How Big a Clothespin?
It has been several months since I have posted in this blog. One reason has been the work that has been required getting the over 58,000 names posted in my Namnesia Antidote blog. The names on the Vietnam War Memorial Wall have been posted at least in triplicate there. Work continues and those postings and indices will continue to expand.
While the other blog has taken the majority of my time, I studiously avoided making any posting about the Democratic Party's nomination process. This is because as the nominating process progressed, I became increasingly apathetic about the candidates. In my mini-profile posted in the sidebar of all my blogs, I mention my first eligible presidential election was when George McGovern ran against Tricky Dick. My vote that year was an exception to the majority of presidential votes I would cast over the years. It was an unabashed vote FOR the Democratic nominee. Many of my votes in later elections were votes for the lesser of two evils or AGAINST the Republican candidate. Dukakis and Gore were the exception to this pattern.
I have had a procession of candidates I supported actively during this primary season. My first choice was to draft Al Gore, giving him a chance to regain what stolen from him in November 2000. His focus and energies are spent on the most critical challenges the WORLD faces today, I wish him success in his efforts; he must be successful if my children are to have any type of future. My next choice was Dennis Kucinich. Dennis is man of peace, courage and integrity. His candidacy was trivialized by his opponents and the media. Opportunistic Democrats in Cleveland tried to unseat him in the Congressional primaries, so he was forced to leave the race. He recently presented 35 Articles of Impeachment against the War Chimp, thus continuing to establish his bona-fides as true supporter of the Constitution and the whole country.
The next candidate to receive my support was Edwards. Edwards made his chops taking on corporations as a trial lawyer before he entered the Senate. Since the stolen 2004 election, he has concentrated on fighting poverty. These characteristics doomed his candidacy. This left Mike Gravel as the only true peace candidate. (I know many Ron Paul supporters that feel differently. I could never support a candidate whose main objection to the war was that it cost too much not that it was a crime against humanity. Additionally, his Conservative Libertarian history, that allows economic and racial injustices, was a disqualification.) Gravel not being an office holder meant he was able to carrying on his efforts longer but no more effectively than Kucinich or Edwards.
This left Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Neither are Progressive candidates of the FDR/JFK Democratic Party. Hillary's association with the Democratic Leadership Conference (Bill's DLC association made him the best Republican president of the twentieth century.) and vote for the Iraq War made her a possible nominee that was the greater of two evils. Obama was a wild card. Since he has secured the nomination, he has gone and groveled to AIPAC and supported amnesty for the telecom companies in the War Chimp's blatantly illegal and unconstitutional eavesdropping program. Things both he and his presumptive Republican opponent are guilty of doing.
That being said about Obama, I must state unequivocally that John McWarSameBush would be an unmitigated disaster for the country. This would result in a third War Chimp term but with a vengeance. This brings me to the title of this entry: How Big a Clothespin? The answer: However big it needs to be to allow me to vote for Obama. This is not a vote for Obama because I believe him to be a JFK/RFK. It is a vote of preservation of the country and me & mine, against John McWarSameBush. I can only hope that enough voters across the country can overcome whatever election theft methodologies the Republicans have planned for 2008.
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5 comments:
Excellent post, APL. While I agree that Kucinich and Edwards would have been more progressive candidates than Obama, perhaps even more courageous in certain ways, I still find that Obama's intellect and poise in general is so superior to the level of the current President, or the Republican candidate, that it is more than worth it for all of us to cast our vote for Obama in November. What happens after that is up to him.
Perhaps APL can help me out of my state of confusion. He speaks of "the War Chimp's blatantly illegal and unconstitutional eavesdropping program", and also "the FDR/JFK Democratic Party". I presume that the reference to FDR was intended to be positive. But was that Japanese internment really consitutional? How about the strict press censorship authorized by dear Franklin? The unauthorized pre -12/7/41 "war" with German submarines? How about allowing hundreds of British spies free reign within our borders prior to the war (see Jennet Conant's new book - "The Irregulars")? I won't get into his Supreme Court packing scheme. Talk about shredding the constitution.
