Tuesday, October 26, 2004

The silent minority

There is one group in the country, politically. The Repocrats. OK, so it really is two parties but they have melded together in an urgent need to gain votes from the other side.

This is bad. Very very bad. Why?

Because we have a country where people aren't voting for who they think will do the best job, but who they think will win. People aren't voting for who they think will do the best job, but who won't do the worst. People aren't voting for the best candidate, but the lesser of two evils.

Before I go on, I must say that this is sounding so typically third-party in terms of whininess, but they do have a point...a point which I have agreed with since 1996.

In America, we have an unofficial two-party system. Over time, these parties have changed, but rarely has a three party system survived in this nation. We have a winner-take-all system when it comes to everything. President gets elected in, but the losers get nothing except the right to grumble about the elected. If you are in the third party, you get nothing.

Recently, with the development of the neo-con, it has seemed that the Republicans (who have made mistakes since I can remember) are splitting off. But, with this election being so "important" (dictated by the media), everybody is afraid from deviating this year from their party. On the other hand, many people voting for either candidate actually associate themselves as libertarians. Why?

One person wrote, "I won't vote for the libertarians because of the nutjobs who generally run for office." This is a problem inherent in the system. It costs a lot of money to campaign. It costs even more to demand recognition if the media won't help. You have to be able to have a job after the election is over, and survive through the campaign trail. One would have to be crazy to spend millions on a campaign which has no government support, and which is doomed to lose anyways.

Another person wrote, "I hate to waste a vote on somebody who I know won't win." If everybody who said this actually voted for the person they thought should win, that person would probably have into the 10% margin. At that point, there would (hopefully) be much more media attention to the third party. Of course, that is idealism (we all know that the media is in the pockets of the DNC and RNC).

In this modern time, I hope everybody votes for who they think would do the best job. Who stands for what you think is important. Not what party you should stand for. Stop voting for Bush if he doesn't support your ideals. Stop voting for Kerry if he doesn't support your ideals. Stop voting against somebody. Start voting with your brains and your morals.

It is also time to revamp the system. We have been behind the times for far too long. Canada has a system where your vote for leader doesn't just go to that leader, but also to a chair in a section of their parlament. Maybe we should adopt a new system which upholds this style of election. Where people wouldn't be afraid of losing a vote. Where things might happen outside of the bipartisan method.

When you vote on Nov. 2nd, vote with your brain. Not with your anger.

Sideline punditry

Everybody knows about the Sinclair broadcasting hullabaloo. Here's what's going on from the other side.

2003 - ohGr - Majik - An industrial band releases an animatronic anti-Bush video.
Early 2004 - Sundance replays Robert Altman's HBO series Tanner '88, witten with Garry Trudeau, about a fictional presidential candidate's failed political campaign.
Mid 2004 - Another anti-Bush animatronic video (will get data by tomorrow)
May 2004 - Michael Moore releases the first in a flood of political documentaries which are just campaign commercials.
September 2004 - Sundance Channel replays Tanner '88.
September 2004 - Sundance Channel also picks up Al Franken's talk show.
October 2004 - Sundance plays several anti-Bush documentaries, including With God on Our Side, and The President Versus David Hicks
October 2004 - Eminem releases Mosh (Featured on Launch), another anti-Bush animatronic.
November 1st 2004 - Sundance plays the "un" trilogy, Unprecidented: the 2000 Presidential Election, Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War, and Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties, as well as Bush's Brain (about Karl Rove). In addition, it plays A Perfect Candidate, a movie about Oliver North's 2004 Senatorial bid.

From the middle:
HBO has been playing Diary of a Political Tourist, which is a fluffy yet evenly despising comedy about the candidates.

What was that about the Sinclair broadcasting system being biased? At least everybody recognizes Bush as an evil cartoon character.

Scylla and Charybdis

Given the extreme waffling in the electoral college polls, I have discovered that you can't trust any of them. However, Michigan is supposedly a strong Kerry supporter now, though Kerry is losing over all. One of the reasons is that The Detroit News, one of the conservative papers, has pulled its endorsement for President.

Yes, the Republicans are finally going against Bush in a conservative backlash against those bastard neo-cons. The big government "compassionate" (my ass) conservatives are ruining the nation, and The Detroit News has pulled its endorsement of Bush. They also are not endorsing Kerry. Some choice quotes:

The Detroit News will not lend its endorsement to a candidate who has made too many mistakes, nor to one who offers a governing philosophy that we reject.


Such bad management cannot be forgiven in a wartime president. At home, Bush has shocked us with his free-spending ways.


