Democratic debate cliff notes

6:10 PST: Richardson sigh... I wonder will people go all Gore on him?
6:11 PST: Ask a dictator to step aside? Right...

6:18 PST : the nuclear threat...
Edwards... retaliate, project strength & calm; don't go off half cocked...
Obama... retaliate, falls back to NPTreaty
Clinton... wants an office of NPT? bridges to Port Security; also retaliate, repeats the "no safe haven" doctrine
Richardson... rebuild and expand NPT (esp w/ Russia) bridges to climate and international threats and multilateralism

6:25 PST: domestic issues; Social Security/Baby Boomers start w/ Clinton vs. Obama
Clinton... uses campaign slogan "hard work for change"; suggests that Obama is a flip-flopper on health care
Obama... states consistency; describe difference between starting from scratch vs. adapting the current conditions| focuses on differences health care policies; suggests higher payroll taxes for Social Security;
Clinton... points out mandate for children as a flip flop
Obama... responds with children don't have choice
Clinton... more flip floppery accusations;
Obama... rejects the words Clinton is trying to place in his mouth
Edwards... draws parallels between himself and Obama; attacks Clinton for being the status quo
Clinton... falls back to hard work meme; accuses others of raising false hope
Richardson... get laughs w / hostage comment; pushes for positive discourse, defends experience to deflect anti-status quo comments, also falls back to experience argument
Edwards... goes populist and attacks the status quo as entrenched within framework of the system
Obama... wants to get the people involved with their own governance and that citizens should be able to hold the gov't responsible

6:41 PST: Iraq/surge
Clinton... reminds that the surge was for political solutions, and that all it has accomplished is military objectives, wants to bring the troops home
Richardson... states the policy is a massive failure, points to lack of political progress and casualties, links the Iraq adventure to failure of domestic policy
Obama... restates that we haven't accomplished anything and actually spent money to not accomplish anything, and attributes some of the success to Iraqi-Iraqi cooperation
Edwards... links the British withdrawal to reduction in violence continues to restate that we aren't accomplishing our political goals; no military bases
Richardson... says you have to get ALL the troops out, falls back to earlier position, pounds podium while discussing war fatigue
Clinton... states general agreement, wants diplomacy, states unpredicability of withdrawal, supports caution

7:00 PST: Doubleteam | experience vs. change
Clinton... gets laugh with 'hurt feelings' comment, falls back to ready on day one slogan; draws parallels between Obama and Bush's likeability; plays the gender card
Obama... claims to have been watching football during the republican debate, restates populist message, wants gov't transparency, encourages cooperation; derides republican playbook strategy
Richardson... falls back to executive experience and foreign policy experience, calls for an energy revolution, references Al Gore; states that youth isn't a detriment
Edwards... uses his parents hard working background, restates that he is seriously anti special interest / lobbyist, references the Paitent's Bill of Rights and death of Natalie in CA
Obama... points to his lobbyist reforms, falls back to citizen participation in gov't
Clinton... calls for a reality break, states that Edwards' bill was killed by the Pres., that Obama voted for a bill that incluided pork, and essentially asserts that they are all on the 'take', falls back on her husband's administration's accomplishments
Edwards... states that special intrests has a stranglehold on our democracy, says that you can't take their money and oppose them, uses Teddy R as example
Obama... credits Bill Clinton's accomplisments, restates that we had never formed a coalition and says that words do matter and that they can inspire
Richardson... picks up on Obama's cooperation meme and extends it, and says you can't fight everyone
Edwards... responds with the 'can't nice these people to death' meme

7:24 PST: Al Gore/carbon tax
Richardson... says that carbon tax isn't a mandate; suggests a cap as an alternative, claims that the tax would be passed on to the consumer; restates his desire for mass transit
Obama... also supports cap, states that it will also have a cost, but that we should use the revenue to aid the transition
Clinton... brings up the recession and it's accoutrements, states that the Bush tax cuts benefit the wealthy, wants to tax wealthy
Edwards... talks about uneven wealth distribution, states threat of job loss to middle class
Obama... extend uneven distribution to Clinton era, would give < $75,000 income tax relief

