This blog printed on 100% recycled electrons.
Senator Obama's Presidential campaign is making the rounds in Lake and Moody Counties (full disclosure: I've been making some calls and knocking a few doors for them, not to mention helping Lake and Moody coordinator Iain Robertson find office and sleeping space). The campaign is holding a meeting for Obama supporters Tuesday (hey, that's tonight!) at the Madison Public Library at 7 p.m. The campaign has set up shop at Hope Studios (211 SE 4th Street -- the old Garfield school) here in Madison, right in the coffee shop there. Obamanistas (Obamaniacs? Obama-ramans?) are also scheduling a number of local events, including a barbecue at Madison's Library Park on Sunday at 1 p.m. Bring your appetite and maybe some good walking shoes, so you can go knocking on doors afterward!
Just curious: we've gotten a call or two from the Clinton campaign, and they're certainly busy in other South Dakota towns. Has anyone seen Clinton campaigners walking the beat in Lake or Moody County?
The Year in Review, oh, and Merry Christmas!
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I used to be against Winter Wonderland at Falls Park but I have to admit,
the pics on my bike this year have been good, so I guess I am okay with the
city ...
1 day ago
The best word I've seen for you Obamanistas is "sheeple", being lead like lambs to the slaughter.
ReplyDeleteDRK
So, DRK, I take it you're not voting for O-baaa-ma? ;-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously, care to elaborate on the coming "slaughter"? Or on how following Obama is any more "sheepish" than following Hillary Clinton or John McCain or Ron Paul (or whoever your choice is)?
I think a lot of people are afraid that President Obama will follow a policy of appeasement toward terrorists and rogue states.
ReplyDeleteThat fear, I suspect, arises out of Obama's expression of a willingness to talk with our enemies without preconditions.
The fear-purveyors overlook the fact that there is a huge difference between "talking" and "appeasement."
I used to think that we would be more likely to face another 9-11 style attack if a Democrat were President. But I no longer believe that. The terrorists want us dead no matter who is in the White House.
That said, I'm still leaning toward McCain. But the debates will tell the final story.
"huge difference between 'talking' and 'appeasement'" -- good point, Stan! The Palermo-HNN article I linked in the post argues that Munich 1938 went so wrong perhaps not so much because of appeasement but because Chamberlain and Daladier hated the Soviets as much as Hitler did and wouldn't involve him in the Munich talks.
ReplyDeleteMy qualifications as historian are limited, but I suspect that Hitler fully intended to take over the world, and no negotations of any sort whatsoever would have changed his mind. Talks would ultimately have proven useless with him. But hindsight is, of course, 20-20.
ReplyDeleteHistory will, I suspect, have at least one positive thing to say about this Bush administration, and especially about Bush himself: He did recognize, at least, that evil actually exists. It it not merely a fig newton of the imaginations of paranoid people.
The problem, in my opinion, with the current administration is that they have erred on the side of hawkishness, taking it too far -- almost, it would seem, "wanting war." I recall Ronald Reagan saying that he abhorred anyone suggesting that any President would "want war." Reagan managed to bring about the collapse of the Soviet Union (with some help from his friends, e.g., Alexander Solzhenitsyn) without firing a single shot at them.
I do believe we are at "war" with the terrorists, but it is a new kind of war, a sort of war that can be fought, methinks, more effectively with non-violent methods than with "boots on the ground." Again, I am not much of an historian, but I also suspect that history does not exactly repeat itself. This situation is like the one in the 1930s in some respects, but drastically different in other respects. Ditto regarding the Cold War era.
Espionage, shrewdness, cloak-and-dagger stuff, backroom discussions in smoky rooms (but maybe not as smoky as those in the 1930s or 1950s), computer hacking, infiltration, and above all an understanding of how these people really think -- these are the ingredients of keeping the terrorists at bay. They will never be appeased, and they will never be utterly extinguished unless we resort to the unthinkable.
I believe Barack Obama would agree with me here, at least partly. But I have other issues with him. (Will he try to tax me to death?) If I had to choose one person in the world to take to lunch tomorrow, he would be the one, by a large margin.
I hope this comes off as something more than an incoherent rant. I've been dealing with the page proofs for an algebra book that actually introduces high-school-level readers to complex variables. That in itself might be grounds for having me declared insane.
At this point my vote will be McCain, though, sadly it will be a vote against Obama and Clinton, not for McCain. I do think those following other candidates are "sheepish" too, though probably not to the extent of Obama-ites. He is promising the government will solve every problem the world (not just the US) has. And that leads to the slaughter I foresee. Higher taxes, judges making laws, more relativism. And possibly a literal slaughter of innocent babies, as you consider his voice in the Illinois congress calling for babies who survived abortion to be killed.
ReplyDeleteI also expect a "slaughter" in foreign policy. I do not like war, and will not argue whether we should be in Irag or not, but we are there and the policies I hear from Obama will make things worse in my opinion. Yes, you can talk to your enemies, but what does he plan to do when that doesn't work? (And, really, how often does it work?) He claims to be a uniter, but with the most liberal voting record, and his stands on moral issues, how will he ever unite liberals and conservatives? Nor do I see him uniting the people economically. Robbing Peter to pay Paul may make Paul happy, but it is not what the American dream is. And how long before he decides to rob Paul to pay Polly?
He calls for change, but I do not see how he is any different from any other liberal politician.
DRK
Stan, you're right that Hitler was an evil SOB. Talk for him was just another weapon. But what I found interesting in Palermo's argument was that talking with Stalin might have helped us contain and crush Hitler's war machine sooner (imagine if we could have gotten Stalin to stand against Hitler right away in 1939).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply, DRK. Hey, we all have to follow somebody (unless we're running for President ourselves... and I'm not ready for that yet!). Is it possible wars and abortion will continue regardless of which candidate we choose for President?
Sure, Obama has similarities with other liberal politicians (though not enough similarities with a real liberal like Dennis Kucinich, if you ask me!), but he has enough differences from the current Administration that he stands a chance of making a positive difference for working people... unless, of course, you like the Bush/GOP/plutocracy status quo....