phased out of the military hierarchy.

These careers were ended because the line between the military and the civilian is not to be crossed!

Mr. Bush, you had no right to order General Petraeus to become your front man.

And he obviously should have refused that order and resigned rather than ruin his military career.

The upshot is and contrary it is, to the MoveOn advertisement he betrayed himself more than he did us.

But there has been in his actions a sort of reflexive courage, some twisted vision of duty at a time of crisis. That the man doesn’t understand that serving officers cannot double as serving political ops, is not so much his fault as it is your good, exploitable, fortune.

But Mr. Bush, you have hidden behind the General’s skirts, and today you have hidden behind the skirts of ‘the planted last question’ at a news conference, to indicate once again that your presidency has been about the tilted playing field, about no rules for your party in terms of character assassination and changing the fabric of our nation, and no right for your opponents or critics to as much as respond.

That is not only un-American but it is dictatorial.

And in pimping General David Petraeus and in the violation of everything this country has been assiduously and vigilantly against for 220 years, you have tried to blur the gleaming radioactive demarcation between the military and the political, and to portray your party as the one associated with the military, and your opponents as the ones somehow antithetical to it.

You did it again today and you need to know how history will judge the line you just crossed.

It is a line thankfully only the first of a series that makes the military political, and the political, military.

It is a line which history shows is always the first one crossed when a democratic government in some other country has started down the long, slippery, suicidal slope towards a Military Junta.

Get back behind that line, Mr. Bush, before some of your supporters mistake your dangerous transgression, for a call to further politicize our military.

Kerry and the Electras

Kerry and the Electras

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In 1961, Presidential candidate John Kerry was part of a prep school band called The Electras. They pressed 500 copies of a “vanity” album, and 40 years later, the album was rediscovered. This is the authentic reissue, with original artwork and liner notes, as well as a photo of the young men who made up the band. Copies of the original have sold for more than $2,500. The reissue is a limited edition. Get a copy of the rock-n-roll album presidential candidate John Kerry recorded in 1961 with six of his schoolmates at St. Paul School in New Hampshire.

John Kerry as a member of “The Electras”

John Kerry – electric bass
Larry Rand – lead guitar
Jon Prouty – rhythm guitar
Jack Radcliffe – piano
Peter Lang – drums
Andy Gagarin – maracas
Lee Scarbrough – saxophone

1. Guitar Boogie Shuffle
2. Three Blind Mice
3. You Can’t Sit Down
4. Greenfields
5. Shanghaied
6. Summmertime Blues
7. Bulldog
8. Ya Ya
9. Sleepwalk
10. Electra
11. Because They’re Young
12. Torquay
13. Yellow Jacket

Basic old-time rock n roll – I wonder if any of these tracks have vocals???? I would love to hear Kerry sing….

(thanks Bob Nelson for telling me about this album!)

Fahrenheit 9/11

Fahrenheit 9/11

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I’ve just seen Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11.

I’m going to try to get a few of my thoughts down about this film while I’m still feeling nauseous and tearful. Tears or nausea, nausea or tears?

It’s hard to know where to start – with the woman in the lobby who blindly reached for me after the film, embracing a total stranger – a middle aged, middle class woman with tears running down her face – a woman who grappled me as though I were the remaining vine that prevented her from falling off the mountain? "What have we become?" she asked me in a broken voice as her tears moistened my left shoulder.

Or perhaps with the sudden anguished moan of my intellectual husband, a man not known for displays of emotion, upon hearing the words "can they ever trust us again"? That is, after being promised not to be put in harm’s way unless it were absolutely necessary, how can those who have always been first to stand up and serve (the american poor) ever trust in their country again?

