Although I am a homophobe and proud of it, I came across this exchange on the internet and thought it was hilarious.
All words from this point are verbatim quotations:
"One of the stunts Nunn pulled back in the day was a little field trip with the MSM to a submarine to show them how close it was in those quarters, telegraphing the message that predatory ho-mo-sexuals were going to jump their fellow submariners for some Satanic nookey.
In a flash, Nunn lowered the tenor of the debate and created visions of promiscuous, unpatriotic gays and lesbians transforming our Navy into a hapless fleet of Sodomy Subs. All people wanted to talk about after this monstrosity was bunk beds.
Do they really think that putting a Southern White Guy on the ticket as VP will get rednecks to vote for Obama? Those people are going to vote Democrat even if Jesus Christ is on the ticket.
MKK
Mary Kay on 05/29 at 01:27 PM
Arrrgh. Those people *aren’t* going to vote Democrat…
Proof reading is your friend.
MKK
Mary Kay on 05/29 at 01:28 PM
I would think Jesus being on the ticket would make them even less likely to vote Democratic. Come on, they’re really going to vote for a long-haired Jew who wants them to love their neighbors and help the poor?
libdevil on 05/29 at 01:32 PM
That’s a bit of an obscure name, anyway… when did he run, 1988?
There is an interesting discussion of another Southern white messiah, Jim Webb, here.
norbizness on 05/29 at 02:22 PM
That’s a bit of an obscure name, anyway… when did he run, 1988?
Jesus is an obscure name? Man, you don’t get out much, do you, norbizness?
For that matter Jesus didn’t run in 1988, it was 36 and he lost court decisions at both the Sanhedrin and Roman appellate court levels. Like Gore, but with a less salubrious retirement.
seeker6079 on 05/29 at 02:34 PM "
(close quote)
[source http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/no_on_nunn/ ]
I like Sam Nunn but, unless his staffers molested a Senate page or something, it is wrong to fire people simply for being gay. I used to work for a gay man and he was one of the best bosses I ever had.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
A Brief History of US Concentration Camps
Those who are not students of history may be unaware that America has had bona fide concentration camps twice in its history and almost on a third occasion.
The first "Indian reservations" were fields where Native Americans [who had survived slaughter by pioneer settlers from back East, professional "Indian fighters" and the US Cavalry] were herded together, fenced in, and left exposed to the elements without food, clothing (except smallpox infected blankets) or shelter during the brutal North American winters. These were concentration camps before that term had been coined.
The Japanese-American internment camps during World War Two were the second concentration camps in American history. Documents have been declassified from the National Archives that show, during the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, the US government made plans to round up its black population. This would have been the third era of American concentration camps.
If you wanted to argue that the slave pens and slave prisons in which slaves newly arrived from "seasoning" (code for torturing African culture and languages out of African abductees) in the West Indies of the Caribbean after the Middle Passage from Africa were incarcerated were concentration camps, then I would be prepared to accept it as the first era of concentration camps. Guantanamo and the CIA prisons around the world could be seen as the most recent concentration camps.
There is no point in lecturing you the reader about how it demeans America to be seen as a police state. But aside from how non-Americans see America, do we Americans want to live in a police state? Hasn't the Patriot Act essentially abolished the Bill of Rights?
The first "Indian reservations" were fields where Native Americans [who had survived slaughter by pioneer settlers from back East, professional "Indian fighters" and the US Cavalry] were herded together, fenced in, and left exposed to the elements without food, clothing (except smallpox infected blankets) or shelter during the brutal North American winters. These were concentration camps before that term had been coined.
The Japanese-American internment camps during World War Two were the second concentration camps in American history. Documents have been declassified from the National Archives that show, during the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, the US government made plans to round up its black population. This would have been the third era of American concentration camps.
If you wanted to argue that the slave pens and slave prisons in which slaves newly arrived from "seasoning" (code for torturing African culture and languages out of African abductees) in the West Indies of the Caribbean after the Middle Passage from Africa were incarcerated were concentration camps, then I would be prepared to accept it as the first era of concentration camps. Guantanamo and the CIA prisons around the world could be seen as the most recent concentration camps.
There is no point in lecturing you the reader about how it demeans America to be seen as a police state. But aside from how non-Americans see America, do we Americans want to live in a police state? Hasn't the Patriot Act essentially abolished the Bill of Rights?
The Far Right or How to Smear Your Political Enemies in One Easy Step
Step One: Call them commies.
