Predicting Character: The Sins of Jeb Bush

"Listen, I didn't grow up wanting to be President of the Unites States," said George W.
Jeb smiled wistfully.  "I did," he said.
"Yeah," his brother replied.  "You did."
- The Family: the real story of the Bush Dynasty by Kitty Kelley


My disdain for Jeb Bush comes from both personal dislike - I've never met him in person, but something he did once had a direct impact on me - and professional distrust.  I need to put this out here first, because I know I'm about to tear into Jeb as he puts himself out here as a Presidential candidate for the 2016 election.

This is my first go at emulating Professor James David Barber for predicting a person's Character as it applies to the office of the Presidency (at least in real time: I did a review of previous - and current - Presidents back in 2013).  As mentioned previously, the deal is to research a bit of the candidate's biography to find the core developments of their lives, the moments that teach them their world views and shapes their styles.  Once that's done, take that data and place it on the chart between Active-Passive and Positive-Negative to establish which trait - Active-Positive, Active-Negative, Passive-Positive, Passive-Negative - that candidate would be in the highest office in the land.

As far as biographies go, Jeb has a head start on a lot of the other Republican candidates: as a son of Bush the Elder and a brother of Bush the Lesser, he's in a sizable list of Presidential biographies.  Not as a main character, but casually popping up in the background.  Considering his place as a Bush with higher political ambitions than the governorship of Florida - if Jeb had won election in 1994 and used that to garner a second term in 1998, he'd have been the one running for the Presidency in 2000, not Dubya - he'd even gotten a few biographies of his own detailing his political rise and hopes for the White House.

A not-so-quick read of various works all point to established facts about Jeb's childhood and background: the second surviving child of a large brood, younger brother to first-born Dubya with whom he shared a sibling rivalry (ask any middle-born son what it's like to live under an older aggressive brother), following the footsteps of poppa by going to the same prep schools, taking a different college with U of Texas but making the effort to graduate quickly with high grades (whereas Dubya compelled himself to attend the Elder's alma mater Yale and couldn't achieve the same academic success), jumping into business with an eye to achieve success like dad did at that age.  Jeb in the process created the reputation as the more sober (literally), smarter brother, and worked towards his own successes while Dubya coasted on the edges of their father's success and connections.  It wasn't until 1994 when Jeb jumped at the chance to be governor of adopted state Florida - having moved there during his help on Bush the Elder's 1980 primary run - that Dubya's sibling rivalry instinct kicked in for him to try a run for Governor in Texas.

Dubya won in 1994.  Jeb did not.  While Jeb did win in 1998, it was "too soon" in terms of political ambition for Jeb to make that run for the Presidency that he desired for himself, and that the Bush children viewed as "revenge" for their father's humiliation at being a One-Termer, which gave the advantage to Dubya in 2000.  And we all saw how that ended.

One of those "what if" games about history is "what if Jeb had been the Bush running in 2000?  What would his administration have been like compared to his older brother's?"

The way things were in 2000, much of the administration would have been the same: Jeb would have likely selected the same people to serve as his Secretaries of the Cabinet.  The possible difference would have been at Vice-President: Jeb might not have relied on Cheney to run the Veepstakes (which ended up with Cheney choosing himself) the way Dubya relied on the Elder's inner circle to help him with the 2000 campaign.  Jeb may have looked for someone else, as he didn't need Cheney's "serious adult" reputation to help float his candidacy or balance the ticket.

But the administration itself, if Jeb had won (instead of relying on a broken electoral system that Jeb's governorship ironically oversaw that year), would have had a vastly different personality behind it than Dubya's Passive-Positive flavor: one that would be best classed as an Active-Negative.

The Active part is pretty clear: similar to Bush the Elder's Active traits of carving out a successful business via challenges confronted and won, and taking the wonky issues of leadership - the homework, the consultations with advisors - more serious than Dubya did.  The Negative part is the difference between son and father, however: whereas Bush the Elder had a more Positive view of political engagement - bipartisan working with Congress, dealing on equal terms with foreign leaders, backroom deals that got things done - Jeb's track record as Governor shows a Compulsive, confrontational style of leadership similar to many of the Baby Boomer generation that dominated the GOP from 1992 onward.

As Florida's Governor from 1998 to 2006, Jeb Bush's track record is pretty typical sticking to standard Republican issues: cutting of taxes, cutting of regulations on businesses, using the line-item veto to keep spending down.

His signature political policy agenda was education reform: which was essentially a constant never-ending push to create school voucher programs and establishing business-run charter schools.  On vouchers, Bush's efforts were ruled unconstitutional as the courts found the vouchers took public funds and allowed them to go to religious institutions in violation of the concepts behind Separation of Church and State (in both federal and state constitutions).  On charter schools, Florida has allowed them since Jeb's tenure, but scandal and failure haven't yet shown them to work any better than the already-undersupported public schools anyway.

Jeb's insistence on privatizing education is part of the Active-Negative view that government itself is restrictive or the problem.  Previous A-N Presidents like Jackson, Cleveland, or Hoover would have expressed similar anti-government, pro-business, self-limiting sympathies.  Active-Negative types confront issues their own way, and when the issue doesn't go their way they ignore or sabotage the issue.  When state voters supported an amendment referendum capping class sizes - which meant more teachers and school rooms needed to be budgeted - Jeb fought it, did little to implement it and left behind a like-minded GOP legislature that's done nothing to enforce the requirements.

The clearest sign of any Presidential candidate's Character - the world view, the personality, the style - is how they respond to crisis: how quick they are to engage it, how adaptive or restrictive they are to finding a solution to the crisis, how to follow-up the crisis to ensure results.  For Jeb, the most notable crisis of his governorship was the Terri Schiavo case.

Terri was a young married woman who in 1990 collapsed from a near-fatal heart stoppage that still leaves her in a coma.  Her husband paid for surgeries and treatments but Terri remains in the "persistent vegetative state."  By 1998 her husband petitions to have her feeding tube removed, to let her die.  Terri's parents fight him on the matter, and the fight gets not only into the courts but it gets into the political arena.  Terri's parents argued on the matter as a pro-life issue, which brought in the interests of the Far Right in Florida - and national - politics.  Eventually this matter got all the way to the state legislature and the governor's office.

How did Jeb handle this?

He backed the parents all the way.  Jeb ignored repeated doctors' evaluations that Terri's brain was too far destroyed being in the vegetative state.  He helped pushed laws to intervene directly in what should have been a private family court battle.  It got to where Jeb came close to ordering in state police to seize Terri from the hospital she was residing (which could have led to a police-on-police shootout).  And in the end, Jeb pushed for a criminal investigation into allegations that Terri's husband staged her collapse (basically accusing him of manslaughter), for what looked to be sheer spite.

A lot of that reads like the gameplan of a typical Active-Negative.

Despite Jeb's attempts to convince his media buddies that he's the “smart” Bush, to convince them he's a “moderate” or bipartisan on key issues, and worse having gotten them to bite on his hook of being an education reformer, he's really none of those things.  His track record hasn't been reform it's been redirection: redirecting tax cuts to businesses, redirecting state funds from public schools to private pockets, redirecting personal issues to partisan exploitation.


The guy can pander to the base as well as anyone, especially on the socio-religious issues that drive the modern Republican Party.  This is someone as an Active-Negative Character who will fight hard for what he wants.

God help us.

So what kind of expectations is Jeb jumping into, the external forces that will shape his responses to the campaign (and to the possibility of being in the Oval Office)?

He's expected to reflect the “establishment” aspect of the Republicans, primarily a pro-business platform. Most likely pushing a tax-cut and deregulation economic agenda. Here's the problem: the GOP itself is more beholden to the Tea Party faction, which will be virulently anti-immigration, anti-Obamacare, and won't care about education as an issue outside of censoring the history and science textbooks.  Despite Jeb Bush's early attempts to position himself as a “safe” choice on immigration and education/domestic policies, he's going to have to survive a primary system against candidates - everyone from Santorum to Perry - tearing him down on those stances.

Jeb's odds of winning the nomination depends on three things: 1) how well he can pander to the base, which will love his pro-tax-cut kill-teachers-unions stance; 2) how much money he can raise to overwhelm the early primary states (which will be the easiest thing for him); 3) how quickly he can kill any television ad that shows a picture of him standing next to Dubya, or morphing into Dubya, or otherwise linking Jeb to one of the nation's worst administrations.

