ReidsvilleReview.com -- The Reidsville Review Speaker recalls Reagan days
"President Lincoln once said the true test of leadership is not only how you use power, but how it uses you."
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Monday, April 24, 2006
By Their Fruits
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." - Mark Twain
Now that opponents of the war in Iraq have the majority, what's next? "I told you so" is not too helpful right now. It is time to reform our thoughts - that is, rethink the situation and form our thoughts again.
It doesn't matter why Bush and his team have made such destructive mistakes. It'll matter to historians and analysts who have the benefit of hindsight, who have a responsibility to draw lessons and increase our knowledge. Right now we're in the middle of a horrible catastrophe, and our only responsibility is to survive it. So we don't need to explain why the president led us here. It doesn't matter how his religious beliefs might influence him, or what his motives are, or how honest he's been. We only have to recognize that his leadership is incompetent and has had disastrous results. If we understand the bad situation we're in, and start to act to get out of it, we'll be thinking rightly. All the rest - including the preternatural desire on every side to place blame - distracts from that. Focus on what is essential, or we'll die from what's inessential.
Last night I was talking with a friend about Barack Obama. Obama, Democratic senator from Illinois, was explaining why the Democratic party has been so quiet. There's a saying in politics, he said: "When your opponent is in trouble, stay out of the way."
Well I've got to stop getting exasperated so much. Everyone always calls Obama a rising star in the Democratic party, and people seem to listen him. The Democratic party, as a party, has indeed been quiet. Obama sums up the reason for its silence succinctly. Back before Bush was in trouble - when his poll ratings were still above fifty percent - the Democrats were cowards. They didn't want to deal with charges from Cheney and his ilk that they were traitors, ready to help the enemy. Now that the Republicans are in trouble, the Democrats want to stay out of the way - no need to pile on when your opponent is doing all of your work for you.
Obama's remark about the current reason for the Democrats' lack of leadership is just as exasperating as it is revealing. The two parties are so deeply sunk in partisan thinking now, that is the only way they _can_ think. How can we get an advantage over the other side? How can we dodge their shots, and land our own? All their thinking amounts to strategy for getting an advantage in the next election. The Democrats might be happy the Republicans are in trouble, but many citizens, less partisan, see a bigger picture. The country is in trouble. The country needs competent leadership. The country needs courageous people who can take hard steps to solve hard problems. What claim do the Democrats have on our loyalty if all they think about is how to take some votes away from the Republicans? What was political business as usual before 9/11 is appalling and intolerable pettiness now.
Often the competition between the two parties serves the country well. It doesn't take that much vision to make the balance of forces in our domestic politics productive for all of us. These times are unusual, though, and the leadership on both sides is especially bad. The Republicans are incompetent criminals. The Democrats are gutless wonders. Obama's explanation for their silence may in fact be a sound principle of politics in normal times. We're in post 9/11 times, though, and the country needs unity to win the war that started on that day. We can't win the war without unity, and we can't have unity without good leadership.
We know we're not going to get good leadership from the Republicans, and now we know we are not going to get it from the Democrats, either. Stay out of the way, they say. Let the Republicans self-destruct. Let the country self-destruct, too. Who do they think will want to follow them in 2008? What do they think the voters are going to say then? The Republicans failed us. Let's give the cowards a chance. We can see that arrogance didn't work. Perhaps moral cowardice masquerading as sound political strategy will do the job.
All right, I have to concede that many Democrats are more than partisan hackers. Some, for example, support the war in Iraq on principle. Others oppose it and have said so. So few have opposed it with the passion of Howard Dean or John Murtha, though. It's all such cautious opposition. I don't know what Obama's position on the war is, though I don't think he's been too vocal an opponent. I don't even know enough about him to say he's practicing hacksmanship, but I do wonder where his voice has gone. We'll have to look outside the Democratic party for reasoned, forceful opposition to the debacle in Iraq.
We've traveled so far down the road from 9/11 now, we don't even know what we're talking about when we say _the war_. Let me tell you what I mean. On the radio recently, I listened to a Virginia defense analyst speak in support of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Several retired generals have called for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign, and the analyst figured he ought to say why Rumsfeld should stay. He acknowledged that Rumsfeld has a hard time admitting mistakes, that he doesn't show much humility in the face of our current troubles. Humility and willingness to concede mistakes are just the qualities we don't need now, he continued. A leader who reacted that way would not have the resolve necessary to win the war. War is a test of wills, the speaker reminded us, and only the utmost determination can prevail in such a struggle. Rumsfeld has shown he has the requisite determination to see the war to a successful conclusion. A humble man, the analyst suggested, would fold.
As soon as this gentleman started talking about _the war_, I started shaking my head. Our terms of discourse are so distorted by this criminal enterprise in Iraq. The war we should be fighting against Al Qaeda is displaced by aggression in Iraq, and commentators talk about them as if they are the same thing! We have come so far down this road now, the war in Iraq is the only one we know. References to the other war, the real war, the war against Al Qaeda, sound odd now, out of tune, irrelevant. What do you mean, the _other_ war, people must think. We're in _this_ war, the one in Iraq. That's the one we have to win. That's the war we're fighting against the terrorists.
Well let me tell you something: if you think most of the fighters in Iraq are the same people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, if you think that even now, we are certainly not going to win any war anywhere. People who so deeply misunderstand the nature of the conflict they're in aren't going to win. Yes we have to make the best of a deteriorating situation in Iraq. The fighting is so bad there now that we can't even keep hold of our conceptions of victory anymore. We are at a loss now to propose a solution that anyone believes in. The significant thing in this context is that we have completely disregarded the _other_ war, because we are in so much trouble where we are.
We can't even say _the war_ anymore, because it begs the question of _which war_. We all think of Iraq as the war now, and if someone responds that the war started on September 11, 2001, not in March 2003, Bush and Cheney can say that it's the same thing. They have made it the same thing, and no one can pull the two apart now. We can't win the 9/11 war without finding some reasonable resolution to the current conflict in Iraq.
Here are eleven points to help us find our way. You could call them a roadmap but Bush has already discredited that term. Take these points, think about them, and see where they lead. Notice that they don't include any timetables.
1. Find new leadership for our country. Ignore our current leaders, who are proven failures. Be creative about fighting together under leaders we trust. Do not listen to the people currently in office, and do not obey them. They do not obey the law, and have no claim on our fidelity. They do not speak for us, and we do not owe them anything as citizens. We have to find other sources of authority.
2. Admit our mistake to the world, and ask for its forgiveness. Do so in a way that does not dishonor our fallen soldiers, but do so in a way that clearly acknowledges the fault of our leaders.
3. Ask the United Nations to help pacify Iraq. Then work closely with that institution to make the effort successful. The UN would have both a civil and a military role. This step can only take place after we have regained some trust from UN members, starting with the apology in step two. Truly invite them in - the idea can't work if the UN simply covers our withdrawal. Even if they were capable of that kind of operation, and they aren't, that is not the kind of role I'm suggesting here. The particulars of their contribution will become clearer as the situation unfolds.
4. Let Iraq break into three separate entities - Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, and Shias in the south. Let the arrangements voted into place in the constitution take effect. Stop pressing for a national unity government.
5. Invite all of Iraq's neighbors - yes, I mean _all_ of them, including Iran - to assist the UN in Iraq's transition. The breakup of a state is a complex process, especially when it is accomplished by war. Iraq's neighbors can make this process successful.
6. Engage the political process in Iraq in productive ways. Listen carefully. Deal with leaders wherever we find them, and don't rely primarily on Iraqis in the Green Zone. Don't expect military leaders to do most of this labor intensive, delicate work. Civilian troubleshooters devoted to that kind of work should do it.
7. Make Afghanistan the fifty-first state. It's an expression, I know, but most people know what I mean. Build an interstate highway system, high speed data network, secondary roads, communications of every sort, supply depots, airfields, business enterprises, and every other kind of improvement you can think of. No asset that increases our military presence and strength is too costly. Make it the largest outpost we've ever built. Realistically, we can't accomplish this step soon. We can only prepare for it, and hope that we haven't lost our chances for success in Afghanistan forever.
8. Gradually redeploy our soldiers and military material to other locations. In particular, as we rotate men and material out of Iraq, rotate people and equipment into Afghanistan.
9. As our strength in Afghanistan grows, and as a sign of our peaceful intentions toward people who have not attacked us, establish and improve friendly relations with Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and other countries along Afghanistan's northern border. Ask them to help us fight the war against Al Qaeda, and mean it.
10. Repair relations with our allies across the Atlantic: Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and all the other countries in Europe that helped us or opposed us. Tell them we'll listen to them, and mean it.
11. Establish unity here at home, and use that unity as a basis for increasing the size of our army. When we have enough soldiers on the ground, engaged with our real enemy, with an enemy that all good people everywhere recognize, we'll be respected again. Other people will want to help us again.
I should add a twelfth point here that is more general than the others. We have to regain control of our own foreign policy in the Middle East. Right now we have placed our success, or lack of it, in the hands of other parties. We devise plans that we have no control over. Outcomes depend entirely on what others do. "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" embodies this idea: what we do depends entirely on other people's actions. An alternate epigram, "As we stand down, the Shias and Sunnis will work things out," gives us quite a bit more freedom than we have now.