The film has faults, to be sure. It uses a bit too much caricature, which is sometimes distracting. Although I agree that our president is developmentally stunted and anything but a compassionate conservative, a less cartoonish display would have been more persuasive. What one sees in Bush finally is what one sees in the eyes of any irresponsible and narcissistic alcoholic – the dry drunk. There’s a book in that and I hope to read it one day. I also found one section of the film truly offensive. While I understood that the listing of the so-called "coalition of the willing" (outside of the US and the UK) was meant to highlight the absurdity of including nations without a military, I certainly didn’t appreciate seeing ancient film footage of nosferatu to represent Romania, a viking to represent Iceland, someone smoking a marijuana pipe to represent The Netherlands, poppies for Afghanistan (Afghanistan?!?!), and so on. Along with the superimposition of western imagery upon the current administration (which admittedly does seem driven by the tropes of westerns and thrillers), it was both off-putting and ineffective.

What sticks with me, though, are other images. I’m more of an idea person, but images from this film already haunt me. The face of the policeman who "infiltrated" the Fresno Peace group, the pro-military woman who lost her son aimlessly wandering around the white house lawn, the guy who talked about the war at the gym and was reported to the FBI, the sobs of an Iraqi woman calling out to God to avenge the houses of her innocent family, the young man digging out a piece of his neighbor’s body from the rubble, the soldiers playing their killing soundtrack, other soldiers remorseful and confused by their experiences, the brave guy who said he would never go back to Iraq "to kill the poor" no matter what the consequences – so many images, images we didn’t see, images we should be seeing. Say what you will about Michael Moore – but what comes through for me is his anger for the sake of others, and his feeling for people. He turns a mirror on America, to show us with what we have become complicit and why the nations of the world have turned away. It is a profoundly patriotic film. Its message is, in one way, very simple. For those of you on the "religious" right, you should understand: It’s all about the money, a lot more than the customary 30 pieces of silver.

However, I also learned something that I did not know and honestly had not wanted to know. Moore, after all, does not spare either the left wing or the media from his critique. All those disenfranchized voters of the last presidental "election" couldn’t get one senator to sign a petition so that their argument could be heard. Person after person stood up in the proceedings painfully led by Al Gore himself. Time and time again, they had to say they had many signatures, but the required senatorial signature was "missing." One woman said she didn’t care that she didn’t have a signature, and Gore reminded her that "the rules do care." It reminded me of what I had forgotten somehow – how very angry I was at the Democrats. Where was John Kerry for those people, or any other democratic senator for that matter? Why couldn’t they get one signature? It brought back for me the day I watched the news in disbelief as Daschle did his 180-degree turn (not long after a certain airplane crash) on his Iraq anti-war stance. Really, where IS the left in this country? I miss those old academic Marxists of the Vietnam-war era, the theorists who remembered to ask the primary questions of money and power. This isn’t really a movie about serious dissent – it’s a mainstream american film in a country that has become deeply suspicious of intelligence and education, its traditional anti-intellectualism racheted up a notch or two. For those who might not have looked at some of this information, or who are patriotic but somewhat uninformed, this movie gives a big shove in the direction of actual thinking.

All of the family ties, the network connections, the money trails – Moore points out some of the major ones – enough at least to intimate that something of major importance about Saudi Arabia is still being withheld from the American people, for example. The section dealing all the connections and disconnections between the Bin Laden family, the Taliban of Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, The Carlyle Group, Enron, Arbusto Oil, Halliburton, and the Bush family – was probably a little confusing to some. If so, read any of the books on the shelves these days, from Michael Moore and others. Molly Ivins’ essays from the time of W’s Texas days are particularly enlightening with regard to such things as the Taliban. To me, it’s all about networks of power and money these days. It seems pretty clear that we mirror the terrorism network with our own nation-based criminal networks.

I don’t think Moore really got across the importance of the pipeline, or put enough into the effects of the Patriot Acts, but he did manage to convey some of what is happening to this country under this administration. Left-wingers of all types, libertarians, and republicans should see this film – the neo-cons are a different order entirely and I feel that much of America just simply doesn’t understand what is being taken from them, and what is happening in their name and to their own.

As our husbands returned from the restroom, the woman who had embraced me took a step back, embarrassed. Moving slowly, the four of us walked out into the blazing heat of the Georgia day. When you have a child and no babysitter, you don’t get to go to movies at night very often. I had to stand for a moment to breath deep against my heaving stomach. The parking lot shimmered in the sun, and for a moment, I felt profoundly alienated from everyone and everything. Then the tears came for me.