Ah, and this is why DNC party members have such a hard, hard, hard time winning the WhiteHouse, never mind the House or Senate; DNC party members lack the most basic, common sense understanding of party loyalty.

We have such a hard, hard, hard time mustering any sense of party loyalty or solidarity in the present generation of Democrats.  This, no doubt in my mind, is directly related to what I call the American jiffy-pop mentality; Immediate results, or we start whining and bailing.  Meanwhile, GOP’ers of all persuasions (all) wouldn’t hesitate to endorse their most left or most rightist of GOP candidates in *any* election, and wouldn’t even *think* of uttering a disparaging word in the presence of anyone outside their party.  Why?  Because they’re practical.  They weren’t raised with jiffy-pop expectations.

They know that solidarity and adhering to the party line is worth the personal ideological anguish.  Why?  Because it helps achieve a higher goal, a larger agenda.  They understand that their agenda is larger, and more important, than any one candidate.  Thus, they manage to solidly control both houses of Congress, despite Enron, despite racist comments from their leaders, and despite one of the worst economies in generational memory.  It’s all a result of party solidarity.  All of it.  They understand that the individual is (far) less important than the GOP’s wider agenda.

Why, Democrats couldn’t even defeat some of the most hated aspects of the Patriot Act, supposedly one of our strongest rallying cries for this election.  Amazing (not).

Our current generation of consumerist, short-term planning Democrats just don’t understand their problem.  And, that’s why we can only muster slim majorities, at best.  This mentality of endorsing with reservation various candidates stands a great chance of altering the Supreme Court, and thus American society, in ways few Democrats could possibly understand.  Jiffy-poppers, most of them.

The WhiteHouse ain’t about an individual, it’s about an agenda.  Vote Kerry cause he’s FANTASTIC!  Why?  Because he supports the Democratic agenda.

And do it with a SMILE.  A SMILE!

.rob adams believes in solidarity and no more whining.  None.

And if any of you supposed Democrats disagree with me, then i’ll have every last one of you disenrolled from the DNC.  The gay mafia controls more than Manhattan, you know. 

.rob adams

But, I’m not a Democrat. Never have been. You’ll note over on the left that I’m listed as an Independent. More often than not my stance tends to align most closely with the Democrats, but not always and I’ve voted against them in the past. I’ve said before that if Lieberman had won the Democratic nomination it would be the one thing that would ensure I’d vote for Bush.

If the President were more of a moderate Republican I’d probably think long and hard about where my vote would go, but Bush has done enough damage in my eyes that Kerry looks much more attractive in comparison, but not because I think Kerry is anywhere close to being “fantastic.”

Yeah, whenever i’m in line to vote and someone ahead of me is listed as “unenrolled” (aka “independent") i grimmace and try to give them a flat as they walk towards the voting booth.  Everyone should be forced to belong to a party (admittedly, in “.rob World"). 

Not belonging to a party is like that uncooperative employee in the shop who refuses to join the union.  Collective action works best.  Join the soviet, like the rest of us good citizens, and watch things become cheaper and cheaper and life more and more enjoyable, borrowing a slogan from that long-lost, golden era of collective solidarity.

.rob adams

The trouble with party affiliation is that neither party represents the majority of voters. The Republicans are great for the right wingers, and the Democrats are great for the lefties, but unfortunately for both parties, most voters are in the middle. Until we have a party that represents the middle, I will remain an Independent, and vote accordingly.

Solidarity, in any situation is best.  As Vice- president of a communications local several years ago I learned the meaning and the advantage to that situation.  But for too many years voters have been asked to vote for the lesser of two evils and we don’t know who that is until they are in office.  You ask for solidarity but you offer What (?) to encourage it.  So this year again we will choose the lesser of two evils blindly but because if you don’t vote it is a greater failure.

great

Having a viable third party cannot happen soon enough for me.  I just don’t see how it can happen in my lifetime when all around me I see Americans becoming more apathetic, less involved in the political process, and less able to think for themselves.  Most everyone motivated enough to vote is still too lazy to do anything beyond choosing between 2 parties, and they make their choices based upon whatever they’re fed by the media without doing any research of their own to get beyond the political rhetoric.  They vote for the guy whose speeches contain the largest number of things they want to hear.  Sad.

