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"...The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. I think we got it right... when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq... All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques. Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq."
-Vice President Dick Cheney in 1992 (back when invading Iraq was not simply a vehicle to expand his personal fortune and get his "boss" re-elected)
I can't fathom for a second why Conan taking over the inane Tonight Show (five freakin' years from now!) makes headlines for days on end while important stories like this one go virtually unnoticed? (Think there's a popsicle's chance in hell Edwards will call him on it during their debate next week?)
Brett has done a fantastic job compiling eye-opening (and often maddening) bits of news regarding this election. I've often wanted to post some of them right here, but it's far easier (and fairer) to direct you to his fine site than resort to subtle thievery.
When those wacky liberals start using their toddlers to make political statements, things just might be getting out of hand...
The following is excerpted from "Why I Will Vote for John Kerry" by John Eisenhower, son of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower (I know it's long, but it's a worthy read):
"As son of a Republican President, it is automatically expected... that I am a Republican. For 50 years, through the election of 2000, I was. With the current administration’s decision to invade Iraq unilaterally, however, I changed my voter registration to independent... and I intend to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry.
The fact is that today’s “Republican” Party is one with which I am totally unfamiliar. To me, the word “Republican” has always been synonymous with the word “responsibility,” which has meant limiting our governmental obligations to those we can afford in human and financial terms. Today’s whopping budget deficit of some $440 billion does not meet that criterion.
Responsibility used to be observed in foreign affairs. That has meant respect for others. America, though recognized as the leader of the community of nations, has always acted as a part of it, not as a maverick separate from that community and at times insulting towards it. Leadership involves setting a direction and building consensus, not viewing other countries as practically devoid of significance. Recent developments indicate that the current Republican Party leadership has confused confident leadership with hubris and arrogance.
Today many people are rightly concerned about our precious individual freedoms, our privacy, the basis of our democracy. Of course we must fight terrorism, but have we irresponsibly gone overboard in doing so? In 1960, President Eisenhower told the Republican convention, “If ever we put any other value above (our) liberty, and above principle, we shall lose both.” I would appreciate hearing such warnings from the Republican Party of today.
The Republicans used to be deeply concerned for the middle class and small business. Today’s Republican leadership, while not solely accountable for the loss of American jobs, encourages it with its tax code and heads us in the direction of a society of very rich and very poor.
Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically.
I celebrate, along with other Americans, the diversity of opinion in this country. But let it be based on careful thought. I urge everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike, to avoid voting for a ticket merely because it carries the label of the party of one’s parents or of our own ingrained habits."
While the Bush camp prattle on endlessly about the sadly-misnamed "war on terror," scaring Americans into believing we'll be less secure under John Kerry, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hits the nail squarely on the head:
"Republicans should remember that the reason Osama bin Laden is still able to threaten the United States three years after the September 11th attacks is the utter failure of the Bush administration to catch him and destroy al Qaeda."
If al-Qaeda strike the U.S. again, no matter who is in office, the blame will lie squarely with Bush for not doing as he promised Americans on September 12, for not going after Osama and other Bush family buddies, instead manipulating the American public's collective fear by choosing an easier target in Saddam Hussein (a man who had little, if anything, to do with "terror" as it applies to the U.S.).
That is, without question, Kerry's strongest argument for winning the election and reclaiming this country from those whose greedy incompetence is slowly destroying it. That's what Democrats need to be shouting about. Wake up, John!
Recently, my good friend James had the misfortune of having his entire online archive erased. Gone are the gazillion inventive passages he'd constructed over two years' time, the emotional depth unmatched by most blogs I read (including my own, in which I struggle to keep my deepest emotions in check for reasons I'm not certain are valid).
James insists he is not angry or upset over losing volumes of work, instead seeing it as an opportunity to start clean. A fresh palette, he calls it.
The episode made me think about how I'd handle losing my own written works. Since the crash of my overly-expensive lemon of a Dell laptop five years ago, during which I lost several significant pieces I'd foolishly saved only to my hard drive, I've become obsessed with saving shit. I've done away with floppies, having graduated to Flash Drive memory stick thingies that are small and cute and hold lots of crap with minimal effort on the part of technologically-challenged folks such as myself.
My life is about paper. My most important personal belongings are of the paper variety: letters, cards, photos, books. My archive of letters and cards from friends, lovers and family fills several galvanized steel boxes. My obsessive practice of printing out especially sweet, loving or othwerise emotionally-charged emails has perpetuated the need for a gaggle of three-ring binders, in which select emails now live out their days, affectionately perused along with scores of handwritten letters on those occasions when nostalgic longing trumps whatever more practical uses I can make of an afternoon.