Richardson... falls back to executive experience, want to balance the budget, wants to get rid of corp welfare, want to invest in science and math and arts

7:35 PST: What do you wish you wouldn't have said?
Clinton... give non answer, states the difference between dem and rep agenda, and states that the dems are better to run the country
Richardson... fav SC justice, White wants to take it back
Edwards... Clinton fashion critique
Obama... endorses Clinton's answer

My quick remarks...

I was typing as I watched and eating dinner so there are probably typos, so what...

Clinton was obviously on the attack trying to get back her mojo.

Richardson was playing the role of Rodney King

Edwards is definitely tying himself to Obama as the package of change

Obama clarified his postions and essentially fought a defensive rearguard action. Not a bad showing.

Short update...

Wow. Obama won in Iowa. I think I'm still reeling from the shock. Yeah, I support him, but like many black people it was a sort of guarded hope, because inside my calloused exterior I just had the feeling that "they" wouldn't really support a candidate of color. Of course it's only one state, and smart negative campaigners will attempt to swell (or create) any backlash or buyer's remorse.

Want an example? Of course you do. Count the number of times you hear this "reasonable" position...

Something like, "...but he can't win the south, they're too racist down there, and if he can't win the south then he can't win the election, so I can't vote for him, even though I really want to...".

I'm guessing mid 500's by November...


Back to the future...

I am ecstatic that the younger and progressive stay at home, arm chair pundits, got out of their coffee shops. I sincerely wish that this trend continues. We're the clowns that have to live the consequences of the ridiculous policies our government pursues. It's about damn time we influence the decisions that'll still be affecting us long after the status-quo'ers are in the ground.

If you missed it here's his victory speech...

For whom the voting tallies...

Whom shall I support?

Well... actually no one yet, because I don't live in Iowa.

[O.K. smartass, but if you did live in Iowa, for whom would you vote?]

My mid year assessment wasn't that far off. I still like Obama better than Clinton, and I still think Edwards is campaigning by reflex... but I'm not answering your question.

So in order to go down in flames with my fellow prognosticators (why is that the synonym of choice when discussing this subject matter?), I will officially give a stamp of approval to one of the candidates.

I'm not going to vote for the winner of the primary if it is someone I don't like. I didn't vote for Kerry and I haven't ever voted republican in a national election. Every time I hear someone use the phrase '...throw my vote away...' I want to punch her in the face. (No I'm not a misogynist, but since we don't actually have a non-gender specific pronoun in English that I can correctly use there, I get to choose, and while the accepted practice is that the male pronouns are neuter; (a.) I like my junk, and (b.) the very hint of misogyny adds impact to my post… don't you hate being predictable?).

The very fact that you believe that you have to support the popular person means you don't understand what voting is about.

You vote for (in the United States) someone to represent you. You know, act as you would in a particular situation, and make choices that you would make or at least choices with which you'd agree. If you vote for the popular person even though they don't represent your positions YOU ARE REPRESENTING THEIR POSITIONS with your support.

Let's take an example:

Our domestic auto industry sucks. Why? Well, mostly because we no longer produce the best automobiles (or at least no one believes that we do, and in this country that's the same damn thing). How did this come to pass? I can't give you a perfect irrefutable answer to that question. I can give you a guide as to how it could occur...

You have two candidates running for office in the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet; one supports a self sufficiency and sustainability agenda the other one supports a global economic positive trade balance. Both are good positions and something any country would want for itself. It’s a tight race with both candidates scraping splinters off the bottom of the barrel. Strategy sessions on both sides run into the wee hours of the morning attempting to devise ways of achieving separation in the polls. One of the strategists has a brilliant stroke of insight. She’ll transmute the opponent’s campaigning strength into a weakness so that all of their campaigning will aid her side. She knows that everyone is attracted to new technology and no one likes to depend on others for their needs. She also knows that when new technology is created, old technology is phased out. During this transition period, some employees will not adapt to the new technology and are forced to seek employment elsewhere.

