15 jul 06
"If Senator Al Gore had "won" the 2000 election, but Alpesh was sworn in by mistake, would we be stuck with the "C" average, leader of the free world, that we currently have today?"
ok, from now on, no more gor-family questions, or i'll post all of their addresses, dates of birth, mother's maiden names, and social security numbers (in table format!). all here-to-for gor-questions will be answered very, very briefly, and then i'll go on to talk about my toe fungus or something.
the question, rephrased:
would alpesh gor make a better president than g. w. bush?
YES OF COURSE HE WOULD I HATE BUSH ANYONE WOULD BE BETTER THAN BUSH RAWR EXCITED UPSET LOUD RAWR
ahem. i thought about making a bumper sticker that reads "I Voted For Bush Just To Piss You Off."
it depends on whether or not you think bush is a bad president. a lot of people "hate bush" -- ie, they hate the way he talks, looks, his mannerisms, etc. but i'm not sure they've thought through much of his policy. imagine a president who looks and sounds like a nice, educated, non-religious academic from the mid-atlantic or new england, but whose policy is identical to president bush's. i'm 100% sure the anti-bush camp wouldn't be quite as vocal.
in american national politcs, and especially in the past five or so years, it's been necessary for any politician to be insanely polarized to get any votes. basically, they have to go ultra-democrat or ultra-republican, and just hope that one of those groups votes more than the other (this is not to consider our own particular system of indirect democracy). i don't know about local politics.
i guess i don't pay enough attention to the "news" (haha) to really get a sense of what bush does. in truth, he probably doesn't do as much as many think he does, although i believe one of his deals it that he wants to expand the powers of the executive office (providing 9/11-related security issues as a reason). chomsky would agree with me in my enclosing "the news" in scare quotes; according to him, the weather report is presented with evil corporate fascist bias, and will brainwash you if you listen to it. as near as i can figure, if you tag on "...and countless poverty-stricken people suffered and died as a result" to the end of every news report, you're golden; just implant that in your mind to be chomsky-approved. i'm only semi-kidding, actually -- i basically agree.
one thing that really rubs me the wrong way is that quote by ben franklin that i keep seeing:
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. -- b. franklin
i hesitate to re-print it here, because it's just going to clog up the web with one more instance of it (many of the instances are paraphrases, ergo the non-verbatim search). mainly, i just hate everything everyone else does, but bear with me.
basically, the sentiment is "liberty is more important than security"; all that stuff about deserving it, purchasing it, etc, is just distracting poetics. one problem is that the scenarios in which the concepts are being applied (the "war on terror" and the "war of independence") aren't at all comparable -- we aren't fighting a war of independence from al qaida, who rule the country. if anything, the pre-state americans were more like al quaida, and the british empire more like the current united states.
in b. franklin's world, his quote holds true: a ruling colonial power provides protection. if you start shooting at them, your safety, to say the least, is going to get compromised. the 1776-ish war was, literally, a fight for "liberty" -- self-government. you couldn't then and there have both liberty and security, because the british were, literally, telling those proto-americans what to do, and to oust them would compromise colonists' safety severely and totally, even if it were to "throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security". ahem (security) ahem. it's a good thing, but the colonists just objected to who was providing it.
here and now, the definition of liberty (a holdover word/obsession from those colonial days, when it actually meaningfully applied) is under question, and is taken up as a political crutch by anyone who needs one. some say that it's hard to be "free" if you're dead, and some say it's hard to be "free" if you're thrown into the camps. i can see the argument in both cases, even though books can be (have been?) written on what it means to have "freedom".
so, it's a meaningless quote, and it shouldn't be used today to summarize analyses or, worse yet, lead to new ones.
it's probably true that the political right is being a little bit paranoid and crazy, but of course i haven't seen the intelligence documents (at least that's what i tell you, mwaha). it's also probably true that the left is being a little bit reactionary in the standard-issue "throwing off government tyranny" policy, without really examining the facts (there might be some real risk of attack here).
i'm looking at the whitehouse's list of bush administration policies. there are only seven of them, which is really nice, because it means i have to do less research and writing. of course i recognize that the whitehouse's statements about its own policies are going to be, perhaps just a tad, biased. for instance, environmental policy gets quietly omitted, because the conservative line on that is unilaterally "who cares?" (followed by some fantasy scenario of how replacing the spotted owl with a shopping mall is good for the spotted owl). market ideology is defended in a similar way, even though there's something to "trickle down" (on a national level). the market has been shown to consistently and reliably screw some people, which was what sparked off karl marx. too bad he didn't know how to tie his shoe, so to speak.
here are the listed boosh policies, and what i think of them:
- protecting the homeland: obviously a good idea, but perhaps a little paranoid and excessive in its execution. i think liberals are confused on this one -- they're so desperate to oppose the right wing that many are willing to overlook or poo-poo any threat whatsoever, even though many will grudgingly admit, when individually confronted, that it's something that should be addressed in some way (just not the way bush is doing it, whatever way that might be).
