Sat, Sep 18 2004
A day in the life of Joe Republican
This is a post by Fishface on Democratic Underground. It's a great site, and reading this post just blew me away.
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat ! packing industry. In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune. Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification. He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives ! on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to. Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.
written by: Owlet at 05:40:35 PM | link comments
Fri, Sep 17 2004
How sad
The caption for this picture reads:
The Littlest Terrorist Dies....We're Safe Now!
Image found here.
written by: Owlet at 07:40:09 PM | link comments
Thu, Sep 16 2004
written by: Owlet at 07:39:56 PM | link comments
The spinworld of George W. Bush
If we've learned nothing else from this whole sorry episode it's that a President has enormous power to ignore reality and do whatever he damn well wants to do. (Or what God tells him to do). There's a whole pattern here of Bush and his bunch simply setting aside factual evidence as if it were just another 'opinion'. In this the Administration takes its cue (or maybe leads - take your pick) from the national media which gives facts and opinions equal weight without bothering to discover which is which.
In a society which tends to medicalize, there must be a psychological term for this condition of ignoring facts and reality in favor of some privately held view of how things should be, not what they are. Sure, it's self-delusion, but it goes a lot deeper than that.
written by: Owlet at 05:31:16 PM | link comments
US debates military strikes on 'nuclear' Iran
The Bush administration's warnings that it will not "tolerate" a nuclear-armed Iran have opened up a lively policy debate in Washington over the merits of military strikes against the Islamic republic's nuclear programme. Read the whole story here.
"On 11 September 2004 it was reported that the IAEA had requested a visit to Parchin, but the Iranians had not yet agreed to the inspection. The IAEA questioned whether Iran might be doing nuclear weapons work there. The agency had requested to send inspectors to Parchin, but this was not mentioned in the IAEA report on Iran published 01 September 2004.
One area at Parchin may be assessed as a "probable" nuclear weapons development facility. The extensive weapons development activity at the rest of the complex makes it an entirely logical location for weaponization work for Iran's atomic bomb program. The overall Parchin complex represents is the leading center of Iran's munitions industry, so a nuclear weapons program would already have all the expertise needed within commuting distance. The suspect site is physically isolated from the rest of the complex, suggesting that it is not part of the conventional ammo, poison gas or missile programs. The recent construction activity is also consistent with the recent construction activity at other parts of Iran's bomb program, and the recent completion is consistent with estimates of when Iran would get the bomb."
written by: Owlet at 05:22:12 PM | link comments
Wed, Sep 15 2004
Election Nightmare Scenarios - 2004
Joe Lenski, Executive Vice President of Edison Research, has written a bunch of nightmare scenarios for the presidential election of 2004.
Edison Research
and Mitofsky
International have formed a joint venture to conduct exit polls in all 50 states.ABC,
CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and The Associated Press announced they had reached
an agreement with Warren Mitofsky of Mitofsky International and Joseph Lenski of
Edison Media
Research. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The new consortium, called the National Elections Pool, has less than a year to build an exit polling system in time for the 2004 presidential primaries.
Some of the scenarios are truly bizarre - but possible nonetheless.
For example, in the not impossible situation of a tie vote in the Electoral College, the President is then selected by the House of Representatives and the Vice President by the Senate. "John Edwards would not have a chance to vote for himself for Vice President since his Senate term ends on January 3rd. However, John Kerry would still be a Senator and he could cast the deciding vote to make Edwards Vice President. We could possibly see the paradoxical situation where John Kerry casts the deciding vote to make Edwards Vice President while the House votes to re-elect George Bush President resulting in the ultimate form of divided government."
written by: Owlet at 07:31:54 PM | link comments
Update on AIPAC Spy Case
"Even as a lull in government leaks appears to be short-circuiting the media frenzy over the FBI's investigation of the pro-Israel lobby, sources with access to the Justice Department say the probe is moving forward.
Sources told the Forward that a federal grand jury is expected to begin interviewing people in connection to the investigation, which is believed to center on a Pentagon official suspected of passing on classified documents on to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Investigators reportedly suspect that Aipac officials passed on the information to Israel.
-----
Douglas Feith is the most obvious target for critics in the intelligence community and the State Department, as well as members of the Pentagon's senior brass, over the formation and execution of American policy in post-war Iraq. He is perceived by many as personifying the administration's alleged manipulation of prewar intelligence to create a compelling case for war. He is also perceived as being responsible for a series of mistakes in the ongoing effort to pacify Iraq after the military campaign to depose Saddam Hussein's rule had ended."
On the lighter side, visit Angry Alien.
written by: Owlet at 02:26:08 PM | link comments
Sun, Sep 12 2004
The Conservative Personality
This is an excerpt from a thread at Democratic Underground.
Conservatives don't feel the need to jump through complex, intellectual hoops in order to understand or justify some of their positions, he said. "They are more comfortable seeing and stating things in black and white in ways that would make liberals squirm," Glaser said.
He pointed as an example to a 2001 trip to Italy, where President George W. Bush was asked to explain himself. The Republican president told assembled world leaders, "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right." And in 2002, Bush told a British reporter, "Look, my job isn't to nuance."
Characteristics
•Religious dogmatism
•Right-wing political orientation (in Western society)
•Insistence on strict rules and punishments
•Ethnocentrism and intolerance of minority groups
•Preference for conventional art, clothing, and institutions
•Anti-hedonistic outlook (the tendency to regard pleasure, particularly sexual, as necessarily bad)
•Superstition and resistance to scientific progress (Boshier, 1983, p. 51)
The following is a series of statements or beliefs which can be attributed to the individual who manifests a conservative personality:
•Religion of a dogmatic and fundamental nature
•Commitment to political organizations which favor maintenance of the status quo (even by force)
•Strict regulation of individual behavior
•Militarism
•Preference for people of one’s own kind
•Resistance to change
•Conventional in art and clothing
•Refusal to accept new ideas
•Superstitious and fatalistic (Wilson, 1973)
Both Boshier and Wilson’s descriptors of the conservative personality were congruent with those of Nevitt Sandord, one of the original authors of the work on authoritarianism. Sanford discussed in detail the development of his research of the authoritarian personality, the ramifications of the concept of authoritarianism and updated the efforts from the time of the Original Work
Draw your own conclusions.
written by: Owlet at 11:22:02 AM | link comments