Liberal College Kid

The number of countries belonging to the “Axis of Evil” is dropping like the value of the American dollar. Of course, Iraq has been effectively resigned from the list for several years. It’s difficult to assign a country’s government the moniker “evil” when no discernable government exists. Now, however, it seems as though North Korea is off the hook as well, rendering Iran the sole remaining beacon of U.S. government-acknowledged evil.

This switch in attitude is apparently the result of North Korea’s decision to dismantle large portions of its nuclear weapons program and allow outside bodies to supervise this endeavor. They released a report to the international community that describes the extent to which they have developed their uranium enrichment program, although the consensus seems to be that the report does not fully disclose all of its aspects. Regardless, President Bush quickly issued a statement announcing that North Korea would be removed from the official list of “state sponsors of terrorism,” and that he would seek to lift sanctions imposed on the formerly-evil peninsula under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Today, the North Korean’s went a step further by demolishing a tower at one of their nuclear program sites. Never mind that this particular tower is functionally innocuous and can be easily rebuilt – all agree that this is more a symbolic gesture of good will.

For the scores of hawks – both conservative and liberal – in the United States, this must seem like a terribly disappointing and uneventful conclusion to a multi-year stand-off with a country that the President once described as an “oppressive regime [that] rules a people living in fear and starvation.” So much for spreading the dream of democracy around the world. Apparently, a partial report and an exploding tower are enough to forgive the sins of a brutal dictatorship.

Sarcasm aside, it is comforting to see the ridiculous “Axis of Evil” paradigm falling apart. It was always an idiotic PR strategy used to instill fear of nuclear holocaust in the minds of American citizens. Back when the term was originally unveiled, it was already absurd on its face – and still is. There are plenty of other countries that embody “evil” (if we are forced to use that word) under the White House’s rubric. If the quest for nuclear armament, human rights violations and the sponsorship of terrorism are enough to earn the evil designation, there is an abundance of candidates around the world.

But the aspects of the Iraqi, Iranian, and North Korean governments that officially defined them as “evil” were never really the point in the first place. Many of our closest allies proliferate nuclear weapons, bend the rules of human rights, and engage in terroristic actions, whether through out-sourcing or with their own military. The real point is global American hegemony, both military and economic.

The difference between countries like Iran and (pre-war) Iraq and those such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not so much in how their governments conduct themselves in general as in how willing their governments are to acknowledge American supremacy and bend to the will of Washington. Saudi Arabia, certainly, from any objective viewpoint, a country that egregiously breaks the codes of conduct we apply to other governments, gets a free pass. Not only is the monarchy a good friend of the White House and a key supplier of oil, but they have also opened up their country to American business investment. Wall Street rakes in billions of dollars from Saudi Arabian development projects, so why would we ever dare to call them out on their “evil” actions? Because: it is fundamentally impossible for a country to be evil if they are on our side.

In the past, North Korea has taken a decidedly hostile stance toward American influence. Now, however, with one grand display of passivity and an eagerness to acquiesce in the face of American will, they have instantly restored their good standing in the eyes of the U.S. government; their name dropped from the list of rogue terrorist states, the economic sanctions lifted. We have taught the misbehaving dog who is in charge – who really runs the show - and now that he’s displaying obedience, we can let him out of his cage.

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On Republican Presidential nominee John McCain:

He’s the true neocon. He does believe, in a way that George W. Bush never really did, in the use of power, military power above all, to change the world in America’s image. If you thought George Bush was bad when it comes to the use of military force, wait till you see John McCain… He believes this. His advisers believe this. He’s surrounded himself with people who believe it. And I’ll take him at his word.

- Ivo Daadler, Brooking’s Institute  (quote found in “Hothead McCain,” by Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, March 24, 2008 edition)

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On Friday the Washington Post published its biweekly column by Michael Gerson, this time titled “Democrats in Denial.” Before we discuss the basis of the article and the claims made within it, a little about Michael Gerson himself.

Gerson is a former senior policy adviser to the Heritage Foundation, an important and influential conservative think tank. He left that position in 1999 at the bidding of Karl Rove who thought that Gerson would be a nice addition to the presidential campaign for George W. Bush. After Bush was elected, Gerson became one of his speech writers and eventually became the head of the White House speech writing group. If anyone were to doubt the effect that his work has had on the rhetoric and political language of the current time, they would only need reminded that, according to Gerson himself, he was the originator of the “smoking gun - mushroom cloud” image, the term “axis of evil” and that he was one of the most prolific speech writers for Bush (it should be mentioned that other White House speech writers have accused Gerson of exaggerating his contributions, although the point is that even if he did not come up with all of the memorable lines of this administration, he desires to have people believe that he did - which may be even more revealing). In 2006 Gerson left the White House, wrote for a time at Newsweek, and ultimately was given a column at the Washington Post.

