politics?

14. Politics?

I feel incredibly weird trying to talk about politics, but for weeks now, maybe months, I have been talking about politics to people. I do have a political science teacher friend but I would never have spoken with him about politics before now. It makes sense that I would talk to him but the real thing is, all of us self-absorbed nonpolitical thinking people are all talking to each other about politics.

Something Wrong
I think we can all sense that something is going dreadfully wrong. That thing is George W Bush and his cronies. It is my guess that even GW's dad is not pleased. I feel certain, based on Bible stories, Jesus would have spilled all his money bins over. It's sad because so many people who are for GW, believe him and are not bad people. But I believe they are sadly mistaken and being taken advantage of. They are believing hateful people who are abusing their sense of how the world works and their fears.

Stupid/Too Much Power
I used to think George W was just kind of really stupid, at the very least a terrible speaker. Then I read an article about how he was allowing cleancutting in National Parks in Rolling Stone magazine (Issue941). I had never thought a president could really get away with things like that but as I started paying attention, every single day a new horrible law was enacted or a good one was gotten rid of. He gets rid of equal rights laws and raises levels of poisons allowed in water and air. He made automatic weapons legal again. He allows businesses to get giant payoffs if they run themselves into the ground. He thinks it's bad to be Muslim. It hurts his feelings if anyone says anything negative about him. He doesn't read the newspaper and surrounds himself with people who really only care about figuring out how to make more money, with no morals about how it is done. It is somehow bad for innocent people to be killed in America's World Trade Center but ok for us to kill 5 times as many innocent Iraqis in revenge for something that doesn't even involve their government to say nothing of the innocents themselves. I am just rambling and not even denting the surface. Point being that this fairly stupid, self absorbed man has a horrible amount of power that I never thought a president could have.

Blind faith?
I wish people who profess the same belief system GW professes to would be willing to look out at the ugly and realize what GW is really doing as opposed to what he says he is doing. This is not just normal political lies and truth bending. This is saying black is white and white is black. You are watching out for the Antichrist..now wouldn't the most horrible Antichrist be the guy who makes you believe he is a good guy by getting you to believe he is what you want him to be? Wouldn't that be the ultimate joke on you? Should you really be so gullible? Be careful where you place your blind faith. I am not sure Jesus was asking people to be stupid. Remember, he didn't like the Pharisees and the money changers working in the temple.

Religious extremes
So here I am talking about religion. I really wish we were over this phase. Wasn't that the point of this country? Freedom of religion? You pick. Or skip it. Here we are and our president is acting like being a Muslim is bad. All religious extremes are bad. How does the average Born-again Christian feel when he is lumped in with the "Wackos" that kill abortion clinic doctors or whatever? Why should we be killing innocent people in Iraq for something someone did in the name of their religion from Saudi Arabia?

And so
People complain Democrats will raise taxes. I think they are missing the point. Sure I complain with everyone else about taxes. Ours were 39% and went down to 36% under Bush (or so I am told) BUT my problem is what is the tax money being used for? Baling out bankrupt billionaires? Making a war to get control of a country for oil purposes or to save a country from their heathen religion and bad political system? Education in our country is NOT being helped. We lost 25 teachers just in our tiny small town district this year. Rules requiring people to pass exams that not everyone has the skills to pass are ridiculous. For the past three years, my health insurance went up $100 dollars on our monthly fee each year and our coverage went down horribly. It is nearing disaster insurance. The insurance we can still afford is not affordable to most people I know. All our costs are rising incredibly for everything we buy. We will be socialized just because we will all be unable to afford anything. How about that deficit?

And and and
I saw Bush say on tv that the draft was an urban myth. Why did my sister see that they voted on the draft last week? Bush can't promise that. I've got boys who I truly do not want fighting in a war I honestly and patriotically disapprove of. I will move if it comes to that.

Kerry
Come on! If he had done anything wrong, ever, don't you think we would know by now?

Bush
Speaking of, why do we just get to ignore all of Bush's character flaws? Anyone I know who is on drugs at my age (and he was) has a lot of basic issues to deal with. This damages your brain. Bush has been complimented on his strength for getting cleaned up but, trust me, he is only replacing one thing with another. He does not have one ounce of big picture. All he can see is himself. That is how one becomes a drug addict in the first place. I might be able to have funny conversations with GW, but I do not think he is someone who should lead my country. He cannot see anything beyond his personal viewpoint and I think this is a big problem.