Hitler, a Nazi, ordered the extermination of Jews. You might say if you were trying to be fair, that one shouldn't judge all Nazis and fascists from this one example. However, far from being an isolated example, all Nazis and fascists are anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. This is somewhat true of Vladimir Putin's Russian ultra-nationalists who would bring back pogroms and invasions of smaller countries. This is true of European skinheads. This is true of ultraconservatives, reactionaries and the Ku Klux Klan in America. During the Great Depression, the loudest voices that were raised against photographs of poverty, sharecroppers, the Dustbowl, and migrant workers were the fascists who cried: "propaganda and communist class warfare!" Fascists live in a state of denial. Denial of the fact of the Great Depression. Denial of the Holocaust. Any day now, they will deny World War Two. They preferred poster art showing happy Volk and peasants like they had in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
America in the early Twentieth Century was so f-cked up that the disenfranchised (without the right to vote) and the workers who were physically beaten as they tried to organize had no one to turn to but the communists. History amply shows that the relationship was short-lived and temporary at most.
Now if I wanted to forever smear you in America, all I would have to do is tell some nut like Joe McCarthy and some cross-dresser like J. Edgar Hoover that you were a communist. It would not matter to any knee-jerk fascist whether such a charge were true.
What difference did being a communist make to Nelson Mandela who never raised a finger against capitalism or democracy and who, in fact, supported both capitalism and democracy?
I personally have no sympathy for socialism nor communism since Stalin was responsible for forty million deaths and Mao was responsible for seventy million deaths. I simply point out that in the grand scheme of things; Hitler was closer to Satan because Hitler built death camps and death factories. Even Stalin did not go that far with the gulags.
The non communist left is guilty only of guilt by association with communists. Nazis hate minorities, Christians, Jews, freedom, and liberation. Nazis love slavery, book burning, lynching, arson, and breaking the windows of small businessmen who would dare compete with the giant Krupp industries.
Ironically, the one group that Nazis leave alone is the communists. Nixon aided and abetted the Red Chinese in killing Tibetans. Putin's KGB spread disinformation as his tanks rolled over Georgia. The North Korean dictators and the Castros can make their people suffer. Communist China finances the USA's multi-trillion dollar debt. Ultraconservatives, reactionaries, neo-Nazis, and other conservatives will let it happen unopposed as long as they get their fix of oil to feed their oil addiction. But let someone in America talk about the Americans wiped out by climate change (hurricanes, floods, the sea eroding coastal land, drought) or jobs wiped out by the oil addiction or black lung from coal mining or asthma from dirty air or cancer from the chemicals in water and food or the danger of radioactive waste from nuclear plants falling into the hands of terrorists or affordable health care or unjust imprisonment of men (who may have DNA proof of innocence or who may be in prison because they are black) or Abu Ghraib or making peace (rather than beating the drum for war, the John Wayne "nuke'em" attitude) and they will be unfairly called a communist. All discussion will grind to a halt. Thinking will cease. And America will continue to drift to the right. The Republicans used to have, in the not so distant past, a liberal wing. Now moderate Republicans are portrayed not as liberals but as radicals. This isn't ignorance of political science. This is political engineering of the dangerous kind. [Look for my article on concentration camps for a nightmare scenario]
Hitler killed six million Jews. Our feckless leader's reckless determination to do nothing about cancer or dirty bombs will result in the death of hundreds of millions of Americans. His fighting of any attempt to reverse climate change will doom Billions of people. It is called the sin of omission.
This whole Nazi/KKK/Christian Identity/Church of the Creator (gosh these guys keep proliferating) far right versus communist* far left battle gets old. That's why I am a moderate centrist. The problems with being a centrist or a moderate or independent are threefold:
1. We have no think tanks or research institutes or academics that will do the intellectual heavy lifting of developing public policy. What exists now is simply mathematical averaging. If the extreme left is zero on a scale of zero to ten and the extreme right is ten, then five represents us.
(0+10)/÷2=5
You can't build anything worthwhile by simply looking at the left [communists taking advantage of idealistic liberals by pretending to care about progress and the future] and the right [fascists pretending to be realistic and respectful of the traditions of the past] and trying to find a happy medium. When you average out types of extremism, you simply have generic extremism.
2. Centrists and moderates and independents have no political party to represent them. However, if we could mash together the third parties (Libertarians, Greens, and others), then you would have a viable party that could take on the duopoly which prevents third parties from getting attention or even getting on the ballot.
3. Centrists and moderates and independents need their own influence on judicial selection, on entertainment, and on the business world just like the liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.
