moron the presidential elections

yes, the title of this post, “moron the presidential elections”, is a pun. much of what is said about elections is stupid. people ought to vote for whichever candidate they think is best, not whoever they think is “electable”. why do you think john kerry lost in 2004? because democrats stupidly chose the candidate they thought was most “electable”, rather than going with the correct choice, howard dean, who is awesome and would have made the best president ever.

oh, and if you are new to this blog you may wonder why i use lowercase. well some poet named e. e. cummings or something like that always used lowercase. it is simpler if everything is all in the same case, and uppercase would look like yelling. a lot of people on the internet do use proper capitalization, but misspell everything, and i prefer to spell everything correctly but keep everything lowercase. a lot of people spell rupert murdoch as rupert murdock when talking about how evil the bastard is, for instance. i am obsessed with accuracy and hate inaccuracy, but i do like sticking with lowercase because it is more efficient to just use one case. and then in rare instances i can write something in all capitals to get attention or put emphasis on it. i can also use a bigger font or put it in bold or underline it too, of course. like one thing that bugs me is when people who are anti-united states like hugo chavez (duly elected president and communist dictator of venezuela) are called anti-american. it is simply untrue. hugo chavez loves at least part of america, namely latin america, and he wants to help elect communists all over latin america (or as he calls them, “socialists”). but i refuse to dignify hugo chavez with the title of socialist, because socialism is good and hugo chavez and other communists are bad. most wealthy industrialized countries practice socialism, especially ones like canada and sweden. but they are democracies. also, vladimir putin is a communist. or, at the very least, he is a totalitarian dictator. the recent elections in russia were a complete fraud. world chess champion gary kasparov was not even allowed to participate in the elections, despite the fact that he once defeated a computer built by ibm in the game of chess. if you look at how vladimir putin destroyed the company yukos and put its billionaire ceo in jail, or how he assassinated many dissidents and journalists, it is clear that putin, like hugo chavez, is a communist dictator with a cult of personality who tries to brainwash everyone into making him dictator-for-life. now pakistani dictator pervez musharraf, no longer a general, is no communist, but he has failed miserably in the war on terror, allowing al qaeda to have safe haven in the western tribal regions of his country, despite the fact that the united states has given him tremendous amounts of military aid. musharraf is also no supporter of democracy. another foreign leader who is just plain awful is mahmoud ahmadenijad, president of iran, who, like these other foreign presidents, was elected in fake, rigged elections, and is a major league asshole, but unlike the others, ahmadenijad is completely batshit insane. of course, i think u.s. president george w. bush also belongs on that list of evil assholes who are ruining the world, but at least he is not trying to be dictator-for-life like hugo chavez, vladimir putin, and pervez musharraf. now officially, the only communist nations are china, cuba, north korea, vietnam, and i think maybe laos or mongolia might also be officially communist, but i am not sure, i think mostly it is just china, cuba, north korea, and vietnam. out of those nations that are officially communist, the only one that is afflicted with a severe case of communism is north korea; the others only have it midly. in the case of china, the government is actually much more like a fascist totalitarian regime than a communist one, because it is pro-business and pro-capitalism. quite different from russia and venezuela, which i consider to be communist despite neither of them officially claiming to be so. now some other nations in latin america like bolivia, brazil, ecuador, and nicaragua (i think) are led by socialists who are allied with hugo chavez and venezuela (who is allied with cuba and the fidel+raul castro regime). but none of them are as seriously committed to extremely radical left-wing socialism as hugo chavez, and none of them has a cult of personality like hugo chavez or has a leader trying to become dictator-for-life like hugo chavez. i actually used to think hugo chavez was a good guy and the united states was bad for supporting a coup against him in 2002. (he was democratically elected, after all.) but then again, adolf hitler was democratically elected. maybe the united states was right when it tried to overthrow hugo chavez 5 years ago. i don’t think it was right, it was probably wrong, but i am not sure; i think the coup backfired and hugo chavez would not be so anti-united states if we had not tried to overthrow him. anyway, he did try to do a military coup of his own in the early 90’s (similar to how hitler tried to do a military coup called the beer hall putsch but it failed and he was sent to jail and wrote mein kampf while in jail and he got out of jail and ended up being elected german chancellor). anyway, i think george w. bush is a horrible misleader for our nation, but many other nations have even worse national misleaders, and i hate all of them. i suspect french president nicolas sarkozy will turn out to be absolutely horrible in the next few years, worse than former italian misleader silvio berlusconi or former british misleader tony blair. of course, the worst government in the world would have to be either saudi arabia or sudan. there is only one nation in the world whose form of government has been anarchy for over a decade, and that nation is somalia. it has not worked out too well for them, so i think a government is unfortunately necessary. without governments we would return to feudalism or tribalism.