Well I feel myself getting histrionic so I will try to get out of this rant. I would like to mention my political readings (and viewings).

1. I watched a download of Farenheit 9/11, the Michael Moore movie. I liked what he did with this movie. It didn't feel extreme to me at all. He was just pointing out some bad stuff that really exists. He made a few really good basic points.

(I did not love Bowling For Columbine like a lot of people did. He brought up a lot of questions, mostly why are we so afraid here in US. The answer which was come up with was that we have all this weird biased crap out there, news, media etc. and to me, his film was just another piece of media which had similar irresponsible qualities to it. In particular for me the interview with the senile NRA president, Charleton Heston was pretty nasty.)

2. Lies And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken. This book is a great table of contents for getting started if you feel forced into thinking about politics and never have done so before. I think it would be funny to people with a sense of humor but for me it was so fact filled, with awful facts I had only guessed at, that it wasn't very funny for me. I have heard that Al F. is a "boob" and it is true there are flopping genital references etc. but this book is smart smart smart.

3. Dude, Where's My Country by Michael Moore. This fills in a lot of gaps and makes a lot of connections. He has a bit of conspiracy theory type style but just checking out the jobs the Bush cabinet used to hold before they were on his cabinet makes it enough to make you kind of worried. In this book he adds some kind words for all us people panicking that we will probably survive if Bush wins the election. Michael Moore will yell at Democrats too if he has to.

(Stupid White Men I am only halfway through. I got stumped on Kill Whitey as he complains about blacks not having the good jobs and about how he can't stand seeing black folks acting white)

4. The Family by Kitty Kelley. They sell this at Walmart. I was surprised. It's a densely packed kind of thing. I can't imagine anyone having the time accompanied by the attention span to get through this, other than me. But what you get is not all negative except that Bush seems like a bit of a shmuck. That the family has a competitive streak and that they are fairly loyal to people who give them money. And there doesn't seem like any moral considerations that would get in the way of them making money or winning at something. It is a good primer on some history in a way too.

5. Bushworld by Maureen Dowd. A bunch of articles she wrote through out Bush's presidency. Wow she was ON TOP OF IT. I am not finished with this yet. And would probably not understand half of it without having read the Kittly Kelley. These articles are sharp, sometimes funny, poetic.

6. How The Right Went Wrong by Patrick Buchanan This one is hard. I am only a few pages in but Dave is freaking out hearing the insider Republican going against Bush.

7. Kerry On Iraq This was stupid. It took everything out of context and had no factual basis. Very weird. I wouldn't accept this from a Democrat or a Republican.

8. Fox News We watch the evil Fox News (am) because despite it's pissy commentary, they do actually show footage of news stories, commentators from both sides etc. It's weird cuz they show news.

9. CNN I am becoming spiteful towards CNN because they rarely show news. The most giant pie, the bull on the Texas highway, tiny chihuaha etc. And of course they report on the rumors. 5 tips on avoiding boss bullying after Bill O'Reilly was accused of sexual harrassment. And the Dan Rather story. They keep reporting about it in such a way that it seems like CBS is apologizing because the story was untrue but in actuality, they were just apologizing about not fact checking. Pure distraction which really confuses people. And people are REALLY confused these days.

10. Fahrenhype 9/11 This is the rebuttal to Fahrenheit 9/11. I guess I have a problem with people assuming the US is always right and can do whatever it wants. I have a problem with people thinking that us going over and killing 15000 people is an acceptable way to solve issues. We are not being attacked. We are attacking. Why is it ok for us to force Democracy on them but not ok for them to force Islamic rule on us? People from Moore's movie were offended to be included in his movie but he was not saying that soldiers are bad to be doing their jobs, he was saying broadly how bad war is. I would be very upset myself if I lost friends, families or limbs based on a war that is wrong. They never explained why we are at war with Iraq. The concept that killing a whole bunch of them is bringing them freedom is nuts..Well yes they are freed from this world I guess.

Websites I like:
http://www.commondreams.org/ This site is alive. It gives news and has things smart people have written. Constantly updating.
http://www.issues2000.org This site has different ways of looking at the actual issues. Take the test at the bottom of the page to see who's views are closest to yours.