AKMA’s Random Thoughts

I have animosity on both sides, so Im not making a case for either candidate. It seems the things you say are a matter of perspective. They are taken as fact here in my new home in the Seattle area, but in the midwest where I just moved from, these sentiments are argued with vigor.
It seems maybe that politics, as well as religion, may be just a matter of perspective...

I see what you're saying, Nick, but I also believe that unless one's perspective is one of deliberate blindness, it's hard to argue with the fact that the Bush administration invaded Iraq, lied to the public, and that the budget is terrible.
And knowing Dad, he's not a person to just throw around speculations and propaganda.

Sure. And I agree with you.
But I also know some very decent people, who I hold in high regaurd who would argue that the war is very nessecary, the tax cuts will do wonders for the budget, and no one in the present administration has lied. They will also argue, with some passion and certainty usually, that it is the 'liberals' who use speculation and propaganda.
more interesting than the particulars of the political discussion, I find it intruiging that folks who may have very similar worldviews can see the same political situation so differently, that the very facts on one side are lies on the other. What is it that causes us to argue politics with such unabashed certainty and passion?

That's easy, it's like religion. For some people, politics is a matter of belief, and it colors their worldview. Looking at the world through red or blue glasses, so to speak.

I know that Seattle proper is quite democrat/liberal. (I grew up there.) The suburbs are less so. (I lived in Bellevue for 20 years.) Eastern Washington is quite conservative. I just got my absentee ballot, and the statewide races look really interesting.

Your problem is that you're focusing on the decisions the President made, when what we really need to focus on is that he was decisive.

That was sarcastic, just to be clear ...

"But I also know some very decent people, who I hold in high regaurd who would argue that the war is very nessecary, the tax cuts will do wonders for the budget, and no one in the present administration has lied. "

whether the people are decent or not are besides the point i think. individuals require the capactity to ascertain truth from fiction, and draw distinctions between fact and belief. else our republic and their individual and our collective freedom is in jeopardy.

the tax cuts are weighted for the top 1% or 1.3 M tax payers, they receive maximum benefit 50% or more, the remaining benefits are distributed amongst the remaining 133M tax paying americans. meanwhile discretionary spending by congress is higher than the former democratic administration.

our administration, blames Iraq on bad intel but no where is political leadership claiming responsibility or being accountable for mistakes made, lies or deception. No "the buck stops here", just lots of finger pointing.

it's naive to "believe" that we sort of had to go... Al Queda is in Afghanastan, not Iraq DOH.

it seems we're substituting reality TV for our collective reality, our grasp on reality mucked with by the big 5 media companies. and we're losing the ability to discern.

i miss fiscal conservatism, true compassionate acts, not rhetoric and political posturing. the later elements aren't the things that make our country great, the former ones are.

"They will also argue, with some passion and certainty usually, that it is the 'liberals' who use speculation and propaganda.
more interesting than the particulars of the political discussion, I find it intruiging that folks who may have very similar worldviews can see the same political situation so differently, that the very facts on one side are lies on the other. What is it that causes us to argue politics with such unabashed certainty and passion?"

its an age old mechanism that's up to each of us individually to recognize, tackle and conquer: making self right and others wrong. few can actually agree to disagree or actually let it go or just listen. underneath this mechanism, is actuality. the arguments are like waves lapping on the oceans surface..... the ocean below being the true reality metaphorically speaking IMHO.

kurt.

How has the Bush administration any wiggle room left?

Either they started out, before 9/11/01, with the intent of attacking Iraq on some pretext and made the world trade center attacks that pretext, or they deliberately kept their top man on counterterrorism out of the loop on their plans for counterterrorism.

I don't understand how anyone could vote for the man after objectively looking at his record since he arrived in the oval office. You don't need to be a "liberal" to see the man's simply not suited for the job.

"What is the matter with those people? Haven't they studied the Constitution down at the other end of the avenue? They better become aware of it." -- Republican Robert Byrd, Senator from West Virginia.

