Better And Bloggier

I’ve altogether lost interest in this blog, which has served as nothing more than an echo chamber for my political rants that no one ever reads. However, a few friends and I recently started a group blog called The Fuck Squad, which is leaps and bounds above this one. Four authors means daily updates, interesting topics, and the occasional lively debate, none of which really happened at this site. If you find yourself at this blog and want something bigger, better and bloggier, check out The Fuck Squad.

A Turning Point

As I type this, the news wires are jumping with rumors about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign; an AP story reported that Clinton was preparing to concede to Barack Obama tonight, while his campaign managers have issued denials and suggestions that she was simply going to acknowledge that Obama will soon have enough delegates to cinch the Democratic nomination (which somehow isn’t a concession in their eyes). But regardless of Clinton’s reaction, it appears as though the Democratic primaries will finally be over tonight; John McCain and Barack Obama will now begin facing off for the office of president in an election that may shape this generation.

 

I am an ardent Obama supporter and have been for nearly a year now. Back in the beginning of 2007, I was skeptical of the man; he seemed like a media darling without substance. But then I did the research, and I read one of his books, and it became apparent that the praise from the media was not unwarranted: he really was a great candidate, a Robert Kennedy for our generation (but hopefully without the untimely end). What scares me going into the general election, though, is the fact that my initial perception of Obama has not left many Americans, Democratic or Republican. The scant research necessary to find out what Obama proposes is apparently too much work for the thousands upon thousands who claim that he doesn’t stand for anything.

 

And as I read the shrill attacks that the remaining Clinton supporters continue to levy against Obama, I realize that most of these people don’t want to know what he stands for. They don’t want to be bothered with this candidate, and it’s probably because he’s black.

 

Now, I know that’s a steep accusation to make; I’m not going to claim that everyone who doesn’t support Obama is a racist, as there are legitimate reasons not to support him. However, a growing subset of supposed Democrats and loyal Clinton supporters are revealing their true colors; when the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee decided to only seat half of Michigan and Florida’s delegates, pro-Clinton protestors began screaming about Obama winning the nomination through affirmative action and “latte liberals’” embrace of an “unqualified black man” for no reason other than white guilt. These activists are mostly older voters; they lived in a time before the civil rights movement, and they seem to have trouble adjusting to the reality of nonwhite political leaders.

 

But they do realize how foolish they would sound for opposing Obama for such a reason; that’s why several contradictory “Obama as the other” rumors have paradoxically been floating around and accepted so easily by older voters. It’s easy for an old closet racist to believe that Obama is a Muslim because he looks different and has a foreign name; it’s easy for a bigot to condemn Jeremiah Wright for saying that US foreign policy brought on 9/11 while ignoring John Hagee for saying that the attack was divine retribution; and if those don’t stick, one can always fall back on “I just don’t trust him,” the acceptable phrase for rejecting someone different from oneself in the decades following the civil rights movement. As of now, it’s hard to tell how many of these people are going to stay home or move to McCain on election day, since they all think the primaries are still going on; for the sake of our future, I hope we aren’t shackled to four more years of Bush policies because the older generation cannot let go of its prejudices.

Movie Review and Political Rant

I just finished watching a movie on HBO called “Recount.” It followed one of Al Gore’s campaign coordinators (played by Kevin Spacey, one of my favorite actors) during the protracted 2000 election crisis. It was painfully depressing to watch; I was only 13 when the actual events took place, so it filled a lot of holes in my memory and knowledge of the events. Back in 2000, my political knowledge consisted of what I could regurgitate from my conservative environment, so I blindly followed the “Sore Loserman” narrative, when in truth the situation was far more complicated and far more corrupt.

 

My favorite scene showed Spacey’s character getting drunk with a friend while watching a Bush lawyer spin unflattering reality into political narrative; a bit slurringly, he lists off all the things wrong with the Florida election: the fact that the authority to call the election and authorize recounts rested with the head of Bush’s Florida campaign, the fact that the state disenfranchised over 20,000 black voters with a wildly inaccurate “purge list,” and most disturbing, the fact that no one seemed to give a rat’s ass. “Doesn’t anyone care?” he moans over his liquor. It’s all well and good to expose when someone’s breaking all standards of legality and decency, but apparently that’s not enough; you have to convince people that it matters.

