Monday, March 3, 2008
The Election/ Government
Well, if there has been any post so far that has really been easy to write, I would have to say that this would be it. Politics is one of my things! I'll start out basic. As you may or may not know, there is a presidential election coming up. As of right now, there are 4 main candidates. The republicans are Huckabee and McCain, and the democrats are Clinton and Obama. I know you all knew that already, but just in case....Personally, I am an Obama supporter, though I would not necessarily be adverse to Clinton in office. One quick comment before I analyze the articles I found. I can't help but notice that on Mr. V's blog, he stated that, "I don’t think that people should get involved in politics because they are extremely interesting or fulfilling, I think it is more of a matter of necessity." Why shouldn't it be fulfilling or interesting? I find it to be both! I'm not arguing that it's not necessary, because it is, but the fact that I can have a say in who leads my country and what decisions that person makes is pretty cool, interesting, and fulfilling to me. I find it baffling that more people aren't involved. What happens in Washington directly affects me, and I'll be darned if I'm going to stand by and let someone else run my life without my say so. Ok, now for the articles. The first one was found at the NYT website, and it overviewed the candidate's fight for delegates. Basically, Obama and Clinton are in a heated race for delegates that just might come down to the super-delegates. On Tuesday (tom.) there will be primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont, and unlike previous elections where by now the partie's nominees were already clear, there is no obvious front runner, escp. on the democrat's side, though Obama and McCain are leading. The article also details the ongoing battle between Obama and Clinton, which has resorted to some rather low tactics (ie Clinton's new ad where the phone rings at 3 am...) There has also been attacks on both sides over missing hearings on Afghanistan, though both Obama and Clinton seem to be guilty of this. McCain is ahead of Huckabee by a pretty large margin, but he still needs to win most of the delegates this tuesday, along with around 100 of the super delegates to get the 1, 191 needed for the republican nomination. Since I support Obama, I looked him up on Wikipedia, and came up with this page. Although most of it wasn't new to me, I did find several quotes that I liked, as well as stances on many issues, like getting out of Iraq ("I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.") and instituting univeral health care. I also looked up McCain, because it is important to understand both sides of an argument. I must say, I like the fact that he authored a bill to make the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo Bay more humane, but I am disheartened by his vigorous support of Pres. Bush and his "war on terror" (which is such a silly name. Terror is an ideology, how are you supposed to kill it? Wasn't there a famous hippie quote that went something like.."You can crush the idealists but not their ideals." How do we know when we defeat terror? When there is no more violence? Seems to me that this war is doing more to fan the flames of violence than to suppress them.) Ok, now I'm supposed to talk about my views. (not that I have any.. :) Ok, well first and foremost, I think that people need to get up, go outside, and do something! I don't care if you think that Bush is the greatest thing since sliced bread! you need to go and do something to support your views. Essentially, words without actions are meaningless. Secondly, I like peace. Simple, yes, but true. (and fairly common, I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who disagreed with that) I think the main point of contention is exactly how to achieve peace. Some people think that it should be through the destruction of evil. Others, like me, prefer to acheive peace through protest, non-violent disobedience, and, only if absolutely necessary, violence. Jumping straight to the last resort seems odd to me. Thirdly, stay informed! That's a big one because some much hatred comes from ignorance. I stay informed by reading the Economist, which is a wonderful, impartial magazine. (The Star Tribune is ok, but it's sad to see a page of ads, like there's nothing more important or dire in this world than a sale at Wicks.) Well, it's getting late, so I think I'm going to go to bed, but I'll probably write more later, so adios till then!
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14 comments:
Before I read the rest of your post, let me clarify the point I was making. I don't think a lot of people will find them interesting or fulfilling and identify those as the reasons they get involved. I too find them to be extremely interesting but as a starting point, we should get involved out of necessity. Once involved, we might discover the interesting and fulfilling side.
