October 19th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
I visited The Left Anchor today for the first time in a long time and I was shocked to see this McCain Rally Video (I think it is a Rally):
There have been a few news articles scattered around the web this past week talking about the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans in terms of enthusiasm. I don’t remember the specifics but I remember seeing double digit differences between the interest factor of the respective parties. This interest was thought to have disappeared after the “Big Media” played up the division between the Hillary and the Obama supporters however as expected, those rumors are false.
A further point, that the Left Anchor made quite astutely is that people are much more civil in the Obama rallies. No one shouts “McCain…..terrorist….” It really escapes me how people are so afraid of one man and what he could do for America. I am reminded at this point of what Gordon/The Griper once mentioned, I am not sure who because both of them are quite knowledgeable:
Even if Obama wins, America can survive one Obama term if not two.
I know I got that quote wrong so I hope the parties involved will forgive me but I am imploring conservatives to tone it down because some people actually really do believe Senator Obama is a muslim and a terrorist.
August 25th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
Well today has flown by for some reason and I am pretty sure I didn’t get to do everything I should have done, anyway I’m going to move down stairs to watch the convention as soon as I make this post. First of all I wanted to apologize to The Griper for not completely replying to all of his comments today even though he spends some time on our discussions on various political issues, if some of you have not stopped by his blog, I encourage you to do so because you will find some truly though provoking writing.
Today, I thought I would try something new; I am going to “twitter” the convention basically meaning I will update my Twitter account with a 140 character sentence every 5 minutes. This is obviously nothing compared to actually being at the convention but its close enough for those people who live outside of America like myself. You can follow these updates on the right hand sidebar or alternatively open this page and refresh it every now and then while you are browsing.
I stumbled upon a few good YouTube video’s today but the most thought provoking of them was those created by people expressing why they are Democrats. Have you ever thought about it to those of my liberal/progressive friends and to those conservatives, why are you not a Democrat? One reason for myself is that I understand the Democratic party to be more forward looking in the sense that they readily embrace the future of America while not clinging to the past as some Republicans like to do:
July 13th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
Glenn Beck the conservative radio talk show host who currently works for CNN recently wrote on his personal blog about why he will not vote for Senator Obama. In that post he lists some values that he believes defines conservatism, reading through some of those values I thought I might provide the opposite view or the values that some liberals like myself believe in:
A conservative believes that our inalienable rights do not include housing, healthcare or Hummers.
A liberal believes that every person should have a house to live in, healthcare regardless of our “inalienable” rights, policies must reflect the times we live in not the ones from the past. (Hummers are great but give me a BMW any day)
A conservative believes that our inalienable rights DO include the pursuit of happiness. That means it is guaranteed to no one.
A liberal believes that happiness is not guaranteed but it is the duty of every person and organization on this earth to ensure that every human on this planet is happy.
A conservative believes that those who pursue happiness and find it have a right to not be penalized for that success
A liberal believes that those who find happiness must give back to society in order so that other people in disadvantaged situations can attain that happiness.
A conservative believes that real compassion can’t be found in any government program
A liberal believes that the government is there to help those people whom society has forgotten or choose to conveniently ignore and social programs help people get back on their feet.
A conservative believes that people go to the movies to be entertained and to church to be preached to, not the other way around.
A liberal believes that the movie industry is the perfect medium to educate people hence we have the word “documentary.”
A conservative believes that a child’s education is the responsibility of the parents, not the government
A liberal believes that every child regardless of financial background has the right to a college education even if the government has to provide it.
A conservative believes that every human being has a right to life, from conception to death.
A liberal believes that a woman has the right to make any decisions regarding her own body. Furthermore the chance that someone might die that was wrongly convicted in the judicial system rules out the death penalty as a means for judicial punishment.
A conservative believes in the smallest government you can get without anarchy. We know our history: The larger a government gets, the harder it will fall
A liberal believes that a large government is not necessarily bad, society is increasingly complex and varied hence we need the same in our government.
These are not all of Mr. Beck’s views but I took the ones that I disagree with and stated my own opinions. Some liberals may not disagree with these views or the opinions expressed herein but please feel free to leave relevant comments and I might change the wording in this post. The one liberal view that is most important to me that Mr. Beck did not mention in his conservative ideology list is: A liberal believes in the racial, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity of any nation, this diversity should be encouraged rather than demonized.
Other issues I did not mention because Mr. Beck did not include them in his list are the creationism/evolution debate, global warming and the interpretation of the constitution. As a liberal I believe that evolution belongs in the classroom and creationism in the church, global warming is already here and that the constitution should be interpreted in the context of the fabric of society as it exists today.
I hate just writing text because who wants to read a long paragraph on a Sunday night/afternoon, so I tried to find a conservative cartoon with Google Images. The problem was that with any combination of the term “liberal” or “conservative”, every single cartoon I found was anti-liberal within the first few pages. At the end of the day, I decided to go with a bastion of liberalism also known as The Simpsons:
July 10th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
I mentioned yesterday that I have come to a new realization with regards to the state of the media environment within the United States. This realization is that conservatives receive the lions share of content from organizations like ABC, CBS, MSNBC and CNN who are traditionally known as liberal news outlets. This leads me to the question:
Is politics ultimately about power? The ability to retain power within the government for yourself and your political party?