You know who I feel sorry for? His father. Bush Senior was smart enough to understand how far you could go with this kind of adventurism. He took flak from the left and the right alike over not "finishing the job", but he stuck to his guns and no doubt paid for it in the '92 election.

Leechman posted:

"What is the matter with those people? Haven't they studied the Constitution down at the other end of the avenue? They better become aware of it." -- Republican Robert Byrd, Senator from West Virginia."
--------------

Byrd is and always has been a Democrat, and a leader in the KKK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd

Sorry if the facts do not fit your vision of reality, but at least you feel good about yourself, I guess that matters.

Thank God we are going to have 4 more years of a man with a backbone!

First off, a couple of observations relating to several of the comments. I'm something of a Bush supporter (I voted for him in 2000), but I have my issues with him as well. However, he does get a bad rap on a couple of issues. First, the economy. The economy took the first big hit right at the end of the Clinton administration, just before Bush took office. The dot-bomb thing happened, and the stock market lost much of it's value. That was in no way Bush's fault. Then, after meandering along for the 20 months after that, the economy took another big hit on 9/11 - again in no way Bush's fault. "His" (in the sense that his economic advisors wanted it) remedy to the dot-bomb event was tax cuts - and they are working by all accounts, despite the severe problems facing the economy.

I'm not happy about some of the spending Bush is doing, and (like everyone) I wish the Iraq war was going better, but I don't see it as "the sky is falling" either. I really hope Bush will move to a "small is beautiful" approach to government in his second term, as a Republican should (but never seems to;). I doubt it will happen though.

Another problem I have is that, like the "War on Drugs", the "War on Terror" is another endless war, and another excuse for bigger government, fewer rights, and less freedom. However, that is the same issue regardless of who wins. Kerry will, if anything, be worse in those regards.

"the tax cuts are weighted for the top 1% or 1.3 M tax payers, they receive maximum benefit 50% or more, the remaining benefits are distributed amongst the remaining 133M tax paying americans. meanwhile discretionary spending by congress is higher than the former democratic administration."

I have to address this statement. How much of the total tax burden does that top 1% bear? I don't have figures handy, but I suspect that the 'total tax cut' they receive is right along the lines of the 'total tax burden' they bear. Fair is fair, eh? Personally, I'd like to see income tax replaced with a different system (perhaps national sales tax) eliminating all special deductions/loopholes, the need for every citizen to become an accountant, and the IRS (at least for personal tax returns). Income tax and the IRS are really quite un-American concepts, in my view.

OK, now that I got that off my chest, the answer to "how can this election be close?" is...Kerry. Since he is the only viable (electable) alternative to Bush, the only reason this election could be close is that many people see him as a worse alternative. Personally, I'm very concerned by his "big government" approach to things, and his reputation as a big spender on social programs. I also think the perception that he will be a weak political and military leader is correct. I think that if the Democrats had managed to field a strong candidate, they could have won. Not now though, even with the charismatic Edwards on the ticket.

Hope it was interesting...

(As an aside to AKMA - sorry about your experience with the library Wi-Fi access point. That is a good example of "big brother in action". It's pretty sad when a technology becomes available to let you enjoy a pretty day outdoors while you use the Internet...and then you're not allowed to for no good reason.)

You ask how this election can be even close? That's my question too. But my second question is how anyone can even vote for an admitted war criminal, and a traitor to the very country he wants to lead?

And we aren't talking speculation here. John Kerry is on tape (video tape) as admitting that he was a war criminal. He is on tape committing treason.

New evidence suggests that he may have a forged DD214 on his website - a felony worth 5 years in a Federal Pen.

And look at his Senete record - almost 20 years of working AGAINST America.

You are right, how can anyone even think of voting for John Kerry?

"the tax cuts are weighted for the top 1% or 1.3 M tax payers, they receive maximum benefit 50% or more, the remaining benefits are distributed amongst the remaining 133M tax paying americans. meanwhile discretionary spending by congress is higher than the former democratic administration."

The top 1% of Americans have gross incomes over $374,000. To be taxed under the highest (35%) federal tax bracket, you must make $307,050. So it seems like you may not be correct when you say that the tax cuts are weighted for the top 1%, unless you're doing some significant rounding.

