Hey, I never said Republicans had a lock on flip flops! Here’s a clip from the Washington Post.
Here in President Bush’s convention city, Sen. Zell Miller (Ga.) is the Democrat Republicans love to love. Miller will be center stage as keynoter for Bush on Wednesday night, and Republican delegates can’t seem to thank him enough. [washingtonpost.com – 2004 Election]
President Bush: Flip-Flopper-In-Chief – Center for American Progress
I found this hilarious and infuriating at the same time. Hypocrisy is a big pet peeve for me.
I’m reminded of one of my Republican friends who said something I really liked. He said that he would rather vote for a candidate who sticks to his principles, even if he disagrees, than one who flip-flops. Of course he was talking about Bush vs. Kerry. I wonder how he would feel after reading that list…
Only Bush could make a man’s voting record that is consistent with his stated philosophy seem like the opposite. Kerry wants to increases that taxes on the most powerful, me and those who are richer, to support some semblance of social justice. As a progressive, i.e. just left of center, I’m down with that.
FactCheck.org Bush Still Fudging the Numbers on Kerry’s Tax Votes
As recent entries indicate, I’m back after a short hiatus. This summer has been an eye opener and a rejuvenator. I was losing my desire to speak or write because I didn’t have much I really wanted to say. I felt I hadn’t really read enough or thought enough about certain issues, but all that has changed.
As recent entries indicate, I’m back after a short hiatus. This summer has been an eye opener and a rejuvenator. I was losing my desire to speak or write because I didn’t have much I really wanted to say. I felt I hadn’t really read enough or thought enough about certain issues, but all that has changed.
I’ve become much more impassioned, mostly because of Bush and his neo-con antics. For most of Bush’s presidency, it was about disagreeing with the Republican agenda, but now it’s much more personal. I don’t just disagree with his ideology, I think the the man is wrong.
A recent conversation with a good friend highlighted this for me. He is a staunch Republican whose opinion I respect because he is extremely intelligent and a good person. We talked about Iraq and he gave me a persuasive, reasoned rationale for regime change in Iraq. None of his argument had anything to do with WMD or any subterfuge to execute the American agenda in support of those interests.
I thought to myself, “Why didn’t Bush say this to the American people?” The answer came in short order: too complex and strategic. Gathering the political will would be difficult, but at least it would be based on truth. So the administration’s solution was one of political expediency: to layer a false, surface agenda (the so called “immediate threat”) on top of what I view was the real agenda in Iraq: the neo-con agenda. When spelled out, this agenda doesn’t garner much public support because of its blind ideological support for moneyed power to the exclusion of just about everything else. Hence, the lies, half-truths, and the constantly changing reasons for going into Iraq from the Administration. (See transcript and video of Rumsfeld on Face the Nation getting caught in a lie.)
And this is where Bush broke faith with America. You simply do not lie, dissemble, or distort facts to move a people. You make a persuasive, truthful case like my friend did. This is where I was done with Bush as a person who doesn’t have the integrity to take the hard road, as all great leaders have. That may not make him a bad person, but it does make him a weak one. Too weak for his Office and these trying times.
In the article, FactCheck.org Radio Ads Accuse Kerry Of Not Helping Blacks, I got a good strong dose of why I think supporting the GOP is misguided at best, at least in this election.
In the article, FactCheck.org Radio Ads Accuse Kerry Of Not Helping Blacks, I got a good strong dose of why I think supporting the GOP is misguided at best, at least in this election.
The 527 behind the ads, the so-called People of Color United, exemplify the mudslinging that’s become so distasteful in this election cycle. I assert that both parties are definitely supporting this behavior for short term political ends. Many of the ads contain so many distortions of the truth that I can’t really say they convey the truth at all, even a slanted version of it.
The worst example of this was the ad about how Kerry failed to save a measure to extend unemployment benefits. Words can’t convey my anger at the ad itself, which drips with hypocrisy and lies by omission of key facts. How insulting is it when a party is willing to (indirectly) blame an opposing candidate for not saving a measure that they themselves killed? I will quote the FactCheck.org article for proof [bold emphasis mine]:
However, the main reason the measure failed was that most Republicans voted against it, and because Republicans raised a point of order to ensure that 60 votes, rather than a simple majority of those voting, would be needed for passage. (The vote was 40-59: 60 votes were needed to pass because the measure required a waiver of pay-as-you-go provisions of the Budget Act.) There were 39 Republicans and one Democrat voting against, with 47 Democrats and only 12 Republicans voting in favor.
My problem here is not one of ideology (although I disagree with much of Republican ideology), it’s one of decency and integrity: simply telling the truth.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is far more trouble than it’s worth.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is far more trouble than it’s worth. On the one hand, I can understand the entertainment industry’s desire to preserve its business model. It would be foolish to expect otherwise, but the subsequent costs to society are dire. The unintended consequences of this act are the lawsuits that threaten to turn copyright into monopoly and the infringement of personal and community rights especially fair use and free speech.
Lately I’ve been in a sort of funk. What I’ve been reading in the news is distrubing and frightening. The latest round of affronts on personal freedoms have had me feeling greatly saddened about my country and the value for which I believe it stands. America is about tolerance, or so I thought
Lately I’ve been in a sort of funk. What I’ve been reading in the news is disturbing and frightening. The latest round of affronts on personal freedoms have had me feeling greatly saddened about my country and the value for which I believe it stands. America is about tolerance, or so I thought until “my” president sought an amendment to the constitution that would essentially define a group of second class citizens, much like it did to slaves by classifying them as 3/5 of a person.
