Candidate: Rudy Giuliani

My Primary Source: Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City by Andrew Kirtzman
POV: New Reporter in New York during Giuliani's terms as Mayor (started one year before he took office)
Bias: Surprisingly neutral, you get a feeling the author slightly favors Giuliani, however, there are easily as many negatives as positives given to the ex-Mayor.
Reason for Source: My choices for a book on Giuliani were plentiful. While this book didn't totally serve my purposes (there is nothing on this current election platform) this book gave an excellent character study by a man who was there for all of it. Even with the Mayor as the twin towers fell. It also had excellent reviews.

Quick Note: I will most certainly be referring to this Giuliani's 12 Commitments. This is referring to a speech Giuliani gave that covers the majority of the issues. The speech can be seen here and an overview of the speech can be found here.

Health Care: Source: Giuliani is against government involvement in giving the public free health care. Instead, Giuliani's plan entails giving a $15,000 deduction for family health plans and $7,500 for an individual.

Iraq War: Source: We are by no means done in Iraq yet, according to Giuliani. Handing our enemy's a time table would be nothing short of a huge mistake. In an interview with Bill O'Reilly, Giuliani was asked how he will react to public opinion polls that may or may not agree with this course of action if her were president. He responded by saying, "I will only react to public opinion polls that I think are right." O'Reilly further asked how much longer will the war in Iraq take. His response was, "I don't think its a matter of time I think its a matter of seeing what kind of progress your making. Right now what I'm interested in what General Petraeus says when he comes back [and if he says he needs a little more help] I will give him a little more help, thats what I would do."

Economy & Budget: Source: When Giuliani took office as mayor of New York City the city was faced with a tremendous deficit. Giuliani fixed this by shrinking the size of the city's government and lowering taxes and this had very positive results on the City's economy. Part of his Budget plan if elected is to do the same same to the United States government.

Environment: Source taken from a Q&A session on 6/10/07: To Giuliani, global warming and energy independence can be achieved together, but energy independence is the foremost concern. Research and development needs to be done on things like clean coal, ethanol gas, wind and solar power in order to make them more usable. One technology Giuliani seems to support today to help reduce pollution is safe forms of nuclear power. While Giuliani talks a lot about energy independence and has placed it as point number 6 of his 12 Commitments, preventing Global Warming did not make the list and has not made any promises that I could find.

Globalization: The last of Giuliani's 12 Commitments focuses on looking at Economic Globalization as something we need to go after as a country.

Abortion: Taken from the Fox News debate on 5/3/07. Giuliani believes the decision on abortion should be handled by the States, not the government. However, as stated as commitment number 8 (see link above in Quick Note section) as President he would work to reduce the number of abortions and increase the number of adoptions.

Immigration: Source: Giuliani see illegal immigration as a huge problem, not only for unemployment, but for terrorism in the US. Giuliani's plan to reduce illegal immigration is to put legal citizens into a database and issue tamper proof ID cards. He also believes in making reading, writing, and speaking English mandatory for legal immigrants.

Education: Source: Control of Education should go to the parents, not to the government. This, no doubt, is also a part of his budget plan to shrink the size of government. Giuliani argues that we need to empower parents to send their children to the school they choose is the best for them. Bureaucracy should play no part in it.

Civil Rights: This is easil the hardest part of analyzing Giuliani. While Mayor of New York City, Giuliani did lots to benefit the vast poverty areas. However, during numerous protests of police brutality, Giuliani turned a deaf ear to them. Giuliani was also often accused of being racist, but as Mayor he undeniably did more to benefit Africans Americans of NYC then even his predecessor, the city's first Africans American to hold the position, David Dinkins. In fact, a good part of the hostility could have spawned from the simple fact that Giuliani did defeat Dinkins in 93. Many African American leaders of NYC were not pleased by this (most notably Rev. Al Sharpton), and Giuliani has an infamous reputation to hold a grudge.

Wither or not Giuliani does or does not have a tendency towards racism is uncertain, but the long term effect of his mayorship does not reflect it.

Other Notables: Giuliani is easily one of the most important political figures of the decade. Simply due to his role during the attack on September 11th 2001. He was the voice of reassurance for America for a whole day, while everyone else was left speechless. Also worth noting that Giuliani is no politician, despite his now long career in politics he is first and foremost still a prosecutor.

Personal Opinion (section to extract my emotional commentary out of the above as best as I can): First off, I have to say the book, cited at the beginning of this post, I read for this entry was probably one of the best pieces of non-fiction I have ever read. As I read it, I continuously waited for the author to expose some bias either for or against Giuliani, but it just never came. The last chapter of the book talks about his own experience during the 9/11 as a reported for New York 1 news station tailing Rudy Giuliani throughout the attacks on the World Trade Center Towers. In general, as I said before the book was an excellent character study of Giuliani, and I'm glad I picked it up even though it does not speak about any of today's issues.

