October 2004

Maandelijks archief.

The Revolution Will Not be Blogged* (with apologies to Gil Scott-Heron)

Gepost door RBL op 27/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

You will not be able to stay at home, my friend.
You will not be able to boot up, burn on, and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on meth and e.
Skip out for cocktails while the drivers run,
Because the revolution will not be blogged.

The revolution will not be blogged.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Monster.com
In daily postings without pop-up ads.
The revolution will not show you pictures of George II
Landing a jet and leading a charge by John Ashcroft, General Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld
to eat falafel confiscated from a Baghdad mosque.
The revolution will not be blogged.

The revolution will not be brought to you by CNN
And will not star Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson or Bart and Lisa.
The revolution will not add two inches.
The revolution will not give you 20% off toner cartridges
The revolution will not be low carb,
because the revolution will not be blogged, my friend.

There will be no QuickTime of you and Dennis Kucinich
Marching on the Supreme Court at a dead run
Or trying to buy tickets on the last plane to Montreal
NBC will surely not be able to predict the winner at 8:32
Or post live from Broward County.
Because the revolution will not be blogged.

There will be no pictures of Homeland Security rounding up
The “insufficiently swarthy” in instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Lynndie England smirking
at a raghead’s manhood while smoking her Kool.
There will be no pictures of Howard Dean
Being run out of DC on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no streaming video of John Edwards
Strolling through a mill-town in a liberation Zegna tie
He had been saving for just the proper occasion.

Daily Kos, Jesus’s General, and the Drudge Report
Will no longer be so damned relevant, and
Women will not care if Carrie finally marries Mr. Big
Because we will be in Vancouver looking for a brighter day.
The Revolution will not be blogged.

There will be no highlights on The Onion’s Tuesday issue,
And no pictures of a bulging jacket or Teresa Heinz telling a reporter to shove it.
The theme song will not be written by Fleetwood Mac or Francis Scott Key,
nor sung by Garth Brooks, Natalie Maines, Johnny Cash, J Lo, or the FuGees.
The Revolution will not be blogged.

The revolution will not be “under construction” with
Banner ads about dvds in your mailbox, mp3s downloadable now, or iTunes.
You will not have to worry about bandwidth, dial-up, or the power of the chip.
The revolution will not be Intel inside.
The revolution will not be in a chat room.
The revolution will not put you on the information superhighway.

The revolution will not be blogged, will not be blogged, will not be blogged, will not be blogged.
There will be no real validation, my friend;
The revolution will be live and in person.

*Andy Sullivan, you can kiss my ass. Only wait, let me down my latte first. Yeah, go fuck yourself, you establishment suck-up.

P.S., Back about six months ago, Mother Jones had an article using this same title. I did not read it until today. Mr. Packer does make some interesting points — i.e., bloggers as the new pamphleteers, the blogosphere as being “where the claustrophobic effect of the echo chamber and the hall of mirrors is at its most intense, where the reverberations of trivialities last far longer than in print or on TV.” But his ultimate critique, as I read it, is the following: blogging is inadequate to the task of covering a “real” election, with “characters” and “ideological conflict” and “stories of real people,” and is especially inadequate in comparison with print and TV.

Maybe. Considering the cravenness of CNN lately (just to pick on one offender), I find his faith in the adequacy of “traditional” journalism naive at best.

That said, however intoxicating the new electronic cafe society may be, it cannot produce a revolution, nor even a fair-to-middling revolt. Revolutions, as anyone who has studied the damn things should know, emerge from the collapse of the control over central state power. If we’re gonna fuck with George II, we need to get the real power elite on our side (the generals, the political directorate, the heads of the major corporations. In other words, Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili, Porter Goss and Joe Biden, and Bill Gates and George Soros). Otherwise, to go back to Mr. Packer, we’re all just a bunch of very bright young men in neat blue shirts who never leave our rooms, “the glow from the screen reflecting in our glasses as we sit up at 3:48 a.m. triumphantly tapping out our third rejoinder to the WaPo’s press commentary on Tim Russert’s on-air recap of the Wisconsin primary.” And if that isn’t a polite way of saying “circle jerk” I don’t know what is.

Newsflash
Commander Plaza Seriously Injured in Bandwagon Accident

Gepost door Guinness op 21/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

Commander Plaza, formerly of Boston and lately of New York City, was reportedly in serious condition following a massive bandwagon accident in New York. Many others were also injured.

