Ideology

I got this video clip via Andrew Sullivan via Memeorandum. Two things immediately jump out of this video.

1. What the Southern Avenger says here is in line with what a lot of liberals and progressives have been saying for the last eight years : That people like George W. Bush, Karl Rove, Sean Hannity and Michelle Malkin are extremists and not conservatives at all.

2. Exactly because the argument of this video is that true conservatives are against the war, I find interesting that Andrew Sullivan doesn't waste time to call out the author a paleo-conservative. And yet, if you go to the guys' website ... paleoconservative is the last word to come to my mind.

What do you think?

By some of the links I have put up today, you can tell I have been catching up on my blogospheric meanderings. I just finished reading a post by Bob Geiger and I laughed out so loud I had just had to write about it.

In Here's How Fringe I Am, Fred Thompson, Bob describes his fringieness. Here's a sample :

• Attended my son's middle-school orientation. He's "graduating" from elementary school this Thursday -- though, oddly enough, exhibiting few signs of being a "fringe element" despite having me for a father -- and on that day, our lunatic activities will center around taking many pictures of him and his friends and going for ice cream afterwards. I personally plan on ordering the Cookies and Communist Crunch.




• Volunteered at a local community clean-up effort to rid our town of the trash spawned by a predominantly-Democratic community that clearly hates America. Went to weenie roast afterwards… Put catsup on my hotdog to show how much I despise American values.

My favorite :

• Took my son to the driving range with me. While we whacked golf balls, we discussed our lack of family values and my little boy stunned me with this question: "Dad, why haven't you been divorced a bunch of times like Fred Thompson and the other Republican presidential candidates?" "Now son," I said. "Senator Thompson's only been divorced once. You're thinking of Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich."

Of course, I can not not quote the punchline : So that's about it. I only regret that we didn’t have time to burn an American flag this week.

Harrumph!

UPDATE - CNN story just posted here, with full transcript of statement.
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Still watching the live news conference on CNN and thinking it should be required viewing in every school worldwide -- that is, if we do mean to create and preserve real environments that sustain human life by right instead of might.

"Fighting back was simply not an option."
When one is "not equipped for a fight" and reason fails in the face of unhearing, blinded, singleminded Borg-like purpose with superior numbers and ammunition, then Reason itself becomes an unreasonable response forcibly redefined against your will, becoming not an academic exercise but a raw first-rung survival skill, a matter of figuring out who is fit to survive and what it will take.

"We realized that our efforts to reason with these people were not making any headway. Nor were we able to calm some of the individuals down.
It was at this point that we realized that had we resisted there would have been a major fight, one we could not have won, with consequences that would have had major strategic impact. We made a conscious decision to not engage the Iranians and do as they asked.

And even that kind of Raw Reason falters without intelligence, sound information for making wise decisions, and being allowed untwisted, unmanipulated communication within one's one group of fellows and with the real world. Reason stripped, blindfolded and shoved up against the wall to hear the sound of guns being cocked.

At least one newspaper in Pennsylvania has decided to cancel Ann Coulter's column and several advertisers, including Verizon, have pulled their advertising from her website.

Michelle Malkin went all prim and proper on Coulter's verbal grenade, because it sullied the forthright image of conservatives; meaning it's going against their meme campaign to paint themselves as morally superior than the foul-mouthed bloggerss they were able to ouster from the Edwards campaign or that yucky liberal pundit Bill Maher.

By the way, some think Ann Marie Cox is a skank compared to Coulter. Then there's Tucker Carlson saying she called him gay once but he didn't cry about it.

Rush Limbaugh and GOsPindrones everywhere have been trying to paint 'faggot' as a synonym of 'wuss' and the applauses Ann Coulter got as a demand within the party for the kind of angry and offensive leadership Ann Coulter portrays. Right-wing bloggers everywhere have been all too fast to stay on message about their moral superiority meme and have gone of the defensive.

The 2006 mid-term elections are going down as having one of the most virulent campaign seasons in the last 100 years. Republicans have been the gravely wounded targets but it does not mean that Democratic incumbents and candidates have not come out hurting and smarting from the bloodfest. Because, it has been a horrendously bloody political season that started with the downfall of Jack Abramoff.

We can say that, well, the republicans were asking for it. I am not one to be beneath smacking down conservative hypocrites like Abramoff, Foley or Craig. As you well know though, I am also as eager to smack Democrats and liberal bloggers hypocrites.

Which is why, instead of smacking, I want to put a word of caution ... 19 days before the elections.

Democrats may well end up smarting, and not in a good way, from what I can only describe as their embrace tactics from the school of Karl Rove politics. This political season has been an all out war by Democrats. They are kicking ass indeed, but it may come back to haunt them.

