August 07, 2004

• The Rolling Stone article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. which he links to is excellent.
• #10 is pretty weak - "always vote incumbents out"; surely not a good long term strategy? (though change IS good; hence, I believe, the 2 term limit in the White House?
• Always voting incumbents out would be a great strategy in a three-party state - providing the gameshow host knows which party is the right one, and has just ruled out one of the parties you didn't vote for last time...
• In a similar mode to the link, there is of course McSwys' Daily Reason to Dispatch Bush, which does a similar job, but much much better.
• Yay Iggy and flashboy! The McSweeney's link might also be a decent FPP at some point.
• I'm not convinced by most of the reasons. Reason #1 is strong, but most of the others are not. I make up words and make Bush-like mistakes all the time - does that make me a stupid or bad person? The top ten reasons should be based on policies, not personality. It's things like this that make me ashamed to be a leftie, and it's not even my country. Reasons to vote for a change of administration: foreign policy that does not allow for cooperation, blatent disregard for citizens' civil rights and non-citizens' human rights, using false rhetoric about children to gut education funding, blurring of the lines between church and state, creating a massive deficit through tax cuts that primarily benefit the rich (and no, you are not that rich), threatening academic freedom, using the economic power of the US to browbeat your "allies" into trade deals that benefit only the US ... wait, no, all your administrations do that. Anyways - some of the policies you may agree with. If you agree with all of them, then you should probably vote republican. It's your country - just try not to take out the rest of us at the same time.
• I make up words and make Bush-like mistakes all the time - does that make me a stupid or bad person? Well, a) you're not the leader of the most powerful country in the world, and b) it depends on how you act the rest of the time, whether you show yourself to be a hypocrite, liar, etc, when you make mistakes and make up words. But making up words does tend to = stupid, or at least, fairly odd. Unless you're Shakespeare.
• My thoughts exactly homunculus, excellent article. I can think of ten reasons not to re-elect Bush 1. He lies: WMD 2. He steals: tax cuts for the wealthiest 3. He cheats: military career 4. He cares nothing for education 5. He cares nothing for protecting the environment 6. He cares nothing about our civil rights 7. He has cares nothing about fixing the social security dilema 8. He cares nothing for affordable healthcare 9. He has not shown good judgement 10. I can't stand him Bear in mind these are my personal reasons, perhaps you other monkeys have your own.
• btw those are not to be taken in any particular order
• I make up words and make Bush-like mistakes all the time - does that make me a stupid or bad person? May I also add that as POTUS, he has access to some of the most highly paid scriptwriters, storyspinners and PR people in the world. If even all these troops of people who make other people look good for a living can't make him sound like an intelligent human being, imagine what he's like without them. And that is the scary bit.
• I agree, there are lots of better reasons not to vote for the current administration. A few that matter to me are (in no particular order): patriot act faith-based initiatives "pre-emptive" wars big oil haliburton putting up banners in front of statues terror alerts an FCC that "protects" the public airwaves by allowing media consolidation but encouraging censorship enemy combatants taxes running up a deficit
• The top ten reasons why John Kerry Sucks Less. Yay democracy! Three cheers for complacent two party systems! Nothing personal, IgSlu... I'm just saddened that Sucking Less™ has become a selling point for the Leader of the Free World. Maybe we'll even win the wars on drugs and poverty someday.
• Most of the people who don't want to vote for "the lesser of two evils" or are going to vote but complain about the candidates generally annoy me. For someone on the far left like me to complain about the choices is reasonable. For someone on the far, far right, a complaint would be reasonable, too. But most of the people that I hear bitch about the "lesser/evils" are actually in the middle somewhere. Thier politics are not much different the very candidates that they bitch about. I find that most of these people are not particulary well-informed and complain about the "lesser/evils" because they think that it makes them sound smart or hip.
• There are plenty of reasons not to vote for Bush. What we need are reasons to vote for Kerry.
• Well, about those word mistakes, I am a graduate student in a writing heavy discipline - so I may not be leading the free world, but as of this fall, I may be teaching potential leaders of the world. My point was that the way he speaks may or may not reflect his intelligence - a person could be very brilliant when it comes to logical or strategic thinking, but incapable of speaking well. Whereas I have met people who speak very well, but don't have the logical or analytic thinking to support it. Calling attention to personal foibles like misspeaking (like misspelling) is akin to ad hominem in your attempt to defeat an argument. Better to discuss his fitness by looking at his actions and his intentions. What has he done, what does he intend to do, in things that relate directly to his responsibilities.