 

It seems like this attitude has gotten worse and worse over the years, as our current leaders have continuously shifted the goalposts of acceptable and legal behavior (or maybe I’m just able to see it more clearly now that I’m older). You can turn on a TV or log on to a computer at any time and immediately find evidence of the White House lying to the public, presenting false evidence to support its agenda, breaking federal law, defying the Constitution, defying international accords—hell, you can find administration officials admitting to a lot of this. But those admissions always have a smug tone: “yeah, we’re holding people indefinitely and torturing them in secret military prisons…what of it?” It’s because they know that no one will do anything about it, and sure enough, people blow it off and marginalize it into the realm of “political matters.” Instead of acting on evidence that the White House is breaking the law, lawmakers and pundits turn whether they should be allowed to do it into a political talking point, thus absolving them from punishment. Habeas Corpus may be written into our Constitution, but now it’s a matter of political opinion; it’s a different take on a national security issue, not blatant high treason.

 

I normally blast people who whine about partisanship, and I belong to the school of thought that says anyone who claims not to be partisan either doesn’t know enough about politics or just doesn’t like them. But in the case of people turning their backs on the law because their party’s interest would be better served that way, I can’t help but decry such a selfish and dishonest affront to liberty. At some point, we have to put the welfare of our country, its citizens, and the world at large over party affiliation; this is the attitude that Gore adopted when he finally conceded the 2000 election, but unfortunately for all of us, the other side did not follow suit.

Homestead Exemption Woes

More of a local issue this time, dealing with a tax break amendment passed in Florida last month.

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Another Terrible Florida Amendment

 

            Probably the hardest arguments to make in politics are ones against tax cuts, those magical and revered initiatives that politicians break out when they need a distraction or a boost in the polls. Time and time again, Republicans have used tax cuts as part of a kind of “bread and circuses” approach to governance, wherein shoddy long-term policy initiatives are hidden by short-term material benefits. Most folks, who tend to see these breaks as a slightly larger paycheck or a refund check without any consideration to their true costs, go along with such smoke-and-mirror tactics for a while, but the shit always hits the fan eventually. The recent “Homestead Exemption Increase” Amendment that the voters of Florida have just passed will prove to be no different.

 

            Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the principle behind tax cuts; money is better off in the economy and in the hands of working people than sitting in some massive surplus lock-box. However, Republicans tend to cut taxes even when the government can’t afford to lose the revenue without slashing vital programs, and their cuts are often disproportionately for the benefit of our wealthiest and most comfortable citizens.

 

            The recently passed “Homestead Exemption” Amendment contains all of these flaws. Skipping all of the mind-numbing specifics, this initiative basically lowered property taxes for homeowners; proponents of the bill have claimed that it will save the “average homeowner” about $240 per year. Republicans claim that the Amendment is designed to help small business owners and middle-class homeowners, but in reality, the big winners on January 29 were the wealthy owners of Florida’s many McMansions, who stand to save far more than the insignificant $240 promised for “average homeowners.”

 

            And of course, the real losers are anyone who relies on the government programs which are already being butchered to pay for this cut (ie: middle-class and non-homeowners). As always, the state will be offsetting the reduced revenues from the homestead exemption increase by further castrating our already woefully inadequate educational system. Already confirmed on the chopping block is the Florida Resident Access Grant (FRAG), which most Stetson students (including myself) rely upon to afford this place; the government assures us that we’ll all be grandfathered and keep ours, but that doesn’t help the thousands of qualified students who won’t be able to gather tuition money in the future.

 

            Given the historical ease with which Floridians have been able to put short-sighted Amendments on the ballot and get them passed, I wasn’t surprised when this homestead exemption increase was ratified against the interest of most of the state’s population. I can only hope that in the future, people find the facts about a tax cut before supporting it and found out who really stands to gain.

Farce on Drugs

Here’s a piece I just wrote on the War on Drugs, which I feel represents a pretty typical attitude among my age and social position:

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Senseless Motives, Senseless War

 

            In 1971, Richard Nixon declared a “War on Drugs,” marking the beginning of a series of far-reaching and extravagant solutions to a non-problem. Like many wars, this one had its roots in politics, misinformation, and racism; these factors are particularly true here in terms of which substances must be warred against and which ones must be protected as American cultural values (tobacco, alcohol, etc). For example, marijuana’s criminalization came to a head in the 1930s due to its association with Mexican immigrants and jazz musicians; federal restriction on cocaine resulted from the influence of Southern senators who claimed that the drug turned black men into “beasts” and made them systematically rape white women; LSD’s association with youth counter-culture in the 1960s made it a target of Nixonian lawmakers who thought that dissent of their policies would stop if hallucinogens were removed.