Now that we are familiar with Gerson’s past and his obvious interests in defending the actions of the administration, policies that he himself helped persuade the American public to accept, let’s look at some of the claims made in his latest piece.

The mood of this article strongly suggests that it is a reaction to the events in Iowa last night; specifically, that such an overwhelming amount of independents and even Republicans came out to participate in the Democratic caucuses. Gerson seems angry about this, and would like to convince us that most of the platforms of the Democratic candidates are no better - in fact, much worse - than those of the Bush administration. First he takes on the Iraq war. Again, let’s keep in mind the “smoking gun - mushroom cloud” metaphor that convinced the world that the war was justified in the first place, a metaphor that proved to be meaningless.

Gerson says:

“In Iraq, coalition casualties are down significantly, along with Iraqi civilian casualties, roadside bombings and suicide attacks. Large sections of Baghdad have been pacified, and the military rolls toward Mosul. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is in reeling retreat. And, most impressive, we have seen the first example of a large-scale Sunni Arab uprising against Islamic extremism. By one estimate, 30,000 former insurgents and tribal leaders are now fighting the enemy in Iraq, adding their surge to our own.

This progress is reversible, especially while Moqtada al-Sadr’s militias maintain the capability to mount their own mini-Tet Offensive. But Gen. David Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy has succeeded with disorienting speed. Its combination of vision and competence will fill chapters in military textbooks.”

If the statistics Gerson is referring to are assumed to be accurate (this administration has been less than competent in compiling accurate numbers, especially in respect to the war where they have bet so much of their credibility. A key phrase here is “by one estimate” - almost certainly the highest estimate), then they do reflect that the surge may be working. And this is, at the risk of stepping out of the holy party line, a very good thing. We can debate the merits of the war as a whole, whether or not it should have happened in the first place, but if the surge is working, and therefore fewer Americans and innocent Iraqi’s are losing their lives, it should be congratulated. In this case, partisanship is not only irrelevant, it’s irresponsible. However, Gerson’s characterization of the surge as having worked with “disorienting speed” is an obvious exaggeration meant to insinuate that Petraeus completely blew everyone’s expectations out of the water. I also highly doubt that it will appear in future military textbooks. He wants us to believe that this has been one of the most impressive military undertakings in history, a claim that is almost laughable.

Next, Gerson says:

“In spite of these gains, Democratic presidential candidates still insist on reckless timetables for withdrawal — the surest way to rescue defeat from the jaws of victory.”

One wonders how closely Gerson has actually listened to the Democratic Candidates. Now that the race has effectively been reduced to Obama and Clinton, with moderate hopes left for Edwards, only one of the candidates has pledged to pull out all combat forces by 2013 (Edwards). Surely, both Obama and Clinton would like the war to be over, and they would definitely take whatever measures necessary to achieve these goals. But no matter how politically advantageous it is for any of them to claim they will end the war immediately (which they really have not anyway), they all know that a complete, and in Gerson’s words, reckless immediate withdrawal would indeed probably be a bad idea, and none of them would actually do it.

So far, the column is nothing too spectacular, embodying what most people on the right and definitely everyone inside the White House already thinks. But then he turns his attention to education and the Orwellian No Child Left Behind.

“Democratic rhetoric on education is also an assault on reality. Attacking No Child Left Behind is a reliable campaign applause line — Hillary Clinton promises to “end” the law, because it is “just not working.” Actually, the imposition of educational standards and testing has improved math and reading scores and begun narrowing the gap between disadvantaged and affluent students.”

While Gerson is very correct that attacking the law is a great platform for a campaign, he reveals in this statement more than he means to. Why is it, I would like to ask him, that so many people feel so passionately against No Child Left Behind? Gerson condescends to the nearly the entire American public in his assertion that he knows more about what is or is not working in their own school districts than they do. People are angry about NCLB because they see what it is really doing. It is taking the focus off of real education, the kind that molds students into free thinkers and better members of society and instead concentrating solely on arbitrary test results. If a school fails to meet up to these pointless standards, then they do not get sufficient funding. There is a GLARING logical problem here. Shouldn’t those schools that are not meeting the cut actually receive more funding so that they have a chance of improving their programs? Instead, in the twisted mind of Bush administration members like Gerson, schools that are already disadvantaged and poor (a subject that requires an entire look of its own) are punished and their students are, well, there’s no other term for it other than “left behind,” hence the Orwellian, call it exactly what it is not, sense of the program. In addition, it would be nice if Gerson would provide us with some of the data that he interprets as showing that the gap between rich and poor (sorry, “disadvantaged and affluent”) students is closing. Surely, these incredible findings should be on the front page of every major newspaper, since they directly contradict what any respectable social scientist has found lately.