It also depends on which of the Active-Negatives dominating the modern GOP that might run against him does a better job of faking a public persona of Passive-Positive traits.  Jeb is going to try it: if Huckabee does run, he's done a better job of faking that persona and can well run circles around Jeb.

- - -

Works Used:
Date, SV. Jeb: America's Next Bush. New York: Penguin, 2007
Kelley, Kitty. The Family: the real story of the Bush dynasty. New York: Doubleday, 2004
Coburn, David. From Yellow Dog Democrats to Red State Republicans. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007

The Future 2016 Campaigning: What Matters More, the Party or the Candidate?

Still in the process of typing up Jeb Bush's bio for a prediction of his Presidential Character, but while doing so I have to come to terms with where the political parties are this coming 2016 election cycle, and which candidates are actually going to survive the primaries to stand before the electorate on November 2016.

It's particularly troubling that the Republican Party is getting packed with wannabe candidates lining up already for the campaigning and fund-raising.  Jeb Bush has put his name in, but so have other big names like Mike Huckabee and Chris Christie and Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker and a slew of others, with current interest from the last guy Mitt Romney weighing his chances against Jeb!  This is on top of the more fringe names like Ben Carson and Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina.  There's about thirty-three possible names on the list for the GOP right about now.

Meanwhile for the Democrats, it's pretty much Hillary Clinton and a list of progressive officials that the more liberal party base are praying puts their names in.  Actually there's about twenty-three possible names, but there's not as much eagerness for people to jump in because Hillary's the one big name and few others seem likely challengers (of course, kinda said that back in 2008 too...).

And while I'm struggling over how to classify each possible candidate - the ones who have an honest shot at winning, that is - one stumbling block I'm finding is the power expectations - one of Barber's key points - that the voting party bases will use to judge those candidates.

The sin of the modern primary system is how it's not the party bosses making deals in back rooms that matter: it's how those party bosses motivate their base to show up to vote in the primaries.  The primaries make and break the candidates: whoever can pander best to the base in each state - which doesn't go by population importance, the state order goes by how easy those states are manipulated - gets the early support and the momentum to secure the nom.

Which is why it might not matter if a Republican candidate is Active-Positive or if a Democratic candidate is Passive-Positive or if a Libertarian candidate has a sense of humor.  If the party wants an Active-Negative to represent them, the candidates who don't fit that want won't win.

Here's the problem I'm finding about the Republican Party: the party base - the Tea Partiers, the Second Amendment Fetishers, the small-government-drown-it-in-Grover's-bathtub crowds - seems so eager to want an Active-Negative type serving as their President.  They want someone who will restrict and slash government services, cut taxes on the rich (while raising taxes on the lazy poor), deregulate businesses to run amok in a Free Market free-range, shut down the borders against illegals, and wage war against The Dreaded Other despite the costs.  A lot of behavior that history shows falls to Active-Negatives under what Barber called the "I Must" mindset that drives A-Ns to compulsive, unshakable agendas.

But at the same time, the party leadership recognizes that such A-N types are difficult to elect to office anymore.  The last official A-N we had in the White House - Richard Nixon - made the personality so toxic that anyone with that overt a trait would be shunned by regular voters (the most recent A-N who wasn't officially in charge - Dick Cheney - reinforced that toxicity).  So the party leadership is trying to manufacture, promote, or encourage the illusion that their "establishment" candidates - the likes of Jeb, or even what they tried with Romney last time - will run "positive" campaigns pursuing "reforms" on topics like education and immigration and job creation.  All the while hiding the facts that their platforms don't have any real solutions for those topics, just decades-old talking points and all pointing towards the same answer (tax cuts and deregulation).

The Republicans have an Active-Negative agenda, yet they need a Passive-Positive - another Reagan with the charm and skill to avoid the issues and project a congenial persona - to sell it.

So I'm watching a Republican Party go schizoid over the possibilities of who they want as their Presidential candidate.  There aren't many Passive-Positives left in the Republican ranks due to the purity purges that left most of the leadership as Active-Negatives.  On that list Wikipedia has, most of the major names lean A-N in terms of adhering to reactionary agendas (hi, Christie!  hi, Scott Walker!  And yes, hi Jeb!).  The more far-out candidates - Bachmann, Santorum, Rick Perry, Ted Cruz - may present themselves as charismatic but they're not impressive with congeniality skills on the level of Reagan.  I'd already tagged Romney as a Passive-Negative, even if he puts back in for another campaign he still fits that trait best.  The only one of the named candidates that could conceivably play Passive-Positive with the populist skill as Saint Ronnie is Mike Huckabee.  And yet even that persona masks a hidden Active-Negative leaning due to Huckabee's religious hardline worldview.  It hadn't helped Huckabee that he's spent years in the echo chamber of the Far Right Noise Machine, which reinforces a negative worldview not only upon its audiences but also on its presenters.

For the Democrats, the madness of the campaigning isn't as severe: the base eagerly wants another Active-Positive, just one that's more active than Bill Clinton and Obama have been.  The only real problem there is that the primary leader - hi, Hillary! - is an unrepentant Active-Negative, which is why a lot of "Draft Elizabeth Warren" efforts are ongoing.  I mean, is Martin O'Malley a bridge too far, or are Democrats wary of having another Irish guy follow right after the Irish Obama?

I keep promising a review of Jeb Bush.  I gave away the Spoiler of how Jeb's an Active-Negative at heart, but I'll try to explain how I got to that as an answer.

Thinking Of Paris, Thinking of the True Words I Read Once

(Update note: Hello to everyone visiting via Crooks And Liars!  Thank you for the link to Mike's Blog Round-Up, and I hope everyone is doing well this new year.  Also to note, the current report about this story is that there's hostages in a grocery store.  This is not good, but here's hoping those hostages get out safe and that the shooters are captured alive so we can get answers...
Update 12:55 PM EST: News is that there were two separate hostage situations, one involving the two original gunmen and then a separate gunman who was allied with them.  It looks like both situations ended in shootouts, there may be hostages killed.  Not good.  Not at all good...).

I had posted this barely more than a year ago.  A quote from a political essayist nicknamed "Junius" as he wrote back in the day of limited speech rights in 1770.  I found it while researching the topic of religious and political intolerance, and it resonated with me on a personal level.

An honest man, like the true religion, appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides in the internal evidence of his conscience. The imposter employs force instead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character by the sword.

I found it relevant whenever I recoiled from the violence employed by anti-abortion shooters and bombers, and it remains particularly relevant today against the terrorists both in France - against a satire paper Charlie Hebdo - and here in the USA - where a man tried to blow up an NAACP office in Colorado.

Every attack of terror is by a group - a rather small minority of haters among millions of honest believers - aimed to impose silence, all because the haters cannot accept or understand.  All because the haters know they cannot appeal or convince with understanding.  All because they have no modesty about their place in the world, preferring to rule and ruin by fear and death than co-exist in hope and life.  And the haters may not actually use swords in this day and age, but the metaphor of being a weapon of death and finality remains apt.

The proper response to all of this?  Well, for starters finding the haters and arresting them so they won't hurt any more people.  The other thing to do is stand up and cast aside the fear they seek to impose on us.  Not to fight back, but to stand and speak your mind and keep the peace.

Victory here is not counted by bullets or bodies.  Victory here is counted by rebuilding, repairing, restoring.  Victory here happens when we move on and stay alive.

There are a billion Muslims in the world, and they are not all at war with us or themselves.  It's just a very few, very violent group of angry guys.  There are a billion Christians in the world, and they are not at war with us or ourselves.  It's just a very few, very violent group of angry guys.  There are millions of Jews, and they are not at war with us or themselves.  It's just a very few, very violent group of angry guys.  There are a billion Hindus in the world, and they are not at war with us or themselves.  Except for the guys messing with us in the Tech Support call center offices, stop it you fiends.  It's just a very few, very violent group of angry guys.  I'm not sure about the numbers on Rastafarians, Pastafarians, and Bronies, but I am certain I can speak to the vast numbers of each being not at war with anyone either.  It's just the haters.

Peace out, peace in, peace be with you.

Predicting Presidents for 2016: Ere It Begins

My personal blogging challenge for the year of 2015 is to cope with the pending headaches of 2016 by attempting to predict each potential political candidate's Presidential Character.

This will follow the system established by James David Barber, who used a basic four-grid chart using two baselines: the energy invested in the Presidency (Active-Passive), and the personal perception placed/will place on the role of being President (Positive-Negative).  This gives us Active-Positive, Active-Negative, Passive-Positive, and Passive-Negative.

