Politics
Election day is on Tuesday as all of you know, and this is likely going to be one of the most important and closest elections of all time.
Below is a response I gave my mother to an e-mail she sent me. You can read the original by all the > marks. As a note, my parents are moderate Republicans. They are also both very intelligent and extremely open minded. I debate with my father constantly on politics, and I feel I have only beaten him once, he has beaten me a good 30-40 times. I would be very interested to see how some of my more bleedingly liberal ::cough, Reineke, cough:: friends would fair in a debate with him =P Anyway, attack the article all you want, but leave my parents and their views out of it ;P
Anyway, if you for some odd reason ever wondered what I thought of the Iraq war / election, here it is.
Mom,
I'm glad to see you are urging us all to take this election as seriously as possible. I'm actually quite excited about it myself, and realize that the country is more charged about an election than it probably has been since 1860, and that even with the importance of that election, that this one is even more alarming due to how close it is. Sadly, it will not be close in Georgia, but that does not mean it is any less important.
I must still remind you, as I remind dad all the time, I am not a liberal. I just happen to not be a conservative either, and I have many moral objections to George W Bush. I supported his father, and of what I've read about Reagan, I support him as well. McCain is the only person within the last two election's pool of candidates that I thought could possibly do a good job as President. And as liberal as he may be, he is still a Republican. The Rainbow Push / Christian Coalition did a good job of preventing him of ever reaching presidential status though. I hope he runs in 2008.
As for the article itself, I admire the sincerity of the journalist, as well as many of the points he makes. However, I feel his message is rather misguided and a good bit alarmist to the point of irrationality. I'll go through it and make points along the way.
> Dearest Family,
>
> I'm sure it will shock you to get something like
> this from me. J Please do not be upset with me if
> your heart lies else where. I usually don't push
> politics, but I'm scared to death that the terrorist
> will be all over us if we pull back now. Please
> consider what this article says before you vote next
> week.
>
> Much love,
>
> Ronnie
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Mike Lichter [mailto:aimm@mindspring.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 10:43 AM
> To: 1
> Subject: A Good Read
>
>
>
> An excellent article....
>
> Subject: Election Determines The Fate Of Our Nation
> (M.Manweller)
>
> From The Daily Record (Ellensburg's paper)
> Wed. Oct. 6, 2004.
> (It was written by Mathew Manweller, a Central
> Washington University
> political science professor.)
>
> "This Election Determines The Fate of our Nation."
>
> "In that this will be my last column before the
> presidential election there
> will be no sarcasm, no attempts at witty repartee.
> The topic is too
> serious, and the stakes are too high. This November
> we will vote in the
> only election during our lifetime that will truly
> matter.
>
> Because America is at a once-in-a-generation
> crossroads, more than an
> election hangs in the balance. Down one path lies
> retreat, abdication
> and a reign of ambivalence. Down the other lies a
> nation that is aware
> of its past and accepts the daunting obligation its
> future demands. If
> we choose poorly, the consequences will echo through
> the next 50 years
> of history.
>
> If we, in a spasm of frustration, turn out the
> current occupant of the
> White House, the message to the world and ourselves
> will be twofold.
>
> First, we will reject the notion that America can do
> big things. Once a
> nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis
> and stood upon the
> moon, we will announce to the world that bringing
> democracy to the
> Middle East is too big of a task for us.
Okay, wait a second. First off, I love how one of our "big (=great)" things was "taming a frontier." Or, in other words, slaughtering hundreds of other civilizations who had already been living here for over 11,000 years (a little longer than the Greeks eh?) Yeah, we sure tamed a frontier alright, by instituting mass genocide and relocating entire populations whose way of life frankly seemed to work a little better with their surroundings than our own (even if they did not have as advanced instruments of war as Europeans did). Read up a story about the atrocities of DeSoto to see just how barbaric Europeans were in the so called “frontier”. Remember Andrew Jackson? Remember the Seminoles and the Cherokee? yeah, real American Hero.