New York officials seemed confused about the incident and declined to comment at this early time for this story. Boston officials, however, seemed eager to talk, saying, “I hate to be so cold and blunt, but what did he expect, jumping on a bandwagon of that size?”

When asked if the city of Boston will come to his aid, a spokesman for the Mayor’s office said, “we try and maintain a strict no-bandwagon policy within the city limits. I’m afraid we’ll be unable to allow bandwagons or those who choose to ride them,” adding, “I think Miami has come out as being pro-bandwagon, so the Commander might consider a move in the near future.”

The word from the Commander’s advisors is that they are keeping all of their options open at this point, but will wait for the current wounds to heal before making a final decision.

Busy, busy!

Gepost door RBL op 20/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

So I’m feeling too overwhelmed. Overwhelmed with the fact that 48% of the electorate clings to the belief that Bush is somehow a decent human being, a compassionate man, a guy you could have a beer with of a Sunday evening after you’ve gone to church and maybe played a little night baseball, the kind of man who intends to lead this country toward something other than a Randian-Hobbesian war of all-against-all where corporations rape the land, enslave our brothers and sisters, and pillage the public treasury.

Did I mention I’m feeling a little overwhelmed?

Overwhelmed by the fact that the local paper – that fucking fishwrap rag – even when it deigns to acknowledge the fact that there might be a little, just a few isolated cases mind you, stealing of yard signs going on, it bends over backwards to say that it’s something that happens “every year,” that it’s probably just “bored teenagers,” and in any case it’s affecting “both sides.” BULLSHIT. Hundreds and hundreds of yard signs have been looted, wholesale, from entire neighborhoods – every weekend for over a month now. That’s not “bored teenagers,” that’s the work of organized brownshirts. And who did they talk to to find a Republican whose sign had been stolen? The head of the county party. I suppose I believe her. I suppose it’s conceivable that there’s actually one Democrat out in fucking Grapevine dumb enough to give the Republicans an excuse to claim equal protection. Meanwhile, you have to get to the end of article to find the rather endearing anecdote about the couple who witnessed a “bored teenager” attack their sign with a baseball bat and then return with a paintball gun for a “just kids playing pranks!” drive-by. Who might they talk to to find a Democrat whose sign has been stolen, vandalized, ripped to shreds, and then stolen again? At least five my colleagues here in the department. At least half a dozen members of the Stonewall Democrats. Who might they talk to to find a Democrat whose car bumper stickers had been vandalized? Moi.

Yeah, feeling just a little beleaguered right about now.

Meanwhile, thanks to Io’s sharp eye, I find that Pat Robertson, of all people, warned George II that there would be “casualties” in the Iraq War. Our “steadfast” “strong” and “determined” leader’s response? “We’re not going to have any casualties.” 1100 dead and counting, baby. But, hey, I guess that living in La-La “shock and awe” “catastrophic success” fucking Wonderland is better than what his subordinates – Doug “Faith”, Fulfie Wolfie, Donny “Manly Man” Rumsfeld, Dicky-Dicky Yank-Your-Chain – are effectively saying. To wit, since the ragheads are making the terribly short-sighted mistake of seeing us as “occupiers” (how dare they! We liberated them!), we have no choice but to bomb safe houses and wedding parties and women and children. After all, to quote some fucking Frog: Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoset.*

Boy will I be glad when this is all over. Then I can go back to my precious little illusion of believing that those who voted for George II might, in some way I have yet to grasp, be reasonable and rational human beings, maybe even nice people, with whom I have the pleasure of sharing the citizenship of this great nation, and with whom I have the incredible privilege of debating every four years the direction, purpose, and leadership of our proud government. Instead of the grass-roots shock-trooper swine of the fascist new order they appear to me to be at this precise moment.

*That would be Arnaud-Armaury, abbot of Citeaux. As you will no doubt recall, he was the papal legate to the armies sent to put down the Catharist heresy. Having successfully besieged the city of Beziers (pop. approx. 20,000), that twit of a general Simon de Montfort had the temerity to point out that there might be honest Catholics mixed up among all those god-cursed Albigensenes. In reply to which Arnaud, wittily appropriating a fragment of 2 Timothy 2:19, ordered a general massacre, as God would surely know His own.

Never saw that one coming…

Gepost door RBL op 15/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

So evidently I wasn’t the only one who picked up on the fact that Kerry is “standing athwart history yelling stop!” while Bush is trying to radically change the way we run this country.