The terms used can be confusing because there are multiple meanings to each word.  People get confused about the word "Active" for example, thinking that can apply to Presidents who on a personal level bounce off the walls like hyperactive children.  The word "Active" here applies to how much energy that President puts towards being President: does he go to the job with confidence and vigor and conviction, does he view every policy fight as a good reason to wake up in the morning?  George W. Bush is a good example of the confusion: in personal habits he was very active and engaged with others, but when it came to the Presidency he was decidedly disconnected and more reactive to situations than active, which puts him in the Passive category.

Positive and Negatives might lead to confusion as well.  "Positive" here is the mindset that being President is a good thing, that the powers of the Executive office can be effectively used, that the role of the Presidency is flexible enough to do anything necessary to achieve goals that benefits others (Barber calls it the "I Can" mentality).  "Negative" is the mindset that the Presidency is dangerous (even in your own hands), that there are limits to the office and that things should be done in a procedural manner, that the President cannot or will not derive any satisfaction from the performance (Which falls under "I Must" mentality).

Using these definitions, Barber wrote his first book on Presidential Character in 1972 about then-President Richard Nixon who was about to embark on his re-election campaign.  Barber warned that Nixon showed signs of being a self-destructive Active-Negative type, akin to his predecessor Lyndon B. Johnson and to Woodrow Wilson.  Barber noted that Nixon's desire to face crises - even those self-created - would lead to an obsessive fight over a failed agenda that would collapse Nixon's entire administration.

That book was published and in the stores about two weeks before the Watergate break-in was found out.  It cemented Barber's reputation and his four-grid chart.  For the most part since then Barber's predictions about subsequent Presidents - except for Carter who was more Active-Negative, and for Clinton who was Active-Positive (but who did lean towards the Passive-Positive traits on a personal level) - bore true.  (It should be noted that the traits are not absolutes: even Negatives may show Positive leanings, and Passives may be remarkably Active and influential in the Executive office).

So before I go delving into the early list of 2016 candidates - a wave of Republican hopefuls just beginning with Jeb Bush and now Mike Huckabee, sure to be followed by 25-80 more - I need to clarify just what it is we'll need as voters to look at when evaluating the clowns jumping out of the election car.

Above all, the biographies of each candidate needs to be parsed and investigated.  Barber relied on the prime developing years of each President's youth, college years, early professions, marital pursuits.

In terms of professions, Barber examined the private professions as much as the public offices held, campaigns lost or won, and in each office he identified a key crisis or decision that either influenced further actions or confirmed the traits developed in the man's youth.

From such studies, Barber looked for these elements (from his book's first chapter):

• Personality: in Barber's view it "shapes performance".  "...the degree and quality of a President's emotional involvement in an issue are powerful influences on how he defines the issue itself, how much attention he pays to it, which facts and persons he sees as relevant to its resolution, and finally what principles and and purposes he associates with the issue." (4th edition, p.4)
• Pattern: the Personality follows certain patterns based on Character, World View, and Style.  Style (not charisma: nearly every President had his charms) is the easiest to spot: it's his habitual way of offering rhetoric, handling personal relations, and doing homework. (p.5)  The World View is another phrase to describe the person's primary belief structure and how he/she interprets the reality around him/her.  Character is based on what experiences have been "engraved" onto the person by outside persons/forces: it's how you confront conflicts (and Character is What You Are In The Dark).
• Power Situation: That is, the moral and political climate into which the person becomes President.  What are the expectations of the office by the President as well as everyone else: voters, Congressional leaders, foreign powers?  The expectations of the office have changed much since Washington's heyday, and have changed even further after major economic (Great Depression) and political (Watergate and the ongoing scandal climate) and social (Slavery/Civil War/Reconstruction/Jim Crow/Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, etc) events that altered everything.  When we elect someone, we are expecting the elected official - the President - to perform his duties to resolve the crises and conflicts at hand.  Those expectations influence - either by confirming or denying - the President's pre-existing Character and World View.

So what this means for me is three-fold:

• I gotta find published biographies of each of the candidate I'll be looking to profile.  Some will be easy to find, others not so.  And autobiographies will be ignored whenever possible, as those are too self-serving (tigers cannot see their own stripes: Republicans cannot admit to their own flaws...).
• I need to identify any major crisis or conflict in each candidate's track history.  For Jeb it's relatively easy: his governor's performance is a matter of public record.  For the "private" citizens who've never held public office, their private sector performances would have to do, which is trickier to apply to public needs.
• I need to get this all done in a timely fashion.  There's only 50 weeks now until 2016 itself rolls up and there's going to be about, what, 80 of these guys to review? 

As a side note, why should we expect about 80 or so Republican hopefuls running for 2016?  Because Obama.  Obama is finishing up his second term, capped off by the 22nd Amendment, meaning he won't be able to use his national popularity - it's gone up, by the by - to remain in office.

Making 2016 more enticing is the (flawed) cyclical trend of voters generally bouncing from one party to another even after a popular President leaves office: the thinking is that after 8 years of a Democrat in the White House, middling voters will allow a Republican back in.  Never mind the actual history where popular two-termers had a follow-up from his party win again.  SEE Bush the Elder following Reagan, Truman following FDR, Van Buren following Jackson, Taft following Teddy.  And it should include Nixon following Ike if not for Cook County ballots and Gore following Clinton if not for that damned butterfly ballot in Palm Beach county.  The notable exceptions are of course the unpopular two-termers Bush the Lesser and Nixon (whose unpopularity stained Ford's chances in 1976): in that vein, we'd have had Tilden a Democrat after the disaster that was Grant's administration if not for a broken Electoral college that allowed the corrupt Republicans in Congress to shove Hayes into office.  You'd be surprised how few two-termers there have been...

As for my homework assignment, Jeb Bush is the obvious lead-off.  He's local, he's made his moves, he's got easy-to-find resources within my reach for study.  Granted, I already have a bias against the man - mostly for logical performance-based disasters he inflicted on my state, but also for one very personal and admittedly irrational reason - but I will try to be fair.

Happy New Year!

It's Not 2016 Yet, Still Getting Primaried To Death

Posted with comment:

A sure sign that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is planning to do more than just “explore” a run for the White House in 2016 is the fact that he is severing ties, erasing connections and alliances that could “complicate” a presidential campaign.

Given the size and scope of Presidential campaigns anymore, and the massive costs generated by constant campaigning to fund all of it in the first place, we're pretty much into the first year of a two-year program to destroy our love of civics.

There will be more to post about Jeb's interest in destroying the United States after all the fun he had the first time he did in 2000, but for now all I gotta say is this: expect at least 20 80 more Republican hopefuls - the obvious disasters like Christ Christie and Scott Walker, the surprising gamblers like Bob Corker, the hopeless clowns like the two Ricks (Santorum and Perry) - to declare in the next few weeks, because it's all fund-raising at this point and the ones who get the most money the earliest gets the head start in Iowa.

Thus Ends 2014

It wasn't the best of times, although there were good moments to enjoy.

2014 was more CRAZY than anything, and tragic with the scale of death and war both here and abroad.

The coming year doesn't hold much promise.  With the Republicans in full control of Congress, there's the dread of them delving further into the wingnut hate against Obama, with all the risks (for them and for our nation) that entails.  We haven't resolved our issue of out-of-control police, and while the fighting has officially ended in Afghanistan it really hasn't, while Syria remains in Year Four (FIVE?) of its civil war with ISIL leveling carnage in there and in Iraq, with Libya's civil war stewing and due to get worse.  There's still the Ukraine/Russia standoff, the Greek debt crisis (alongside the ongoing EU recession), and the ebola crisis in West Africa.

One can hope that sanity for 2015 is on its way, that it can't stay this crazy forever.  But the social and political and natural forces are out of control right now.  Just hang on tight to the roller coaster safety bar and pray for a safe ride.

On a personal note: I am invested in getting a novel written soon soon very soon, to keep up with all the epublishing I've been doing lately.  For this political blog, I am looking at doing something I really shouldn't do: diving into the 2016 primary madness and using Professor James David Barber's Presidential Character traits to map out the major candidates to determine which ones are Active-Positive (yay) and which ones are Active-Negative (ack) and which ones are Passive-Positive (meh).  Passive-Negatives are so rare it's unlikely.  Anyhoo, that's my projects for next year.

See you on the other side of the calendar.