Of course everyone likes peace, but how do you achieve it? In your words, you have three choices, I am guessing that there is a heirarchy here, protest first, civil disobedience second, and war third? Now you hinted that we jumped straight to war and completely bypassed the first two. I am guessing you think that the first two might have worked? Who do you protest to after the world trade center falls down? Who would listen that is responsible? Why would they care? How would you perform a non-violent, civil disobedience act for them? Who is the audience then? Do we boycott? What? In this case, the only reasonable effort would be to destroy the ones responsible, and we have. Now you mentioned the quote from Obama about "fueling the flames." When we go to the middle east and protect our interests, they might get a little upset. Does that mean that we should stop. If you go arrest people for stealing, doesn't that make the stealers angry. Does this cause people who aren't to steal? If it does, than obviously something was wrong with them in the first place and they don't respect personal property. I think this might be turning into a bad analogy, I apologize. I guess what I am saying is, the law abiding citizens of the middle east have nothing to worry about. If they are worried, than something is wrong with them or their way of life.
If somebody comes over to the US and bombs us, uses a plane to bomb us, or does whatever, they better for it. I don't want to give them a harsh word and a hug.
Well, we certainly didn't try the first two very hard! Besides, plans for the war in Iraq were made before the attacks. Am i saying that we should hug the bombers and send them home? Of course not, I am just as saddened and outraged by those events as any other citizen. When I listed the "heirarchy" i didn't have 9/11 in mind, so of course there would really be no one to protest to. However, we could have made a reasonable case for a war that had strict boundries and an end goal rather than some ambigious dream. 18 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but you don't see us there. (the fact that the bushes and the Saudi royal family are very close could contribute to that) Instead, you see us in the oil-rich country of Iraq, under the guise of 9/11. Sadam Hussien, awful man or not, was not part of 9/11, and the whole weapons of mass destruction thing was an admitted hoax. Going into a war under a false flag is wrong. Afghanistan may (and a heavy emphasis on may) be justified, but the Iraq war is diverting much needed resources. When almost no countries join the "colition of the willing" and the ones that do send so little troops, you know something's wrong. Why didn't we talk to the other countries and find out why they weren't supporting us? We lost so much good will towards the US by just pushing ahead, and then rounding up every person who might look like a terrorist and sticking them in Guantanamo, and now we can't release all of them because some might be guilty, but we can't have them stay there because the majority are innocent, and the "tribunals" are a joke. Finally, Your last statement is way off base. Nothing to worry about? We are bombing their country, family, friends, and home. You talk as if we have bombs that don't hurt you if you're not a terrorist. As is it stands, our bombs don't discriminate, and there have been countless civilian causalities. You'd be worried if they were bombing us to find a group of people, even if you weren't guilty.
Interesting post, I think that war is a touchy subject, since their are many ways to look at it, but I think that we should stand up for ourselves if we get attacked.
i see the possible makings of another "blog war". good exchangings of political views. im looking forward to follow up on this. not that its going to turn bad.
Couple of things Marta, I don't know that you can classify the WMD thing as a hoax. There is no credible evidence to suggest that the government, or administration specifically, intentionally lied to justify a war. Granted, the information may have been wrong but not a hoax. Second, the hijackers might have been Saudi's by nationality but that is not where they trained and not who they got their support from. It would be racist to suggest we go after Saudi Arabia just becuase these people are from there. Instead, we have gone after the people and governments who supported their actions through money, weapons, training, etc...I agree, we don't have harmless bombs. However, it is irresponsible for you to suggest that our military, the most honorable of people, sling bombs and missiles around indescriminately. I agree, civilian casualties are bad, however, if these civilians are killed because they are hiding the enemy, than it is deserved. Plus, the enemy is dressed like civilians intentionally to confuse our troops and create more civilian deaths to create bad publicity. Finally, I would rather have civilians from another country than Americans. As bad as that sounds, it is true.
On a personal note, I think victory in this war results in a stable, self-supporting Iraqi government. how can you say that should fit a timetable?