*the far left only comes in one flavor
Hitler, a Nazi, ordered the extermination of Jews. You might say if you were trying to be fair, that one shouldn't judge all Nazis and fascists from this one example. However, far from being an isolated example, all Nazis and fascists are anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. This is somewhat true of Vladimir Putin's Russian ultra-nationalists who would bring back pogroms and invasions of smaller countries. This is true of European skinheads. This is true of ultraconservatives, reactionaries and the Ku Klux Klan in America. During the Great Depression, the loudest voices that were raised against photographs of poverty, sharecroppers, the Dustbowl, and migrant workers were the fascists who cried: "propaganda and communist class warfare!" Fascists live in a state of denial. Denial of the fact of the Great Depression. Denial of the Holocaust. Any day now, they will deny World War Two. They preferred poster art showing happy Volk and peasants like they had in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.
America in the early Twentieth Century was so f-cked up that the disenfranchised (without the right to vote) and the workers who were physically beaten as they tried to organize had no one to turn to but the communists. History amply shows that the relationship was short-lived and temporary at most.
Now if I wanted to forever smear you in America, all I would have to do is tell some nut like Joe McCarthy and some cross-dresser like J. Edgar Hoover that you were a communist. It would not matter to any knee-jerk fascist whether such a charge were true.
What difference did being a communist make to Nelson Mandela who never raised a finger against capitalism or democracy and who, in fact, supported both capitalism and democracy?
I personally have no sympathy for socialism nor communism since Stalin was responsible for forty million deaths and Mao was responsible for seventy million deaths. I simply point out that in the grand scheme of things; Hitler was closer to Satan because Hitler built death camps and death factories. Even Stalin did not go that far with the gulags.
The non communist left is guilty only of guilt by association with communists. Nazis hate minorities, Christians, Jews, freedom, and liberation. Nazis love slavery, book burning, lynching, arson, and breaking the windows of small businessmen who would dare compete with the giant Krupp industries.
Ironically, the one group that Nazis leave alone is the communists. Nixon aided and abetted the Red Chinese in killing Tibetans. Putin's KGB spread disinformation as his tanks rolled over Georgia. The North Korean dictators and the Castros can make their people suffer. Communist China finances the USA's multi-trillion dollar debt. Ultraconservatives, reactionaries, neo-Nazis, and other conservatives will let it happen unopposed as long as they get their fix of oil to feed their oil addiction. But let someone in America talk about the Americans wiped out by climate change (hurricanes, floods, the sea eroding coastal land, drought) or jobs wiped out by the oil addiction or black lung from coal mining or asthma from dirty air or cancer from the chemicals in water and food or the danger of radioactive waste from nuclear plants falling into the hands of terrorists or affordable health care or unjust imprisonment of men (who may have DNA proof of innocence or who may be in prison because they are black) or Abu Ghraib or making peace (rather than beating the drum for war, the John Wayne "nuke'em" attitude) and they will be unfairly called a communist. All discussion will grind to a halt. Thinking will cease. And America will continue to drift to the right. The Republicans used to have, in the not so distant past, a liberal wing. Now moderate Republicans are portrayed not as liberals but as radicals. This isn't ignorance of political science. This is political engineering of the dangerous kind. [Look for my article on concentration camps for a nightmare scenario]
Hitler killed six million Jews. Our feckless leader's reckless determination to do nothing about cancer or dirty bombs will result in the death of hundreds of millions of Americans. His fighting of any attempt to reverse climate change will doom Billions of people. It is called the sin of omission.
This whole Nazi/KKK/Christian Identity/Church of the Creator (gosh these guys keep proliferating) far right versus communist* far left battle gets old. That's why I am a moderate centrist. The problems with being a centrist or a moderate or independent are threefold:
1. We have no think tanks or research institutes or academics that will do the intellectual heavy lifting of developing public policy. What exists now is simply mathematical averaging. If the extreme left is zero on a scale of zero to ten and the extreme right is ten, then five represents us.
(0+10)/÷2=5
You can't build anything worthwhile by simply looking at the left [communists taking advantage of idealistic liberals by pretending to care about progress and the future] and the right [fascists pretending to be realistic and respectful of the traditions of the past] and trying to find a happy medium. When you average out types of extremism, you simply have generic extremism.
2. Centrists and moderates and independents have no political party to represent them. However, if we could mash together the third parties (Libertarians, Greens, and others), then you would have a viable party that could take on the duopoly which prevents third parties from getting attention or even getting on the ballot.
3. Centrists and moderates and independents need their own influence on judicial selection, on entertainment, and on the business world just like the liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans.
