Blue Funk Blog

First Nader and Now Gonzales

Averel — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:48:24 +0000

Averel Wilson

I still haven’t recovered from Ralph Nader’s spoiling of the 2000 presidential race, so I’m not expecting to rebound anytime soon from his new bid for the presidency. What is he thinking? Okay, fine, I understand the need for election reform, perhaps for more than two parties and a system of run-offs. That would be nifty. But how can he justify insinuating himself into such an important race, when there truly ARE marked policy differences between the Republican and Democratic candidates? In Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Matt Gonzales (Nader’s running mate) was quoted as saying, “I’m not out to pull the election one way or the other, but people need to get beyond 2000″. How cavalier can one get? Nader’s little ploy in 2000 cost Gore the presidency. So, instead on having the most environmentally focused president ever, we got roll-backs of the Clean Air Act, an EPA that is under investigation for denying states the right to more stringent emissions requirments, and all sorts of other un-green legislation. Not to mention the fact that Nader is responsible for our being in Iraq. The hubris is enough to make you choke. Ralph and Matt, what you are doing is shameful. Find another way to put forth your election reform agenda, without relegating this nation to another four years of Republicans.

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Obama vs. Billary

Averel — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:33:02 +0000

by Scott Galindez

Scott Galindez of Truthout looks at who really is running against Obama as the Democratic frontrunner: Hillary or Bill. And, I have to say, Bill’s fact-twisting with respect to Obama’s career is starting to look very unpresidential.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012408A.shtml

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Crocodile Tears

Averel — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 20:36:07 +0000

How is it that the same action that cost Ed Muskie his political career seems to have catapulted Hillary into the hearts of American women? While I don’t always agree with Maureen Dowd, I found this column of hers right on point.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/08dowd.html?ex=1200718800&en=1c65043a367e3d0b&ei=5070&emc=eta1

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Hillary - A Foreign Policy Expert?

Averel — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:17:02 +0000

I must have been distracted when Hillary Clinton was out getting all that foreign policy experience. In a recent speech in Iowa, she said,” Experience in foreign affairs is critical to ending the war in Iraq, averting war in Iran, negotiating a Middle East peace and dealing with North Korea”. This from a woman who voted to permit Bush to take us into the war in Iraq, who recently labeled the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (Iran’s national army) a “terrorist” organization, and who chortled at Barack Obama’s suggestion that we might actually need to engage our enemies in dialogue to prevent further conflict. This all sounds mighty pugilistic to some of us worry-warts on the sidelines. Frankly, I would think that someone so “well versed in foreign policy” might take the trouble to READ the Iraq Study Group Report, which specifically recommended that the U.S. talk to the leaders of countries like Syria, Iran, and Borth Korea. So, Obama wasn’t a spouse in the White House for eight years, ostensibly picking up foreign policy tidbits by osmosis. But he DID read the Iraq Study Group Report, and he opposed our giving Bush the keys to the tank to drive through Iraq. He appears to have a thirst for knowledge and a healthy skepticism - both of which seem to me to be essential characteristics for a presidential candidate. He also seems less eager to engage in saber-rattling than is Hillary, and probably less eager to take us further down that path toward potential conflict. I’m not sold on this “foreign policy experience” that Hillary touts - and her actions would indicate that she is the less experienced of the two candidates. Maybe she should pick a different fight.

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Crushing the American Dream

Averel — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:19:53 +0000

It’s been over a month since the Senate rejected the Dream Act, but I’m still hopping mad about it. This act would have granted temporary legal status to illegal immigrants who have graduated from high school in good status and are either in college or in the military. But shortly before the measure was put to a vote, President Bush denounced it, the result being that 36 Republicans and 8 Democrats voted “no”. (Who are these Democrats???)

Let’s look at the group of young men and women at issue here. We’re talking about approximately 500,000 young adults, about 4 percent of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.. This group has attended college or technical school, and they obviously speak English well in order to have achieved this level of education. They had to have been younger than 16 when they entered the United States, and in most cases they were probably far younger, so that their move here was not even their decision. In an OpEd piece in the New York Times, Cynthia Tucker sited an example of the type of person denied a path to citizenship by the Senate’s “no” vote: Marco, a Georgia Tech engineering student with a perfect score on his math SAT, and who has been in this country since he was 4. Who could possibly benefit from our denying Marco a path to citizenship? Isn’t this exactly the type of young adult we should be recruiting to be part of our nation, our work force, our intellectual capital, our tax base?