By their fruits you shall know them. Bad men, with bad intentions using bad means, produce bad results. Hitler sincerely believed that what he was doing was best for Germany. He persuaded others that what he was doing was best for Germany. Historians say that if he had died in 1938, Germans and others would still see him as a hero. But he lived long enough for the consequences of his actions to become apparent.
How will it be with George W. Bush? Will he live long enough for the consequences of his actions to become apparent? I've said that in twenty-five years, Iraq will be stable, and the Republicans will take credit for it. But however things are in Iraq, twenty-five years may be long enough to see the consequences of our aggression, not just in Iraq, but throughout the region and all over the world. Dire your plight, you pretenders, who think you are good enough to save the world. Instead you'll destroy everything that is good, because you couldn't see the evil in what you did.
Who _will_ rescue us? Where is the wise leadership we so clearly need now? How will we find it? When we do find a wise, practical, successful leader, the individual won't be a Democrat or a Republican.
Now that opponents of the war in Iraq have the majority, what's next? "I told you so" is not too helpful right now. It is time to reform our thoughts - that is, rethink the situation and form our thoughts again.
It doesn't matter why Bush and his team have made such destructive mistakes. It'll matter to historians and analysts who have the benefit of hindsight, who have a responsibility to draw lessons and increase our knowledge. Right now we're in the middle of a horrible catastrophe, and our only responsibility is to survive it. So we don't need to explain why the president led us here. It doesn't matter how his religious beliefs might influence him, or what his motives are, or how honest he's been. We only have to recognize that his leadership is incompetent and has had disastrous results. If we understand the bad situation we're in, and start to act to get out of it, we'll be thinking rightly. All the rest - including the preternatural desire on every side to place blame - distracts from that. Focus on what is essential, or we'll die from what's inessential.
Last night I was talking with a friend about Barack Obama. Obama, Democratic senator from Illinois, was explaining why the Democratic party has been so quiet. There's a saying in politics, he said: "When your opponent is in trouble, stay out of the way."
Well I've got to stop getting exasperated so much. Everyone always calls Obama a rising star in the Democratic party, and people seem to listen him. The Democratic party, as a party, has indeed been quiet. Obama sums up the reason for its silence succinctly. Back before Bush was in trouble - when his poll ratings were still above fifty percent - the Democrats were cowards. They didn't want to deal with charges from Cheney and his ilk that they were traitors, ready to help the enemy. Now that the Republicans are in trouble, the Democrats want to stay out of the way - no need to pile on when your opponent is doing all of your work for you.
Obama's remark about the current reason for the Democrats' lack of leadership is just as exasperating as it is revealing. The two parties are so deeply sunk in partisan thinking now, that is the only way they _can_ think. How can we get an advantage over the other side? How can we dodge their shots, and land our own? All their thinking amounts to strategy for getting an advantage in the next election. The Democrats might be happy the Republicans are in trouble, but many citizens, less partisan, see a bigger picture. The country is in trouble. The country needs competent leadership. The country needs courageous people who can take hard steps to solve hard problems. What claim do the Democrats have on our loyalty if all they think about is how to take some votes away from the Republicans? What was political business as usual before 9/11 is appalling and intolerable pettiness now.
Often the competition between the two parties serves the country well. It doesn't take that much vision to make the balance of forces in our domestic politics productive for all of us. These times are unusual, though, and the leadership on both sides is especially bad. The Republicans are incompetent criminals. The Democrats are gutless wonders. Obama's explanation for their silence may in fact be a sound principle of politics in normal times. We're in post 9/11 times, though, and the country needs unity to win the war that started on that day. We can't win the war without unity, and we can't have unity without good leadership.
We know we're not going to get good leadership from the Republicans, and now we know we are not going to get it from the Democrats, either. Stay out of the way, they say. Let the Republicans self-destruct. Let the country self-destruct, too. Who do they think will want to follow them in 2008? What do they think the voters are going to say then? The Republicans failed us. Let's give the cowards a chance. We can see that arrogance didn't work. Perhaps moral cowardice masquerading as sound political strategy will do the job.
All right, I have to concede that many Democrats are more than partisan hackers. Some, for example, support the war in Iraq on principle. Others oppose it and have said so. So few have opposed it with the passion of Howard Dean or John Murtha, though. It's all such cautious opposition. I don't know what Obama's position on the war is, though I don't think he's been too vocal an opponent. I don't even know enough about him to say he's practicing hacksmanship, but I do wonder where his voice has gone. We'll have to look outside the Democratic party for reasoned, forceful opposition to the debacle in Iraq.
We've traveled so far down the road from 9/11 now, we don't even know what we're talking about when we say _the war_. Let me tell you what I mean. On the radio recently, I listened to a Virginia defense analyst speak in support of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Several retired generals have called for Secretary Rumsfeld to resign, and the analyst figured he ought to say why Rumsfeld should stay. He acknowledged that Rumsfeld has a hard time admitting mistakes, that he doesn't show much humility in the face of our current troubles. Humility and willingness to concede mistakes are just the qualities we don't need now, he continued. A leader who reacted that way would not have the resolve necessary to win the war. War is a test of wills, the speaker reminded us, and only the utmost determination can prevail in such a struggle. Rumsfeld has shown he has the requisite determination to see the war to a successful conclusion. A humble man, the analyst suggested, would fold.
As soon as this gentleman started talking about _the war_, I started shaking my head. Our terms of discourse are so distorted by this criminal enterprise in Iraq. The war we should be fighting against Al Qaeda is displaced by aggression in Iraq, and commentators talk about them as if they are the same thing! We have come so far down this road now, the war in Iraq is the only one we know. References to the other war, the real war, the war against Al Qaeda, sound odd now, out of tune, irrelevant. What do you mean, the _other_ war, people must think. We're in _this_ war, the one in Iraq. That's the one we have to win. That's the war we're fighting against the terrorists.
Well let me tell you something: if you think most of the fighters in Iraq are the same people who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, if you think that even now, we are certainly not going to win any war anywhere. People who so deeply misunderstand the nature of the conflict they're in aren't going to win. Yes we have to make the best of a deteriorating situation in Iraq. The fighting is so bad there now that we can't even keep hold of our conceptions of victory anymore. We are at a loss now to propose a solution that anyone believes in. The significant thing in this context is that we have completely disregarded the _other_ war, because we are in so much trouble where we are.
We can't even say _the war_ anymore, because it begs the question of _which war_. We all think of Iraq as the war now, and if someone responds that the war started on September 11, 2001, not in March 2003, Bush and Cheney can say that it's the same thing. They have made it the same thing, and no one can pull the two apart now. We can't win the 9/11 war without finding some reasonable resolution to the current conflict in Iraq.
Here are eleven points to help us find our way. You could call them a roadmap but Bush has already discredited that term. Take these points, think about them, and see where they lead. Notice that they don't include any timetables.
1. Find new leadership for our country. Ignore our current leaders, who are proven failures. Be creative about fighting together under leaders we trust. Do not listen to the people currently in office, and do not obey them. They do not obey the law, and have no claim on our fidelity. They do not speak for us, and we do not owe them anything as citizens. We have to find other sources of authority.
2. Admit our mistake to the world, and ask for its forgiveness. Do so in a way that does not dishonor our fallen soldiers, but do so in a way that clearly acknowledges the fault of our leaders.
3. Ask the United Nations to help pacify Iraq. Then work closely with that institution to make the effort successful. The UN would have both a civil and a military role. This step can only take place after we have regained some trust from UN members, starting with the apology in step two. Truly invite them in - the idea can't work if the UN simply covers our withdrawal. Even if they were capable of that kind of operation, and they aren't, that is not the kind of role I'm suggesting here. The particulars of their contribution will become clearer as the situation unfolds.
4. Let Iraq break into three separate entities - Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center, and Shias in the south. Let the arrangements voted into place in the constitution take effect. Stop pressing for a national unity government.
5. Invite all of Iraq's neighbors - yes, I mean _all_ of them, including Iran - to assist the UN in Iraq's transition. The breakup of a state is a complex process, especially when it is accomplished by war. Iraq's neighbors can make this process successful.
6. Engage the political process in Iraq in productive ways. Listen carefully. Deal with leaders wherever we find them, and don't rely primarily on Iraqis in the Green Zone. Don't expect military leaders to do most of this labor intensive, delicate work. Civilian troubleshooters devoted to that kind of work should do it.
7. Make Afghanistan the fifty-first state. It's an expression, I know, but most people know what I mean. Build an interstate highway system, high speed data network, secondary roads, communications of every sort, supply depots, airfields, business enterprises, and every other kind of improvement you can think of. No asset that increases our military presence and strength is too costly. Make it the largest outpost we've ever built. Realistically, we can't accomplish this step soon. We can only prepare for it, and hope that we haven't lost our chances for success in Afghanistan forever.
8. Gradually redeploy our soldiers and military material to other locations. In particular, as we rotate men and material out of Iraq, rotate people and equipment into Afghanistan.
