Thursday, November 18, 2004
The Depressed Democrats' Guide to Recovery
Friday, November 12, 2004
Ted Rall: Confessions of a Cultural Elitist
| By UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE/TED RALL Win or Lose, Kerry Voters Are Smarter Than Bush Voters |
Firstly, living in the sticks doesn't make you more American. Rural, urban or suburban--they're irrelevant. San Francisco's predominantly gay Castro district is every bit as red, white and blue as the Texas panhandle. But if militant Christianist Republicans from inland backwaters believe that secular liberal Democrats from the big coastal cities look upon them with disdain, there's a reason. We do, and all the more so after this election.
I spent my childhood in fly-over country, in a decidedly Republican town in southwest Ohio. It was a decent place to grow up, with well-funded public schools and only the occasional marauding serial killer to worry about. The only ethnic restaurant sold something called "Mandarin Chinese," Midwestese for cold noodles slathered with sugary sauce. The county had three major employers: the Air Force, Mead Paper, and National Cash Register--and NCR was constantly laying people off. Folks were nice, but depressingly closed-minded. "Well," they'd grimace when confronted with a new musical genre or fashion trend, "that's different." My suburb was racially insular, culturally bland and intellectually unstimulating. Its people were knee-jerk conformists. Faced with the prospect of spending my life underemployed, bored and soused, I did what anyone with a bit of ambition would do. I went to college in a big city and stayed there.
Mine is a common story. Every day in America, hundreds of our most talented young men and women flee the suburbs and rural communities for big cities, especially those on the West and East Coasts. Their youthful vigor fuels these metropolises--the cultural capitals of the blue states. These oases of liberal thinking--New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston--are homes to our best-educated people, most vibrant popular culture and most innovative and productive businesses. There are exceptions--some smart people move from cities to the countryside--but the best and brightest gravitate to places where liberalism rules.
Maps showing Kerry's blue states appended to the "United States of Canada" separated from Bush's red "Jesusland" are circulating by email. Though there is a religious component to the election results, the biggest red-blue divide is intellectual. "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" asked the headline of the Daily Mirror in Great Britain, and the underlying assumption is undeniable. By any objective standard, you had to be spectacularly stupid to support Bush.
72 percent who cast votes for George W. Bush, according to a University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and Knowledge Networks poll, believe that Iraq (news - web sites) had weapons of mass destruction or active WMD programs. 75 percent think that a Saddam-Al Qaeda link has been proven, and 20 percent say Saddam ordered 9/11. Of course, none of this was true.
Kerry voters were less than half as idiotic: 26 percent of Democrats bought into Bush-Cheney's WMD lies, and 30 percent into Saddam-Al Qaeda.
Would Bush's supporters have voted for him even if they had known he was a serial liar? Perhaps their hatred of homosexuals and slutty abortion vixens would have prompted them to make the same choice--an idiotic perversion of priorities. As things stand, they cast their ballots relying on assumptions that were demonstrably false.
Educational achievement doesn't necessarily equal intelligence. After all, Bush holds a Harvard MBA. Still, it bears noting that Democrats are better educated than Republicans. You are 25 percent more likely to hold a college degree if you live in the Democratic northeast than in the red state south. Blue state voters are 25 percent more likely, therefore, to understand the historical and cultural ramifications of Bush's brand of bull-in-a-china-shop foreign policy.
Inland Americans face a bigger challenge than coastal "cultural elitists" when it comes to finding high-quality news coverage. The best newspapers, which routinely win prizes for their in-depth local and national reporting and staffers overseas, line the coasts. So do the cable TV networks with the broadest offerings and most independent radio stations. Bush Country makes do with Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity syndicated on one cookie-cutter AM outlet after another. Citizens of the blue states read lackluster dailies stuffed with generic stories cut and pasted from wire services. Given their dismal access to high-quality media, it's a minor miracle that 40 percent of Mississippians turned out for Kerry.
So our guy lost the election. Why shouldn't those of us on the coasts feel superior? We eat better, travel more, dress better, watch cooler movies, earn better salaries, meet more interesting people, listen to better music and know more about what's going on in the world. If you voted for Bush, we accept that we have to share the country with you. We're adjusting to the possibility that there may be more of you than there are of us. But don't demand our respect. You lost it on November 2.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
The Choice + Richard Reeves: TO BEGIN WITH, THE PRESIDENT IS A FOOL
By Richard Reeves
NEW YORK -- John Kerry (news - web sites) is winning the presidential election -- as far as I can tell. I have already voted absentee and I voted for the Democrat. I voted for him because I have children and grandchildren, too, and I love my country too much to watch George W. Bush try to figure it out for four more years.
Biased? Of course. That's why I write this column: to share my bias. I am always amazed when I get letters, many of them, accusing me of being a "liberal" or, a lot worse, an "elitist." Yes, I am. Hello!