("growth" - is it too much to ask?)

I hear all these citizens lamenting the lack of an “alternative party”, mostly that of a centrist/libertarian/live-n-let-live ilk.  Yet, i can’t think of an era in American history where it’s been easier to organise than here and now.  Copier machines abound, and you don’t even have to show an ID to use them.  And, the web makes it even easier to propagate.  It doesn’t get any easier than this in human history people.  In most states on the planet you have to register to use a copier or the web.  Once you have the power (and freedom) to anonymously organise, collective action is just around the corner, if you’re truly motivated.

Why, a large number of alternative parties have arisen as of late (late 1960’s onward).  Nader’s effort is only the latest, and by no means the largest.  Remember Perot?  Remember Anderson?  I don’t think the issue is the lack of a 3rd Alternative.  It’s more about the American voter’s priorities and values, and the lack of a critical mass.

Most Americans are relatively happy with the two parties of today.  Relatively happy.  Until their lawn furniture’s price tag is unaffordable, so long as they can afford an SUV (or two), and so long as the networks and HBO come up with enough bread and circus, the two parties are just fine by most.  No one group or collective is lulling Americans into complacency; They’re quite happy doing that themselves, that whole short-term planning vs. long-term thingy.

The fact of the matter is that most of us who care about the course of our government are quite happy with either the DNC or GOP.  And we’re the majority.  And those that are not are clearly in a very small minority, and aptly labled “fringe political actvist” (we don’t call these people dissidents anymore, for some reason).

(BZW, there’s no execuse nowadays for not “knowing” who a candidate is… The last “unknown” candidate was Arnold, if at all.  Voting records are publik knowledge.  And so is Kerry’s and so is Bush’s (down the every last bill he vetoed or signed or victim of his home state’s death chambers).  Why, you even stand a good chance at finding out various details about Kerry’s divorce and and the bastardisation of his former children, and that’s pretty intimate knowledge by most standards.)

Maybe most Americans are guilty of sloth.  As they says, evil kings are earned, not given.

.rob adams

Maybe most Americans are guilty of sloth

Actually, I think the fat lazy American is less true than it is often portrayed.  As far as industrial nations go, American workers aren’t exactly rolling around on their barka (sp?) loungers, revelling in all their free time.  A lot of the time, the “time off” on the weekends is spent mowing the lawn and picking up around the house.  By the time you’ve gotten your cave cleaned up, it’s time to go back to the mill.

It’s true that political organizing is easier now than ever before, but it’s also true that it takes an awful LOT of grassroots organizing to compete with multimillion dollar ad campaigns. 

eh.  whatever.  I’m going back to my bread.

capcha ‘feed’[I shit ye not!]

The LA Times had a good article by Michael Moore on the 4th.

He asks…

Are you proud that one in six children lives in poverty in America?

Are you proud that 40 million adult Americans are functional illiterates?

Are you proud that the bulk of the jobs being created these days are low- and minimum-wage jobs?

Are you proud of asking your fellow Americans to live on $5.15 an hour?

Are you proud that, according to a National Geographic Society survey, 85% of young adult Americans cannot find Iraq on the map (and 11% cannot find the United States!)?

Are you proud that the rest of the world, which poured out its heart to us after Sept. 11, now looks at us with disdain and disgust?

Are you proud that nearly 3 billion people on this planet do not have access to clean drinking water when we have the resources and technology to remedy this immediately?

Are you proud of the fact that our president sent our soldiers off to a war that had nothing to do with the self-defense of this country?

I’ll tell you one thing - the wind has definitely been let out of the sails of this Marines pride!

We’ve got to fix this shit!
I’ll vote for anyone over these lying phuckz

Yeah, this year I’m voting for Coke, I mean Pepsi, I mean Kerry…

Where’s RC cola when you need it?

Wow, I haven’t thought of RC cola in a long time.
It was my favorite when I was growing up.