anyway, now for moron the elections. there are some good videos on theonion.com about the elections. here are the 3 so far specifically about the 2008 u.s. presidential election:


In The Know: Candidates Compete For Vital Idgit Vote


Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters


Poll: Mitt Romney Is Candidate Most Voters Want To Get Into Bar Fight With

so those videos are quite informative and full of made-up nonsense but also very insightful and full of more insight than almost anything about the elections from the so-called “mainstream” media. the 2nd of these 3 videos, about bullshit being the most important issue, singles out hillary clinton as a leading purveyor of bullshit, and that part of the video is no joke. hillary clinton is actually the weakest democratic candidate when it comes to the general election, at least according to this story at alternet.org. and guess who is winning in iowa now among democrats? barack obama. check it out here. and the blog post i just linked to also shows that mike huckabee is now the republican front-runner, leaving other contenders such as mitt romney, rudolph giuliani, fred thompson, john mccain, and ron paul in the dust. far-right-wing radicals have already started going after mike huckabee with anonymous smear campaigns. mike huckabee is the only true christian^tm running for president, having had the correct religious right-approved positions on all the social issues for many, many years. as a former southern baptist minister, nobody can question his commitment to christianity. mitt romney, on the other hand, recently gave a speech on religion that actually praised religions other than his own, and mainly called for a greater role for religion in politics, quite the opposite of what john f. kennedy said in his speech on religion before he was elected president (with the help of the chicago mafia). but this time around, barack obama has the full support of chicago, most notably the billionaire talk show host oprah winfrey. anyway, i am an atheist and supporter of separation of church and state, and i find the views of people like mike huckabee and mitt romney on religion and its role in politics to be, quite frankly, unconstitutional, in violation of the first amendment and the separation of church and state. and i also think that nations where religion plays a great deal of a role in politics, like iran, tend to be quite a bit more wacko than nations like the united kingdom where tony blair had to keep quiet about his religiosity in order to appear sane to voters. a new movie out now, the golden compass, is based on a book written by an agnostic (not an atheist!) and in the story the main character actually does meet god at one point (so it is not even an atheistic story), but religious people are up in arms about how the main villain in the story is something called the magisterium, which is actually the roman catholic church. now, after the crusades and inquisitions and all sorts of other atrocities they have committed, the roman catholic church ought to be apologetic for all the bad things it has done in previous centuries, and willing to admit it is imperfect and that the pope is not infallible. but bill donohue, leader of the catholic league, takes an entirely different approach, viciously attacking anyone who ever dares question his religion. now granted, he is not a member of the catholic clergy and does not officially speak for that religion. but he has spoken out in the media on many issues over the years and has always proven himself to be a right-wing radical who wants the government to censor anything that he finds objectionable, anything that questions his religion. and he attacks the golden compass movie for promoting atheism! even though god actually appears as a character in the story, and even though the author has no position on whether or not god exists! this right-wing religious radicalism that is pro-censorship, pro-oppression, and anti-freedom is exactly what led the taliban to blow up giant buddha statues, and exactly what is used to govern nations like iran and saudi arabia, and exactly what led people to kill each other over a bunch of silly cartoons of the prophet mohammed in a danish newspaper. why, in saudi arabia, women cannot drive cars, and a victim of gang rape was given a quite nasty sentence by a government that decided she was the criminal. that is the type of government you get if you let too much religion into politics. but i think mike huckabee will win the republican nomination, because the republican party base is made of religious zealots, and none of the other candidates have the right positions on the issues that matter to these religious radicals. well perhaps mitt romney has the right positions now, but he is a flip-flopper who used to be socially liberal before he became socially conservative, plus he is mormon and that is considered a “cult” by members of the rival cult known as the religious right. what is the difference between a religion and a cult? a religion is treated with respect by the media and the general public, and a cult is condemned by the media and the general public. religions usually have more members than cults, but some religions such as judaism have hardly any members, and some cults such as scientology have a whole lot of members. but basically, religions and cults are the same exact thing, except cults might go a little further with overt attempts at mind control and enslaving people and getting them to give all their money to the church. however, if you look at how the catholic church operated before the protestant reformation, back during