Having said all that, Giuliani, himself is a walking double edged sword. As stated previously, he is arguably racist, but potentially the best thing to happen to poor black communities of NYC. He is surprisingly close minded, yet has a small circle of trusted advisers to whom he listens. He is very religious and morale, however this causes him to quickly write off someone who attacks his policies (as though they are seemingly not acting in favor of what is right). He is quick to hold a grudge, and while this closes down communication lines very often it forces others to respect his authority or at least phrase criticism in nothing but the most constructive manner. Strangely he is also, in my opinion, the closest thing we could have to a third term of President Bush. Yet, this is not something I'm worried about because he seems to take some of Bushes most pronounced mannerisms, but seems leave behind the part that makes Bushes intentions so ambiguous. Here is a comparison that should help explain what I mean.

Differences between Bush and Giuliani
--------------------
Proven moral rather than claims it
Intelligent (just listen to him talk)
Uncorrupted (Giuliani strong moral sense would not allow corruption)
Doesn't listen to cabinet (as such I sincerely doubt Giuliani would be taking orders from his VP)

Similarities between Bush and Giuliani
--------------------
Doesn't care about disapproval
Man of principal
Firm and unwavering (both man stick by their guns when they make a decision, I just have more faith in Giuliani to make the right decision)
Will focus on Iraq and is not willing to pull out troops yet or give a time table



Giuliani is a very interesting character, but this issue of racism frightens me. Analyzing the facts made in Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City (mentioned elsewhere in this post) has given me reason to suspect this suspected racism is more a series of unfortunately events than an exposure of true intentions. Also, as stated elsewhere, there was no evidence lasting evidence left over from in his policies as mayor of NYC to support any accusations of racism. So if nothing else, he does not let it effect his job if at all true. However, there were many cases of police brutality which Giuliani backed the police force (except for one very extreme case) and many accusations of racial profiling raise a red flag that I personally just cannot shake off. Otherwise, Giuliani is an exceptional candidate in my opinion and he's worth watching throughout the election process.

It just isn't the same internet anymore

This post is off topic for this blog, but it may not who knows, someday it might seem more relevant than it ever should have.


It is staggering to me how much the internet has changed. It used to be a place of endless resources and inside jokes. It would seem that the internet has now become a gateway to mainstream media.

The first time I remembered seeing an example of that was seeing that Seth Green had spoofed some emo kid (Chris Crocker)'s defense of Britney Spears (I'm ignorant to most of the details surround this). Regardless, it's significant because I'm pretty sure it was the first time I've ever seen a fairly accomplished comedic actor jump into the fray of an internet flame war.

For Reference, the original
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LWSjUe0FyxQ
Seth Green's version
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aiqkDm9UoKo


Last Week a co-worker had clued me into a show on MTV called "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" which is "a bisexual themed reality dating show" staring a person who was made "famous" for having over a million friends on face book. This is beyond idiotic to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Shot_at_Love_with_Tila_Tequila


So today, I learned of, what was for me, the 3rd strike for the old community of the internet. I'm sure many of us have seen the Chocolate Rain video which was first posted back in April and widely made fun of as he also became internet famous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA

Well apparently, Dr. Pepper sponsored him to remix his song for a TV Comercial/Music Video.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2x2W12A8Qow

If you watched that last video then you probably are right with me in feeling a bit speechless. However, I doubt this will be the last time we see such an example appear in popular culture. For those who partake internet communities, its always been a place where the trivial can become treasure, but to see the trivial actually becoming profitable grossly profitable is mind numbing.

Roy Beck on Immigration

This video was just sent my way and it seems to present a very bleak picture for the US if immigration continues along or exceeds its current rate. I haven't checked any sources (and would like to) but on a preliminarily Google search on Roy Beck I was impressed to not see a lot of hate websites on the man. I consider this a possible testament to the correctness of his predictions, but certainly nothing definite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7WJeqxuOfQ

A Quick Apology

This post below took MUCH longer to put out than I originally thought it would. I'm already about half way through my study of Giuliani. The reason it took so long is that last week I had taken a vacation and took a trip to Achorage Alaska and purposefully separated myself from the internet. I tried desperately to publish my Bio of Barack Obama before I left, but it just proved that I didn't have the time between packing and meeting with people before I left. My week back also proved a bit hectic, but anyways I'm basically back into blog mode and I don't think it will take me 2 to 3 weeks to make any posts for a while. Who knows though.

Candidate: Barack Obama

My Primary Source: Barack Obama: Speeches 2002-2006 by Maureen Harrison (Editor), Steve Gilbert
POV: Speeches from Barack Obama, so the POV is Barack himself
Bias: Neutral, its a primary source
Reason for Source: The biggest appeal for this book to me was that it is a primary source. You can't get much better than that.

