By now we say if it's a war for peace it's the same old game, but do we really wanna play?
We can close our eye's; it's still there. We could say it's us against them. We could try but nobody wins. Gravity has got a hold on us all.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Question
There are times when I feel like posting a whole bunch of things at once, but don't, because I ought to post every day. And if I convince myself to wait, write one now, and write another after midnight, I often end up writing the long one now, finishing it up around 1:07 AM, and going, crap, now I can't write the other one, even if I can still remember it. Now, the time, I'll mention, is not an issue, I like to be up late late at night. Everything is very still at night. Anyways, the point is, so what? So what if I post two different blog posts on Sunday, March 30, 2008 and they're listed that way in my table of contents. Often as not, I don't post anything the day before, and I'm just as likely to completely blow off the second one altogether and not post anything on the next day as I am to either write it, save it, and post it later, or to save it and write it thirty-six hors later, since I'm not likely to start writing something at 12:15. So, bottom line, I'm going to be making a few postings tonight. If I don't write anything for three days afterward I'm sure you'll understand. But who knows, perhaps writing more separate posts will translate to more production, and I have heard, though I have never experienced it, that productivity can feed on itself so perhaps soon I'll be writing six posts a day. Sure.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Wow, a lotta news
Well, there are a lot of things to talk about happening all at once right now.
Personally, I have just spent two days in Ventura County Jail.
Nationally, Hillary Clinton has stumbled quite ostentatiously, and undercut her argument that she is the toughest candidate.
But more important than any of that: in Iraq, the Iraqi army, in its first major independent offensive, are moving against the Al Mahdi Militia! I'm surprised, actually, and I think Muqtada al Sadr and his organization might be surprised as well, meaning they might be vulnerable.
No one is really paying attention to what is happening in Iraq, now anymore than usual, but the Iraqi army is moving into strategic positions in Basra and, from what I hear, Sadr City, the neighborhood in Baghdad that has been the real nucleus of the violence coming from the Shi'a side of the sectarian divide.
In the past six months, the so called "surge" has, I must tell my Liberal friends, worked to reduce violence perpetrated by the advantaged, minority class, the Sunnis. But for the much more populous, much lower wealth Shi'a population, the driving factor behind the violence has been untouchable politically and, probably, militarily.
It is clear that the American Army cannot move into Sadr City at acceptable casualty rates. It says something about the state of the Iraqi Army if it is constituted to take on friendly threats to stability. The Mahdi army is ostensibly friendly to the regime in power in Iraq now. But it is fundamentalist and hostile to elements of the population of the Nation, and therefore a threat to the larger nation that the regime controls. If the Iraqi army takes and holds Sadr City and Basra, they will be well on the way to having a strategic advantage in maintaining peace independent of the American Army.
I don't want to be labeled an optimist, but I feel like this could be a decisive battle in actually pervading democratic government throughout the country of Iraq. I have said it before though, General David Petraeus knows the difference between winning engagements and winning wars. I think the war could be won and the democrats could win a huge majority in the congress and the presidency and America will really cement a pretty bright future.
Personally, I have just spent two days in Ventura County Jail.
Nationally, Hillary Clinton has stumbled quite ostentatiously, and undercut her argument that she is the toughest candidate.
But more important than any of that: in Iraq, the Iraqi army, in its first major independent offensive, are moving against the Al Mahdi Militia! I'm surprised, actually, and I think Muqtada al Sadr and his organization might be surprised as well, meaning they might be vulnerable.
No one is really paying attention to what is happening in Iraq, now anymore than usual, but the Iraqi army is moving into strategic positions in Basra and, from what I hear, Sadr City, the neighborhood in Baghdad that has been the real nucleus of the violence coming from the Shi'a side of the sectarian divide.
In the past six months, the so called "surge" has, I must tell my Liberal friends, worked to reduce violence perpetrated by the advantaged, minority class, the Sunnis. But for the much more populous, much lower wealth Shi'a population, the driving factor behind the violence has been untouchable politically and, probably, militarily.
It is clear that the American Army cannot move into Sadr City at acceptable casualty rates. It says something about the state of the Iraqi Army if it is constituted to take on friendly threats to stability. The Mahdi army is ostensibly friendly to the regime in power in Iraq now. But it is fundamentalist and hostile to elements of the population of the Nation, and therefore a threat to the larger nation that the regime controls. If the Iraqi army takes and holds Sadr City and Basra, they will be well on the way to having a strategic advantage in maintaining peace independent of the American Army.