Also, your analysis is a little misleading. Under the Bush plan, taxes were cut in the top bracket 3.6%. The next three lower tax brackets received a 2% tax cut. The second to last tax bracket received no tax cut. The bottom tax bracket also received no cut, but the income required for taxation was increased from $6000 to $7000 (single) and from $12K to $14K (joint).

So it appears that the tax cuts were given only to the top 4 income brackets, that's everone making $67K to $307K. The maximum tax break given to anyone is 3.6%. Your figure that the wealthiest 1% receive 50% of the tax breaks shows just how much the wealthiest 1% actually pay in taxes. This demographic contributes by far the largest amount of money to the government, so it would be expected that even a flat tax cut (equal for all brackets) would show a similar tax burden decrease.

If you're going to argue that tax cuts shouldn't only go to the wealtiest taxpayers, then highlight the actual facts instead of regurgitating something that you heard from a Democrat. Politictians are ALL full of shit. Yep. Even Democrats.

Let's see... Kerry says that he has all these "great ideas" about health care and what-have-you. I think that people that actually BELIEVE him are missing a vitally-important fact: If Kerry's ideas are so great, why doesn't he convince his peers in the Senate and his friends in the House of Representatives to vote on them? Senator Kerry has an ability that President Bush does not, by nature of his position: he could initiate legislation. All President Bush can do is make suggestions of what he would like to see land on his desk. Kerry has been in the Senate for 20 years, and he has NOTHING to show for it. For all of his "great ideas", nothing has his name on it. In fact, Kerry takes his job so seriously that he has missed more than 80% of the votes taken in the senate this year. He was too busy trying to perform for the photographers, riding his bike or windsurfing.

Senator Kerry thinks that compromise is the answer to all the world's ills. I submit that in trying to "compromise" with a group of people who are willing to kill anyone and everyone that does not hold their exact set of beliefs is extremely naïve, at best.

You see, because I live in Massachusetts, Senator Kerry is my senator. I think he has done a poor job of it, quite honestly, since he has changed positions on several serious topics, including the recent invasion of Iraq. (He voted in favor of it when he saw the same information that President Bush had, but went on to vote against funding of it, which meant that the troops there wouldn't have such things as personal armor.) Being a veteran myself, I take this seriously. More so, because good friends of mine are in Baghdad even now. Their (relative) safety depends on a leader that is not afraid to to the right thing, instead of caving-in to every little threat.

President Bush, at least, seems to be making an honest attempt at keeping his word. Making a big deal of the interpretation of "win", as it relates to a war against an enemy that holds such a low regard for human life that they will slaughter anyone just to get their way is, quite frankly, foolish.

Senator Kerry talks a lot, but his actions speak louder than his words. Senator Kerry would be the worst-possible person to be Commander-in-Chief.

You have GOT to be Kidding....

You mean to tell me the Economy is BAD right now?

You mean after 12 YEARS we should have left Saddam Hussein in Charge of Iraq?

After we survived the Recession we were in..., then the economy hit of the Sept. 11th, then the dot com bubble burst, and on top of that the Enron scandels yet we still have a GREAT ECONOMY that is growing faster then ever before even JOBS are growing faster then expected?

Yet you think Kerry who came back from Vietnam and protested even wrote a book with the US Flag upside down.

Well not only will Bush Win but it will be a landslide in my view.

Kerry is worse the Michael Stanley Dukakis who helped make Massachusetts into Taxachusetts.

Oh... And about Kerry's ideas about "fixing" Social Security? Yeah. About that.

Social Security has been an issue (and a political "we must fix it" issue since before I was born. We're talking about the 1960s here, people. Congress is not, nor has it apparently ever been, in a big hurry to "fix it". Instead, the Democrats like to hold it over the heads of the elderly as a scare tactic, to make sure that the elderly will vote their way. Sleaziness at its best.

Gosh, I love politics. Not.