I would do a link to the Wall Stree Journal’s main editorial, but too bad the bastards make you pay…

It’s always oddly refreshing to me when I realize that there are in fact conservatives out there with whom I can at least agree on the facts, if not on what to do about them. At least they’re not living in OppositeLand like George II.

I Was Wrong…

Gepost door RBL op 14/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

So the debates – or at least the second two – kinda sorta, in a loopy and screwed-up way, actually did point up some differences between the two candidates. But the fact that one has to deconstruct* — actively and aggressively — their statements in order to translate them into some kind of comprehensible language still makes me want to scream.

So, what are the differences on domestic issues? Well, let’s see…

On Abortion
Kerry is: Pro-Choice and proud of it.
Bush is: Pro-Life, and wants to get rid of Roe v. Wade, but willing to fudge a little in public to save face with moderates.

On Affirmative Action
Kerry says: Keep as is.
Bush says: Get rid of it.

On Gay Rights
Kerry favors: Civil Unions and anti-discrimination laws.
Bush opposes: Civil Unions and anti-discrimination laws.

On Social Security
Kerry supports: Tinkering around the edges, but keeping the system basically as it is.
Bush supports: Phasing in privatization.

On Health Care
Kerry suggests: Moving toward a universal, single-payer system.
Bush suggests: Doing nothing substantive vis-à-vis rising costs and shrinking access.

On “Tort Reform”
Kerry: Realizes that this is demagoguery, proposes basically doing nothing.
Bush: Realizes that this is demagoguery, proposes this as a false solution to rising costs.

On Taxes
Kerry wants: To soak the rich – or at least go back to where we were four years ago in terms of our lame-ass excuse of a progressive tax structure.
Bush wants: Trickle-down economics; get rid of taxes on wealth, capital gains, investments, and corporate income and in general lower taxes for the rich.

On the Minimum Wage
Kerry proposes that we: Raise it.
Bush proposes that we: Keep as is.

On Jobs (i.e., deindustrialization and off-shoring)
Kerry is disposed to: Tinker around the edges, subsidize R&D, but basically hope that Adam Smith is right and that free trade benefits everyone eventually.
Bush is disposed to: Encourage it. Hope that Adam Smith is right, but in the meantime help corporations cash in on the process as much as possible.

On the environment
Kerry argues that we should: Tinker around the edges, but basically keep on keepin’ on with what Clinton was doing.
Bush argues that we should: Gut the EPA, clear-cut the West, fuck the Clean Air Act, screw global warming, and rape the Alaskan oil fields.

On Vouchers
Kerry advises: Keeping the system as is; i.e., he opposes them (partly because they will destroy teachers’ unions, but mostly because they will steadily erode the “public” in public education).
Bush advises: Nationalizing them (partly because they will destroy teachers’ unions, but mostly because they will steadily erode the “public” in public education).

In sum? I suppose there are many ways to summarize the above table, but what’s striking to me is how in most areas Kerry is for the status quo, while in most areas Bush is the radical. Funny how that works out, doesn’t it?

*Alas, poor Jacques, we hardly knew ye. Especially since I never had the balls to crank-call your UC-Irvine office like I promised Alex.

Cheney, Peak Oil, and tinfoil hats

Gepost door THM op 07/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

First: put on your tinfoil hat before reading the rest of this entry. I’m veering a little into RBL’s territory here, but there is a connection to my usual topics.

Perhaps the principle premise of the war in Iraq was that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction he was ready to unleash upon the West or give to terrorists. We now know that there were no WMDs in Iraq, and the question arises: did Cheney and Wolfowitz and the rest actually believe that there were WMDs, or did they have other reasons to attack Iraq? I will explore here the second possibility: that the war really is not about WMDs, but about oil.

Suppose, that is, that the peak oil doomsayers are correct, and further suppose that Dick Cheney, et al. know this. The question I’d like to pose is: what should the administration’s response be?

The peak oil arguments go roughly like this: the world has collectively used approximately half of the oil that has ever existed in the world, and because of the realities of the extraction of any natural resource, the production rate will soon irreversibly decline. The demand for oil will soon surpass the ability to produce it, and the price will climb up and up and never look back. The era of cheap oil will be over by the end of the decade, and who knows what will come after that.

