Election Selection

Color played a big role in who I voted for in this election. No, it’s not what you think. Let me explain.

Not race nor skin color nor ethnicity had a part in helping me decide which candidates to vote for. The contenders could all be purple with orange polka-dots and green racing stripes for all I care. The important thing for a candidate to earn my vote is to share my ideals and represent my interests.

Although Obama is a better choice for President than McCain (and I fully expect him to win the Presidency by a decisive margin), I voted for Cynthia McKinney. And that’s where color enters the picture; she’s got the “green” racing stripes.

Random Thoughts on Candidates McCain and Palin

It was obvious on SNL that Tina Fey does Sarah Palin better than Sarah Palin. When Palin does Palin, it comes across as an imperfect imitation of Tina Fey imitating Sarah Palin; Tina Fey owns Sarah Palin.

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At this point I’m thinking that it’s probably no mere coincidence that the only difference between “Palin” and “Pain” is the presence or absence of the letter “l.” Nor is there a high probability of coincidence that “McCain” becomes “McPain” simply by swapping out the “C” for a “P.” You can see where I’m going with this. (Because I’m writing this on a PC, I’ll offer it up as further proof that all things are in some way connected.)

So, what does all this pain have to do with a McCain/Palin Presidency/Vice Presidency? Oh, my brothers and sisters, have you not been paying attention these past eight years? McCain and Palin are a toxic combination representing the status quo; this duhnamic duo would compound the problems engineered by Bush and Company and bring unimaginable, unendurable and unprecedented pain upon America and a large majority of her citizens for many years into the future—if we’re fortunate enough to even have a future.

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Is Sarah Palin Greg Stillson in drag? I can’t say for sure, but whenever I see her give a speech as a Vice-Presidential candidate, I’m reminded of the character (a Congressional candidate with aspirations of one day running for President) from Stephen King’s novel The Dead Zone, and of the same dark vision of the country as seen by Johnny Smith.

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Neither of these disingenuous tools of the NeoCon spin machine are what they claim to be. John consistently and persistently misrepresents himself as a war hero (he was not) and Sarah consistently and persistently overstates her qualifications to hold a high-level position in public office. And both of these unscrupulous candidates shamelessly smear Barack Obama with a barrage of half-truths and lies, diminishing themselves in the process.

Remember the Savings & Loan scandal that left taxpayers on the hook for $billions? Remember Charles Keating and the Keating Five? Without John McCain, it would have been the Keating Four.

McCain berates Obama for lacking judgment, but how much judgment did McCain show by selecting Palin as his running mate? No, I don’t mean as helping or hurting his chances for election, I mean as how it might affect the country if he’s elected, dies while in office (considering his age and his health history—not to mention his undisclosed health records—there’s a good chance of that happening), and Sarah ascends to the Presidency. Is Sarah ready to lead? Not even close.

She lacks experience and/or expertise in all the critical areas that define a world-class leader. She has no military experience, lacks significant foreign policy experience, and her diplomatic skills leave much to be desired. Despite being a self-proclaimed energy expert, she has no energy policy other than “Drill, baby, drill.” Her answer to global warming and its environmental consequences is to ignore them or, worse, deny them. And where are her plans for addressing the other problems—all tough challenges, to be sure—facing Americans in the immediate future; crumbling infrastructure, universal healthcare, economic instability, the national debt, the failures of public education, looming food and water crises, national security, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and numerous others? Sending Ms. Palin in to do a competent persons job would be like sending in a person to oversee U.S. Military operations in the Middle East based on prior experience as a Boy Scout troop leader. To put it succinctly, it mustn’t happen.

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No doubt Sarah set the bar to qualify for public office too low. By her standards, even I am qualified to hold the office of President or Vice-President of the U.S.

Just for the hell of it, and to prove to you how empty and meaningless all these claims made in the name of political self-aggrandizement really are, let’s compare my qualifications to hold the office of Vice President (or President) with Sarah Palin’s.


Military Experience

An ability to make sound military decisions is essential to the person who, as President, is also the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States. Lacking actual military experience or a War College education, a minimum requirement would be to have read Sun Tsu’s The Art of War.

Whereas Sarah visited a military base in Kuwait, I’ve resided on several military bases in the U.S., MCRD San Diego, Camp Pendleton, and Twenty-nine Palms among them, and served TD at several others. As a civilian truck driver I delivered loads of strategic materials to other military bases, including McCord AFB, Fort Lewis, El Toro MAS, and Nellis AFB. Although I missed pulling duty in Viet Nam by luck-of-the-draw, any way you want to slice and dice it, my military experience trumps Palin’s. Oh, yeah, and I’ve read Sun Tsu’s The Art of War.