I dont mean to patronise, but look here.
We all probably have similar worldviews (we come to this site and read enough to get to the comments section) and yet still we can so adamantly debate the fine particulars as fact or fiction.
Sure makes it hard to want to get involved.

If Bush lied, then he also had to make up the fact that Sadaam used wmd on his own people, and then convince the entire world of this lie, all years before he came to office. Wow. He's even more devious and powerful than I thought.

And talk about economic woes! He reduces the tax burden on those who actually pay taxes! Why can't he just stimulate the economy by giving a disproportionate check to the teeming masses? I mean, duh, everyone knows that giving away money to the voters is what keeps politicians in power.

Or, then again, mabey he was right about there being WMD in Iraq, mabey the entire congress and the federal burocracy really DID think that the situation in Iraq justified military action based on our best intelligence data. And mabey, just mabey, taking from the rich to give to the poor, although politically expedient, isn't really in the best interests of the country at large.

What a lousy politician indeed.

The history books will look back on this time, and people reading them will be amazed at how easily the general population could be kept completely in the dark. The Bush administration slashes forests, calling it the 'Healthy Forests Initiative'. If you tell people something over and over again, I guess they'll eventually believe it.

It's too bad that so many people only get their news from mainstream media sources. If only people would get a little more involved, I think they'd see through all the smoke and mirrors.

Unfortunately, AKMA, it appears you have fallen prey to a delusion the establishment media has twisted from the President's words. To anyone with an ounce of intellectual honesty (as opposed to the likes of Michael Moore) and the slightest desire to verify information, it is quite apparent that Bush did not "flip-flop-flip." Terror is a tactic, not the enemy. As such, terror is not an entity that you can force to raise the white flag. However, you CAN make terror ineffective (by refusing to submit to its power) and so hazardous/pointless for the enemy to engage in that they stop using it.

has thrown the budget from great health to staggering deficits

You mean the recession (.com crash, etc.) that was bound to come about? Eight years of Clinton immediately preceding said recession had nothing to do with the matter? The cause can not post date the effect, my friend.

If you're going to parrot inane Kerry campaign talking points, you should at least include the disclaimer: "N.B. I'm a Democrat shill."

Like me. I get my news from such alternative sources as The Day After Tomorrow.

Actually, the war in Afganistan and Iraq are 'worth it' in several senses.

1. It frees the people of both countries from dreadful regimes and lets them choose their own political destiny. That destiny may not be perfect by most standards, but it'll definitely be an improvement.

2. In return, we now live under less threat from both terrorism (no more Afganistan training camps) and rogue states. Saddam can't simply wait for France to water down all the UN's economic measures against him and resume WMD production including nukes, probably with French assistance again. He is kaput and Iraq offers an excellent springboard for unseating the second member of the axis of evil, Iran--where perhaps 90% of the population opposes the current regime.

3. I'd long thought that the American left defended the likes of Lenin, Stalin and Castro because their ideology made them absolutely blind to the evils of anyone on the left. It's clear that's not true. The left liked those three (and others) precisely because they were regimenting their people brutally and violently. They defend Saddam and the Taliban for exactly the same reason they defended 'Uncle Joe' Stalin. They have a deeply ingrained attraction for ideologically inspired, top-down rule.

Recall that for perhaps a decade and a half we've been told that the world was threatened by something called 'religious fundamentalism.' A frail Orthodox Jewish rabbi in the Bronx reciting his prayers, a sturdy working-class blue colllar Catholic mother in Pittsburg hanging out the laundry, and a white-haired Baptist preacher in Georgia who loves bass fishing were all said to have something sinister in common with the sorts of people who dress women in potato sacks and blow up planes. It was a rather nutty theory to say the least, which is why it got a hearing in the chattering classes and their house organ, the NY Times.

But events after 9/11 has made a lie of that mad theory. "Fundamentalist" terrorism has found its chief defenders in the western left, here and in Europe. And religious conservatives, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, have demonstrated (yet again) that they're among the staunches opponents of religious and political repression.