*the far left only comes in one flavor
Top Ten Things Obama Can Do To Satisfy Hillary Supporters
1. Have his name legally changed to Hillary Rodham.
2. Have a sex change operation.
3. Get castrated by Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
4. Crawl on his knees through broken glass and beg for forgiveness.
5. Crawl on his knees through the broken glass of the glass ceiling
6. Drop dead so that Hillary will have to be substituted as the Democratic nominee. [Hey that's how Hubert Humphrey got it from RFK]
7. Drop Joe Biden from the ticket and substitute Hillary as running mate.
8. Make a speech to the National Organization of Women in which he says it will not be Hillary's fault when he loses the election.
9. Declare his support for Hillary in 2012 and his intention to be a one-term president.
10. He can't satisfy Hillary supporters. No man can satisfy a woman.
This is one list you'll never see on David Letterman.
2. Have a sex change operation.
3. Get castrated by Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.
4. Crawl on his knees through broken glass and beg for forgiveness.
5. Crawl on his knees through the broken glass of the glass ceiling
6. Drop dead so that Hillary will have to be substituted as the Democratic nominee. [Hey that's how Hubert Humphrey got it from RFK]
7. Drop Joe Biden from the ticket and substitute Hillary as running mate.
8. Make a speech to the National Organization of Women in which he says it will not be Hillary's fault when he loses the election.
9. Declare his support for Hillary in 2012 and his intention to be a one-term president.
10. He can't satisfy Hillary supporters. No man can satisfy a woman.
This is one list you'll never see on David Letterman.
"For the first time I'm proud"
To those who say Michelle Obama is angry, I have a few questions to ask. Since when did white people earn the right to judge black people?
Do white people know the history of black people? Do most white people know that black people have spent over five (>500) hundred years at the bottom? Do most white people know that Africans were kidnap victims of Arab slave traders? That they were forced on a death march to the Slave Coast? That they were put in a dungeon? That they were next crammed on slave ships like sardines, chained together, not allowed to get up to urinate or defecate? That sometimes when slop ran short excess "cargo" was thrown overboard still in chains unable to swim? That their first experience of America was being led off ships naked and put into pens? That they were sold like animals or beaten in workhouses often to the accompaniment of a hypocritical preacher reading from the Bible? That they had to walk to the plantation, there to be worked to death? That they were killed for reading the Bible or any other book? That if they rebelled, they were skinned and used for leather? [That’s how the Nazis got the idea to turn Jewish skin into leather] That if they escaped to flee to Canada and were caught, they might lose a body part? That they had to endure humiliation and half pay at the hands of racist white officers when they fought for freedom in the US Colored Troops during the Civil War? That after the Civil War, the Red Shirts would surround their houses and demand they come out? That if they refused, they would burn the house down and if they came out, they would be shot? That next came the Klan who doused them in kerosene and burned them alive or lynched them and took body parts as souvenirs that some Southern white families have pickled in jars to this very day? That photo postcards of lynchings used to be a popular hobby? That entire Southern communities (men, women and children) participated in these "picnics"? That the Klan was once in all fifty states and several foreign countries? That the United States federal government has been integrated and re-segregated several times in history? That state governments in the South nullified the right to vote for blacks? That "states rights" was the right to discriminate against blacks? That even after blacks served in every war from the Revolutionary War to World War Two, returning veterans were often lynched for returning to their home towns wearing their uniforms? That fire hoses and dogs were used on children during the Civil Rights Movement? That burnings of black churches only recently stopped? That lynchings have taken place since the year 2001? In the Twenty-First Century? That in Florida black people were classified as felons and stopped by police roadblocks to prevent them from voting against Republicans? That ballot boxes were thrown away? That this is common knowledge among foreign reporters but American reporters didn't investigate? That not one US Senator, Republican or Democrat, would sponsor an investigation of the irregularities of the Florida count in 2000? That not one member of the US Senate was black? [before Obama]
Tell me that the Irish-American experience of the coffin ships means nothing. Tell me that the Jewish-American experience of the Holocaust means nothing. Tell me that the Japanese-American experience of being stripped of their homes and businesses and put in concentration camps means nothing. Tell me that the Native-American experience of genocide means nothing. Tell me that the experience of Chinese-Americans who built the transcontinental railroad and then were denied being allowed to send for their wives or children because of the hysteria of 'Yellow Peril' means nothing. Tell me all this and then I won't say a thing when you criticize Michelle Obama for saying that this is the first time she has been proud of this country. I won't say a thing because I wouldn't have anything to say to a person who lacked both brain and heart.