The fact that our Democratically-led Senate wasn’t able to pass this narrow bill, forging a path to citizenship for the best and brightest of our undocumented immigrant population, is appalling. And it certainly doesn’t bode well for the success of more far-reaching legislation to normalize the living situation of the other 11.5 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. I would like to chalk this up to something other than fear, suspicion, and xenophobia, but what would that be?

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Evangelicals Should Look to the Left

Averel — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:20:25 +0000

Averel Wilson

The notion that Pat Robertson would endorse Rudy Giuliani as the candidate of choice really has me scratching my head. (Much of what Pat Robertson does and says has that effect on me…) But once you strip away those “little issues” around his being pro-choice and supportive of gay rights, as well as having gone through two marriages before landing in the current one, what’s left about Giuliani that is so appealing to evangelicals? Why is there this urgency to elect any GOP candidate, regardless of his views?

Let’s think about what other issues form the platform of Giuliani’s (and most GOP candidates’) campaign. Well, there is the obvious one of fighting the “War on Terror”, for which Giuliani gets extra points from all those photo ops in the wake of 9/11. And his relations with the NRA have warmed a bit since his declaring his candidacy, so that’s another notch in his belt. But how are these stances consistent with evangelical views? Don’t they both seem a little bellicose and potentially violent for this pocket of good Christians? Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has said about Giuliani: “I cannot vote for someone who believes that it’s all right to stop a beating heart.” I suppose he’s referring to that troublesome pro-choice stance, but there’s a lot of heartbeat-stopping going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in our inner cities where guns are so accessible. Perhaps a Democrat could keep more heartbeats going?

So, aside from Land, if evangelicals can get past Giuliani’s position on these contentious social issues, why are they not tempted to vote for a Democrat? Here are some candidates who are trying to limit the bloodshed in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to rein in the use of guns, undertaking the enormously difficult effort of trying to provide healthcare for everyone. Don’t these goals sound more in keeping with a Christian agenda?

In a recent Op Ed piece by Kathleen Parker in the San Francisco Chronicle, she poses a very good question: “…if terror trumps bioethics, and Hillary puts terror in evangelical hearts, what does religious conviction mean? Is religion primarily a matter of virtue - or of pragmatism?” I think it’s pragmatism - but a blind pragmatism, which doesn’t examine the real impact of having another Republican in the White House. Evangelicals might want to think about all heartbeats, not just ebryonic ones.

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Keith Olbermann on Waterboarding

Averel — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 18:26:00 +0000

Once again, Keith Olbermann is right on point as he justifiably rages against this administration’s use of torture. He discusses the heroism of Daniel Levin (former Acting Assisitant U.S. Attorney), who subjected himself to waterboarding just to see if it should be categorized as “torture”. This was three years ago. Upon deciding it was unquestionably torture, he was dismissed. So much for truth in government. Watch this great little Olbermann moment:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/feinstein

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Dahr Jamail on the Iraq Occupation

Averel — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:24:31 +0000

by Kevin Zeese, AlterNet

In this article on AlterNet.org, Kevin Zeese interviews Dahr Jamail about the current efficacy of the American occupation of Iraq. According to Jamail, the continuing presence of American troops is exacerbating internal conflicts, and the widely held view that our exit would worsen the situation is both arrogant and racist. Being among those who have felt it would be morally reprehensible to pull up stakes, given the damage we have inflicted, I now find myself wavering.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/66448

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The Bush White House on Family Planning

Averel — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 19:12:53 +0000

On October 17, Bush appointed Susan Orr, an avowed opponent of contraception (no, not abortion, contraception) to head the Health and Human Services Department’s family-planning office. It may be that I’m just behind the times, but what does family planning mean if not planning how many children to have, and (more or less) when? And how does this work without some form of contraception? This makes me remember the remark of a family friend’s child, the youngest of three, who, upon learning where babies came from, looked at her parents in horror, exclaiming, “You mean you did that three times!?” Well, either Susan Orr is a real spoil-sport and thinks that three times is about right, or she really doesn’t care if we all have two dozen children throughout our child-bearing years. She ought to read a book or two on global population.

And her positions should come as no surprise. In a 2001 article, in the Washington Post, Orr lauded Bush for his proposal to stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees to cover a broad spectrum of birth control. She was quoted as saying, “We’re quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease”.

But the goal here is not massive infertility; it is, rather, ensuring that all people of child-bearing age have the information and tools necessary to have children only if and when they want to. This seems to me quite reasonable. It even sounds like the job description of someone in charge of Family Planning for HHS. Could it be that Orr got this application mixed up with the one she was sending the Vatican?

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Military Recruiting Video from Alternet

Averel — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:14:43 +0000

Here’s a great little video spoof of a miliary recruiting ad, complete with disclaimers, caveats and warnings of side-effects.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/65710

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