Anniversary: The Christmas Truce

This is, as noted before, the 100-year anniversary of the first year of World War I.

History is made of competing forces.  Between the Great Man and the Social Movements lie all the conflicts of both.  By 1914, these forces had congealed on the European continent through a combination of set nations - France, Germany, Russia, the UK, Italy, Austria-Hungarian Empire, and Ottoman Empire - and a burgeoning psycho-social ideology of Nationalism fighting over pride and global power.

It had been 100 years in the making by then.  In the aftermath of the Napoleonic empire and swath of republicanism, Europe suffered through a period of nation-building border wars - the Greek independence war, Italian reunification, Prussian unification of a greater Germany - that concluded with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71.

What had been viewed at the time as a likely win for France - larger armies, better organized - turned into a full rout in Prussia's favor in a war that barely lasted a year.  France was abjectly humiliated as a result (this is where the meme of France being terrible in wars started), Germany rose up to disrupt the standard balance of power - once it was England vs. France, no longer - in Western Europe, and the Victorian Era switched from being a period of scientific advancements to one big mechanized military arms race.

The problem was that the Victorian (and later Edwardian) Era became this period of an idealized, improved social condition.  Things like personal honor, stiff upper lip, gentlemanly codes became more fetishized.  A lot of it had to do with the literature of the time.  Some of it with the changes in economic and social fortunes creating a middle class striving for cultural norms of its own, to where the upper classes indulged in sharing the more romantic elements of their lifestyles.

By the time the fighting in World War I actually started, nearly everyone went into it with these grand notions of honor and soldiering.  That it was all parade marches and sacrificial charges into waiting hordes of bayonets and swords.  Nobody really thought about the improved rifles and automatic guns, or the advancements in artillery fire and targeting, or the armored tanks that were new to the battlefield, or the effectiveness of barbed wire and hand grenades and poison gasses.

By the end of the calendar year of 1914, Western Europe's battlefields were basically two extended mud trenches and two massive armies - Germany in one trench, UK and France in the other - staring at each other across a cold no-mans-land.  The Germans were the ones who made the efforts to decorate their trenches for the holidays, and via the honored soldiers' code of "Live and Let Live" (under which both sides agree to temporary cease-fires to recover wounded or personal belongings), the Germans sent messages to their British and French counterparts about holding a truce - THE Truce - during Christmas Day.

There aren't a lot of documents about it, mostly from a good number of diary entries and remembrances of those who were there that day, so a lot of the Christmas Truce has fallen into legend.  Above all the legend of a football (soccer to us Yanks) game being played between the two armies.  There's no evidence it happened, but the story is that Germany won 3-2.  It'd have been tied but that damn ref called Blackadder offsides.

Whatever history there is of this - the legends still tell us - the generals were not amused their soldiers weren't killing each other.  When the areas where the Truce were continuing on after Christmas had passed, the chain of command ordered artillery barrages and switched out the divisions stationed there with fresh troops to ensure the fighting started up again.  By 1915, the generals planned ahead and made sure they had artillery barrages scheduled for Christmas to prevent the troops from making another try at a truce.  By 1916, they didn't bother: the bloodshed between both sides - and the use of chemical gas weapons - ensured the troops were in no mood for cease-fires.

Looking back on the Christmas Truce, it reminds us that the war was fought by men looking not for glory - that madness was left to the generals - but because it was expected of them.  Where the soldiers in the trenches had more in common with each other than the officers in their headquarters five miles back.  The Truce was part of an era of that Victorian/Edwardian mindset of honor between soldiers regardless of which flag they fought for.

It was an era that was dead in the trenches by 1918.

And yet, we remember.  We remember the Truce as a good thing, a moment in human history at the edge of a terrible war where there was still hope and the potential of friendship past the hardship.  As a nice little Christmas candle shining in the darkness of the 20th Century.

Merry Christmas to ye, fallen soldiers of that and all other wars, before and after.  The Truce remains to us as a memory of what we all can achieve some day.

A chance of playing an honest game of football and not get shot at for it.

Brief Thoughts On Cuba, Again

I'd written about Cuba before (back in 2008), noting how the 50-plus years of sanctions and embargoes had proven to be a colossal waste of time and resources:

...The big reason why there won't be any change is because of us, the United States. Our stance on Cuba has not changed in 49 years (then), and at some points have even worsened, simply because of ideology and stubbornness. While we have legitimate grievances against Castro's communist (and post-Soviet authortarian) regime, we've never attempted genuine diplomacy and dialog. Instead we've forced embargoes, sanctions, denials, covert ops, basically every hardliner stance we could think of. We'd also tried invasion once. We'd also tried exploding cigars and Nair assaults on Castro's beard (I'm not kidding!).

The problem is that all our efforts are wasted: other countries do not observe the sanctions and embargoes, so Cuba stays afloat (barely) financially. Castro and his buddies, meanwhile, use our bullying ways to act defiant and manly, and they get to look good while they do it. And what's worse, we know it's working for them, and not for us.

But we can't change, can we? Even with all the expert advise, all the obvious clues, we can't change our behavior towards Cuba because no one in D.C. wants to upset 200,000 plus Cuban exiles sitting in South Florida... even though a growing number of them think the sanctions and embargoes need to go...

This month, President Obama changed the rules: he's making open gestures to the Cuban government to work towards ending this half-century of hostility (via Jeffrey Goldberg):

...Critics of the Obama administration, and critics of the Castro regime, will say that today's decision to normalize relations between the two countries represents a victory for one-party rule. I think they are wrong; there is a very good chance that the U.S. comes out the winner in this new arrangement, and not only because Alan Gross is now home.

It is difficult for a Castro to agree to normalized relations with the United States; anti-Americanism is a pillar of the regime. But looking around Cuba earlier this year, it was apparent that there was an opening for the Obama administration to change direction and actually influence the course of events inside Cuba.

President Obama—and Benjamin Rhodes, the National Security Council aide who led the negotiations with Cuba—saw an opportunity to open up Cuba to American influence, and they took it. They will be criticized mercilessly—they already are—for giving too much ground to the Cuban regime. But Obama and his team knew something that many previous administrations before them also knew: U.S. policy toward Cuba was self-defeating. Five decades of an embargo, five decades of hostility, had not dislodged the Castro brothers, and had not brought even a suggestion of democracy to the island...

At first, my immediate response was to think - and claim elsewhere - that 50 years of sanctions had not worked.  But... kinda... in a way it did.  While the embargo and open hostility made the United States into an international bully picking on our neighbor state, and while it made Cuba under the Castro brothers into an intransigent one-party dictatorship with a horrible record of human rights violations, it also made Cuba into a very weak, economically unstable regime.

Goldberg's own article opens with him showing his kids around the backroads of Cuba, where poverty was constant and nearly everything rusted out and worn down.  Where most other Caribbean and Central/South American nations have at least kept up with economic growth and the Internet thanks to various trading deals with the U.S. as a major partner, Cuba's been stuck - literally - in 1959.

The only things keeping the Castro regime in power - after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 - were its ardent anti-American stance, and an alliance with Venezuela that kept it supplied with oil to keep up with energy needs.  And now with Venezuela facing dire bankruptcy problems of its own, Cuba is running out of trading partners - other nations don't respect the embargoes too much, but those sanctions have crimped how much they can do with Cuba - to keep it afloat.  In this regard - economics - the sanctions did have an effect.

Where the sanctions failed was forcing the Castros and their leadership partners into any kind of political reforms.  As long as the sanctions were in place and as long as the anti-Castro forces poised along the Florida coastline stoked with anger towards them, Fidel and his brother Raul were in no rush to do anything like open elections.

The current push for openness between Cuba and the United States is noticeably limited and still requiring a lot of negotiation.  This is where diplomacy - actual dialog, not gunboat - comes into play.  If the United States deals from a position of respect - not strength, which was how those sanctions have been viewed all these decades - with the Cuban leadership, they can craft a decent economic and cultural deal that can directly impact the nation towards a path of media and social openness in ways to affect the political.

Goldberg's follow-up article covers why diplomacy with Cuba compares a lot to the U.S. dealing with other one-party (formerly Communist) nations like China and Vietnam, with one notable exception where U.S. intervention might help:

There will be many ways to test whether the Obama administration, and those who support its decision to reestablish ties with Cuba after a half-century hiatus (including yours truly), are correct in arguing that broad exposure to America, to its people and to its businesses, will translate into greater openness and freedom for ordinary Cubans. One of the most important ways to measure this will be to watch levels of Internet connectivity—open, affordable, unfiltered connectivity. Many Cubans I've met have quite literally never been on the Internet. In two years, if rates of exposure to the Internet remain the same, then the great Obama experiment could be judged, provisionally, a failure.