But some people are more interested in style than the substance of our lives. And even here too, Mrs. Obama has been compared to Jackie Kennedy. This is rich irony considering that McCain has more houses than he can count while the Obamas come from the working class. Only in America can you struggle for centuries (half a millennium), overcome obstacles (which all too often are us white people), lose a father (both Barack and Michelle), work and get into Harvard, go to work for poor people instead of piling up the money at a Wall Street law firm, and then hear idiots who don't know what the hell they're talking about criticize you.
Do white people know the history of black people? Do most white people know that black people have spent over five (>500) hundred years at the bottom? Do most white people know that Africans were kidnap victims of Arab slave traders? That they were forced on a death march to the Slave Coast? That they were put in a dungeon? That they were next crammed on slave ships like sardines, chained together, not allowed to get up to urinate or defecate? That sometimes when slop ran short excess "cargo" was thrown overboard still in chains unable to swim? That their first experience of America was being led off ships naked and put into pens? That they were sold like animals or beaten in workhouses often to the accompaniment of a hypocritical preacher reading from the Bible? That they had to walk to the plantation, there to be worked to death? That they were killed for reading the Bible or any other book? That if they rebelled, they were skinned and used for leather? [That’s how the Nazis got the idea to turn Jewish skin into leather] That if they escaped to flee to Canada and were caught, they might lose a body part? That they had to endure humiliation and half pay at the hands of racist white officers when they fought for freedom in the US Colored Troops during the Civil War? That after the Civil War, the Red Shirts would surround their houses and demand they come out? That if they refused, they would burn the house down and if they came out, they would be shot? That next came the Klan who doused them in kerosene and burned them alive or lynched them and took body parts as souvenirs that some Southern white families have pickled in jars to this very day? That photo postcards of lynchings used to be a popular hobby? That entire Southern communities (men, women and children) participated in these "picnics"? That the Klan was once in all fifty states and several foreign countries? That the United States federal government has been integrated and re-segregated several times in history? That state governments in the South nullified the right to vote for blacks? That "states rights" was the right to discriminate against blacks? That even after blacks served in every war from the Revolutionary War to World War Two, returning veterans were often lynched for returning to their home towns wearing their uniforms? That fire hoses and dogs were used on children during the Civil Rights Movement? That burnings of black churches only recently stopped? That lynchings have taken place since the year 2001? In the Twenty-First Century? That in Florida black people were classified as felons and stopped by police roadblocks to prevent them from voting against Republicans? That ballot boxes were thrown away? That this is common knowledge among foreign reporters but American reporters didn't investigate? That not one US Senator, Republican or Democrat, would sponsor an investigation of the irregularities of the Florida count in 2000? That not one member of the US Senate was black? [before Obama]
Tell me that the Irish-American experience of the coffin ships means nothing. Tell me that the Jewish-American experience of the Holocaust means nothing. Tell me that the Japanese-American experience of being stripped of their homes and businesses and put in concentration camps means nothing. Tell me that the Native-American experience of genocide means nothing. Tell me that the experience of Chinese-Americans who built the transcontinental railroad and then were denied being allowed to send for their wives or children because of the hysteria of 'Yellow Peril' means nothing. Tell me all this and then I won't say a thing when you criticize Michelle Obama for saying that this is the first time she has been proud of this country. I won't say a thing because I wouldn't have anything to say to a person who lacked both brain and heart.
But some people are more interested in style than the substance of our lives. And even here too, Mrs. Obama has been compared to Jackie Kennedy. This is rich irony considering that McCain has more houses than he can count while the Obamas come from the working class. Only in America can you struggle for centuries (half a millennium), overcome obstacles (which all too often are us white people), lose a father (both Barack and Michelle), work and get into Harvard, go to work for poor people instead of piling up the money at a Wall Street law firm, and then hear idiots who don't know what the hell they're talking about criticize you.
The Presidential Reform Amendment
1. Slander and libel laws apply to presidential campaigns. Caps removed from jury awards. This anti-slander and anti-libel regime applies to all: candidates, campaign staff, 507 groups, and even private citizens spreading rumors. Even foreigners could be sued in international courts for attempting to influence the campaign.
2. Any black ops contractor or intelligence operative of the US government who engages in election tampering must be arrested and, if convicted, must face immediate capital punishment with no chance of appeal. Cryptocracy and democracy are incompatible. Therefore this reform has to have iron teeth.
3. Eligibility to be president should be lowered to age twenty-five because by the time they get through a couple of campaigns they will be seventy years old anyway. Gerontocracy leaves the young unrepresented. Experience is overrated when compared with energy and new ideas not corrupted by the way things are.
4. Abolish the Electoral College permanently. What were the Founding Fathers thinking? They did a lot of things right but this wasn't one of their good ideas.
