various topics

recently, a poll found that 22% of democrats want barack obama to withdraw from the race, 22% want hillary clinton to withdraw from the race, and the rest are content to see both of them continue duking it out. and a much larger percentage of hillary clinton supporters say they would either not vote or vote for john mccain in the fall if their candidate loses than barack obama supporters, according to another poll. why such animosity? well, if you support hillary clinton, you may have noticed that she personally has done plenty of negative attacks on barack obama, even ignoring all the attacks by others in her campaign, her surrogates, and her supporters in the media like james carville. she said that both she and john mccain are qualified to be commander-in-chief but barack obama is not, essentially endorsing mccain over obama. more recently, she has backpedaled from that appearance of disloyalty to her party, and said that her supporters should vote for the democrat in november rather than for john mccain. she hedged her bets on whether barack obama was a muslim, saying that she didn’t think he was one, as far as she knew, but you would have to ask him. and she said, regarding his pastor jeremiah wright, that rev. wright would certainly not be her pastor, and that you can’t choose your family but you can choose what church to attend. and remember her saying that he was the one who lied about nafta when it was really her, and saying “shame on you, barack obama!” during that episode? she has sent plenty of signals to her supporters not to support barack obama, but now seems to be sending mixed signals. maybe he is good, maybe he is bad. who knows? the funny thing is, i thought that once everyone knew barack obama’s pastor was a crazy radical christian, they would realize he is not a muslim, since after all, he has been attending this church with a crazy radical christian pastor for over 20 years. but no. they still think he is muslim. here is a direct quote from the pew foundation survey that found 23% of anti-obama democrats still think he is a muslim, even after all the controversy about his controversial CHRISTIAN church: “White Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim.”

now as for the real deal regarding rev. jeremiah wright, he is undoubtedly a controversial figure. and with comments like “god damn america”, he is certainly a radical (although i consider being a radical a compliment and not necessarily a bad thing). and why do i call him crazy? i think all religious people are crazy, and religion is a form of mental illness, and rev. wright is seriously afflicted with a severe case of christianity, one of the many religions out there, waiting to infect unprepared nonbelievers that have not already come up with a proof of the nonexistence of god. plenty of nonbelievers do not have sufficient proof to justify their position, meaning they are easy prey for those who want to convert them to join one of the world’s thousands of religious denominations. and plenty of religious believers (in fact, almost all of them) do not have sufficient proof of their religious beliefs, but most of them are armored with something else stronger than logical proof in keeping a person from changing their mind: faith. faith is the exact opposite of logic, and is actually much more powerful in making someone believe something, since many people distrust logic and reason since they have an anti-intellectual outlook and think of logic and reason as elitist and tools that satan uses. anyway, with regard to rev. wright’s controversial comments, many of them were taken out of context, and the ones that were not simply show him to be a leftist radical like ward churchill, noam chomsky, or many others who are critical of the united states government from a left-wing perspective. now there is nothing wrong with being a leftist radical, of course. i consider myself a leftist radical and so do many other americans, and i think that any nation that does not allow peaceful, nonviolent dissent is totalitarian, not democratic. moreover, dissent is crucial to the proper functioning of a democracy, because without anyone to criticize the government, any government will eventually get completely out of control. our freedom and democracy depend on the continued free speech given to nonviolent radicals of all political persuasions, from left-wing radicals like ward churchill and noam chomsky to right-wing radicals like ann coulter and rush limbaugh. rev. wright is well within the mainstream of leftist radicalism within the united states, a mainstream that rejects violence, rejects communism/marxism, but also rejects many u.s. government policies that there is a consensus in favor of among politicians in washington, d.c. he also belongs to the vast majority of african-americans who believe that the united states is still a racist country, that the wrongs of slavery and jim crow laws and segregation and support for apartheid south africa have not yet been righted, and that black people are victims of white oppression in many ways, resulting in them making much less money on average than white people, being much more likely to be in prison than white people, having lower test scores than white students, having a shorter life expectancy than white people, having more sexually transmitted diseases and