September 9th, 2006
A Little Fun First
- Thursday Thirteen #2 — ribbiticus @ Pond Perspective offers some gems of advice. Here are my favorites:
5. It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
10. Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
11. We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
12. A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.
13. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
More
Tags: Thursday Thirteen, Crayons, terrorism, Logan Airport, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Congress, wiretapping, Osama bin Laden, Mother Jones, liberals, 9/11, religion, aetheists, women, virginity, Journal of Sex Research Western soceity, involuntary virgins, economy, America
August 10th, 2006
I must say when I happened about this post at Punkassblog.com, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. It’s so true and so inspiring.
Clearly, the left blogosphere has been annointed the moral police of the world. In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone on the Right gets incensed whenever we fail to erupt in outrage over whatever’s got their momentary goat. This can only mean one thing: they need our moral validation.
It’s mighty big of wingnuttery to just hand over the needle of the moral compass to us Western-facing souls, and we ought to handle our job with care. Certainly, we have demonstrated we’re much better equipped than they are to point out immoral behavior, but it seems they expect us to be everywhere condemning everything at once. If we’re condemning Mel Gibson, we’re failing to condemn some mass murderer. If we’re condemning Michelle Malkin, we’re under-condemning Deb Frisch. If we’re condemning Bush for his lies, we’re excusing Reuters for felonious smoke enhancements.
Whew. This condemnation work is exhausting.
I understand that the Right can work themselves into a panic when we forget to guide them on an issue. They screech and flail their arms like a baby facing option paralysis, unable to make up its mind in the face of confusing and overwhelming information. For example, when Dennis Prager hears about a man shooting up the Seattle Jewish Federation, he can’t believe we wouldn’t be up in arms over it.Sometimes, wingnuts, we liberals forget that you all don’t find some events condemnable on their faces. To us, this mass murder is obviously evil, just like all the other murders that we don’t blog about every day. But you guys lean toward supporting murder, especially mass murder, like everything going on in the Middle East. As such, I bet it can get pretty confusing as to when you should and shouldn’t condemn something.
To help our wingnut friends out, I would like to provide a permanent liberal condemnation checklist. These items are always assumed to be condemned, even if we don’t blog about them obsessively. We want those in need of our moral leadership to carry this list around with them to help when they aren’t near a computer and start to think it’s okay to napalm babies in Lebanon.
Punkass Marc then presents a list that he and his readers feel are “the list”. For the most part, I agree on much of his list…perhaps what makes us “liberals” so fun is that we have our differences. So here’s my version.
In no particular order, we on the left permanently condemn every instance of the following:
- Murder
- Rape
- Violence
- Torture
- Abuse
- Molestation
- Threats of murder, rape, violence, torture, abuse, or molestation
- Racism, Sexism, Religion bashing, and Gay bashing
- Hate Crimes
- Accusations of treason or lack of patriotism simply by exercising the American right to protest through verbal or physical means
- Holocaust denial
- Oppression
- Exploitation
- Environmental abuse
- Bestiality
- Pedophilia
- Corruption
- Slander
- Children playing with matches, guns, or other types of weaponry
- Animal cruelty
- Not paying your website bill and blaming it on us
- Lying (except to immediately prevent something else on the list)
- Cheating
- Dirty Politics
- Swiftboating
- Poisoning Halloween candy
- Hypocrisy
- Tax Evasion
- Fraudulent reporting
- Not increasing the Minimum Wage while voting for tax cuts and Congressional pay raises
- Excessive photoshopping
- Cutting domestic social services while increasing the national debt
- The end of the universe
Tags: liberals, morality
March 15th, 2006
This is a great post by The (liberal) Girl Next Door:
Someone recently told me that it’s not quite time to panic, that things in this country may be bad, but we haven’t yet reached the point of no return. So I’d just like to toss out the question. When is it time to panic? When does mere concern turn urgent, and will we all recognize the signs in time?
[…]
Or is it time to panic when, as Patricia Goldsmith suggests, there is no opposition left? It has long been the case that our two party system is nothing more than political theater. We have two political parties feeding from the same corporate troughs and serving the same corporate interests. If we continue to buy into the lies of either side and continue to separate from one another reducing public discourse to screaming at one another from opposite sides of the wedges driven between us, we give the only power we have left away to leaders who will only abuse it. If we willfully divide ourselves, we will be easily conquered.
I don’t want to panic before it is warranted, but I sometimes wonder if we will recognize the last straw. Don’t we remember that in Germany, the Nazis took control of government, not in a violent coup, but by passing laws that gave them increasing power and control over the people and the news they received? We keep hearing that it’s not time to panic just yet, but if history has a lesson for us right now, it’s that panicking too late won’t do a damn bit of good. Do we really, as a country, want to sit idly by watching evil become a way of life? Most of us judge the German people not as victims, but rather as willing accomplices. Will we judge ourselves the same?