• When it comes to making up words, there are two ways of going about it. The accidental method, which seems to be Bush's slot, and the deliberate method. I like Lewis Carol. That'll be all I say about deliberation. With the accidental method... I suspect that W's mistakes are mostly fairly reasonable combinations of known base words with known suffixes and prefixes. In the same way that frequent (wrongly) phonetic pronounciation can signal that a person's vocabulary was largely gathered from reading, Bush's mix-n-match method may indicate that he picked up his words mostly from talking with people. So, I'm not so convinced that he's stupid. He's certainly unreflective--which I consider much worse--but perhaps not stupid.
• With the accidental method... I suspect that W's mistakes are mostly fairly reasonable combinations of known base words with known suffixes and prefixes. Interesting. My ex is a speech-language pathologist; the next time I talk to her I'll get her take on that.
• None of this changes that fact that John Kerry also kind of sucks. It's kind of like saying, "Vote for Mephistopheles, because he's not as bad as Beelzebub or Lucifer." bernockle: damn, you nailed it.
• My general reaction to the lesser of two evils argument is to tell people to shut up and pick one and deal with it. I mean, those are our choices, you should be able to figure out which one is a better choice for yourself.
• I'd vote for the one that's not as thick as pig shit.
• frequent (wrongly) phonetic pronounciation Reminds me of one my most embarassing personal stories: The longest I've been outside the immediate L.A. area in the last 40 years was a year I "ran" an automated FM radio station in the Visalia/Tulare, California market (about 150 miles from L.A.). In addition to my responsibility for the FM station, they gave me some duties on the co-owned "live, community-oriented" AM station. One of those: doing a Farm Report at 6:05AM, lasting either nine-minutes or whenever the Morning News Guy shows up. A definate non-farmboy, I got about five minutes of training from the salesman serving the sponsor of the Farm Report the day before. The first broadcast was definately one of the most nervous of my alleged radio career (and I was never as comfortable on the radio as I should have been). I faced three-or-four totally alien terms and names on the wire service copy I ripped and read for most of the report and charged right through. As the Morning News Guy arrived, he gave me a big thumbs-up of uncertain sincerity. As I passed the sweat-covered announcer's chair over to him during a pre-recorded commercial, I asked him "How'd I do?" and he responded "How do I know? I'm from Philadelphia and I never listen to that farmyard ****." I returned to my FM automation machines and watched the phones for possible incoming complaints. None came. Then, when the Farm Report's salesman showed up for work at his regular 9:30, he took me aside and pointed out that the town of Tuolumne should be pronounced "too-AH-luh-mee", not "TOO-oh-loom-un", and the abbreviation "CWT", which I had pronounced "C.W.T." stands for "hundred-weight". It all seemed so obvious. And for the rest of my tenure at that station I never once visited the town of Tuolumne, or lifted anything that weighed a hundred-weight.
• My general reaction to the lesser of two evils argument is to tell people to shut up and pick one and deal with it. So, if I offered you a choice of two drinks, a choice between a brimming glass of castor oil and a frosty pig bile shake, you wouldn't complain? You wouldn't ask if maybe I had some water, or maybe even tea? You wouldn't choose to not drink anything? the next time I talk to her I'll get her take on that. Please do! My hair-brained theories rarely see the light of official scrutiny.
• I love pig bile. Especially with a slice of lemon
• catachresis: I'm sure I would complain about those choices, much as I did when Kerry became the presumptive nominee during primary season. At that time, I'd clearly voiced my preference for a more palatable beverage/candidate, as is my right. However, when some time has passed and I've gotten a bit thirstier and it's obvious that I've got to pick one or die of thirst, I'd have to pick the one that I think is less likely to kill me. Or I could not choose at all, but then I'd only have myself to blame for not at least attempting to sustain my life. We don't always get the best options to choose from. This is a fact of life. If you've done what you can to influence your available options and you're still stuck between pig bile and castor oil, well, pick one and be done with it.
• This site is a joke, right? Making fun of dumb liberals? 4.) Referring to number 4 - there is a noticeable difference in IQ. C'mon, folks. This is surely a joke.
• cabingirl: fair enough! I do think there's value in soliciting the support of those around you--for the next time a chance to dig a well comes up. But since the benefit may be chiefly psychological instead of utilitarian ("You all still want to dig that well, yah? Good.") I can understand objections. Great story, wendell.
• We don't always get the best options to choose from. This is a fact of life. If you've done what you can to influence your available options and you're still stuck between pig bile and castor oil, well, pick one and be done with it. I strongly disagree. As long as we continue to be given the false choice between two rich, Yale educated, white men, I will continue to complain untill I turn blue in the face. I may have to swallow a bitter pill, but unless I make sure that they know that I don't like swallowing bitter pills, they are going to keep trying to feed me that same pill. I might be a complainer, but there isn't any way that I'm going to drink piss or poison with a smile on my face.