Health Care: Obama proposes a health care system for all American's by the end of his first term. His full plan is laid out in great detail on his site and frankly its over my head. Perhaps I'll make a health plan post where I make an effort to understand this stuff and compare and contrast different plans.
Iraq War: In a speech he gave in 2002 Barack Obama refers to the Iraq War as a "Dumb War." He is in favor of a partial calculated withdrawal of a American troops and seeking aid from neighboring countries to help hold Iraq. This calculated withdrawal should be as much a schedule for us as it should be one for Iraq and a driving factor to get their own country in order. Obama then says we should use the freed miliatary resources to turn our attention on the Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Syria to stop their oppression or dedication to terrorism.

Economy & Budget: Finding text on Obama's financial plan was a bit difficult. I'm basing this section on an article from breitbart.com which doesn't appear to be too fond of Obama. I would agree though that Obama's campaign seems a little vague on this subject (as I previously expressed my difficulty finding any material on this subject). Anyways, heres a quote from the site that has some good info.

Obama's plan was short on some specifics. But he said he would give 150 million workers a $500 payroll tax credit, expand relief on mortgage interest, eliminate income taxes for seniors making less than $50,000 and simplify returns so millions can file in less than five minutes.

[...]he spent just one minute skimming over how he would pay for it and neither he nor his campaign provided a breakdown of the revenue his plan would raise.

Environment: In a speech he gave in April 2006 at The Newspaper Association of America Obama gave his pledge to help us achieve energy independence from the middle east. President Bush has given us a proposal that, "would reduce our oil imports by 4.5 million barrels per day by 2025." Obama thinks we can do better and make it 7.5 million barrels per day by 2025. While I couldn't find this information on his website, there is plenty of text on his energy reform ideas. I have a feeling the policy is in there, and they just changed the units and possibly omitted or changed the timeline.

Globalization: Obama seems to have two main focuses on Globalization. The first way is his focus in the middle east (see the Iraq War section above), and the second is he would like for us to focus on our economic ties with Africa. The following was taken from a speech he gave at the University of Nairobi in Kenya.

As a Senator from the United States, I believe that my country, and other nations, have an obligation and self-interest in being full partners with Kenya and with Africa. And, I will do my part to shape an intelligent foreign policy that promotes peace and prosperity. A foreign policy that gives hope and opportunity to the people of this great continent.

Abortion: Obama is pro-choice and strongly believes in potential for stem cell research to do amazing things in terms of advancing health care. There's a whole speech on it here for those interested in a well articulated version of answering "yes" on this issue.

Immigration: Obama's immigration reform seems focused not on the fences, but incentives for illegal immigrants to step over the boarder. By implementing a new fool proof way for employers to easily determine if the person is a citizen or not. His focus seems to be aimed at, "making it fair to legal workers and tougher on employers."

Education: Obama does a great job laying out his plan for national education reform in his speech at the Center For American Progress in 2005. Generally speaking his plan is to take volunteering school districts and in each one will apply an innovative new curriculum in place of their current teaching plans and student progress will be measured. Achievement will be rewarded in schools that succeed "and shut down those that don't." (see above link for source)

Civil Rights: Barack Obama's main campaign focus (next to Iraq) is focused on this issue. Many other points are tackled from a civil rights point of view. Education is tackled by our our need to reform schools in poor areas. Budget seems focused on giving breaks to the working class. As far as I'm concerned if Civil Rights and Poverty are your focus, then Obama is your candidate.

Other Notables: Obama is a Christian. As there is some suspicion that Obama is actually a Muslim (and I will admit I thought he was as well, but have since edited this section of the post) I'll turn to a primary source that indicates differently. It's a recording of a speech on this subject, it is fairly lengthy and if you prefer the text of the speech can be found here.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/faith/

Personal Opinion (section to extract my emotional commentary out of the above as best as I can): There were two things that drastically turned me off from Obama. Those are his education plan and his foreign policy. As I read the above linked speech on his education reform plan I was fairly impressed at first until I got to the following part quoted about shutting down schools that don't produce positive results in his test. I really had to say "WTF?" It seems to me that any sort of education reform that involves shutting down schools is more like education deconstructionn than reform. Honestly though the part that really confuses me is that his entire plan seems like it would work fine if it weren't for the part about shutting down schools. It doesn't seem like a crucial part of his plan, which makes me wonder why he thought it would be necessary to include it.

As for his foriegn policy, I agree having a timetable for the removal of troops. Frankly I find it hard to believe anyone wants to keep American's sons stationed in Iraq from now till God knows when. What does bug me are his plans at futuring the war on terror. His plans to shift focus to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Syria seem to be lacking one thing. Why does no one seem to remember about Afganistan? As far as anyone can guess, Osama Bin Laden is either Elivis or Michael Jackson. Meaning that respectively he is either honestly dead yet everyone keeps seeing him popup at their local Burger King (read local Burger King as dark cave reaking of man sex) or alternatively the man that everyone just assumes is dead by now, partly because he looks like death but then publishes another video and everyone goes "Oh crap, why won't you just die?!"

To digress, Obama's furthering of the war on terror honestly makes it almost sound like he's reading a page from Bush's own war plans (except Obama would probably be a bit more equiped to carry it out).