The patron saint of peak oil is M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist who in 1956 correctly predicted that American oil production would peak in the early 1970s and decline after that. Hubbert was roundly denounced at the time, but his prediction was exactly right. Modern analysts, like Colin Campbell, also a petroleum geologist, apply Hubbert’s methods to global oil supplies and come to the grim conclusion that the peak is nigh.

I do not want to go through the peak oil evidence and discussion here in this column; it has been well-enough covered in the links I’ve supplied (that’s what Hyperlinks are for, isn’t it?). Two notable books on the subject are Colin Campbell’s The Coming Oil Crisis and Kenneth Deffeyes’s Hubbert’s Peak, neither of which, I admit, I have read. And I myself have not decided on the extent to which I believe their warnings. But one thing I am convinced of: we do not actually have to run out of oil for there to be a crisis.

Discussion of peak oil has largely been confined to a small group of doomsayers. At first glance, their dire warnings remind me of the Y2K doomsayers, and we all know what a catastrophe that turned out to be. But peak oil has been gaining some traction in mainstream media: NPR has reported on it, and so has National Geographic.

And what about Dick Cheney? Recall that for several years, he was CEO of Halliburton, which provides services to the oil industry. He has as much access to inside information on the state of the world’s petroleum supply as anyone. We can peer into his assessment of the world energy situation by looking at a speech he made at the Institute of Petroleum in 1999. Doomsayers can find plenty of hints in this speech that indicate all is not well, but I will focus on one statement, that the world will need to produce 50 million more barrels per day by 2010. If you took the world oil consumption rate in the few years before his speech–I used 1994 to 1998–and extrapolate to 2010, you get 97 million barrels per day. (Note: linear extrapolation is terribly abused as a prediction-making tool. I’m not trying to make a prediction here, I’m just trying to follow Cheney’s logic.) And in 1998, production was at about 75 million barrels per day. So it’s not just that demand in 2010 will be up by 22 million barrels/day compared to 1998–he’s also recognizing that of the current supplies, 28 million barrels per day are going to vanish, and will need to be replaced, simply to maintain 1998 production levels.

Currently, world production is about 80 million barrels per day, of which the US share is about 20 million. There has been no catastrophic shock in oil production, but we’ve also seen that the world’s oil producers are struggling to keep production up at the current levels. There’s virtually no reserve production capacity.

So one wonders what transpired at Cheney’s secret energy policy meetings at the beginning of his term of office. Recall that both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush have declared that “The American Way of Life is not negotiable.” And the dependence of this way of life on cheap oil goes far beyond the obvious implications for the drive-everywhere suburban lifestyle–the entire economy of commerce is at stake.

So, if world production is going to fall, but worldwide demand is going to continue to grow (and not just here, but perhaps more significantly, in rapidly industrializing places like China), what will we need to do to maintain the American Way of Life? What will we need to do to keep and grow our 20 million barrels of oil per day? If not outright invasions and occupation of the major oil-rich countries, do we not at least need a strong military presence amongst them, with which to threaten any country that might think about selling more of its oil to China and less to us?

Then I further ask: for everyone who would have supported the war if the WMD story turned out to true, but who is disgusted by the lie and the mess it has got us into: would the war be justified if the world oil situation was as I have described? Are billions of dollars and a thousand American lives not small prices to pay for the freedom to drive whatever and whenever and wherever we want? (The thousand or so lives lost so far is equivalent, incidentally, to about two percent of the lives lost on our roads each year. Nobody questions whether these 50,000 deaths each year are worth it.)

This possibility does make one cringe upon seeing bumper stickers with slogans like “war is not the answer” or “no war for oil,” especially if these bumper stickers are affixed to SUVs. Because with bumper stickers, you have to drive to get your message out. And, as James Howard Kunstler notes, if you want to keep driving everywhere in the post-peak-oil era, war is the answer.

It is interesting to observe the way in which the peak-oil writers’ worldviews are reflected in their visions for a post-oil future. Some predict endless war and chaos. Some predict a return to a simpler, and perhaps ultimately more fulfilling, life. Some harbor a perverse hope that the real crisis will begin as soon as possible, so that all the ugly suburban sprawl built around the automobile will suddenly become far less practical that it is today.

As I have mentioned, I have not yet decided the extent to which I believe the peak oil scenarios; I don’t have an opinion as to whether the peak is occuring right now, whether it will occur in 5 years or 45 years or 145 years. But the possibility that the supply of oil is about to get a lot less stable is one more reason to work at building livable, walkable communities, in which driving is one of several transportation options, and never a necessity.

