Can Cause Discomfort, But This Book MATTERS, May 17, 2008
Grover Norquist
I was given this book as a gift, along with Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies and to my great surprise, being an estranged moderate Reagan Republican, I found that I am much more of a Libertarian than I realized, and this author, although he causes me great discomfort in some areas (such as privatizing Social Security), he makes complete sense. I learn he has been voted one of the 50 most powerful people in DC by GQ (2007) and I believe it. Senator McCain has better listen this time around. I urge all who are enthused with Senator Obama to read Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate. Senator Obama is NOT transparent and I consider his top foreign policy advisors to be dangerous–Dr. Strangelove (Brzezinski) has one last war with Russia left in him, and seriiousl believes he can confront the Chinese in Africa–this is lunacy (search for my Memorandum online <Chinese Irregular Warfare oss.net>.
The book lacks an index. This is a HUGE MISTAKE on the part of the publisher because there are too many important ideas in this book. The publisher should create and post online an index to this book. The publisher can also be criticized for failing to provide Library of Congress cataloguing information. This is a REFERENCE work. The author should consider holding the publisher accountable for such fundamental incompetencies that detract from the book's lasting value.
The five core reforms that he builds up to are:
1) Portable pensions
2) Competitive health care
3) Educational choice including home schooling
4) Outsourcing of all government functions possible
The author posits a stark choice between the Leave Us Alone movement, that appears to be growing daily (and included 27 secessionist movements that meet annually at a conference organized by Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Human Scale, and what he calls the Takings Group, the tax and spend elected officials both Republican and Democratic.
This is a serious reference work with an even mix of books, articles, and online citations.
There are some areas where the author could benefit from knowledge that is not yet mainstream–for example, we can blow away the Medicare unfunded obligations by negotiating prices that are 1% (ONE percent) of what we foolishly pay now, and as a recent PriceWaterHouseCooopers study documented so well, also eliminating the 50% of the medical professional that is waste, including (the author does address this–the tort lawyers like Senator John Edwards who make millions putting good doctors out of business so bad doctors can do more elective operations).
On balance–and this was my first exposure to this individual–I put the book down thinking to myself that this author deserves his reputation, and that he combines a very powerful intellect with an equally powerful moral force.
+ Our society has structured inequality built in at all levels, and the blue collar and working poor populations will NEVER climb out of their pit unless we minister to them in an active manner.
+ The focus of the blue collar worker is the neighborhood, and a web of favors given and received, favors that define not just a community, but a covenant of community. See Off the Books for more on this.
+ Our “culture” has managed to make every individual that is structurally repressed feel guilty for not being able to rise above their circumstances because our churches and our state preach freedom of opportunity, but the REALITY is that the upper class web of connections trumps lower class striving every time.
+ The deindustrialization and deskilling of the economy (Bill Clinton's signal mistake, apart from being inept at getting single-payer health care where the working class would be the principal beneficiary) has deepened the disadvantages of race and gender in America.
+ The author does a superb job–truly a scholarly and responsible job–of properly reviewing applicable literatures and offering proper citation in text, not just endnotes, of a rich buffet of practical and intellectual contributions by others.
+ He discusses five types of blue collar groups:
– Blue Collar Winners, a threatened species
– Blue Collar Respectables, want family, school, and church to be in harmony, conformists, a morality of repression, lowered social norms make it harder to be “respectable,” and there is no social mobility
– Blue Collar Survivors, trapped like inmates, a daily struggle to stay even with life in the face of multiple challenges
– Blue Collar Hard Living, heavy drinking, marital instability, toughness, political alienation, rootlessness, present time orientation, strong sense of individualism
The author's greatest contribution is his full exploration of how a pastor in a blue collar neighborhood cannot think of themselves as being on the pinnacle of a pyramidal organization between the community and God, but rather as a member at the base, part of a web of giving and love, dignity and local empowerment. This book should be required reading for EVERY pastor of ANY faith. It should also be required reading for every Precinct Captain for any political party, ideally a third party such as the Libertarians or Greens. This book is a handbook for connecting, empowering, and enriching at the local level.
The author concludes that the “ward heeler” is the best model, an individual that is constantly moving throughout the community, touching each person and especially the many that do not come to church, offering favors with love, investing in each individual. I am MOVED by this book. This is pastoral reference A, and it is touching in its understanding while illuminating in its scholarship.