- hurricane recovery: i don't agree that this (related policy, not the hurricaine itself) was bush's fault -- problems there are clearly being used as a political tool. any katrina mis-handling that took place is the fault of monstrous, rigid government bureaucracy, and not evil executive (in)decision.
- jobs and "economic growth": i'm uneasy about this, because it's likely that the way he's going about this is by cutting social service taxes and proving corporate tax incentives.
- judicial nominations: teehee. stuff the court with like-minded or like-partied judges. every president seeks to do this; it's just the way of the politician.
- fighting a global war on terror (defeating our enemies abroad): this is just going to make local terrorism worse -- the "homeland" less "secure". i remember the solid argument coming (largely) from the left that iraq was a secular country, and was on osama bin laden's (religious fanatic) hit list -- attacking it in the name of the "war on terror" made no sense. well, it makes sense now, because in deposing that secular dictator we've created a situation where fundamentalists can move in and do their dirty work.
- renewal in iraq: at this point, it's probably a good idea (see above).
- strengthening social security: bad, bad, bad idea. remember the great depression? market-backed social security is essentially an undoing of roosevelt's "new deal". the whole point of "social security" is that it's...well..."secure". the market, as has been demonstrated, is anything but. when i'm 96, i don't want whether or not my respirator can afford to be turned on determined by some insider trading.
i'm not an anarchist, or even libertarian -- i believe in the rule of law (i don't like that bush is messing with the constitution), and i believe government to be necessary -- not even a "necesssary evil". this would make me an unapologetic fascist in the eyes of internet libertarians, but i obviously don't care, because i think they're a bunch of geeks who were picked on in the schoolyard, and don't want to be bossed around, while at the same time, are too shy/weird to take charge themselves.
government is an integral part of human society. consider tribal chiefs -- as long as there have been groups, there have been group leaders. it is, to pardon the tired expression, the way we're wired as animals. some people are better at leading, and some are better at following. we need both. remember: you can't enforce anarchy. the minute a government collapses, some band of warlords is going to take over, and then we'll start from square one.
at this point in time, we have social democracy, which i think is pretty damned good, even though the evolution into "perfect government" will continue (i think). communism is a pipe-dream, like anarchism, and the fantasy/schizophrenic musings of some chinese or russian ideologue to force it onto people was maybe the worst idea of the 20th century.
i basically agree with bush that terrorism is a serious threat, but i also think he's a bit of a market fundamentalist, and that his ideology there could cause some real damage. i won't even mention his whole religious deal, even though it's not really significant (except maybe, i hope not, as some kind of "rapture in the middle east" book-of-revelations crazed drooling that is helping to drive his policy over there). the whole "christian right" deal only amounts to, practically, bush pandering to that voting demographic. and it's not really an important issue, anyway -- the "christian right" is so right-wing that they're going to vote on the republican ticket regardless, just so long as bush doesn't openly convert to wicca.
i guess i like to think of myself as a non-ideologue -- whatever works to bring people what they want and need, reglardless of what's on the "left" and what's on the "right". libertarians are funny in this way. they have this idea that they're these enlightened beings because they've conceived of a two-dimensional rather than one-dimensional analysis of politics (gasp). here, this is fun, and somewhat well-known, even though it's still reductionist to the point of parody (and was created by libertarian fundamentalists).
one shouldnt go around saying "i'm a this!" or "i'm a that!"; it only feeds identity politics, and mob behavior. once you say, for instance, "i'm a republican!" or even "i'm a leftist!" then you start getting told what to think almost immediately.
one last thing i'll mention, just to be contemporary. the israeli military's killing something like 100 civilians in response to the kidnapping of (not execution of) two soldiers seems, to say the least, a little bit rabid. what's even crazier, and a little scary, is that bush and mccain (and probably most conservative-right-republicans) are behind it 100% -- they won't even call for "restraint". this is not to say that hezbollah doesn't comprise a bunch of shits.
see, this is what i mean by ideology being bad for society. most people accuse the left of being more ideological than the right, and i'm afraid in most cases they're right -- a lot of times, the left is totally full of sh*t, and can be ignored with no consequence. but in this case, the more-often-practical conservatives have a monopoly on "harmful ideology" -- last time i checked, the avoidance of death and suffering was pretty much the #1 principle by which to run the world. it really does make you wonder why the united states so fanatically supports israel. i do, too -- it's full of nice people, and it's a beautiful country (so i've heard). it also features some very hot women, having olive skin and nice bodies carved from obligatory miliary service. there was this one in community college in my art history class who...nevermind. only pain down that path will i find.
as long as "al" (i can't take it anymore) stayed confident, unintimidated and smiley, he'd make a great head of state. then, all he'd have to do would be to fill his staff with competent people, stay out of the law books, and he'd make a great president; ronald reagan-esque, but more left-leaning. from what i can tell, al is pretty liberal on most issues. i am tired of "al". if i hear "al gor" again, i'm going to a splode your head.