Why I hate the debates

Gepost door RBL op 05/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

I know for a fact that other people have said what I am about to say with greater detail and nuance. But like someone (Liza? Barbra? Bette? Carol? Ethel?) said, “this is my song!” (oh, hell, that was Sibelius, wasn’t it?).

So, I was honing this big rant on John Kerry’s lack of charismatic appeal, when the first debate happened. And lo and behold, John-Boy hit one out of the ballpark and showed us what a strong and decisive leader he really is while George II came off as a weak and bumbling fool.

This is precisely why I have come to hate the debates, and why I fear the power they have over the electorate. But first, let me start with the main good thing about the debates:

Along with a bunch of other amateur pundits, I suspect that a big part of Kerry’s improvement in the polls after the debate stems from the simple fact that the electorate finally got to see him “in action.” This allowed them to judge his “character” and “leadership qualities.” Before this point, the vast majority of folks had had only television ads, pathetically non-analytical news stories, and the Ionescoesque absurdity of the conventions. But after the debate voters were able to judge “for themselves” whether or not this is the kind of guy they want as the leader of the free world. The American people have had four years to watch George II in action. But up until now only the good people of Massachusetts and those old enough to remember/care about Kerry’s testimony before Congress on Vietnam, have had the opportunity to really “get to know the man,” as it were. And inasmuch as the debates provide probably the only forum outside of physical rallies for that sort of individual judgment to happen, they are probably a good thing.

But that’s still a major problem, and here’s why: when people judge debate performance, their judgment is, by necessity and by design, based on the most superficial of criteria. Like, who’s taller. Or, who repeats themselves so many times they sound dumb rather than “on message.” Or, who sweats. Or who, in the heat of the moment, says things like “moolahs” instead of “mullahs” (hey, maybe George is planning on bombing all the Shriners hospitals next, since bombing Samarra and Mosul obviously hasn’t done a whole helluva lot except kill a bunch of women and children. So why waste time and money doing it overseas when you can kill children in Mooslim-funded “safe houses” right here in America!).

This superficiality of judgment is necessary because that is what a debate involves. It involves fluency of speech, gravity of carriage, quick-witted cleverness with a riposte and a bon mot. Though heaven help you if you actually use French idioms. Then you just sound like, well, a poseur – oops, I mean poser – and bourgeois – oops, I mean Brahmin – oops, I mean, oh hell, what do I mean? Anyway, we certainly can’t have any of that in a leader. Speaking Spanish to my friend Vinny down Mayhiko way is one thing, but speaking French? That’s getting all Intercontinental and stuff, you know?

Maybe it also involves a far-reaching grasp of “the issues,” but if last week’s debate was any indication, the last thing people remember from the debate is who stood where on that hot-button dinner-table issue of whether or not we’re going to talk to Kim Jong Il mano a mano (oops, there I go again slipping into furin jargon!). So it’s not even that the candidates are supposed to sit there and spell out where they stand on each issue, it’s that they’re supposed to present an image that they have a position on each issue and can fluently, hard-headedly debate that issue with the other guy should the need arise. Because that’s what a debate is – disagreement. Even when the other guy basically happens to agree with you.

But it’s not just the fact that debates are ritualized duels where we gauge a candidate’s performative stagecraft as being somehow related to their ability to lead a country. It’s that everybody works to make it as superficial as possible. Take the first debate: it was on foreign policy, right? Tell me, gentle reader, aside from the above-mentioned North Korea example, what are the substantive differences between the two candidates on foreign policy?*

Hmm? Go ahead, I’m listening. Is it,

a.) The doctrine of pre-emptive war?
b.) The need for allies in cleaning up the mess we’ve made in Iraq?
c.) The need to say publicly that something – anything – ought to be done about the genocide in Darfur (of course, actually doing something is quite another question, especially since all of our troops are tied up at the moment)? Or
d.) Whether Saddam was a bad, bad, man who ought to have been removed from power?

What differences exist between Kerry and Bush on foreign policy are differences of style, not substance; past performance vs. future expectations; differences of “more of the same” versus “let’s try my plan, which is new and improved more of the same!”