5. A Supreme Court justice, even the Chief Justice, cannot rule on a presidential election. All such cases that come before must be referred to lower courts or even an international court lest the Supreme Court be tainted with being politicized. The Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics. Any justice who acts otherwise must be immediately removed from the bench by impeachment, arrest, disbarment, or whatever legal means necessary.
6. The vice-president will no longer be chosen by one man because all too often vice-presidents become presidents and choosing a running mate undermines democracy. The vice-presidency will be an elective office with a separate election as is done on the state level with lieutenant governors. This might result in vice-presidents who were opponents during the primaries or even from an opposite party. As a result, the president may hate the vice-president. To provide for smooth operation of government, both president and vice-president must either resign from their respective political parties or resign from office.
7. Furthermore, the VP may not be excluded from Cabinet meetings nor another key meeting lest a situation result like that in which Truman was never briefed about the atomic bomb. Should a president attempt to freeze out the vice-president, other formal and informal institutions of America are expected to bring pressure to bear on the president as a check and balance: First Ladies or First Gentlemen, the clergy, the business community, the press, chief scientific advisor, universities, the legal profession, state governors, and arbiters of etiquette.
Granted this is a rough draft (could use a Constitutional law attorney to help me spruce it up) but if you are willing to circulate a petition or help look for sponsors in the states and in Congress, then we can prevent future occurrences like the disaster in 2000.
2. Any black ops contractor or intelligence operative of the US government who engages in election tampering must be arrested and, if convicted, must face immediate capital punishment with no chance of appeal. Cryptocracy and democracy are incompatible. Therefore this reform has to have iron teeth.
3. Eligibility to be president should be lowered to age twenty-five because by the time they get through a couple of campaigns they will be seventy years old anyway. Gerontocracy leaves the young unrepresented. Experience is overrated when compared with energy and new ideas not corrupted by the way things are.
4. Abolish the Electoral College permanently. What were the Founding Fathers thinking? They did a lot of things right but this wasn't one of their good ideas.
5. A Supreme Court justice, even the Chief Justice, cannot rule on a presidential election. All such cases that come before must be referred to lower courts or even an international court lest the Supreme Court be tainted with being politicized. The Supreme Court is supposed to be above politics. Any justice who acts otherwise must be immediately removed from the bench by impeachment, arrest, disbarment, or whatever legal means necessary.
6. The vice-president will no longer be chosen by one man because all too often vice-presidents become presidents and choosing a running mate undermines democracy. The vice-presidency will be an elective office with a separate election as is done on the state level with lieutenant governors. This might result in vice-presidents who were opponents during the primaries or even from an opposite party. As a result, the president may hate the vice-president. To provide for smooth operation of government, both president and vice-president must either resign from their respective political parties or resign from office.
7. Furthermore, the VP may not be excluded from Cabinet meetings nor another key meeting lest a situation result like that in which Truman was never briefed about the atomic bomb. Should a president attempt to freeze out the vice-president, other formal and informal institutions of America are expected to bring pressure to bear on the president as a check and balance: First Ladies or First Gentlemen, the clergy, the business community, the press, chief scientific advisor, universities, the legal profession, state governors, and arbiters of etiquette.
Granted this is a rough draft (could use a Constitutional law attorney to help me spruce it up) but if you are willing to circulate a petition or help look for sponsors in the states and in Congress, then we can prevent future occurrences like the disaster in 2000.
Why Obama Will Lose (Revisited)
1. The color prejudice factor: Obama will lose because when many voters get in the privacy of the voting booth they will vote against him because of color prejudice. What people say to opinion pollsters and what people do in primaries (voting across party lines to screw up the other party) is a far cry from actual events in November. Gallup and the other public opinion surveys have been wrong before. People will lie and tell a pollster anything. They don't want to publicly admit to a reporter or a pollster that they fear or hate blacks.
2. Hispanic voters will go over to McCain because McCain will go pronunciar un discurso in Spanish in which he promesa to make español lengua oficial de los Estados Unidos. The safest choice for Obama would have been Bill Richardson (or, better yet a Hispanic female) because no one would dare shoot a black running with a brown. If Obama was assassinated, then the Mexican border would cease to exist. [Source: This bit of humor borrowed from Dave Chappelle]
3. The ignorance factor: People refuse to believe that Obama is a Christian.
4. The meanness factor: The Ku Klux Klan will get out the vote for McCain in the South because he's white. Never mind that Obama has been the best thing that KKK recruiters have had since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Such ingrates.