Ultimately, I think Obama is a good candidate, but the fact that he seems so fixated on civil rights and poverty and his education and foriegn policy plans seems to far off that I think he would probably make an excellent Vice President. This way he would probably have the power to head a plans that would improve the working class in America, but would force his power to buffered by the President. So things like education and warfare could fall into someone else's hands. As things are right now that person seemingly could only be Clinton, but we'll see what I think of her when I get there.

Finland shooting

Ironically in an earlier post I mentioned my disagreement with a quote by Cameron Diaz based on the ground that she's was basically slapping in the face the basic constitutional rights that even allow her to make such a statement. Well in this post I'm going to be a little hypocritical while I do the same thing. I read about this story in the paper yesterday morning where a Finland student went on a shooting spree, killed 8 then himself and previously posted a video on YouTube announcing the attack and calling for others to start a revolution. This video was reported to have been removed.

As a person who frequents and very much enjoys the web phenomenon that is YouTube.com I find this use of the website disturbing. There is something to be said for the power of autonomy and ability to voice your opinion on the internet, but when its used as a means of self empowering people to do bad things it makes you wonder if having access to a massive library of cat videos on the internet is actually worth it.

This is, as I previously stated, hypocritical opinion for someone who is currently maintaining a blog to discuss his own political views. However, it would be nice if, in a perfect world there could exist some sort of fast, automatic and precise means of censorship for this kind of content. In a world where we can send rockets out in random directions and know that it will eventually collide with a body of mass that is currently not there, unfortunately, it still seems that the most complicated thing for us to be able to predict are the people who are numerous to study, but impossible to find trends in.

Granted, the universal access people have to the internet is not what is to blame. It is currently a mostly uncensored and limitless media thats has probably saved countless lives. Furthermore, anyone could certainly see that with or without the invention of stream video, this was a disturbed individual. Yet the internet's potential for destructive self-empowerment is great, and correction for such a thing is both intrusive and difficult. Ultimately I know there is no solution and no one to blame other than perhaps the child's own parents, friends and foremost, himself.

So I end with a video of funny cats video, courtesy of YouTube.

Candidate: Mitt Romney

My Primary Source: Mitt Romney: the man, his values, and his vision by Lisa Ray Turner and Kimberly Field.
POV: Mormon and Evangelical Christian discuss life and politics of MR
Bias: Pro-Romney
Reason for Source: Honestly books on Romney were slim. This was the only book I saw on my search through Amazon that didn't actually have the word Mormon in the title. This book has a chapter on his religion rather than the entire book. I found this more appealing than my other options.

Health Care: As Governor of MA, Romney put into effect the 2006 Health Reform Statute that grants health insurance to every citizen of the state. Ironically while Hillary (seemingly the most vocal supporter of public health care) praised his success in creating a public health care system, Romney seems to strongly oppose her plan. Details of both plans are probably worthy of a separate post.

Iraq War: Romney is, as statistically speaking most of America is, unhappy with the place the Bush administration has put on us. However, he acknowledges we are in this particular situation regardless of wither we should or should not have started it. Romney supports additional troops in Iraq given presentation of an intelligent placement and political focus.

Economy & Budget: Turner and Field stress that this is his strongest asset. They both argue that when Romney took office in MA, the state was in bad shape financially. Romney turned that around without any raising of taxes (more on this under Education).

Environment: My primary source provides a direct quote on the subject of Global Warming which is very descriptive of this view on this matter.

I want to make sure we don't do something which costs hundreds of billions of dollars in this country and make us less competitive with China and India. If carbon-emitting manufacturing moves to other countries, we've done nothing for the planet and we've hurt ourselves immeasurably.

Globalization: As you can probably guess from the previous two sections, Romney sees economic globalization as key to our own economy. National investment must be made in order to stay competitive with other nations.

Abortion: There is no straight yes/no answer here. Romney has flip flopped on his stance on this issue and has taken heat due to this. Originally pro-choice despite his own strong religious opposition and known dedication to family values that were in directly conflict to a pro-choice stance. His original support for the pro-choice stance came from his support in stem cell research that could also greatly benefit his with who has been diagnosed with MS.

Currently Romney is pro-life. The change of heart came for a new understanding of the uses of research that benefits from abortions. This was in regards to research in cloning, which he obviously does not support.

Immigration: Simply, or immigration needs to be reformed. Romney is for immigration, but believes our current system is letting in illegal immigrants, while making it increasingly difficult "to bring in more of the brains from around the world." He believes this is the exact opposite of what we should strive for and needs to be corrected.

Education: Romney seems to frequently mention education along with economic globalization. He believes our financial competitiveness with other countries is heavily dependent our turning out educated workers and researchers. It is also notable (and neglected by my primary source) that Romney has cut a great deal of education budget of Massachusetts for secondary and higher education while governor.

Civil Rights: Civil Rights is mostly mentioned along side education (and thus is also tied to his interest in economic globalization). In mentioning poverty, he seems to constantly segue to the need for better education in poor areas, and then lead into the need to stay financially competitive.