Critics of Obama's overture to Cuba argue that close U.S. ties with Vietnam and China are proof that exposure to America does not translate into political freedom—it translates into greater access to Coca-Cola products, but not to the spread of American ideals of free speech and pluralism. These critics have a point, of course (though critics of these critics also have a point: If the U.S. can have normal diplomatic and commercial ties with China, a terrible violator of human rights, why should it not have normal diplomatic and commercial ties with Cuba, a country ruled by a government that is less malignant than China's?)...

Cuba, of course, is not China, and it is not Vietnam: China is large enough to create its own weather, and Vietnam is 8,000 miles away. The U.S. will have influence in Havana—a 45-minute flight from Miami—in profound and useful ways...

What Goldberg is getting at is how the United States' influence on Cuba will be overwhelming, not just economically but culturally. It's the closest Caribbean nation to us where tourism will become a major industry practically overnight (since all the others already have it): considering the curiosity factor alone, the first year of open travel would be huge.  Take the tourism numbers (and dollars) of places like Jamaica and Bahamas (two of the biggest destinations for Americans), and add them together to consider how many will travel to Cuba as a bucket-list thing to do.  Cuba's not part of the cruise line stopovers: once a deal's in place, every line will bid like mad for friendly ports (and a lot of construction at those ports for hotels, restaurants, amusement parks, shopping venues.  Infrastructure such as roads, water and sewage, communication networks will see a huge business boom).

And more than just the massive influx of tourism dollars, it will be the exposure to Americans and Cubans, person-to-person in ways we don't do enough with China and Vietnam (literally half the world away).  I'd like to think enough decent Americans visiting over there will meet enough decent Cubans to where Cubans will see American attitudes - and, let's be blunt, our bluntness - as our way of being open and honest with ourselves and with others.

And that's just the tourism bit.  One of the big benefits of ending the hostility will be the chance of families - the Cuban exile community - divided by decades of political bullheadedness having a chance to go home in peace, or at least visit regularly and rebuild lost legacies.

Again, a lot of this is going to have to involve delicate dealings with a lot of egos on both sides to soothe: the pro-Castro regime is not going to like any demands from the anti-Castro exiles and vice versa.  The sticking point will be settling reparations or restorations of properties/businesses from the 1960s.  The anti-Castro groups will most likely insist on criminal charges for human rights violations as well (as anyone fighting over the U.S. torture regime and our failure to indict any of those criminals will attest, it's a messy argument).

Thing is, let's face facts: the Cold War is over.  We won.  Yay capitalism.  Our ongoing hostility towards Cuba was really going nowhere in terms of our international standing.  Out of sheer spite - out of America's paternalistic political world-view of North America as our personal playground - we've been perpetuating an economic lockdown of a nation that could prove a solid trading ally and a force for regional good instead of evil.

It's been eleven Presidnets - Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Lesser, Obama - since those sanctions were placed.  Ever since Bush the Elder's tenure, when the Soviet Union fell and Cuba lost its protector, we should have been making this effort to normalize relations and use peace to end the Castro regimes.

At least Obama is making the effort now.  While the Republicans and the Far Right (among them the exile hard-liners) will scream bloody murder about this, nearly every other player involved - our allies, local nations, a majority of Americans a lot of whom weren't even alive when the Cold War ended - will see this as a good thing.

via Huffington Post

And with luck, Disney will be smart enough to keep the 1950s Art Deco retro look when they turn all of Havana into an Epcot Center.

(caveat: I am writing this from Florida.  Any Floridian will tell you: Do Not F-CK with Disney.  They're like Hyman Roth, only with better PR.  If they wanna turn all of Havana into an Epcot, nothing's gonna stop them)

The Saturnalia Wish List of 2014

'Tis the season to bring back the pagan rituals of our Roman ancestors!  'Tis the moment to slap Bill O'Reilly and the morans of Fox Not-News for their evil WAR ON SATURNALIA by breaking out the mulsum and wrapping the trees with togas!

And it's time to beg Saturn, the pagan God of the Temporal Vortex, to grant us boons in our dark hour of need:

1) Arrest warrants for every goddamn bastard responsible for the Cheney/Bush torture regime.  Especially Dick Cheney, who is out there lying and shilling for his regime of evil.  There is no excuse or justification for torture.  Ever.

2) That Rick "No Ethics" Scott's efforts to ignore the state's public records laws with illegal email accounts lead to felony charges.  PLEASE LET THERE BE FELONY CHARGES...

3) That some goddamn common sense and awareness of their voting base's needs wake up the Democratic leadership to run campaigns for all offices at all levels - federal AND state - and in all districts for 2016.  The pitiful turnout efforts this year sucked rhino.

4) That the movies of 2015 - Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, Fury Road, Tomorrowland, Star Wars VII, and the third Sharknado (maybe) - rock the f-cking house.

Seriously, Lord Saturn, they should have had this Falcon in stores for Christmas THIS YEAR...

I Just Want Some Sweet Love From A Saturnalia Honey, Is That So Wrong?

I haven't done a Roman-style orgy in ages:

Although knowing my luck I'll probably be the one asked to oversee the vomitorium rooms.

This is why you'll never win, Bill O'Reilly, in your evil War On Saturnalia!  We got hotter Vestal Virgins than you! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Keep the festive in your pagan hearts and IO SATURNALIA!

A Winter Grayer Than Before

And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said:
 "For hate is strong,
 And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
- "Christmas Bells," Longfellow

Thing about Christmastime, of December and the coming of winter.  It's a season of falling into the Gray Mood.  They call it the Winter Blues but it's really all Gray: the sky is gray, the ground is dead, the people are dour and burdened while the pressure builds to be festive and light-ful.

This year feels grayer than before.

Part of it is due to witnessing yet another disastrous midterm election.  Getting stuck in a state full of partisan morans voting that damn MEDICARE FRAUD back into the governor's office.  Banging my head against the desktop as voter turnout dropped to its lowest level since World War II.

Part of it is watching any semblance of justice in my own nation - land of the free and home of the brave - get flushed down a toilet as violent cops get let off for shooting unarmed teens and using illegal choke holds on guys whose only crime was not submitting to another round of public humiliation.

Part of it is realizing that the current political and economic landscape is about to get darker and nastier.  There's been buzz about a shutdown over Obama's attempts to reform immigration policy via his executive order powers.  There's concerns of a shutdown if there's a fight over a budget proposal that's top-heavy with corporate tax cuts and public sector spending cuts.

There's the growing realization that no matter the injustice of it, the insanity of it, the criminality of it... the Republicans will not rule even if they have the political power, they will ruin all.  They will twist the laws of the states they control to make it harder to vote, harder to complain, harder to stop them commit acts of graft and corruption.  Why listen to the critics or even the experts when there's no accountability for the sins they commit?

It's gray outside right now.  It's going to get darker, and I worry we won't see the sunshine any time soon.

What The Hell Is Wrong With America

What the hell else can be said after watching a grand jury refuse to bring a (white) cop to court on obvious evidence he used an ILLEGAL CHOKE HOLD to kill a (black) man on the mere suspicion of selling individual cigarettes on the streets of Staten Island.

"No reasonable cause"?!

There's video of it, where Eric Garner is arguing about what's happening to him but being non-violent about it, still getting caught in the cop's chokehold and begging for life gasping "I... Can't... Breathe..."

The official coroner's report came back as a homicide.

What part of "Illegal choke hold" is getting overlooked here?

That old "joke" that a grand jury - basically a tool of prosecutors to sort out the evidence useful to bring charges on a suspect - would indict a ham sandwich?  That's two grand juries in a row refusing to bring a white cop to trial for killing a black man.

That's two different prosecuting attorneys - both of whom deserve to get disbarred for their bias or ineptitude, take your pick - who basically controlled grand juries into doing nothing.

That's two groups of fellow Americans either buying into the "Blue Wall" excuse granting cops full immunity to kill all in their path, or else refusing to see the injustice of not bringing killers to any accounting for the lives they've taken.  Lives that happened to be black men.  Lives taken by those who happen to be white.

Anybody who claims we don't lynch blacks in this country anymore ought to take a look at the body count the last 5 years.