teenage pregnancy and single mothers than white people, and generally being disadvantaged in many ways that can be shown with statistics. now, many right-wing commentators blame the problems faced by the black community on something other than a government that has historically oppressed them, or racism and discrimination: they blame black people’s problems on black people. if black people are more likely to be on crack cocaine or have aids or be in prison or be below the poverty line, this is their fault, and they should just STOP IT and pull themselves up by their bootstraps, have some personal responsibility, and stop asking the government for help since that is not the government’s role, it is the role of private charities. this conservative view of why black people have so many problems helps explain why most black people are liberal democrats, since conservatives do not give a damn about black people and always blame the victim. and sometimes it seems like liberals do not care either, so people either get disgusted with politics and become completely apathetic about it, or they decide to do something about it and become radical voices of dissent like rev. jeremiah wright. now as for him saying “god damn america” that one time: most christians in the united states assume that our nation has the blessing of god and that whatever we do is righteous and our enemies are always the evil ones. there is no biblical basis for assuming your favorite nation-state is morally blameless and that other nation-states or groups are evil. most fundamentalist christians are also extremely patriotic and refuse to admit that the united states is ever wrong. there are exceptions, like the westboro baptist church led by rev. fred phelps. that church goes much, much, much further than rev. jeremiah wright ever did in condemning the united states, and it is from the far right, not the far left. rev. fred phelps and the westboro baptist church think homosexuality is incredibly evil and that any nation that allows it must be completely condemned. rev. jeremiah wright and the trinity united church of christ open their doors to homosexuals and welcome them, without any condemnation, which is pretty rare among christian churches in the united states these days. and since homosexuality is condemned as evil by right-wingers, conservatives, and republicans, and considered an acceptable lifestyle choice by left-wingers, liberals, and democrats, naturally any left-wing radical would support letting homosexuals have equal rights alongside all other americans. that is a radical idea. you know, rev. martin luther king, jr. once denounced the united states of america as the greatest purveyor of violence in the world, and said we had a thing-oriented materialistic society, rather than a person-oriented society that really valued human beings. rev. martin luther king, jr. was a left-wing radical in his day, speaking out against the vietnam war when everyone else thought that was unpatriotic and treasonous for him to do, and he was often accused of being a communist. so, when i say rev. jeremiah wright is a left-wing radical, i am saying that he is a left-wing radical in the tradition of rev. martin luther king, jr., and that is something he can be proud of. my only real disagreement with rev. jeremiah wright is over this whole “religion” thing and whether god exists and there is an afterlife and all that stuff. in fact, barack obama has proven himself to be nowhere near the far left, and he is much more centrist and moderate than i am. i still support him, of course. why should i waste my vote on a fellow far-left person like ralph nader? ralph nader, my fellow left-wing radical, who decided years ago that the democratic party is not left-wing enough and needs to be abandoned completely for its capitulations to right-wing corporatists. i am not quite that left-wing... i am more moderate and closer to the center than ralph nader, so i am moderate enough to support the democratic party rather than joining the green party, the workers world party, the socialist party, the socialist workers party, the socialist equality party, the democratic socialist party, or the communist party. by the way, notice how many socialist parties there are in the united states and how fractured left-wing radicals who reject the democratic party are? that is why they are all a complete waste of time, and if you want to get anywhere in american politics, you have to either be a democrat or a republican, or else be a billionaire who can finance your own campaigns. and that is why both democrats and republicans have party bases that have many radicals in them. radicalism is, essentially, a staunch rejection of the status quo. everyone is basically a radical in some sense, except those who want to keep things exactly the way they are right now and not change anything. you know, people who want to keep abortion legal like it is now, who want to keep the current tax system and regulatory structure exactly as it presently is, who want to continue the war in iraq forever, who want to do absolutely nothing to change anything. people who want to keep everything exactly the same do not exist. everyone rejects the status quo in at least a few ways; radicals are just people who find a lot more ways that they reject aspects of the status quo than the average person.