Citing Andrew Greeley the author notes that ethnic politics is not about ideas, but rather about intuitive brokering among a broad diversity of intersecting interests. He goes on to cite the three weaknesses of ethnic politics: it depends on the group being structured; it overlooks small but explosive groups; and it fails to engage the intellectuals.
This is where I experience two huge epiphanies (Republican word for Aha!):
1. At the blue collar level, the author tells us, patriotism is not just a given, it is an EXISTENTIAL deeply rooted part of being. This helps me understand why Reverend Wright's intemperate (but accurate) depiction of the USA and the crimes done “in our name” would cause anger among the white blue collar population. America right or wrong is a tangible value.
2. At the national level, any candidate who would lead America must trisect three groups: money, brains, and brawn. I do not see any candidate, although John McCain appeals to me if he can avoid Leiberman or Rice as a Vice President (I would recommend to him the protagonists in The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen, that is doing that. All three of the candidates are doing platitudes to the public with secret handshakes behind closed doors with the money people, and all three are completely neglecting the intellectual substance: we are hated or distrusted around the world; we are doing nothing to eradicate the ten high level threats to humanity; we are bankrupt as a Nation (financially, morally, culturally, and intellectually), and “there is no plan.”
I read this book while trying to see if a third party candidacy is still viable. In that context:
1) I have written off Obama. His rejection of Reverend Wright is the final nail in his political coffin this time around, he has become, as one Reverend of color put it, the “House Negro.” See Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate.
2) Bloomberg (see my review of Bloomberg by Bloomberg) needs to understand the difference between transpartisan ship and the two-party organized crime and spoils system, and then he needs to put his integrity on the line and go for the full enchilada.
Beyond Five Stars–a Foundation Stone for Third Party Bid in 2008, May 3, 2008
Micah L. Sifry
I am not giving up on fielding a third-party team in 2008. All three of those running are part of the two party organized crime spoils system, and to mock 41, “this will not stand.”
This book is beyond five stars for its relevance, timeliness, and detail. It has gripped me all morning, and the level of detail including specific names, is phenomenal.
Although the author does not cover the 27 secessionist movements (but does cover the Vermont Progressive Party) and I could find no mention of the The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World, I am totally impressed by the structure, the discipline, the detail. I started with the index and that alone persuaded me this was a phenomenal book worthy of every voter's attention.
The book was published in 2003, to early for the author to be following Reuniting America and its transpartisaship meme, or the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER) described in Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World but I can say with certainty that this author, who he knows and what he knows, is an essential contributor to appreciative inquiry and deliberative democracy.
I have a number of notes, and unlike many books, there is a lot in here that I simply did not know (I did not pay much attention in classes until I earned my MPA because it mattered).
+ Abe Lincoln was a third party candidate for president. The author is well-spo0ken and compelling in condemning the Supreme Court for several decisions that institutionalize the two-party spoils system, both within the states where Hawaii was allowed to ban write-in votes, in other states where the states are allowed to exclude all third parties from all debates
+ Although the author does not provide a policy framework, there is a great deal of compelling detail about how Jesse Ventura combined fiscal conservative and social liberal values in a centrist independent common sense platform that attracted the votes of the working class (the author notes that this class is bigger than most imagine, while the middle class is now smaller than most imagine).
+ Four constituencies elected Jesse Ventura: women, moderate Republicans, blue collar suburbanites, and alienated 20-30 somethings. To this the author adds “unlikely voters” and says the polls always miss them but they make the difference for third party or independent candidates and are twice as likely to branch off from either of the two criminal parties. [I won't belabor this latter point, just see Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.
+ The author teaches us that Americans certainly do want more choice (as well as honesty in politics) but third parties have a way to go.
+ 9-11 did not change the fundamentals, but did end public complacency and did start public engagement.
+ This book is especially strong and useful on why Ralph Nader won and why Ralph Nader did not undermine Al Gore, it was actually the other way around. Crashing the Party: Taking on the Corporate Government in an Age of Surrender is still a must read, but this author has given us a more concise and able ennumeration of all the reasons Gore lost, and he ends that section toward the end of the book by pointing out that Pat Buchanan took more states and more votes away from Bush 43 than Nader did from Gore.