“There is an angry backlash against NCLB among some Democratic interest groups. Suburban districts resent being labeled as failures just because some minority and disabled children aren’t making progress. But that is the whole purpose of the law — to prevent districts from hiding the poor performance of minorities behind the success of other students. Such districts should feel less resentment and more shame.”

I kid you not, I gasped when I read these sentences. This, above anything else Gerson posits in this piece, is shocking. He doesn’t even make an attempt to conceal his racism. Disabled children?! School districts should be ASHAMED that their disabled students are not meeting up to George Bush’s standards?! No, Mr. Gerson, YOU are the one who should feel shame.

Whether it is intentional or not (and I would bet that at some level, it is), the real result of education policies like No Child Left Behind is to form students into the kind of intellectually numb, power yielding adults that fit so well into the corporate world, where idiotic targets and goals are now the norm as well. And those schools who do not mold enough of their students into this picture will simply have to fend for themselves. It has resulted in many schools being forced to abandon many of their usual and time tested curricula and only teach “to the test” in order to ensure that they don’t fall short. A shocking number of students entering college are entirely unprepared for the sort of real challenges that await them, because they will be required to actually think once in a while.

Gerson accuses the Democratic presidential candidates of being out of touch with reality. But obviously it is he who has become so indoctrinated with the Bush-world view, having spent many years shoving it down the American public’s throat, that he can no longer see reality. The policies that he helped articulate for the president are, in his mind, beyond scrutiny, even as their blatant failures are becoming obvious throughout the country and the world. Now that there is good evidence that the Democratic party is stronger than it has been in a very long time, Gerson and others like him will scramble to find reasons why they are not to be trusted and are incompetent liars. But the public is sick of the nonsense that is constantly spewed by the administration, and many of them can feel at a visceral level and see at a intellectual one that there is in fact substance to what the Democrats are saying. They are finding a vision that has been completely absent in the current administration. And when one of them is elected as president, Gerson is going to have to finally pull himself out of his own denial and myopia and see that it was partly his own fault, with his glaring lies and misconceptions, that the Democrats are back in power.

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Over the holiday break I normally get a chance to catch up with my friends from home, since I go to school out of state.  This trip home, however, something a little different happened.  I ran into someone I’ve known since I was six years old or so.  We met on the tee-ball field, and I have known him ever since.  Our lives since high school, however, have been quite different. I want to share his experience with you, because it feels far more real than anything I’ve seen on the news or read on the web about the soldiers fighting in Iraq.  This is a kid I grew up with, and this is his story.

Like so many young people do, Eric signed up for the National Guard immediately after high school.  He had in fact, signed up in his high school cafeteria with Guard recruiters who were often there trying to solicit teenagers into joining.  Immediately after school was out in June Eric headed to basic training.  He was there for 6 months.  When he came back he was home just in time to marry his high school sweet heart.  They had a small wedding and a short honeymoon.  Following a short stint at home, Eric packed his begs for what would be a 15 month deployment to Iraq.

Unbeknowst to him, his new wife had become pregnant.  Eric was not there the day his son was born.  In fact, because he was stationed in Baghdad and their base was under attack he wasn’t able to hear how his wife was doing until three days after his son was born.  Fortunately, everything was fine back home.

Being stationed in Baghdad was less than ideal.  Eric quickly developed an addiction to alcohol.  He explained that with explosions going off all night and all around you the only way he could bring himself to fall asleep was to drink himself to sleep.  He told me the first two weeks he was over there he slept maybe 20 hours.  Of course, being in the big city alcohol wasn’t hard to come by.  Neither were drugs, which he didn’t use, nor were prostitutes, which he didn’t use.

Just a few months into his first tour Eric was driving a humvee when he was shot, in the arm.  His description of the aftermath was that his military doctors just picked the bullet out, slapped a band aid on it and told him to get back out there, he had a purple heart on the way.

