NationwideBlogs
Bucks/Mont Progressive Events Email - 8/30
Click below for the latest Bucks/Mont Progressive
Events Email - 8/30 !http://www.BucksMontProgressiveEventsEmail.blogspot.com
Change email address / Leave mailing list
Hosting by YourMailingListProvider
Accountability and Consequences
In an op-ed at Rupert Murdoch’s London Times, associate editor Anatole Kalestsky writes that America must give the Republicans “a good kicking” to reassert the most important facet of democracy - not just to elect good governance but to get rid of bad governance. It’s an op-ed that is highly critical of the Democratic party’s choice - Murdoch’s UK papers preferred Clinton - and of Dem tactics to date. But it really gets the message across on McCain and the GOP Whether or not Mr McCain would continue the policies of President Bush (and much of the evidence suggests that his would be a Bush presidency on steroids), he would keep in power the coalition of interests that the Republican Party represents: the energy and military-industrial lobbies, the religious conservatives, the anti-environment interests and the neoconservative think-tanks. These groups - which have gained enormous influence, both financially and intellectually, under President Bush - are as responsible for the blunders of the Bush Administration as Mr Bush himself, arguably more so, given the President’s notorious lack of interest in the details of any of his own policies.
If a Republican is again elected president, these same centres of power will continue to dominate Washington. However many wars they encouraged, however high the price of oil rose, however many tax dollars were redistributed in their favour, the neoconservatives and Pentagon contractors and religious fundamentalists and oil and Wall Street lobbies would conclude that there would be no political price to pay for failure. They would be justified in concluding that there is no longer any democratic check on their ambitions.
It is only by ejecting the Republicans from the White House that American voters can send the message that they are still in charge of their country and that gross government incompetence will not go unpunished. Accountability - not personality or rhetoric or colour or age or gender - should be the overriding issue in this election.
Hat tip to John Amato's Crooks and Liars blog.
Misleading McCain ads
The McCain campaign continues to misrepresent Obama's tax plan. From FactCheck.org:
He (McCain) and others in his campaign have been saying for weeks that Obama once voted for a Democratic budget bill that McCain falsely claimed would raise taxes on persons making as little as $32,000 a year. We challenged that false claim
in an article posted July 8. In this ad, McCain says Obama voted to raise taxes on persons making "just $42,000 a year," which is true for some but not all. Yet the ad still misleads.
Another Rightwing Money Laundering Machine
Sometimes it is known as the "publishing business" but ethics-challenged rightwingers appear to find book sales to be a great source of untraceable cash that they can put to use to defeat candidates they don't like.
Today's NYTimes contains an article describing how Republican operatives Mary Matalin and Jerome Corsi have teamed up to market a smear piece on Barack Obama titled The Obama Nation. (Clever, doncha think?)
Of course, the NYT is only mentioning the book because it it is now on their Best Seller list for nonfiction, as was Corsi's previous work of fiction Unfit for Command which was cowritten with John O'Neill and lent credence to the whole Swiftboat phenomenon that sank John Kerry's campaign in 2004. Even though they provide the evidence, the Times' writers, JIM RUTENBERG and JULIE BOSMAN, fail to draw, or at least mention the possibility of, the conclusion that is obvious to me.
No, not that The Obama Nation is actually fiction, which it is. They actually do a pretty good job of pointing that out:
OK. That's it. I can stand no more!
After a hiatus of almost a year, I'm going to start blogging regularly again. I'm writing for a living now and am in word-crafting mode much of the day, so it seems to be a natural extension of my normal activities. I'll probably crosspost a lot on Blog for America and MontcoDFA in an effort to expand the audience and get more feedback.
People often think blogging is an activity that any monkey with a keyboard and an Internet connection can participate in. Well, I suppose that's true if your plan is to simply parrot what you read on other blogs. But that's not true if you have any personal standards and only want to take up people's time if you have something original or important to say. So I promise only to post when one of those two tests can be passed.
I hope you'll participate and comment occaisionally. It's also important to me to know that soemone is looking. So don't be bashful. Leave a note even if it's just to say "Hi."
Hat tip to Stephen Weinstien
"Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact."
- Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 - 1973) 36th U.S. President (1963 - 1969)
DemocracyFest 2008!
 |
| |
|
Recycled Electrons
