Some call it Statesmanship, others call it dirty politics, some say it is hateful and others courageous. I call it the Public Forum. A forum where issues and policies are debated, sometimes passionately, but nonetheless openly.
It is the American way.
In this election, as in others, the Republican platform of national debate is:
1)You're with us or against us and if you're against us you support the terrorists.
2)Gay Marriage is wrong.
This is the substance of third grade school yard name calling. It is not the lively discussion of historical American philosophy or statemanship that inspires the electorate to be informed of the great national issues that confront us nor of respected Senators who carefully articulate the issues and debate the consequences of the law instead of ramming bills and legislation like poop through a goose on the last day of election "recess".
Liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label 'Liberal?' If by 'Liberal' they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then let the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal'
JFK
Where are our Statesman? President Bush is a blathering idiot. He is the laughingstock of peoples around the world who know that many Americans, including the President and Congress, are absolutely clueless about cultures and countries even in our own hemisphere let alone the Middle East.
We were warned by the French not to invade Iraq with her many factions and divisions. Yes,... the French... who influence Arab and Muslim people in many countries including most of North Africa and it's 15 diverse French speaking countries. Maybe they know something of the Muslim mindset? Of Diplomacy? Yet we allowed all these mindless Republican congresspeople to openly mock our friends and allies of 250 years with their childish "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" school yard taunts and antics. I was ashamed and have hoped for the day when they would all be swept away out of office for their infantile narcissistic gloating like 3rd grade bullies strutting in the lunch room over the class nerd.
Or how about India who governs and administrates to over 200 million Muslims living amongst the Hindus for over 1000 years in relative peace? Perhaps they know of something of the Islamic community and terrorists and reactionaries?
No, we choose Pakistan! A military Dictatorship as our partner to spread Democracy and fight (promote) terrorism. The place where the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden hide. This is our coalition of the willing. Our foreign policy debacle of ignorant State Department hooligans and Pentagon war profiteers in cahoots with nuclear armed Islamic military dictatorship.
Can anyone answer why we shunned the wisdom of the world's largest Democracy and emerging world power and trading partner, India, for the thugs of Pakistan? Certainly the British have a raison d'etre? It boogles the mind 5 years later as to the indefensible stay the course sloganeering!
It is time for the American electorate to sweep the pollsters and pundits aside and vote in the checks and balances so critical to our American Democracy. It is time for a Democratic congress. If for no other reason than to check the executive and judicial branches of government. It is our right and duty to do so under the constitution.
Even she hangs by a thread at this moment.
If there is one principle at the core of this great American experiment, the bedrock of all Western jurisprudence, if there is a soul at the heart of all Western civilization since the Dark Ages, it is the concept of Habeas Corpus -- that no human being can be deprived of their liberty without soon facing their accusers, soon seeing the evidence against them, and soon standing trial before a jury of their peers. That is our true Rock of Ages...our true moral compass and not the domain of the President or the Secretary of Defense or a rubber stamp Republican Congress...
...nor the despicable taunting of reactionary bureaucrats and pundits or the disquieted, mindless fear mongering of the corporate media.
The right to vote out these conservative demagogues is the only right that we may willfully have left today and it is unalienable.
I leave you with these words:
F.D.R. wherefore art thou? Come hither from the grave!
For you know how Republicans know not how to behave.
We fight the Robber Barons yore...the Pirates and The Knave!
To rally New Deal working folks...tis worthy still to save!