5. George Bush has pledged support for McCain. Bush, who is best friends with the Bin Laden family, could get Osama to do something scary the day before Election Day so that people seeking security and experience will vote for John McCain.
6. The race factor: Obama is of African descent in a nation that has always been ruled by people of European descent and mostly Anglo-Saxon. Even Hispanics are of European descent (Spain) and they still speak Spanish. Native Americans and Africans are at the bottom of society throughout Latin America just as they are in the USA.
7. Young people will show up at rallies but historically young people won't show up on Election Day to vote. They don't know where their precinct is. They don't know where to cast their ballot. They don't know where their polling place is. They don't have their card or drivers license. Their name is not listed on the rolls because they never registered to vote. They don't prepare for such things as a flat tire or time conflict (classes or job). Their Republican employer might threaten to fire them for being late to work if they vote before work or keep them from leaving early if they vote after work. This is the real world. The other side doesn't play any fairer than Mugabe. If young people were concerned about their future (or lack of same), then the ground swell for Obama would be more than just signing up for text messaging and watching Obama Girl on YouTube.
8. The Florida vote will be rigged again. Last time every black person in Florida was classified as a felon ineligible to vote. This time every black person in Florida will be classified as insane and, under conservatorship, ineligible to vote. Or no one paid their taxes or they are misidentified as illegal aliens. Nothing incenses black people more than disenfranchisement. Has something to do with over five (500) hundred years of struggling to get the vote. One group of Republicans wonders why Blacks don't trust them. A second group of Republicans know why and just don't care. A third group of Republicans are the ones rigging the vote: owners of voting machine companies, voting software companies, and voter database companies are Republican. A fourth group of Republicans see all this, they are disgusted, and they join Republicans for Obama but not in numbers enough to make a difference.
9. The double standard factor: When a white politician is perceived as racist, it does not hurt him or her in the primaries or general election. In fact, a racist image helps them in the South and other places. When a black politician is perceived as even slightly critical of white people, he or she is finished politically. Their career is over. Even if they are in an all-black district and have no white campaign contributors or donors.
10. The Electoral College will, as usual, be used to thwart the will of the people. Hillary said the Electoral College should be abolished. Black people prefer Hillary. Black people have noticed, more than most, that the Electoral College is just another way to gerrymander.
11. Fox will declare McCain the winner before the polls even open and the other networks will lemming-like go along with their decision.
12. In a close election, the Republican Supreme Court will select a Republican president.
13. Senator Clinton's most virulent supporters are old white women who distrust Obama because their mother always told them that it is bad luck when a young black cat crosses their path. Some of them are lesbians who have nightmares over the idea of a black man on top of them (in office or in orifice). But joking aside, there are some who really would rather wreck the Democratic Party, go over to the anti-choice Republicans, and cut off their own noses to spite their faces by jumping in bed with the Enemy. We feminists are not monolithic of course. Not all of us want to kill Obama because he is not a woman. But there is more at work here. What women's issues are too important to let one candidate's loss of the nomination prevent them from transacting business with the nominee? What party offers more to women: Republican or Democrat? Should we let slide McCain's handling of the "bitch" remark? Men have been called bastards, pricks, male chauvinist pigs, and worse their whole lives and yet they don't curl up into the fetal position. Do women simply have thinner skin about personal invective?
14. The tradition factor: America has always had an old white man as president and Obama is young and black.
15. The repeat-a-lie-often-enough propaganda factor: McCain supporters will swift boat Obama who is too much of a gentleman to call McCain the Manchurian candidate. Kerry was also a gentleman and it lost him the election. Karl Rove's protégé‚ is running McCain's dirty tricks department. Democrats used to go with a knife to a gunfight with the Republicans. Now they take a plastic spork or a spitball to a nuclear holocaust. Democrats never learn.
16. The rumor factor: In addition to negative ads, the Republicans spread outright lies that can be easily refuted with a little logic or some fact checking. However, Americans are not logical Vulcans and they often check facts with such unreliable sources as Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh. McCain supporters will spread (more) false rumors.
17. Republicans, having deeper pockets, will outspend the Democrats. The old economy (fission, oil, and coal) has more money (ExxonMobil has made record profits) than the new economy.
18. Black people, the last to throw their support to Obama, will be the first to abandon him by staying home.
2. Hispanic voters will go over to McCain because McCain will go pronunciar un discurso in Spanish in which he promesa to make español lengua oficial de los Estados Unidos. The safest choice for Obama would have been Bill Richardson (or, better yet a Hispanic female) because no one would dare shoot a black running with a brown. If Obama was assassinated, then the Mexican border would cease to exist. [Source: This bit of humor borrowed from Dave Chappelle]
3. The ignorance factor: People refuse to believe that Obama is a Christian.
4. The meanness factor: The Ku Klux Klan will get out the vote for McCain in the South because he's white. Never mind that Obama has been the best thing that KKK recruiters have had since the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Such ingrates.