I also think that being president of the United States is an elite job. Don't you? What are we talking about here?
Yes, I am disappointed with the way Sen. Kerry has presented himself and his bias. But I am frightened by the thought of a Bush second term. I'll stick with my analysis of the man from Massachusetts as a rather humorless straight-A student. If you teach (and I do), Kerry is of a type, a smart guy who gets it all down, synthesizes it beautifully, and then tries to give you back what he thinks you want. The defining moment of his campaign, I thought, was his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was an A paper without a single original thought. I counted 15 lifts from archived presidential speeches, most of them by John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan (news - web sites).
My gripe with President Bush (news - web sites), who has risen above his Yale, Harvard and oil resume to become a man of the people, is that he is an incompetent man of the people. He's smart enough for an elite job, but he has lousy judgment, no sense of history and the dogmatic ways of the insecure. He is a fool, quoting Webster's first definition: "A person lacking judgment and prudence."
I find myself in absolute agreement with Kimberly Parmer, a lady from western Michigan presented in The New York Times last week as the last undecided voter, who said it was hard to make up her mind because "One is too polished; the other one, I think to be honest, I don't know how he ever got to be president."
Well, the Supreme Court picked him. Maybe they thought he was his father.
Kimberly Parmer then went on to say something both silly and profound: "If you actually look at him, and he stands next to Kerry, you kind of just feel sorry for him."
I can see that, though I tend to feel sorry for the rest of us. There are two Americas facing off against each other in this election, not rich and poor, but past and future.
A lot of Americans, mostly white males of a certain age, look to this George Bush (news - web sites) and see themselves. This campaign, I would argue, is one of the last convulsions of angry, real American men, who fear losing the country they know (or imagine), fighting to hold back the time and tide of the new, the un-white and un-Christian, and those girlie men, too, who sooner or later will make a different America. Bush has the "Father Knows Best" vote, from men who have lost their personal power and hate what they see happening all around them. Kerry, often blowing in the wind, is "the times they are a-changin'" candidate.
Which one will prevail? I think Kerry will hold the one-vote lead I gave him. But this is a wild-card election. For the first time in a while no one is quite sure who will actually come out and vote this Tuesday. It would do wonders for the tired blood of American politics if there was a big turnout, but that could help or destroy either side. It could also shake up the Congress, which could use some shaking. The narrowly partisan and ideological meanness some Republican leaders have brought to the debate in Washington -- I'm really thinking of that other angry Texan, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay -- is about the worst I've ever seen.
So the last question is, "Who votes?" I already have. You should too. Perhaps you will feel driven to neutralize my vote. Good luck. I certainly hope the best man wins.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
The Guardian: The case for Kerry
Another powerful indictment of the Bush administration can be found at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1539/
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The case for Kerry
Leader
Saturday October 30, 2004
The Guardian
Plenty of Americans believe it is none of our business whom they elect as their leader on Tuesday. But there are two underlying reasons why any presidential election matters to the rest of the world. The first concerns America's power. There is no nation in the history of the planet whose strength and actions more directly affect the whole human race than the United States. To an unprecedented degree, America makes the world's weather. Its economic, military and cultural might shapes our lives. If America goes to war, we are all embroiled, as the events of the past three years have certainly shown. If the American economy booms or busts, then ours follows suit. If America spurns global agreements on climate change, the whole planet is more vulnerable. Even our domestic politics are shaped by theirs, as the last three years have again dramatically proved. We may not have a vote, but our interests are at stake on November 2, as surely as if we lived in Ohio, Oklahoma or Oregon ourselves.
The second reason, more controversially for some, concerns America's example. There has never been a nation like the United States. Its creation was, at least arguably, the single greatest constitutional achievement of mankind in the last millennium. From the earliest days until now, the eyes of all people have indeed been upon America, just as John Winthrop claimed four centuries ago. We can debate whether the greatest of all US presidents was right to see America as "the last best hope of mankind". But it is a matter of fact that successive generations on every continent have shared Abraham Lincoln's optimism about his homeland, that they have been inspired by American opportunity and freedom, and that new generations continue to be so. Few nations may have been so fundamentally shaped by racial injustice as the US was, but none in the history of the world has ultimately made a greater success of mass migration and of multi-cultural life either. Anti-Americanism may be more rife than ever in many parts of our world, but even where it is strongest it is a matter of record that millions of people in these very same societies admire America above all other nations.