Months later, his base was attacked and a piece of shrapnel hit him square in the chest.  Fortunately he was wearing the protective vests that are standard issue for soldiers, or else he would have died.  The shrapnel broke several ribs, and also displaced several vertebrae.  When his friends and fellow soldiers pulled Eric from the rubble they thought he was dead.  When he woke up in a hospital he was told that his ribs would heal, though it would be slow and painful and that his back would never be the same.  He is considered “disabled” by the military now, though he does not get full benefits.  For his injuries he was given the title 20% disabled, and another purple heart.

Once Eric was back in the US life just wasn’t the same.  He had a wife, a child, a house he’d never been in but had been paying for.  He tried a couple different manual labor jobs but he didn’t like them.  He said he needed someone telling him exactly what to do and when to do it.  While he said that post-traumatic stress was never an issue he said he’s had a few nightmares.

He’s now working as a paper boy, with two shifts and going to school at a local technical college.  He’s being called up again to go to Iraq in June.  He’s due to be finished with the guard in November, however, his 18 month tour of duty will not be cut short simply because he has fulfilled his commitment to the guard.  Perhaps most unfortunately, he will miss the birth of his second child, who is due in July.

Eric told me he thinks that the US is doing good things in Iraq.  He says that people appreciate what the US soldiers are doing.  What he can’t understand, however, is why we even went in the first place.  As he put it, “it’s like Bush just wanted a war for the sake of a war and now we’re trying to make up for it.”

When he had finished recanting his story to me I wasn’t sure what to say.  Somehow a story about an especially hard final or a 20 page paper just didn’t seem appropriate.  And yet, here we are, the same age, from the same town.

In June I’ll be on my summer vacation.  Maybe working on my blog, working a summer job.  My friend will be in Iraq, fighting in a war he doesn’t believe should have ever started in the first place.  Believe me, I am counting my blessings, and if you’ve not been to Iraq, I suggest you do the same.

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The Pakistan People’s Party, formerly headed by Benazir Bhutto, will be lead following her recent assassination by both her son and husband. Her son, Bilawal, age 19, is currently a student at Oxford and will be the full time leader of the party after he completes his studies. In the interim, Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, will apparently hold most of the leadership powers.

It is not difficult to see why the succession of power has fallen to relatives of Benazir Bhutto. Her father was the founder of the party, and this latest move is a tactic aimed at preserving its dynastic qualities. During the press conference announcing the succession it was revealed that Bhutto herself wished that control of the party be given to her husband and son. Bhutto was arguably the most popular political figure in Pakistan; allowing her husband and son to take control is an effort to transfer her popularity onto people who are seen as having been close to her, and therefore likely to embody the ideals that she stood for. This method will most likely work, at least in the short term. However, one could question the logic of allowing someone as young as Bilawal to take control of a party that has such a profound influence on politics in Pakistan. I suspect that the move is more symbolic than anything else. I’m sure that Bilawal is a highly intelligent person. Simply by virtue of having as tremendous a mother as Bhutto, he is also likely to have a relatively firm grasp on world and Pakistani politics. But not only is he young and inexperienced, very soon he will also be absent. How will the common member of the Pakistan People’s Party feel about him going back to Oxford to finish studying,while the events unfolding in their own country are so volatile? Isn’t the current situation there more than enough for him to take a leave of absence in order to stand next to his countrymen and fellow party members? If not, then the leadership of the party should be bestowed onto someone else. Surely, whoever assumes this role is in a great amount of danger - as made painfully obvious by Bhutto’s highly public assassination. But they should follow her lead and refuse to back down in the face of peril.

On a related note, Bilawal and Mr. Bhutto Zardari have expressed that they will not except any conclusions made about Bhutto’s death that are the result of a Musharraf-backed inquiry. Instead, they would like the UN to take on the task of investigating her assassination through an international effort. If the statements made by Musharraf’s government are any indication of how a further investigation might look, then Bhutto’s successors are completely justified in not trusting a domestic inquiry into her death. It seems there have already been three theories of her death given by Musharraf officials(She was shot. Wait, the bullets missed but she was killed in the explosion. Wait, she was killed when she hit her head off her sunroof and her skull was cracked). Although a United Nations investigation will undoubtedly be more objective than one could possibly be if run by the Pakistani government, the truth is that the real answers will probably never be known or made public. Of course, Al Qaeda will be blamed despite little evidence pointing to their involvement and despite the fact that Bhutto herself warned that should anything happen to her, Musharraf’s own security forces would be the likely culprits. We must all question the official explanations given by Pakistan’s government and our own, and ask if certain conclusions are more beneficial to them than other more unsettling ones. More than forty years later we are still debating the specifics of the Kennedy assassination (which was also caught on tape and witnessed by scores of people). Sadly, Bhutto’s death is likely to receive the same fate and be shrouded in historical ambiguity.