Here's the problem:

In their eagerness to get elected anybody who calls themselves these days a Democrat, they are helping elect the rejects of the Replican party, people who not until they saw a political opportunity to switch, had no reason to call themselves a Democrat.

Party switching is not a new concept. Historically though, the wave has been against Democrats : Since the 1960's, and after the success of the Civil Rights Movement, most of party swtichers were Democrats (candidates and incumbents) bolting to the Republican party.

Democrats only need to win 15 more House seats to take back the House. That's out of 40 surprisingly close races. Well, the Republicans have all but conceded one of those races, meaning Democrats only have to win 14 more.

White Supremicists are often too close for comfort to the Republican Party. Virginia Senator Allen, for example, is clearly a bit too much of a racist for my taste, leading me to donate to and advocate for Democratic candidate for the Senate, Jim Webb. But Republicans in general don't necessarily LIKE being associated with white supremicists. Witness the Republican candidate for AZ-8 Congressional seat: Randy Graf is well connected with white supremicists and has now been endorsed by former Grand Wizard of the KKK (and former Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor of Louisiana and twice for president of the United States) David Duke. This was too much even for the Republican Party, leading them to do the right thing and pull out all support for Graf.

Here's a statement from the DCCC on this:

I couldn't have better news. The Republicans have withdrawn all of their financial support in the pivotal race in Arizona's 8th Congressional District, all but conceding defeat in a race that we had targeted.

This year has so much potential not just for Democrats, but also for the progressive grassroots. Already, the grassroots are geared up for puting up their biggest fight to date. I want to highlight a couple of ways the grassroots are prepared to take a stand against the corrupt Halliburton Republicans and to restore integrity and democracy to our government.

Starting with Democracy for America, here are just a few things that DFA has done just in the last month:

1. Raised thousands of dollars for key Secretary of State candidates so we can start restoring fairness and accuracy to our elections, something I am working on as well.

2. Expanded DFA coverage of congressional districts though their linkup groups to cover 420 of the nation's 435 congressional districts. That leaves only 15 Congressional districts with no DFA group! You can find your local group or start a new group here.

3. Trained 2000 activists in message development and dissemination through their "Night School Program." You, too, can sign up for training here.

And that was only in one month.

MoveOn.org has been focusing their attention on putting out TV ads in key congressional districts. Market research has shown that these TV ads have been turning districts from leaning Republican to leaning Democrat, opening up more possible pick up chances. You can view these ads and donate to put more on the air by going here.

But MoveOn.org is firing up a new effort, one which my wife and I will be doing our small part for. They are gathering thousands of volunteers to participate in phone banks around the country, targeting the 30 hottest House races. Joy and I will probably be hosting one of their organizers here in Brooklyn where one of their phone banks will be located. You can sign up to participate in this effort here.

I know of a few other efforts but they are local to NYC. If you know of any other national efforts, please post them in the comments. But the most important thing is to volunteer or donate now if you want to win in November.

In West Virginia thre is a cohabitation law, which makes it a misdemeanor for unmarried people to "lewdly and lasciviously associate" and live together. This law is being challenged by a lawsuit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of an inmate whose parole was delayed because of his plan to cohabit with his fiance.

Well, I have lewdly and lasciviously associated and lived together with women before I was married. And enjoyed it very much, thank you. And I considered it none of the government's business that I did so. However, I always had the option of marrying who ever I wanted to lewdly and lasciviously associate with.

Since gays are not allowed the same right to marry eachother that I have, this cohabitation law seems to clearly discriminate against gays, preventing them from lewdly and lasciviously associating with eachother legally.

But really, the fundamental question here is what business is it of the government to care who lewdly and lasciviously associates with who? When will we get the governmemt out of our bedrooms? Oh, yeah. When we get rid of Republican control over our government.

Is it just me or does the West just not get it when it comes to Islam. I remember thinking Bush was incredibly stupid when he called the fight against al-Qaeda a "crusade," a word BOUND to inflame tensions with Muslims. Now the Pope says something even worse.

I mean, I am Jewish and pro-Israel, but even I am well aware that if you go around saying bad things about Mohammed you are going to piss off a lot of people. I fell pretty solidly on the side of freedom of the press when it came to the Danish cartoons and thought the Muslim reaction was unfounded. But the Pope has just been inexcusably rude to Islam and thinks a half assed apology will suffice.

From Guysen Israël News:

Pope Benedict XVI "sincerely regrets" his comments deemed offensive by Muslims. The Pope is sorry that his speech was misinterpreted and hopes that the "true spirit" of his comments will be understood. The Holy Father had said in his speech, "Show me something new that Mohammed brought and you will find only inhuman and diabolical things, such as his order to spread his faith by the sword." The Vatican press release did not however go as far as to make an apology in the name of the Pope.

Um, so just what WAS the "true spirit" of calling Mohammed's teaching "inhuman and diabolical?"