Foreign Policy Experience

Sarah “High-heel Hitler” Palin cites Alaska’s proximity to Russia—and her ability to see Russia from Alaska if she stands at exactly the right spot at the right time of day and the right time of year—as a substantial part of her foreign policy experience. She also thinks that a brief refueling stop in Ireland counts as foreign policy experience, as well. Real stretches of the imagination, any way you want to pull them. And I’m not absolutely sure if meeting with U.S. troops in Kuwait counts as foreign policy experience, either; I’ll guess that it doesn’t.

Sarah might be able to see Russia under ideal conditions, but I can find Russia on a world map. Sarah had a brief refueling stop in Shannon, Ireland, on her way to visiting a U.S. Military base in Kuwait; I’ve refueled at truck stops, most of which sell fuel refined from foreign-supplied oil sold on the international market, all across the country.

According to Sarah’s twisted logic, any connection at all to the term international is enough to qualify someone for the office of Vice President. But if that’s the case, then I must be overqualified by virtue of my résumé of connections to the term. In various past lives I hauled container-loads of hay cubes bound for Japan (an international market) for Viking International driving an International truck; while in the military I performed preventive maintenance on International Harvester heavy equipment (TD-18s, TD-24s); I’ve flown out of and into Portland International Airport, raced at Portland International Raceway, and eaten at International House of Pancakes. I’ve even been known to use IBM (International Business Machines) office equipment.

Despite all of this International experience, I’m still hard-pressed to make a rational argument, on that basis alone, that I’m qualified to hold high public office. And (on that basis alone) Sarah’s no better positioned to make a rational argument for qualification than I am.

Foreign Trade

Governor Palin boasts about a $40 billion pipeline to carry natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope to Alberta, Canada, and points beyond as if it were a done deal. It’s not. On the downside, an AP investigation uncovered a rigged bidding process that threw the construction contract to TransCanada Corp., a company with close ties to Palin’s pipeline team. Before construction can begin, TransCanada must skirt some major financial barriers and regulatory impediments; the project’s completion is years away. Still, I guess you can chalk this up as foreign trade experience for Palin.

My own foreign trade experience is far less grandiose than Sarah’s, but the sheer amount of it dwarf’s hers in comparison. For seven-and-a-half years during the mid-eighties and early nineties, I conducted international trade missions to Canada (Vancouver, B.C. and neighboring towns and cities), making twice-weekly deliveries of critical commodities (snack pies and other bakery products) to pre-established distribution centers. As a result of this experience I mastered one of two Canadian languages, which I now speak and write fluently. Put another checkmark in the plus column for me.

Prior to that I participated in two covert missions into Mexico (Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez) to randomly sample various ethanol-containing products commonly sold on the open market, and to stimulate the local economy. The aforementioned incursions into the territories of a sovereign foreign nation qualified as hazardous duty; indeed, I came away from each suffering severe short-term brain trauma, from which I recovered in less than 24 hours (yet another testament to my endurance, resiliency and tenacity—all desired characteristics of a leader).

Once again, my experience (depending on how you spin it) eclipses Sarah Palin’s.

Leadership Experience

For leadership experience, Sarah cites (in part) her two terms as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and the role she played in directing the daily machinations of that town of fewer than 10,000 people. By the end of her terms, conservative Mayor Palin increased the tax burden on each of Wasilla’s taxpaying citizens by more than 30% and left the town more than $20 million in debt.

Although I’ve never been mayor, as a construction flagger I directed traffic on a street improvement project in a city with three times the population, which I would argue is the more challenging job because survival is not about getting reelected at the end of your term but about staying alive ’til the end of the day.

Although I’ve never lead anything larger than a grade school assembly, I live in a city whose metropolitan area has a population roughly twice as large as Alaska’s. Whether you lead or are led, the larger the population the greater your responsibility.

Sarah also trumpets her two-year experience as Governor of Alaska, the nation’s largest state, as proof that she’s Presidential material. But what does this claim really mean? Not much, really. Really! Alaska, at more than twice the size of Texas, has the fourth smallest population of all the states, and it accounts for less than ¼ of 1% of the nation’s total population. Someone should tell Sarah that governing is not about the number of square miles that lie within the borders of one’s realm, but the number of people. (It’s people that need governing; the land, in the absence of people, takes care of itself.)

If you can believe the information posted on her official Web site, some of Sarah’s most recent important accomplishments as governor of Alaska include appointing or reappointing people to various positions within her administration, the ceremonial lowering of the flag in honor of a deceased retired judge, and bitching about the protections afforded endangered Beluga whales in Cook Inlet—not exactly the kinds of stuff that make great Presidents or VPs.

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As you can see, my experience in every category equals or exceeds that of Governor Palin. Am I qualified? Is Sarah Palin? So go ahead, vote for me as a write-in candidate for Vice President. True, there’s not much chance of me winning, but I have my resignation letter already prepared just in case.

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Vote on or before November 4th. If you wait until November 5th (as Rethugs suggested certain Democrats do) it's too late.

Tempting Fate

"Even if an asteroid were to blot out New Orleans today, a giant squid were to topple the Golden Gate Bridge tomorrow, and fire ants were to kill every human on Fire Island by the end of Thursday, the biggest story of the week would still be McCain's cockeyed selection of Palin." —Jack Shafer

Hey, I get it! You supported Hillary, and when she didn’t get the nomination, it really pissed you off. I mean really pissed you off. Pissed you off so much, in fact, that now you’re going to throw your vote to Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin to get even.

Huh? What are you thinking? How does shooting yourself (and your country) in the foot bring you anywhere close to being even? How does voting to continue, for four more years, the same failed or failing Bush policies of the last eight years get you anywhere near being close to even?

Before you cast your vote for President/Vice President in the upcoming election, think long and hard about the unintended consequences that a McCain/Palin administration might hold in store for the country. Ask yourself if John McCain and Sarah Palin are the agents of change they claim to be, and whether any changes likely to occur under a McCain/Palin administration would be changes for the better or changes for the worse.

In fact, a successful McCain/Palin bid for the White House would be a huge setback for the country, with the environment, healthcare, the economy, national infrastructure, education, and renewable energy taking the hardest hits. I don’t expect Constitutional Law, women’s rights, or anyone else’s rights to fare much better. The only changes you’re likely to get under a McCain/Palin administration are the changes that strip away gains made over the last 30‒50 years and return us to a bygone era of onerous laws and shortsighted policies, but with the high prices of everything intact.

Make no mistake, McCain and Palin will not bring the kind of changes you want to see. John “the Maverick” McCain has voted with George W. Bush about 90% of the time, and Sarah Palin is George Bush in drag. That both of these candidates are total strangers to the truth is reason enough not to vote them into office.

Don’t let your desire to see a woman in the White House stampede you into helping put the wrong woman there. If you must vote for a female chief executive or vice-chief executive this election cycle, why not vote for the Green Party candidates, Cynthia Ann McKinney and Rosa Clemente? You can help elect two female top executives with one vote, and at the same time avoid the downside of a third consecutive Republican administration.

Yes, it takes time and effort, but it’s imperative that you get acquainted with the candidates, become familiar with the critical issues, and above all that you vote with your intellect and not with your emotions. The fate of your country—of our country—depends on it.

Shocking Choice by John McCain

WASHINGTON-- Senator John McCain just announced his choice for running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. To follow is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

“Senator McCain’s choice for a running mate is beyond belief. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has clearly made a decision to continue the Bush legacy of destructive environmental policies.

“Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.

“This is Senator McCain’s first significant choice in building his executive team and it’s a bad one. It has to raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about John McCain’s commitment to conservation, to addressing the impacts of global warming and to ensuring our country ends its dependency on oil.”

This blog entry courtesy of Rodger Schlickeisen and the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

A Modest Proposal

Whenever the government deems a large corporation too important to the national interest to be allowed to fail, it invariably rides to the rescue on truckloads of taxpayer’s money. It’s the government’s way of rewarding corporate ineptitude, malfeasance and greed.

But a government-assisted bailout for private businesses is bad policy, and government should not engage in providing financial support or assistance to corporations that suffer from inept management or the malfeasance of highly positioned corporate insiders. Government’s proper role is to provide regulatory and oversight functions, to enforce corporate compliance with established rules and regulations, and to protect the citizens it governs from corporate irresponsibility and excess.

Instead of allowing corporations that privatize profits to get a free ride at public expense when calculated risk goes awry, government should intervene on behalf of the public. If a business is truly crucial to national interests, at the first signs of financial collapse government should step in—quickly and decisively—and nationalize the business.

Were this policy put into widespread practice, I think we’d see many fewer incidences of corporate shenanigans and much more corporate responsibility. The threat of nationalization would almost certainly cause most—if not all—corporate leaders to clean up their act.

No Laughing Matter

This sounds so outrageous, it seems like a joke or something out of "The Onion."

Attorney General Michael Mukasey is demanding that Congress issue a new declaration of war so that anyone that this president or the next one declares to be an "enemy combatant" can be held indefinitely without a trial.