I don't want to be labeled an optimist, but I feel like this could be a decisive battle in actually pervading democratic government throughout the country of Iraq. I have said it before though, General David Petraeus knows the difference between winning engagements and winning wars. I think the war could be won and the democrats could win a huge majority in the congress and the presidency and America will really cement a pretty bright future.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The Presidential RACE
I've finally come to understand something. It's about the candidacy of Barack Obama. Everybody talks about how great it has been that he is a black candidate who transcends race, and that really IS great. But what makes him even more special, even more important to our history is that fact that, even in transcending race, he never fails to be fundamentally BLACK. It is a wonderful thing that liberals in America will someday soon be able to unite behind a truly inspiring candidate, and that for the first time ever in the History of the world, that candidate is of African descent.
In this light, I cannot blame Hillary Clinton for having made her candidacy a referendum on Feminism, although I can and do still think she ought to be ashamed of herself for the condescending attitude she has taken towards her opponents, almost ALL of whom have been really spectacularly qualified for the post of President of the United States. What is really shameful is the way she has taken a field of candidates that, when I looked at them standing on stage during any of the various debates they held together, it made my bleeding Liberal heart swell to the edge of bursting with pride in the generation of leadership coming of age this election; Clinton has treated them all like petulant playacting children. This is a group of nine (more fairly seven) really, really good leaders, Clinton included, leaders who, if unified, can move this whole country in an incredibly revolutionary direction, a direction completely opposite to the disastrous path we have been treading these last 20 years. Yet Clinton has painted them all as inept, unprepared, unready to face the challenges that SHE WOULD NEED THEM TO HELP HER MEET, in the unlikely event that she were to become president.
Sadly, it is SHE who is unready to be president. A president is a LEADER. Not THE ruler, not the most powerful person in the world, but the first among equals, the leader of the most powerful nation, the most powerful government in the world. Hillary Clinton tries to DO IT HERSELF, and in the end, she cannot DO IT HERSELF, she cannot do ANYTHING without the aid of a willing and motivated congress.
Why was Bill Clinton's presidency derailed? Is it because Republicans threw every slander they could think of at him? NO. I know this will strike the reader as a strange statement, seemingly at odds with the obvious reality. But the truth is that Republicans could have thrown any slander they wanted to at Clinton, and it would have had about as much effect as throwing mud against a brick wall, if Clinton had not squandered his party's majority in Congress IN HIS SECOND YEAR IN OFFICE. No Democratic congress would have impeached a democratic president over a drop of CUM on an intern's dress. It never would have happened. So I maintain, that his trouble in office, is HIS OWN DAMN FAULT.
But that's besides the point. ANY of the democratic candidates would have pursued historic changes in the course of American government. And either of the current contenders represents an historic change in the demographics available to the office of the presidency. Expansion of the availability to aspire to the presidency either to black Americans or female Americans would be an UNPRECEDENTED change in the demography of the office. And it just happens to be Black America's turn. That's no indictment against feminism, nor against Hillary Clinton, that's just the way the cookie has crumbled. Obama is a LEADER. Clinton is a conqueror. Sadly, she is a conqueror who has never successfully conquered a substantial opponent. She lost the fight for Universal Healthcare in the 90's, the only fight that ever reached it's conclusion, and she ran unopposed for senate after Rudolph Giuliani dropped out of the race when a scandal that she had nothing to do with bringing to light made his candidacy untenable. She is now losing to Barack Obama. She is about as successful a general as the emperor Octavian, who, granted, was a good emperor; beloved, stable, able, and successful. But never because of his fighting skills, he never won an important battle, he secured the principate by entirely other means. I'm not saying she would not be a good president. I'm just saying that she should wait eight years for another turn at it. Now it's Obama's turn.