Too bad the Libertarian dude won’t win - he’s a software engineer.
Logic in the White House? Nahhh!

One thing that I am finding absolutely infuriating this politcal season is the ability of the religious right to ignore issues that they believe in and rally around Bush.

I have several family members whose political views align much more closely with Kerry than mine do but yet they will still tout the party line and vote for Bush because of ‘his personal relationship with God.’

Voting for an individual based on your ideological values accomplishes very little in a two party system.  There’s a topic titled ‘Eating Ballots’ in the forums if you’d like to debate this issue.  Now is the time to vote for one of the two front-runners.  The one that you consider will do the best job at representing you and your country.

If you don’t vote, don’t bitch about the outcome.

GOP’ers of all persuasions (all) wouldn’t hesitate to endorse their most left or most rightist of GOP candidates in *any* election, and wouldn’t even *think* of uttering a disparaging word in the presence of anyone outside their party.  Why?  Because they’re practical.  They weren’t raised with jiffy-pop expectations.

First, yes, yes I would vote for someone else if their was a “real” choice. I am an evil Republican, I have outgrown the need for a diety.

Second, I love Jiffy Pop… anyone know where I can get some?

OK.... as for the article by Less… oops… Moore…

1 in 6? No, but let’s face the facts… poverty in the US is NOWHERE near poverty in several other nations. The Democrats hired a company to put together a short video about the poor in the US to show other countries. They were also going to use it during the Bush - Gore campaign. They immediately shelved the video when they found that the poor people from other countries want to come here and be poor. The overwhelming remark was, “Your poor people have color TV?”

I have never met someone who lives on $5.15 an hour! Yes, I know some servers that get that and tips, but never just the $5.15! Heck, McDon’s starts at $7.50!

The low wage jobs that Moore referred to were actually created by Clinton. While not as many jobs have been created under Bush, the average wage is MUCH higher! Clinton created a lot of new jobs, but they were low wage and temporary jobs. He created a “Hype” about the new millenium (Y2K) and that all the computers were going to crash. This was not true! But it did work. Just ask a programmer now how much he is making and if it is easy to find a job since 2000.

Moore is full of propaganda, and I can refute all of the article above, but come on, we really don’t need that do we?

Bush is NOT the best person for the job! But Kerry? Why do the Democrats want an Ivy League jerk for President? Because they have become the party of the ELITE! He is friends with the rich in Hollywood, the rich lawyers, the rich easterners (China and Japan), and hob-nobs with the truely elite with his MASSIVELY rich wife.

Kerry and his wife are the type of people that would cross the road to get away from someone that isn’t wearing a suit. That is if they ever got out of their SUV’s and Limo’s!

Oh… just one more note.... Our education system HAS gone to heck… but do you think more money will help? I ask that you curb your conservative thought in this regard and realize we have been doing this for too long. It isn’t the money! It is the expectations we have of the children. We are so worried about their ability to be happy, we have doomed them to a life of misery by being too stupid to get a good job.

Let’s face it… no matter what happens, there will always be people that are just gonna have to work at McDon’s. They hope to someday be able to work the cash register if they practice.

We need to spend our time and money on the kids that WANT to learn. You are probably saying to yourself right now, “And what? Just let the rest fall through tthe cracks?”. Well, yes, that is why there are cracks.

If a teacher has to spend extra time on a misbehaving kid, just so that the kid doesn’t “feel bad” about having to stand in the corner or in the hall, then the other kids are having THEIR right to an education thrown away.

We are NOT a socialist society. The teachers we have now are NOT as qualified as they once were. They don’t deserve more money, they deserve to be held to a higher standard to EARN more money. Let’s face it.... even if it is hard to swallow.... MANY of the teachers we used to have in the school system can now go elsewhere. The current state of the educational system is DIRECTLY related to women’s rights. The glass ceiling is broken, as it should be, but let’s not forget that the shards of glass are landing on the kids!