Newspapers and magazines covering significant events in history (and my own life) are lovingly saved in my old steamer trunk, yellowing gradually over the years and fraying more at the edges with every move I make. Yearbooks and various high school clippings fill an entire box, while letters and cards fill three. I could pay off my undergraduate loans with the money I'd make selling back to Hallmark the hundreds of cherished greeting cards I have kept over the years. Photos fill countless albums, with extra prints and carefully preserved negatives stored in yet more boxes.
Then there are my own personal notebooks: cheap spirals filled with years of emotional, soul-searching journal entries, short stories, poems, ideas. Years worth of the remnants of my imagination, spilled out in ever-changing penmanship into various notebooks and carefully-chosen hardbound journals purchased when I convinced myself I'd write more if I only had prettier paper on which to create.
Paper, in its various forms, is my most cherished possession. Words are my most important, most tangible memory of nearly every significant moment in my life. I dream in words. I earn my living as a writer. My whole life is words. I have no jewelry, furniture, knick-knacks or other material items worth saving were my home to go up in flames. Just paper. And while my blog is not paper, per se, it most definitely belongs in that category. Even with its often incoherent ramblings and silly throwaway entries, it is a record of my life.
"They say Spain is pretty, though I've never been..."
Well, that's going to change come early November, when I'm off to Cadiz for a week. I managed to visit Europe only once while living in New York, something I wish I'd done again before I moved 3,000 miles farther away, making my combined travel time from San Francisco to Malaga (with stops in New York and Madrid) anywhere from 7-12 hours longer than it would have been were I still an east-coaster. Sigh.
I suppose I'll appreciate my west-coast status more when I take my world travels westward rather than eastward. Australia, anyone?
Fortunately, I'm extremely adaptable when it comes to travel and I don't loathe flying as much as the average tourist, probably because I've done so much of it throughout my life. Give me my MP3 player, crossword puzzles, journal and a good book and I am entertained for hours. Add good company to the mix (a rare treat) and I'm happy as a clam, despite the inevitability of being crammed into a tiny airline seat designed to be comfortable only to those adults lucky enough to possess posteriors the size of cantaloupes.
Having explored London, southern England, Paris and Versailles, I had moved Spain/Portugal to the top of my "Desired Destinations" list soon after returning from my first European jaunt in 1999. I also long to visit countries with some familial or ancestral significance to me, fantasizing about joining my grandmother for a tour of Hungary or visiting Chile with my mother. Of course, Israel remains a coveted destination, with so many relatives and friends still living there after my father's family emigrated to New York. How I'd love to one day tour Tel Aviv with Dad as a guide.
On a completely different topic, I have to rave for a minute about KEXP in Seattle, whom I listen to very frequently online and whose DJ has provided my delighted ears a particularly fantastic playlist this morning. Thank you, KEXP DJ, for the Built to Spill currently playing, as well as the Sebadoh, Belle & Sebastian, Shins, Wire ("Kidney Bingos"... great 80s flashback!), Iron & Wine, De La Soul, Jayhawks and Pavement before it. Who needs commercial radio, anyway?
Life has kept me inundantly busy lately, diminishing my usually strong impulses to write. I have reached the point where I'm almost indifferent with regards to the upcoming election. The opponent-bashing, in its various forms, has begun to make me physically uncomfortable, disgusted and even nauseous at times, so much so that I avoid the news, particularly the so-called "polls." People decades older than I to whom I've spoken have lamented they've never seen an election get this ugly. It truly distrubs me that those in power in our country could sink this low. Cheney scares the living fuck out of me. Not in the way he's purposely trying to scare all Americans into voting for Dubya, by drumming up images of terrorists who will no doubt strike only if Kerry is elected. I have no fear of terrorists. NONE. I wouldn't go so far as to say "Bring 'em on!" but there's nothing that could cause me to live in fear of something I have no control over. So I live my life. I hop on planes, I traverse bridges, I plan trans-Atlantic trips. Orange alert or not, I would move back to New York in a heartbeat, riding the subway like everyone else, living my life as if Osama and company are simply characters in some inane Jerry Bruckheimer movie.
Far from having anything to do with outside threats to the U.S., my fear of Cheney and his ilk exists because I am beginning to realize this great country is increasingly prone to spawning more diabolically self-serving pigs just like him. That type of fear can be easily assauged with the acquisition of a foreign visa and a subsequent move out of the country. I dearly love the U.S. It is my home and I love it. But I have no problem expatriating myself if the things I love about my country begin to unravel, disappear and implode at the hands of those chosen to lead it.
I pray for my friend Craig, a Marine enduring over 30 hours of travel to return to Fallujah six weeks ago for reasons mostly unclear to him and the rest of his unit. He describes the news there as "demoralizing." Word from over there is the U.S. soldiers are unwelcome, the situation is far from improving and, by Craig's estimation, U.S. soldiers will be stuck in that "craphole" for another 10 years. And for what? Someone please tell me for what?