Let's have this conversation about race. Let's welcome the opportunity to examine the way life is for black people in America. It was GREAT that Obama was able to go this long in the race without having to make his candidacy about the fact that he is black. But now that it is an unavoidable issue, LET'S DO IT. No one would be better suited to it that he is. I can't wait to see John McCain try to pin his ears back for his skin color. John McCain will GET HIS ASS KICKED in that fight. Let's see Barack Obama debate Mr. Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran, let's DO IT. Hillary Clinton, and her supporters with her, ought to be ashamed of themselves for obstructing the country from having this argument. We can and will get to the women's movement in due time, of that there is no doubt. WE NEED THIS ONE NOW; they should be ashamed of themselves for delaying it.
In this light, I cannot blame Hillary Clinton for having made her candidacy a referendum on Feminism, although I can and do still think she ought to be ashamed of herself for the condescending attitude she has taken towards her opponents, almost ALL of whom have been really spectacularly qualified for the post of President of the United States. What is really shameful is the way she has taken a field of candidates that, when I looked at them standing on stage during any of the various debates they held together, it made my bleeding Liberal heart swell to the edge of bursting with pride in the generation of leadership coming of age this election; Clinton has treated them all like petulant playacting children. This is a group of nine (more fairly seven) really, really good leaders, Clinton included, leaders who, if unified, can move this whole country in an incredibly revolutionary direction, a direction completely opposite to the disastrous path we have been treading these last 20 years. Yet Clinton has painted them all as inept, unprepared, unready to face the challenges that SHE WOULD NEED THEM TO HELP HER MEET, in the unlikely event that she were to become president.
Sadly, it is SHE who is unready to be president. A president is a LEADER. Not THE ruler, not the most powerful person in the world, but the first among equals, the leader of the most powerful nation, the most powerful government in the world. Hillary Clinton tries to DO IT HERSELF, and in the end, she cannot DO IT HERSELF, she cannot do ANYTHING without the aid of a willing and motivated congress.
Why was Bill Clinton's presidency derailed? Is it because Republicans threw every slander they could think of at him? NO. I know this will strike the reader as a strange statement, seemingly at odds with the obvious reality. But the truth is that Republicans could have thrown any slander they wanted to at Clinton, and it would have had about as much effect as throwing mud against a brick wall, if Clinton had not squandered his party's majority in Congress IN HIS SECOND YEAR IN OFFICE. No Democratic congress would have impeached a democratic president over a drop of CUM on an intern's dress. It never would have happened. So I maintain, that his trouble in office, is HIS OWN DAMN FAULT.
But that's besides the point. ANY of the democratic candidates would have pursued historic changes in the course of American government. And either of the current contenders represents an historic change in the demographics available to the office of the presidency. Expansion of the availability to aspire to the presidency either to black Americans or female Americans would be an UNPRECEDENTED change in the demography of the office. And it just happens to be Black America's turn. That's no indictment against feminism, nor against Hillary Clinton, that's just the way the cookie has crumbled. Obama is a LEADER. Clinton is a conqueror. Sadly, she is a conqueror who has never successfully conquered a substantial opponent. She lost the fight for Universal Healthcare in the 90's, the only fight that ever reached it's conclusion, and she ran unopposed for senate after Rudolph Giuliani dropped out of the race when a scandal that she had nothing to do with bringing to light made his candidacy untenable. She is now losing to Barack Obama. She is about as successful a general as the emperor Octavian, who, granted, was a good emperor; beloved, stable, able, and successful. But never because of his fighting skills, he never won an important battle, he secured the principate by entirely other means. I'm not saying she would not be a good president. I'm just saying that she should wait eight years for another turn at it. Now it's Obama's turn.
Let's have this conversation about race. Let's welcome the opportunity to examine the way life is for black people in America. It was GREAT that Obama was able to go this long in the race without having to make his candidacy about the fact that he is black. But now that it is an unavoidable issue, LET'S DO IT. No one would be better suited to it that he is. I can't wait to see John McCain try to pin his ears back for his skin color. John McCain will GET HIS ASS KICKED in that fight. Let's see Barack Obama debate Mr. Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran, let's DO IT. Hillary Clinton, and her supporters with her, ought to be ashamed of themselves for obstructing the country from having this argument. We can and will get to the women's movement in due time, of that there is no doubt. WE NEED THIS ONE NOW; they should be ashamed of themselves for delaying it.