As for the Nazis, yes, that along with WWI pretty much changed us from a Canada to a superpower. However, the Nazis were also an invading force with a tangible overt center. The closest thing I can compare the insurgents in Iraq to would frankly be Americans themselves in the revolutionary war. By this I mean there is a foreign power that is drastically superior to the other side (insurgents), at the same time the only manner of attack that seems effective for the insurgents is basically to blend in with civilians, then sneak up on American forces and attack, and then hide away again (kind of like American forces picking off the redcoats). Obviously, we see the early Americans as liberators, and see the insurgents as terrorists, but I'd imagine they have a pretty flipped view of things themselves. What I'm getting at is that this is not comparable pretty much at all to WWII. If it were, then things would be grand after the fall of Saddam, but due to many really atrocious mistakes on Bush's part, things are not hunkey dory. Had someone else invaded/deposed Iraq, I honestly think things would be different now and we wouldn't be losing thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
Second, I fail to see why the election of Kerry means that America is incapable of doing big things. I personally feel that Bush's ideas of how to run a war are horribly flawed and very ineffective. We were lucky they worked well enough in Afghanistan. We were not lucky in Iraq. Bush ran through Iraq trying to blitzkrieg their military without an effective way of stabilizing the power immediately afterwards. The result was for the most part total chaos. What the heck did he think was going to happen? Frankly, I think his entire Iraq campaign is just because he was mad about Saddam trying to kill his father.
I agree with Kerry in that Bush took the focus of the war on terror off it's correct target, Osama Bin Laden, to go after Saddam, who never had solid evidence of being tied to the 9/11 attacks. Bush took what appears to be atrocious intelligence, told the world to go f itself and that America wouldn't need it to take care of measly Iraq, ran in, bribed entire divisions of the Iraqi army to surrender, and then as soon as America had troops fortified in Baghdad, he declared that the war was over. Now, I'm not a military strategist, but what do you see wrong here?! This seems like the most retarded way to try to conquer a country effectively imaginable. Of course it caused chaos! We disbanded their entire defense system, we allowed people to ransack their core governmental institutions, not to mention their priceless and irreplaceable artifacts and cultural treasures from the cradle of civilization. Now we've just learned that because Bush rushed into Baghdad so quickly, the military was unable to secure 350 TONS of plastic explosives? What?! That’s over twelve dump trucks full of the stuff. How could the let that happen? I’m surprised some insurgent hasn’t been able to steal a Blackhawk, or an Abrams tank! Not to mention the reports from the investigation on the war that show how little of a threat Iraq was before the war, and how they were years away from being able to produce any non-conventional weapons. It's very easy to say that hindsight is 20/20, but considering how wonderful and great and omnipotent the USA is, it's intelligence better be pretty close to 20/20 before they decide to send hundreds of thousands of US troops (including 1,106 to their death so far) to some poor desert country just because junior has a vendetta with a tyrant in a bullet proof fedora. (Oh, and the death toll of Iraqis is apparently around 100,000 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Death-Toll.html)
The journalist’s statement that “the Middle East is too big of a task for us” is highly misleading. That builds entirely on the assumption that 1) Bush is capable of winning in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East to begin with, and 2) that Kerry will pull all our troops out of Iraq and allow another Iran fiasco. Both of which I feel are inherently false. If you’ve listened to Kerry during the debates, or read any of his other material he has no intention of pulling out of Iraq or allowing the regime to fail and become a terrorist state. The following is quoted from Kerry through the AJC’s election comparison of Bush vs. Kerry (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/todaysissue.html#iraqfuture) involving the question of what our long term goal for Iraq should be:
“We can get the Iraqi people and the world's major powers invested with us in building Iraq's future. This administration has made countless mistakes that have complicated our mission and jeopardized our objective of a stable, free Iraq with a representative government, secure in its borders. We may have differences about how we went into Iraq, but we do not have the choice just to pick up and leave - and leave behind a failed state and a new haven for terrorists."
