Monday, August 21st, 2006

Factionalism Kills
This weekend Shi'ite Muslims attempted to attend ceremonies at the shrine of one of their holy men in Baghdad, but events where disrupted by fighting between Shia and Sunni. Said like that, it doesn't seem so bad. And that's more or less how US Government officials put it. What they didn't say, but every other news agency in the word did, was that 20 people died and gun fighting occurred throughout the day. All of the fighting was between Shia and Sunni. Consider this: Several thousand years ago, Jews split from everyone else. 1700 years ago or so, Christian split from Jews. 1200 years ago, Muslims split from Jews. A few hundred years ago, Catholics persecuted Protestants. Now and for many years in the past, Sunni war with Shia. I know I risk seeming chauvinistic, but it was only a few hundred years ago that this country decided to leave religion out of leadership. And look where we are now. In the US, there is no group with any kind of power waging war on another. There are violent incidents, surely, but we as a nation, regardless of any individual's background, put the sovereignty of our citizenship first when we condemn the perpetrators of such violence. And that's what it's going to take in the Middle-East. It's going to take a group of men and women with the courage to fight for tolerance, to fight for a truly free nation. Only if when you support that freedom of others can you call yourself free. I look forward to the day when Iraq and Iran and Lebanon and Syria can report on some religious nut foaming at the mouth on his radio show, longing for the bygone days of suicide bombers, and everyone in those countries, regardless of which faction they call their own, agree that he is, afterall, just a lunatic.

McCain on the March, Opportunists Follow
The 2008 election is past its morning sickness and is well into it's first trimester, with Senator John McCain grabbing up and building his support structure for a primary bid. Other hopefuls are following suit, but none have the momentum of McCain. This is good news, of a kind, for progressives, in that McCain, while a Republican of course and a conservative, is nevertheless not a Bush crony, nor even on the same page with Bush ona lot of policies. The midterm elections, obviously, will help see where the country wants to go in 2008. Landslides for democrats will confirm what the analysts say: that America is tired of the neocon abuse. A democratic takeover in close races will merely indicate that the past 6 years have woken more people up to politics in general, and that could mean 2008 goes either way. And therefore having a McCain as the frontrunner means that, even if Democrats can't take the Whitehouse, at least someone will eb in there who doesn't hate Americans as much as W et al seem to. Of course, if the republicans maintain control of the congress, and especially if they do so easily, you can rest assured a Dick Cheney type, if not Dickles himself, will be the Republican runner for 2008, and he'll probably win, and, in my opinion, we'll be that much closer to an honest-to-god lower-middle-class revolution in the coastal cities.

Welfare Reformed?
It was on the radio shows and in the paper, that we're at the 10 year mark on the new welfare. Is it better? Here's a different question: is the country better? The emphasis to shift welfare from a cash-handout to a temporary assistance seems to have worked in the country's favor. The legacy of an opposition congress working with a president seems to have worked well. The shift towards broader state self-control, with governors collectively acting to shape federal policy seems, to have worked well. And politically, the welfare reforms of '96 have withstood some of the attempted abuses by the present administration-- they have not privatized social security yet, and they are being forced to get their pension-plan policies ducks in a row. But there's still work to do. Many many welfare recipients who finally get jobs only get jobs at a minimum wage set, also, 10 years ago. And the tax burden on everyone else, to pay for social welfare, is (and was) miniscule-- but corporate welfare is still an enormous problem in the US. All said, I think yes, the country is better, but stills needs work. That's probably always going to be true, so let's use these successes as a template for more social issues.

Goodbye Gil (You Said You'd Go)
Remember, 12 years ago, when Newt brought the Contract With America to the scene, and used it to help the GoP win control of the congress? Its seems one beneficiary, and therefore a promoter of the contract, was Congressman Gil Gutknecht, of Minnesota. Gil made the news, or the gossip sheets at least, for twice, recently, trying to change his Wikipedia entry, removing, among other things, his claim from 11 years ago that he was self-limiting his time in the House to 12 years. I am quoting both Wikipedia and Al Franken when they quote Gil: "If I ever break this contract, throw me out." Yes, he's running again, but even that si in dispute-- rather than pay the $300 fee for getting on the ballot, Gil likes to go the petition route. You need 1000 signatures, but his opponent's say he didn’t get those signatures between July 4th and the 18th (the time period allotted for such signatures to be obtained) since he filed them on July 5th. So maybe he'll get thrown out, after all.

Nevermind Osama: Where's Our President?
This is a timeless article, since I am inspired to write as Bush is in Camp David again. W broke the record for most days spent on vacation as a president-- and that was back in 2005, with three years of office left to go. Since then, he's accumulated more than 365 days of vacation. With two years to go. For you or me, that would be 2 months off every year. Jimmy Carter only took 79 days off, which works out to about 3 weeks per year, and Bill Clinton only took 152 days, which is just short of 3 weeks per year. Wanna know who the previous record holder for most days off, before W? Reagan. So, the trend I am seeing: Democratic presidents stay at work, and don’t take us into expensive deadly pointless wars, while Republican presidents waste our money on wars, and do so from the comforts of their vacation homes. Nice. Here's my question-- what's the longest period of time W has spent without a vacation? How many vacations did he take while campaigning?