I know very few people read this blog, but try to remember the 11th, not the fifth, of November.
89 years ago, on the 11th minute of the 11th hour on the 11th day on the 11th month, the worst war the World had yet seen finally ended. On that day, many hoped for peace. True, many of them also hoped for glory, but the people on the field rarely thought of that- they just wanted to survive. They saw possible friends die on the field that day. Some of them had played football together in the Xmas of 1914 for crying out loud! Those soldiers, in another life, were or could have been friends; due to the war, people with similar ideas never had the chance...
By that day, the hope was not for a peace built on quicksand like the Treaty of Versailles; they wanted the Great War to be the War to end all Wars, the last time war would ever be fought. The fact that the peace didn't even last a year- as Central and Eastern Europeans fought to carve out their states from Austrian, Hungarian, German, Turkish and Russian territory- but no one really wanted that. The hope was that Wilson would be able to lead us into a new world, where war wasn't just a memory, but its very recurrence unthinkable.
The fact that he failed is not the same thing as wanting to fail. He really did hope he could save the world from other wars. Sure he was a racist and had a nasty messiah complex, but he did believe what he said. He wanted no more wars.
I believe the British and their ex-colonies wear poppies to remember those who thought they were fighting to end that war. Sure it may have been for glory at first, but there was a genuine hope that the Great War would be the last War.
We Americans don't have such a tradition. Maybe we should start it. For it does not stand for war, but for those who hoped there would be no more.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Can We Do It? Jesus Christ that's not the Question anymore!
Okay. The election was a week ago. In that span a lot has happened.
And yet we're [my college] looking back on the Bush years as some bygone era that we should be glad to see the back of, and Obama is still some wonderful thing.
Someone needs to poor a bucket of water on us. The time for enthusiasm was some time ago. Barack may mean "blessed," but Jesus Christ (Christos: Good news)! Wake up!
Looking back on history, we've only rarely had presidents who can unite us in any meaningful way (Roosevelt after the New Deal, Eisenhower). Furthermore, a magical Super Man is almost unheard of in history. Look at our supposed heroes!
Washington: Rare. Like, really rare. Besides, can anyone of us name something he did while president?
Roosevelt: A great man, if flawed. His New Deal hit it well for a while, especially with the poor over the grumbles of the rich. Then he tried to pack the courts and smashed his popularity, as the 1938 campaign demonstrated (he tried to run rebel candidates against conservative Democrats. They failed).
John F. Kennedy: The King of Camelot didn't ascend to his throne until his postmortem. Cuban Missiles and Nasa aside, he authorized and botched the Bay of Pigs, failed to get most of his program through, pumped up our Vietnam presence, and ignored Civil Rights until late in his presidency. Third year to be specific.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 letters each!): For some reason the right has siezed on this man as the Saint of Conservatism. Really? His massive tax cut in 1981 was reversed by 2 massive tax increases in 1982 and 83. Mondale in 84 said that Reagan would increase taxes again (his point? "I will raise taxes. My opponent won't tell you. I just did."). In 1985 Mondale was proven right.
As for everything else? Reagan did little for abortionists (Sandra Day O'Connor and Kennedy were centrists, with Scalia as the lone "true" conservative of his picks). He helped bring down Communism, but he had help (and ran huge deficits for "victory" in a nuclear war at that.). To be honest, I tend to do better in noting his successor's achievements than RWR (you know, greenery, a limited war with Iraq, etc)
Oh, and Teddy Roosevelt, the posterboy for American Greatness, Trust Busting, and Imperialism. He's awesome and may well be one our very best, but he was also a mistake and why VPs tend to be filled these days by, apparently, idiots and old wannabes these days. Just ask Qualye and Cheney. Or Mondale. Or Bensten. Or...Actually, I think the idiot thing was a recent Republican phenomenon, apart from Andrew Johnson.
Well, how about foreign leaders? This is called "A view on the World," right?
Most of those, such as Frederick the Great, Peter the Great, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria and their ilk are rare dictators that we would no longer stomach. Some, like Peter I and Joseph II had problems satisfying their base (especially Joe, who actually ennobled Jews).
What about politicians? If picking presidents of our country was hard, who could compete?
Charles De Gaulle, who revived French pride and gave them an overlarge view of themselves
Tony Blair, who will be remembered for devolution, Saving Northern Rya-Ireland, and following Bush into a war that destroyed his popularity (why did he win the following election? The conservatives would've done it too!)?
Some Spanish guy I must be forgetting?
Otto Von Bismarck, who put the words "trickery, deciet, and Blood and Iron" in diplomacy and pretty much master-minded much of international politics?
Junichiro Koizumi, who privatized the Post Office, did some other stuff that I can't remember, and has The Best Hair Ever (see above)?
