random recent thoughts
this week has been spent catching up on all the work that i am so far behind on. today will serve as a long workday as well. my errands have just been piling up and i owe so many people a phone call and/or letters. sorry, i am a bad friend.
the boston red sox are world champions. that’s simply amazing and there is so much more i could say about that but in the interest of keeping this shorter i will refrain from doing so. not to mention the fact that it’s likely nobody cares to hear my thoughts on that.
the other night i went to the against me, blood brothers show in dc. while i thought the blood brothers were good, they played for 45 minutes and by the end of it i was so annoyed with them that i wouldn’t buy their new cd. could this represent a pivotal moment in a turn away from the screamy crap?
now for the main two reasons i decided to update:
i went to the show with amanda and my friend konstantin, who is here for the year from bremen, germany. konstantin has lots of contacts and was able to get us on the guest list and the people at fat wreck chords told him we could interview against me before the show. so we get there and talk to warren (the drummer) and he said no problem he would talk to the guys to see which of them wanted to be involved but that as headliners it would probably be easier for them to just do it after the show. we were cool with that. after the show warren said that a bunch of people they went to high school with showed up and that the only member who really had any time was andrew (their bass player) and warren didn’t know where he went. he was very apologetic and said we could wait around if we liked til andrew turned up. but we had been hoping to get at least two of them so i mentioned that we would be at the nov. 11th show with the bouncing souls in baltimore. he then got real excited and said, well we aren’t headlining that show, we would have plenty of time then! so he took our contact info and said he would put us on the guest list for that show and they would plan to do the interview then. how sweet is that? to be on against me’s guest list twice in two weeks plus a guaranteed interview? mad rad. you know it.
i’ll use a cut for the rest because this is already long.
with the elction less than a week away i have been thinking more and more about my decision to vote for john kerry. in 2000 i never would have thought about voting for al gore. i was nader/laduke without a question and i wore the pins, put up stickers, told people about nader etc. in an affort to help him gain recognition. in 2004, we are obviously in a different situation. but does it justify voting for john kerry? first let me address my issues with bush.
george w bush is the worst thing for the country (and the world) in my life time. the bush administration uses fear as a means of coercing people into forfeiting their rights for security. the bush administration has exploited september 11th the sickest extreme in causing a sense of fear under false pretenses so they are able to manipulate the public in an easier fashion (tell them there are signs of an imminent terrorist attack and we can keep them from going anywhere or doing anything including questioning provisions in the patriot act that allow the government to do whatever it wants like ignore the rights of citizens provided by the first, fifth, six and seventh ammendments. i, for one, do not believe that bush has done anything to make this country safer than it was september 10th 2001.
sure, they have launched a war on terror but what has it accomplished? osama bin laden, the one who is responsible for organizing the spetember 11th attacks is still free. but hey, we got saddam! shh…never mind that its illegal to invade a sovereign country for our own purposes. more than 1000 u.s. soldiers have died fighting an unjustified war in iraq solely for the benefit of george bush and his friends. the two biggest successes from iraq?
1. oil flows more readily into the pockets of dick cheney and george h. w. bush (bush sr. to many) as well as many other millionaires and billionaires. aren’t we so glad about that? isn’t it so nice that gas prices have more than doubled in less than five years? when i began driving, fewer than five years ago, i could get gas for less than a dollar a gallon; now it is not uncommon to pay more than two dollars for that same gallon.
2. people are so distracted by iraq that they forget about osama bin laden (this is beginning to change as people are slowly beginning to realize we fucked up going to iraq).
saddam may not be in power but the fact is that he was never a threat to the united states. his best missiles were only accurate at ranges up to sixty miles. he had no capability of obtaining nuclear weapons. none of us are safer today because he was removed from power. but hey! thousands of innocent iraqi people are dead! oh wait, that could make us less safe. in afghanistan, we killed lots of al-queda operatives. unfortunately, for the most part they were low-level operatives and the number of those killed were far exceeded by the number of innocent civilians killed. so are we safer?
no, we are not. perhaps currently, al-queda is preoccupied with hiding from the us troops searching desperatly for bin laden (to capture or kill him as a means of propaganda so bush will win the election) and they are unable to plan attacks on the untied states the way they could before. perhaps currently, there are fewer terorrists because our soldiers have been overworked and placed in dangerous situations to kill them but what about the future? shouldn’t that matter more?