At 16.7 percent, the poverty rate for children did not change between 2001 and 2002, however, the total number of children in poverty increased to 12.1 million in 2002, up from 11.7 million in 2001. (U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty in the United States: 2002, Current Population Reports, September 2003.)

That sounds EXACTLY like 1 in 6 to me. So it is OK to have poverty in the US because other poor folks don’t have Technicolor? WTF?

The minimum wage is $5.15 in this country and there are way too many people trying to survive on this. This is pitiful.

I guess I missed out on this conspiracy theory about Clinton and the Y2K bug, I’ve not heard that one before. As a software engineer I can tell you that the Y2K threat was real and was properly squashed before anything bad happened. The Y2K bug has also had no ill effect on my job. I think you are confusing Y2K with the bursting of the Net Bubble. Webmasters are not the same as programmers.

Moore is full of propaganda, and I can refute all of the article above, but come on, we really don’t need that do we?

Once again, no meat just ad-hominem.

The battle for the presidency will always between rick fucks but I’ll vote for anyone other than
lying Bush!

The current state of the educational system is DIRECTLY related to women’s rights.

What a crock! The state of this nation’s schools is due to Bush’s fucked up policies!

What a crock! The state of this nation’s schools is due to Bush’s fucked up policies!

Bullshit, the schools did just as poorly under Clinton. The problem isn’t the President, it is bureaucrats with no chance of losing their jobs that have let it get to the point it is now.

But Kerry? Why do the Democrats want an Ivy League jerk for President?

Now there’s a day-brightener!  Did we forget what school Bush went to?  And how poorly he did there?  And what secret society both he and Kerry are members of?  Or how rich the Bush clan is?

Yes, Kerry is probably an ivy-league jerk - not a thing in his favor.  I don’t know if he’ll make a good president but he unlikely to be worse than Bush. 

Spocko, you’re partly right Bush’s policies are responsible for how bad the schools are, but it isn’t entirely his fault.  They were already fucked up when he took office and he proceeded to make them worse.

But really, Heath, women’s rights?  Keep ‘em barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen, eh?

It’s weird, --everyone-- seems to have an opinion about the relative worth / skills of today’s teachers.

I suppose I could talk some shit about how car mechanics these days just aren’t as good as they used to be, but considering that my proximity to a shop usually involves me handing my keys to a guy in overalls and saying “please fix it,” I’m not sure I could expect anyone to consider my opinion an “informed” one.

capcha ‘maybe’.

I just realized my post was somewhat non-sequitur.  The only person actually talking about teachers was Heath.

Everyone else waved a finger in the general direction of bureaucracy.  Of course, there’s a lot of different levels of bureaucracy, and some of the worst stuff that teachers go through comes from a very localized level-- like the school board, and their own district.

And this, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with who I’m going to vote for.  Although I do think that NCLB is rooted in a poor understanding of what we can expect schools to do.

Oh I agree the education problem is not due to Bush alone and it has been going downhill for decades but his “No Child Left Behind” crap is just that - crap. And I’m sure Clinton didn’t have an Education Secretary like Rod Paige who calls teachers terrorists!

Of course, what can you expect from someone who flunked kindergarten?

Must… resist… off-topic gravitational pull… aww, hell -

I suppose I could talk some shit about how car mechanics these days just aren’t as good as they used to be, but considering that my proximity to a shop usually involves me handing my keys to a guy in overalls and saying “please fix it,� I’m not sure I could expect anyone to consider my opinion an “informed� one.

As a consumer of car repair, you have every right to an opinion.  If you took the car back for the same problem multiple times, you could rightly conclude that they were doing something wrong.  You may not know exactly what it is, but something.

Of course that would have to be tempered by the complications of modern cars.  My ‘67 VW has two electric motors in it, where my friend’s 2003 Passat has 20 or so.  Kids’ lives are also more complicated today.