...
Okay, Obama? If you want to prove your mettle, you need a new hairdo. We need more people with awesome hair.
Still, we need to temper our expectations. He may well be an improvement on Bush, but we won't know for some time, okay? He'll do something, and it might even be good, like in the days of Johnson (Please ignore Vietnam), Nixon (Please ignore his crookedness), and Clinton (please excuse the political skill of the man who destroyed Universal Health Care in america for two decades and somehow let his last years get dominated by his more frivolous undertakings until he finally touched on Israel and Palestine. And we want our White House dishes back.)
And suddenly I'm hoping that Koizumi takes over Japan again. And TR comes back with a new haircut. Can you believe that look with a stache? Sigh...
And yet we're [my college] looking back on the Bush years as some bygone era that we should be glad to see the back of, and Obama is still some wonderful thing.
Someone needs to poor a bucket of water on us. The time for enthusiasm was some time ago. Barack may mean "blessed," but Jesus Christ (Christos: Good news)! Wake up!
Looking back on history, we've only rarely had presidents who can unite us in any meaningful way (Roosevelt after the New Deal, Eisenhower). Furthermore, a magical Super Man is almost unheard of in history. Look at our supposed heroes!
Washington: Rare. Like, really rare. Besides, can anyone of us name something he did while president?
Roosevelt: A great man, if flawed. His New Deal hit it well for a while, especially with the poor over the grumbles of the rich. Then he tried to pack the courts and smashed his popularity, as the 1938 campaign demonstrated (he tried to run rebel candidates against conservative Democrats. They failed).
John F. Kennedy: The King of Camelot didn't ascend to his throne until his postmortem. Cuban Missiles and Nasa aside, he authorized and botched the Bay of Pigs, failed to get most of his program through, pumped up our Vietnam presence, and ignored Civil Rights until late in his presidency. Third year to be specific.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (6 letters each!): For some reason the right has siezed on this man as the Saint of Conservatism. Really? His massive tax cut in 1981 was reversed by 2 massive tax increases in 1982 and 83. Mondale in 84 said that Reagan would increase taxes again (his point? "I will raise taxes. My opponent won't tell you. I just did."). In 1985 Mondale was proven right.
As for everything else? Reagan did little for abortionists (Sandra Day O'Connor and Kennedy were centrists, with Scalia as the lone "true" conservative of his picks). He helped bring down Communism, but he had help (and ran huge deficits for "victory" in a nuclear war at that.). To be honest, I tend to do better in noting his successor's achievements than RWR (you know, greenery, a limited war with Iraq, etc)
Oh, and Teddy Roosevelt, the posterboy for American Greatness, Trust Busting, and Imperialism. He's awesome and may well be one our very best, but he was also a mistake and why VPs tend to be filled these days by, apparently, idiots and old wannabes these days. Just ask Qualye and Cheney. Or Mondale. Or Bensten. Or...Actually, I think the idiot thing was a recent Republican phenomenon, apart from Andrew Johnson.
Well, how about foreign leaders? This is called "A view on the World," right?
Most of those, such as Frederick the Great, Peter the Great, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Maria Theresa and Joseph II of Austria and their ilk are rare dictators that we would no longer stomach. Some, like Peter I and Joseph II had problems satisfying their base (especially Joe, who actually ennobled Jews).
What about politicians? If picking presidents of our country was hard, who could compete?
Charles De Gaulle, who revived French pride and gave them an overlarge view of themselves
Tony Blair, who will be remembered for devolution, Saving Northern Rya-Ireland, and following Bush into a war that destroyed his popularity (why did he win the following election? The conservatives would've done it too!)?
Some Spanish guy I must be forgetting?
Otto Von Bismarck, who put the words "trickery, deciet, and Blood and Iron" in diplomacy and pretty much master-minded much of international politics?
Junichiro Koizumi, who privatized the Post Office, did some other stuff that I can't remember, and has The Best Hair Ever (see above)?
...
Okay, Obama? If you want to prove your mettle, you need a new hairdo. We need more people with awesome hair.
Still, we need to temper our expectations. He may well be an improvement on Bush, but we won't know for some time, okay? He'll do something, and it might even be good, like in the days of Johnson (Please ignore Vietnam), Nixon (Please ignore his crookedness), and Clinton (please excuse the political skill of the man who destroyed Universal Health Care in america for two decades and somehow let his last years get dominated by his more frivolous undertakings until he finally touched on Israel and Palestine. And we want our White House dishes back.)
And suddenly I'm hoping that Koizumi takes over Japan again. And TR comes back with a new haircut. Can you believe that look with a stache? Sigh...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Bright, Articulate, and Clean...