now, i would like to talk about china and tibet for a bit. china is a totalitarian dictatorship that still claims to be communist but has embraced capitalism completely, resulting in lots of economic growth and more people becoming prosperous, and becoming a major economic competitor to the united states. but they brutally suppress any opposition with violence and killing, and tremendous amounts of censorship in their media, just like they did back when they really did have a communist economic system. no dissent is tolerated in china. so any radicals either have to keep their mouths shut or they end up in jail or dead. but now, some radicals who staunchly reject the status quo in china are pushing for tibetan independence, and most of these radicals are peaceful, just like the person that most of them revere as their leader, the exiled spiritual leader of tibetan buddhism, the buddhist equivalent of the pope, namely the dalai lama. now the dalai lama does not want tibetan independence, and he supports having the olympics in china and does not want those olympics boycotted, plus he rejects using any violence when protesting. so, these tibetan radicals are refusing to take orders from their spiritual leader, since they want independence, they want everyone to boycott the olympics, and a very small percentage of them have even resorted to violence, in videos shown widely throughout the tightly controlled chinese media, as propaganda against these tibetan activists. now what do i think about this? well, i completely support the tibetan activists 100% in their struggle for freedom against an oppressive, totalitarian chinese regime that tolerates no dissent, censors everything, and uses violence against innocent people. i think everyone should boycott the olympics by not watching it on television, and giving it the lowest ratings that the olympics have had in many years. our athletes should still compete, though, and do their best to kick some chinese ass and win more gold medals than the chinese, since the chinese government tries to train as many athletes as possible as hard as possible in order to promote its national glory by winning lots of gold medals, and we need to try to undermine these efforts so that the government-controlled heavily censored chinese media has nothing to celebrate. the fact that the united states tolerates dissent is what makes us a great country, and china is not a great country because it is an orwellian dystopia of oppression, and china can never be great until its people have freedom and democracy. the chinese keep exporting us tainted products such as toys with lead paint and poisonous food. they may have embraced unregulated free-market capitalism, but that is unacceptable because it means their products have safety problems, they pollute the environment, and they have no labor standards to allow workers to have rights for collective bargaining. since they are a nation that tolerates no dissent, it is very hard for them to solve problems that arise such as unsafe toys or poisonous food, since the media tries to suppress anything bad and keep anyone from knowing about it, so problems like that get covered up. and that is why we should not buy their products: their products are unsafe for us, and we would do better to buy products made in our own country, or other countries that have labor, environmental, and safety standards, such as the european union or canada. of course, now that we have a weak dollar, the united states is the best wealthy industrialized country to manufacture goods for export in. we can flood the rest of the world with cheap american-made goods now that we have a weak dollar, just like the chinese have done with their weak currency. and that will hopefully create jobs and keep us from having an economic collapse like some people are predicting. now that we have a weak dollar, american-made goods are probably cheaper than imported goods, so buying stuff made here is a win-win situation. of course, we need to strengthen our environmental, labor, and safety standards, which have all weakened under the bush administration, since we do not want to end up like china. and we need to allow all types of nonviolent dissent, by radicals from all sides of the political spectrum, to avoid ending up like china. martin luther king, jr., once regarded as an anti-american communist, as a far-left radical, and classified by the federal bureau of investigation as a “black nationalist” (whatever that means), is now regarded as a great american hero, and has a national holiday dedicated to him, and we celebrate him every year. who was behind the movement to abolish slavery, the movement to give women the right to vote, the labor movement, the movement for food safety and workplace safety, the movement against child labor, the movement to create a social safety net for the poor in the 1930s, the civil rights movement to end jim crow laws and segregation and have affirmative action instead, the feminist movement for equal rights for men and women, the antiwar movements against both the vietnam war and the current war in iraq, and all of the other movements that have brought progress to our country? left-wing radicals, who were staunchly opposed to the status quo, who demanded change from our government, were the ones behind all those movements that brought positive change to the united states, who made our nation great. in our constitution, we have slavery, and black slaves count as 3/5ths of a person; this was later rendered null and void by amendments to the constitution by people who wanted to fulfill the great promise of our nation, as a nation by the people, for the people, and of the people, a nation founded by “we the people”, where everyone has the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, where we have a bill of rights. and our greatness as a nation is because, unlike china, we tolerate dissent, and dissent ends up bringing about movements that bring positive change to our country and leave our nation better than it was before. no nation is perfect, and no nation can improve itself if everyone keeps pretending their nation is perfect and blameless and is always right. the people have always been ahead of the politicians, throughout all of the historical movements that brought positive change to our country, ending slavery, letting women and black people vote, etc. but we have not yet completed our journey, since although women and black people can vote nowadays, every president so far has been a white male. we have not yet reached perfection as a nation, nor will we ever, because perfection is impossible. but we are trying to get closer and closer to it, just as previous generations have done throughout our history. and so there are competing narratives about who has it worse, black people or women, and which of those 2 groups deserves to have a president first, and that is all silly talk, because black people were slaves and wives