This is not an issue that Kerry can just lie about and get away with. Consistently he has stated that he is not going to allow Iraq to fail. He has said that his goal is to minimize the negative effect the future of the war has on Americans, but that statement is always followed by trying to recreate multilateral ties through the global community and allow the burden of rebuilding Iraq to fall on others shoulders as well as Americans.
Okay, more article…
>
> But more significantly, we will signal to future
> presidents that as
> voters, we are unwilling to tackle difficult
> challenges, preferring
> caution to boldness,
um…. Unwilling to tackle difficult challenges? I don’t think very many people voting for Kerry feel that they’d like to avoid difficult challenges. I personally don’t think Bush is capable of dealing with difficult challenges, and fear what could possibly happen if the currently massively escalated event in the middle east isn’t brought under some semblance of control. The US military is so pulled tight right now that we are highly vulnerable. What would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon on Los Angeles or Tokyo? What could we do? That scares me to death. I soundly do not think that Bush would be able to hold on to Iraq and deal with any other form of aggression, including one focused on our mainland.
And as for “caution to boldness” there is a fine line between boldness, and idiocy.
> embracing the mediocrity that
> has characterized
> other civilizations.
Typical American “we are the best” propaganda bullshit
> The defeat of President Bush
> will send a chilling
> message to future presidents who may need to make
> difficult, yet
> unpopular decisions.
Again, the fact that we are in Iraq is not the reason most Americans are upset with Bush. When we were first at war, he had a 70% approval rating (NYT/CBS News Poll). It remained above 50% for a full year after the start of the war. Not until scores of soldiers were being killed every day because our limited number of troops in an atrociously unsecured Iraq did Americans begin to be scared at how Bush is treating the conflict.
Besides, Bush’s father gives a much better message of what happens when you make an unpopular decision with his tax increase in his fourth year in office. His popularity after the Persian Gulf war was incredibly high (something like 90% if I remember correctly), and he is then forced to make a very unpopular decision, and plummets in popularity and loses to Clinton. Of course if a president makes an unpopular decision it’s going to be reflected in the polls. This election is no different than any other in that regard.
>
> America has always been a nation that rises to the
> demands of history,
> regardless of the costs or appeal. If we turn away
> from that legacy, we
> turn away from who we are.
>
Actually, America was highly isolationalist until we were “forced” into WWII. We have only been a “superpower” for 60 or so years. It also might be prudent to point out that apparently the cost of Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, and other smaller conveniently forgotten lost battles were actually to high a cost or appeal for America to rise to the demand of history.
> Second, we inform every terrorist organization on
> the globe that the
> lesson
> of Somalia was well learned. In Somalia we showed
> terrorists that you
> don't
> need to defeat America on the battlefield when you
> can defeat them in
> the
> newsroom. They learned that a wounded America can
> become a defeated
> America. Twenty-four-hour news stations and daily
> tracing polls will do
> the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow.
> Except that Iraq is
> Somalia times 10.
>
Doesn’t this defeat what he just said?
> The election of John Kerry will serve notice to
> every terrorist in every
> cave that the soft underbelly of American power is
> the timidity of
> American
> voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of
> grisly photos for
> CNN is all you need to break the will of the
> American people. Our own
> self-doubt will take it from there. Bin Laden will
> recognize that he can
> topple any American administration without setting
> foot on the homeland.
That’s funny… I didn’t realize that the election of Kerry would lead to Socialism, or some other coup d’etat. In all seriousness, this again solely rests on the assumption that Kerry will pull out and twiddle his thumbs. If Bush loses this week, it will have almost nothing to do with Bin Laden’s efforts; it will rest solely on his poor decision making ability, and his ineptitude as commander in chief.
> It is said that America's W.W.II generation is its
> 'greatest
> generation.'
>
> But my greatest fear is that it will become known as
> America's "last
> generation." Born in the bleakness of the Great
> Depression and hardened
> in
> the fire of WW II, they may be the last American
> generation that
> understands the meaning of duty, honor and
> sacrifice.