Articulate?...has anyone watched the debates?
Still, he won and everyone on my campus is ecstatic! Ill have to talk more later...
And whatever the system, he definitely won, eh?
Sorry for being a little short; I'm in the middle of class right now. Still-
OBAMARAMACAMADAMALAMACHAMAGRAMARAMAWHAMAWAMAOBAMA!!!
Still, he won and everyone on my campus is ecstatic! Ill have to talk more later...
And whatever the system, he definitely won, eh?
Sorry for being a little short; I'm in the middle of class right now. Still-
OBAMARAMACAMADAMALAMACHAMAGRAMARAMAWHAMAWAMAOBAMA!!!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Don't forget to Vot!
Vote Damnit! I live in the fakest America in all of America! We're so fake that we'd vote Democrat even if the Presidential candidate was Satan himself! Wearing a Yankee uniform!
After all, we have to...
1. Income tax ban? Well...
2. Decriminalize small chunks of marijuana!
3. Drive dog racing underground by banning it! WOOO!
And that's from Massachusetts! We all have important things to do!
Just remember: your vote counts! Whether you be a Floridian in 2000 or a Washingtonian watching recount after recount for the governorship. Come on! Vote vote vote!
We're not some dictatorship!
After all, we have to...
1. Income tax ban? Well...
2. Decriminalize small chunks of marijuana!
3. Drive dog racing underground by banning it! WOOO!
And that's from Massachusetts! We all have important things to do!
Just remember: your vote counts! Whether you be a Floridian in 2000 or a Washingtonian watching recount after recount for the governorship. Come on! Vote vote vote!
We're not some dictatorship!
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Yisrael is insane
Hello from fake-America!
Well, if North Virginia isn't "real" Virginia, than you can't get more "real" than Taxachusetts, which elected the first black senator since Reconstruction and had Republican governors between 1988 or so to 2006...And at least one of them was a centrist hated by Jesse Helms and the other one is the Antichrist aka Mitt Mormon Romney.
Anyway, I forgot about this. Sorry! There went the systems, eh? Well, how about two opposite ones?
Canada is basically Britain, where the upper house is filled with a hodgepodge of party toadies- that is, installed by the parties in power over the years without any formalities such as elections (since Canada has mostly been run by Liberals over the years, this means that Liberals control the Senate). In Britain the MPs and the population realized how stupid a House of Lords was back in the 1900s, when it was stripped of most of its powers. Nowadays it has lost more and more of its, ahem, charm (You can't inherit seats anymore, for instance, and it will be elcted- thus dragging Britain into the 19th century or so). Hopefully Canada will join every other country in the Western hemisphere at some point, but the fact that it's mostly unchanged since its founding in 1867 is a tad unnerving.
Never mind the fact that the "first past the poll" system has heavily favored the Quebec separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois, thus preventing any stable majority governements for years now. Perversely, the Reform party- then a Western conservative grouping- had ensured the Liberals majority governments from 1993-2004, but their merger seems to have made the Conservatives stronger. But all this has done is guarantee minority governments; 2004-8 has seen 3 unconclusive elections in four years. That's insane. Then again, this is pretty much our system, except the Speaker of the House is pretty much the dictator thanks to extreme party loyalty and the President is the Governor General and doesn't seem to do much.
Think: What if Cheney was speaker of the House and the Senate didn't exist? Anyone convinced of Cheney's power should understand now.
Israel? That makes Canada look excessively stable.
Israel has had a Proportional Representation system since its founding, and it mostly demonstrates the problems of PR. You see, it works on the idea that if a party gets at least 2% of the vote, it should be in government. In this way it's extremely fair and a two party system doesn't exist, but it also means that a lot of parties only get a few seats in the Knesset (out of 120 total), and a few parties still get out on top. In the last election, five parties got more than 10 seats; Kadima got the most at twenty nine seats, less than a fourth of all the seats available. This means that the parties have to horse trade a lot to get everyone on board. The new election in Israel is going on right now because the new leader of Kadima refused to increase handouts and keep Jerusalem undivided, which is what the shas party wants.
This also means that the Grand Coalitions of Germany are far more prevalent in Israel, since it's difficult only to reign with a big party and a few (er, maybe more than a few) religious groups with 2 or 3 seats each. How bad is this? Here's the government
Kadima (Centrist grouping founded to give Ariel Sharon a way to run without depending on anti-Palestinian land deal Likud)
Labour (once dominant and hoping to get the next election; still somewhat socialist)
Shas (a Sephardic religious grouping; supportive of synagogues and such, obviously.)
