Snob Robbery, or The Reckless Elitist
Posted by Julie in General Rant, Politics on 08 2nd, 2009Right when we should have been concentrating on the healthcare reform discussion, along comes Officer Krupke and a strange case of life immitating art.
Well I suppose ‘art’ is a little generous, but there was an interesting movie released several years ago starring one of my favorite actors of all time, Samuel L. Jackson. I can’t think of another actor who can go so seamlessly from badass roughian (Jackie Brown, Pulp Fiction) to gentle sophisticate (The Red Violin). We got to see the softer Sam in 1993’s “Amos & Andrew” where he played Andrew Sterling, a successful black urbanite writer who buys a vacation home in a small New England resort town. One night, the local constabulary mistakes him for a burglar. Fortunately, the cop in the movie had slightly more sense than the one who confronted Professor Gates. The movie cop knew exactly what kind of mess he’d just made. Read the rest of this entry »
read comments (0)Lipstick Pit Bull Fact Check
Posted by Julie in Politics on 06 14th, 2009Toward the end of 2000 (specifically in mid-November when the election debacle was finally being resolved), I spent many nervous hours considering emigration to Canada. The idea of a George W. Bush administration was more than scary enough to make me consider leaving family, friends, and U.S. citizenship behind in favor of the relative peace and simplicity enjoyed by our northern neighbors. Then I thought, “Hell, America’s too smart for this. It can’t last. I’ll stick it out.” Eight gut-wrenching years later, we’re staring down the barrel of McCain/Palin: Possibly the only weapon that could be MORE destructive than Bush/Cheney has been to American life, liberty, and the pursuit of [reasonable] happiness.
Madison on War
Posted by Julie in Politics on 08 2nd, 2008A nationalist is someone who not only overlooks atrocities committed by his own side. He has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. — George Orwell
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. War requires a physical force is to be created and it is the executive will which is to direct that force. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors and compensations is multiplied, and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people.
The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals engendered in both.
No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
James Madison, excerpted from “Political Observations”
April 20, 1795 in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491.
Cheney’s Warped View
Posted by Julie in Politics on 03 13th, 2007In his speech to the AIPAC convention yesterday, Dick Cheney laid out his thirst for literally endless war — and his equally intense aversion to war-avoidance — as unabashedly as can be. The towering question which America faces is whether it wants to continue to embrace this bloodthirsty and truly crazed vision (which many leading presidential candidates seem to share), or whether we want to repudiate it fundamentally. This is what lies at the core of Cheney’s world view:
An enemy that operates in the shadows and views the entire world as a battlefield is not one we can fight with strategies used in other wars. An enemy with fantasies of martyrdom is not going to sit down at a table for negotiations. Nor can we fight to a standoff — (applause). Nor can we fight to a standoff, hoping that some form of containment or deterrence will protect our people. The only option for our security and survival is to go on the offensive, facing the threat directly, patiently and systematically, until the enemy is destroyed. (Applause.) Read the rest of this entry »
Are They Really Crazy?
Posted by Julie in Politics on 10 2nd, 2004With only a few weeks to go before the 2004 Republican National Convention and being hot off the John Kerry rally a few days ago, I’m rattled with rhetoric.
I desperately need Yosemite Sam out of the White House. I’m sure he’s a decent enough fellow and is probably lots of fun at barbecues and family picnics, but he is in no way qualified to be the Leader of the Free World. And while I’ve pinned all my hopes to Kerry’s old-school legal-eagle and somewhat wishy-washy political lapels, something is missing. No it’s not his personality, as pundits are so eager to barf out at us. It is a sense of genuine moral justice with regard to the way America conducts herself on the world stage. Read the rest of this entry »