 

            Aside from its uneven and bigoted selection of which substances should be controlled, the War on Drugs is also unjustified from a legal standpoint. True to its Lockean origins, the US Constitution clearly defends the right to property when that property does not infringe upon the rights of others, from the Second Amendment’s defense of gun ownership to the Fourth’s insistence of the privacy of one’s person. Our country’s brief and ill-fated prohibition of alcohol required the passing of a new Amendment; substance prohibition through federal act alone treads a fine line in governmental power.

 

            In its implementation, the War on Drugs proves itself not as a tool of justice but as yet another avenue for the government to impose institutionalized racial discrimination. As is widely known, minorities are targeted and arrested for drug use wildly out of proportion of their numbers (blacks make up a whopping 27% of defendants in marijuana possession cases). A common answer to this criticism suggests that perhaps this racial disparity exists because minorities simply use more drugs than whites. This argument ignores the facts of drug use, as it has been established that whites are arrested significantly less for drug crimes in proportion to their use, while the opposite is true for minorities; for more on this, look up our Editor-in-Chief’s piece from last semester, in which he lays out these facts with personal experience to reinforce them. And if all that wasn’t enough to prove the institutional racism of the Drug War, look at sentencing for the possession of powder cocaine, which is more commonly used by whites, and crack cocaine, which is more commonly used by blacks: in terms of punishment, 1 gram of crack is treated as the equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine.

 

            The cost of the Drug War has been hard to pinpoint, thanks to the sprawling budget, social damages, and the actual wars fought for its sake, but the price tag has been well into the trillions for decades: enough to provide years of universal health care to all Americans. The next time a conservative lectures you about fiscal conservatism and why we shouldn’t waste money on social programs, ask him if the unjustified, ineffective and immeasurably expensive Drug War counts as one of them.

California Standard or Bust

I’m admittedly very uneducated regarding environmental issues, but hey, I’ve got to write about what I’m assigned. This piece is centered around the years-long struggle over the so-called “California emissions standards” for automobiles.

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The Planet’s Causes Are Our Causes

 

            Lately, it has become in vogue for politicians to pay lip service to environmental issues and causes such as emissions control and alternative energy. All of the presidential candidates from both parties pretended to be interested in ethanol while campaigning in Iowa, and even Bush rarely gives a State of the Union address without making some oblique reference to far away technologies such as hydrogen fuels and nuclear fusion. But like with many popular issues, verbal support for vague generalities tends not to coincide with policies and actions; in the case of carbon emissions, many politicians (particularly conservatives) who voice support for conservation will balk at any actual efforts that may prove inconvenient for industry.

 

In the past few months, we’ve seen this all too clearly in the case of “California emissions standards,” which refers to that state’s (and many others’) attempt to enforce greatly reduced tailpipe emissions and set the minimum gas mileage for all new cars at 43 MPG by 2017. This goal is not unrealistic; in Europe, most of the conditions set by the California standard have long since been met. California has often been the trailblazer when it comes to setting new bars to protect the environment and our wallets, and this time was going to be no different: over a dozen states expressed support for copying the California standard for themselves, a big step towards national regulation.

 

One would think that this proposal would be accepted, if not embraced, by the nation; after all, even if you disagree with such a “drastic” increase in emissions standards, the state of California had made its own decision on the matter. Unfortunately, those fair-whether environmental allies mentioned earlier have blocked the state’s right to self-determination and prevented it from passing the new standards at all. Namely, the Bush administration has ordered the EPA, the organization established to work as a force of environmental justice, to block California’s attempts to clean its airways at the behest of US automakers. The big auto companies fear that higher standards for their new cars would deal a fatal blow to a domestic industry already struggling to compete with Japanese and European firms; however, they somehow fail to realize that one of the major reasons for their plight lies with this sluggish advancement in technology they are trying so hard to maintain. As people increasingly look to smaller and more efficient foreign cars, the American automakers will continue to suffer if they fail to innovate in the future.

 

Critics of environmental causes tend to paint issues of conservation as cases wherein people attempt to put “the land” or some random endangered owl over the concerns of regular folks. However, cases like this highlight an important fact: the causes of the planet are also the causes of all of us living on it. We all stand to gain from the future of more efficient and clean cars; the only ones who stand to lose are the stagnant forces of corporate welfare and corruption championed by Bush and the auto executives.

Willard “Mitt” Romney: Double Guantanamo For Us All

I don’t like Mitt Romney. Here’s a piece I wrote about him:

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Willard Mitt Romney: Worst of Several Evils

 

            I try to make no secret about my disdain for the field of Republican presidential candidates in this race; I mean, I have little love for Republicans in general, but this group of candidates is particularly piss-poor (if anyone sends me an email saying “Maybe you haven’t heard of a certain man named RONPAUL,” it’s going straight in the trash can). But if there’s a single one of them wherein the thought of him becoming president actually scares me, it’s former Massachusetts governor Willard “Mitt” Romney.