This campaign strategist has just drawn a (semi) plausible connection between new technology and job loss. Now if you vote for the other guy, you’re voting to lose your job or for other people to lose their job. The message is devastating and it appeals to the purveyors of current technology, who are willing to support continued reliance on their products, campaign contributions are just another operating cost for which they can use the ‘extra’ money they have now that they don’t have to invest so heavily in research and development.

The election goes to the ‘positive trade balance’ candidate. It’s not a landslide victory, but she wins and no matter that the entire campaign was evenly matched, the positions of the winner are associated with winning. In the next election cycle candidates remember that the guy who ran for new technology lost, so candidates who want to win run for ‘positive trade balance’. Project this behavior forward, and you now have a field of candidates who favor positive trade balance while anyone who goes against the Conventional Wisdom ™ [thanks Arianna], is ‘honored' with labels such as: unrealistic, inexperienced, naïve, or even the dreaded ‘fringe’.

If you’ve been paying attention you realize that almost 50% of the population was FOR new technology. By not voting for the candidates that supported their economic views, they’ve abdicated that position and now it lies down the slope of political will.

If people want to bring that issue back to light, they’ll have to do the hard work of pushing it into prominence. This is done by calling attention to the issue. Of course you need a voice to call; fortunately you’ve been provided with one… your vote.

Oh yeah, in case you were still wondering, I’d vote for Obama.

Bow your heads!

This makes so much sense that it should disturb you if you're wandering around with some notion of moderate or 'modern' faith.

If The Trinity was altered thusly I would find myself saying, "At least they're honest about their cartoon hero worship."

Not that I'd respect your faith anymore than I do now, but it would at least have a decent internal consistency.

This vision is a grand synthesis that borders on the sublime. Like good art it inspires those who come in contact with it and as my gift to you, I'll share my inspiration with you.

When I first looked at this picture, I thought, "Wow, now that is a new low." Then I thought, "no... it actually makes perfect sense". Our society IS fueled by rote consumerism, a veneer of bootstrapped, externally enforced morality and the idea that our truth, justice and American way is mighty and invulnerable.

Then I noticed what this tripartite 'sun' was presiding over, a cemetery, and I was in love. The symbolism kicks you in the head like a donkey filled shotgun.

Let me give it to you:

The 'sun' of empty materialism, moralism and might cannot sustain the human race. If we continue to lay prostrate before our sun god, we shall come to enjoy the fruit of our devotion...


Extinction.

I don't be dumb...

John Taylor Gatto has a book with some pretty interesting points to make about the U.S. public school system. It's called "Dumbing us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling". I like it and recommend it as it's a quick read, about 104 pages.

In his second chapter, The Psychopathic School, he gives a list of traits that all his students have, it's obviously meant to provoke rage and/or outrage, but I decided to answer it as if I took it seriously and he would read my response...

I suppose I can only answer what has been written about me by you, Mr. Gatto.

Namely that I was:

1. indifferent to the adult world

2. lacking in curiosity

3. possessed of a poor sense of the future

4. ahistorical

5. cruel to my contemporaries

6. uneasy with intimacy or candor

7. materialistic

8. dependent, passive and timid in the presence of new challenges

That’s a lot of name calling. I guess it was done as bait for responses. This tactic has failed in my case. Even though I find myself writing this, it is not truly of my own volition, I’m doing it to get a grade, so that I might end the cycle of debt in which I find myself firmly ensconced.

The reason that your invective couldn’t snare me is because of the sheer percentage of its inaccuracy. Applying those “standards” to myself, your aim doesn’t even compare favorably to blind fire. I’ll go through this with you step by step.