+ Across the book the author outlines how states are deliberately disenfranchising all who would seek to run for office or vote as independents, but toward the end of the book he points out how Greens are winning half the elections they go for at the local level in some states.
+ I am personally inspired by this book to believe that on the 4th of July we need a third party transpartisan team with a balanced budget that also demands Electoral Reform prior to November 2008. We cannot led any of the three presidential contenders get away with the myth that this election means anything at all without debates open to all third party candidates, and voting on week-ends or holidays with instant run-offs to re-enfranchise the The Working Poor: Invisible in America.
+ This book is a mother lode of useful data in a coherent structure. My notes cannot do it justice.
+ On a positive note, while the book ends by saying third parties have a long way to go, the author notes across the book that the two-party spoils system is self-destructing and reform is largely inevitable. I agree.
+ We learn that Ralph Nader and Jesse Ventura are both of the view that any third party must attract people who can “raise hours, not just money.” Their logic is interesting, but with all the billionaires out there, and with Michael Bloomberg now strangely silent, I have to wonder if he has not been sidelined by the Trilateral Commission and the Councils on Foreign Relations in New York and Chicago, who now own Senator Obama lock, stock, and barrel (see Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate. He is an engaged young man of promise, but if he cannot lead conversations that matter and inspire citizen wisdom councils instead of listening to the Dr. Strangeloves (Bzezinski) and acolytes, then he is not worthy of governing and will be a repeat of Jimmy Carter, a gerbil on a wheel.
+ This book inspires me to think that a meme can be created between the League of Women Voters and WISER, “Our Deal or No Deal.” It should be possible to restore the League of Women Voters at every level, especially if we can finance legal challenges to every corporate donation to any entity that refuses to respect the need for transpartisanship and open source politics.
+ The author does a super job on how Ross Perot self-destructed and then Pat Buchanan more or less hosed the Reform Party into oblivion (after first wiping out their treasury to pay old debts, something we learn not from this author, but in Jesse Ventura's book.
+ Greens are not going to go away. I recommend everyone look for Paul Ray's “New Political Compass,” but there are green values that I do believe will carry the day within the decade:
– Ecological wisdom
– Personal and social responsibility
– Grass-roots democracy
– Nonviolence
– Respect for diversity
– Postpatriarchal values
– Decontralization (some would call this home rule, state and local officials are having to ignore federal laws paid for by special interests that specify CEILINGS on state and local standards instead of floors)
– Community economics (I am also very excited by the Interra Project for community credit cards, and the emergence of open money and no money economies)
– Global responsibility
– Future focus (what the Native Americans would call Seventh Generation thinking, a concept captured very well in Stewart Brand's Clock Of The Long Now: Time And Responsibility: The Ideas Behind The World's Slowest Computer.
+ I am completely blown away by the author's concise accounting of how the US Supreme Court has legitimized state exclusion of third parties. That is totally unacceptable and yet another reason for term limits on the Supremes.
+ The book ends with an overview of third parties (117 of them listed in the Encyclopedia of Third Parties in America, which is grotesquely overpriced but probably a useful candidate for a pass around shared purchase.
+ The bottom line in this book is that four national parties are viable: Green, Libertarian, the New Party and the Labor Party. The book was written too soon to see Reuniting America (110 million strong) and the Bloomberg phenomenon in New York which I note with concern may have been squelched by bigger multi-billionaires who want the two party system to remain “as is.” None of the three candidates in 2008 are true reformers, my vote right now is for Jesse Ventura with The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen as Vice President and Tom Atlee and Jim Rough and Paul Hawken and Juanita Brown and many others leading a national Wisdom Council at every level on the ten high-level threats to humanity and the twelve policies from Agriculture to Water that must be harmonized. I will be blunt: the “advisors” are disconnected from reality and vastly more dangeous to our future than any common sense appreciative open policy process might be.
+ The author concludes that Minnesota's Independence Party, Vermont's Progressive Party, and New York's Working Families Party are models that can inform any emergent national campaign.
I am stunned that it has not been reviewed by anyone else. This is a first class edited work, easy to understand, with very important lessons.
Here's what I got out of this book:
+ Progressives facing ambiguity have lost sight of the objectives
+ Participatory budgeting is completely different from consultative budgeting, and should eventually be joined by participatory planning.