were considered property of their husbands, and both groups have suffered oppression historically, so there is no real justification for saying one group deserves the presidency before the other. that silly sort of dispute renders identity politics absurd, especially if you consider that condi rice is a black woman, yet she is not someone most of these identity-politics people in the demcratic party would be willing to vote for, despite being both black and female, at the same time. how about if we just ignore the race or gender or religion of our candidates, and judge them based on whether we agree with their policies on the issues that affect our daily lives, or whether they are qualified to be president, or whether they have personal qualities like intelligence and honesty and integrity and humility and lack of a win-at-any-cost attitude and willingness to consider other points of view that are essential to being a good president. barack obama is my choice for his positions on the issues that matter and for his personal qualities. now, if you would rather have a president who needs an anger management class, or one who is willing to do or say anything to get elected, or one who gets a free pass from the media but they STILL haven’t realized it yet, or one who is tied to the past and not a candidate with a vision for the future, well, you have other choices. you could even waste your vote on ralph nader, who has run for president every election since 1992, and never won a single state in the electoral college or gotten more than 5% of the vote (i think 5% is the right number, but don’t have the time to double-check that right now). there are plenty of other choices, including not voting at all, or writing in your own name or the name of whomever you want. i am just saying, why not make the best choice? after all, nobody even knows which states will be swing states in november, so your vote may very well matter, depending on where you live. and there are other races besides president, like congress and the senate, and races for governor in some states, and local elections. those also matter, so even if your state is solidly red or blue, voting still matters in deciding these other races. if you are part of the vast majority of americans who do not approve of congress, it might be a good idea to actually vote in the congressional elections, or else, while you still have a right to complain, you also have only yourself to blame for your failure to do anything that might actually have a positive impact on what goes on in washington, d.c. now if you do not want to vote for democrats, go ahead, stay home, don’t vote, and do something else like go to the movies or watch tv or play a video game or get some exercise. whatever makes you happy, as long as it does not involve voting. but if you want a positive change, then do what i do: vote party-line democratic, unless you know one of the politicians is a real scumbag, and in that case, vote for the other person. in november of 2006, i actually voted for a republican, in the race for state comptroller, since the democratic incumbent was a crook. soon after the election, which the democratic incumbent won anyway, he was forced to resign after being charged with a crime, and i am proud to say, i did not vote for that crook. but that is the exception and not the rule, and usually, i vote for all the democrats. now, if hillary clinton is up for re-election to the senate in 2012, i am not sure how i would vote. she has completely alienated me with all she and her campaign have done in this election. personally, i now dislike both her and her husband bill clinton, and cannot stand either of them anymore, which is a shame, because i used to like both of them a lot back in the 1990s, and when i voted for hillary clinton in 2000. i will probably do what i did in 2006 with regard to hillary clinton: vote against her in the democratic primary for senate, but vote for her in the general election. in 2006, a much better candidate was running against her in the democratic primary: jonathan tasini, and i was proud to vote for him, since at that point, hillary clinton was still pro-war and had not yet decided that the war in iraq is bad. but he lost, since too few people knew about him, and everyone had heard of hillary clinton, and she won it based on name recognition and the power of incumbency. and you know what? she refused to have any debates with her primary opponent or her general election opponent in the 2006 race for the u.s. senate seat from new york. and now, running for president, when she is behind in the polls, she wants to have more debates. typical hillary. that is what you get from her. she agreed with the democratic national committee that florida and michigan did not matter and would not get any delegates until after iowa and new hampshire had both voted. voters in those 2 states are very protective of their first-in-the-nation status and would have been angered by her trying to let other states intrude on their terrain. so it was not until after iowa and new hampshire voted that hillary clinton changed her position on michigan and florida. in fact, she even waited until after michigan and florida both voted before saying both states should count, since if barack obama had beaten her in florida (where he was on the ballot, unlike michigan), she would probably have stuck with the position that neither state counts. and as for john mccain, he supports unlimited war in iraq, wants to do absolutely nothing to help the economy except make the bush tax cuts permanent so that our national debt gets even more out of control, and he is basically a conservative republican on almost all of the issues. the few issues where he disagrees from party orthodoxy are all issues where the vast majority of the public disagrees with conservative republican orthodoxy and agrees with liberal democrats: campaign finance reform, global warming, the need to reform immigration, not allowing torture, and the fact that don rumsfeld mishandled the war in iraq. in other words, john mccain is a political opportunist, only disagreeing with his party on issues where he knows for sure that the vast majority of the public already agrees with the “maverick” positions that he decides to take. john mccain and hillary clinton: both political opportunists, who do whatever they think will be popular. and as for john mccain continuing to support the unpopular war in iraq, that is part of his strategy to appeal to the republican base that still supports george w. bush, military voters, and voters concerned with “national security”, and it was how he tried to distract attention from his support for immigration reform that turned out to be unpopular among the republican base. however, more active-duty soldiers gave donations to ron paul, the lone antiwar republican, than to john mccain or any other republican, so you can see what our troops think of john mccain’s pro-war policies.