Let me be quite clear here: I am quite confident that Kerry will stand head-and-shoulders above Bush as a leader. That he will do a magnificently better job of handling our current commitments overseas (and at home). But if you were sitting on Mars, and had no personal stake in the outcome of the debate, you would be very hard-pressed to define what it was, exactly, that differentiated these two men except for height, fluency, and carriage. So instead it comes down to judging who says “uhm” too many times.

Even when we get to the domestic policy debates on Friday (or tonight, with the Dick and Johnny Jr. show), where we might hope to see some actual policy differences on things like abortion, gay rights, environmental protection, tax cuts, hell, maybe Bush will even trot out the death penalty for good measure. Even then, guess what it will boil down to? Whether or not Kerry is “consistent” and Bush is “manly,” whether Dick is in his Jekyll or his Hyde persona or whether Johnny Jr. says “my daddy was a millhand!” one too many times.

I mean, let’s be honest here: no one’s mind is changed on policy by listening to the debate, no one learns anything new about positions; what we get is the showmanship, the powerpoint/bullet-point/60-seconds-to-pitch presentation. What we get is a sense of the candidate’s “character,” his “leadership,” his “values.” And especially on domestic issues, where we might get just a little disagreement, what we get instead is the candidates finding the perfect phrase to frame their policy on a purely affective, hippocampal, sub-rational level to appeal to as many people as possible: “compassionate conservative” and “tax relief” and “the era of big government is over” and “opportunity for middle-class families” and “the death tax” and “let’s restore decency to the White House.” Because the last thing the candidates want to do right now is alienate the coveted “swing voter.” So they move to the middle, stake out a position that overlaps significantly with the opposition, highlight different buzzwords, and then give the whole package their best carnival pitch.

By necessity the debates present the image of disagreement even when there isn’t any, and by design the debaters make shallow and stupid those issues that might turn off moderates.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us in a profoundly non-democratic space. Because the essence of democracy is that citizens vote their interests. But when the most powerful instrument of the election is a fucking elocution contest devoid of substance, voters are taught not to vote their interests. They are taught to vote for the pretty guy, the manly man, the slick huckster.

This is why, even when John Kerry wiped the floor with Bush’s frat-boy shit-eating grin, I was only partially relieved. My guy may win on Nov. 2nd, but he won’t win because NASCAR dads have finally woken up to the fact that George II is picking their pockets, literally rewarding their bosses for firing them, liquidating their pensions, sending their brothers and sisters to die in the desert for a mistake, and putting mercury into the air their children breath and arsenic into the water their wives drink. No, my guy will win because he’s four inches taller than George.

I weep for my democracy.

* The lack of substantive difference between Kerry and Bush on foreign policy is not just a product of rush-to-the-middle will-it-play-in-Peoria moderation-in-all-things consultantese. It’s also a product of the fact that the real policy alternative (isolationism) has been a dead letter in this country since WWII.

Meanwhile, in other news…

Gepost door RBL op 05/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

Where is Osama Bin Ladin?

Why haven’t we heard jack shit from everybody’s favorite thug-boogeyman-evildoer in, like, weeks?

Just curious.

‘Cause, you know, I would hate for there to be an I-told-you-so October surprise coming up.

Thank God

Gepost door RBL op 01/10/2004
Toegevoegd onder: Uncategorized

Thank God Kerry fucking kicked Bush’s ass in the debate.

Thank God the debate didn’t turn into a “look who’s sighing now!” let’s-pay-attention-to-things-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-anything game of “gotcha!” Though Bush really did look like Alfred E. Neuman.

Thank God Kerry stayed on message: Bush Fucked Up.

Thank God Bush stayed on message; it came off as him having nothing new to say.

Thank God Jim Lehrer actually did his job, and moderated the debate. That said, it struck me somewhat curious that the only actual foreign policy differences between the two are that Bush favors multilateral talks while Kerry favors bilateral talks with North Korea. Now there’s a wedge issue.

You know what I’m most thankful for, though? I am most thankful that Kerry managed to make the debate about pragmatism (his own) and dogmatism (BushCo’s). It cuts right through the bullshit about “flip-flopping.” It’s not just that Kerry was cool and collected and Bush weak and stumbling. It’s not just that Kerry looked senatorial and Bush looked goofy. It’s that Kerry managed, quite effectively, to provide a reasonable alternative to Bush’s central campaign message of “stand tall,” “never waver,” “never question, “dissent is unpatriotic,” and “vote for me or DIE!”

Back to pounding the pavement for me…