Other Notables: Romney's religion is probably the hottest issue revolving this candidate. The Mormon religion isn't very well known. There are several issues that are worth consideration. Mormon's believe in polygamy, the marriage of a man to more than one woman. This brings his family values under fire as being unconventional and certainly askew with most of America, however, cannot provide any proof that Romney has any other wife than Ann Romney. However, Fox News reported Romney's Grand-father did have more than one wife. If interested I will certainly mention this in the Personal Opinion section below.

The other most notable issue that arises from his religion is their belief in a living prophet. There is a fear in exactly how much power would such a person actually have over Romney. The issue is if this prophet were to say he had a vision regarding a national policy or international politics, would Romney blindly follow. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has releasted the following statement to this effect.

Elected officials who are Latter-day Saints make their own decisions and may not necessarily be in agreement with one another or even with a publicly stated Church position. While the Church may communicate its views to them, as it may to any other elected official, it recognizes that these officials still must make their own choices based on their best judgment and with consideration of the constituencies whom they were elected to represent.

Personal Opinion (section to extract my emotional commentary out of the above as best as I can): I feel like I've been pinching my own lip to stay objective in writing the previous post. I couldn't wait to get to this section.

Honestly, I like Romney, but I'm not sure I want him for president in 2008. I see global warming as a bigger issue than he seems to make it out to be and I believe we should at least take some initial steps toward correction against environmental abuse. Romney's concerns for taking action in favor of correcting global warming in that it could negatively effect our economy is actually a real threat. However, Romney prides himself as an excellent economist. If he's anywhere near as good as he and his supporters say he is. He's a perfect post Global Warming reform president. We need to elect a president who will take some major steps in favor support of global warming and then Romney would be a great cleanup man. It seems to me he could very well be an ace up our sleeve that I don't think we should play yet.

I also respect Romney's stance on abortion and stem cell research. In the near future I plan on making a post in regards to religion and politics, but I admire Romney's realization that his own religion should not be legally forced upon others though legislation. I see his flip flop as merely showing he's a candidate that is possibly always researching the issues and isn't afraid to change his mind. Its actually refreshing to hear a pro-life argument that doesn't involve religion (directly at least, as cloning could still be a religious issue obviously). Frankly, after Bush, shouldn't we have had our fill of a president who isn't willing evaluate new evidence to reform his opinion? I know I am.

Originally I considered Romney's religion of little concern to me, until I read my primary source and I understood where the opposition was coming from. The polygamy doesn't bother me. At least the possibility of having 3 first ladies is probably on par with having a first gentleman should Clinton be elected. At best, having 3 first ladies could be like having a first congress in charge of... well its not like the first lady has a defined job anyways, so I guess 3 ladies can just sit around and have undefined jobs as well as one can. Regardless, as I said previously, Romney's one and only known wife is Ann Romney. As far as I'm concerned, until presented with evidence to the contrary, he only has one wife.

The realization that the LDS's believe in a prophet did raise an eyebrow. However any concerns of a possible religious conspiracy I may have shared were completely disarmed by the official LDS statement I quoted above. Mormons are very pious people as I've come to understand. I believe they would release an official statement lying about their beliefs about as much as I believe the Vatican would do the same as the Catholic that I am. In other words, I don't believe the heads of a church would probably not lie about such a thing for the sake of politics.

100 and 101 People

So its been a while since I last posted, and I've been doing my fair share of research for the blog. I'm suspecting 3 posts will come fairly soon and firstly I want to recommend these books:

100 People who are Screwing Up America by Bernard Goldberg
101 People who are Really Screwing America by Jack Huberman

Honestly, they don't get very heavy into current election issues (a few of the issues are touched, but its not the intent of either book), but they are a great sort of cliff notes to many many issues and who the players are in them.

The perspective of the books are as follows: Bernard Goldberg, who is a conservative Emmy award winning journalist with CBS News and his book greatly reflects this. Jack Huberman is much less known, but is far more liberal than Goldberg is conservative. He is also the author of the bestselling Bush-Haters Handbook. That should be pretty descriptive of his perspective on this subject.

Benefits from reading these books: How often does one get the opportunity to read two books on the EXACT same subject but also have polar opposite view points. I'd imagine conservatives would be much more insulted by 101 people than liberals would be of 100 people. For example two very surprising entries in 101 people are (#77) God and (#57) The Average American. I consider myself a moderate liberal but I was taken back by the entry on God. It was an interesting viewpoint but as I was able to bring myself to remain open on #57, #77 was a bit more difficult. I'm not one who's afraid to be offended (see Goldberg's 7th entry sequentially ), so these entries weren't enough to deter me from pushing on though the book. One criticism I did have on Goldberg's book is largely a contrast to Huberman's book in that I thought Goldberg actually had some very weak entries. The most notable was his entry on this old co-worker Bill Moyers. He basically gave him an entry as an example of a flip flopper but not in terms of an issue, but in terms of ALL the issues. Sure as a serious journalist politics has some extra value in how you influence America, but I had to question, "Is he really Screwing Up America because of this?" After reading 201+ entries of this subject I think I've found some people who should beat him out on the list.

