Rove Attacks!

With the Republican corruption scandals spiraling out of control, spin master Karl Rove and his media minions have begun a counter attack on the Democrats. Spoken in the same newscast breath with the indictments, convictions, and ethics violations of Delay, Cunningham, Ney, Foley, et al. are the admonishments of Sen. Harry Reid. You make the call. Which is more pernicious an ethics violation - money laundering of millions, taking bribes of millions to influence legislation, sexual predation of children, or tipping workers at a convention. The $3,000 over three years that Reid paid out of his campaign funds as gratuities is not enough to cover one night's comped meals for Rove at Abramoff's Signature restaurant. An uninformed viewer will look at the news cast and think the Democrat's violations are just as bad. As usual, big corporate media which supports the Republican war machine, will give each violation equal air time while some are much more egregious than others.

Neocon Manipulation of Evangelicals

The neocons in control of the Republican party have won elections by manipulating the evangelical Christian vote. They use issues like gay marriage and prayer in schools to prey on the "moral values" of the evangelicals. But, there are other important moral issues here. I do not seem to remember Jesus saying that it was acceptable to attack another country and cause the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people. I do not remember Jesus saying that the rich should get richer while the poor suffer.
David Kuo's new book Tempting Faith, paints a picture of the neocons pandering to the evangelicals for their votes while sniggering about their sanity behind the scenes and not keeping their promises about what they will accomplish.
I am not saying that the evangelical Christians should vote Democrat, Republican, Green, or Independent because of this manipulation, only that they should consider all the issues and their morality before blindly being steered by the neocons.

They Just Don't Suspect the Court Jester

In Frank Rich's new book The Greatest Story Ever Sold , he says that the only journalists who looked skeptically at the facts before the Iraq war were the fake news journalists (John Stewart, etc.). It is as it has always been, the universal blindspot of the arrogant elite is their failure to grasp the message and the power of the message of entertainment.

In a time of universal deceit,
telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
- George Orwell -

Let's Cut and Run in '06

The neocons have had a great ploy to manipulate public opinion in saying the opposition would have us "cut and run". If a ship you are on is sinking and you will drown if you "stay the course" then "cut and run". If a car you are in has no brakes and staying the course will get you killed then cut and run. If you stay the course in a country that you have invaded to stop terrorism and it is making terrorism worse, you should cut and run. When staying the course puts us on the verge of causing more deaths than the dictator you overthrew, then cut and run. If staying the course is a strategy of installing democracy at gun point, then cut and run. It is very easy to say stay the course when you are only sacrificing the lives of poor strangers and your children are safe at home. It is easy to say stay the course when you and the friends around you grow rich and the poor are forced to join the military and risk their lives to support their families. As a matter of fact, I think cut and run is one of the best ideas I have ever heard. I think it should be a campaign slogan. "Let's cut and run in '06".

Manipulating with fear

The logic of "fight Al-qaeda there instead of fighting them here" is debatable. I think there are more options possible, but for the sake of argument let us say these are our choices.
To fight them there, we spend billions of dollars to send poor, young soldiers to their front door so they can be picked off in a shooting gallery. Al-qaeda does not have to have any transportation and very little money to kill the Americans that our government has been so kind to transport to them.
So, let's look at the other option. If we fight them here, how will they get here? Al-qaeda has no planes or boats. What will they do, swim?
And, just because we are fighting them there, it is still possible for them to fight us here anyway. I do admit it is much easier to kill Americans who have been brought to you than it is to go half way around the world to kill some. But, they can still come here while they are fighting there.
Isn't this just a fear ploy - pictures in your head of masses of Al-qaeda fighters coming up your street - to use fear to manipulate voters? We heard this same kind of rhetoric when invading Iraq - mushroom clouds and poison gas. The Republican party has fooled us before with this rhetoric, and as President Bush has said "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."