the middle/dark ages when 99% of europeans were illiterate, they brainwashed people just like a cult. and even today, right-wing protestant evangelicals operate in quite a similar fashion, as do islamic fundamentalists in the middle east, hindus in india, and certain ultra-religious sects of judaism in israel. religion and cults all promote belief in the supernatural. but all belief in the supernatural, all faith in that which cannot be proven or even observed, it is all irrational and wrong. so i oppose not only religion, but also belief in space aliens that come to earth, also fortune cookies, also horoscopes, also belief in ghosts, also belief in magic, also psychic services that have 900 numbers to call on the telephone, also belief in zero point energy and other mad science, also people who think the world is flat or that the geocentric model of the universe is correct or that the big bang never happened or that evolution or global warming is wrong. we need to follow logic, reason, and science. and while none of the democrats really follows logic and reason perfectly, they do it a lot better than the republicans, at least when it comes to whether someone is too religious. now if someone is “spiritual” instead of religious, that is usually not as bad, because at least they are not blindly following whatever some wacko tells them is true. someone who is spiritual instead of religious probably thinks for themselves instead of blindly following some official dogma, but unfortunately, they come to the wrong conclusions and end up believing in all sorts of supernatural nonsense. now there are 5 basic belief systems regarding god, in my view. #1 is polytheism, where someone believes in multiple gods. #2 is monotheism, where someone believes in one and only one god. #3 is weak atheism, where someone does not actively believe in any god or gods, and also does not make any claims regarding whether or not the existence of any god or gods can be proven or disproven. #4 is agnosticism, where someone believes that it is impossible for anyone to tell whether or not any god or gods exist. #5 is strong atheism, where someone firmly believes that no god or gods could ever possibly exist under any circumstances. the default view people are born with is #3, weak atheism, the middle of the 5 positions, the one that does not make any claims about anything, where someone admits they do not know but does not claim that they know that it is impossible for anyone to know. if someone is unsure about whether or not god exists, and perhaps they think there is a 75% chance god exists or a 90% chance god exists, they are a weak atheist. positions 1, 2, 4, and 5 are all ones where someone actively claims they know for sure what the answer is, although in the case of #4, agnosticism, what the person is claiming they know for sure is that nobody knows the answer. which position do i take? well... heh heh... it depends on how the term "god" is defined. depending on how you define that term, i could take any of the 5 positions. i think it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of god as long as the condition exists that there is no universally agreed-upon definition for the word “god” (and god is just a word like any other as far as i am concerned, so no need to capitalize it). but i do not believe in agnosticism, because i think you could prove or disprove the existence of god if you defined god in such a way as to make that outcome possible. and ultimately, a word such as god is a creation of society, part of language, something whose definition changes over time like every other word in the language, perhaps also changing its spelling and pronunciation as well (which is how new languages arise from old ones). so, in that sense, if god is just a word, i believe in god, since i believe that the word “god” exists as a word in the english language, so god exists, albeit only as a word (so thus i could take position #2). or if we assume society can never agree on a definition of the word “god”, then i would be agnostic, since you can neither prove nor disprove the existence of something that cannot even be defined. or i could just decide to define god as, for instance, any living organism that exists. then you, me, every animal, every plant, every microorganism, are all gods. thus i would take position #1, polytheism. or if god is defined as omniscient and omnipotent (all-knowing and all-powerful), this would mean god does not exist, since the properties attributed to god would be self-contradictory, as god would know everything that will happen in the future but have the power to change things to happen differently than predicted, thus contradicting being all-knowing. in that case i would take position #5, strong atheism. that is actually the way most people define god. but i take the position #3, weak atheism, the neutral position that makes no claims, because i do not think the word “god” has any universally agreed-upon definition, and so existence or nonexistence cannot be proven at the time being, but it is possible that things may change and the word might actually have a meaning people can agree on, and in that case, proving or disproving the existence of god would become possible. i used to be a strong atheist, but when i talked about things with people who did not adhere to the dogma about god being an omniscient, omnipotent, anthropomorphized being, i realized that a large percentage of people believe in a god who does not even remotely adhere to the definition you would find in a dictionary. some people say god is love. quakers say there is part of god in everyone (so the quaker