Wow... You are really going at it. Since we are mostly talking about the war in Iraq, I might as well go their as well. I think that the war is needed. Even if we have stopped Sadam Hussein and if we started the war for no reason(which I don't think is true), Iraq is still an unstable country and we need to be their to help get it on its feet and start walking by itself again. Even if some civilians are killed by us on accident, we are saving many more by protecting those from their own bretheren. Another thing is if we were to pull our troops out of Iraq right now, we might lose all of the effort we have put into this war by Iraq going back to its terroristic ways, and all of the American lives lost their will have been in vane.
Ok, first of all, I'm not saying that we should attack Saudi Arabia because that's where the hijackers were born. I agree that that would be racist and immoral. What I was trying to communicate is that we would be significantly less likely to attack Saudi Arabia because of their close US ties, and to point out that Iraq's large oil reserve may have played a roll in our "war on terror". I also wanted to say that the US didn't follow up on possible Saudi-9/11 ties as closely as they could have. ("see us there" was a poor choice of words, but I didn't necs. mean immediate military involvment. I was refrring to an investigation, than an attack if a link was found) I also did not suggest that our military randomly slings bombs around, I just think that your earlier statement about "nothing wrong means nothing to fear" is very over-simplified and that war is a horrible experience for everyone, including the innocent. Sure, a self-supporting government is a good goal, but in order to achieve it, you need set benchmarks with time limits to reach them. Otherwise, you're blindly setting up offices and positions with no real idea of what your coworkers are doing. On another personal note, I am sick of people labeling me as "anti-american" and other such terms merely for expressing my opinion. I'm not saying that you have done that, but escp. in 2003-4 I was often dissed because of my views. I don't think that anything is gained by name calling, and we will never find a workable solution to the war that will satisfy as many people as possible (while still doing the right thing) until we can sit down and talk to the other person without yelling. Obviously the "right" has some very intelligent people, as does the "left", and so there must be a reason why they have supported their party. We have even agreed on somethings, such as my comment on bombs being indiscriminate. (on a side note, yes I know the name calling goes both ways, so you don't need to point out that republicans have been dissed by democrats too.)
I'm going to talk about my aspect about getting out and doing something. My brother down in Texas has done demonstrations for Ron Paul, and he event went to the Iowa Caucus driving during the middle of snow storm(he can barley drive with traction when it rains). I will say that I haven't been involved, and yet in 4 years from now I will be a freshman in college, 19, and voting for who I think is president.
My parents tend to vote Republican but they try to see what the other party is doing during every election process to see what stuff they agree on both parties and what they disagree on. It is sad to say though that most of time during politics you're voting between the lesser of 2 evils.
I think Marta made some good points here, as did the others. It is important to remember that we are all Americans who hopefully love and want the best for our country. We are obviously not going to agree on how to solve all of these issues but it is going to take both sides coming to the table to work out solutions. I applaud you Marta for getting involved as much as you do and taking the time to educate yourself about the world around you as much as you have. I wish I would have done that at your age. Back to the compromise thing, it is difficult to sit down at the table with the "other side" at make compromises if your beliefs are so different. One of the reasons I don't like McCain is that he is too willing to throw the core beliefs of the Republican party out the window simply to get a bill passed through congress. Nevertheless, we do have to continually talk to each other to find a common ground and solutions that are amenable to both sides.
Marta, I applaud your participation and admire your enthusiasm. I still like you!
david, you spelled vain wrong. And i don't agree with you. Or Mr.V for that matter.
Good post Marta. You really are into this race.
if we just pulled out of iraq dont you think that is showing we give up and are willing to let terrorist walk all over us? we have already done a lot in the war so why not just finish it?
my opinion is that pulling out of the war just shows that you dont have a plan so your taking the easy way out.
name- i think that its time for us to realize our pride isn't worth a whole lot and giving that up might seem more logical to the families whos sons and daughters have died, rather than to give up more soldiers lives. saying 'just finish it' does not come easily as it sounds. Terrorist groups do not fight wars, so there is no way to 'just finish it'. we can set up a new government, and attempt to shut down terrorist organizations, but does that ensure peace?
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