+ Progressives are not likely to succeed any time soon (UNLESS we can mount a mass movement with teeth–Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World. We are all trapped in a strait-jacket of existing legal, constitutional and fiscal frameworks. I agree. Both Jean-Francouis Nouble and Jim Rough speak to the pyramidal organization (top down command and control) and its struggle to avoid being displaced by the circle organization. See their work in Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace which is also free online as a PDF of the whole book in or individual chapters as documents easy bound together for more selective study.
+ The bottom line on this book is that the Brazilian state chose to ignore the lessons of Porto Alegre, and chose to neglect its population while agreeing to externally imposed conditions that have ultimately made Brazil weaker than stronger. I cannot judge–that's the message I got.
+ The World Social Forum keeps coming up as I scan the horizon for early warning.
+ Local governments are going to become at least as important as national governments as they strive to deal with very large scale challenges characteristic of urban areas with large concentrations of both the poor and the young.
The book ends on a note in favor of socialism which leaves me uncomfortable. I believe that moral capitalism, combined with honest participatory government, strikes a better balance. Corruption, though, is the killer.
If you are interested in this area, I recommend this book as a very high value reading, and one that could merit several returns.
Alexis de Tocqueville 2.0–Extraordinary Analytic Review, April 22, 2008
Howard Fineman
The publisher should have done a better job of loading information, such as the complete table of contents, using the Amazon Advantage features that I myself use when offering a book on Amazon.
Introduction: For the Sake of Argument
1. Who Is a Person?
2. Who is an American?
3. The Role of Faith
4. The Limits of Individualism
5. What Can We Know and Say?
6. Who Judges the Law?
7. Debt and Dollar
8. Local versus National Authority
9. Presidential Power
10. The Terms of Trade
11. War and Diplomacy
12. The Environment
13. A Fair, “More Perfect” Union
Conclusion
Some strategic reactions:
+ Conceived in 2005, executed since then, an incredible labor of love
+ As I went through I kept thinking “wow, what a mix of historical unraveling and comparison, current trials & tribulation, and philosophical commentary.” This is Tocqueville 2.0, nothing less.
+ I read a lot, so my admiration for the chapters was mostly a reflection of how skillfully I thought this master author and thinker had mined and then hammered into elegant shape a plentitude of sources and perspectives.
The message of the book is revealed on page 243, and I quote:
“We need to calm down, get engaged, and look for leadership. We have been here before: the seeming gridlock; the sudden, uncharacteristic loss of faith in the future; the sense that we cannot produce leaders capable of dealing with real problems. Facing despair and danger, we have always found in our storehouse of conflicting paradoxical traditions a way forward.”
The author's bottom line from earlier in the book: never-ending argument is who we are, how we are. It defines us, this never-ending back and forth. His idealistic view is that we cannot afford to NOT be part of the argument, but this does deny the reality that prior to this election cycle, fully half the eligible population refused to engage.
Frequently throughout the book I am struck by the currency of the author's citations and reflections–this is not a book written two years ago and a year in the editing. The author clearly reads and thinks broadly, and it shows.
Some nuggets that grabbed me:
+ New England (revere nature), Virginia (exploit nature), and the Middle Colonies (live within nature) existed as three completely distinct models for 180 years before the convention in Philadelphia. These three models play through each of the arguments.
+ The author irks me slightly when he says early on that the system for choosing presidents is not be best because we have turned it over to primacy voters. Later in the book he recovers with reference to The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
+ NAFTA hollowed out the midwest and many other locations across the USA, and Bill Clinton is as much to blame as anyone. It's led to Mexico importing half what they export to us.
+ Gore could have lost from any of 100 factors, not just Ralph Nader, but the author's favorite is the photo of Gore drinking champagne at 11 in the morning with the Chinese promoting free trade. The UAW acted on that.
+ Somewhere in the middle I have the note, great paper, great spacing, great font. This is an elegantly structured book and it honors the Tocqueville 2.0 status that I for one accord to this author's historical and current reflections.
+ On page 197 he cites Bush as reluctant to answer the question about who his advisors are, but then Bush mentions Wolfowitz, and raises his eyebrows to add significance. THAT was our early warning. See Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate for a similar warning on Zbigniew Brzezinski's last chance to be Dr. Strangelove on Russia.