The president's record does not recommend him for re-election.


Thank God. Maybe we can pull some of the Republicans over to libertarians, or at least get a fiscally conservative candidate. Because, Goddammit, I will not vote for a President who does not support any of my ideals. I will not support a rock nor a hard place. I will transcend the two party system and back a candidate who I think will run the country in a better manner.

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Pandering to the LCD

Je suis un Mexicano. Je ne parle pas Espangole. Mais, dans l'ecole, j'ai apprendu le Francais.

I keep getting these fliers from the DNC telling me to vote for Kerry, only in French. I am torn between deciding whether I think its racist or not, since they are bilingual, half in Spanish, half in English. I'm also torn whether I think it is great for the DNC to be marketing to people who don't speak English since all of the campaigning is in English.

I have decided I didn't like it though. It makes assumptions.

To date, the RNC hasn't sent me any fliers.

Frightening Politics

Chris Madden, a Bush Cheney Spokesman, commenting on the flu vacciene emergency, "We know that they listen to the facts. The reason for the shortage is because John Kerry and his friends support people to have the right to sue doctors...They won't listen to rhetoric -- Kerry pounding his fist on the table."

There are two things going on, if you didn't catch that:

1) Unintentional hilarity. Talk about irony, Madden's "rhetoric" line takes the cake, and he said it without any semblance of a sense of humor.

2) Horror. This is a prime example of why we don't need tort reform. If not for the fear that we could sue the doctors, the doctors and, more importantly, the drug manufacturers would screw us over ever chance they could get, including giving us contaminated vaccienes.

---------------------------------------

Fox & Friends also showed the video of Ann Coulter getting attacked by pies. That was the most hilarious video ever. Then the comments by the newspeople were hilarious too. They kept going on about how dangerous it all was. Pies...pies were dangerous.

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Who I should vote for

http://www.selectsmart.com/president

1. Your ideal theoretical candidate. (100%) Click here for info
2. Badnarik, Michael - Libertarian (77%) Click here for info
3. Cobb, David - Green Party (59%) Click here for info
4. Nader, Ralph - Independent (59%) Click here for info
5. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (59%) Click here for info
6. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (57%) Click here for info
7. Brown, Walt - Socialist Party (49%) Click here for info
8. Clark, Retired General Wesley K., AR - Democrat (48%) Click here for info
9. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol, IL - Democrat (44%) Click here for info
10. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (42%) Click here for info
11. Kucinich, Rep. Dennis, OH - Democrat (41%) Click here for info
12. Gephardt, Rep. Dick, MO - Democrat (37%) Click here for info
13. Peroutka, Michael - Constitution Party (35%) Click here for info
14. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (34%) Click here for info
15. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (33%) Click here for info
16. Bush, President George W. - Republican (26%) Click here for info
17. Hagelin, Dr. John - Natural Law (25%) Click here for info
18. Lieberman, Senator Joe, CT - Democrat (21%) Click here for info

Palestinian Uprising in Michigan (or: Lecture Day)

Yesterday I filmed a lecture given by Don Matthews, an asst professor at Oakland University. He gave a lecture here in the Middle East Speaker Series, put on by the college, and headed by Randy Schwartz. The lecture was titled, "Palestine, Israel, and the Origins of a Conflict." Matthews has visited Jerusalem annually, including in August.

The Speaker series is normally around 2pm on Wednesdays, but yesterday was different. It was on Tuesday and at 3pm, or so. There were fewer people there than normal (though more people than the first lecture I filmed) and in the audience were four Palestinian supporters, two of whom had the grammar and accent to have actually been from the area. Of the other two, one was a young kid with ghetto stylings, and the other was an older guy who had fish eyes and strong-ass glasses.

Matthews' lecture was surprisingly even-handed. He placed equal blame on the Israelis as on the Palestinians, or he did as much as possible. He went through the history of the area from pre-Roman era through the diaspora, the regions name, and its occupational changes.

For those of you who don't know the history, I'll give you a brief recap. Palestinians were the name of a group of indiginous people pre-Roman era. Not necessarily the people who are Palestinian Arabs though. They disappeared during the Roman occupation, and spread out. After the destruction of Jersualem and Israel, the area was named Palestine.

Palestine was always named Palestine throughout its occupations, though generally as a provencial-type name. It went through independence, occupation by the Ottoman Empire, British Mandate, and now Israel again.