how about ten years from now? does anyone believe terror will be defeated and in 2014 there will be no more terrorists in the world? once the fervor, the anger we felt after september 11th has subsided even more than it has in the past three years? i believe there will be more terrorists. a generation of middle easterners are watching as the u.s. military kills innocent civilians in a “war” (but not really a war because the u.s. has not declared war since december 1941) that was unjustified. and they are keeping count in afghanistan where dead innocent civilians far outnumbered the dead of september 11th three months after we began the military effort in afghanistan. what i am getting at is that the actions implemented by the bush administration are going to result in a fresh wave of more fervent terrorists who resent the us for what bush is currently doing. not to mention that as the military is stretched thinner and sent to occupy iraq (which is different than fighting a war and hence requires different training and more people) with insufficeint numbers and insuffcient resources (ie food and body armor) people see this and joining the military becomes less desirable, fewer people sign up and the army is stretched thinner, in the end making us weaker as a world power.
that’s just my views on bush with terrorism, i won’t even go into his stances of the environment, abortion, gay rights, tax breaks etc. because those are issues where lots of people differ. but our safety and the fact that we were deceived by the government and now we are less safe because of it is something everyone should feel the same about. does it make sense to feel good that you were lied to?
but does this all mean that john kerry deserves my vote simply because he is the more liberal of the two candidates? at first i thought it did but the more i think about it the less i think that he does. i would prefer john kerry win the election on tuesday but i would prefer not to vote for him just as much. unfortunately, i realize that kerry cannot win without lots of people voting for him and i have never bene one to advise people to do one thing and myself do another. meaning, i shouldn’t tell other people why they should vote for kerry and me vote for nader simply to keep a clear conscience knowing i voted for the candidate i agree with the most. but if i tell people why they should vote for nader, that could hurt kerry’s chances especially since i am in a swing state (pa).
initially, i was mad at ralph nader for petitioning for a spot on the ballot when it is so critical to remove bush from office. but i have since realized that i was unconsciously being sucked into the center and cleared my thoughts and began to exercise critical thinking again and i now feel it is his right to be on the ballot and it is the public’s right to have more choices.
kerry does not deserve my vote simply for being the lesser of two evils or the more liberal of the two with a shot at winning. he doesn’t deserve yours either on that reason alone. he should have to earn your vote. also check out http://www.votepact.com to see how you can vote for whomever you want and not have it endanger kerry’s chances of winning.
third party votes are not wasted votes and voting for nader is not voting for bush if you never would have voted for kerry in the first place. the election is an open election, if you wanted to vote for nader and he isn’t on the ballot you are allowed to write him in you can also write in lacy peterson if you want. how many people are going to go into the booth with the intent to vote kerry and become distracted and then vote nader? a lot of people who are voting nader were either voting nader or not voting. that is not a vote for bush especially if it happens in a state that is easily republican or democrat…and it only matters if the electoral votes go to bush because people voted for a third party candidate. so often, people think they can say gore lost this state by 1,700 votes. 2,000 people voted for nader. nader stole 2,000 votes from gore. that is not the case if those people were not gore supporters in the first place. lots of them may not have voted for him even if nader wasn’t running.
so often, you hear that voting third party is throwing your vote away. it is not that at all. it is a form of protest. you may know you are voting for someone who is not going to win but the point of an election is not to vote for someone who is going to win it is to vote for the person you would like to win. when you cast a vote for a third party you are sending a message that their views matter to you more than the other candidates because the main two are all too similar.
i still take issue with ralph nader’s decision to appear on the ballot as the reform party candidate in some states. as some of you may know, the votes that each party gets can translate into federal help in financing that party’s next campaign. in 2000, the conservative, xenophobic pat robertson was the reform aprty candidate. i feel the reform party helped nader get on the ballot to detract from kerry’s votes (in battleground states like florida where it does matter) and in return nader is helping them gain votes which could translate into funding for the reform party which is likely to endorse another candidate like pat robertson next time aorund. in maryland, as in other states, however, nader revived the populist party and will appear on the ballot as the populist party candidate. but hey, perhaps this year he will benefit from poorly designed ballots as people unintentionally cast votes for him since he will be in the reform slot in some states ha ha.
whatever you do, just make sure you vote, you know who you are voting for, and know why you are doing what you chose.
thank you for taking the time to read this. i cut it short because this is the second time i wrote this since my browser shuts down whenever it feels like it.