Friday, March 7, 2008
So I've Just Had a Thought
Well, between writing that title and beginning these words, I've seen a news story that seems to throw my own thoughts into crisis, but I turned on the news to a story about the possibility or the likelihood of a Clinton Obama or an Obama Clinton, so-called 'dream ticket', which, I was going to point out, ought to be no sweat to Clinton as, particularly for a woman, she is not really getting old. Obama, on the other hand, is rightly considered far too young to want to be Hillary Clinton's Vice-President, as he can do plenty more good for himself and for his ideology, in his present position as a senator, than as a Vice President to a strong President.
There is no question that Hillary Clinton would be a strong president. I think, though, that there is equally little question that Obama would be the same. Either one would be able to get particular things done and would fail to get other things done. Hillary though, would make a great Top Advisor type to a sitting president, a spectacular two headed foreign policy delegation (her and Bill that is), and would still be vigorous enough to be a great Vice President-to-President candidate at the end of eight years.
But unfortunately a top advisor to Senator Obama has made inflamatory statements about Senator Clinton, so that might become a problem, ego-wise that I, unfortunately did not really think we would get down to. I guess I can still hope this will come to be seen as a 'water under the bridge' event, but I'm not sure Hillary Clinton is a 'water under the bridge' sort of person.
There is no question that Hillary Clinton would be a strong president. I think, though, that there is equally little question that Obama would be the same. Either one would be able to get particular things done and would fail to get other things done. Hillary though, would make a great Top Advisor type to a sitting president, a spectacular two headed foreign policy delegation (her and Bill that is), and would still be vigorous enough to be a great Vice President-to-President candidate at the end of eight years.
But unfortunately a top advisor to Senator Obama has made inflamatory statements about Senator Clinton, so that might become a problem, ego-wise that I, unfortunately did not really think we would get down to. I guess I can still hope this will come to be seen as a 'water under the bridge' event, but I'm not sure Hillary Clinton is a 'water under the bridge' sort of person.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Florida
So, I guess one of the reasons I haven't been posting lately is that I feel like I don't have much to write about right now. But I know I ought to put a little down every now and then anyways just to keep this thing from going stale. Also I know its good for an aspiring writer to write a little bit every day in order to sharpen his or her skills, and I've never been good at disciplined daily anything, so I'm tryin hard to get into this as a habit.
Anyways, I'm on family vacation in Florida, my first time ever in this state, which is exciting. Aside from one of my sister's softball tournaments in Tennessee, I've never been to the south. And I know the peninsula isn't really very southern (I've heard that the farther south you go in Florida the farther north you go in perspective) but still, it was pretty dern cool to get off the plane to find the baggage handlers all talking to each other in Creole!
I'm serious, I swear. I honestly couldn't believe it myself. It didn't seem possible at first. I figured it must be Spanish and they were Cubans, but no, it really was Creole. Other than that, everything about Ft. Lauderdale has seemed completely sterile, just like every other place in the country, but just that little flash of authenticity was really cool.
Tomorrow we're gonna go to Little Havana in Miami, which should be just a bit more unique, but so far, the Miami 'burbs are just like the DC 'burbs, Long Island, Moorpark, or Downers Grove. More black people I guess, but I only notice that because there aren't any black people in California. Well, none outside Richmond and Compton anyways.
So I'm gonna go. I'll try to write about Calle Ocho before bed tomorrow, but who knows if I'll have the will. Peace and Love all.
Anyways, I'm on family vacation in Florida, my first time ever in this state, which is exciting. Aside from one of my sister's softball tournaments in Tennessee, I've never been to the south. And I know the peninsula isn't really very southern (I've heard that the farther south you go in Florida the farther north you go in perspective) but still, it was pretty dern cool to get off the plane to find the baggage handlers all talking to each other in Creole!
I'm serious, I swear. I honestly couldn't believe it myself. It didn't seem possible at first. I figured it must be Spanish and they were Cubans, but no, it really was Creole. Other than that, everything about Ft. Lauderdale has seemed completely sterile, just like every other place in the country, but just that little flash of authenticity was really cool.
Tomorrow we're gonna go to Little Havana in Miami, which should be just a bit more unique, but so far, the Miami 'burbs are just like the DC 'burbs, Long Island, Moorpark, or Downers Grove. More black people I guess, but I only notice that because there aren't any black people in California. Well, none outside Richmond and Compton anyways.
So I'm gonna go. I'll try to write about Calle Ocho before bed tomorrow, but who knows if I'll have the will. Peace and Love all.
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