Tag Archives: Senate

Political Rants

Difference making.

There’s little that can be said about the 2014 election that hasn’t been repeated seventy or eighty times by now. Did we get the Congress we deserve? Perhaps so. It’s the largest Republican majority in the House since the Second World War. So, expect the same — and more of it — as you saw from the present Congress. It also means that Barack Obama will soon be the only thing standing between us and massive cuts in social programs, vastly expanded militarism at home and abroad, and reactionary policies on a range of fronts, from abortion rights to immigration to health care and beyond. That’s where we stand.

Still just a numbers game.At least, that’s what’s left to us after a remarkably lackluster election in which about 37% of the American voting populace voted. That’s the lowest turnout since 1942, and it bears remembering that a lot of voting age men were in he military at the time. So if we can’t summon the will to vote, do we have the right to complain about the outcome? Sure, the Democratic party — including many of last Tuesday’s also-rans — is less than inspiring. But there is a small difference between the parties, and small differences can sometimes have an enormous impact on the nation’s most vulnerable. We owe it to them to go and mark the ballot, even if it means voting for some jerk-ass.

Of course, in my own upstate New York congressional district, our Republican House member ran unopposed. The Democratic party didn’t think the race was worth contesting, probably because our last Democratic congressman, Michael Arcuri, only held the seat for four years (2007-2011), barely winning a second term in 2008 and losing narrowly to Richard Hanna in 2010. Sure, the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee probably didn’t want to throw good money after bad, but the upshot is that we had no one to vote for. That was not the case everywhere. In Syracuse, Democrat Dan Maffei lost by close to 20 points to a Republican who pledged independence, moderation, and a commitment to aiding inner city communities.

Bullshit. Maffei’s replacement will vote to make Boehner Speaker once again. That will produce austerian policies that will extend and deepen the misery in Maffei’s district. The only way to avoid that was through voting. If I’m wrong, tell me how, exactly.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Look back.

Lots of news about official enemies this past week. Plenty of footage from the funeral of Kim Jong Il, showing legions of North Koreans – many in uniform – displaying their exaggerated grief. (Hey… those folks know what they need to do to get ahead.) And of course the Iranian threat to shut down the Strait of Hormuz if the latest round of draconian sanctions recently passed by the Senate – 100 to 0, mind you – become law. The latter is, naturally, the primary obsession of our news media and our government; the former a mere source of fascination and amusement. Both provide ample opportunities to perpetuate the official line on each of these societies, about which the less we know the better.

But let’s look a little closer. Why is North Korea such a strange, strange place? Lots of reasons. The hermit kingdom is a major thread running through Korean history. More importantly, though, is the experience of the last century – namely, that of the thirty year Japanese occupation, followed by occupation and subsequent destruction by the U.S. during the Korean War. Few Americans know the impact that war had on North Korea; we mostly focus on the fact that the North invaded the South – Korea invading Korea  – but not on the devastating attack we mounted against them. Christine Ahn of the Korea Policy Institute spoke to this fact on Democracy Now! last week:

When I went to North Korea, others-I had a very interesting insight, where I would travel around the country, and with our guides, you know, they would always point to this building. This was a restaurant. It was, you know, a very ancient-looking Korean building. But it was-I was wondering, why are-why do they always keep pointing that building out? And the thing that was really surprising is that was the only building that remained since the Korean War. Otherwise, the rest of Pyongyang was essentially leveled. And that was because of the devastating air raids. More bombs were dropped in the Korean War than in World War II. Napalm was introduced. I mean, the U.S. bombed dams, which was considered a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

It’s a similar story with Iran. Around the time we stopped drenching North Korea with napalm, we were fomenting a coup in Iran that brought in the Shah, who tortured his way through the next 25 years until the Iranian revolution. After that, we supported Saddam Hussein’s 8-year attack against Iran, which cost them about 800,000 lives. If Iran wants a nuclear capability, it’s likely as our own intelligence service estimates suggest – an attempt at building a deterrent. We invaded countries on both sides of Iran, neither of which had nuclear weapons. We did not attack North Korea, which does have nukes. What lesson should the Iranians draw from that?

There’s a tone of near outrage over the notion that the Iranians would threaten retaliation over sanctions. Fact is, they’ve seen what sanctions can do, both at home and in neighboring Iraq. Much as they are a repressive regime with a poor record on human rights, it is easy to understand why they would respond in this way. What I don’t understand is why we seem unable to anticipate that.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Race to the bottom.

Just a few scratched out thoughts, here. Working on a paper. WTF for? Just because.

Bachman Overdrive. Heard Michele Bachmann on NPR this morning, hawking her book “Core of Conviction”. It wasn’t a hardball interview, but not the softest either. Her concept of governance appears to rest on the notion of electing a filibuster-proof GOP majority in the Senate. Short of that, um…. punt, I guess. Interesting, though, that the minimal requirement for running the country is now the achievement of a nearly impossible super-majority in the U.S. Senate. What she either can’t (out of stupidity) or won’t acknowledge is that any Republican majority in the Senate, be it 51 votes or 61 votes, will almost certainly do what the Democrats were too polite to do in January 2009 – essentially gut the power of the filibuster so that they wouldn’t need a super-majority to pass every piece of legislation, no matter how inconsequential. Her party has made filibuster the default condition in the Senate. My guess is that that would change with a change in that house’s leadership.

Mean Little S.O.B. Gingrich has never been a favorite of mine – nor of practically anyone’s, I suspect – but his current campaign for president is remarkably nasty even by his low standard. The only flicker of humanity I’ve seen in him thus far has been his call to implement a bracero-like program for undocumented immigrants who have been here for many years. That will likely cost him with Republican voters, just as it did cousin Rick Perry, who voiced support for education benefits for undocumented youngsters. You could see the stifled glee on Romney’s face when Gingrich rolled out that position during one of the recent debates. No need to worry, though. Gingrich has kept to his standard of dickishness, intoning an almost Nixonian contempt of the Occupy Wall Street movement, exhorting them to take a bath and find a job, etc. Earth to Newt: it’s no longer 1971, man. That dog won’t hunt.

Neocon FAQs. And who was asking the questions at the last GOP debate? War planners Paul Wolfowitz and Fred Kagan, as well as Cheney extreme-right-hand-man David Addington. Little question as to who will be running foreign policy under the next Republican administration. The wild men in the wings are waiting for that call.

No doubt this primary process will result in a GOP candidate that represents the worst and most discredited political tendencies currently on tap. Can hardly wait.

luv u,

jp