oh btw, did anyone hear about the guy in florida yesterday who tried to run down katherine harris who in 2000 was the florida secretary of state and head of like florida citizens to elect bush who put an end to the recounts of the ballots (funny conflicts of interest?). anyway she stepped down to run for senate this year and she was campaigning with supporters yesterday and some guy tried to run her down with his car hahahah
the boston red sox are world champions. that’s simply amazing and there is so much more i could say about that but in the interest of keeping this shorter i will refrain from doing so. not to mention the fact that it’s likely nobody cares to hear my thoughts on that.
the other night i went to the against me, blood brothers show in dc. while i thought the blood brothers were good, they played for 45 minutes and by the end of it i was so annoyed with them that i wouldn’t buy their new cd. could this represent a pivotal moment in a turn away from the screamy crap?
now for the main two reasons i decided to update:
i went to the show with amanda and my friend konstantin, who is here for the year from bremen, germany. konstantin has lots of contacts and was able to get us on the guest list and the people at fat wreck chords told him we could interview against me before the show. so we get there and talk to warren (the drummer) and he said no problem he would talk to the guys to see which of them wanted to be involved but that as headliners it would probably be easier for them to just do it after the show. we were cool with that. after the show warren said that a bunch of people they went to high school with showed up and that the only member who really had any time was andrew (their bass player) and warren didn’t know where he went. he was very apologetic and said we could wait around if we liked til andrew turned up. but we had been hoping to get at least two of them so i mentioned that we would be at the nov. 11th show with the bouncing souls in baltimore. he then got real excited and said, well we aren’t headlining that show, we would have plenty of time then! so he took our contact info and said he would put us on the guest list for that show and they would plan to do the interview then. how sweet is that? to be on against me’s guest list twice in two weeks plus a guaranteed interview? mad rad. you know it.
i’ll use a cut for the rest because this is already long.
with the elction less than a week away i have been thinking more and more about my decision to vote for john kerry. in 2000 i never would have thought about voting for al gore. i was nader/laduke without a question and i wore the pins, put up stickers, told people about nader etc. in an affort to help him gain recognition. in 2004, we are obviously in a different situation. but does it justify voting for john kerry? first let me address my issues with bush.
george w bush is the worst thing for the country (and the world) in my life time. the bush administration uses fear as a means of coercing people into forfeiting their rights for security. the bush administration has exploited september 11th the sickest extreme in causing a sense of fear under false pretenses so they are able to manipulate the public in an easier fashion (tell them there are signs of an imminent terrorist attack and we can keep them from going anywhere or doing anything including questioning provisions in the patriot act that allow the government to do whatever it wants like ignore the rights of citizens provided by the first, fifth, six and seventh ammendments. i, for one, do not believe that bush has done anything to make this country safer than it was september 10th 2001.
sure, they have launched a war on terror but what has it accomplished? osama bin laden, the one who is responsible for organizing the spetember 11th attacks is still free. but hey, we got saddam! shh…never mind that its illegal to invade a sovereign country for our own purposes. more than 1000 u.s. soldiers have died fighting an unjustified war in iraq solely for the benefit of george bush and his friends. the two biggest successes from iraq?
1. oil flows more readily into the pockets of dick cheney and george h. w. bush (bush sr. to many) as well as many other millionaires and billionaires. aren’t we so glad about that? isn’t it so nice that gas prices have more than doubled in less than five years? when i began driving, fewer than five years ago, i could get gas for less than a dollar a gallon; now it is not uncommon to pay more than two dollars for that same gallon.
2. people are so distracted by iraq that they forget about osama bin laden (this is beginning to change as people are slowly beginning to realize we fucked up going to iraq).
saddam may not be in power but the fact is that he was never a threat to the united states. his best missiles were only accurate at ranges up to sixty miles. he had no capability of obtaining nuclear weapons. none of us are safer today because he was removed from power. but hey! thousands of innocent iraqi people are dead! oh wait, that could make us less safe. in afghanistan, we killed lots of al-queda operatives. unfortunately, for the most part they were low-level operatives and the number of those killed were far exceeded by the number of innocent civilians killed. so are we safer?
no, we are not. perhaps currently, al-queda is preoccupied with hiding from the us troops searching desperatly for bin laden (to capture or kill him as a means of propaganda so bush will win the election) and they are unable to plan attacks on the untied states the way they could before. perhaps currently, there are fewer terorrists because our soldiers have been overworked and placed in dangerous situations to kill them but what about the future? shouldn’t that matter more?