 

            First of all, a look at his tenure in political office is enough to scare any moderate away from him. His ascension to the position of Governor was due mostly to his vast personal wealth and the obvious glaring flaws of his competitors; like our esteemed George W. Bush, he vowed to run his executive branch “like a business” (if you want eight more years of a corporate boardroom-style White House, this is your man). In order to decrease the ballooning Massachusetts deficit, he initiated a bold tax plan: increase the fees on things regular people actually use (drivers’ licenses, marriage licenses, gas, etc) while cutting taxes for corporations. He also decided to slash funding for higher education, forcing colleges in the state to increase tuition by 63% and ensuring that you had to be even wealthier to get into college there. As a bonus, he worked for years to keep gay marriages banned in his state against the wishes of the legislature, courts and general populace; he obviously supports the notion of a unilateral executive championed by Bush and his Krazy Konservative Krew. Romney ended his term as Governor with a 28% approval rating, which is even lower than our current president’s.

 

            Most frightening in my eyes, though, is Romney’s strong puritan streak. His position on social issues ranging from gay rights to torture are reactionary almost to the point of being Draconian, and he has made it clear that he would use all of the powers of the presidency to make federal law conform to his backwards beliefs. His exuberance on this matter is probably due partially to the suspicion Christian conservatives hold against him due to his being a Mormon; as a result, he has positioned himself to work harder for their oppressive cause than the only actual evangelical in the race, Mike Huckabee, who has proven to be more moderate in his policies than in his religious beliefs.

 

            As bad as the Bush presidency has been for the cause of civil rights and sound policy in this country, I fear that President Romney would do his predecessor one worse. I plea to any Republicans reading this: unless you want America to become a “Double Guantanamo,” cast your vote for someone, anyone else.

Give’em Hell, Gravel

In a sudden twist of hate, Sen. Mike Gravel came to my university today for a brief forum. 

 

I was quite impressed with him; his oratory style and the urgency with which he communicates the flaws in American democracy just don’t get across in the terrible debate formats in which I’m used to seeing him. He seems to pay much more attention to the issues than most of his rivals, and really educates himself in the technicalities of the problems facing us today. One note of interest was his “National Initiative” plan, which would give citizens more direct power in forming federal laws. I was a bit skeptical, given the shoddy state of such systems on many state levels, but in his decade of writing the bill, he has really streamlined things. If you’re interested, click that link and vote for the amendment electronically.

Why Personality Matters

Well, I’m back to writing opinion pieces for the campus paper. Here’s my first submission for the semester:

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Every time an election rolls around, I hear a familiar complaint: “Why does the media focus so much on the candidates’ personal lives and personalities? They should just stick to the issues!” Analysts and pundits alike scoff at the notion of voters basing their choices on which candidate they’d like to have a beer with, also stressing that one’s choice in political candidate should be based wholly on policy stances. I can understand why people are frustrated about the media’s apparent fixation on frivolous personal details of politicians, especially in our current post-Lewinsky political climate. But we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater; personality can and should be one of many important factors we must consider when choosing an elected official, especially in the case of the president.

 

            One of the most important functions of the president is to serve as the public face and voice of the nation. More than anyone else, the president shapes foreign nations’ perception of the state of our government, and is expected to firmly lead the country in times of war and peace. Regardless of a candidate’s knowledge of domestic and foreign affairs, an ineffectual and indecisive personality will negatively impact their effectiveness in achieving their goals. Jimmy Carter, who was incredibly intelligent on the issues and public policy but proved too weak of a personality to accomplish much of anything, is a perfect example of this.

 

            Sometimes, a president’s stances and policies are overshadowed, positively or negatively, by significant personal character traits. Take JFK and Nixon: Kennedy is widely remembered as a great president mostly on account of his inspirational, larger-than-life charm and personality. For “image presidents” like himself and Reagan, the sense of optimism and leadership represented by their personalities were at least as important as the success or failure of any of their political initiatives. Conversely, Nixon accomplished many great policy initiatives—ending the Vietnam War, quietly increasing the pace of desegregation, founding the EPA—but his megalomanic, paranoid personality and raw thirst for power led him to massively abuse his position and secure his place among the worst presidents ever.