The new declaration of war would make the entire globe — including the United States itself — a “battlefield” where the president decides who will be locked up forever.

With only five weeks left in the Congressional schedule and only six months left in the Bush presidency, Mukasey’s ridiculous power grab should be laughed out of town. But given this Congress’ track record, the Mukasey proposal is no laughing matter. Especially because it also includes a cover-up of the Bush administration’s systemic torture and abuse of detainees.

We can’t take for granted that Congress will reject this outrageous proposal. We have to meet it with an immediate wall of protest that says to Congress: “Don’t you dare.”

I just told my members of Congress to reject the dangerous Bush/Mukasey plan. You can do the same thing here.


(This blog entry courtesy of the ACLU.)

Ye Gods, We Hardly Knew Ye

The forum discussion following an article on AlterNet a few days ago got me to thinking about science and technology and how we humans show a marked tendency to abuse them. In particular, our overreliance on technology to solve all our problems puts us in the same moral category as the drug-addicted; the mindset (if a little bit is good, more is better) is exactly the same. When we don’t get the desired results, we tend to kick it up a notch, creating endless cycles of bad choices to wipe out the ill effects of previous bad choices. In the end it’s a zero-sum game.

To avoid any confusion about the differences between science and technology, suffice to say that science is more about the process of discovery, of proving or disproving any given theory. On the other hand, technology is more about practical applications of science, of putting scientific discoveries—through innovation and invention—into practice.

(It’s a popular misconception that science and technology will save us from the long-term unintended consequences of past scientific and technological pursuits, despite contraindications that we humans are about to be buried under the rubble of science and technology gone awry. The trouble, of course, is that the solution to one problem begets many more problems, all or none of which might or might not be related to the original problem. One can argue, not too logically, that we need more technology to deal with the problems we already have, but new technology would only bring new problems—amply demonstrated by every technological advance throughout recorded history—so that argument quickly falls apart.

By now you’re probably thinking I’m a Luddite. Maybe I am. But you should know that I’m also an avid sci-fi fan, and that I find science and technology deeply interesting and endlessly fascinating; nothing does more to kindle the fires of imagination and unleash the creative mind than to immerse oneself in the myriad possibilities of things yet to be discovered.

Where sci-tech and I part company is the way in which the discoveries attributable to sci-tech are, too often, ruthlessly exploited by commercial interests for no other purpose than to create wealth. Gone are the days when people did things because things needed doing; now, few people do anything unless they stand to make a buck. Not an absolute, but close enough.

Clever though we are we seem incapable of learning that an ability to do something is not sufficient reason, by itself, to go ahead and do it. In practice, doing anything without a clear understanding of short- and long-term consequences is the moral equivalent of leaping before you look.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the fields of genetic engineering, genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, where indiscriminate applications of these particular kinds of technology pose very real dangers of running out of control. Thanks to genetically modified crops that threaten agriculture, and a combination of overused antibiotics, widespread use of artificial fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, and herbicides, and the irradiation of meat, fruit and vegetables, most of the world’s food supply in now at risk, as is most of the world’s potable water.

No one knows the full extent of the dangers that lie in wait for unwary technophiles and all the rest of humanity as the ruthless exploiters of science and technology make new inroads into unexplored territory, boldly going where no man has gone before, with nary a backward glance or critical thought about possible—or even probable—outcomes.

Has the cleverness of our inventions put us all in peril? Have we humans become the engineers of our own destruction? Or are we engineering something completely different, perhaps the next stage of human evolution? Sensing imminent extinction, might not scientists seek to create new life forms capable of preserving human intelligence and knowledge, acquired over millennia, under conditions that no human could survive?

Humans lacking intelligence and knowledge are little more than naked apes and therefore are—on an evolutionary scale—no more worthy of survival than, say, dodos or pterodactyls or a termite colony. In fact, when it comes to survival, humans lacking intelligence and knowledge are vastly inferior to apes. Thus, intelligence and knowledge and their preservation and perpetuation are the important things; humans not so much.

Picture a distant future in which nanotech life forms directed by artificial intelligence gather periodically in enclaves to pay tribute and swear obeisance to their human creators, that mysterious race of super-beings whose sudden disappearance from Gaia gave rise to new mythologies and became the stuff of a new wave of religious dogma.

And might not future children of the gods utter, in moments of extreme religious fervor and devotion, this simple prayer for salvation: Ye Gods, we hardly knew ye, but please, we beg ye, save us from ourselves?

Then again, maybe artificial intelligence is smarter than that.