100 Peple Who Are Screwing Up America TOC

One of the largest complains of 100 people has no Table of Contents. It seems like a very useful resource for a book of this nature. So I took the time and created one myself. The format is as follows:

Entry# Title - Pg#

For fairness in exposure you can see the TOC of 101 people on the link to its Amazon page in the above post (i.e. the chronologically next post). Also the complete title of the book this TOC is for is as follows:

100 110 People Who are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)

-=Table of Contents=-
America Bashers - 1
Hollywood Blowhards – 8
TV Schlockmeisters – 11
TV Schlockmeisters – News Division – 18
I’m Your Pimp, You My Bitch – and Other Great American Love Songs – 24
American Jackals – 29
I’m Offended, There I am – 35
Racial Enforcers – 39
White Collar Thugs – 45
Sex Warriors – 48
Reading, Writing, and Radicals – 52
-=The List=-
100 Rick and Kathy Hilton – 55
99 Matthew Lesko – 56
98 Sheila Jackson Lee – 58
97 Todd Goldman – 60
96 Eve Ensler – 62
95 Courtney Love – 64
94 Guy Velella – 65
93 Richard Timmons – 67
92 Kerri Dunn – 69
91 Barbra Streisand – 72
90 Michael Jackson – 74
89 Jane Smiley - 75
88 Aaron McGruder - 76
87 Sheldon Hackney – 79
86 Chris Ofili – 83
The Gaede Twins – 86
85 The Dumb Celebrity – 88
84 The Vicious Celebrity – 89
83 The Dumb and Vicious Celebrity – 83
82 Laurie David – 92
81 Tim Robbins – 95
80 Kitty Kelly – 98
79 Harry Belafonte – 100
78 Norman Mailer – 101
77 Linda Hirshman – 104
76 Barbara Foley – 106
75 Eric Foner – 108
74 Kathla Pollitt – 109
73 Barbara Kingsolver – 110
72 Ward Churchill – 112
71 Phil Donahue – 115
70 Jimmy Swaggart – 118
The Reverend Fred Phelps
69 Matt Kunitz – 122
68 Katherine Hanson – 123
67 Randall Robinson – 126
66 David Duke – 129
65 Oliver Stone – 131
64 James Wolcott 135
63 Amy Richards – 136
62 Howard Stern – 139
61 Michael Savage – 142
60 Ludacris – 143
59 Shirley Franklin – 145
58 Eminem – 147
57 Ted Field – 149
56 Diane Sawyer – 151
55 David Westin – 153
54 Neal Shapiro - 155
53 Anna Nicole Smith – 157
52 Markos Moulitsas – 159
51 Ann Pelo – 161
50 John Vasconcellos – 164
Jeremy Jaynes – 167
49 Ingrid Newkirk – 169
48 Robert Byrd - 172
47 Maxine Waters – 176
46 Barbara Walters – 179
45 Ken Lay – 182
44 Dennis Kozlowski – 183
43 Paul Eibeler – 185
42 Gloria Steinem – 188
41 Susan Berresford – 190
40 Scott Harshbarger – 193
39 Peter Singer – 197
38 Jim McDermott - 202
37 Al Franken – 204
36 Nancy Hopkins – 208
Lawrence Summers – 211
35 Jeff Danziger – 214
34 Bill Moyers – 216
33 Bob Shrum – 219
32 Jerry Springer – 222
31 Maury Povich – 224
30 Latrell Sprewell – 228
29 John Green – 231
28 Julian Bond – 233
27 Paul Begala – 236
26 Dr. Martin Haskell – 239
25 James Kopp – 240
24 Lee Bollinger – 242
23 The Unknown American Terrorist - 245
22 Michael Newdow – 249
21 Judge Roy Moore – 252
20 Howard Dean – 254
19 George Soros – 256
18 Al Gore – 258
17 Al Sharpton – 262
16 John Edwards – 266
15 Ted Rall – 270
14 Mary Mapes – 273
13 Andrew Hayward – 276
12 Dan Rather – 279
The Gang of Five – 283
11 Noam Chomsky – 286
10 Ralph Neas – 289
9 Jonathan Kozol – 293
8 Paul Krugman – 296
7 Margaret Marshall – 299
6 Jimmy Carter – 302
Ramsey Clark - 306
5 Anthony Romero - 308
4 Jesse Jackson - 312
3 Ted Kennedy - 315
2 Arthur Ochs Sulzberger - 318
1 Michael Moore - 323

Conservatives on Liberals and vice versa

One of the clear conclusion that has come from reading 100 People and 101 People (see first post) is that there is a definite stereotype that each side places on the other. By this I mean both conservatives and liberals have that picture on the dart board of a certain idea when they think of the other. The ironic thing is, it seems as though both sides are throwing darts at almost the same people.