9. As our strength in Afghanistan grows, and as a sign of our peaceful intentions toward people who have not attacked us, establish and improve friendly relations with Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and other countries along Afghanistan's northern border. Ask them to help us fight the war against Al Qaeda, and mean it.
10. Repair relations with our allies across the Atlantic: Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and all the other countries in Europe that helped us or opposed us. Tell them we'll listen to them, and mean it.
11. Establish unity here at home, and use that unity as a basis for increasing the size of our army. When we have enough soldiers on the ground, engaged with our real enemy, with an enemy that all good people everywhere recognize, we'll be respected again. Other people will want to help us again.
I should add a twelfth point here that is more general than the others. We have to regain control of our own foreign policy in the Middle East. Right now we have placed our success, or lack of it, in the hands of other parties. We devise plans that we have no control over. Outcomes depend entirely on what others do. "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down" embodies this idea: what we do depends entirely on other people's actions. An alternate epigram, "As we stand down, the Shias and Sunnis will work things out," gives us quite a bit more freedom than we have now.
By their fruits you shall know them. Bad men, with bad intentions using bad means, produce bad results. Hitler sincerely believed that what he was doing was best for Germany. He persuaded others that what he was doing was best for Germany. Historians say that if he had died in 1938, Germans and others would still see him as a hero. But he lived long enough for the consequences of his actions to become apparent.
How will it be with George W. Bush? Will he live long enough for the consequences of his actions to become apparent? I've said that in twenty-five years, Iraq will be stable, and the Republicans will take credit for it. But however things are in Iraq, twenty-five years may be long enough to see the consequences of our aggression, not just in Iraq, but throughout the region and all over the world. Dire your plight, you pretenders, who think you are good enough to save the world. Instead you'll destroy everything that is good, because you couldn't see the evil in what you did.
Who _will_ rescue us? Where is the wise leadership we so clearly need now? How will we find it? When we do find a wise, practical, successful leader, the individual won't be a Democrat or a Republican.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Mark Twain Quote
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."
George Bernard Shaw on Life
"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw
I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations." - George Bernard Shaw
Friday, April 21, 2006
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
Prayer by Oscar Romero - The Long View
Catholic Online - Stewardship Resource Center
THE LONG VIEW
A Prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
The magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
Which is another way of saying that
The Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that should be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection,
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
But it is a beginning,
A step along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter
And do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference
Between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.
Amen.
THE LONG VIEW
A Prayer by Archbishop Oscar Romero
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
It is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
The magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
Which is another way of saying that
The Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that should be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection,
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
Knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything,
And there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
And to do it very well.
It may be incomplete,
But it is a beginning,
A step along the way,
An opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter
And do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
But that is the difference
Between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
Ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future that is not our own.
Amen.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Flight 93: American Heroism
Flight 93 in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001: American Heroism
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/408513p-345761c.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/408513p-345761c.html
Lt. Kendall-Smith: One More Brave Individual Willing to Tell the Truth
The United States' invasion of Iraq was an act of aggression that is against the law. We have to be willing to say this until people recognize it as the truth. Lt. Kendall-Smith is one of very few who have been willing to call this war a crime. His stand is principled, not just an effort to avoid service as a doctor in the theater of war. He has already served two tours of duty in Iraq. He studied the issue extensively before he decided not to return.
We admire you Lt. Kendall-Smith. You're not alone in your stand.
Here are links to two articles about this brave doctor who served in the Royal Air Force:
http://scotlandtoday.scottishtv.co.uk/content/default.asp?page=s1_1_1&newsid=11183
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=acvjJvecAgaE&refer=uk
We admire you Lt. Kendall-Smith. You're not alone in your stand.
Here are links to two articles about this brave doctor who served in the Royal Air Force:
http://scotlandtoday.scottishtv.co.uk/content/default.asp?page=s1_1_1&newsid=11183
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000102&sid=acvjJvecAgaE&refer=uk
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid - Martin van Creveld
Costly Withdrawal Is the Price To Be Paid for a Foolish War
"Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from - and more competent than - the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.
For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins."
Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, is author of 'Transformation of War' (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers.
"Maintaining an American security presence in the region, not to mention withdrawing forces from Iraq, will involve many complicated problems, military as well as political. Such an endeavor, one would hope, will be handled by a team different from - and more competent than - the one presently in charge of the White House and Pentagon.
For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins."
Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, is author of 'Transformation of War' (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers.
Friday, April 07, 2006
Iraq three years on: Don't look away
Independent Online Edition > Middle East:
"The formation of a national unity government is now being presented as an antidote to violence. 'Terrorists love a vacuum,' said the Defence Secretary, John Reid, citing his experience in Northern Ireland. But one Iraqi official remarked caustically that the three main communities - Sunni, Shia and Kurds - do not 'hate each other because they do not have a government, but rather they do not have a government because they already hate each other.'"
"The formation of a national unity government is now being presented as an antidote to violence. 'Terrorists love a vacuum,' said the Defence Secretary, John Reid, citing his experience in Northern Ireland. But one Iraqi official remarked caustically that the three main communities - Sunni, Shia and Kurds - do not 'hate each other because they do not have a government, but rather they do not have a government because they already hate each other.'"
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Friday, March 31, 2006
Definition: Green Zone
From the war glossary:
Green zone: (a) the heavily fortified area in Baghdad that the American forces in Iraq call headquarters; (b) the only place in Iraq that anyone feels safe; (c) the place in Iraq where people go to get morally compromised.
Green zone: (a) the heavily fortified area in Baghdad that the American forces in Iraq call headquarters; (b) the only place in Iraq that anyone feels safe; (c) the place in Iraq where people go to get morally compromised.
Definition: Iraqi Government
From the war glossary:
Iraqi government: (a) a large number of nervous politicians holed up in the Green zone who have trouble agreeing with each other; (b) Iraqi government? Come on, you know Iraq has no government. It's just convenient for America to pretend that it does.
Iraqi government: (a) a large number of nervous politicians holed up in the Green zone who have trouble agreeing with each other; (b) Iraqi government? Come on, you know Iraq has no government. It's just convenient for America to pretend that it does.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Franklyn Nofziger, Reagan spokesman and adviser, dies of cancer at 81
Franklyn Nofziger, Reagan spokesman and adviser, dies of cancer at 81
"Asked why he was leaving the White House, Nofziger replied, 'I don't like government, it's just that simple.' "
"Asked why he was leaving the White House, Nofziger replied, 'I don't like government, it's just that simple.' "
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Scripps Howard News Service
Scripps Howard News Service:
"Does Giuliani call himself a Reaganite?
'Absolutely!' he exclaims. 'He had strong beliefs. He knew what those beliefs were. He stuck to them whether they were popular or unpopular. And he did it in a way in which he was civil and nice to everyone. It was a beautiful combination of tremendous commitment to what he believed in, but not anger.'
'Ronald Reagan was a role model for me,' Rudy Giuliani says. 'I consider him a hero.'"
"Does Giuliani call himself a Reaganite?
'Absolutely!' he exclaims. 'He had strong beliefs. He knew what those beliefs were. He stuck to them whether they were popular or unpopular. And he did it in a way in which he was civil and nice to everyone. It was a beautiful combination of tremendous commitment to what he believed in, but not anger.'
'Ronald Reagan was a role model for me,' Rudy Giuliani says. 'I consider him a hero.'"
Monday, March 20, 2006
Iraq: from Vietnam to Lebanon
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2006/03/19/2003298208
Martin Van Creveld, a prominent Israeli military historian who is the only non-US author on the US Army's required reading list for officers, offered a brutal assessment of the decision to invade Iraq. It was, Van Creveld said, the worst military adventure in 20 centuries. "For misleading the American people and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial," Van Creveld wrote in the Forward, a mainly Jewish-readership newspaper in New York.
Martin Van Creveld, a prominent Israeli military historian who is the only non-US author on the US Army's required reading list for officers, offered a brutal assessment of the decision to invade Iraq. It was, Van Creveld said, the worst military adventure in 20 centuries. "For misleading the American people and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9BC sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial," Van Creveld wrote in the Forward, a mainly Jewish-readership newspaper in New York.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Beyond Ridicule, Beyond Lying (Part II)
All right, I raised the issue of whether or not Bush is evil. A lot of the people who oppose the war think he is...
Bush is interested in power, and he has no understanding of democracy.
In the previous post I wrote: Bush and his advisors are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. I came back to that topic while I was running on Saturday. These thoughts are in the form of a postscript to that post.
I said that Bush and his advisors were not bad people, and I traced their poor leadership to incompetence and poor judgment. But there are two more things about Bush and his group that are more insidious and scary. First, Bush and his inner circle are primarily interested in power, not leadership. Leadership and power are not the same thing. (Hannah Arendt distinguishes between power and authority in On Revolution.) Power gives you the ability to make people do what they don't want to do. Good leaders give people the will and energy to do what they want to do, but find it difficult to do on their own. Good leadership is not coercive, it is persuasive.