+ Interestingly, although Dick Cheney appears in the index sufficient times, it is mostly with reference to undermining the environment and capturing energy at any cost [for every three dollars we pay at the pump, Exxon externalizes $12 in costs to us and all future generations].
+ On page 214 the three models come in very nicely on the subject of the environment:
– VIRGINIA: deplete the land, move West
– PENNSYLVANIA: “city in a garden,” the “middle landscape”
– NEW ENGLAND: untouched nature, against industrialization (of course this was very early on when Emerson and Thoreau were active.
The author notes that the reigning over-all idea in early America was that nature was our Eden to consume and to subdue.
Toward the end there are two fascinating insights:
+ John McCain used to rail at how the Bushes could muster money just by having “daddy” call everyone he ever gave an Ambassadorship to. The author provides some very powerful insights into John McCain, both the good (an earnest reformer) and the bad (perpetually angry).
+ John Edwards is not part of the system, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama *are* the system–perhaps one explanation he has not endorsed either.
I note: McCain-Edwards? Probably a bridge too far, but wouldn't that be something! It's certainly a ticket I would support, leaving Senator Clinton to be Majority Leader in the Senate. . If McCain can learn to say the word “transpartisan,” and mean it, he just might be the best break-out reformist President.]
The author ends with a quote from Bill Clinton in 1993, to wit:
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.”
I agree with that, but only if all Americans pay attention, get into this fight for the soul of the Republic, and demand substance from all three candidates: a transpartisan sunshine cabinet appointed immediately; a balanced budget online for discussion by 4 July 2008; and opening the final presidential debates to candidates from the top five parties in America.
Before I list other books, I want to make one other very important point: the “advisors” to all three candidates are, as a general rule, completely out of touch with reality. What the candidates SHOULD be doing is leading national conversations on the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers, and then converting those conversations, backed up by real budget numbers, into a national consensus. LOSE THE ADVISORS, lead the arguments among us, of, by, and for We the People. THAT is how you lead this country.
Kudos to the author of this great book for timeliness, relevance, and elegance.
Ron Paul + Jesse Ventura = Critical Mass, April 21, 2008
Ron Paul
Ron Paul excels at the Constitutional fundamentals: individual liberty, sound money, and non-interventionist foreign policies. Although I am dismayed by his unwillingess to play well with others (Ralph Nader has the same problem, Jesse Ventura does not), and he does not have a strategy for governance as much as a laundry list of non-negotiable starting points, he is still, for me as an estranged moderate Republican, an inspiration for breaking with the two-party spoils system.
This is an eloquent book in which he draws with extreme care from the thoughts of others, always attributed in the text, and provides a series of arguments that do not call for the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney, but certainly do call for the impeachment of the complicit Congress. Three books in particular support his angry denunciation of how Congress–both Republican and Democratic–has allowed the Executive to attack our civil liberties, sustain executive warmaking never intended by the Founding Fathers, and precipitated an unprecedented financial crisis. Congress standing still for “signing statements” [and I would add, for morons like Gonzalez that give all Latinos a bad name], is the last straw.
He cites Michael Scheuer with admiration, and as I am one of the very few to notice this in my reviews of Scheuer's books, I am delighted that he validates Scheuer's basic view, to wit, Bin Laden and terrorism against America are motivated by *our* presence in Saudi Arabia, our foreign behavior, our unilateral militarism, virtual colonialism, and so on.
He suggests that it was the Clinton Administration that first set the course on Iraq, being too willing to listen to lobbyists for Israel. Of course it was Cheney and Rumsfeld that gave Sadaam Hussein the WMD as–as the joke goes–kept the receipts.
He is very specific on Iran not being a nuclear threat to the USA (and in other writing, e.g. our weekly GLOBAL CHALLENGES report from the Earth Intelligence Network, we note that all the oil states are going nuclear as fast as they can).
He labels the neoconservatives as false conservatives.
At this point in my notes I have written “This is an original work rife with learned quotations from other scholars and practitioners.”
Halfway through the volume he takes issue with those who call for a “living” Constitution, and pointedly says that this would equate to a dead and worthless Constitution. Later in the book, but it goes beautifully here, he writes that the Constitution was intended to restrain government, not citizens.
He is also against the draft and income taxes, both of which suggest people are property of government and can therefore be forced into labor. As he states, “young people are not raw material” for the government to play with.