>
Give me a break. This sounds like an evangical sermon! Anyone who has ever been in the military should be insulted at such a statement. What a close minded apocalyptic “carpe diem” load of hogwash intended to scare people into blindly following someone who follows his convictions so stubbornly that he continues making the same mistakes repeatedly, instead of looking at his tactics and adjusting them when he’s wrong.
> It is difficult to admit, but I know these terms are
> spoken with only
> hollow detachment by many (but not all) in my
> generation. Too many
> citizens today mistake 'living in America' as 'being
> an American.' But
> America has always been more of an idea than a
> place. When you sign on,
> you do more than buy real estate. You accept a set
> of values and
> responsibilities.
>
Remember kids, Pride is a deadly sin! It is paramount that we hold true the ideals of our country. However, assuming the USA is perfect and golden is just naïve. Forcing our ideology down the throats of a volatile region using the muzzles of our automatic rifles for the sake of “making our generation great” is Not the way to do things.
> This November, my generation, which has been absent
> too long, must grasp
> the obligation that comes with being an American, or
> fade into the
> oblivion they may deserve. I believe that 100 years
> from now historians
> will look back at the election of 2004 and see it as
> the decisive
> election of our century.
>
> Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as
> the moment America
> joined the ranks of ordinary nations;
That statement is ridiculous.
> or they will
> describe it as the
> moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the
> greatest generation
> accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on
> the Hill."
>
> Mathew Manweller
I understand that he is very passionate about the subject he writes about, and that he needs to be passionate in order to sway apathetic people into action, but still I read through this article and could not help but see his close minded and alarmist views. I admit that several of the statements above (though not most of the giant section towards the top) have a lot of sarcastic humor, as well as just bashing down a couple of the things he said because I thought they were silly. All the same, how can you guys take this article and display it as a strong reason to vote for Bush? It’s not factual, nor is it analytical. Virtually every ‘fear’ he outlines above I can easily take and turn it around on Bush if I really wanted to. In every case I should point out though, that none of these views are liberal (or conservative) in nature. They are against W himself. I personally think he is highly under qualified for the position, and that his tiny intellect could very well cause nuclear winter within the next four years. I honestly think I am considerably more intelligent than the president of our country. I think all of you are as well. That’s not right. The leader of the United States should be the best, smartest, most cunning, and most charismatic leader that our country can muster. But instead, we have this evangical moron who the RNC decided should lead the country, most likely because he was able to associate with the average American.
I’m fed up with our election system, with the way our government functions. It may not be as corrupt as the monarchies of Europe in the 1700s, or the dictatorships of the present, but it is Way far from perfect. Everyone assumes that the current way is the way it’s always been, when if you actually look at history, the political process in America is ever changing. There is a cycle of political parties that changes every 30 years or so. We learned about it in Poly Sci. It has repeated a good 5 or 6 times in a relatively tight pattern. The last time it changed was in the 60s with civil rights. It’s overdue for a change now. Our political system has Got to change, we are on a path of apathy and mindlessness; where the multi-billion dollar corporations get what they want through controlling the political parties and their candidates. My generation’s children will suffer due to the decision of yours to allow bloated oligopolies to create legal loopholes so they can save money at the sake of the safety of humanity and the environment. Mr. Manweller thinks that if we fail in Iraq that we will join the ranks of all the other mediocre societies? While that does seem the most important issue to resolve at the moment, our great mass and potential to destroy the world, or save it will forever keep us from being a mediocre society. It’s our job to be able to look at the whole picture, the long term results, and decide what is truly in our best interest. Not for the sake of the American Ideology, but for the sake of all of humanity.
For the love of this nation, look beyond the dilapidated political parties and look at both candidates. Examine where they stand as individuals; examine what has happened in the past four years. If you honestly think that Bush is more capable than Kerry at steering us out of this catastrophe, then by all means vote for him. While articles like this are great for starting the inertia of the voting populous, they are also very dangerous and should be only used to motivate people to find out the facts about either candidate. You’ll have no worries of me not having my “voter” sticker on Tuesday.