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Note: I wrote this post two weeks ago but because of the aforementioned (i.e. two posts ago) blacklisting couldn’t get this posted until today.

Hey there; long time no see. How is everyone? Good? Good.

I’ve been away for the last couple of months and for that I apologize. In my defense, though, I was gone because law school doesn’t really lend itself to blogging, keeping up with the news, having a social life, or anything outside of reading and outlining, just ask my roommates they’ll vouch for me on that one.

If anyone is interested, I love law school. If you had told me six months ago what I’d be doing on a daily basis (the amount of reading, the lack of sleep, the stress and anxiety, the paper cuts, sweet Lord all the paper cuts!) I’d have yanked all of my applications and headed for Canada so that, even though my Poli. Sci. degree could only get me a job at McDonald’s, I’d at least get cheap health care. It’s been a great experience, though, and one which I had pondered blogging about but, alas, there was no time. In any event, I’ve been absent from LCK at time that has proved fertile for blog fodder.

It was awfully coincidental, I suppose, that I’ve been away during the final ramp up to the primaries. I’ve missed posting articles on the inevitability of Hillary, Obama’s drug use, Mitt’s “Kennedy Moment”, the country finally realizing that Rudy has nothing to offer it and the Republican frenzy/cluster-fuck that followed, the sudden un-inevitability of Hillary and Barack’s late surge, the Ron Paul online revolution, and (most interestingly?) the emergence of Mike Huckabee as a viable candidate in the views of Republicans . . . well, some of them at least. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot more than that and hopefully I can manage to get a number of posts up here on LCK during my break to make up for my absence. In a time where there is so much going on domestically it only makes sense to start my brief return to LCK by talking about a small, unimportant, foreign story – right?

A week ago France, or perhaps more accurately it’s president Nicolas Sarkozy, “welcomed” Libyan leader Mummar Gaddafi to Paris. One of my favorite writers, Charles Bremner, covered the visit on his blog and if you’d like to read about the less than favorable reaction Parisians gave Gaddafi you can do so here. In short it turns out that Sarko bit off a little more than he was able to chew in inviting the mercurial Libyan leader to town and the mostly-popular President took his first major round of politically related flack (i.e. not having to do with the break up of his marriage) since his inauguration. However I think the act of Sarko welcoming Gaddafi to Paris has a lesson in it for American politicians as the Iowa caucuses approach.

Months ago Barack Obama was lambasted on both sides of the aisle for suggesting that he would actually sit down and talk with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, opposing the prevailing view that the rational thing to do is simply to cut off ties and threaten to bomb Iran back into the stone age unless they comply with American demands. “Logic” holds that by talking to a leader like Ahmadinejad all you do is legitimize him and his ideals but by threatening him you give him the option of complying with your demands or risk becoming nothing more than a peripheral footnote in foreign affairs reports. A surprising number of Democrats (judging by candidates responses in past debates) subscribe to this train of thought along with a predictably large segment of the GOP populous. However this theory is fatally flawed and recent developments prove it.

Just today Russia delivered its first shipment of fuel for a nuclear reactor in Iran. The Iranian’s are going to push ahead with their plans to get a reactor up and working, and they won’t be dissuaded from doing this because America gives them the cold shoulder. Ahmadinedjad has plenty of other nations in his ear, agreeing with and encouraging him in hopes of getting their hands on the oil he’s sitting on. More important than that Iran wants to become a nuclear power because of the exclusive club that it would then be a member of. Getting into that club is legitimization enough to convince the Mullahs, Ahmadinedjad and the Iranian people to pursue nuclear capabilities. When the United States says it won’t sit down and talk to Iran the country and its leaders won’t be stop what it’s doing because The Great Satan won’t talk to them unless they halt their operations. The U.S. has not and will not ever get anything by not speaking with Iran. By simply refusing to talk to Iran the U.S. is only digging itself a hole that will be inescapable should Iran end up builing a nuke.

