Category: Politics

Since I’ve diverted my attention from reading poetry to upgrading my web site, I’ve been casting around looking for something I can write about without an excessive amount of thought, not that a lack of thought has ever deterred me from writing here before.

The fact is that my own thoughts have turned to local and state elections and trying to gather enough information to make informed decisions about candidates. As usual, I’ve already pretty much made up my mind on the major candidates. After all, I didn’t send money to the DNC and to two local candidates just to turn around and vote Republican, now did I? The truth is, though, that I really consider myself an “independent” and I positively hate it when I can’t vote against at least one Democratic candidate.

I’ve always been bothered about voting on “minor” offices and judicial offices because they are so far off the news scale that I know very little about the candidates unless one of my friends has had something to say about them. Often I’ve ended up just not voting on these offices rather than casting a totally uninformed vote.

It appears, though, that if you have access to the web, a little patience, and some time, that, once again the web proves to be a formidable tool in the gathering of information. By bouncing back and forth between official state pages and the local newspaper on line, I was able to gather information on every single candidate and state initiative that I was undecided on.

I must admit, though, that I regret that more Green Party candidates weren’t running for state office. I would like to be able to vote for alternative party candidates in local elections, if for no other reason than to send a message to the Democratic Party. I also believe alternative parties need to build from the ground up if they are going to be politically effective. Philosophically, I am much more of a Green Party voter than a Democratic voter. Realistically, however, one Green Party representative would probably have zero effects on national politics, a major reason I refused to vote for Nader for President. Jimmy Carter certainly proved that when he was elected President as a political outsider. Despite his intelligence and honorable intentions, I felt that he was an ineffective President. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, I am more of a pragmatist than an idealist, and too often have had to vote for candidates not because I supported them but because they were the only viable alternative.

Unfortunately the internet can’t insure that only good candidates will run for office, but with all of the resources available on line, there is no reason not to be informed and to vote as if it mattered. Considering the major issues likely to arise in the next two years, I join fellow bloggers in urging everyone to study their ballots carefully and VOTE.

Like Dave at Time’s Shadow, I too am tiring of the constant barrage of warblogging. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m as tolerant as Dave. After several times reading “great articles” that turn out to be nothing more than propaganda, I tend to return to the blog that referred them less than I used to, even if it means missing out on other views I used to find interesting.

As I’ve said before, I too am fed up with illogical, emotional arguments that rely on name calling rather than logic to prove their argument, whether pro-Iraqi or anti-Iraqi. There are arguments to support both views, but few people bother to look at possible scenarios and then argue how those scenarios support their view.

When Christopher Hitchens loads the beginning of his essay in the Washington Post with words like “Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter” and “America’s peace-mongers” and “the Left could have a regime-change perspective of its own, based on solidarity with its comrades abroad” you know that his argument is not going to be based on anything resembling logic. How any blogger can pass this on as a “well-written op-ed” is beyond me. In a very real sense, I begin to lose confidence in that blogger’s wisdom and objectivity.

I’d like to think I’m no more masochistic than Dave. So that leaves me asking myself why I continue to plow through this stuff looking for something that resembles an intelligent argument and continue to offer my own counter arguments. Perhaps I agree with Jonathon that it’s important to “hold and articulate a stance that supports the elimination of Al Quaeda and the Islamic Fascists while opposing Bush’s oil-driven war against Iraq.” At the very least, people need to have reasonable alternatives to those views. They need to be remnded that there are other possibilities that offer more rational solutions to complex problems

Perhaps I believe it’s just too important of an issue to leave it to those who would try to drum up emotions to justify their own irrational fears and hatred. Of course, Dorothea might be right that my damn stubborn streak is bound to cause me pain because it won’t allow me to simply accept the reality that the invasion of Iraq is inevitable and there is nothing I can do about it. My time would be better spent getting the garden ready for a long, wet winter.

However, I spent most of my life trying to teach students how to think critically for themselves. I guess I’m still not ready to give up on that belief even though I’m no longer teaching. I still believe the world will be a far better place when people learn to make important decisions based on rational arguments not merely on emotions.

Despite what Jonathon Delacour and Joe Duemer may think, I personally feel that the debate over Iraq, for better or worse, is over in America. THEY, the Bush administration, are simply waiting for elections to disappear before beginning the invasion.

Now, Duemer may well be right that the far left and far right will unite in protest against the war. However, since there is no draft and since the energy for effective protests probably comes from young men who fear they may soon be headed off to war, they will continue to be limited to small protests in Portland, Oregon, with aged hippies marching through the streets, soon dissolving into small groups of quaint discontents as protestors head off to get a warming Latte. All rather nostalgic and colorful, but in the end meaningless and ineffective.

I also tend to agree with Jonathon’s assessment that we should have continued to pursue our attempts to eradicate Al Queda and Bin Laden rather than divert our energies to striking Saddam. While it would have been even better if we could have limited that attempt to “police” forces, portraying them as the criminals they are rather than as armed combatants in a “holy war” against the United States, for the most part our attempts to root out Al Queda have been reasonable attempts of people to defend themselves against criminal acts, though I would still argue that caging people for months in Cuba, only to quietly admit that many of them were probably wrongfully incarcerated was just plain immoral, and, more importantly, is unlikely to win many converts to our cause.

Certainly international law and common sense would allow us to pursue those who operate outside the law and strike the innocent with impunity. The war against Saddam will effectively short-circuit that attempt, though, as it is unlikely that America will have the personnel or energy to carry out both “wars” at the same time.

In the long run, I suspect that our invasion of Iraq will contribute to, not diminish, the Al Queda movement. Does anyone really believe that such an invasion, justified or not, will not further alienate Muslims from the United States? Who, beside the oil-rich ruling classes who have already allied themselves with the Republican administration, can see this as anything but an attempt by the West to impose its will on their Muslim bretheren?

I find myself more and more agreeing with Dave of Time’s Shadow that the real problem is that no one, no one, has really seen the problem through and figured out an end game. The same stupid administrators who created Bin Laden’s myth of “Holy Saviour of the Muslim Faith” in their earlier attempts to overthrow the evil communist empire in Afghanistan are about to repeat that mistake once again, creating another martyr in the Muslim cause.

Like Israel in earlier battles, we will probably again easily defeat Saddam in this battle and pat ourselves on the back after another Great Victory (One Granada, Two Granada …). Who can deny it? The real question, of course, the one the Republican Administration neither asks nor answers, is whether we will end up in precisely the same position the Israelis find themselves twenty years after their “resounding victories,” mired in an on-going struggle that diminishes not only the lives of the Palestinians but of the Israelis themselves.