god is sorta like a large vegetable or piece of meat or some other kind of food that was chopped up into little pieces, except unlike most food, the quaker god is still alive). and back in the old days, the early jews believed in many gods but thought only their tribal god, jehovah, would watch over them and protect them, and that while other gods existed and could do neat stuff like turn sticks into snakes, jehovah did not want them praying to other gods because he would get jealous and then smite them. in northern europe, people believed in the norse gods. the greeks and romans had their gods, whose stories are still well-known to this day. and the hindus still believe in many gods, and are quite superstitious and believe in all sorts of supernatural silliness even today. in india, people do crazy things like get married to animals because they think they would be cursed by the gods otherwise. and most native americans were polytheistic, as well as the people of africa who believed in animism. so early humans, tribal societies with no technology, were almost all animists or polytheists, and gradually, people have believed in fewer and fewer gods, until they got down to one, and then zero. and now the debate is mainly between the one and zero folks, which probably pisses off the people who still think there are thousands or millions of gods. anyway, my point is, irrational stupidity is still very popular, and that is why mike huckabee will win the republican nomination. as for the democrats, i am quite hopeful that barack obama will win, because he is starting to be ahead of hillary clinton in some of the polls such as the ones in iowa. barack obama is a true liberal/progressive democrat, but hillary clinton is just a centrist/“moderate” democrat. hillary clinton has been so demonized and attacked on all sides, from the right and the left, that she has “triangulated” herself right into the center, trying not to take any positions that could possibly piss anyone off. perhaps all the criticism of her is a bit unfair, especially since barack obama seems to get nothing but praise from anyone. but i think her image, her public persona, is quite damaged, and that would not matter too much if i trusted her judgment to make the right decisions on important issues. barack obama has proven himself to have much better judgment. however, i think barack obama might be a bit too timid to attack others or go negative, just like john edwards was in 2004 and is again this time. i read an article about how john edwards’s failure to go negative against bush and cheney like vice presidential candidates traditionally do cost kerry/edwards the 2004 election. the relentless positivity of john edwards simply did not work. and perhaps barack obama is too positive, too nice, too timid about viciously attacking other people’s reputations, motivations, credibility, and personal lives. perhaps, to be president, you have to be a complete asshole or bitch. the one good thing about hillary clinton is that if she wins the nomination, i can at least trust her to viciously trash her opponent in the general election, which i do not think barack obama or john edwards would ever do. and that is what is needed. just remember how bush viciously trashed john kerry in 2004, with some help from the swift boat veterans for bullshit. kerry and edwards were far too timid about attacking bush, which cost them the election. still, i would like to think that someone positive like barack obama could win the election. and hopefully mike huckabee will be too positive to attack anyone. i think huckabee is locked into a cycle of increasing poll numbers and popularity and then news stories about his increasing poll numbers and popularity, which will then give him even more increasing poll numbers and popularity, and this cycle will continue at least until super tuesday in february. we will hear about how mitt romney spent many, many times as much money as huckabee and still lost, and people will think romney is a loser, and giuliani and mccain and thompson will all do badly in the early primary states as well. mike huckabee’s victory will be a big defeat for the club for growth and other groups that don’t like him. and the decades-long alliance between religious zealots who want to legislate morality and rich people who want low taxes and deregulation will come to an end. the wealthy elites will someday ultimately realize their true allies, the people they should really throw all their support to, the people they can really count on: the libertarians. people like ron paul and lew rockwell, and groups like the cato institute, reason magazine, and the ludwig von mises institute. and then the libertarians will either have to take over one of the 2 main political parties (probably the republicans), or they will have to win elections as the libertarian party, becoming a successful 3rd party. the religious right will probably ultimately self-destruct and cease to exist as a viable political force with any real influence. and that is when the republican party will all become libertarians, unless the libertarian party manage to become as big as the democrats and republicans. although ron paul will lose this 2008 election, his candidacy is jump-starting a movement that will end up taking over this entire country, years from now. and i will try to defend liberalism, progressivism, and socialism (socialism like in canada and europe), although i completely agree with libertarians on social issues and may vote for them if i feel they are more in sync with my views than the democratic candidates. but if you look at how religion is in decline