Well, back to Bush and company - or I should say, back to Karl Rove and company. Karl Rove and George Bush are not interested in leadership. They are interested in consolidating the power of the Republican party. They do not see a connection between winning the war and uniting the whole country. That is, they do not see uniting the whole country as an essential condition for winning the war. Rather, they use the war to enhance the strength of their own party. You would expect them to use such tactics during the presidential election of 2004. This pattern of behavior extends beyond the reelection campaign, though. Bush would like to unite as many people as he can behind his foreign policy, but his focus has been on Republican unity, not American unity.
The second quality, or failing, grows out of the first. Bush and his advisors do not understand democracy. The two clearest examples of this quality concern torture and warrantless wiretaps. They do not see democratic constraints - natural rights that limit government's power to do certain things - as constraints that balance the imperatives of national security. That is, if national security seems to require a certain course of action, that is it. There is no more argument. National security trumps the limits on governmental power with no more argument necessary.
Well, what can you do in a situation like this? The administration's actions indicate that it doesn't recognize any limits on its power in the area of national security. If that is the case, then we have a terrible case of: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A sincere desire to protect the American people has led the administration into the corruption of unchecked power. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is one of the most famous sayings in political thought. If it applies here - and evidence indicates that it does - then our government has suffered the absolute corruption that seemed impossible before 9/11.
I truly don't want to admit that our government is evil. But evil is banal in so many ways. It doesn't always come at you with a blood-drenched scimitar. It shows up in small ways and progresses until you can't escape it...
Back once more to the team that pretends to lead us, but actually does whatever it thinks best, whether or not it is in the country's long-term interest.
Here is the best evidence that the administration is not interested in leadership. It says that its opponents are traitors, that people who disagree with it are helping our enemies. It is ready to turn us against ourselves, to divide us so it may conquer the whole. It can succeed without our friends in Muslim countries. It can succeed without our European allies and without the United Nations. It can succeed without the loyal opposition at home. All of its actions point to one source of success: the power of its own party, the ability to force its way on others.
By letting this government continue, we have reached a true turning point. People still act as if we are living in the democracy we had before 9/11, but we're not. We've allowed our fears to affect the kind of country we are. One of our main qualities in the past was fearlessness. Now we've let fear make us ready to give up our democratic way of life. That's why we have to shrug off 9/11. If we shrug it off, we won't fear our enemies any more. If we shrug it off, we won't care about what they do to us. We'll just destroy them. We'll find out who they are, where they are, and we'll just destroy them.
That's how you have to fight a war - with ruthlessness and with determination. Yes, there's fear, but you shrug that off, too. Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than monger fear for the sake of their own advantage? Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than divide us and make us fear even each other? Where are the leaders who unite us, and help us defeat those who want to destroy us? I tell you, you will not find them among the members of the current administration. They think they are brave and resolute, but they are cowardly incompetents. They think they protect us, but they destroy everything worth protecting. They think they are truthful, but they don't even know what the truth is. They think they will be proven correct in the end, but in fact historians will record a hundred years from now that they caused the loss of our democracy. And we let them do it.
Bush is interested in power, and he has no understanding of democracy.
In the previous post I wrote: Bush and his advisors are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. I came back to that topic while I was running on Saturday. These thoughts are in the form of a postscript to that post.
I said that Bush and his advisors were not bad people, and I traced their poor leadership to incompetence and poor judgment. But there are two more things about Bush and his group that are more insidious and scary. First, Bush and his inner circle are primarily interested in power, not leadership. Leadership and power are not the same thing. (Hannah Arendt distinguishes between power and authority in On Revolution.) Power gives you the ability to make people do what they don't want to do. Good leaders give people the will and energy to do what they want to do, but find it difficult to do on their own. Good leadership is not coercive, it is persuasive.
Well, back to Bush and company - or I should say, back to Karl Rove and company. Karl Rove and George Bush are not interested in leadership. They are interested in consolidating the power of the Republican party. They do not see a connection between winning the war and uniting the whole country. That is, they do not see uniting the whole country as an essential condition for winning the war. Rather, they use the war to enhance the strength of their own party. You would expect them to use such tactics during the presidential election of 2004. This pattern of behavior extends beyond the reelection campaign, though. Bush would like to unite as many people as he can behind his foreign policy, but his focus has been on Republican unity, not American unity.
The second quality, or failing, grows out of the first. Bush and his advisors do not understand democracy. The two clearest examples of this quality concern torture and warrantless wiretaps. They do not see democratic constraints - natural rights that limit government's power to do certain things - as constraints that balance the imperatives of national security. That is, if national security seems to require a certain course of action, that is it. There is no more argument. National security trumps the limits on governmental power with no more argument necessary.
Well, what can you do in a situation like this? The administration's actions indicate that it doesn't recognize any limits on its power in the area of national security. If that is the case, then we have a terrible case of: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. A sincere desire to protect the American people has led the administration into the corruption of unchecked power. "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely," is one of the most famous sayings in political thought. If it applies here - and evidence indicates that it does - then our government has suffered the absolute corruption that seemed impossible before 9/11.
I truly don't want to admit that our government is evil. But evil is banal in so many ways. It doesn't always come at you with a blood-drenched scimitar. It shows up in small ways and progresses until you can't escape it...
Back once more to the team that pretends to lead us, but actually does whatever it thinks best, whether or not it is in the country's long-term interest.
Here is the best evidence that the administration is not interested in leadership. It says that its opponents are traitors, that people who disagree with it are helping our enemies. It is ready to turn us against ourselves, to divide us so it may conquer the whole. It can succeed without our friends in Muslim countries. It can succeed without our European allies and without the United Nations. It can succeed without the loyal opposition at home. All of its actions point to one source of success: the power of its own party, the ability to force its way on others.
By letting this government continue, we have reached a true turning point. People still act as if we are living in the democracy we had before 9/11, but we're not. We've allowed our fears to affect the kind of country we are. One of our main qualities in the past was fearlessness. Now we've let fear make us ready to give up our democratic way of life. That's why we have to shrug off 9/11. If we shrug it off, we won't fear our enemies any more. If we shrug it off, we won't care about what they do to us. We'll just destroy them. We'll find out who they are, where they are, and we'll just destroy them.
That's how you have to fight a war - with ruthlessness and with determination. Yes, there's fear, but you shrug that off, too. Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than monger fear for the sake of their own advantage? Where are the leaders who help us face fear and forget it, rather than divide us and make us fear even each other? Where are the leaders who unite us, and help us defeat those who want to destroy us? I tell you, you will not find them among the members of the current administration. They think they are brave and resolute, but they are cowardly incompetents. They think they protect us, but they destroy everything worth protecting. They think they are truthful, but they don't even know what the truth is. They think they will be proven correct in the end, but in fact historians will record a hundred years from now that they caused the loss of our democracy. And we let them do it.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Quotes from Ronald Reagan
Google Groups : alt.politics.usa.republican
Quotes from Ronald Reagan:
When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.
~ Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992.
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
~ Ronald Reagan, Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
~ Ronald Reagan
There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.
~ Ronald Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
~ Ronald Reagan
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
~ Ronald Reagan
Quotes from Ronald Reagan:
When you see all that rhetorical smoke billowing up from the Democrats, well ladies and gentleman, I'd follow the example of their nominee; don't inhale.
~ Ronald Reagan, Republican National Convention, 1992.
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
~ Ronald Reagan, Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
~ Ronald Reagan
There are no such things as limits to growth, because there are no limits on the human capacity for intelligence, imagination and wonder.
~ Ronald Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
~ Ronald Reagan
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
~ Ronald Reagan
Friday, March 10, 2006
Beyond Ridicule, Beyond Lying
We can't blame Bush for 9/11 any more than we can blame FDR for Pearl Harbor. But if FDR had handled the war against Japan as poorly as Bush has handled the war against Al Qaeda, we'd be learning Japanese in all our schools right now. That's what is at stake in this war - leadership of the world. That's where Bush's failure is greatest, He is not a world leader, and it's plain to see.
I still grieve over the loss of the pieces on torture. All right, you know what I mean. Torture's not the current topic now, anyway. Civil war is the current topic. All the questions now are about what we should do if Iraq descends into civil war. Rumsfeld says that the Iraqi security forces will have to deal with a civil war. That's the only chance we have to form a stable, democratic government, he says.
You know what, I'm not going to ridicule our leaders anymore. They are beyond ridicule. I don't even like to ridicule people. It doesn't do any good: it doesn't persuade anybody to see things differently from the way they saw things before. But let me say this: these leaders have no claim on our trust, our loyalty, or even our forgiveness. They are the worst: arrogant, unforgiving, unreflective, and untruthful. One kind of dishonesty implies that you know you are lying. Another kind of dishonesty occurs because you don't care whether what you say is truthful or not. That is the kind of dishonesty we observe in our leaders. They are beyond lying. They are beyond ridicule. Nothing we could say now could describe how bad they are. They are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. They don't know what they are doing.