I was not indifferent to the adult world. As a child entering my K-12 experience in 1979, in Buffalo, N.Y. where the death of the steel industry meant that my father was “paying” our way by racking up obscene credit card debt while working at a car wash. I often intercepted the mail and pondered the same question I ask myself today, “Where is the money going to come from”? This happened so often that my mother took to hiding the mail from me, and netted me my first memorable lecture about how I should enjoy my childhood, and not be in a hurry to “grow up”. This was by no means the last lecture I would receive in that area, and like many other adults, there are many times that I wished I had followed their advice.

Had I been any curiouser, I doubt I would be writing this right now. In the seconds I took typing that sentence I thought of at least five near death experiences I had indulging my curiosity. Sure, you want an example, ok: I’m 12 or 13 and I’m on my first paper route and the street is adjacent to the Kensington expressway, and across from some sort of contractor supply store. I go across the street and amongst the trash and surplus castoffs I find a good amount of thick twine. I am amazed at how strong the stuff is, I pull, prod, bash, saw, and otherwise test it’s endurance to the limits of my abilities. But I’m frustrated by the pitiful amount of stress I can generate with my human body. Suddenly as if hit by a bolt of inspiration, I realize that tons of destructive potential were yards away from… the express way! All I had to do is lash the twine back and froth from the guard rail to the median and back, and I could see how many ‘loops’ I had to make to significantly alter traffic, brilliant! All I had to do is scale 18 foot embankment and time the highway speed traffic. Oh, I’d need both my hands for climbing, so in order to transport the twine to the top, I’d have to wrap it around my waist. I get to the top, avoid getting hit by any cars, and I made one loop. Eagerly awaiting a car I ran across the street to get a vantage point and the first car snapped the twine as if it wasn’t there. I repeated the experiment as I designed it, went back and did two, then three, then four loops with the same result. I think it was when I got to six or seven back and fort loops that I finally had my breakthrough… of stupidity. I was standing across the street admiring my handiwork, when finally a car that hit the twine slowed down noticeably. Unfortunately for me, in my excitement to climb down, and get to my viewing post, I had forgot to unwrap the residual twine from around my waist and the car didn’t break all the twine, it was being dragged, and as the excess line soon payed out, so was I. Across the street on my belly slamming into the wall, I was dragged straight up and over the lip, headfirst towards the ONCOMING TRAFFIC ON THE EXPRESSWAY. I was thinking, “this is going to be such a stupid way to die”, when about 18 inches, no more than two feet from the pavement with it’s accompanying high speed traffic, the twine finally snapped.

I think it is impossible to have a poor sense of the future when you and everyone you know are constantly saving for something. I actually think that is the difference between the lowest part of the middle class and the lower class; that hope and expectation that there is better to be had or earned. So, we were saving for school portraits or the camping trip, or whatever; you knew your actions today affected your opportunities tomorrow.

I don’t know how much a child below a certain threshold of understanding is supposed to sense or even know past predetermination. I do know that if you grew up as a minority, you were made painfully aware of the role the past played in your life. Why don’t I look like the white kids at school…Because their ancestors were too lazy to work for themselves… Where did all the Indians go…Their ancestors were killed by the same people who didn’t have time to work for themselves… Why did Amy’s parents tell her she couldn’t play with me anymore…Because they’re scared she might like you… Why can’t she like me, I like her, what’s wrong with that…Nothing's wrong with that, or you, something’s wrong with them. That last one is a question/response I went through in kindergarten.

All children are cruel to the extent that they are honestly competitive and honestly opinionated. Kids call spades, spades. They’ll tell you that you’re dirty, or that you smell ‘funny’, or that you wore those pants yesterday. If part of being civilized is knowing when to lie, then kids aren’t fully civilized. It’s learned behavior, and learning takes time. They’re minors and should have that level of responsibility.