Why not engage Iran now? Even if one-on-one talks were unsuccessful in getting Tehran to shut down its nuclear program isn’t it better to have open lines of communication with the Iranians and gain knowledge as to what their nuclear capacities are and, more importantly, what their intentions are with those capacities? Sarko invited an annoying, unconventional leader who has engaged in acts of terrorism against France in the past to Paris for five days; the least we as a nation can do is refrain from chastising Obama when he dares to suggest that we talk directly to Iran.

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What a crazy year! Of course, I will especially remember 2007 for many reasons. One of which is certainly that LCK started in March of 2007. Rather than go through all of the stories we’ve posted on here, though, I thought I would go through the biggies whether or not anything about them appeared on our site.

* Where better to start than with the Presidential Election that seemed to kick off way too early?

This picture is great because it really shows that despite all of the added time this race has gotten it really hasn’t made that much difference. Well, maybe except in the case of Huckabee who inextricably is moving up the charts in the hearts and minds of Republicans. Other wise, though, the 08 race is exactly where it was at the start of 2007. Despite my best attempts, Kucinich is still waffling on the bottom of the heap and the Obama vs. Clinton match up that everyone was calling in January seems to be exactly what’s on the horizon.

* February was a great month in the news because of one person, Lisa Nowak. To be honest, I felt kind of bad for her. The story as I first heard it seemed like a love story of sorts, two astronauts who fell in love at zero gravity. How romantic right? That is, until it came out that she wore the adult diapers astronauts wear in space on her drive from Texas to Florida to stalk her man.  Nothing says I love you like a soiled diaper…

<Hottie!>

* Then of course is my pick for person of the year: Larry Seidlin. The infamous judge of the Anna Nicole Smith trial, who told stories of his days as a tennis player, his relationships in the past, orange juice, his college days… Words fail me, so here is a good highlight reel of the madness that was the Anna Nicole case:

* The story that perhaps most rocked college students this year was the Virginia Tech tragedy where Cho Seung Hui killed 32 of his peers and then killed himself. The way he went about it, however, is perhaps the most distressing. He sent his own press kit to NBC, depicting him with guns, in camouflage and many other violent and frightening images. The political fall out around this issue is of course unfortunate, with some on the right claiming that had other students been allowed to have guns on campus this killer would not have claimed so many victims. I don’t understand this logic at all, but, in 2007 everything whether it was political in origin or not, became political.

* On August 1st a suspension bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minnesota collapsed and killed 13 people. This tragedy came with some baggage though. Minnesota and the Twin City area in particular had just approved a tax payer funded new home for the Minnesota Twins. Money was going to building a new baseball stadium rather investing in infrastructure. Of course, immediately after this reports came out that perhaps as many as 3 in 4 bridges in America were not structurally sufficient which led me to one question: why can’t we be building bridges here and not just in Iraq?

* In August, Larry Craig made us all reconsider our public restroom behavior. There were two truly horrible things about this event. The first was how Craig handled the whole thing. He has been and continues to be a bigot actively campaigning against gay rights. And second, who wants to have sex in an airport bathroom? It’s hard enough to bring yourself to just use the facilities in an airport bathroom, you know? Despite all of this, he is staying in office… Good luck with your reelection Larry.

* The evil genius, the architect, Bush’s brain… Call him what you will 2007 saw the end of the great Bush & Rove partnership. Despite him being wrong, in my opinion, on virtually every political front, I will certainly give Karl his props here. He got an idiot elected Governor and then President, then convinced the entire nation that his party would be better for them because of “morals” and “values” which should have been read “profit margin” and “tax break.” Rove may be one of the most brilliant men to ever work in the White House, and he was never elected nor approved. Nonetheless, he was a terrible dancer and rapper. And Karl, for me you will always be MC Rove!

* Our boy Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize! How sweet is that? He won it, of course, for his work with An Inconvenient Truth and shared the award with the UN group responsible for coming out with the report on global climate change.  Gore has taken the issue beyond a partisan debate to make it a sticking point on both sides of the asile and he has now accomplished something very few Americans have: he is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.  You go Gore!

* And then finally and tragically 2007 ended in catastrophe in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated less than a month from the first formal election since 1999.  She was campaigning for that race when she was killed.  She had been living abroad for the last 8 years after General / President Musharraf seized control of the government in a military coup.  The two had reached an amnesty agreement and had agreed to restore democracy to the country.  Now, however, while the election appears to still be coming on January 8th questions still surround the assasination.  Of course Al- Qaeda is claiming it and there are numerous reports of their pressence in Pakistan.  However, Musharraf has had nothing but support from the US since he seized power and while Bush has condemned the act as cowardly it still bodes well for our strong military alliance in Pakistan as we continue the War of Terror.  Sorry, War on Terror.