I don't really get angry anymore. When Bush comes on the radio, even when it's a pretty short sound bite, I usually turn it off. I can't stand to hear his voice. The thought that he represents our country is horrific. Even though he does not sound very intelligent to me, I don't think he is stupid. The Democrats have harped on that canard - he's an idiot - for so long. It's a substitute for good thinking. President Bush is not stupid. But he's not smart in the ways that he needs to be, given the position that he's in. He may be shrewd and disciplined, but those aren't the qualities he needs now. He needs so many qualities that he does not have, and it's sad to see him so sure that we're doing okay. If we're doing okay, he's doing okay. And we know that he's deceiving himself. We are not doing okay, and neither is he.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. The thought reminds us of Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War, but Jesus said it first. Who predicted during those weeks that followed 9/11 that we would be so divided now? A good leader would have kept us united. The people who support the war in Iraq are not traitors, no more than the people who oppose it. Yet the two sides in this argument do not listen to each other. Indeed, they don't listen because they don't care that much what the other side has to say. I'm part of the national deafness. I made up my mind on the question when the president first announced his plan to invade Iraq. I had never been more vehement on a question of war or peace, not even during the Vietnam war. I knew I wouldn't change my mind, no matter what the other side said. Lincoln wasn't going to change his mind about human bondage, either.
Had enough? Have you had enough? Have you had enough of an illegal war, and all the lies that surround such a horrendous enterprise? We don't have to follow this path any longer. We've already done so much damage - yes, to ourselves as well as to Iraq - but we can still turn back. We can't redeem the past three years, but we can still make things turn out for the best. We have to believe that's true, that no matter how bad things seem now, we can turn the dross into something brighter. If we lose that essential hope, then 9/11 and its depressing aftermath will truly have destroyed us.
I still grieve over the loss of the pieces on torture. All right, you know what I mean. Torture's not the current topic now, anyway. Civil war is the current topic. All the questions now are about what we should do if Iraq descends into civil war. Rumsfeld says that the Iraqi security forces will have to deal with a civil war. That's the only chance we have to form a stable, democratic government, he says.
You know what, I'm not going to ridicule our leaders anymore. They are beyond ridicule. I don't even like to ridicule people. It doesn't do any good: it doesn't persuade anybody to see things differently from the way they saw things before. But let me say this: these leaders have no claim on our trust, our loyalty, or even our forgiveness. They are the worst: arrogant, unforgiving, unreflective, and untruthful. One kind of dishonesty implies that you know you are lying. Another kind of dishonesty occurs because you don't care whether what you say is truthful or not. That is the kind of dishonesty we observe in our leaders. They are beyond lying. They are beyond ridicule. Nothing we could say now could describe how bad they are. They are not bad leaders because they are bad people, or because they are evil. They are bad leaders because they don't know how to lead. They are incompetent and they have no judgment. They don't know what they are doing.
I don't really get angry anymore. When Bush comes on the radio, even when it's a pretty short sound bite, I usually turn it off. I can't stand to hear his voice. The thought that he represents our country is horrific. Even though he does not sound very intelligent to me, I don't think he is stupid. The Democrats have harped on that canard - he's an idiot - for so long. It's a substitute for good thinking. President Bush is not stupid. But he's not smart in the ways that he needs to be, given the position that he's in. He may be shrewd and disciplined, but those aren't the qualities he needs now. He needs so many qualities that he does not have, and it's sad to see him so sure that we're doing okay. If we're doing okay, he's doing okay. And we know that he's deceiving himself. We are not doing okay, and neither is he.
A house divided against itself cannot stand. The thought reminds us of Lincoln and the beginning of the Civil War, but Jesus said it first. Who predicted during those weeks that followed 9/11 that we would be so divided now? A good leader would have kept us united. The people who support the war in Iraq are not traitors, no more than the people who oppose it. Yet the two sides in this argument do not listen to each other. Indeed, they don't listen because they don't care that much what the other side has to say. I'm part of the national deafness. I made up my mind on the question when the president first announced his plan to invade Iraq. I had never been more vehement on a question of war or peace, not even during the Vietnam war. I knew I wouldn't change my mind, no matter what the other side said. Lincoln wasn't going to change his mind about human bondage, either.
Had enough? Have you had enough? Have you had enough of an illegal war, and all the lies that surround such a horrendous enterprise? We don't have to follow this path any longer. We've already done so much damage - yes, to ourselves as well as to Iraq - but we can still turn back. We can't redeem the past three years, but we can still make things turn out for the best. We have to believe that's true, that no matter how bad things seem now, we can turn the dross into something brighter. If we lose that essential hope, then 9/11 and its depressing aftermath will truly have destroyed us.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Saturday, February 25, 2006
What Civil War Could Look Like
What Civil War Could Look Like - New York Times:
"Surveying all the nightmare possibilities in an interview late last week, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, said: 'Those are issues that some people should be thinking about, but I do not believe that we are heading that way. The leaders of Iraq know that they came to the brink with the attack on the shrine, and there has been an evolution of their attitudes as a result. I simply believe that the leaders of Iraq do not want a civil war.'
Lincoln, however, said in retrospect that having leaders who do not want war is not enough - that the problem is whether there are things that they want more than war, and are willing to accept war to get. In Iraq, it seems, this will also determine whether the leaders will one day say with satisfaction that they stepped back from the brink or, sadly like Lincoln, that 'the war came.'"
"Surveying all the nightmare possibilities in an interview late last week, Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, said: 'Those are issues that some people should be thinking about, but I do not believe that we are heading that way. The leaders of Iraq know that they came to the brink with the attack on the shrine, and there has been an evolution of their attitudes as a result. I simply believe that the leaders of Iraq do not want a civil war.'
Lincoln, however, said in retrospect that having leaders who do not want war is not enough - that the problem is whether there are things that they want more than war, and are willing to accept war to get. In Iraq, it seems, this will also determine whether the leaders will one day say with satisfaction that they stepped back from the brink or, sadly like Lincoln, that 'the war came.'"
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Monday, February 20, 2006
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Competence vs. Incompetence
As leaders and as statesmen, the members of the Bush administration are totally, completely incompetent. The only thing they can do well is carry out criminal acts. Criminally competent and civically incompetent is the only way to put it.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News:
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News
Connecting the Dots of Cheney's Crimes - Yahoo! News:
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
"Ultimately, however, it was 'Daily Show' correspondent Rob Corddry who hit the bullseye, when he reported that: 'The Vice President is standing by his decision to shoot Harry Whittington. Now, according to the best intelligence available, there were quail hidden in the brush. Everyone believed at the time there were quail in the brush. And while the quail turned out to be a 78- year-old man, even knowing that today, Mr. Cheney insists he still would have shot Mr. Whittington in the face. He believes the world is a better place for his spreading buckshot throughout the entire region of Mr. Wittington's face.'"
Quotations from Your Success, a Newsletter
"It takes less time to do things right than to
explain why you did it wrong." ─ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"There is one quality which one must possess
to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the
knowledge of what one wants and a burning
desire to possess it." ─ Ronald Reagan
"Let your thoughts be positive for they will
become your words. Let your words be
positive for they will become your actions. Let
your actions be positive for they will become
your values. Let your values be positive for
they will become your destiny." ─ Mahatma Gandhi
explain why you did it wrong." ─ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"There is one quality which one must possess
to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the
knowledge of what one wants and a burning
desire to possess it." ─ Ronald Reagan
"Let your thoughts be positive for they will
become your words. Let your words be
positive for they will become your actions. Let
your actions be positive for they will become
your values. Let your values be positive for
they will become your destiny." ─ Mahatma Gandhi
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Rule of Laws
From The Washington Spectator:
In a 1977 interview, David Frost asked Richard Nixon if he thought the president could act illegally if he believes it is in the best interest of the nation.
Nixon replied, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
In a 1977 interview, David Frost asked Richard Nixon if he thought the president could act illegally if he believes it is in the best interest of the nation.
Nixon replied, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal."
Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose
Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose
"I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" - Ann Coulter
You have to read it to believe it, don't you? My first impression would be the usual: another quote taken out of context. After hearing this woman talk, though, I think she probably meant it just the way it comes across.
"I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" - Ann Coulter
You have to read it to believe it, don't you? My first impression would be the usual: another quote taken out of context. After hearing this woman talk, though, I think she probably meant it just the way it comes across.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Monday, February 13, 2006
Krugman: Weak on Terror
From Krugman's New York Times Article:
"My most immediate priority," Spain's new leader, José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, declared yesterday, "will be to fight terrorism." But he and the voters who gave his party a stunning upset victory last Sunday don't believe the war in Iraq is part of that fight.
My brief response:
Here is an article by Paul Krugman in the NYT that agrees with my argument about the larger significance of Bush's war on Iraq. I need to write the arguments, address the opposition, and make the whole case against the war my own.
"My most immediate priority," Spain's new leader, José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, declared yesterday, "will be to fight terrorism." But he and the voters who gave his party a stunning upset victory last Sunday don't believe the war in Iraq is part of that fight.
My brief response:
Here is an article by Paul Krugman in the NYT that agrees with my argument about the larger significance of Bush's war on Iraq. I need to write the arguments, address the opposition, and make the whole case against the war my own.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
The Years Ahead
Last summer I wrote a three-part personal essay called The Years Ahead. Here are the entries:
August 7, 2005:
So what does make blogging so attractive? It's private, but it's not private. You write for yourself, but you have the possibility of an audience. You can write anything at all, and even your mother won't read it. But she could. It's fun.
