I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
so tru so true, we do need to stop their values coded garbage.
You GO! girl. Fantastic post.
What I really value is the skill to finally work a fourth finger into my cozy rectum.
Also, constant-dollar incomes for working families have been declining since 1973, and aggregate taxes have been increasing.
They declared the class war and they won.
Amen. We all should think about what our real values as a country should be. Why can't taking care of the poor and downtrodden be described as a value?
When you can't run on the issues, run on 'values'.
Why should we even play their game, Athenae? Let's not even fight on the field the GOP has chosen.
I don't mean, don't say anything about values. I mean, answer the question that you wanted to be asked, not the question that was asked.
"George W. Bush could do a lot for the family values he claims to love so much, if he would not have moved the tax burden onto the backs of the middle class, or done something for the economy so people could find good paying jobs instead of having them moved off-shore to India."
I understand why Kerry thinks he has to talk about "values", but I, for one, am sick to death of hearing politicians of either party talk about "values". It no longer has any meaning. Everyone "values" freedom, family, apple pie, and baseball. Don't tell me about your "values" -- tell me what you're going to do for this country. We've all seen that anyone can mouth the words -- what amazes me is that there are Americans stupid enough to vote for Bush because he mouths this word even while he undermines their way of life.
I want a president who can walk the walk.
It's time for a radical redefinition of what constitutes the "values issues" in this election. Instead of trying to be slightly less craven than the other guy, slightly less offensive on what Bush defines as "values issues," we should raise our own, what we consider "values." And then make him try to out-liberal us.
Isn't that why any democrat with a conscience is going to vote Nader?
BushCo knows a thing or two about values; he took everything this country values (justice, fair play, honor, truth, generosity, etc)and turned it on it's head.
I suspect the "values" thing is just a Kerry campaign outreach to the simple folks in the red states.
The Employee Free Choice Act will remove some of the barriers that keep workers from forming unions:
http://snipurl.com/7trh
Without decent wages American families are screwed from the git.
S in Mich--Actually, that would be any Democrat without a brain, but you're close.
Phoney S from Mich.
S in Mich is actually name stealing electionthief.
I'm lonely.
The world will be better without Bush in power.
S in Mich--Actually, that would be any Democrat without a brain, but you're close.
Susan
Susan, until you vote your convictions noone is ever going to give them their due. Just look at Bush. Neanderthal rightwinger but he's rightwing because his base keeps him that way. Our base thinks up excuses for why we should abandon our convictions. That is the key difference between the repug success of the last decade and our failure.
What a great post! I, personally, wish that Kerry would really start banging the drum on issues instead of values. The environment, education and health care are winning issues for our side. By engaging in the values debate with the Republikins the discourse is watered down to the point where neither side speaks with any weight, authority or believability. Blah, blah, blah.
Talk about the fucking mercury and lead in my water! Talk about how I'm going to be treated after I get cancer from drinking said water! Talk about the education our children are going to get so they can fix all the problems we've left them!
oops. oh shit
He has to flog his supposed values (hint: if you want to know a man's values, look at his children's behavior), becuase Bush has no accomplishments to name.
C'mon, give the guy a break!
athenae - without a doubt, i feel this is the best post you've done during your guest-sub. fantastic job, girlfriend.
and you're absolutely right. one thing that's always frustrated me about bush is his cunning ability to say one thing, do another, and then make people believe he did what he said. he honed those skills here in texas, and i'm sure tena can attest to that as well. so the question is how do you flip the issue on him? you seem to have found the answer, but how likely is it that the current dem leadership will see the winsdom in what you've proposed?
electionthief
Go back to playing with your asshole or whatever it is you were going off about.
motherfucking cocksucker
er, winsddom = wisdom.
Apparently, affluence and two-parent families failed to work for the Bush families. Let's see:
*Neil, enough said
*Jeb's kids, Drugs, sex, and more drugs,
*The twins. We could write off the first underage drinking, but that would be moral relativism, but they showed a huge lack of moral upbringing by getting caught again.
Any Bush to talk about familiy morals equates to Nixon standing up for diversity.
Id like to see the chimperoo speak of family values with that red ball thingy from "Pulp Fiction" stuffed in his mouth.
Imagine what a better human being W. might have been had he had two daddies and actually worked for a living.
