Friday, August 31, 2007

The American Taliban

Daily Kos: The American Taliban

The Republican party didn't hesitate to smear Democrats as sympathizers with communists.

It worked.

A little of their own medicine might be good for them.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Losing the (Message) War (Again)

Sigh:

In the debate in Washington, the White House reportedly will ask Congress for an additional $50 billion to expand funding for the war in Iraq, a request that seems likely to prolong troop levels at their current elevated number into the spring of 2008, Durbin said.

Even opponents of the war, as Durbin calls himself, find themselves likely to vote for the extra money, he said. 'When it comes to the budget, I face a dilemma that some of my colleagues do,' he said.

He voted against the war 'but felt that I should always provide the resources for the troops in the field,' Durbin said. 'But it's now reached a point where we have got to change the way we appropriate this money.'

The Democrats repeatedly make the same mistake of adopting the Republican framing on this issue.

Message to Sen. Durbin: You are not being asked to fund "the troops in the field". You are being asked to fund Bush's War.

THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!

As long as Democrats continue to talk about funding in terms of "supporting the troops" instead of "supporting Bush's War" they will ALWAYS lose the debate.

Guaranteed.

And Durbin is one of the good guys! What will it take to get through to these knuckleheads?

Big Numbers

So, apparently Bush is planning on asking for an additional $50 billion from Congress as a supplemental to the previous supplemental.

Let's leave aside for a moment the issue of whether the Democrats will finally find the balls to stand up to Bush. Instead, lets talk about numbers.

I think it is a basic principal that the human brain just doesn't deal very well with numbers. Numbers are an artificial construct created by humans over the last several thousand years in order to impose a standard for measuring quantities. If it weren't necessary to the functioning of markets and trade, numbers probably wouldn't be all that important. Indeed, beyond the counts we might necessarily need to worry about in day-to-day life (how many kids do you have? How many people live in your village? Etc.), counting larger quantities of things just wouldn't be a fixation.

But we live in a world of big numbers and we need to learn how to deal with them in more than just a cold, calculating way.

$50 billion is a number that is so huge that most humans simply can't get their minds around it. Think of it this way: the difference between $50 billion and $60 billion doesn't seem that much to most humans because it is just the difference between 50 and 60. 10 isn't all that much right? But 10 billion certainly is a lot!

Yet $10 billion is also a big number. A number we can't deal with.

So we need a way to think about big numbers in a smaller, more human way.

The U.S. Census web page shows the population of the United States at 302,737,947. That includes babies.

Divide $50 billion by 302,737,947 and you get $165.16 per person.

$165 (rounding to dollars) is a number most people can deal with. They can deal with the concept of having to spend $165 for something much better than spending $50 billion.

George Bush is asking every person in the United States, including babies, to pony up an additional $165 dollars for his war in Iraq. Can you wrap your mind around that?

The current estimated cost of the war is $447,254,500,000 (according to costofwar.com). George Bush has already asked every person in the United States, including babies, to pay $1477 for his war in Iraq. Can you wrap your mind around that?

The estimated monthly cost of the war is $5.8 billion (according to military.com). George Bush is asking every person in the United States, including babies, to pay $19 per month for his war in Iraq. Can you wrap your mind around that?

Stop using numbers that people don't understand and maybe they will understand what they are being asked for.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Who Would Choose?

Firedoglake: "2) Can we please retire the notion that sexual orientation is a choice? Why on earth would a Larry Craig (R-Stallabama) or a Ted Haggard choose to be gay? I just don’t think “to piss off the liberals” really works here."

Actually, this is a pretty easy one to answer, as long as one is willing to adopt a certain outlook on life.

It works like this: All humans are weak. All have sinned and will continue to sin. Left to our own devices we will eventually make weak choices that will destroy us. It is only through the intervention of a higher power that we have any hope of overcoming our inherent weakness. It is only the righteous who will make the correct choice and choose to accept that help. They will be saved.

And anyone who encourages people to believe that they can make it without said intervention, as well as those who say that weaknesses like homosexuality are acceptable, are nothing more than agents of destruction who are working, willfully or not, towards the drowning of all mankind in a sea of wickedness. They, along with their victims, will be damned.

Now pardon me while I go take a shower.

"Give it another six months"

Ridenbaugh Press:

One man seemed to place his finger on the feeling here when he compared protests about Iraq and other Bush Administration policy to a 9-1-1 call: The people have been calling 9-1-1 to report an emergency, but no one ever responds, including Congress. They have felt ignored, and now they’re furious about it. Many, clearly, had hoped for more change when a new majority was seated in Congress in January, only to find much less than they’d hoped for.

We have been told, for years, by Bush and his supporters that things will get better in Iraq. We have been told to be patient. We have been told to "give it another six months" and then when those six months expired to "give it another six months" and when those expired ... and so on.

Our patience gave out on election day, November 2006. We wanted a change. We wanted something different than "give it another six months." So we elected a Democratic House and Senate to give us something different.

What has been the response of Democrats like Brian Baird. What has been the response of Democrats who have finally been put into positions of power?

"Give it another six months".

Baird may think we are angry with him because he is saying something positive about developments in Iraq. He couldn't be more wrong. We are angry because he is peddling the same bullshit that the Bush administration has been peddling.

We don't want to hear that the occupation is getting better. We want to hear that the occupation is coming to an end.