I have been wary of using the Nazi comparison, but since Sandra Day O’Connor, the voice of reason on our high court for decades, feels comfortable warning of a dictatorship, I guess I feel justified. We are being fed propaganda, our government is becoming increasingly secretive, dissenting voices are routinely being silenced, and this administration appears to be accountable to no one. If it isn’t quite yet time to panic, I fear the time is fast approaching.
Read the whole well-thought-out post! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been feeling panicky for a while, but then I come by it naturally. I thought it was just me being paranoid. Apparently, I’m not alone. That’s somewhat comforting. I think.
Tags: politics, George W. Bush, Impeach, Freedoms, liberals, Sandra Day O'Connor, voice of reason, dictatorship, Nazi Germany, propaganda
March 11th, 2006
Molly Ivins isn’t the only discontented voice out there. Coast to coast, disenchanted Democrats and former Dems are calling for a party to believe in and leaders who actually lead and the DNC and the crowd in Washington don’t appear to be listening yet.
‘TOGETHER, America can do better.” When you hear that, do you feel inspired?
I didn’t think so.
[…]
Watching the Democrats stumbling around in search of a “message” is the only thing more agonizing than watching the Republicans destroy this country. Five years of Republican-controlled government have brought us an unwinnable war, a global reputation in tatters, incomprehensibly irresponsible fiscal policies, shameful neglect of our neediest citizens and a government incapable of coping with either natural disaster or terrorist threats.
Yet somehow the Democratic Party still can’t do any better than “America can do better.”
“You can do better” is what you say to a dim child whose grades were even worse than expected. Is this really the Democrats’ message to the nation: that we don’t need to be quite as pathetic as we now are, though excellence is certainly beyond our reach?
This slogan speaks not of hope but of hopelessness, of scaled-down ambitions, of dreams deferred and dreams denied.
It’s the smallness of it that kills me. This nation began with a dream — a crazy, risky, breathtaking dream of freedom, justice and equality. Sure, we’ve never truly achieved that dream, but for much of the last century, it’s been the Democratic Party that has helped keep that dream alive. So how can it be that, today, Democrats don’t seem to stand for anything at all?
Part of the problem is ambition and cowardice, which together make a lethal combination. Too many would-be Democratic leaders think that “playing it safe” is the way to go. They’re fine with criticizing the administration, but the minute they take any flak themselves, they go scurrying back into their holes. In place of a willingness to take risks and speak from the heart, they offer a craven and misguided dependence on polls, focus groups and “expert strategists.”
[…]
If Democrats really want a better message, they’ve got to stop being so technocratic and careful and learn how to be passionate and brave. Of course, they need policies, but they also need a little poetry. [“They can’t even win a war of words” (Los Angeles Times)]
Tags: politics, Democrats, liberals, DNC, Washington D.C, cowards, age of discontent
September 25th, 2005
Over at In Search of Utopia there’s a post, like many I’ve seen today (and many times in the last four or so years), about how the press is finally waking up to President Bush’s administrations failures, etc. I wrote the below in the comment section but decided that it was something I felt so passionate about, it needed to be here as well.
You know, every time something happens that I would think would “damn” Bush and his administration, I get all hopeful, but no one in power seems to be doing anything about it.
I mean, all of us “liberals” and “Democrats” all point together and yell, “Look there! Look there! See? That’s what we’re talking about!” Then we all high five each other for being right and predicting the end of the “evil administration,” but what does it matter? Who’s actually doing something about it? Where’s the independent council investigating this administration? Where’s the payback for wrong-doing, for cronyism, for poor planning for the war, for any of it?
This administration almost seems untouchable. Of course, they don’t care about the polls…they’re just numbers. Nothing’s going to happen. No one is going to actually do anything.
It’s just so frustrating.
Tags: George W. Bush, hopeless, Democrats, liberals
August 26th, 2005
Over the past year, I’ve been thinking a lot about this big political tug-of-war this country has gotten into. It really does seem that there are a lot of very vocal people on both sides who are shouting rhetoric and propoganda back and forth.
It seems to me that many conservatives cannot get past Clinton’s marital indiscretions that ended up splashed all over the daily news for ages thanks to Newt Gingridge and Kenneth Starr — oh, and they don’t like the fact that he lied about it either.
And many liberals are hung up on the mysteriously disappearing Weapons of Mass Destruction and Bush allegedly taking the country to war on faulty intelligence which may have been fabricated to act as a reason to do so.
Meanwhile, so many liberals act like Clinton was the best thing since the Beatles and many conservatives act as if Bush was the right hand of God. Both sides turn a blind eye to the flaws of their own political hero, putting whichever it is on a pedestal behind unbreakable glass. Many think that the other party’s hero is the anti-Christ or at least that’s what you’d think to hear or read their sentiments.