Around the time of WWI, or just before, there were no Zionist Jews in the area, as most were nationalist for Palestine. The Zionists decided to take over the land, and ended up going from 35,000 to 450,000 population in a relatively short amount of time. The Brits promised the Jews a section to call their own, but not necessarily a state. The Arabs rose up against the Zionists before this time because they saw them as taking over the land (which they were). The Zionists were also not being friendly to the Arabs at this portion, killing many who didn't submit. Post WWII, the Brits finally leave the land because they were tired of the Zionists demanding control of the land, and the Arabs fighting over it.

They then left Israel in the hands of the Jews. There was a war which broke out, launched by the Arabs, against Israel by the five nations, and Israel lost 1% of its population suppressing the uprising. Then, in a combo move, the Arabs were simultaneously driven out and fled to become refugees in foreign lands.

Then, we fast forward and skipped over the Six Day war, of which Matthews said one of the scariest things possible (and it was also of the reugees too), "The history on that is still being written." Israel was the first to use arms, but Egypt had blockaded a river. Either way, this is the Gaza Strip and the West Bank areas.

At the present time, Egypt is at a formal peace with Israel, though they may be hostile otherwise.

After the lecture, this is where things got a bit hairy. The four Palestinian sympathizers decided to go rabid and make this a pro-Palestine source, and/or thought that Matthews was somebody who commented for Israel. He was, actually, very even handed. They started asking the most pointed questions and cutting him off before he got a chance to finish his statements.

Lord knows that I am not an Israeli sympathizer, but this guy was no expert. He was giving a foundation for the conflict, and these four fuckheads started going on about Ariel Sharon and recent events:

Fucktard 1: What do you see the war as...
Matthews: *gobbeldy gook* and Sharon's use of targeted killings...
Fucktard 1: targeted Killings, you mean assassinations?
Matthews: Yes, targeted killings, assassinations, whatever term you want to use for extralegal killing
Fucktard 1: But, here, isn't asassinations illegal?
Matthews: Yes, that's what extralegal means, outside of the law.
Fucktard 1: But, doesn't that
Matthews: Well, Sharons, if you'll let me finish my point, excuse me...

It was almost embarassing how pointed the questions were when he was trying to mak an even-handed point. If I had a beer for every time one of these fucktards had a personal story, I would have passed out. "They only gave us a tank of water on Tuesdays and Thursdays." "My grandfather was in the Jordanian army." "My foot hurts because of Israel." Shut the fuck up. If it wasn't for Israel, you wouldn't be in America, you fucktards.

Matthews handled as well as one could handle over-dominating cretins.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Kerry Ka-putnik

First debate not watched solo. First debate in which Kerry looked completely terrible compared to Bush. Crash and burn for the Kerry team.

Kerry, tonight, appeared tired and beat, almost as Bush did in the first debate. The surprising thing about that is that yesterday was Kerry's day off, while Bush was going around campaigning and practicing his debate speeches. Maybe Kerry should take a note, ebcause he might spend the however-many-days of Vacation that Bush did on some ranch.

Kerry had no viable plan for anything, he didn't show any strength whatsoever, his plans were non-existant, and his attacks were weak in origin. Bush, on the other hand, had facts (though infinitely repeated ones) coming out of his left ear (where he was probably wired), and appeared confident almost to the point of cockiness. My fellow viewers resorted to remarking on Bush's appearance, including such micromanagement issues as his tie.

I don't undertsnad why when the debates were still somewhat rollicking when they weren't dull as shit. In the opening pieces, I was rolling on the floor I was laughing so hard, but through most of it I was bored to tears I had heard the same spiel so many fucking times before. It was a campaign management on ice.

Best phrase:
Bush: "...Fiscal sanity..."

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Judaism is the greatest religion ever, and other ways to stay out of the government's reports

The Telegraph reports that Congress has just passed a new bil, and it is now before the President. The new bill adds discrimination against Jews to the American human rights watchdog list.

In another test of America's frayed relations with France, Russia and other allies, the US Congress has ordered the State Department to start rating governments throughout the world on their treatment of Jewish citizens.

The resulting report cards on anti-Semitism would be published in annual US surveys of human rights abuses around the world.


Maybe its just me, but this is favoritism in the highest regard. With all religious groups being discriminated against in various places all over the world (America against Muslims, Sudan against Christians and tribals, China against Buddhists and Falun Dafa practicers, the Middle East against Jews and athiests) we get to focus on one religion: Judaism. Why?

Well, first, this could be construed as yet another round of "Let's Kiss Ariel Sharon's Ass!" Protecting Jews would be sucking up to Sharon and trying to get him to like us more. Second, because Jews are still "the most victimized group in history," at least according to themselves and anybody else who believes them.