-John
Below is a response I gave my mother to an e-mail she sent me. You can read the original by all the > marks. As a note, my parents are moderate Republicans. They are also both very intelligent and extremely open minded. I debate with my father constantly on politics, and I feel I have only beaten him once, he has beaten me a good 30-40 times. I would be very interested to see how some of my more bleedingly liberal ::cough, Reineke, cough:: friends would fair in a debate with him =P Anyway, attack the article all you want, but leave my parents and their views out of it ;P
Anyway, if you for some odd reason ever wondered what I thought of the Iraq war / election, here it is.
Mom,
I'm glad to see you are urging us all to take this election as seriously as possible. I'm actually quite excited about it myself, and realize that the country is more charged about an election than it probably has been since 1860, and that even with the importance of that election, that this one is even more alarming due to how close it is. Sadly, it will not be close in Georgia, but that does not mean it is any less important.
I must still remind you, as I remind dad all the time, I am not a liberal. I just happen to not be a conservative either, and I have many moral objections to George W Bush. I supported his father, and of what I've read about Reagan, I support him as well. McCain is the only person within the last two election's pool of candidates that I thought could possibly do a good job as President. And as liberal as he may be, he is still a Republican. The Rainbow Push / Christian Coalition did a good job of preventing him of ever reaching presidential status though. I hope he runs in 2008.
As for the article itself, I admire the sincerity of the journalist, as well as many of the points he makes. However, I feel his message is rather misguided and a good bit alarmist to the point of irrationality. I'll go through it and make points along the way.
> Dearest Family,
>
> I'm sure it will shock you to get something like
> this from me. J Please do not be upset with me if
> your heart lies else where. I usually don't push
> politics, but I'm scared to death that the terrorist
> will be all over us if we pull back now. Please
> consider what this article says before you vote next
> week.
>
> Much love,
>
> Ronnie
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Mike Lichter [mailto:aimm@mindspring.com]
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 10:43 AM
> To: 1
> Subject: A Good Read
>
>
>
> An excellent article....
>
> Subject: Election Determines The Fate Of Our Nation
> (M.Manweller)
>
> From The Daily Record (Ellensburg's paper)
> Wed. Oct. 6, 2004.
> (It was written by Mathew Manweller, a Central
> Washington University
> political science professor.)
>
> "This Election Determines The Fate of our Nation."
>
> "In that this will be my last column before the
> presidential election there
> will be no sarcasm, no attempts at witty repartee.
> The topic is too
> serious, and the stakes are too high. This November
> we will vote in the
> only election during our lifetime that will truly
> matter.
>
> Because America is at a once-in-a-generation
> crossroads, more than an
> election hangs in the balance. Down one path lies
> retreat, abdication
> and a reign of ambivalence. Down the other lies a
> nation that is aware
> of its past and accepts the daunting obligation its
> future demands. If
> we choose poorly, the consequences will echo through
> the next 50 years
> of history.
>
> If we, in a spasm of frustration, turn out the
> current occupant of the
> White House, the message to the world and ourselves
> will be twofold.
>
> First, we will reject the notion that America can do
> big things. Once a
> nation that tamed a frontier, stood down the Nazis
> and stood upon the
> moon, we will announce to the world that bringing
> democracy to the
> Middle East is too big of a task for us.
Okay, wait a second. First off, I love how one of our "big (=great)" things was "taming a frontier." Or, in other words, slaughtering hundreds of other civilizations who had already been living here for over 11,000 years (a little longer than the Greeks eh?) Yeah, we sure tamed a frontier alright, by instituting mass genocide and relocating entire populations whose way of life frankly seemed to work a little better with their surroundings than our own (even if they did not have as advanced instruments of war as Europeans did). Read up a story about the atrocities of DeSoto to see just how barbaric Europeans were in the so called “frontier”. Remember Andrew Jackson? Remember the Seminoles and the Cherokee? yeah, real American Hero.