Your state of confusion comes from your inability to recognize that FDR's actions were in response to the War Crimes of the Germans and Japanese. The War Chimp's actions are War Crimes. I am always amazed by the specious argument of two wrongs make a right. You lack of constitutional knowledge is also apparent; the number of Justices on the Supreme Court is set by statute not in the Constitution. FDR's packing scheme might have been ill advised but it was constitutional. Your cowardly use of anonymous serves you well, as not to embarrass yourself.
APL
>> the specious argument of two wrongs make a right…
I never said whether FDR was wrong or right. I was simply using your “constitutional” criterion.
>> FDR's actions were in response to the War Crimes of the Germans and Japanese.
Now I’m really confused – “constitutional” isn’t the criterion?
Note that you are also confused. You need to get your ducks in the right order. Your telling me the Japanese-American internment was in response to Japanese/German war crimes – you gotta be kidding me. The extent of German war crimes was not known until after these measures were in place. That includes FDR’s press censorship, implemented for the allied invasion of French North Africa, which was put in place to keep the folks at home from hearing all the bad news, and there was a lot of bad news. The “special privileges” given to British agents by FDR began well before 1941.
>> the number of Justices on the Supreme Court is set by statute not in the Constitution..
But – they do decide what is or is not constitutional. So, if after losing several 5-4 cases on detainee treatment, Bush proposes adding 2 justices to the SC – you’re OK with that?
>> Your cowardly use of anonymous….
Please explain the difference between “anonymous” and APL. I don’t have a blog – I don’t have the time. Who I am or you are does not matter. The ideas should stand or fall on their own. In any case, it does not take much “courage” to operate an anti-war blog these days. Operating an anti-war publication under FDR – now that would have taken courage
Anonymous wrote:
">> FDR's actions were in response to the War Crimes of the Germans and Japanese.
Now I’m really confused – “constitutional” isn’t the criterion?
Note that you are also confused. You need to get your ducks in the right order. Your telling me the Japanese-American internment was in response to Japanese/German war crimes – you gotta be kidding me. The extent of German war crimes was not known until after these measures were in place. That includes FDR’s press censorship, implemented for the allied invasion of French North Africa, which was put in place to keep the folks at home from hearing all the bad news, and there was a lot of bad news. The “special privileges” given to British agents by FDR began well before 1941."
No, there is no kidding involved. War Crimes were known at the time—the invasion and occupation of numerous countries had occurred without cause or on false pretenses—exactly like the invasion of Iraq. Many of the war criminals executed after WWII were executed for the crime of pre-emptive, unjustified war—defined as a crime against humanity. Again, any of FDR's actions were in response to war crimes not war crimes themselves like the War Chimp's actions.
">> the number of Justices on the Supreme Court is set by statute not in the Constitution..
But – they do decide what is or is not constitutional. So, if after losing several 5-4 cases on detainee treatment, Bush proposes adding 2 justices to the SC – you’re OK with that?"
No, I'm not okay with it but I would know enough not to call it unconstitutional. What does it matter anyway, the War Chimp just ignores rulings if he doesn't agree with them. That I do call a shredding of the Constitution.
">> Your cowardly use of anonymous….
I don’t have a blog – I don’t have the time. Who I am or you are does not matter. The ideas should stand or fall on their own. In any case, it does not take much “courage” to operate an anti-war blog these days. Operating an anti-war publication under FDR – now that would have taken courage"
You do have the time to sit at home and at work in Illinois to do your little sniping job. What you have missed is that FDR was anti-war himself. The actions you use to compare with and justify the War Chimp's actions were anti-war. Your ideas fall on their merit, since they have none. Your support of the War Chimp means that you abet war crimes, making you guilty of war crimes yourself.
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