But, why is this bad? Why am I outraged? Let's look at a quote from the State Department:

A three-page State Department memorandum, leaked to The Telegraph yesterday, complained that congressional plans would throw US human rights reporting "out of balance", and "erode our credibility by being interpreted as favouritism in human rights reporting".


Besides the charges of favoritism and the way logic could easily lead to the Big Jew Conspiracy conclusion, this type of reporting does nothing for the US as an areligious being. It also is extremely biased in that it covers none of the other types of non-Judeo-Christian religions (or even a lack thereof). It is biased and pissy.

In addition to this, the favoritism (which is inherent in the bill) also leads us into more trouble with the Middle Eastern Muslim terrorist factions (and other countries), who already hate our support of Israel. It is just a lot of antagonism.

On top of this, this could also lead to more than a few countries' peoples who think this is biased to increase their anti-Semitism, thinking that the Jews think that they are so special.

This is a horrible and unnecessary bill, and I don't know how it passed Congress with major support from both sides. Oh, wait, yes I do (israel).

Monday, October 11, 2004

Going to jail for what you believe

Two interesting things happened recently.

Everybody's favorite liberal, Michael Moore, was going to be arrested and prosecuted for buying votes. He was going to give slackers clean underwear and ramen noodles for voting in the upcoming election. The Michigan GOP (fuck Michigan) decided that this was against the law and tried to prosecute, but the prosecuter said that this was not in his interest, and he would prefer to put the drug dealers and murderers behind bars.

Better yet is a case of an actual arrest. Badnarik and Cobb, Libertarian and Green presidential candidates respectively, were arrested at the Presidential debates on Friday. They were trying to serve papers to the debate commission, and crossed the police barricade attempting to do so. They were thus arrested.

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining - Judge Judy

In the most disgusting, degenerate, depraved display of a debate I have ever seen, our VP candidates have finally showed their true colors,

and

it

was

GLORIOUS!!!


Cheney and Edwards were at their snarkiest, their slickest, their most intense they could probably muster. And, that Edwards won most of the pissing contests in the most bitchy ways proves to me...that Edwards is gay and closetted.

Yes, folks, John Edwards is the gayest queen ever to run for government that I have ever seen. He was catty in the cattiest sense. He was bitchy, queeny, witty, and fun...trying hard not to retract his nails. He clawed Cheney a new asshole, even when Cheney tried to go on the offensive.

Best question of the night: What will you do to promote peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Best Answer of the night: Cheney's response to Israeli Palestinian conflict: "You should look at Edward's attendance record? And, at his voting record. For that matter, look at Kerry's matter."

Cheney was not nearly as calm and collected as he should have been. He has a proclivity for getting hot and riled under pressure, and he showed that in spades. When Edwards attacked Cheney as CEO of Halliburton, Cheney became so unraveled that I saw little puffs of smoke come out of his ears.

Thats not to say that Edwards was a glowing star for the whole night. He dodged questions much easier than Cheney, but he still dodged questions. The global test question popped up, and Edwards fell into the pit, not giving a viable interpretation which made him seem snake-ish as well, which he was. By the end, Edwards must have decided he didn't want to attack anymore. Even when he was avoiding the domestic AIDS queston, he didn't attack Bush's $15 billion for its red-tape, nor any of its limitations. The sleaziest part of the night, which also came courtesy of Edwards, was the Ohio campaigning "It takes 35 people in run the election here in Cleveland." It reminded me of Stephen Tyler shouting "HEYY ST. LOUIS" (Uh, we're in Springfield)

Cheney also managed to call several of Edwards' missed facts early on, and through some portions of the first half. Some of his data also didn't apply to the question at hand, as in the case of the Cleveland question. That the national jobs have gone up doesn't address that Cleveland and Detroit and us here in the rust belt style swing states have lost millions of jobs, and haven't got many back in the "upswing." Also, he didn't address the falling average wage, which had people with high paying jobs getting jobs back that paid a fraction of what they used to make.

Cheney was also flustered and tried to shake the piss off his cock onto Edwards at the end, but failed miserably. Edwards can use his adrenaline much better than Cheney can. This, to me, tells me he'd also be better than Cheney in negotiation situations than Kerry. He can stick it to people, and without flinching. He can also win some people over as well, if he was trying to get the people in the senate.

I think Cheney lost this one by a landslide. He was crusty, rough, angry, and miserable. Edwards was angry as well, but he seemed to have fun with the debate. It was this fun that made the debate enjoyable.

Then, again, I'm not the general public.

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