Yisraeli Beitenu ("Israel is our Home," it's a right wing secular grouping and once solely the voice of Russian Jewish immigrants. It's really rightwing and is similar to Likud on some issues. Given it's suspicion of religion, it's sort of ironic that it's in the same coalition as Shas)
Pensioners (a protest party for pensions, obviously)
Yeah, so there are ex-and not so ex-socialists, Ex-soviet Jewish right wingers, renegades who joined together in support of Ariel Sharon, Sephardic Rabbies, and for some weird reason pensioners. I might have missed a party or two too.
Is this, and can it be, stable? Heavens know Italy realized this was stupid a long time ago, having the FPP system from 1993-2006 and since 1993 reformed itself into a two coalition system. And, given American politics, this would be a stupid idea; if Israel- a country of 7 million people- has at least 10 parties with seats, then one can only imagine what would happen in a country with fifty states and 300 million people.
Let's just leave those two countries out of any electoral debate, okay?
Well, if North Virginia isn't "real" Virginia, than you can't get more "real" than Taxachusetts, which elected the first black senator since Reconstruction and had Republican governors between 1988 or so to 2006...And at least one of them was a centrist hated by Jesse Helms and the other one is the Antichrist aka Mitt Mormon Romney.
Anyway, I forgot about this. Sorry! There went the systems, eh? Well, how about two opposite ones?
Canada is basically Britain, where the upper house is filled with a hodgepodge of party toadies- that is, installed by the parties in power over the years without any formalities such as elections (since Canada has mostly been run by Liberals over the years, this means that Liberals control the Senate). In Britain the MPs and the population realized how stupid a House of Lords was back in the 1900s, when it was stripped of most of its powers. Nowadays it has lost more and more of its, ahem, charm (You can't inherit seats anymore, for instance, and it will be elcted- thus dragging Britain into the 19th century or so). Hopefully Canada will join every other country in the Western hemisphere at some point, but the fact that it's mostly unchanged since its founding in 1867 is a tad unnerving.
Never mind the fact that the "first past the poll" system has heavily favored the Quebec separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois, thus preventing any stable majority governements for years now. Perversely, the Reform party- then a Western conservative grouping- had ensured the Liberals majority governments from 1993-2004, but their merger seems to have made the Conservatives stronger. But all this has done is guarantee minority governments; 2004-8 has seen 3 unconclusive elections in four years. That's insane. Then again, this is pretty much our system, except the Speaker of the House is pretty much the dictator thanks to extreme party loyalty and the President is the Governor General and doesn't seem to do much.
Think: What if Cheney was speaker of the House and the Senate didn't exist? Anyone convinced of Cheney's power should understand now.
Israel? That makes Canada look excessively stable.
Israel has had a Proportional Representation system since its founding, and it mostly demonstrates the problems of PR. You see, it works on the idea that if a party gets at least 2% of the vote, it should be in government. In this way it's extremely fair and a two party system doesn't exist, but it also means that a lot of parties only get a few seats in the Knesset (out of 120 total), and a few parties still get out on top. In the last election, five parties got more than 10 seats; Kadima got the most at twenty nine seats, less than a fourth of all the seats available. This means that the parties have to horse trade a lot to get everyone on board. The new election in Israel is going on right now because the new leader of Kadima refused to increase handouts and keep Jerusalem undivided, which is what the shas party wants.
This also means that the Grand Coalitions of Germany are far more prevalent in Israel, since it's difficult only to reign with a big party and a few (er, maybe more than a few) religious groups with 2 or 3 seats each. How bad is this? Here's the government
Kadima (Centrist grouping founded to give Ariel Sharon a way to run without depending on anti-Palestinian land deal Likud)
Labour (once dominant and hoping to get the next election; still somewhat socialist)
Shas (a Sephardic religious grouping; supportive of synagogues and such, obviously.)
Yisraeli Beitenu ("Israel is our Home," it's a right wing secular grouping and once solely the voice of Russian Jewish immigrants. It's really rightwing and is similar to Likud on some issues. Given it's suspicion of religion, it's sort of ironic that it's in the same coalition as Shas)
Pensioners (a protest party for pensions, obviously)
Yeah, so there are ex-and not so ex-socialists, Ex-soviet Jewish right wingers, renegades who joined together in support of Ariel Sharon, Sephardic Rabbies, and for some weird reason pensioners. I might have missed a party or two too.
Is this, and can it be, stable? Heavens know Italy realized this was stupid a long time ago, having the FPP system from 1993-2006 and since 1993 reformed itself into a two coalition system. And, given American politics, this would be a stupid idea; if Israel- a country of 7 million people- has at least 10 parties with seats, then one can only imagine what would happen in a country with fifty states and 300 million people.
Let's just leave those two countries out of any electoral debate, okay?
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