I'd like to write about the years ahead. Perhaps when the years ahead are the years behind, people will read this and say that he (meaning me) laid it all out ahead of time. "It's all here," they'll say. They said that about Mein Kampf, too, and look where Hitler wound up. In a bunker with cyanide down his throat.
Well, that's way off topic. The comparison does show that you have to plan ahead a little bit. And that's what I'm going to do. But I sure don't want to write a book like Mein Kampf.
Where's the best place to start? Should I write about myself, or about things outside of myself? I'll write briefly about myself first.
A lot of people think about becoming president of the United States. Only a few people actually become president. But, whether you become president or not, no one can make fun of you for thinking about it. Plenty of people have thought about it, and some of those run for the office. Of those, a few have won enough electoral votes to win the office. In this country, anything can happen. Nothing is impossible. So I have to get past my self-consciousness about these thoughts. Would people make fun of me if they knew what I was thinking? Would they raise their eyebrows? So what? Why shouldn't I think about becoming president? If it makes me happy, who are you to say I shouldn't occupy my thoughts that way?
Here's a more practical way of stating this goal. We have to start work now to elect a president in 2016 who is not a Democrat or a Republican. I've already committed myself to that goal. Well, in our political system, you can't get elected president without some sort of political organization behind you. Call that organization a political party if you like. In a little less than three election cycles, we need to build an organization that's capable of electing a president. I want to help build that organization. And I know enough about working with groups that if you commit yourself to them and work hard to make them grow, you eventually get to lead them. Leadership in the case of a national political party means running for president.
Now let me write about some things outside of myself. America needs a new political party. The country's first two parties, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, were ill-formed groupings. They weren't especially well organized, and the names are more for the labeling convenience of historians than anything else. Out of those two loose groupings, and the conflict that occurred when Jefferson rose to the White House, we had the Democrats - Jefferson's party - and the Whigs - the party that eventually evolved from the Federalists. The Whigs didn't have staying power, though, and as their ability to win votes declined in the years before the Civil War, a new party rose to take their place. That party was the Republican party, and its leader was Abraham Lincoln.
Since the late 1850s, as the country slid toward its awful sectional conflict, we have not had a new, durable political party that was able to win votes in the electoral college.
As much as you like writing this entry, you have to sign off here.
August 8, 2005:
America needs a third party. Actually, it needs a new party that can become a force in American politics, and that can force a realignment in American politics. Let's start with some basics.
America does not have a parliamentary system. You need a parliamentary system with proportional representation for minority parties to flourish. Even in systems with proportional representation, like-minded minority parties tend to form durable coalitions so they can work together and exert more influence on national politics. The Labor and Likud parties in Israel are an example of that phenomenon.
The United States has a federal, winner take all system that favors the formation of two major parties. The basic rules of party competition at the national level won't change, so the structure of party politics won't change either. That means a couple of things. First, the emergence of a new party that can win the only national election we have - the one for the presidency - will cause a realignment in American party politics. We have a lot of instances where three people ran for the presidency and won a lot of votes. We have only one case - Lincoln's victory in 1860 - where the outcome of a three-way race led to a complete realignment. The important point is, even if three-way races are fairly common, the party competition resettles into the familiar two-party pattern pretty quickly. The Civil War disrupted all the usual patterns from 1860 to 1865, and the Republican party came out of the war as an established institution.
The second thing to note in the present situation is that we can't tell what the two parties will look like after the realignment. We don't know who will join what party. The most we can say is that one of the parties - the new one we're talking about here - will coalesce from independents, existing minority parties, disaffected Democrats and disaffected Republicans. The shape of the party that forms in opposition to the new party is anyone's guess. The Republican party is pretty cohesive right now, so a good guess is that the opposition will form from the core of the current Republican party. The realignment won't take place in a week or a month. It'll be a while in coming. But we know that a decade or more from now, party politics in this country won't look the same way they do now.
How do we know that? Some people say that an economic crisis during the next decade will cause profound changes in our party politics. We may in fact have a crisis like that. I would trace the changes we'll undergo to the war. I mean the war in Iraq, of course, but also the broader war that started in September 2001. We are losing the war in Iraq, and we have hardly started to fight the war against Al Qaeda. Lost wars always bring big changes in the politics of the country that loses them. That's what we're going to see here by the election of 2016.
It's a fair bet that the winner of the 2008 presidential election will be a Democrat. It's a fair bet too that the incumbent will lose to a Republican in 2012. That means we'll have Democratic or Republican winners in the White House for the next two election cycles. Then in 2016, our economic weakness and our defeats in war will make people vote for the leader of a new party. They'll say that the old parties have had a chance, and they ddn't come through. It's time for a change. A big one, when they begin to see the consequences of losing the war.
We have to be ready for the election in 2016.
August 9, 2005:
This is getting to be quite a series. Tonight I'm listening to Good Vibrations on the headphones, and I'm sure I may listen to some other songs before the night is done. The question is, can you write while you're listening to the music? Now Daydream Believer is playing, and you want to write about politics?
I told Leslie tonight: "What would you think if I said I wanted to be the leader of a new political party?" She said in her dry way, "Perhaps you should start with some small steps close to home." Yes, I said, that's just the thing, since politics in this country is organized state by state. You try to organize a party in Texas, and they'll say, "What are you doing here? Why don't you go to your own state?" Indeed, Massachusetts is the place to start.
But I added, I'm not sure why: "This kind of thing affects you, you know. I can't go this way and have it not affect you." She looked at me a little funny, and I finished: "I don't like to start anything, you know, and not think about the obstacles that might come up."
So that was it. I have Leslie's blessing now. She won't mind the invasion of privacy and all the things that go with politics. She'll go with me where I go. And she's got indignation to spare.
So let's move on to some practical steps... The writing is slow while you're listening to the music. What can you do here in Massachusetts? Well, you have to network, just as you have in other areas. Can the WTPC site give you any ideas about who to contact?
Yes, the e-mail posted to your Yahoo inbox contains full return addresses.
August 7, 2005:
So what does make blogging so attractive? It's private, but it's not private. You write for yourself, but you have the possibility of an audience. You can write anything at all, and even your mother won't read it. But she could. It's fun.
I'd like to write about the years ahead. Perhaps when the years ahead are the years behind, people will read this and say that he (meaning me) laid it all out ahead of time. "It's all here," they'll say. They said that about Mein Kampf, too, and look where Hitler wound up. In a bunker with cyanide down his throat.
Well, that's way off topic. The comparison does show that you have to plan ahead a little bit. And that's what I'm going to do. But I sure don't want to write a book like Mein Kampf.
Where's the best place to start? Should I write about myself, or about things outside of myself? I'll write briefly about myself first.
A lot of people think about becoming president of the United States. Only a few people actually become president. But, whether you become president or not, no one can make fun of you for thinking about it. Plenty of people have thought about it, and some of those run for the office. Of those, a few have won enough electoral votes to win the office. In this country, anything can happen. Nothing is impossible. So I have to get past my self-consciousness about these thoughts. Would people make fun of me if they knew what I was thinking? Would they raise their eyebrows? So what? Why shouldn't I think about becoming president? If it makes me happy, who are you to say I shouldn't occupy my thoughts that way?
Here's a more practical way of stating this goal. We have to start work now to elect a president in 2016 who is not a Democrat or a Republican. I've already committed myself to that goal. Well, in our political system, you can't get elected president without some sort of political organization behind you. Call that organization a political party if you like. In a little less than three election cycles, we need to build an organization that's capable of electing a president. I want to help build that organization. And I know enough about working with groups that if you commit yourself to them and work hard to make them grow, you eventually get to lead them. Leadership in the case of a national political party means running for president.
Now let me write about some things outside of myself. America needs a new political party. The country's first two parties, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, were ill-formed groupings. They weren't especially well organized, and the names are more for the labeling convenience of historians than anything else. Out of those two loose groupings, and the conflict that occurred when Jefferson rose to the White House, we had the Democrats - Jefferson's party - and the Whigs - the party that eventually evolved from the Federalists. The Whigs didn't have staying power, though, and as their ability to win votes declined in the years before the Civil War, a new party rose to take their place. That party was the Republican party, and its leader was Abraham Lincoln.
Since the late 1850s, as the country slid toward its awful sectional conflict, we have not had a new, durable political party that was able to win votes in the electoral college.
As much as you like writing this entry, you have to sign off here.
August 8, 2005:
America needs a third party. Actually, it needs a new party that can become a force in American politics, and that can force a realignment in American politics. Let's start with some basics.
America does not have a parliamentary system. You need a parliamentary system with proportional representation for minority parties to flourish. Even in systems with proportional representation, like-minded minority parties tend to form durable coalitions so they can work together and exert more influence on national politics. The Labor and Likud parties in Israel are an example of that phenomenon.