and is self-destructing, and the libertarian movement is getting bigger and bigger all the time, and how libertarians agree with the wealthy on all the issues that matter to rich people, it seems obvious that someday the libertarians will win. as for other third parties? well, the reform party that ross perot founded never really had any clear agenda, and split up because nobody could agree on what they all believed in. the green party advocate the exact same things as the most left-wing liberal democrats. and the constitution party advocates the exact same things as the most right-wing conservative republicans. the green party and constitution party are mainly pressure groups on the democrats and republicans that threaten to take away votes if the 2 big parties stray away from what their party base wants them to do, and get too centrist. the greens are ultra-liberal and the constitution party people are ultra-conservative. so neither of them will ever get anywhere. only the libertarians have a chance as a third party, since they are the only ones advocating a third way, something completely different from liberalism or conservatism. but it will take years, and i will probably not support them, although i might. of course there are countless other tiny political parties (besides libertarian, green, and reform), such as the natural law party, the socialist party, the communist party, the socialist workers party, the socialist equality party, the democratic socialist party, the workers world party, the nazi party, etc... and there are parties that are only in 1 state, like in new york state we have the liberal party, the conservative party, the working families party, the independence party, and the right to life party, among others. the working families party is actually very powerful in binghamton, because they chose mayor matt ryan and they now control the city council. but the working families party is just an oddity of new york state. the working families party is the same thing as an activist group known as citizen action that is very active in binghamton and in several other places in new york state. the mayor of binghamton has been having things called neighborhood assemblies where he and other politicians meet with whatever local citizens from a neighborhood decide to show up, and then they just talk about stuff. and the neighborhood assemblies are all organized by citizen action, or in other words, the working families party. the mayor has even gotten taxpayer money to go to citizen action for this. now personally i think it is unethical for the government to give money to political activist organizations. but i do not live inside the city of binghamton, only next to it, so it is none of my concern. and the candidates supported by the working families party won fair and square. it is just odd that the activists of citizen action and the working families party now control who wins democratic primaries for local elected offices. whoever they endorse always wins the democratic primary, and then almost always wins the general election. i think the reason they carry so much clout is, binghamton has a pretty small population and very few activist groups, and almost all the activist groups are left-wing. besides citizen action/working families party, most of the left-wing activist groups are pacifist groups that hold peace vigils and do not really do much in the way of politics. the right-wing people of binghamton are quite disorganized, since they rely almost solely on the republican party and do not have separate activist groups. and the democratic party in the binghamton area is now a puppet being controlled by the working families party, since the working families party is able to use the primary process of the democratic party to control it by selecting which candidates to support ahead of time and then doing lots of grassroots effort to get them elected, and not many people vote in primary elections. i suppose there might be some other parts of the united states, other locales where third parties have somehow managed to take control of everything. it seems the best way for a third party to win is to hijack the primary process of the democratic or republican party. it really is a brilliant strategy, and i commend the working families party for their success in conquering the local democratic party. of course the local democratic party leaders are not too happy about this, and neither am i, but i admire the success the working families party has achieved here in binghamton, controlling both the mayor and the city council. i think the local democratic leaders will probably think of a way to counteract the influence of the working families party (who had amazing success in the 2007 local elections last month in november). but by law, they have to remain neutral about who to support in the primaries, which is why an outside group can come in and hijack the primary process if they have enough volunteers. with that in mind, perhaps it would be a good idea for someone to do likewise and hijack the republican primary process the same way it was done to the democrats. anyway, i do not trust the working families party or citizen action. perhaps it is just because i am such a loyal democrat that i do not like outside influences taking over my party. but i do support the political agenda that the working families party and citizen action espouse. and i suppose i do support binghamton mayor matt ryan as well as new york governor eliot spitzer. nobody is perfect... i just wish these neighborhood assemblies could have been organized by a politically neutral group rather than a