I have 31 years of experience as a consumer of public schools, having gone through them myself and raised 3 kids.  So I would feel entitled to an opinion, which is this:  schools are trying to do too much, so they end up not doing much at all.  Let’s see if we can list them:

1) Teach reading, writing, and arithmetic.  You could make a good case that schools should just do this and then get the hell out of the way.
2) Teach a complex understanding of the fabric of human society, in all its historical vicissitudes.
3) Bless us all with tolerance and harmony handed down from Washington (cynical laughter)
4) Teach us to honor the role of God as a fundamental in American society.  No, wait… NOT to do that, because the constitution says the government isn’t supposed to take that role.
5) Teach us sexual responsibility, but also not teach us sexual responsibility.  Or that it’s OK if you’re gay, no, wait, it’s NOT OK… no, wait… Hey!  Give me back that agenda!  Oh, yeah?  Well, you too!
6) Teach us patriotic love for America as the greatest country in the world and… Hey!  Well, you too, Frenchie!
7) Teach us about natural history and science, but also teach us that God designed it all because, well, for some reason (see #4)
8) Teach us nutrition, how to throw a football, finances, living with censorship (Hah!  See how we sneaked that one in there?),
9) Oh, heck, forget all about numbers 1 through 8… we’ll lose our funding if the kids don’t pass the NCLB test mandate.  Just teach them how to neatly fill in little ovals with pencil and all those TEST STRATEGIES!

There… how to take an already fucked up school system and make it even worse. 

Sorry about careening off-topic.  Let’s see, Kerry may be a douche bag, but… Oh, right,
I. Am. Voting. For. Him. Anyway.

Cap: “head” as in “Ow!  My head!”

The low wage jobs that Moore referred to were actually created by Clinton. While not as many jobs have been created under Bush, the average wage is MUCH higher! Clinton created a lot of new jobs, but they were low wage and temporary jobs.

Dude, PLEASE tell that to my anemic Bush era paycheck! I am making a little less than HALF what I was just eight mnonths ago in one of those fantastic Bush league jobs you seem to think are so wonderful. But since we were ‘rounding the corner’ economically speaking, Bush cut the extended unemployment benefits and I had to grab hold of the first crappy job offered before ALL of my savings were gone!

I haven’t made this little since Bush I was in office so don’t you tell me about the great jobs this administration has brought us. Every Republican administration that I was old enough to remember has ruined the economy and then passed it off to the Democrats to fix by raising the taxes the Republicans cut in the first place. Give me a tax and spend liberal any day, they are cheaper dates by far than the ‘fiscally responsible’ Republicans!

Capture = larger.

I have 31 years of experience as a consumer of public schools, having gone through them myself and raised 3 kids.  So I would feel entitled to an opinion, which is this:  schools are trying to do too much, so they end up not doing much at all

I actually tend to agree with you about this DOF, but my beef is with people who blame --teachers-- for this.  It makes about as much sense as blaming correctional officers for the fallout from mandatory sentencing laws.

And the other possibility, if your car keeps breaking down, is that --the factory sold you a lemon--. 

I think teachers have become a convenient scapegoat.  And I think there are a variety of reasons for that, but I’m . . . slipping. . . further Off Topic. . .  aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

One day, in the not too distant future, our off-spring, while examinging the nascent beginings their now omnipresent web of communication, will see our constant mention of a then-to-be dead phrase: “off-topic.”

They’ll wonder why we so frequently stopped good, interesting, and informative communications for some bizarro concept of “staying on-topic.” They’ll wonder if we did the same thing in real-time discussions of a non-technical nature as well.  “So, when they sat around together relaxingly discussing this or that, did they also constantly drone on about others being off-topic?  did they constantly stop what they were saying, execusing themselves from not staying on-topic?

What is the use of being so orthodox about a topic?  especially when the original subject was not of a technical nature (and thus, would never be referenced/searched as a future resource).

I’ve seen soooooo many wonderful conversations, INTERESTING conversations, killed by these orthodox topicists.

Be human.  Discuss subjects freely (if they’re non-technical in ilk).  And banish the topic orthodoxy.

.rob adams

Be human.  Discuss subjects freely (if they’re non-technical in ilk).  And banish the topic orthodoxy

No.  It’s --wrong-- to color outside the lines.  Possibly even evil.

By the way Decrepit, you’ve got a pretty interesting site, there.