The United States has a federal, winner take all system that favors the formation of two major parties. The basic rules of party competition at the national level won't change, so the structure of party politics won't change either. That means a couple of things. First, the emergence of a new party that can win the only national election we have - the one for the presidency - will cause a realignment in American party politics. We have a lot of instances where three people ran for the presidency and won a lot of votes. We have only one case - Lincoln's victory in 1860 - where the outcome of a three-way race led to a complete realignment. The important point is, even if three-way races are fairly common, the party competition resettles into the familiar two-party pattern pretty quickly. The Civil War disrupted all the usual patterns from 1860 to 1865, and the Republican party came out of the war as an established institution.
The second thing to note in the present situation is that we can't tell what the two parties will look like after the realignment. We don't know who will join what party. The most we can say is that one of the parties - the new one we're talking about here - will coalesce from independents, existing minority parties, disaffected Democrats and disaffected Republicans. The shape of the party that forms in opposition to the new party is anyone's guess. The Republican party is pretty cohesive right now, so a good guess is that the opposition will form from the core of the current Republican party. The realignment won't take place in a week or a month. It'll be a while in coming. But we know that a decade or more from now, party politics in this country won't look the same way they do now.
How do we know that? Some people say that an economic crisis during the next decade will cause profound changes in our party politics. We may in fact have a crisis like that. I would trace the changes we'll undergo to the war. I mean the war in Iraq, of course, but also the broader war that started in September 2001. We are losing the war in Iraq, and we have hardly started to fight the war against Al Qaeda. Lost wars always bring big changes in the politics of the country that loses them. That's what we're going to see here by the election of 2016.
It's a fair bet that the winner of the 2008 presidential election will be a Democrat. It's a fair bet too that the incumbent will lose to a Republican in 2012. That means we'll have Democratic or Republican winners in the White House for the next two election cycles. Then in 2016, our economic weakness and our defeats in war will make people vote for the leader of a new party. They'll say that the old parties have had a chance, and they ddn't come through. It's time for a change. A big one, when they begin to see the consequences of losing the war.
We have to be ready for the election in 2016.
August 9, 2005:
This is getting to be quite a series. Tonight I'm listening to Good Vibrations on the headphones, and I'm sure I may listen to some other songs before the night is done. The question is, can you write while you're listening to the music? Now Daydream Believer is playing, and you want to write about politics?
I told Leslie tonight: "What would you think if I said I wanted to be the leader of a new political party?" She said in her dry way, "Perhaps you should start with some small steps close to home." Yes, I said, that's just the thing, since politics in this country is organized state by state. You try to organize a party in Texas, and they'll say, "What are you doing here? Why don't you go to your own state?" Indeed, Massachusetts is the place to start.
But I added, I'm not sure why: "This kind of thing affects you, you know. I can't go this way and have it not affect you." She looked at me a little funny, and I finished: "I don't like to start anything, you know, and not think about the obstacles that might come up."
So that was it. I have Leslie's blessing now. She won't mind the invasion of privacy and all the things that go with politics. She'll go with me where I go. And she's got indignation to spare.
So let's move on to some practical steps... The writing is slow while you're listening to the music. What can you do here in Massachusetts? Well, you have to network, just as you have in other areas. Can the WTPC site give you any ideas about who to contact?
Yes, the e-mail posted to your Yahoo inbox contains full return addresses.
The Libertarian Party in the Current Political Environment
Yesterday I received an e-mail request for money from the Libertarian Party to support their current initiatives. I contributed a small amount, and wrote a short note in the online payment form. The party's executive director responded with a short note of his own right away. Here is my response to his message:
I wasn't even sure anyone would read my note. I didn't expect to get a prompt response from the guy in charge!
So, since you wrote that quick note, let me open the gates just a little and write some thoughts back to you. They may or may not be useful to you, depending on how you take them.
First, good work on the letter you sent to solicit donations. The penultimate sentence - "If you have made it this far, I'm relying on you to make a donation of $10 or more" - didn't grab me and make me think, "I have to contribute right now." The small amount requested was a positive factor, and so were your comments about the Democrats. In the middle of the letter, you said they're spineless, and used other severe language. Here's why that language is appropriate, admirable, and motivating, at least in my case.
I've been interested in politics for a long time, and I've been an independent for a long time. I admire Ronald Reagan because I've been a libertarian with a small _l_. I don't admire the Republican party, though. In fact, the Iraq war has made me angrier than I've ever been about our leadership. It's effect on me has been similar to the effect the Missouri Compromise had on Lincoln: it made him want to get involved with politics after attending to his law practice for some years. I sense I'm not the only voter who thinks that way.
The Democrats don't bear the same burden of blame right now that the Republicans do, but their behavior as the opposition party fits your description. How they could fail so miserably in the face of the leadership we have is so strange. It's interesting to see the contrasting reactions people have had to Howard Dean and John Murtha. The stands they've taken are so rare, they easily stand out against the timid backdrop the rest of the Democrats have created.
So what am I getting at here? Like a lot of other voters, I don't feel well represented by either party. Independents and minority party members make up thirty-five percent or more of the electorate, but they don't feel that they have any voice at all. I've been skeptical that the Libertarian party can give people that voice. It's not because I think their ideas are bad, or that they can't overcome some of the real obstacles that minority parties have to face in our political system. I think that the Libertarian party's image is such that not so many people will vote for Libertarian candidates.
My main perspective comes from Massachusetts. It's not my native state, but it's where I live now. (I come from the Upper Midwest, a region that actually has a two-party system.) The two-party system in Massachusetts is not healthy, to say the least. Many, many Democrats, incumbents and new office seekers alike, run unopposed on election day. The Republicans win the governor's race, and that's about it. The latest tally shows that almost fifty percent of the voters in the state are independents - they don't enroll in either party when they register to vote. Yet the Libertarian party lost its ballot access a few years ago because they didn't win 3% of the votes cast.
Why don't the Libertarians win more votes in a state that doesn't feel that comfortable with one-party governance? Well it could be that most voters really are Democrats at heart, and they elect a Republican governor entirely to exercise some restraint on the legislature. Perhaps the Libertarians seem to be extreme here because, given the Democratic sympathies of the electorate, they really are outliers in the state's political belief system.
I keep thinking, though, of the party's tag line - the party of principle - and the message that line conveys to ordinary voters. Its subtext is that Libertarians don't care about winning elections. Or, to put it more precisely: if we have to make a choice between winning votes and sticking with our principles, we'll stick with our principles. We'd rather be right and defeated than wrong and victorious. Well naturally the goal is to be right and victorious, but that's not the message that comes across, either in the tag line or in the rest of the state party's communications.
The Libertarian Party of Massachusetts is only one of fifty state organizations, and I know the flavor of party politics in the other forty-nine states is just as quirky and unique as it is here. You have a hard job, trying to promote the party in a political landscape that's so varied. I much admire the determination the national party has shown over the last several months, to transform itself from a group on the margins of politics into an organization that can compete in elections across the land. I want to believe that it'll be successful, and that the Libertarian party will emerge from the coming political turmoil in a strong position.
To do that, though, I think it has to change the image I've described above. It has to convey that it's open to more than one belief system. The Democrats and Republicans both try to stress, at election time, that their parties are like big tents. They want to welcome as many people as they can. They're right to do that, because in a country that's so pluralistic, and that's bound to have just two major parties because of its election rules, the two major parties have to embrace divergent beliefs and belief systems.
Well, that welcoming attitude only goes so far. A political party is going to have opponents no matter what it does. But the Reagan elections show that people do respond to a well articulated vision. No other president has ever won forty-nine of fifty states, as Reagan did in 1984. That shows that people can be loyal to a certain vision of themselves, and to certain core principles built into our Constitution. It shows that when the circumstances are right, a pluralistic people can achieve a certain degree of unity.
Your remark that the Democratic party is in a panic because it feels so threatened is interesting. The contrasting question is what will happen to the Republicans when people realize what has happened since 9/11 - when the damage the Republicans have done truly sinks in. I said that we're in for a period of turmoil. The grounds for that prediction lie in a pattern of change that's clear from a long view of history. States that lose wars don't survive the loss without going through painful and substantial changes. We've clearly not achieved our aims in Iraq, and we are on the way to losing the other war we should be fighting instead - the war against Al Qaeda that started on September 11.
When these losses begin to have their effects, we'll see changes in our current political system that we can't predict. These changes are already underway, but we can't see their direction yet. The Libertarian party is right to prepare for them, and to see if it can't strengthen itself during the conflict to come. The parties in Washington won't stop sniping at each other, while citizens who aren't part of either party's base get more and more fed up with their representation and leadership. The two parties are so focused on scoring advantages, on finding weaknesses they can exploit, I don’t think they recognize how unhappy their constituents are.
Shortly before the 2000 election, I wrote an article called "Where's a Candidate People Want?" Even then, it seemed to me, the parties had failed in their primary function in national politics, which is to recruit and nominate presidential candidates who can serve and lead Americans well. We have never had leadership as bad as President Bush's has been. Although Gore and Kerry had some strengths, they weren't adequate candidates for the times. That the Republicans managed to put Bush in the office, and then to reelect him, says quite a bit about the ability of the current two-party system to perform well. It is clearly not serving the country.