Since at least 1945, when the United States played the decisive role in creating the United Nations, an American presidential election has always been the single most influential event in the global political cycle. No such election, though, has mattered as overwhelmingly and urgently as this one. Four years ago, George Bush was beaten in the popular vote nationwide, yet captured the presidency because of electoral abuse in Florida and a shoddy legal judgment by the nation's highest court. Ever since, far from governing in the unifying manner that would have been appropriate in the circumstances (and that he briefly promised), he has done the opposite. But if Mr Bush has been partisan and confrontational at home - over the federal budget, education, race, civil liberty, the environment and a host of other social and cultural issues - he has been every bit as partisan and confrontational abroad. The attack of September 11 2001, an event of historic seriousness, created an unprecedented outpouring of solidarity worldwide. Three years later, much of that solidarity has been squandered. This has happened largely as a result of a war on Iraq that was not just ill-prepared and ill-executed in its own terms but that also exemplified the administration's aggressive contempt towards other nations, with disastrous consequences that continue to this day.
To adapt the words of Talleyrand, the Bush presidency has been not merely a crime but a mistake. Mr Bush has proved a terrifying failure in the world's most powerful office. He has made the world more angry, more dangerous and more divided - not less. This, above all, is why it matters to us, as it should to Americans, that John Kerry is elected on Tuesday. A safer world requires not just the example of American power but the power of American example. Mr Bush has done more to destroy America's good name in the world than any president in memory. Mr Kerry provides an opportunity to begin to repair the damage. It is as simple - and as important - as that.
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John Kerry for President
President Bush stands for re-election next week as one of the most divisive chief executives in the country's history.
It did not have to be that way. After the bitterly contested race in 2000, the President had an opportunity to recognize that his mandate was limited and to make good on his campaign promise to be a "uniter, not a divider."
Then came the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001. Putting aside their differences, Americans stood shoulder to shoulder behind the President in their determination to defend the nation, defeat the criminals who had perpetrated mass murder, and combat global terrorism.
What the President delivered, however, was a dismal mixture of radicalism, recklessness and incompetence.
Fortunately, Americans have an appealing alternative. Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, has demonstrated, particularly during the televised debates, breadth of knowledge, ability to understand complex issues, and sound judgment  qualities that have been missing from Mr. Bush's stewardship.
Sen. Kerry offers hope of strong, responsible leadership in the White House. We endorse him enthusiastically.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this election is primarily a referendum on Mr. Bush's performance.
That record is highlighted by a rush into a tragic and unnecessary war, irresponsible tax cuts that threaten to crush future generations with debt and a poisonous subservience to right-wing domestic causes.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the President's initial gut instinct was sound  to pursue terrorists aggressively overseas in their own breeding grounds.
But after a necessary military campaign to dislodge al-Qaida forces and their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, the President's "war on terrorism" began unraveling.
A chance to capture Osama bin Laden was bungled by turning the job over to Afghan warlords. Too little aid and too few peacekeeping troops were sent to Afghanistan to stabilize the country more fully.
Most disastrously, the President became distracted by Iraq.
Invoking his doctrine of pre-emptive war, Mr. Bush cited a danger (Iraqi weapons of mass destruction) and a relationship (between Iraq and al-Qaida) that turned out not to exist. In his rush to war, his administration deceived the American people, alienated traditional American allies and polarized the nation by suggesting that those who opposed its war policy were unpatriotic.
In the aftermath of the invasion, it became clear that planning for the post-war period was inept. Too few troops were deployed, and costs were grossly underestimated.
A chaotic mess ensued:
A bloody insurrection. An infrastructure that was repaired slowly, or not at all. Massive unemployment among Iraqis. A scarcity of nations willing to contribute troops or money. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal that shocked world opinion and unfairly tarnished America's brave soldiers.
Meanwhile, Iraq became the haven for terrorists that it had not been before. Recruitment for al-Qaida soared. Nuclear weapons programs of Iran and North Korea steamed ahead.
The President insisted he had made America safer. That boast seems laughable.
On the domestic anti-terror front, Mr. Bush has talked tough but accomplished far too little. He made sweeping assertions of presidential authority to suspend constitutional rights and to hold even American citizens indefinitely without trial. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has rejected some of his most outrageous claims.
Attorney General John Ashcroft's Justice Department has produced a series of bungled prosecutions. Homeland Security officials issue alarming but useless color-coded alerts. And not nearly enough has been done to secure America's borders, ports, bridges, and chemical and power plants.
The centerpiece of the President's domestic efforts, however, has been irresponsible tax slashing that propelled a surplus toward record deficits.
Mr. Bush is not to blame that he inherited an economy sliding into recession.
It is his fault, however, that he proposed grossly excessive tax breaks and designed them to benefit chiefly the very richest Americans. They were an inadequate stimulus to the economy and to job creation. Mr. Bush remains the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net loss of jobs in his term.
Moreover, in persisting with tax cuts even as he led the nation into Afghanistan and Iraq, the President broke a bipartisan tradition dating to Abraham Lincoln of raising taxes to pay for war. And as Congress passed a series of self-serving spending bills, he failed to use his veto power even once.