The whole matter is actually quite simple. Those on the left don't care about human rights at all. Their vision is of a world in which the few dictate to the many is so deeply engrained, it can include indifference to the ugliest sorts of religiously inspired bigotry. It can include, now that the glow on Maxism has faded, branches of Islam that are nastier than the Spanish Inquisition ever was. That's why Carlos the Jackal, once a Marxist terrorist, now kills in the name of Islam and gets glowing puff piece in the 'progressive press,' a topic I discuss in:

From Marxist to Muslim

That's also why the left is so dogmatically in favor of legalized abortion. Killing babies expresses almost perfectly what the left is all about--a few brutally imposing its 'enlightened' will on the many and killing dissenters in the name of progress. The rationale to do so is irrelevant. "Movement' into some sort of utopian future is all that matters. It may be Marxism, a squalid individualism ("myself, my body") or the vilest of religious repression.

No, Afganistan and Iraq are 'worth in' simply for what opposition to their liberation says about those who put "No Iraq War" stickers on their cars. Some are stupidly evil. Some are calculating evil. But all are evil.

--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle

I'm always amazed by these discussions. Someone accuses Senator Byrd of being a leader of the KKK, etc. I stay out of those food-fights. But I have a couple I *will* get in to on occassion. The first is Bush's handlilng of the economy and tax cuts. It took this nation almost 200 years to amass a national debt of half-a-trillion dollars. It took Ronald Reagan less that 8 years to amass the same amount.

Now we have Bush. He took office with almost $400 Billion dollars in surplus. His latest budget puts us almost $500 Billion deeper in dept. So, in less than 4 short years, Bush has managed to BLOW almost $1 TRILLION dollars. That is actually quite a feat. It's not easy to spend that much money. It's even harder to do it while, with a straight face, explaining to the American Public that he is "reducing Government."

Now, finally, the last one I will get into is this issue of lies. Bush, and a fair number of his administration appointees HAVE lied to the American People. Dick Cheney is quoted (and there is even FILM of it) as saying that it is "pretty well established that Al Qada met with high-level Iraqi government officials." After the 9-11 Commission report came out stating that there was NO EVIDENCE to support that claim, he said (again on film) that he "never said that. I never said any such thing." He repeated his denials, and has continued to repeat them. Now, where I come from, a lie is defined as a deliberate misrepresentation of the fact, or the fabrication of details. Cheney is clearly doing this in this instance. I haven't the time to go into more such details, but there are HUNDREDS of such details. Yes, it can be argues that he 'forgot' he said such a thing. But it has been pointed out to him that he did, yet he persists in denying it.

I actually had some hope that Bush would be able to do some good things. Instead he has consistently said one thing ("I will increase the support for our veterans") while doing another (he cut funding for the Veterans Administration by the largest amount ever). He says he supports public education, and touted his "No Child Left Behind" act, yet his budget CUTS spending for public education.

I better stop. :-)

Wow. I just read Mike Perry's Comments. Then went and read his blog.

I would hold Mike up as a Poster Child for what is wrong with our society today. Seeems it perfectly acceptable for Mike to call anyone who opposes the War in Iraq evil (and/or stupid, take our pick). So HIS First Amemndment Rights are good. But anyone else's are bad. Expressing one's opinion (if it differs from his) makes one a Marxist/Stalinist/Leftie. Wow. How enlightened.

I have voted democrat all my life until this election. Say what you will about GWB, but he does have a backbone to stand up against terrorism. If it were Kerry in the white house he would be waiting on the rest of the world to agree with him. We are leaders, not followers. And let's be fair to Bush, he did inherit a slowing economy. I may not be with him on all the issues, but I think the war on terrorism is by far the most important issue facing our generation. I still consider myself a dem, but hopefully they'll put one up that will defense first America before an attack rather than react to it afterwards. 911 was a wakeup call and had this been pre 911 Kerry would have my vote, there is just to much at stake here.

I dislike Bush, I despise Kerry. The Republican party has endorsed the policies of Mammon - the Democratic party those of Moloch. a pox on both their houses. I'm looking for a good write in candidate.