As for the Nazis, yes, that along with WWI pretty much changed us from a Canada to a superpower. However, the Nazis were also an invading force with a tangible overt center. The closest thing I can compare the insurgents in Iraq to would frankly be Americans themselves in the revolutionary war. By this I mean there is a foreign power that is drastically superior to the other side (insurgents), at the same time the only manner of attack that seems effective for the insurgents is basically to blend in with civilians, then sneak up on American forces and attack, and then hide away again (kind of like American forces picking off the redcoats). Obviously, we see the early Americans as liberators, and see the insurgents as terrorists, but I'd imagine they have a pretty flipped view of things themselves. What I'm getting at is that this is not comparable pretty much at all to WWII. If it were, then things would be grand after the fall of Saddam, but due to many really atrocious mistakes on Bush's part, things are not hunkey dory. Had someone else invaded/deposed Iraq, I honestly think things would be different now and we wouldn't be losing thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
Second, I fail to see why the election of Kerry means that America is incapable of doing big things. I personally feel that Bush's ideas of how to run a war are horribly flawed and very ineffective. We were lucky they worked well enough in Afghanistan. We were not lucky in Iraq. Bush ran through Iraq trying to blitzkrieg their military without an effective way of stabilizing the power immediately afterwards. The result was for the most part total chaos. What the heck did he think was going to happen? Frankly, I think his entire Iraq campaign is just because he was mad about Saddam trying to kill his father.
I agree with Kerry in that Bush took the focus of the war on terror off it's correct target, Osama Bin Laden, to go after Saddam, who never had solid evidence of being tied to the 9/11 attacks. Bush took what appears to be atrocious intelligence, told the world to go f itself and that America wouldn't need it to take care of measly Iraq, ran in, bribed entire divisions of the Iraqi army to surrender, and then as soon as America had troops fortified in Baghdad, he declared that the war was over. Now, I'm not a military strategist, but what do you see wrong here?! This seems like the most retarded way to try to conquer a country effectively imaginable. Of course it caused chaos! We disbanded their entire defense system, we allowed people to ransack their core governmental institutions, not to mention their priceless and irreplaceable artifacts and cultural treasures from the cradle of civilization. Now we've just learned that because Bush rushed into Baghdad so quickly, the military was unable to secure 350 TONS of plastic explosives? What?! That’s over twelve dump trucks full of the stuff. How could the let that happen? I’m surprised some insurgent hasn’t been able to steal a Blackhawk, or an Abrams tank! Not to mention the reports from the investigation on the war that show how little of a threat Iraq was before the war, and how they were years away from being able to produce any non-conventional weapons. It's very easy to say that hindsight is 20/20, but considering how wonderful and great and omnipotent the USA is, it's intelligence better be pretty close to 20/20 before they decide to send hundreds of thousands of US troops (including 1,106 to their death so far) to some poor desert country just because junior has a vendetta with a tyrant in a bullet proof fedora. (Oh, and the death toll of Iraqis is apparently around 100,000 http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Death-Toll.html)
The journalist’s statement that “the Middle East is too big of a task for us” is highly misleading. That builds entirely on the assumption that 1) Bush is capable of winning in Iraq and other countries in the Middle East to begin with, and 2) that Kerry will pull all our troops out of Iraq and allow another Iran fiasco. Both of which I feel are inherently false. If you’ve listened to Kerry during the debates, or read any of his other material he has no intention of pulling out of Iraq or allowing the regime to fail and become a terrorist state. The following is quoted from Kerry through the AJC’s election comparison of Bush vs. Kerry (http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/todaysissue.html#iraqfuture) involving the question of what our long term goal for Iraq should be:
“We can get the Iraqi people and the world's major powers invested with us in building Iraq's future. This administration has made countless mistakes that have complicated our mission and jeopardized our objective of a stable, free Iraq with a representative government, secure in its borders. We may have differences about how we went into Iraq, but we do not have the choice just to pick up and leave - and leave behind a failed state and a new haven for terrorists."
This is not an issue that Kerry can just lie about and get away with. Consistently he has stated that he is not going to allow Iraq to fail. He has said that his goal is to minimize the negative effect the future of the war has on Americans, but that statement is always followed by trying to recreate multilateral ties through the global community and allow the burden of rebuilding Iraq to fall on others shoulders as well as Americans.
