Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Saturday, March 1. 2008
An Icon For Civil Liberties
Well damn! I didn’t win the lottery again! Good thing I didn’t quit the J.O.B.Can’t Obama and Clinton just get along? They have McCain and the Republicans over a barrel with Iraq and whoever emerges from the primaries as the Democratic nominee will have plenty of ammunition to use in the general election. All they have to say, like a mantra: “Senator McCain is ready to commit American forces to Iraq for the next 100 years.”
Bring Bush’s war back to the forefront of the news, remind everyone we still have mothers, sisters, wives, daughters; fathers, brothers, husbands and sons dying in a foreign land as a result of the Bush cabal, McCain included, twisting intelligence and outright lying to start the war.
Then remind the voters it is/was Bush and the Republicans who made it nearly impossible to declare bankruptcy, pushed through legislation that gave the lenders all the control to offer the sub-prime rate home loans and then foreclose when the lendees couldn’t pay the ballooning rates. And it was McCain’s pal President Bush who vetoed legislation to ease the bankruptcy restrictions.
They have McCain and the Republicans on both the war and the economy. The internecine fighting between Clinton and Obama just gives the Republicans something to crow about when the radio talk show crowd introduces McCain at campaign events. Even though McCain apologized for the remarks made by talk show host Bill Cunningham, it’s clear now, from Cunningham’s appearance on Fox, the McCain camp hired Cunningham to throw some “red meat” to the crowd to get them fired up for McCain’s speech. And do we really believe McCain wasn’t in the building when Cunningham made the comments? Please!
It’s my impression the rabid right wing radio freaks will have either less of an impact on the election in November or they will have a negative impact on John McCain. I’ll not predict who will win in November, but it’s safe to say that as of today it’s the Democrat’s election to lose. Sadly, as 2004 proved, the Democrats are well capable of losing the general election.
John Kerry, you effin’ … words escape me! We should have stayed with Howard Dean!
It’s also a great bet that Mike Huckabee, the candidate who believes the mythology of Genesis is true, will make a serious challenge for the top spot on the Republican ticket, regardless of the delegate count, based on the overwhelming preference for him in the blood red states of the South. Hard to imagine he won’t have at least the V.P. slot once the convention closes.
And of course, the Republican Party of Tennessee is at it again. This is the group that used race baiting to beat Rep. Harold Ford in that state’s Senatorial race in 2006. Remember the ad: “Call me!”
Well, now they have an ad insinuating Barack Obama is an anti-Semite. Why? Because Louis Farrakhan has endorsed Obama. All this in an effort to portray the Illinois senator as a closet Muslim and therefore, by association, a terrorist sympathizer. Guarantee this will be a major theme for the rabid right if Obama is the Democratic candidate come September.
What effect has nearly eight years of Bush-style Republicanism had on our society?
This is really disturbing: the news channels are broadcasting a news bit from Blair High School in Pasadena, CA. I don’t have fault with the news organizations reporting the news — well, I haven’t really heard what the Fox folks are saying — but what is troublesome is watching high school students, American high school students, marched out of their school with their hands on their heads, treated as if they were prisoners. How does this happen in America?
The police were looking for someone with a gun so they need to take precautions, but is this how we want to treat the ones who will be coming into the adult world sometime in the next 40 months? Why treat them like criminals? It was obvious from the NBC news footage the students were searched in some way, that wasn’t clear but they were led out in small, single file groups, but they were forced to keep their hands on their heads. That just isn’t right.
Hopefully, someone will bring this up on the news, but since Columbine, we’ve become immune to the assaults on our liberties and with the president’s most recent assaults with his Orwellian wiretapping desires, it makes me shudder watching high school kids treated like criminals.
And my last little mention: I’m gonna miss William F. Buckley, Jr. Yeah, he had some really bad policy ideas, but unlike most of the conservative commentators of today, Buckley knew how to write. He was erudite and every time some jerk-off Republican denounced the “East Coast Elitists,” (who ever they are) I like to mention Buckley’s name, and that of William Safire.Firing Line was one of the best news programs on TV. We still have the Sunday morning news programs and 60 Minutes of course, but when NBC cancelled Tomorrow to make room for Letterman all those years ago, late night intellectual talk began to disappear.
What we have in it’s place is a watered down version of Nightline and every once in a while, Bill Moyers on PBS.
What got me first interested in William F. Buckley, Jr. so many years ago was seeing him contribute to Playboy magazine. Last summer I did a three-part series on the Hefner Empire and neglected Buckley’s contributions to the magazine. His May, 1970 interview is worth reading, if only for its historical value — he tried to downplay the cost of the Vietnam War as irrelevant — but he said or wrote his opinions better than just about anyone. And he never lost his sense of humor!
And for all you true Libertarians (I just spoke to one who didn’t know this), Buckley advocated legalizing illegal drugs. On February 16, 1996, his magazine, The National Review, published an editorial on the issue. Just a little snippet: Things being as they are, and people as they are, there is no way to prevent somebody, somewhere, from concluding that “NATIONAL REVIEW favors drugs.” We don’t; we deplore their use; we urge the stiffest feasible sentences against anyone convicted of selling a drug to a minor. But that said, it is our judgment that the war on drugs has failed, that it is diverting intelligent energy away from how to deal with the problem of addiction, that it is wasting our resources, and that it is encouraging civil, judicial, and penal procedures associated with police states. We all agree on movement toward legalization, even though we may differ on just how far.
Legalizing drugs has been one of my pet issues since I stopped using illegal drugs over 20 years ago, and for many of the same reasons — if not for all the same reasons — as Buckley and The National Review. Of course the “conservatives,” i.e. the religionists who have taken the Republican Party hostage, denounced him. For me, it’s just one more reason to applaud William F. Buckley, Jr.
Calendar
Quicksearch
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport