Now the battle is joined...Kerry and Edwards. I'm glad on just last names alone that the choice is Edwards and not Gephardt or Vilsack. Those last two names are sort of anatomical and would probably be played upon--Dick has "heart" and will give heart trouble to Dick Cheney, and Vilsack would probably become "Vilnutsack" in graffiti.
I'd pontificate more, but what can you say? A Kerry-Edwards ticket is badass. Beats Bush-Cheney any day of the week, just like Gore-Lieberman beat it last time. And I'll say it again--I believe there is no way that Bush can legitimately win this election. He may end up "winning," but it won't be because he actually got the most votes. The only way Bush can win is if he gets his daddy's powerful friends to help him like last time.
At any rate, my fantasy is that the new campaign theme song for Kerry-Edwards would be AC/DC's "If You Want Blood (You Got It)," directed of course, at the Republican attack machine. Because we want them to bleed for us...in the metaphorical sense, of course. Maybe Audioslave or some other American band with a good shrieker could do a version. But in the meantime, "I Won't Back Down" will work.
FAHRENHEIT 9/11--PROPAGANDA?
And by the way, is Fahrenheit 9/11 propaganda or truth? I only ask because that is swiftly becoming the story line accepted/parroted by mainstream commercial journalists/pundits without much if any evidence to back that up. What the hell is propaganda anyway? An interesting website on the matter is here.
No one can agree on what propaganda is, but everyone seems to agree it's bad. Or maybe everyone could agree that propaganda is relative--it's whatever I think is true but you think is false and vice versa. It seems that a lot of people think of propaganda as being untrue and dishonest, but if you go by the defintion at dictionary.com, which says:
Prop·a·gan·da
n.
The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause.
That's a very non-judgmental definition and describes the actions of both Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh. So I guess Fahrenheit 9/11 is propaganda, but only to the degree that the programs of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc. are.
Q:TRIAL LAWYERS--SPAWN OF SATAN OR DEFENDERS OF THE LITTLE GUY AGAINST THE CORPORATE GREED MONGERS?
A: Defenders of the little guy against the corporate greedmongers that have been after the working people in this country since they first came into being. So Haley Barbour and Ed Gillespie and Governor Bush (George W., not Jeb--well, Jeb too, but I'm trying to make a jab at George W.'s unelected status) need to cool it with the tort reform talk.
Better a trial lawyer in the White House than a heart-attack-prone, foul-mouthed, war pig oilman. Yes, we're talking about he whose dick is in chains...
Oh, and one last thing...why is it OK in crazy Republican philosophy to be a billionaire if you're a dirty, underhanded CEO but it's an affront to voters if you married into money? The old line on Kerry was that he was a conniving sack of shit for marrying a fantastically wealthy heiress, and the new one that Beck and Limbaugh tried out today was that "Kerry is a billionaire." No comment or anything, just saying that Kerry is a billionaire, and therefore a sack of shit. Because he wants to be president instead of a labor-exploiting, exorbitant-salary-making CEO.
OK, this is the real last, brief thing...McCain had a chance to do something extraordinary by running with Kerry and turned it down to shill for the guy who cut him off at the knees in the 2000 primary. Is this the kind of thing that vast life experience brings you to? McCain is a war hero, he survived the Hanoi Hilton, and he's served in government for years. He gets an opportunity to really make a difference and stick it to Bush, and he ends up being Bush's warm-up act?
It reminds me of my father, who has a Ph.D in thermodynamics, has visited Europe and Africa, has worked with and taught people from all over the world, and who is one hell of an intelligent guy. He was liberal through my childhood and a lot of my youth, but admitted to me in 2000 that he's become a single-issue voter and that his single issue is abortion. I'm flabbergasted that after all that experience over 60-odd years, his mind closes. It closes rather than opens. His vote hinges on one issue that doesn't even affect him directly. If McCain and my dad are examples of what happens to a person once they accumulated years of experience and knowledge, then...that sucks!
My wife gave me a quote today from Tolstoy that kind of summarizes this situation:
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