As with the last charge, I’m not going to refute this one, but say that I do think children are candid (see my previous answer). As far as intimacy, I think true intimacy can only be achieved by post pubescent minds, once again, children aren’t fully civilized. Honestly, childhood is filled with seemingly arbitrary relationships for reasons that you poorly understand (go to school, go to church, go to ‘place X’... Why? ), the only people you could be said to have any intimacy with are your parents but since children don’t even see their parents as people but as immutable forces of nature, even that doesn’t count.

Materialism, like any behavior, is learned behavior. It is also simple behavior rooted in a simple concept, more. This means that it is easy to understand and copy, making it prime material for early adoption by developing minds. The problem isn’t learning materialism from society (it’s a sign of a good mind that can adapt to where it lives), but from not being taught that is primitive and not the ‘be all/end all’. Once again my background didn’t allow me to have a lot of things. This didn’t stop me from wanting lots of things. Oddly enough it was a TV show that my mother liked that soured me on the whole idea of acquisition for acquisition’s sake – Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I would look at the diamond encrusted gold dog bowls, and think about how many months of rent that could pay or pencils it could buy, and think the dog doesn’t care as long as it gets fed, then I turned that thought on myself. It doesn’t matter what brand, as long as it performs the function it’s supposed to, and if I know the information, why does your opinion of my depth of knowledge matter (what letter you’ve decided to grade me)?

Timid, passive and dependent… Nah, wrong again John. You didn’t have time to be timid. Kids are competitive, remember? You didn’t want to be the last person to ‘get’ something, or you would’ve been exposed to some of that ‘cruelty’ that abounds within our hallowed halls for being ‘slow’. Passive and dependent can take the same hike – textbook completion. I always read ahead in the textbook, because I wanted to know more; that can’t be dependent, because that’s independent behavior. For the same reason it can’t be passive, because I was actively reading ahead into unassigned material with no prompting or even a syllabus telling me that I was going to need to read chapter whatever by some date.

This leads me to say that I wasn’t alienated at all, in any way that I felt was important at the time. In retrospect, I was alienated from the adults in the various schools I went to, not from myself or my contemporaries, or even the older or younger students. I think it’s funny because the reason I was alienated from my instructors (for the most part, there were a few good ones) was that they never asked for my input. All the instructors that I remember fondly are the ones who spoke to me and not at me. The teachers who correctly assumed I had a functional brain and that I might be interested in exercising it on occasion while in a place of learning.

My final topic is differentiation. I think any teacher worth the title can divide their classes into zones of aptitude. I experienced it in most of my K-12 career. The problem is what the teachers do, or even what they can do with that information. It seems that nowadays if you even have the appearance of unevenhandedness you’ll be crucified on the cross of the cookie cutter. Everyone knows that everyone isn’t the same, so you are going to have differences everywhere, even in the classroom. If Johnny consistently earns a C while Billy consistently earns an A that doesn’t mean that the teacher is mean or unfair, but societal pressure make it seem like that is the case. So the teacher has to go through this charade of equal treatment when it’s obvious that the two students need to be treated differently. The teacher, under considerable pressure not only to give grades, but give good grades while teaching only one curriculum can either fudge Johnny’s grades or fudge the whole course so that Johnny can earn at least a B. I can’t imagine a large number of teachers opting for the first option, but I do blame the latter option for some of our nation’s educational ineptitude.

Let's dust it off...

More from my They're Just Like Us world tour...

Article Here

Hey, at least he bought the gun legally... right?

Of course he then proceeded to use it at school after posting to the internet at least twice what he might do with said firearm...

I'll leave it to y'all to go through the convoluted gun control vs. probable cause debate.

Another point of view.

I've previously posted about white collar crime. This clip gives a different example of the corporations criminals and their representatives that run your government.



I personally find it hard to believe that people who often act against the common good themselves are capable of creating, executing, and judging rules that are supposed to enrich and sustain the common good.