I've said this before: Our cops are not supposed to be executioners.  Our cops are supposed to follow an oath to Protect And Serve.  It's their job to bring the suspects to trial and have the juries and judges determine the guilt.  It is not the jobs of cops to execute with lethal force.  Our cops do NOT have a license to kill.

There are so many legal and effective means to arrest anybody without resorting to pulling out a gun or a taser or a baton or the use of a lethal hold.  GOOD cops do that every day of the year, and we don't hear about those arrests.

What does it tell you that we're hearing and witnessing more and more BAD cops on a weekly, now daily basis, beating the crap out of people, smashing in car windows, blowing up baby cribs, and outright shooting 12-year-olds the second they arrive on scene?  We have one cop shooting a teenager even after other cops - GOOD cops - had stabilized the confrontation, saying "We don't have time for this."  We have cops shooting a guy holding a BB gun in a Wal-Mart, all because some jackass claimed the guy was threatening people with it (in-store video proved he wasn't).  In the only good news out of all this police misconduct, there was a recent incident where the cops arrested and pepper sprayed a black foster child in his own home.  If you can call that good news.

And now our cops are out in the streets blockading the marches and protests, now in New York City as the outrage over Garner's death takes over the city, much like Brown's death took over Ferguson.  

We've got prosecutors who won't hold anybody accountable for death after death after death, after maiming after wounding after false arrest after false reports after lie after lie after more lies.  We've got police departments arming themselves with firepower that matches our army, rolling heavy through our own communities as they escalate the violence trying to impose order in response to the injustice they're refusing to recognize in their own actions.

Don't be surprised if our nation's faith - not just Black folks who'd figured out a while back that their lives don't matter, but Whites who genuinely want this nation to work for ALL its citizens - in the very concept of JUSTICE is dying in the streets just like our own citizens.

What the hell is wrong with America tonight?  We're living under a cloud of fear, living with a legal system skewing more against its own people.

I Typed 50,000 Words For NaNoWriMo.

So there.

BRING ME THE FINEST CHEESES AND ROOT BEER IN THE LAND.

TURKEY PAGAN SACRIFICE DAY 2014

Edit: I really should call this Pagan Turkey Sacrifice Day. If I say it as Turkey Pagan Sacrifice, it reads like the turkeys are sacrificing the pagans, right...?


To refresh:

...Now, about the proper way to sacrifice your turkey to the pagan Gods of the Harvest...  First, lay out a table in a geometric pattern with silver stabbing weapons and ceramic plates in which the ritual offerings can be placed.  Light some scented harvest-themed candles in the center of the table... Have the participants sit within an order decided by rank and by age...  Bring forth the SACRIFICE!  Offer a prayer to the appropriate deity of the house...  AND BEGIN THE CUTTING...!

Multiple sacrifices AKA seconds may be granted depending on the satisfaction of the house deity. 

TONIGHT!  THERE WILL BE SATED GODS.  ALL WILL BE WELL WITHIN THE PANTHEON OF DEITIES.

Burp.

Also, this as always:

Next up, IO SATURNLIA!

#FergusonFAIL

So that happened.  It was kinda expected that a cop would not answer for shooting an unarmed teen all because of (insert our nation's racial fears here).

What horrified me and what still sticks with me is how that prosecutor was so eager to blame everyone BUT the guy who pulled the trigger and killed someone.

McCollough blamed social media for angering up the protesters calling for some form of justice.  No.  The protesters have been marching and calling for justice since before any of us were born.  They've been marching and rising up for justice ever since the chains were put on them as far back as the Roman Republic.  This is still Jim Crow.  This is still political leaders calling "Segregation Forever" and South Carolina's Declaration of Keeping Our Slaves and Redlining and Ghettos As Policy and This Land Ain't Your Land.  This is still the heavy chains of racism that 400 years of this nation's history from colonies to empire has not removed from its own people.

McCollough: the grand jury "gave up their lives" to deliberate on the matter.  NO.  The only one who gave up his life here was Michael Brown, that unarmed teenager.

Call Brown what you want, haters, that he was a thief or a thug or any other kind of racist label you can put on him.  The one label that speaks to the facts is "unarmed civilian".  The one label that speaks of Michael Brown is "dead on the street with an entire clip emptied into him."

The labels "excessive use of force" and "deadly force" and "fearmongering" should apply as well.

Meanwhile, we've got cops shooting kids who are running around with toy guns.  We've got cops bullying bystanders, and bullying families at traffic stops, and just plain old bullying.  At what point does the intimidation efforts go from harassment to assault?  Whenever the cop feels threatened.  At which point there's nothing the rest of us CAN do except watch as the legal system washes their hands of the misconduct and carries off the bodies.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?  Who guards the guardians?  Who polices the police when the police are the lawbreakers?  Because while the letter of the law may protect these trigger-happy bullies among the enforcement profession, the spirit of the law - the purpose to SERVE AND PROTECT the citizenry regardless of race or gender or age - is pretty much dead on the streets alongside Brown.

Lemme caveat: obviously, not every cop is bad or a bully.  A lot of them are doing their jobs and checking themselves in check.  It's the fucking bad apples abusing the rulebook, and then a goddamn culture of complacency - the Thin Blue Line of "Us vs. Them" - that blemishes the entire profession of being a cop.

I've had that quote at the top of my blog banner since the first round of protests in Ferguson: We should be rolling lighter than this.  In our own cities, in our own communities, among our families.

We should be doing a better job upholding Justice For All.

Anniversary: Our Nation's Darkest Day

This is November 22nd.

Our nation's darkest day.

I speak, of course, of the Buttfumble.

...what, there's more?

Oh.  Right.  That.

Soon, those who remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy will fade into history.  All who remain behind will know only of the Buttfumble this dark day (It already has its own separate Wiki entry!).

Feast well, this coming day of pagan sacrifices to elder gods seeking the meat of turkey.  I will post more on that when the time comes.

Also, I'm currently at 40,000 words on NaNo and aiming for 42,000 by tonight.

Though Poppies Grow

The poppy flower grows when the seeds are disturbed, and the ground is turned, when a war rages.

Today is Veterans Day.  Generally recognized as a day of remembrance for the soldiers who fought and for the ones who didn't make it back.  On this day, the poem In Flanders Fields is read, and the red poppy flower worn.

And as always, the final clip of Blackadder Goes Forth, one of the downest of Downer Endings a show ever had:

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  It meant an end to the fighting, but it didn't mean an end to all wars...

Anniversary: Berlin Wall 1989

GOOD GOD THAT WAS 25 YEARS AGO

The Berlin Wall was a big damn deal: a symbol of the Cold War struggle between the western democratic-republican nations and the Soviet-Russia dominated authoritarian regimes.

The fall of the Wall signaled the beginning of the end of the Eastern Europe communist bloc (it wouldn't be truly finished until the failed August coup of 1991).

It's difficult to describe to anyone who hadn't lived through the Cold War era: the minor but constant dread that war between East and West would flare up; the constant proxy wars in foreign lands that perpetuated social ills for Third World nations playing up to their First World paymasters; the ideological sterility of two opposing political philosophies...

The fall of the Wall changed all that.  We could see in real time as it happened, as people celebrated on a barricade over which people died trying to cross, as they began bringing pickaxes and crowbars to start carving chunks of the Wall out, taking down entire sections, brick after brick falling away...

It's still one of my biggest regrets, not getting a chance to travel to Berlin and leave some graffiti on the West's side of the wall.  Ah well.  This is a better result.

And damn, I'm getting old...  TWENTY-FIVE YEARS already?

Edit: I KNEW I had written about the Wall before on my political blog - back when this was under a different name - and found the article I wrote five years ago.

FIVE YEARS!  I'VE BEEN BLOGGING THIS SH-T FOR MORE THAN FIVE YEARS.  Dammit, y'all, pay up, this gig ought to be earning me something by now...

The Angry Moderate Blues

I know it's a fault of myself when I sit here and look at the world and think "what the hell is everyone else thinking when they can't see what I'm seeing?"  I know people will have their own life experiences informing them of what choices to take.  I know people will have their own opinions.

Still.  WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, VOTERS?!

So here I am, fuming at an electorate that damages itself by voting for partisan Far Right hacks, suffering yet another bout of Angry Moderate Blues.

Yeah, Moderates can get angry... We certainly feel the blues.