Okay, more article…
>
> But more significantly, we will signal to future
> presidents that as
> voters, we are unwilling to tackle difficult
> challenges, preferring
> caution to boldness,
um…. Unwilling to tackle difficult challenges? I don’t think very many people voting for Kerry feel that they’d like to avoid difficult challenges. I personally don’t think Bush is capable of dealing with difficult challenges, and fear what could possibly happen if the currently massively escalated event in the middle east isn’t brought under some semblance of control. The US military is so pulled tight right now that we are highly vulnerable. What would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon on Los Angeles or Tokyo? What could we do? That scares me to death. I soundly do not think that Bush would be able to hold on to Iraq and deal with any other form of aggression, including one focused on our mainland.
And as for “caution to boldness” there is a fine line between boldness, and idiocy.
> embracing the mediocrity that
> has characterized
> other civilizations.
Typical American “we are the best” propaganda bullshit
> The defeat of President Bush
> will send a chilling
> message to future presidents who may need to make
> difficult, yet
> unpopular decisions.
Again, the fact that we are in Iraq is not the reason most Americans are upset with Bush. When we were first at war, he had a 70% approval rating (NYT/CBS News Poll). It remained above 50% for a full year after the start of the war. Not until scores of soldiers were being killed every day because our limited number of troops in an atrociously unsecured Iraq did Americans begin to be scared at how Bush is treating the conflict.
Besides, Bush’s father gives a much better message of what happens when you make an unpopular decision with his tax increase in his fourth year in office. His popularity after the Persian Gulf war was incredibly high (something like 90% if I remember correctly), and he is then forced to make a very unpopular decision, and plummets in popularity and loses to Clinton. Of course if a president makes an unpopular decision it’s going to be reflected in the polls. This election is no different than any other in that regard.
>
> America has always been a nation that rises to the
> demands of history,
> regardless of the costs or appeal. If we turn away
> from that legacy, we
> turn away from who we are.
>
Actually, America was highly isolationalist until we were “forced” into WWII. We have only been a “superpower” for 60 or so years. It also might be prudent to point out that apparently the cost of Vietnam, Iran, Lebanon, and other smaller conveniently forgotten lost battles were actually to high a cost or appeal for America to rise to the demand of history.
> Second, we inform every terrorist organization on
> the globe that the
> lesson
> of Somalia was well learned. In Somalia we showed
> terrorists that you
> don't
> need to defeat America on the battlefield when you
> can defeat them in
> the
> newsroom. They learned that a wounded America can
> become a defeated
> America. Twenty-four-hour news stations and daily
> tracing polls will do
> the heavy lifting, turning a cut into a fatal blow.
> Except that Iraq is
> Somalia times 10.
>
Doesn’t this defeat what he just said?
> The election of John Kerry will serve notice to
> every terrorist in every
> cave that the soft underbelly of American power is
> the timidity of
> American
> voters. Terrorists will know that a steady stream of
> grisly photos for
> CNN is all you need to break the will of the
> American people. Our own
> self-doubt will take it from there. Bin Laden will
> recognize that he can
> topple any American administration without setting
> foot on the homeland.
That’s funny… I didn’t realize that the election of Kerry would lead to Socialism, or some other coup d’etat. In all seriousness, this again solely rests on the assumption that Kerry will pull out and twiddle his thumbs. If Bush loses this week, it will have almost nothing to do with Bin Laden’s efforts; it will rest solely on his poor decision making ability, and his ineptitude as commander in chief.
> It is said that America's W.W.II generation is its
> 'greatest
> generation.'
>
> But my greatest fear is that it will become known as
> America's "last
> generation." Born in the bleakness of the Great
> Depression and hardened
> in
> the fire of WW II, they may be the last American
> generation that
> understands the meaning of duty, honor and
> sacrifice.