Well folks, there it is!  2007 was our first year at LCK and while it had its ups and downs we hope that you will continue to read us from time to time, post some comments about how we’re too young to understand anything, and get into great debates about a Dennis Kucinich  Ron Paul campaign.  Cheers and Happy New Year!

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The article from yesterday produced such a pronounced response I thought rather than post in the comments section I would just make another post to address some of the questions posed and positions taken. I must say, however, I am continually surprised how many conservative readers we have on a site called liberalcollegekid.com. Go figure.

There were several great points made and I thank everyone who contributed. I want to first address:

What would you do if there was no federal government programs to invest in social issues ? Would you take the responsibility for your less fortunate neighbors, and family members ? Would we do a better job of working together, care for one another more, think about our communities more ? . Do you believe people are basically good, with some flaws, or are basically evil and need to be coerced into doing what is right ?

The first thing that comes to my mind when I ponder this question is Locke’s social contract theory. The idea that in order to have a functioning society we must give up some of our “natural” rights. I think this is the best way to understand why we pay taxes, it all stems back to Hobbes’ theories about how we form a society. So, no, I don’t think we would do a better job of taking care of one another if we were not compelled to; its not natural. If there were no government we would not have society, we would all exist in our own private reality devoid of meaning and community with no reason to even attempt to take care of one another since we have connection to each other.

As for human nature being good or evil, I don’t think that’s even something worth pondering. Human “nature” deals with things like eating, pro-creating, shelter, etc. I realize this is a very post-modern position but I just don’t see any point in deciding if we are innately good or bad, we’re not innately anything.

<- Future Posters for 08?->

I thought it was funny that people brought up the idea of a Kucinich/Paul ticket. I think its easy to tell from my article that I like a lot of what Dr. Paul has to say, but perhaps there can be a better comparison drawn here.  As a Democrat, I’m constantly talking to my fellow leftists about Kucinich because he is the only person in the race with a peace-loving, truly progressive platform.  I think in many ways the only real Republican in the 08 race is Ron Paul.  The Republicans have moved so far away from their base that they almost seem like a third party.  Here’s what I mean:

The whole idea of being “conservative” is being resistant to change, wanting to keep things the same or return to the way they were.  So less government spending, programs, involvement abroad, participation in international organizations, interfering with people’s health and life decisions, taking rights from the states etc. would all then not be conservative  The whole concept of a “hands-off” or laissez-fare government is exactly what the Republicans once preached.  Let’s look at the Bush administration though: We’ve got troops all over the world, trying to build nations, we’re involved in all kinds of international trade organizations, he wants to restrict what a woman can do with her body, he’s imposed education legislation that has given the federal government a choke hold on what state’s can do with their own money in their schools…  All of this while spending more than any President ever has in history, combined.  What’s conservative about spending us into the ground so that we need a hostile Chinese government to bail us out?

Ron Paul is different, the real conservative stance should be anti-war and anti-government influence in people’s lives.  The real split in the parties can be best understood by examining the two best representatives: Kucinich and Paul.  Kucinich wants to use the federal government to make life better for every American, Paul wants the government to stay out of the lives of every American.  That’s really the only difference, so why aren’t we seeing news story after news story discussing the Kucinich vs. Paul debates?

I have an answer to this question, and its an uncomfortable one:  Americans no longer care about real issues.  We have a political system in which a person’s opinion on homosexuals is enough to make them register with a particular party.  And if that issue doesn’t get someone into a camp, ask them about abortion.  These are not political questions, they’re personal quetions that should have nothing to do with even local government, let alone the federal government.  Kucinich and Paul talk about real change and real issues.  I just wish the rest of the candidates, on both sides of the aisle, would start doing the same.

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We’ve all seen the signs at this point… At least in the western half of this country. “Ron Paul Revolution!” The signs look more like some kind of underground punk band and not an advertisement for a Texan in a suit. Then again, the Ron Paul campaign is not involved in the “revolution” movement. Here is the sign, if you’ve not seen one yet:

Some on the left have applauded Ron Paul for some of his positions. I would like to echo these statements and add that the Democrats should be brave enough to stand up and say some of the things Dr. Paul has said. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about.