--

I get the occasional troll on this blog - rare, considering the few comments I ever get - and I got a couple of them during my post of the Sample Ballot for the Florida midterms:

Wow - you are exactly what is wrong with America today. An ideologue that appears to have no clue about what made America great - diversity. Clearly you hate the Republicans more than you love America. Too bad. As an independent thinker, I prefer to vote based on substance not on ideology. Unfortunately neither party has many options when it comes to people of integrity, which is what many of us really want.

Getting called an ideologue is a new insult, but getting accused of not knowing about diversity is a twist. Considering I've posted my support for gay marriage, the free and open practice of all religions, my horror at seeing Blacks and Hispanics and Women getting treated like shit by the authorities and the overlords... Best I can say is that the guy posting that never read the whole of my blog, and thus didn't realize I am all about the diversity. Also, that I *do* love America: he must have missed the posts I add of the 4th of July, the celebration of Gettysburg and Woodstock, the occasional cultural milestone of Americana.  He's the one without a clue (psst, bro: next time READ THE BLOG BEFORE YOU INSULT THE BLOGGER)...

The next one was pretty straightforward:

I'm voting Republican straight ticket you useless liberal.

That's been the standard insult I get from the trolls.  You don't see most of them posting because I do have an administrative setting to filter all Comments.  Not for pure censorship, mind: It's because for a few years I was getting hit with Chinese Spam.  I'm not kidding.  The Chinese were spamming me, and I was like dudes I can't read Mandarin I can't tell what it is you want me to buy, stop it.  Anyway, I have the filter so I see a couple of Comments once in awhile in my Inbox and check them out.  Most of them are Anonymous, which tells me all I need to know about how cowardly they are, and they're pretty much calling me a libtard/librul/marxist/socialist of some kind.  I don't post those because 1) they don't contribute to the debate and 2) Anonymous posters are cowards.  I posted those two above because at least they put a name to the insult.

It's not that I'm bothered by the insults: Hell, I survived Tarpon Springs Middle School.  I've heard worse.  What bothers me is how wrong they get it by insulting me by something I'm not: Liberal.

For one thing, it's not an insult.  It's no more insulting than calling someone Conservative (if you try to insult me as a Conservative I'm going to look at you funny and give you the same retort).  The second thing, I've always considered myself a Moderate:

...Moderates support competency. We support things THAT WORK. If it doesn't work (example: THE WHOLE BUSH ADMINISTRATION) we don't support it. So there... Moderates recognize not so much the NEED for bipartisanship (or compromise) for the SAKE of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship and compromise between opposing factions are welcome when the end result will be something THAT WORKS...

If I look and act like I'm a Liberal, I'm really not. I'm looking and acting like someone who hates the Republican Party, by extension the whole of Conservative, Far Right ideology that has consumed that entire party.

And I hate the Republican Party because I used to be a member:

Actually I'm former Republican and I prefer to consider myself a moderate. I'm one of those dreaded RINOs you and yours drove out of the party. My hatred for the GOP is more despair at how broken and dogmatic it has become.

Calling me a liberal just shows how out of tune and extremist you've become, 'cause everything in opposition to you can only be a "socialist" or a "marxist" or a "liberal". All complexity of issues boiled down to just the hate.

Well, now you know why my ranting here on the blog is so one-sided against Republicans: because I came from there, it's all you had to teach me and I learned it from you. The only difference is I hope my hate for you will protect the rest of the nation and the world from your ruin.

When I first registered to vote I was a Republican.  I came from a Republican household - I've mentioned that more than once, especially about how old-school my dad is about Nixon - and so grew up in an environs of respecting such conservative principles as skepticism, desire for limited government, acceptance of liberal capitalism, and an overall avoidance to any aggressive radical change.

But by 1992 I noticed the party getting meaner and darker.  Not just a response to the rise of Bill Clinton as a political entity but just to nearly every issue.  Social conservatism went from being about compassion and charity and more about ostracism and pushing Christianity as a political force rather than a social foundation.  Economic conservatism went from respect for regulatory protections of the Eisenhower era to mass deregulation and unbridled laissez-faire.  Political conservatism went from diversity of opinions to adherence to dogma.  All of it wrapped into one big package of Fear-Mongering against the Other.

The key moment was Pat Buchanan's speech to the 1992 Convention.  Railing about a "culture war" and that "Clinton and Clinton" - fueling the Far Right fear that Hillary was going to be a Co-President of feminist intent - were going to destroy "God's America," Buchanan created a political identity of Republicans being hard-Right ideologues.

That moment - and the end of Bush the Elder's one-term tenure - began the purity purge against RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) as the extremists began targeting Moderate Republicans to push out and replace with more extreme, more Far Right candidates.

There were efforts to try and stave off the Club for Greed types that backed the purge, such as Main Street Republicans, but by today those moderate groups within the GOP are minorities - 46 Representatives out of 220-plus House Republicans, just 3 Senators out of 52 - within the ranks.  The purity purge by now has pretty much claimed full control of the Republican Party.

I did what I could to stay Moderate within the ranks meself.  I wasn't happy with the party's growing enthusiasms for the death penalty, massive deregulation in spite of historical evidence that deregulation was reckless, a pursuit not for small government but NO government, voter suppression efforts (yes even in the mid-1990s they were pulling that shit), and an eagerness by the leadership to pursue fiscal corruption that would make the Gilded Age look reformist by comparison.  While the Democrats weren't angels either, I loathed what the Republicans were revealing themselves to be.  I wasn't thrilled either by how the Republicans were crafting some fantasy-world dogma revolving around idol worship of Reagan and demonization of non-believers.

By about 2000, when Bush the Lesser became the candidate of choice (and despite his "compassionate conservative" platform he was the candidate of the purist ideologues) I pretty much gave up.  The disaster of the 2000 election results - and watching Republicans riot and get away with it in the Dade County elections office - sealed the deal.  I switched my party affiliation to No Party (I briefly flirted with being a Modern Whig back in 2009, maybe 2010, but that went nowhere).

The thing about becoming NPA (No Party Affiliate).  I still can't bring myself to make a full switch to becoming a Democrat.  It's not that I don't fully support Democrats - I have to, because they're the only actual alternative to the Republicans - it's that having been burned by one party I'm not keen on getting suckered into another.

What you see here on the blog when I rail about Republicans - when I cry all "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN" - this is an act of an Apostate.  Word for the day, kids: Apostasy is the renunciation or denial of a religious (and nowadays political) group that the denier once joined.  It's at the point where anything the Republicans are for - a horrifying Far Right conservatism that is more radical and destructive than actual anarchy - is something I would strongly argue against because I dread the party's true intent (usually having to do with ripping off taxpayers and blaming others for the impending disasters).

I'm at heart still a Moderate.  I don't want Small Government (or the No Government of the Tea Partier mindset), nor do I want Big Government: I want Effective government, one responsive enough to ensure people's rights and safety, yet streamlined without bureaucratic knots.  I want fair taxation (if that means bumping up the rates on the billionaires 2-3 percent and the economic models prove its effectiveness, so be it) based on the burden, not the rate.  I want deficit reduction but not at the expense of massive spending cuts that would harm families and children.  I want government to stimulate the private sector into genuine job growth and wage increases while ensuring that the market doesn't overreact to the costs of such moves.  I believe in Jesus but I don't want to shove Christ into our public schools, nor do I want Creationism - a foolish attempt to make the Bible literal fact rather than spiritual truth - overwhelming our sciences.  I don't buy the War on Christmas because there's still 300 million people in America who are not being forced at swordpoint to celebrate Saturnalia.  I know we need a strong military but I hate the wasteful spending (we bought a fleet of airplanes for billions and pretty much turned those planes into cheap scrap metal!).  I respect our need to forge strong alliances with foreign nations, but we don't need to bomb everybody into submission.

If that stuff makes me "liberal" then you've got a problem with your dictionary, 'cause I'm still Moderate.

I'm just an Angry Moderate.  Which isn't a contradiction in terms.

Note: Rude Pundit pretty much explains why the 2014 midterms went the way it did.  Part of it tribal BS, part of it ignorance.  All of it self-destructive.

We are as a nation voting not for the right reasons.

Liveblogging 2014: God Help Us All (UPDATES)

Polls are closing here in Florida within the hour and across most of the East Coast.  There's going to be a lot of local, state, and national elections to keep track of.  I got a link to the NBC News tracker here, and a separate link for the Florida elections tracking here.

I will update here from time to time, so please check back in.  I will be stressing mostly over three issues: Crist beating Scott, the fate of the three Florida amendments, and the fate of the US Senate.