The Republicans/Conservatives seem to have done this on the radio networks according to a report published by the Center for American Progress in 2007. This report is over a year old but given the current FCC push for more deregulation, I doubt the facts of this report have changed. The main fact of the 40 page report is that through an analysis of 257 news/talk programs in the Spring of 2007, it was revealed that 91% of weekday programming is conservative and 9% is progressive:
This report may seem irrelevant because many people may be thinking how many people listen to the radio in the age of the internet? Well according to the report, Americans listened to 19 hours of radio per week on average in 2006. I myself listen to the radio roughly about 7 hours per week in Ireland and about the same when I was in America.
The report attributes these statistics in part to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine by the FCC in 1987 during the Reagan administration. This repeal was another republican move under the guise of “regulation is bad” to take control of the media that they felt was dominated by liberal content. Secondly the report mentions the deregulation efforts on the part of the FCC recently to allow big networks to snap up all the media outlets they want. This further deregulation has been spearheaded by the current chairman of the FCC appointed by none other than President Bush.
Again the majority of the American public are being screwed by conservatives and the GOP so that we only recieve one side of a story. Any conservative must admit that there are two sides to every story and to make an informed opinion you need the liberal/progressive opinion as well as the conservative opinion. According to these statistics, if you live outside of a few liberal cities, you are in deep trouble of being republican washed.
These kinds of actions make me really angry since I am a fair player however I am naive when it comes to politics. I have come to realize that the Democrats are the true party for the people as they are the one’s who sponsored the Media Ownership Act of 2007 which has been squashed at the committee stage. Anyone want to guess why the Republican’s made sure this bill was never passed? Here is a video detailing why we need to get media back into serving the public interest because Fox is just a cog in the Republican machine:
May 25th, 2008 -- Posted in American Politics |
According to the press, Senator Obama has started to look for a possible Vice-President, one of the top names that has been thrown around from the beginning of the Obama campaign is the current Governor of Kansas, Kathleen Sebelius. Kathleen Sebelius became the 44th Governor of Kansas in 2003 and was re-elected to a second term in 2006. She is fairly popular in Kansas and according to a SurveyUSA Poll released on April 24th, she has a 61% approval rating. That being said, many people criticize her overall impact for Obama campaign if she is chosen because she would not even be able to guarantee her home state in the general election. So who is the Governor and what can we expect if she is the VP? From the Office Of The Governor:
Kathleen Sebelius was born May 15, 1948 and was raised in a Catholic family in Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended the Summit Country Day School, a Roman Catholic secondary school, followed by Trinity Washington University, a Roman Catholic university in Washington, D.C., and later earned a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Kansas. She moved to Kansas in 1974 at the age of 26, where she served for eight years as a representative in the Kansas Legislature and eight years as Insurance Commissioner before being elected governor.
Governor Sebelius is married to husband, Gary, a federal magistrate judge, for 33 years, they have two sons: Ned and John. Both Sebelius boys are products of the Topeka public school system, pre-kindergarten through high school. Ned is a law student, and John is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. At the heart of Governor Sebelius’ administration is a commitment to growing the Kansas economy and creating jobs; ensuring every Kansas child receives a quality education; protecting Kansas families and communities; improving access to quality, affordable health care; and taking advantage of the state’s renewable energy assets.
Governor Sebelius has not been with out her share of problems though as she recently vetoed three bills that would have allowed the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Western Kansas. Some critics cite these vetoes as detrimental to Kansas at the expense of the Governor improving herself on the national stage with the Democratic Party. I disagree with these critics because no matter how clean a Coal Power Plant professes to be, it is still damaging the environment. There are better alternative sources of energy out there which the governor fully intends to explore for the people of Kansas.
Beyond these minor issues, most Democrats see Sebelius as generally positive for Senator Obama even though according to Rasmussen Reports, she is only likely to increase Senator Obama’s chance of winning Kansas by 28% percent. Given that Kansas is a historically red state, I am willing to assume that as a VP; Sebelius would appeal to woman and older folk which is a segment of the population where Senator Obama does not have a strong base of support. This is all conjecture at this point but I think it would be reasonable to assume given that Senator Clinton could also appeal to the same segments and is more well known but given the last few months, she is not exactly on the short list.
Governor Sebelius would be a good choice beyond her being able to pull in some additional support for an Obama presidency because she agree’s with Senator Obama on most issues. The Kansas City Business Journal has a good write up on some the bills that she passed and vetoed for the states budget of 2009. Governor Sebelius and Senator Obama may see eye to eye but one of the biggest issues facing Americans as indicated by most polls is the economy which is not an area Senator Obama is short in, but maybe a potential VP would need to be strong in these areas? Do VP’s actually matter? Some people argue these points but I think it all comes down to the perception of the typical citizen. Other people argue that someone with national security experience is needed like former retired general Wesley Clarke or Senator Chuck Hagel.
These are all important factors to consider and they wll be explored in future posts of potential VP candidates for Senator Obama. Now a picture of the Governor from the State website:
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