progressive left-wing activist group, because the government is actually giving money to an activist organization, and i think the government should keep its money out of politics. likewise, george w. bush’s justice department and other departments have become politicized and have actively worked to help the republican party and hurt the democratic party, such as with the u.s. attorney scandal, and selective prosecutions of democrats but not republicans. in many foreign countries, governments spend money on campaign commercials for whoever is in power, and try to control the media. anyway, this citizen action/working families party group has managed to take over the mayor’s office and the city council in binghamton, and has basically taken over the local democratic party, but i think the democrats here are going to fight back. i am not sure which side to take, because on the one hand, i agree with the working families party and citizen action on the issues, but on the other hand, i think their actions are unethical and undermine the democratic process. at least in the national elections for president i am starting to have hope... barack obama is the great hope of this country, the only one who can save our nation. but even if he loses, i can still take heart... hillary clinton will utterly demolish mike huckabee or whoever else the republicans choose. unlike obama and edwards, she has not typecast herself as a positive person who never goes negative or attacks anyone else. if obama or edwards goes negative and attacks, they get labelled as a hypocrite and flip-flopper for pretending to be all nice and positive and then changing their mind. but obama has the mystical power to unite this nation and end our divisions and partisan bickering. he also has powers of telepathy, telekinesis, mind control, time travel, teleportation, invisibility, flying, mind control, god mode, and the ability to shoot lasers from his eyes. he is an alien, a robot, a ghost, a pirate, a ninja, an angel, a demon, a vampire, a zombie, a mummy, and an international man of mystery. also, he is the reincarnation of jesus christ as well as the buddha. basically i am saying, it is ridiculous to think he can magically end the partisan divisions in this country, because that will never happen, and that is as ridiculous as those other things i just made up. but if hillary clinton is elected, partisan divisions will just get worse than ever. she can unite republicans... against her. oh well... i am such a silly person. i need some rest because i am quite sleepy and getting to be rather ridiculous in all the silly things i say. i have given up on dennis kucinich. for the time being, i am supporting barack obama, just like oprah winfrey is doing. but my support is not very deep and i could still change my mind. one thing is clear and that is, i will vote party-line democrat in the 2008 election, no matter who wins the primaries. nothing can change my mind about that. i am quite upset at the democrats in washington, d.c. after reading recent news reports that they are planning on sending bush more money for the war in iraq, before the end of this month of december, without any conditions. they had promised not to do that. they had better get their act together and end the damn war already, or there will be hell to pay. still, i will vote for them no matter what they do. i do not have much of a choice, because the republicans are way more pro-war than the democrats, and the democrats at least claim to oppose the war, even though they keep funding it and do nothing to stop it. i prefer someone who at least pretends to be on my side to someone who adamantly opposes everything i stand for. the democrats may not do what they say, but neither do the republicans. at least i like what the democrats say. i hate what the republicans say. and when it comes to actions, i am disappointed with everyone. the only way to end the war is to cut off funding, and nobody has done that. only a few democrats in congress are trying to do that, and it never works. there is so much cowardice about politicians being afraid of being branded as not supporting the troops. you know what? if we really supported the troops we would bring them home and stop putting them in harm’s way in hostile muslim countries. if we really cared we would stop putting them in danger and getting so many of them permanently disabled or killed. our nation is in danger, but the biggest threat is not foreigners, it the threat of us destroying ourselves. we are destroying ourselves through going into debt, as individuals, as businesses, as government. and our money is becoming worthless. we are destroying the other life forms on this planet. we are using up all our natural resources. we are spending all our money on useless crap we don’t need. the gap between rich and poor is getting bigger and bigger, and most people are not well educated. our healthcare system is broken. and all our jobs are going to foreigners. meanwhile, people in the highest levels of the government are planning an endless series of wars for world domination to steal the natural resources of other nations and bring in a new colonialism, new imperialism, a new world order, with the united states conquering any nation that dares oppose it. this pax americana will never work, not like the pax romana did. we are the ones who turn the rest of the world against us, through our actions, or rather, not the actions of our private citizens, but the actions of our government and our corporations. perhaps we should adopt the somali system of government. it has worked quite well for somalia, don’t you think?