Liberal College Kid

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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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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President Bush today called a press conference to address the horrible event that happened yesterday in Minneapolis, MN where a bridge on I-35 collapsed into the Mississippi River. < The decider deciding apologies are over rated

Apparently he then forgot where he was and what he was talking about and shifted the discussion to spending bills. Of the 737 words the Decider said, 228 were actually words of sympathy relevant to the collapsed bridge in Minnesota. The rest of the speech consisted of the President demanding Democrats in congress pass the 12 spending bills that are required before the end of September. Here was his segway:

“We also talked about — in the Cabinet meeting talked about the status of important pieces of legislation before the Congress. We spent a fair amount of time talking about the fact that how disappointed we are that Congress hasn’t sent any spending bills to my desk.”

Hang on, people are dead and injured there are more than 50 cars at the bottom of the Mississippi River, some of them potentially with bodies in them. There is an entire state that is in complete shock. This is a national disaster Mr. President and you are “disappointed” with congress not getting you a spending bill! This was supposed to be a moment when our nation’s leader reached out to the people of Minneapolis to express real sympathy.  Not to mention the fact that this segment of his speech could be used in elementary schools for fifth graders to fix the President’s poor grammar.

Further compounding this whole thing, the President said “I told them (Governor Pawlenty and Mayor Rybak) we would help with rescue efforts, but I also told them how much we are in prayer for those who suffered.” Prayers are not the issue here Mr. President. Your war has cost more than $450 billion and is not slowing down any time soon. The culture of this Right Wing revolution has created politicians like Pawlenty who run on campaigns where they promise no new taxes. You know what, taxes are a necessary thing! That bridge was known to be structurally flawed, and the Democratic led state legislature in Minnesota passed a bill to raise gas prices 5 cents per gallon to fund highway and road construction projects. The Republican governor vetoed the bill.

No matter what anyone on either side of the aisle says, this is a political issue. We are spending money on the wrong things in this country and we have gotten to the point that legislators are having to choose what to fund. And to top it all of we have a President that can’t even issue a real apology to the people suffering in Minnesota.

Prayer and positive thinking are all well and fine but they don’t solve the problem.  And actually, rescue efforts won’t solve the problem either.  The issue at hand is not one faulty bridge, it’s the deteriorating condition of our roads and bridges everywhere in this country as we see more and more traffic and heavier loads traveling on our highways than ever before.  This needs to be a national effort and Congress and the President need to take real steps to make sure that tragedies like this don’t befall any more American cities.

Liberal College Kid would like to offer their sympathy for those affected by this tragedy.

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