All these contradictions in the Republican view could be instantaneously resolved if they would make this simple public declarataion of their real core values:
"We REALLY don't like black people."
They can then enumerate all the other minorities of which they disapprove.
And those are their values, plain and simple. Trent Lott's sin wasn't almost saying that, it was for almost saying it out loud.
box turtles for a free america!!!
one of the preznits former professors
“All Harvard Business School students want to become president of a company one day,” Tsurumi said. “I remember saying, if you become president of a company some day, may God help your customers and employees.”
Tsurumi also said Bush displayed a sense of arrogance about his prominent family, including his father, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
also, somewhere in there, is a qoute about a class discussion, in which bush expounded, "the poor are poor because they are lazy" Idiot Son of an Asshole.
Preznit words: The lot of children in America is improving.
Preznit actions: Presided over the first increase in child poverty in a decade.
I could go on all day with this nonsense
of course he could. anyone can go on making shit up as evidenced by this blogs very existence.
Athenae - you must be channeling me. I wrote a piece just like this for my bloglaunch (which I'm beginning to wonder will ever happen). Bullseye. We have the upper hand when it comes to values that matter most and in actually trying to uphold them.
I read the AP (Pete Yost) article on Yahoo. $25 million character education curricula for school children. I checked most recent school enrollment figures from Census -- It works out to 43 cents per kid.
What you DO represents your VALUES. What you say is just talk.
43 cents per kid. Let's talk about character.
So are we do the point where we say..
"Its about the kids, stupid!"
Start with the primacy of separation of church and state in our democracy. Lets posit that the state has a valid concern with the health and education (read as: able to make a living and vote) of children. What happens if you pull "marriage" out of the whole civil discussion? What "bad things" would happen if the government just stopped being concerned with what consenting adults do and focused on fiscally responsible breeding?
Consider; if 50% of marriages end in less then 7 years and there are children involved in most of them, is it the business of the government to generate a divorce industry or to make sure that two (at least) people, married or not, except responsibility for the children?
oh my god i..
shit
Did anyone else read the hacktacular David Brooks(http://tinyurl.com/5r4uu) this morning? He goes on and on about Kerry's "phony" talk about values while barely mentioning W. How can he be employed?
Grand Moff Texan: Imagine what a better human being W. might have been had he had two daddies and actually worked for a living.
He claims to have two daddies... he only speaks to one of 'em about ol' evil Saddam (and it ain't the one who was Preznit during the first Saddam War).
I hear ya about that workin' thang, though. Born on third base.
.
What needs to be done, and said, is that Bush is a hypocrite. Kerry should insist that Bush is no christian, but that christianity is just one more excuse he can use, one more cover he can hide behind, to justify away his drunkeness and drug abuse. To explain away his fascination with the fact that a drunken narcissist could win the presidency without the help of the almighty.
He should ask why a person who says he is a christian does so little to live up to the words and rules listed in the bible?
He should ask why a person and a party that claims to be christian, was discovered to be anything but when it came to their claims to the moral high ground during the Clinton impeachment hearings.
He should ask how many more republicans, then listed out the names so far, will be convicted of child abuse or other pervertions.
Then he should say the final straw.
He should tell those watching that any man can say they are christians. Any man can say they praise god and jesus christ. But actions speack louder than words, and all this administration and this republican part like to do is point out the motes in other people's eyes but not the motes in their own. They talk jesus, but don't emulate him. They talk values, then don't live up to those same values while jamming them down the throats of those who have committed no crimes, nor hurt any other souls.
He should then point out Mathew 6:1 "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them."
Then Mathew 6:5 "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites for they love to stand in the synogogues and at the street corners that they be seen by men"
He should then slam the door shut and talk about Mathew, Peter, Jon, and Timothy to be afraid of false prophets who claim to speak on behalf of the lord, but whose intent is to bring in damnable heresies.
Then talk about how all this administration likes to do is talk about money, taxes, death, and war.
MYOB'
.
my tallywhacker is little. i'm touching though.
I want a president who can walk the walk hectate
i'll be happy with one that can talk in complete sentences.
texas redneck vs. the boston brahmin, "bring 'em on"
god, i'm glad kerry dropped that nonense.
That would be a silver bullet, MYOB. George W bush is a false Christian.
George W bush is a False Christian.