Ron Paul wants to get the US military out of Iraq, but he also wants to get the US military out of every foreign nation. I couldn’t agree with him more. We are wasting money keeping troops in Korea for 50 years, keeping troops in Europe for 60. Troops in those countries are not protecting our national security. And we do not have a mandate that says we must police the world. If anything the radical groups of the Middle East’s message has been clear: get out of the Middle East and Palestine. Rather than accept this we go on with the rhetoric of “they hate us for our freedom.” (Giuliani et al) What nonsense! It’s refreshing to hear anyone, let alone a Republican stand up and say we need our troops out of these countries.

Dr. Paul is also right when he says that the over-spending must stop. The idea that we are relying on China to finance a failed war that the majority of Americans do not support is frightening. How can that even be happening? The truth of the matter, as Paul would agree, is that this Republican administration has over spent in record amounts and have run the national deficit into the trillions. These are the people that are “financially conservative?” Please, Paul’s suggestion for spending is to return to the Clinton era.  Ironic no?

Paul loses me on a critical issue, however, and that is his idea of abolishing income tax and with it 1/3 of the government’s budget. While I detest the way this government spends money abroad, both Democrats and Republicans are guilty here, I can’t let the government’s funding wane. Rather, I want a government that is investing in the lives of the people it represents, rather than monetary interests from big party donors abroad. Rather than abolishing taxes we should be reinvesting. We are already paying enough money to pay for everyone in this country to have universal health care, free college educations, free pre-K programs, social security that provides for people to live above the poverty line, the list could go on.  We’re simply spending the money on failed efforts at Americanizing the world.

Ron Paul has some great ideas, and his forthrightness is refreshing. Perhaps the best compliment I can give him, though, is that I can actually fathom how a Republican could support Ron Paul. His thinking makes sense, he’s consistent, he actually has a plan to do something in this country domestically unlike the rest of his field who either want to make abortion illegal or continuing a failing war for the rest of our lives. So, my Republican friends, I applaud your support for Dr. Paul, and if you really like his ideas I recommend you take a look at http://www.dennis4president.com/. Kucinich has all the same stances on foreign policy issues and yet also wants to make life better for every American at home rather than asking Americans to put out their own fires, build their own roads and bridges, and home school their children.  Yes I know this isn’t part of Paul’s campaign speeches but these are the things that taxes fund.

Does this make me part of the Revolution?  I hope not, I think.

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Many people didn’t watch it, we didn’t even write about it yesterday, but it turns out there was a Democratic debate yesterday hosted by the AFL-CIO in Chicago. The one candidate not present was Mike Gravel, but honestly I don’t think that mattered very much to people.

< The Contenders…

Sure there were a few big moments. Obama continued to threaten a sovereign nation who is on our side in the war on terror, Hillary told us if we want a winner she’s our girl, and Kucinich got the second biggest round of applause when he called for the end of NAFTA and WTO (love that guy!!). But the truly great part of the debate happened off the stage.

A man named Steve Skvara had the line of the night. He said:

“After 34 years with LTV Steel, I was forced to retire because of a disability. Two years later, LTV filed bankruptcy. I lost a third of my pension, and my family lost their health care. Every day of my life, I sit at the kitchen table across from the woman who devoted 36 years of her life to my family, and I can’t afford to pay for her health care. What’s wrong with America and what will you do to change it?”

As he said it his voice cracked with emotion and the entire event paused and gave the man a standing ovation. Skvara’s story was proof that this election touches people. This is not simply a contest, nor is politics something that only effects those directly involved in the government. Our democracy effects each and everyone of us and there is more that we can do as a country to take care of one another.

Ask yourself several questions: What is more important, the war in Iraq or education? The war in Iraq or healthcare? The war in Iraq or stem cell research? The list can go on… What happened to our priorities? Perhaps the best question to be asking right now: is the infrastructure in Iraq more important than infrastructure here in America? The answer, I hope, is no. When did it become more important to rebuild another country instead of taking care of those of us at home?

This presidential election in 2008 has the potential to forever change our country. We could see the full funding of healthcare for all Americans, real funding for education, campaign finance reform, real funding for stem-cell research, and the end of the greatest foreign policy blunder since Vietnam. America is a progressive nation, one that since it’s creation has set the standard for countries all over the world.  We had the first democracy in modern time, wrote a constitution that has become the standard to which other constitutional governments are measured against, and provided freedoms never before seen in the world.  What happened to our world leading spirit and initiative? We can reclaim our position as the nation that sets the standard that other countries strive to recreate. There is no reason we don’t have the best schools, brightest students, healthiest citizens, most fair elections, and most accomplished scientists.  If we truly are the leaders of the free world it’s time we start acting like it.

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