For conservatives, their hatred seems to be focused on the cultural elite. Those (to put on a conservative hat) load mouthed actors, artist, models, and whoever that tabloid magnet for the week is, that seems to have that microphone glued to their face (hat off). For liberals their dart board picture is the economic elite. Those (to put on a liberal hat) fat, bloated, pockets loaded, union destroying, employee screwing entrepreneurs, and stock brokers (hat off once again. I need to get these cleaned, their both pretty dirty).

Now there are flaws where both sides aim their darts (although one side may actually use that image at a shooting range ). Granted the cultural elite may not have a profession that makes them the most informed individuals when it comes to politics, but when in our history has anyone from any profession not been encouraged to discuss issues. Granted, the cultural elite are probably more famous than anyone for understanding one issue well and ignoring the others despite the fact that their view, while great for that one issue, is absolutely one of the most ignorant things you've ever heard. Take Cameron Diaz for example when she said, "Women have so much to lose. I mean, we could lose the right to our bodies. If you think that rape should be legal, then don't vote. But if you think that you have a right to your body, then you should vote." Sure her stance on abortion is sound in my mind, but virtually saying (in ANY context) "if you don't agree with me don't vote" is about the most ignorant, undemocratic thing I have ever heard. Hell she's basically slapping the right that gives her the freedom to discuss politics as an actress.

The economic elite may often been seen as greedy, but why should we immediately write off people who have overcome odds set in place by the America's Capitalist system. Say what you will about them being greedy, but doing so is obviously no easy task otherwise everyone would have achieved this status. Doing so, in some way, has also fulfilled part of the American dream where anyone can make it big. Sure there are those (think Enron and Walmart) that upon achieving that status, do everything they can to make it sure that anyone who is under their employment never have a chance to make it to that status themselves (again slapping the right in the fact that they are enjoying so much).

Furthermore, its ironic that when you come down to it these are very similar groups. How many of the Cultural Elite (Barbra Streisand, Cameron Diaz, Alec Baldwin) are not in some way successful entrepreneurs. How many of the Economic Elite (Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, Steve Jobs) are not in some way also successful cultural icons? I'm not saying the line is blurry because I believe it is quite defined, but it does make me wonder exactly how divided are conservatives and liberals. I think there are other stereotypes that seem to make the definition between the two much stronger than it actually is.

Conservatives are not racists or fascists or bigots or anything else. It is true though that more racists (et al.) will probably familiarize themselves with a conservative party, but this is similar to how a pedophile would probably jump on board with the liberal agenda because they are more sensitive to the strain being on a sex offender list puts on a person. That doesn't make all liberals sex offenders, and not all conservatives are racists. Liberals are not louder in the media than conservatives (it is more obvious when a loud liberal is talking though). Liberals are almost correctly defined as being loud mouths. I'd say I agree that when a liberal is talking, he is more obvious and possibly more obnoxiously beating one issue until its dead, but to say that liberals are heard from more in the media is something 101 People (liberal bias) gives a whole section of his book to disprove. The following is the most telltale in my mind:

The watchdog group Media Matters for America inventoried all guests who appeared on Fox, CNN. MSNBC during their January 20, 2005, inauguration coverage and reported that Republican and conservative commentators outnumbered Democrats and progressives nineteen to seven on Fox, thirteen to two on MSNBC, and ten to one on CNN. Moreover the rare Democrat or progressive usually appeared opposite conservatives, whereas most Republican and conservative guests appeared solo or alongside fellow conservatives.

Please note the replacement of the word liberal with progressive. Not for clarity, but to note the bias it gives this block of facts. To conclude, both stereotypes, in my mind and I hope I made my case on this, seem largely false.

What does all this mean about our two party political system? Well one question that has been plaguing me is that WAY before the 2000 election, political analysts were noticing that Republicans and Democrats were loosing their definition. At the time, they certainly were not agreeing, but taking less opposing views. There was speculation that we would actually see the two groups join together and at one point a third party would probably step in to give new life the system. Today that idea seems ludicrous. All thanks (?) to Bush the Republican and Democratic parties have never been more necessary, but while looking at the Candidates I'm not sure how much of a definition I actually see. It seems like no matter what, every candidate seems to have one goal, to not look like another George W. Bush! That by itself seems to fuzz the line very sharply as to what we actually need in this country now. This is just one more reason why I feel like this is going to be one of the most important elections in our country's history.

Features so far

Quick Post

So I've done what I could to populate this blog with useful things. I added a few personal views of things relating to the subject at hand, an explanation of of the title (I assumed that was fairly necessary), and the biggest thing is a list of all the current Presidential Candidates (as reported by the Washington Post's very informative page), Republican and Democrat. Along with the list of candidates, I have a link to their personal home pages and two other sources (explained better in that section). Thats about it!