Meanwhile, under Mr. Bush, environmental protection regulations have been systematically weakened. Medical researchers have been stymied by stem-cell limitations to appease right-to-life zealots. An energy policy was drafted in secrecy with industry captains. The President's No Child Left Behind law, while well-intentioned, became an underfunded and intrusive burden for the states. His judicial nominees have often been ideologues of questionable ability.
John Kerry can do better.
Despite Bush campaign propaganda to the contrary, Sen. Kerry shows strong resolve in fighting terror at home and abroad, and in pursuing the best possible outcome in Iraq.
His determination to work cooperatively with foreign leaders, whenever possible, is critical. The Bush administration's arrogant unilateralism is unsustainable. The United States must have effective partnerships to deal with metastasizing terrorism and nuclear threats, and Sen. Kerry understands this.
At home, he has a record of bipartisan cooperation. He is a defender of civil rights and opportunity for minorities. He has offered creative proposals regarding health care, and he would reverse the stem-cell restrictions. He recognizes that global warming is a legitimate environmental danger.
Moreover, Sen. Kerry is the real fiscal conservative in this race, and he has a long history as a deficit hawk. His plans for controlling spending are unclear, but his determination to roll back the tax cuts for families making more than $200,000 annually would be a good start to restoring fiscal sanity.
Sooner or later, most of Mr. Bush's handiwork will have to be undone.
Americans would do well to let Mr. Kerry get started.
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Chicago Sun-Times: For God's sake, vote him out
For God's sake, vote him out
October 29, 2004
There are two proportionate reasons for rejecting President Bush's bid for re-election. Both the United States and the world are a mess. Mr. Bush is responsible for both messes. The first president ever to claim de facto infallibility, Mr. Bush tells us that he follows his instincts in decision-making after praying over the decision and talking to God. He admits no mistakes -- how could anyone who has a direct link to God make a mistake! In his next administration he will receive more divine inspirations which will make both the country and the world even more messy.
Consider the American economy. He has turned the biggest budget surplus in history into the biggest deficit because he wanted to give more money to the "haves and have mores" as he called them. He has presided over the largest job losses since the Great Depression. He has stood idly by while hundreds of thousands of American jobs have been flown overseas. His reform of health care has made it more expensive and more difficult for the elderly. He declines to rein in the greed of the drug companies and thus drives many Americans to Canada -- of all places -- to buy the medicines needed to stay alive. He has cast doubt on the future of Social Security. He has been on the bridge during the current absurd panic over flu vaccine; the deaths of those elderly and children who are not able to obtain flu shots are on his hands. What if one of those who die is your parent or spouse or child? He has not lifted a finger to help the many Americans whose pensions are being eaten up by greedy employers. Oil prices are climbing rapidly and the stock market is tanking.
We want four more years of this stuff?
Fecklessly he started the ill-advised and ill-prepared war in Iraq in which some Americans have to come close to mutiny to protect them from orders to bring contaminated fuel in badly equipped trucks to units that won't accept it. He misled the American people about the weapons in Iraq and the involvement of Iraq in the World Trade Center attack. He is disgusted, he tells us, by the kidnappings and the beheadings, the car bombs and roadside bombs, the ambushes and murder of civilians, but the bad decisions he and his cabinet made were mandated by God and could not have been mistakes. Pat Robertson tells us, however, that Mr. Bush told him that God had disclosed that the casualties in Iraq would be light. Maybe that was God's mistake!
Do we want him to continue with these god-driven policies for four more years? Eleven hundred dead Americans already. How many more thousands will have to die before God will tell Mr. Bush to get out of Iraq? How many tens of thousands more Iraqis will have to die?
The world is a mess because the United States is the natural leader of the free world and the American president the natural president of the free world. He blew the capital of support and sympathy that flowed to the United States after the World Trade Center attack by his "Bush Doctrine" that turned him into the bully of the free world. Next year the Poles will leave Iraq because the Polish people don't like the war. The Poles -- our strongest allies in Mr. Rumsfeld's "New Europe" -- are fed up with us! Four more years of divine inspiration and what will be left of America's power and prestige? We will still be a giant but like Gulliver a tattered giant chained to the ground by our president's madcap inspirations.
The pope is infallible only in certain limited circumstances and on specific matters. Unlike the pope, Mr. Bush apparently sets no limits on the policy decisions that will be made by conversations with God. We want four more years of those decisions?
The president, like every human, is entitled to his own relationship with God. He is entitled to use that relationship to make decisions, to justify them later, and to stick to them no matter what happens. Many Americans will accept such decisions because they believe he is a "godly" man. Not everyone else has to tolerate four more years of his divine right to govern.
Even if the election is close, Mr. Bush will win it. His lawyers are ready to go back into court and the supine Supreme Court will give the country four more years of divine right rule.
Do we really want that?
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