how about ten years from now? does anyone believe terror will be defeated and in 2014 there will be no more terrorists in the world? once the fervor, the anger we felt after september 11th has subsided even more than it has in the past three years? i believe there will be more terrorists. a generation of middle easterners are watching as the u.s. military kills innocent civilians in a “war” (but not really a war because the u.s. has not declared war since december 1941) that was unjustified. and they are keeping count in afghanistan where dead innocent civilians far outnumbered the dead of september 11th three months after we began the military effort in afghanistan. what i am getting at is that the actions implemented by the bush administration are going to result in a fresh wave of more fervent terrorists who resent the us for what bush is currently doing. not to mention that as the military is stretched thinner and sent to occupy iraq (which is different than fighting a war and hence requires different training and more people) with insufficeint numbers and insuffcient resources (ie food and body armor) people see this and joining the military becomes less desirable, fewer people sign up and the army is stretched thinner, in the end making us weaker as a world power.
that’s just my views on bush with terrorism, i won’t even go into his stances of the environment, abortion, gay rights, tax breaks etc. because those are issues where lots of people differ. but our safety and the fact that we were deceived by the government and now we are less safe because of it is something everyone should feel the same about. does it make sense to feel good that you were lied to?
but does this all mean that john kerry deserves my vote simply because he is the more liberal of the two candidates? at first i thought it did but the more i think about it the less i think that he does. i would prefer john kerry win the election on tuesday but i would prefer not to vote for him just as much. unfortunately, i realize that kerry cannot win without lots of people voting for him and i have never bene one to advise people to do one thing and myself do another. meaning, i shouldn’t tell other people why they should vote for kerry and me vote for nader simply to keep a clear conscience knowing i voted for the candidate i agree with the most. but if i tell people why they should vote for nader, that could hurt kerry’s chances especially since i am in a swing state (pa).
initially, i was mad at ralph nader for petitioning for a spot on the ballot when it is so critical to remove bush from office. but i have since realized that i was unconsciously being sucked into the center and cleared my thoughts and began to exercise critical thinking again and i now feel it is his right to be on the ballot and it is the public’s right to have more choices.
kerry does not deserve my vote simply for being the lesser of two evils or the more liberal of the two with a shot at winning. he doesn’t deserve yours either on that reason alone. he should have to earn your vote. also check out http://www.votepact.com to see how you can vote for whomever you want and not have it endanger kerry’s chances of winning.
third party votes are not wasted votes and voting for nader is not voting for bush if you never would have voted for kerry in the first place. the election is an open election, if you wanted to vote for nader and he isn’t on the ballot you are allowed to write him in you can also write in lacy peterson if you want. how many people are going to go into the booth with the intent to vote kerry and become distracted and then vote nader? a lot of people who are voting nader were either voting nader or not voting. that is not a vote for bush especially if it happens in a state that is easily republican or democrat…and it only matters if the electoral votes go to bush because people voted for a third party candidate. so often, people think they can say gore lost this state by 1,700 votes. 2,000 people voted for nader. nader stole 2,000 votes from gore. that is not the case if those people were not gore supporters in the first place. lots of them may not have voted for him even if nader wasn’t running.
so often, you hear that voting third party is throwing your vote away. it is not that at all. it is a form of protest. you may know you are voting for someone who is not going to win but the point of an election is not to vote for someone who is going to win it is to vote for the person you would like to win. when you cast a vote for a third party you are sending a message that their views matter to you more than the other candidates because the main two are all too similar.
i still take issue with ralph nader’s decision to appear on the ballot as the reform party candidate in some states. as some of you may know, the votes that each party gets can translate into federal help in financing that party’s next campaign. in 2000, the conservative, xenophobic pat robertson was the reform aprty candidate. i feel the reform party helped nader get on the ballot to detract from kerry’s votes (in battleground states like florida where it does matter) and in return nader is helping them gain votes which could translate into funding for the reform party which is likely to endorse another candidate like pat robertson next time aorund. in maryland, as in other states, however, nader revived the populist party and will appear on the ballot as the populist party candidate. but hey, perhaps this year he will benefit from poorly designed ballots as people unintentionally cast votes for him since he will be in the reform slot in some states ha ha.
whatever you do, just make sure you vote, you know who you are voting for, and know why you are doing what you chose.
thank you for taking the time to read this. i cut it short because this is the second time i wrote this since my browser shuts down whenever it feels like it.
oh btw, did anyone hear about the guy in florida yesterday who tried to run down katherine harris who in 2000 was the florida secretary of state and head of like florida citizens to elect bush who put an end to the recounts of the ballots (funny conflicts of interest?). anyway she stepped down to run for senate this year and she was campaigning with supporters yesterday and some guy tried to run her down with his car hahahah