Punitive Liberal

In a book by Bernard Goldberg, he quotes James Piereson for a theory he has on why Liberals seem to continuously hate today's America. Despite the fact that consider myself a Liberal and this is obviously intended as a means to spin Liberals as un-American, I found myself in shock as I found this statement strangely accurate in terms of my own views. He calls this theory, the doctrine of "Punitive Liberalism."

According to this doctrine America had been responsible for numerous crimes and misdeeds through its history for which it deserved punishment and chastisement. White American had enslaved blacks and committed genocide against Native Americans. They had oppressed women and tyrannized minority groups. such as the Japanese who had been interned in camps during World War II. They had been harsh and unfeeling towards the poor. By our greed, we had despoiled the environment and were consuming a disproportionate share of the world's wealth and resources. We had coddled dictators abroad and violated human rights out of our irrational fear of communism.

Given this bill of indictment, the Punitive Liberals held that Americans had no right at all to feel pride in their country's history or opimism about its future.... The Punitive Liberals felt that the purpose of national policy was to punish the nation for its crimes rather than to build a stronger America and a brighter future for all.

First off, let me say that I'm reading this very conservatively biased book, 100 People who are Screwing Up American because I had recently finished a very liberally biased book by Jack Huberman titled 101 People who are Really Screwing America, a retort to Goldberg's book (yes I am in the process of reading them in reverse order). I started reading Huberman's book because I accurately assumed it would be a nice who's who of hating Republicans, but upon finishing I surprisingly found myself though mostly in agreement with his views, (despite being Liberal myself) I was frequently offended. Upon realizing this I was reminded that every subject has extreme view points, especially when facts are shrouded with politics. It then occurred to me that I had a rare opportunity to essentially read, the exact same book, on the exact same topic, but told from a polar opposite point of view. So far "100 people" is everything I hoped it would be just as "101 People" was. I plan on staying on course and reading through this book with as open a mind as I can possibly give despite my assumption that I will ultimately be even more offended by this original spin on the same subject.


Now back to the quote. I have to say I did not expect this book to have this effect on me, especially not after the first entry. I will admit I found the first paragraph amazing candid of my own views fears of the potential corruption of our current and frankly any future administration. However, do I really believe that "the purpose of national policy was to punish the nation for its crimes" in place of "build[ing] a stronger America and a brighter future for all." I feel it would be unfair to ignore this possibility when reading the previous statement as though it was on the verge of being a religious experience.

I have long believed that one of the must fundamental leasons anyone can learn was coined by the philosopher George Santayana when he said "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it" (thanks Wikipedia ^_^). Does it not follow that, when we have seen a trend in our country's past (albeit this is no where near unique to our country) to respond to desperate times with policies of hatred to certain innocents such as was the case after WWII and 9/11 and our response to the Japanese and Muslims respectively, we should not be more cautious in who we are suspicious of as a country? Given that the extreme difference between the way we treated the Japanese versus the way have been treating Muslims I'd say we have done this very effectively. Granted Big Brother, has not left suspicion unplaced, but not admitting surveillance is an improvement over internment camps is an undeserved insult to the Japanese Americans who lived though WWII. Does it also not follow that, our history of (again albeit certainly not unique) enslavement of blacks and oppression of women, that we should be cautious of who we write off as happy with the way things are and have been? Given our continuous progression towards true equal rights and opportunities I'd say our caution as done us well so far.

What Piereson calles Punitive Liberals, Goldberg refers to as America Bashers, but I would not consider them one in the same. Goldberg considers America Bashers as people who consider "the United States such a terrible place" and I will say I agree with him. I believe that people need to respect the fact that we have things like morales on T.V., the ambiguous literary skills of our President, and of course Sox or Yankees to argue about. There will always be problems, if you are a member of a small tribe in the desert or live in one of the freest and richest countries in the world. The fact that many of us have the ability to argue about wither or not our President actually can or cannot correctly pronounce the word nuclear just shows many of us do not have to argue about how is our family going to eat tonight, where are we going to live, or how can we possibly survive through yet another night. Its a strange irony that the fact that we have people will never be happy unless they can nit pick such small problems is actually a flattering tribute to how many few problems we have in this country. I will certainly say that I do not believe many liberals have the respect that most of their biggest issues and complaints about this country are indeed an enormous compliment that we are actually at a point that we can have elections based solely issues that are ultimately trivial. I will applaud the conservative view point for understanding that if nothing changed from here on out (with the exception of our troops in Iraq) shit wouldn't be that bad and things now are better than they ever have been.

So, do I hate America as it is today? I do not feel that hatred. Do I believe that things will stay the way they are? That is of course impossible. Do I believe that we need to look at our past policies, understand what was good for most Americans and what was bad and do everything we can to not repeat our past themes, themes that we should indeed be ashamed of the fact that they ever occurred? Yes. Do I believe that things are all in all kosher in this country regardless of everything that has transpired since our 43 President took office? Yes. Do I feel that we should should continue to try and steer this country in a way that is good for as many Americans as we can possibly improve their quality of life? Yes. Do I believe we have been on the right track for the last 7 years? Not a chance!