 

            Of course, while personality shouldn’t be ignored when choosing a candidate, it shouldn’t be the only factor, or even the primary one; voting for someone just because “he seems presidential” is a recipe for disaster. Just like single issue abortion or gun rights voters, single issue personality voters have the potential of electing terrible candidates with only one redeeming quality. Personal character should be on equal footing with any policy stance or initiative; and so, like with any political stance, the media does us a favor by trying their hardest to give us a glimpse into the true characters of our candidates.

Okay, I Can’t Resist This Ron Paul News

For months, Ron Paul supporters have been denying their candidate’s involvement in various racist, homophobic, conspiracy-laden newsletters printed from the 1970s to the 1990s; these newsletters, which sported names such as Ron Paul Political Report and Ron Paul Survival Report and many of which were published by “Ron Paul and Associates,” were initially defended by the good doctor as being “taken out of context,” but in 2001 he changed his story and claimed not to have written them at all. His fanatical supporters, who attack the neoconservatives in government for their falsifications, for some reason have no problem buying this incredibly unbelievable line.

Today, though, The New Republic reported on some elusive copies of this obscure newsletter, with Ron Paul’s name plastered all over the place and current members of his 2008 campaign staff in the publishing information. The content of these articles is far more hateful and nutty than anyone could have guessed:

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca

Don’t be surprised if the link doesn’t work. I’ve had a lot of trouble accessing it thanks to what appears to be a mass DDoS attack by Paul’s cyber-crusaders (defending liberty through coercive censorship!). If you can’t get the link up, here are some choice selections:

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-”Take, for instance, a special issue of the Ron Paul Political Report, published in June 1992, dedicated to explaining the Los Angeles riots of that year. “Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began,” read one typical passage. According to the newsletter, the looting was a natural byproduct of government indulging the black community with “‘civil rights,’ quotas, mandated hiring preferences, set-asides for government contracts, gerrymandered voting districts, black bureaucracies, black mayors, black curricula in schools, black tv shows, black tv anchors, hate crime laws, and public humiliation for anyone who dares question the black agenda.” It also denounced “the media” for believing that “America’s number one need is an unlimited white checking account for underclass blacks.”

-”This “Special Issue on Racial Terrorism” was hardly the first time one of Paul’s publications had raised these topics. As early as December 1989, a section of his Investment Letter, titled “What To Expect for the 1990s,” predicted that “Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities” because “mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white ‘haves.’” Two months later, a newsletter warned of “The Coming Race War,” and, in November 1990, an item advised readers, “If you live in a major city, and can leave, do so. If not, but you can have a rural retreat, for investment and refuge, buy it.”

-”In the early 1990s, a newsletter attacked the “X-Rated Martin Luther King” as a “world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours,” “seduced underage girls and boys,” and “made a pass at” fellow civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy. One newsletter ridiculed black activists who wanted to rename New York City after King, suggesting that “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” were better alternatives.” (This really puts Hillary Clinton’s recent statements in perspective. Her comments about MLK may have been bad, but she’s not even in the same ballpark as this dude)

-”Like blacks, gays earn plenty of animus in Paul’s newsletters. They frequently quoted Paul’s “old colleague,” Congressman William Dannemeyer–who advocated quarantining people with AIDS–praising him for “speak[ing] out fearlessly despite the organized power of the gay lobby.” In 1990, one newsletter mentioned a reporter from a gay magazine “who certainly had an axe to grind, and that’s not easy with a limp wrist.” In an item titled, “The Pink House?” the author of a newsletter–again, presumably Paul–complained about President George H.W. Bush’s decision to sign a hate crimes bill and invite “the heads of homosexual lobbying groups to the White House for the ceremony,” adding, “I miss the closet.” “Homosexuals,” it said, “not to speak of the rest of society, were far better off when social pressure forced them to hide their activities.”

-”The newsletters were particularly obsessed with AIDS, “a politically protected disease thanks to payola and the influence of the homosexual lobby,” and used it as a rhetorical club to beat gay people in general. In 1990, one newsletter approvingly quoted “a well-known Libertarian editor” as saying, “The ACT-UP slogan, on stickers plastered all over Manhattan, is ‘Silence = Death.’ But shouldn’t it be ‘Sodomy = Death’?”

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There’s a lot more, so look up the whole article if you can (I’m sure the TNR servers will recover from the Paul supporters’ attack shortly). Seriously, though, even if Paul’s BS about these newsletters being written by a “ghostwriter” are true, it means that he’s so incompetent that he allowed this drivel to be published under his name for decades. This guy isn’t fit to serve as a member of Congress, let alone as president.