I hope we got enough sane voters out there today, and via the Early Voting and Absentees.  Hope hope hope...

Update 7:17 PM EST - well that was quick.  The BayNews 9 website is showing Crist up 58 percent (528,000 votes) to Scott's 38 percent (346,000).  That is, oddly, with ZERO percent of the precincts reporting in.  I'm wondering if that's the Early Voting or the Absentee Ballot counts.  I'm thinking this is good news, but MSNBC is reporting that there are problems with voting machines in South Florida and the Panhandle, so the results are not solid and this is still up in the air.

Update 7:25 PM EST - in better news, the BayNews polling on the three amendments are solid.  Amendment One to fund our waters and ecosystem is up by 78 percent!  Well above the 60 percent needed to pass.  Amendment Two on medical marijuana is at 61 percent, which is unsettling but it's a good sign.  And Amendment Three to preemptively pack the courts is losing with the No count at 54 percent.

Here's hoping, Florida.

Update 7:30 PM EST - in the WTF category, Pam "Friend to Lobbyists" Bondi is leading Sheldon 51 percent to 47 percent for the Attorney General seat.  This is where things are questionable because you'd think the pro-Crist voters would be pro-Sheldon (and as anti-Bondi as we are anti-Scott).  The hell, Florida?  Bondi has been a disaster as AG and she's still on the edge of winning?!

Update: gimme 15 minutes to get some NaNoWriMo writing in!  BRB

Update 8:20 PM EST - well hell in Kentucky Grimes lost to McConnell.  It's looking like McConnell has it won handily too, which is sad because otherwise McConnell's not exactly the most popular guy in his own state.  By the by, got to 7000 words just now, hope to get 8000 by end of the night.

Update 8:25 PM EST - SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SCOTT IS UP 48 to 47 percent right now with 39 percent of the precincts in?!  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO OH GOD TELL ME THEY GOT THE PROBLEMS WITH BROWARD MACHINES RESOLVED...

Update 8:30 PM EST - they called the vote for my congressional district, my neighbors went with Ross (R) over Cohn (D) by 61 to 39 percent.  (insert headdesking here)  Meanwhile, the Medical Marijuna amendment slid under the 60 percent threshold and is at 57 percent YES... the water and ecology funding is steady at 75 percent, and the court-packing amendment is pretty much lost.

UPDATE 8:32 PM EST - this is a heartbreaker.  Pam Bondi won re-election handily (WHAT THE HELL, FLORIDA), and in Pinellas County the Greenlight Pinellas alternate transit plan has gone down to defeat 62 to 38 percent.  It wasn't even close, for a county that has massive traffic woes crushing a plan that could have generated jobs and boosts to the local tourist economy.  Because, what, there was a tax hike involved somehow?  What the hell is wrong with people...?

UPDATE 9:02 PM EST - we're at 93 percent of the polls reporting and Scott is up by 123,000 votes over Crist.  I'm still getting told that the Broward and Dade results aren't in, that there's still a chance the urban (Democratic-heavy) votes will get counted soon and that Crist may yet prevail... BUT WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD WAS THIS EVEN THIS CLOSE?!  We've had 4 years of Scott lying, ignoring questions, selling out to his business cronies, breaking transparency laws, slashing our education funding, refusing to protect our environment... I mean, we've got 75 percent of the voters backing Amendment 1 to keep our waters clean, and yet there are enough of those voters still backing a crooked governor who would eagerly pollute that all for money in his own pocket? (his blind trusts are nothing of the sort)  How the fuck is this disconnect between one issue and the other even happening?!

UPDATE 9:32 PM EST - Still waiting on Broward and Dade counties apparently.  This is still too disgusting to realize that there were not enough registered voters willing to make the effort to turn out the vote.  I get the impression far too many moderate voters were tuned out... too many Democratic voters were tuned out... the hell?

Update 9:52 PM EST - BayNews 9 site is calling it for Amendment Two.  It won't get enough votes to get past the 60 percent requirement, even though it's at 57 percent approval.  Just not enough people believing in medical marijuana or even in the need to shake up the screwed-up War on Drugs.  Still waiting on the governor's race.  There's still a slight lead to Scott by about 100,000 votes over Crist and there's still 2-3 percent of the precincts yet to report in.  Somehow Scott keeps clinging to that 100,000 vote difference like it's some kind of artificially-generated buffer...  As for the national scene, it's looking like the Republicans win gain a slight lead in the US Senate, meaning the GOP will control both houses of Congress for the first time since 2006.  The hits on Obama are gonna get worse...

Update: I'm gonna take another NaNo break to write.  When I get back the rest of Florida better F-CKING have voted Crist about 300,000 votes to beat Scott.

Update 11:00 PM EST - I've spent about the last 40 minutes trying to comprehend how in God's name 2,8 million people voted for a GODDAMN MEDICARE FRAUD like Rick Scott.  Again.  And I'm horrified by the failure of the Democrats and moderates and No-Party-Affiliate voters who failed to show up to vote for Charlie Crist.  What the hell, Florida?  What the fucking hell?

Rick Scott has been a liar since Day One, he's been avoiding his duties as governor, refusing to deal with our ecological concerns, slashing funds for our schools, cutting social services for women and families, he's been caught using secret emails in violation of our Sunshine laws, he's been trying to wreck our legal system and fill the courts with his pro-business cronies.. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU FLORIDA?  You WANT to live in broken communities and low-paying jobs and no Medicaid help for your elderly and disabled relatives?  YOU WANT THAT KIND OF HELL?!

I'm done for the evening.  I will post later about why I'm this angry, why I'm this pissed off at the Republicans and why I'm pissed off at voters who DON'T FUCKING CARE.

Election Day 2014: Reckoning

To the news that absentee balloting and early voting was higher than usual, I can only say WE STILL NEED TO GET THE VOTE OUT.

To the news that the Republicans are poised to take control of the U.S. Senate I can only say WE STILL NEED DEMOCRATS AND INDEPENDENTS TO GET THE VOTE OUT TO STOP THE GOP.

Today is Election Day.  November 4th.  Find your precinct, get your vote in.  Vote for fairness and justice, vote for open government and the public trust.  GET THE VOTE OUT.

Hope.

Midterms 2014: One Thing Left. VOTE

We're gonna get hit between now and Tuesday Nov. 4th with a ton of negative ads and BS from the pundit echo chambers.

Power through it.

We're gonna get told to vote Republican because "Obamacare Ebola Benghazi Marxism" threatens our God-given right to have the social safety nets cut away while billionaires get their tax breaks as the oil companies pollute our drinking water and the coal companies pollute our air.

Stay focused.

We're still getting sold the lie that Charlie Crist killed jobs in Florida while Rick Scott SAVED US ALL, ignoring how a Republican-fueled deregulatory sh-tstorm crashed the entire global economy - something outside of Crist's control - while Scott's promise to generate 700,000+ jobs couldn't even happen with the economic recovery - well, it COULD have if Scott kept the federal-funded high-speed rail program as well as agreeing to a Medicaid funding program that would have boosted our healthcare jobs - progressing on its own.

Why is anyone even believing a word out of that Medicare Fraud who wouldn't even recognize his own signature during the HCA deposition?

There is one thing left to do here in Florida.  This Tuesday November 4 2014 WE VOTE.

Vote FOR Crist.  Vote FOR Sheldon for Attorney General.  Vote FOR Amendments 1 and 2.  Vote FOR Greenlight Pinellas (alternate rail transit).  Vote FOR every Democrat on the ballot to get the crooked Republicans out of office at the state and congressional levels.  Hell, vote for the Green candidates if there are no Dems to vote, Hell vote for the Libertarian candidates just to kick the goddamn GOP incumbents out.

And for the rest of the nation, to all America... why the F-CK are any of you voting for any of those GOP Senate candidates?!  The modern Republican Party is willfully obstructionist, racist, classist ("kill the poor" has pretty much become the party motto), incompetent, beholden to the uber-rich rip-off artists, and just plain old dangerous.

America: For the LOVE OF GOD Vote Democrat where you can.  If there's no Democrat choice on the ballot and there's a Republican and a Libertarian (or a Green) sitting there, vote the Libertarian (or Green) just to mess with the GOP incumbent.  This current status of having the Republicans controlling the House has got to end.  Having these Republicans ruin their states has got to end.

The midterm votes are just as important as the Presidential election cycles.  I wish to God more voters realize this.  AND THAT THEY VOTE THIS TUESDAY.