5. George Bush has pledged support for McCain. Bush, who is best friends with the Bin Laden family, could get Osama to do something scary the day before Election Day so that people seeking security and experience will vote for John McCain.
6. The race factor: Obama is of African descent in a nation that has always been ruled by people of European descent and mostly Anglo-Saxon. Even Hispanics are of European descent (Spain) and they still speak Spanish. Native Americans and Africans are at the bottom of society throughout Latin America just as they are in the USA.
7. Young people will show up at rallies but historically young people won't show up on Election Day to vote. They don't know where their precinct is. They don't know where to cast their ballot. They don't know where their polling place is. They don't have their card or drivers license. Their name is not listed on the rolls because they never registered to vote. They don't prepare for such things as a flat tire or time conflict (classes or job). Their Republican employer might threaten to fire them for being late to work if they vote before work or keep them from leaving early if they vote after work. This is the real world. The other side doesn't play any fairer than Mugabe. If young people were concerned about their future (or lack of same), then the ground swell for Obama would be more than just signing up for text messaging and watching Obama Girl on YouTube.
8. The Florida vote will be rigged again. Last time every black person in Florida was classified as a felon ineligible to vote. This time every black person in Florida will be classified as insane and, under conservatorship, ineligible to vote. Or no one paid their taxes or they are misidentified as illegal aliens. Nothing incenses black people more than disenfranchisement. Has something to do with over five (500) hundred years of struggling to get the vote. One group of Republicans wonders why Blacks don't trust them. A second group of Republicans know why and just don't care. A third group of Republicans are the ones rigging the vote: owners of voting machine companies, voting software companies, and voter database companies are Republican. A fourth group of Republicans see all this, they are disgusted, and they join Republicans for Obama but not in numbers enough to make a difference.
9. The double standard factor: When a white politician is perceived as racist, it does not hurt him or her in the primaries or general election. In fact, a racist image helps them in the South and other places. When a black politician is perceived as even slightly critical of white people, he or she is finished politically. Their career is over. Even if they are in an all-black district and have no white campaign contributors or donors.
10. The Electoral College will, as usual, be used to thwart the will of the people. Hillary said the Electoral College should be abolished. Black people prefer Hillary. Black people have noticed, more than most, that the Electoral College is just another way to gerrymander.
11. Fox will declare McCain the winner before the polls even open and the other networks will lemming-like go along with their decision.
12. In a close election, the Republican Supreme Court will select a Republican president.
13. Senator Clinton's most virulent supporters are old white women who distrust Obama because their mother always told them that it is bad luck when a young black cat crosses their path. Some of them are lesbians who have nightmares over the idea of a black man on top of them (in office or in orifice). But joking aside, there are some who really would rather wreck the Democratic Party, go over to the anti-choice Republicans, and cut off their own noses to spite their faces by jumping in bed with the Enemy. We feminists are not monolithic of course. Not all of us want to kill Obama because he is not a woman. But there is more at work here. What women's issues are too important to let one candidate's loss of the nomination prevent them from transacting business with the nominee? What party offers more to women: Republican or Democrat? Should we let slide McCain's handling of the "bitch" remark? Men have been called bastards, pricks, male chauvinist pigs, and worse their whole lives and yet they don't curl up into the fetal position. Do women simply have thinner skin about personal invective?
14. The tradition factor: America has always had an old white man as president and Obama is young and black.
15. The repeat-a-lie-often-enough propaganda factor: McCain supporters will swift boat Obama who is too much of a gentleman to call McCain the Manchurian candidate. Kerry was also a gentleman and it lost him the election. Karl Rove's protégé‚ is running McCain's dirty tricks department. Democrats used to go with a knife to a gunfight with the Republicans. Now they take a plastic spork or a spitball to a nuclear holocaust. Democrats never learn.
16. The rumor factor: In addition to negative ads, the Republicans spread outright lies that can be easily refuted with a little logic or some fact checking. However, Americans are not logical Vulcans and they often check facts with such unreliable sources as Fox "News" and Rush Limbaugh. McCain supporters will spread (more) false rumors.
17. Republicans, having deeper pockets, will outspend the Democrats. The old economy (fission, oil, and coal) has more money (ExxonMobil has made record profits) than the new economy.
18. Black people, the last to throw their support to Obama, will be the first to abandon him by staying home.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