AKMA, good post. Bush will not be able to deal with the deficit, there won't be peace in Iraq, and he won't win the war against terrorism. But perhaps its better that Kerry loses, because after a four more years, a more popular Democratic Candidate might take the house.

I don't know... maybe I've spent too much time in New England, but one look at Granny D to me says "New Hampshire, or possibly Vermont."

Great post AKMA. Good comments here for the most part. Some scary ones as well. Some others, with whom I agree when they express a lack of "excitement" about either candidate, but the glaring and abhorrent evil of the one (Bush) requires a NO vote. At least Kerry (yes Kerry) shows backbone of standing up against unilateralism and unbridled militarism. What bugs me about this campaign is that they seem to repudiate the idea that his oppostion and criicism of the Vietnam conflict was right on, and in agreement with many of his constituents. He spoke up as a young man based on what he saw. Many militaristic conservatives despise that. It was this country needs now.

The level of affluence he exudes, however, keeps me from having as much confidence in how truly "of the people" he is, but I trust the Democratic community more only as a matter of reason that the tide of unabashed sellout of Democracy and isolationism of the arrogant US administration MUST BE STOPPED.

Dale

Great post, AKMA. As Paul Krugman notes, Bush is not your father's Republican. He's a revolutionary, and people simply can't see how expert their communicators are at misleading the public.

It baffles me how anybody who sees what Bush has been doing can choose anything other than the obvious : The Only way to get him out is to vote for Kerry. No political system of the secretive and manipulative type, that workls under the cover of darkness and in the backrooms will ever allow anything approaching true democracy. True, Democrats have an interest in the two party system, but they are also MUCH MUCH LESS determined to squelch dialogue.

Plus, Bush's group will get us all killed. They show no concern for civilians of other nations. They are miltaristic idealogues of the worst kind (convinced that they know what's best, when they actually know NOTHING of living in peace. They are pure greed, ideology, and arrogance, and they MUST BE STOPPED. Another 4 years would be laying disaster upon disaster, and do we want to know how much worse it could get? And do we really want these "protectors" in there who laughed at Richard Clarke's "obsession" with Al-Quieda? 9/11 might never have happened had Bush taken this "obsession" seriously.

Dale

Well, since this thread is living on and on, I'll respond to some of the more rabid pro-Democratic posts. I just finished reading Zell Miller's speech at the RNC. It might be illuminating reading for some here (especially coming from a fellow Democrat):

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/01/gop.miller.transcript/

Bush is not an "unbridled militarist". He is bridled by the Congress, and by the will of the American people. Many in this country feel he has done the right thing in bringing the fight to our enemies (don't forget that the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq were our sworn enemies), and overall his efforts have been successful enough to forestall any further attacks on our soil since 9/11. We'll see if he can prevent the attempts that are sure to come before the election, but there seems no doubt that our enemies would have struck here again already if they could.

To those who preach a philosophy of "why can't we just all get along?" I suggest that the institutionalized anti-Americanism rampant throughout the Middle East would have been an enormous problem with or without military involvement. In fact, by bringing democracy to that region, I feel that we will be better off in the long run. Also, the governments there are feeling much less complacent about encouraging anti-American sentiment these days. In diplomacy and war alike, it often pays to carry the biggest stick.

Electing Kerry is the equivalent of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, and would do nothing to improve the life of the average American. Further, I feel that Kerry's economic and governmental policies would be disastrous for the country over the long run. We need more private investment, not bigger government and more taxation. The large deficits will be solved through GDP growth, just as they were after Reagan's economic policies bore fruit.

The good news is that things are definitely looking up for the Bush campaign:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Presidential_Tracking_Poll.htm

Terry

Terry,

Zell was an out of control rant of the MASS DISTORTION kind. He listed a bunch of things Kerry "voted against" , many of which included things Cheney voted against too, and many that were on the same bill (but made it look like they were all separate issues) and many, which any person who knows ploitics and legislation knows, that many bills have MORE THAN ONE issue attached.

See this post on Zell for a mind blower of a flip flop just represented by that rant....

Dale