So what do all of these observations amount to? The Libertarian party has to find some way to appeal to more people. Training candidates, campaign managers and other staff to run effective bids for office is an essential start. The most effective campaign ever can't win votes, though, if people are suspicious or skeptical of the party to begin with. They have to have confidence in the character and competence of their leaders, and they also need to know that their leaders share some assumptions with them about the best way to organize a society. Right now, I think a lot of citizens see Libertarians as people who don't share those assumptions.
We know that the United States will always have two major parties while it has winner-take-all elections in each of the fifty states. We also know that the two-party system has evolved in interesting ways over 225 years, with some dramatic transformations in the system at key points. We are on the threshold of one of those transformations. In ten years, during the presidential election of 2016, we'll be past the threshold and perhaps even past the entry way. It's great that the Libertarian party and its leadership is thinking about how it can grow during the difficult changes that have already started. I hope it succeeds.
I also hope that I and others can lay aside skepticism, and work hard for the changes we want to see. We need hope that the obstacles in our current politics won't always be there: obstacles that block independents' voices, frustrate their efforts before they begin, and make voting seem ineffectual. In this environment, the Libertarian party's bold initiatives to have an effect do deserve respect and support.
I wasn't even sure anyone would read my note. I didn't expect to get a prompt response from the guy in charge!
So, since you wrote that quick note, let me open the gates just a little and write some thoughts back to you. They may or may not be useful to you, depending on how you take them.
First, good work on the letter you sent to solicit donations. The penultimate sentence - "If you have made it this far, I'm relying on you to make a donation of $10 or more" - didn't grab me and make me think, "I have to contribute right now." The small amount requested was a positive factor, and so were your comments about the Democrats. In the middle of the letter, you said they're spineless, and used other severe language. Here's why that language is appropriate, admirable, and motivating, at least in my case.
I've been interested in politics for a long time, and I've been an independent for a long time. I admire Ronald Reagan because I've been a libertarian with a small _l_. I don't admire the Republican party, though. In fact, the Iraq war has made me angrier than I've ever been about our leadership. It's effect on me has been similar to the effect the Missouri Compromise had on Lincoln: it made him want to get involved with politics after attending to his law practice for some years. I sense I'm not the only voter who thinks that way.
The Democrats don't bear the same burden of blame right now that the Republicans do, but their behavior as the opposition party fits your description. How they could fail so miserably in the face of the leadership we have is so strange. It's interesting to see the contrasting reactions people have had to Howard Dean and John Murtha. The stands they've taken are so rare, they easily stand out against the timid backdrop the rest of the Democrats have created.
So what am I getting at here? Like a lot of other voters, I don't feel well represented by either party. Independents and minority party members make up thirty-five percent or more of the electorate, but they don't feel that they have any voice at all. I've been skeptical that the Libertarian party can give people that voice. It's not because I think their ideas are bad, or that they can't overcome some of the real obstacles that minority parties have to face in our political system. I think that the Libertarian party's image is such that not so many people will vote for Libertarian candidates.
My main perspective comes from Massachusetts. It's not my native state, but it's where I live now. (I come from the Upper Midwest, a region that actually has a two-party system.) The two-party system in Massachusetts is not healthy, to say the least. Many, many Democrats, incumbents and new office seekers alike, run unopposed on election day. The Republicans win the governor's race, and that's about it. The latest tally shows that almost fifty percent of the voters in the state are independents - they don't enroll in either party when they register to vote. Yet the Libertarian party lost its ballot access a few years ago because they didn't win 3% of the votes cast.
Why don't the Libertarians win more votes in a state that doesn't feel that comfortable with one-party governance? Well it could be that most voters really are Democrats at heart, and they elect a Republican governor entirely to exercise some restraint on the legislature. Perhaps the Libertarians seem to be extreme here because, given the Democratic sympathies of the electorate, they really are outliers in the state's political belief system.
I keep thinking, though, of the party's tag line - the party of principle - and the message that line conveys to ordinary voters. Its subtext is that Libertarians don't care about winning elections. Or, to put it more precisely: if we have to make a choice between winning votes and sticking with our principles, we'll stick with our principles. We'd rather be right and defeated than wrong and victorious. Well naturally the goal is to be right and victorious, but that's not the message that comes across, either in the tag line or in the rest of the state party's communications.
The Libertarian Party of Massachusetts is only one of fifty state organizations, and I know the flavor of party politics in the other forty-nine states is just as quirky and unique as it is here. You have a hard job, trying to promote the party in a political landscape that's so varied. I much admire the determination the national party has shown over the last several months, to transform itself from a group on the margins of politics into an organization that can compete in elections across the land. I want to believe that it'll be successful, and that the Libertarian party will emerge from the coming political turmoil in a strong position.
To do that, though, I think it has to change the image I've described above. It has to convey that it's open to more than one belief system. The Democrats and Republicans both try to stress, at election time, that their parties are like big tents. They want to welcome as many people as they can. They're right to do that, because in a country that's so pluralistic, and that's bound to have just two major parties because of its election rules, the two major parties have to embrace divergent beliefs and belief systems.
Well, that welcoming attitude only goes so far. A political party is going to have opponents no matter what it does. But the Reagan elections show that people do respond to a well articulated vision. No other president has ever won forty-nine of fifty states, as Reagan did in 1984. That shows that people can be loyal to a certain vision of themselves, and to certain core principles built into our Constitution. It shows that when the circumstances are right, a pluralistic people can achieve a certain degree of unity.
Your remark that the Democratic party is in a panic because it feels so threatened is interesting. The contrasting question is what will happen to the Republicans when people realize what has happened since 9/11 - when the damage the Republicans have done truly sinks in. I said that we're in for a period of turmoil. The grounds for that prediction lie in a pattern of change that's clear from a long view of history. States that lose wars don't survive the loss without going through painful and substantial changes. We've clearly not achieved our aims in Iraq, and we are on the way to losing the other war we should be fighting instead - the war against Al Qaeda that started on September 11.
When these losses begin to have their effects, we'll see changes in our current political system that we can't predict. These changes are already underway, but we can't see their direction yet. The Libertarian party is right to prepare for them, and to see if it can't strengthen itself during the conflict to come. The parties in Washington won't stop sniping at each other, while citizens who aren't part of either party's base get more and more fed up with their representation and leadership. The two parties are so focused on scoring advantages, on finding weaknesses they can exploit, I don’t think they recognize how unhappy their constituents are.
Shortly before the 2000 election, I wrote an article called "Where's a Candidate People Want?" Even then, it seemed to me, the parties had failed in their primary function in national politics, which is to recruit and nominate presidential candidates who can serve and lead Americans well. We have never had leadership as bad as President Bush's has been. Although Gore and Kerry had some strengths, they weren't adequate candidates for the times. That the Republicans managed to put Bush in the office, and then to reelect him, says quite a bit about the ability of the current two-party system to perform well. It is clearly not serving the country.
So what do all of these observations amount to? The Libertarian party has to find some way to appeal to more people. Training candidates, campaign managers and other staff to run effective bids for office is an essential start. The most effective campaign ever can't win votes, though, if people are suspicious or skeptical of the party to begin with. They have to have confidence in the character and competence of their leaders, and they also need to know that their leaders share some assumptions with them about the best way to organize a society. Right now, I think a lot of citizens see Libertarians as people who don't share those assumptions.
We know that the United States will always have two major parties while it has winner-take-all elections in each of the fifty states. We also know that the two-party system has evolved in interesting ways over 225 years, with some dramatic transformations in the system at key points. We are on the threshold of one of those transformations. In ten years, during the presidential election of 2016, we'll be past the threshold and perhaps even past the entry way. It's great that the Libertarian party and its leadership is thinking about how it can grow during the difficult changes that have already started. I hope it succeeds.
I also hope that I and others can lay aside skepticism, and work hard for the changes we want to see. We need hope that the obstacles in our current politics won't always be there: obstacles that block independents' voices, frustrate their efforts before they begin, and make voting seem ineffectual. In this environment, the Libertarian party's bold initiatives to have an effect do deserve respect and support.
Friday, February 10, 2006
Loose Lips Sink Spies - New York Times
Loose Lips Sink Spies - New York Times
What a huge, huge gap exists now! So many things that Goss says in this article make sense, or rather used to make sense. Coming from the head of the CIA in this administration, though, they are scary. Standard arguments about the tradeoff between national security and open democracy don't make sense anymore, when the source of the arguments is the government itself. These guys are willing to commit crimes wherever they look. No crime is too egregious for them. National security justifies anything they want to do. Now the head of the CIA announces his determination to bring criminal charges against anyone who tries to stop them. That's scary.
What a huge, huge gap exists now! So many things that Goss says in this article make sense, or rather used to make sense. Coming from the head of the CIA in this administration, though, they are scary. Standard arguments about the tradeoff between national security and open democracy don't make sense anymore, when the source of the arguments is the government itself. These guys are willing to commit crimes wherever they look. No crime is too egregious for them. National security justifies anything they want to do. Now the head of the CIA announces his determination to bring criminal charges against anyone who tries to stop them. That's scary.