>
Give me a break. This sounds like an evangical sermon! Anyone who has ever been in the military should be insulted at such a statement. What a close minded apocalyptic “carpe diem” load of hogwash intended to scare people into blindly following someone who follows his convictions so stubbornly that he continues making the same mistakes repeatedly, instead of looking at his tactics and adjusting them when he’s wrong.
> It is difficult to admit, but I know these terms are
> spoken with only
> hollow detachment by many (but not all) in my
> generation. Too many
> citizens today mistake 'living in America' as 'being
> an American.' But
> America has always been more of an idea than a
> place. When you sign on,
> you do more than buy real estate. You accept a set
> of values and
> responsibilities.
>
Remember kids, Pride is a deadly sin! It is paramount that we hold true the ideals of our country. However, assuming the USA is perfect and golden is just naïve. Forcing our ideology down the throats of a volatile region using the muzzles of our automatic rifles for the sake of “making our generation great” is Not the way to do things.
> This November, my generation, which has been absent
> too long, must grasp
> the obligation that comes with being an American, or
> fade into the
> oblivion they may deserve. I believe that 100 years
> from now historians
> will look back at the election of 2004 and see it as
> the decisive
> election of our century.
>
> Depending on the outcome, they will describe it as
> the moment America
> joined the ranks of ordinary nations;
That statement is ridiculous.
> or they will
> describe it as the
> moment the prodigal sons and daughters of the
> greatest generation
> accepted their burden as caretakers of the City on
> the Hill."
>
> Mathew Manweller
I understand that he is very passionate about the subject he writes about, and that he needs to be passionate in order to sway apathetic people into action, but still I read through this article and could not help but see his close minded and alarmist views. I admit that several of the statements above (though not most of the giant section towards the top) have a lot of sarcastic humor, as well as just bashing down a couple of the things he said because I thought they were silly. All the same, how can you guys take this article and display it as a strong reason to vote for Bush? It’s not factual, nor is it analytical. Virtually every ‘fear’ he outlines above I can easily take and turn it around on Bush if I really wanted to. In every case I should point out though, that none of these views are liberal (or conservative) in nature. They are against W himself. I personally think he is highly under qualified for the position, and that his tiny intellect could very well cause nuclear winter within the next four years. I honestly think I am considerably more intelligent than the president of our country. I think all of you are as well. That’s not right. The leader of the United States should be the best, smartest, most cunning, and most charismatic leader that our country can muster. But instead, we have this evangical moron who the RNC decided should lead the country, most likely because he was able to associate with the average American.
I’m fed up with our election system, with the way our government functions. It may not be as corrupt as the monarchies of Europe in the 1700s, or the dictatorships of the present, but it is Way far from perfect. Everyone assumes that the current way is the way it’s always been, when if you actually look at history, the political process in America is ever changing. There is a cycle of political parties that changes every 30 years or so. We learned about it in Poly Sci. It has repeated a good 5 or 6 times in a relatively tight pattern. The last time it changed was in the 60s with civil rights. It’s overdue for a change now. Our political system has Got to change, we are on a path of apathy and mindlessness; where the multi-billion dollar corporations get what they want through controlling the political parties and their candidates. My generation’s children will suffer due to the decision of yours to allow bloated oligopolies to create legal loopholes so they can save money at the sake of the safety of humanity and the environment. Mr. Manweller thinks that if we fail in Iraq that we will join the ranks of all the other mediocre societies? While that does seem the most important issue to resolve at the moment, our great mass and potential to destroy the world, or save it will forever keep us from being a mediocre society. It’s our job to be able to look at the whole picture, the long term results, and decide what is truly in our best interest. Not for the sake of the American Ideology, but for the sake of all of humanity.
For the love of this nation, look beyond the dilapidated political parties and look at both candidates. Examine where they stand as individuals; examine what has happened in the past four years. If you honestly think that Bush is more capable than Kerry at steering us out of this catastrophe, then by all means vote for him. While articles like this are great for starting the inertia of the voting populous, they are also very dangerous and should be only used to motivate people to find out the facts about either candidate. You’ll have no worries of me not having my “voter” sticker on Tuesday.
-John