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Monday, 29 November 2004
0845 - Dueling rants
 foolscap001 linked to this entry in the Cold Fury weblog, taking the Left to task for its continued whining about this year's election.
While looking through the comments, I saw a link to an opposing rant, from a leftist who articulates a new vision for the left: unapologetically urban, explicitly rejecting and discarding anything that doesn't help cities.
To the latter, all I can say is: bring it on. If you truly want to find out just how marginalized you really are, this will drive it home with more force than I can otherwise imagine.
current mood: ![[mood icon]](https://www.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/contemplative.gif) contemplative
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Comments:
A co-worker (not a cow-orker, this time) and I have noticed that the DFL really needn't bother with having the F in the designation anymore. And aside from government employee unions they could drop the L as well. Indeed.
It just struck me, BTW, that the Founding Fathers designed our government so that no one population group could control things - which is exactly what the Urban Archipelago site is advocating. Seems they knew something, way back then... What confuses me about the election is how much ignorance went on - how, exactly, is it possible that 70 or so percent of the population believed and apparently continues to believe that Hussein was directly involved with 9-11? How is it possible that so many people from rural areas voted for Bush for his stance on terrorism when those most affected by terrorism (those in cities, in particular New York) overwhelmingly wanted Kerry? How is it possible that Kerry went to Vietnam, fought valiantly, got awarded with multiple medals, continued fighting even after being wounded (how else do you get more than one purple heart?), and still managed to get painted as a traitor? How is it possible that gay people getting married is a major campaign issue? How is it possible that most of those who would be most dramatically negatively affected by partial privatization of social security voted for the person who most wanted to do that? How is it that the people outside of cities, presumably most affected by pollution, voted for the administration that had rolled back pollution controls more than any administration in the last 40-some years? How are all these things possible? It just doesn't make sense.
Vorn I'm leaning towards the "government has been taken over by crooks" theory, myself. What that cat is proposing in idea (but not specifics) would work. Its well known that America is dominated by its coasts and the fly-over areas follow and so what he is saying to play to the big cites (higher populations/incomes) and ignore everything else.
It's positivly Rove-vian in its villany/genious. How do you feel about Hastert's new policy, where only if a majority of Republicans support a bill will it go forward, even if a bipartisan majority support it? We didn't really need those 9/11 reforms, did we? Thing is, it's nothing new. It's simply that the policy of the early 1990s (and probably earlier) has been restored only with 'Republican' substituted for 'Democrat' in it.
The Republicans running for House had the Contract with America as a campaign tool. It said that there were ten or so item in committee that weren't seeing the light of day, and if they (the Republicans) got a majority in the House that those things would be brought out to the House floor for discussion and a vote so people could see where their representatives stood. There was no promise of anything passing, letting alone becoming law. Evidently the House Republicans now feel confident enough to revert to the manner that the Democrats were using until then. What I am left wondering is how long before the Democrats (many of whom mocked the idea with the inane 'Contract on America' moniker) try their own version of the Contract with America. |
