Monday, 13 December 2004 - 10:00 PM CST

I suppose the one thing Mr. McAuliffe and his associates do not understand is that politics have changed. Politics are war. The current ruling party of this country understand this. Which is why they are the ruling party. Someone needs to help the DNC get their heads and asses wired together. First thing they need to realize is that the moral high ground is often the worst position to occupy. Don't misinterpret this statement. I'm not saying that creating a brand-consciousness for political movements that centers on their "values" and "morals" isn't worth the effort. I am saying that being obsessed with things like black provisional voters and dirty county politics just show weakness. Realpolitik is the name of the game. The neo-cons are masters of it. Karl Rove would find another way to get what he wanted if he were on the other end of the equation.
Brand loyalty is the holy grail of the marketing world and the Republicans have it. Although they have been in power for such a long time, they have managed to convince their constituents that they're "bucking the system" and "fighting big government". They ARE the system. They ARE big government. Yet, they still manage to captivate support by focusing on key non-issues like gay marriage and flag burning. Non-defense spending is up by 8%. The deficit has reached unimagined proportions. The dollar is being floated by foreign banks who are starting to think it's not such a good deal after all.
None of this matters. We have a war on terrorism, an undeclared, un-debated war on an abstract noun that has us running around all over the world.
I could go on, but why?
If your opponent abandons the ground rules that you both had adhered to then you must do the same. Simply put, the ends seem to justify the means (perhaps they always have). The ruling party says "we will pursue OUR interests and we will see to it that OUR needs are taken care of." The ruling party has control at all levels. It has the ability to use public largesse to build powerful relationships with corporate interests and influential individuals around the world.
The only sane way we can fight back is to use their own weapons against them. Their interests must be damaged and their ability to control must be diminished. We have to use unconventional political weapons.
For a start, all of us non-gay, gun-owning,fiscally conservative, christian, democrats need to start a party of our own. Maybe we should just call it the "Opposition Party".

Tuesday, 14 December 2004 - 5:10 AM CST

Excellent remarks, Sluggo.

The Republicans' "small government" rhetoric (and that's all it is, as the facts of our deficit-spending attest) is a great myth to win by. And they don't believe in federalism when it doesn't suit their purposes; it's quite hypocritical.

But the greatest mistake the Democrats have made is in abandoning the foreign policy positions that made certain of their predecessors (viz., Truman and even JFK) so successful. On the world stage today I wouldn't trust the Democrats with a sack of shit: just look at idiots like Albright, Richardson, Berger, and McGruff the Crime Dog ---I mean Warren Christopher. If Jean le Kerrie had managed to get elected, we'd be living with the consequences of that for decades to come with such losers as Dick Holbrooke running the State Department.

As it is, even though it both scares and excites the hell out of anyone who thinks about it, this Administration is taking the most aggressive approach to the long-term problems in the Middle East since the First World War ---when some of those problems were first created!

The social stuff that Democrats want to believe sunk their boat this time around is not what moved the election to Bush. They can forget about that nonsense because that's not where it's at. It was always about the war against the terrorists. It was always about not wanting to wake up the day after the election to see the towelheads dancing in the streets over the victory "they" won. Now they know they're in for not only another four years of ass-kicking, but many many more years on top of that that no subsequent Administration is going to come down from. We are enjoying real success against a real enemy, Sluggo. The Islamofascists aren't some media or political creation: they are an actual threat. They are people who believe that they will inherit Paradise if they can find a way to detonate a nuclear device in the middle of Houston. You don't doubt that, do you?

I say give the ball to the guy who's got some legs under him and who knocks mofos over when they try to front.

Tuesday, 14 December 2004 - 10:18 PM CST

This is what I'm talking about. The Tao of Rove says that we should not attack political opponents on their perceived weaknesses. In this case, the deficit and the economy. We have to attack the ruling party on its' strongest points. In this case it is easy. We should be fighting this war with bribes, thugs, silencers, and knives. The current crew thinks they can take a tribal society and turn it into a democratic western style nation.
News flash...tribal societies are by their very nature xenophobic and very keen on guerilla warfare. Gee, I only went to U.T. and even I know that. Still, we're going to "wipe out the terrorists" by driving up and down the road until they set of an IED or snipe at us and run away. We're going to take societies bogged down in rhetoric from the 11th century and make thme into little mirror images of ourselves..That's how we expect to win. We're supposed to think that they will think like us.
Every time you drop a 500 pounder on a neighborhood, it works like miracle grow fertilizer and makes the insurgency grow. If you've ever seen a bomb go off, you know and understand that a "surgical strike" is a fantasy.
Peep this, yo. If one non-combatant like a kid or somebody's mom gets killed or maimed by one of these things, then it's a matter of deep personal pride and obligation for every single able bodied male to go out and start raising hell.
It's an Ay-rab thang. You wouldn't understand. They keep a feud going like the energizer bunny. For hundreds of years. It would be like every German who lost a relative in Dresden looking to kill every American they can get their hands on...for the next two or three hundred years. Doesn't make sense does it? To them, it most certainl does.
Here we are. Uncle Sugar and Exxon are going to bail them out from the sheer goodness of our hearts. Yeah, right. The Saudi royal family is still pouring millions into the coffers of these murderers, but the Bush administration does nothing.
The war on the terrorists needs to continue, but not the way it is now.