So, I’ve been wondering if there’s been nothing that either of these men did that was a good thing that can be recognized by the “opposing party” as a good thing. With that in mind, I wonder if people realize these men are human beings and not perfect and therefore, not god-like — well, maybe if we’re talking about the petty gods of ancient Greek and Roman mythology…
So, here’s my challenge to liberals and conservatives alike:
For Former President Clinton, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
For the current President Bush, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
Remember, your political champion is not perfect and there has to be at least one thing he did that you didn’t like, just as there has to be at least one thing that you liked about the other party’s champion.
And, since I can’t expect other people to think on this if I don’t, here are my answers:
For Former President Clinton, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
My one good Clinton thing is that he balanced the budget which was a campaign promise he made and kept. My one bad thing is that he didn’t secure social security which was also a campaign promise.
For the current President Bush, name one good Presidential thing he did for the country while in office. Name one bad Presidential thing.
My one good Bush thing is how he handled 9-11 in 2001; I felt that he handled the situation very well publically and that invading Afghanistan after the attack was the right thing to do — pacifist that I am.
My one bad thing for Bush is the invasion of Iraq which I felt was unnecessary and uncalled for and which I felt had nothing to do with 9-11 though it was implied at the time — and I also never believed Saddaam had WMD anymore.
So now it’s your turn.
Tags: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, liberals, conservatives, politics, 9/11, Afghanistan, Federal budget, Iraq
August 19th, 2005
I found this hanging on the cubicle wall of a co-worker:
If by a “liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “liberal.”
– President John F. Kennedy
Tags: Quote of the Day, JFK airport, liberals
August 13th, 2005
My dad makes me giggle even as he confounds me as to what political party he subscribes to the most. Growing up, I thought my parents were Republicans. Certainly, I thought they were conservatives. My father was a government employee and he took that seriously. He said he had been instructed not to discuss his political positions or advocate any particular candidate and he stuck to it. It’s only been in the last few years that my father and I have had in-depth political discussions.
My father has been a series of surprises to me over the years. He doesn’t think suicide should be illegal and advocates assisted suicide. He thinks drugs should be made legal but would probably ground me (a 30-something) for life if he thought I’d so much as been near a nonprescribed narcotic. He thinks prostitution should be legalized and regulated. He didn’t vote for Clinton or Bush. He’s for the woman’s right to choose and in separation of church and state. He believes in God and in doing the right thing and is a Christian but I don’t know the last time he went to church. He is against the War in Iraq and never thought there were weapons of mass destruction. In fact, he thinks we invaded Iraq because we needed to keep a war going. My dad was an Army Captain who served state-side during the Vietnam War and he married an Air Force brat, who’s father flew in that same war as well as many others. My father believes only married people should be intimate and he once made my uncle stay in a hotel with his girlfriend because they couldn’t sleep in the same bed in his house. Yet he bought me alcohol years before I was legal (probably because he thought if they made it not such a big deal then I wouldn’t waste so much time trying to sneak out and get drunk like my friends). My father seems to generally believe that as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, what’s the big deal?
Tonight on the phone, I mentioned to my dad that I’d seen on the CNN.com that the governor of New Mexico had declared a state emergency due to issues with a rise in crime due to illegal immigrants coming across the border. (Since we now live in states I didn’t grow up in, we try to keep up with each others’ news. Gives us something to talk about.) What followed was a discussion I won’t much get into here because well, for the most part I agree with him and I have a migraine, but the gist is that my dad feels that the immigrants are crossing the border are coming here looking for work for the most part and the way to put a stop to it is to start fining those employers who employ illegal immigrants. Of course, to do that we have to do things like investigate the payrolls and employee lists. We have to stop city and state governments that want to give illegal aliens driver’s licenses and the right to vote — giving them a license won’t make them a better driver. If they can register for either, then they can be caught and shipped back home.
What made me giggle was that my dad said we could do all of this but for those “bleeding heart liberals” who are worried about the immigrants’ rights and treatment and also the government wouldn’t want to upset the businessmen. I had to giggle because while I know neither he nor I think either of us is a “bleeding heart liberal”, I know there are many out there that think we are. O.K. I admit I’m probably closer to being a tree-hugging, peace-loving hippie-type liberal than he is, but I know we’re both liberals and it was funny to hear him say it.
The truth is that I don’t think the majority of the country is full of “bleeding heart liberals” or “religious right-wing nuts”. I think most of us are in the middle somewhere. We all have our opinions based on our life experiences and some of us are just a bit more stubborn about them than others. Certainly a lot of us are passionate about certain issues. Some of us sell our souls to tow the party line and see the issues as black and white while others see things as more flexible, more gray with maybe a little blue and pink in there somewhere.
Tags: liberals, Republicans, politics, immigration