He cites former Comptroller General David Walker with admiration. Walker told Congress in the summer of 2007 that the USA is insolvent, and they ignored him. Today Walker runs the Peter Peterson Foundation and his mission is to educate citizens on their own governments high crimes and misdemeanors in the economic and financial arena.
He shares my view that the Federal Reserve should not exist and manufactures credit out of thin air, one reason we will see more credit bubbles.
He ends by pointing out that the Patriot Act not only violates all our liberties, but was unnecessary because the USG had all the information it needed in advance of 9-11 was was in his words, inept. I disagree. I am fairly certain Dick Cheney received nine different warnings, including from Pakistan and Israel, and he arranged an exercise so he could control the government and let it happen. I think Larry Silverstein, with Bush family assistance, planted controlled demolitions to get rid of his asbestos problem at tax payer expense, and I think Rudy Guliani should be indicted for his role in “scooping and dumping” fire fighter bodies in his rush to destroy the crime scene. See, among many other excellent books and videos, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, First Edition
He favors the legalization of marijuana and is opposed to attention deficit and other drugs being prescribed to children without adequate testing. I put the book down wishing that Gary Hart, Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, Michael Bloomberg, Jesse Ventura, and Ron Paul could have formed a new party, the Constitutional Party, and cleaned house. I have lost all respect for Bill Bradley–he sold out to the Trilateral Commission and greed (as did Al Gore). See Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate
John McCain is walking a tightrope. In my view, if McCain can form a Transpartisan Cabinet now–even if only a transitional one–and get David Walker and Ron Paul to lead the group in creating a balanced budget that wipes out the national debt and begins pulling back from all our overseas bases, especially the secret ones that are not worth the outrageous $60 billion a year we pay for the 4% we can steal and not process), then I think it is possible some good may come from this election. Otherwise, it is just four more years, and we MUST create a new political party.
The Real Deal–He Should Campaign on Substance in 2008, April 20, 2008
Jesse Ventura
This is my first Jesse Ventura book and I am deeply impressed. This man is the real deal, honest, straight-up, with plenty of common sense. His ideal running mate is not John McCain or Robert Kennedy Jr. but rather the star of The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen. I would gladly serve these solid citizens in a staff capacity.
+ Reform Party was bogus, Perot let his ego run away with his brain
+ Buchanan hijacked the Reform Party and looted its treasury to pay off his old campaign debts
+ Both political parties are gangs
+ Organized religion is a business milking people like cows for their milk (money)
+ Down on NAFTA
+ Bush-Cheney passing federal laws that prevent states from protecting their own citizens properly from corporate predation
+ 9/11 Commission a cover-up, just as the Warren Commission was–government lies to the people (e.g. Gulf of Tonkin incident, simply cannot be trusted
+ CIA has embedded case officers within state and local governments
+ Positive on Ralph Nader as an honest person bringing up issues the two criminal parties will not raise
+ Properly faults Bush-Cheney for ignoring intelligence and privatizing war while bankrupting the Nation—if not impeachable, should at least be commitable to an insane asylum (see my lists on impeachment and holding Dick Cheney accountable, at least take a look at Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
+ There IS a ruling class, not sure of its composition, we have to take the country back from them
+ Electoral college is long overdue for termination.
+ O'Reilly, all of those talking heads are scripted, media is about generating cash through entertainment, not about informing the citizenry
+ FCC fines broadcasters and others but they are appointed, not elected, and not accountable for their subjective definition of what is obscene
+ “Revisionist history troubles me deeply.” page 265. This is the point where I decide this guy is a serious and qualified candidate to be our president.
+ 27 years of Bushes and Clintons, time for an independent party nominee to win and lead
+ National Guard should stay home.
+ Citing Mussolini, fascism is the marriage of corporations and religion. We have that here, now.
+ Need term limits on reporters, not just politicians. Reflects a profound disdain for Minnesota reporters.
It's a real shame Ralph Nader does not play well with others. I'm going to get in touch with Jesse Ventura and urge him to form a Transpartisan Sunshine Cabinet that can create a balanced budget by the 4th of July 2008. He does not have to run for President, all he has to do is set the standard by which we can judge the fradulence of “the system” candidates. For those enchanted by Barack Obama, as I was until I saw his dishonest advisors, see Obama – The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate.