See, here's the thing about Republican vs. Democratic values. Republican "morality" doesn't require you to do anything. Just make a judgment about someone and lean back in to your moral superiority (lazy, doesn't want to work, tearing apart the moral fabric of our society). Democratic values (not letting poor people starve) requires action.
What is "character curricula" ?
If someone said citizenship, no problem.
If someone said Life basics, no problem.
If someone said courtesy and manners, no problem.
But I suspect the god thing is in there in Bush's thinking.
The sad part is something of the three above should be taught. One for the mechanics and two for the context and conceptual aspects. I really do not mind the god issue if taught as aspect of humanity and not Religious Training.
Since so many parents either cannot or will not spend the time instructing their kids (If the parent really understands the concepts themselves), something has to fill the gap.
But I see the 'character curricula' as indoctrination in the guise of education.
I am waiting for the day that unless you are not only Christian but practice a specific bit of Fundie mania, you will be asked to leave quietly and leave your kids in the care of those 'who know better' as you exit the country.
Republicans would like to see other Americans rooting for food in garbage dumps like in El Salvador.
If the minimum wage had the same value it did in 1955 it would be over $16.50, its not because its unacceptable to Republicans that the people who do menial work for them should be able to live decently.
"43 cents per kid. Let's talk about character."
Hey, each kid can have his or her own shiny smiley-face button for 43 cents. Let's be fair now. Think of what a big difference that smiley-face button will make in the lives of these kids (sorry, I'm getting choked up).
We have the upper hand when it comes to values that matter most and in actually trying to uphold them.
Jennifer
Jennifer, in theory we have the upper hand on a lot of things but when it comes to actually trying to uphold these things we continue to fail miserably. And let's not kid ourselves why folks, the reason is quite clear - we make compromises with our votes while the repukes do not. How else do we explain having to vote for Kerry when it is Nader who is with us on the ISSUES we care about? Do you think for a moment any self-respecting repuke would vote for the Chimperor if he departed from the issues that are important to them (tax breaks for the rich, criminalizing homosexuality, sucking money out of public education in the form of vouchers, enabling corporations to pollute our environment without restriction etc)? Of course not! That is why they get the type of, admittedly repugnant, candidate they prefer while we get suckered into voting for "republican light." When will we decide that our convictions matter to us as much as the repukes convictions matter to them!
joe mcgee - I'll say it again:
The GOP "vision for America's future" looks an awful damn lot like the shantytowns of Rio de Janerio.
Pass it on.
Jasper - I'll not disagree that there are people out there who more closely represent my views than John Kerry.
But Nader isn't who I have in mind. He's not a prescription for what ails us - just as no single candidate or person is. At this point, he's actually more of a threat to what's best for us as a nation.
The Debt To the Penny
07/15/2004 $7,273,199,540,537.28
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/...pd/
opdpenny.htm
There was one bankruptcy filed for every 73 U.S. households in 2003, compared with one for every 144 households in 1993, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute.
...
"Consumer bankruptcies were filed during 2003 at a rate of 185 per hour," Gerdano added.
http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/...621-000758-
1700
Bankruptcies are down a little the first quater of this year. Down from the record levels of the last 2 years.
Some shithead just stole my name.
here's another great post along those lines...
http://
betterangels.blogspot.com...candinavia.html
Republicans would like to see other Americans rooting for food in garbage dumps like in El Salvador.
Joe, I can't believe it but I actually have to defend Republicans here. I don't believe the party platform roots for people to become poor. It simply ignores them if they do, and denies its economic policies had anything to do with it.
Which is, if you think about it, actually sicker.
A.
The culture of America is changing from one that said, "if it feeds good, do it; and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else," Bush said, using language reminiscent of his recent campaign speeches.
This is why Kerry has to talk about values, like it or not. The Rethugs have (pretty successfully) spent the past generation prattling about values, and the result is, we have a scarily large ABD (Anybody But a Democrat) vote in this country, a good part of the 35-40% who'll stick with Chimpy through thick and thin and at whom we've been marvelling whenever a new poll comes out, especially after some Abu Ghraib torture or Medicare swindle story hits the news.
I think somebody in a previous thread rightly compared it to branding. The Rethugs have come up with a message most of their adherents subscribe to, along the lines of "less regulation and taxes, more God and guns," and they've successfully defined Democrats in the terms the Unelected Fraud uses here.
I'd like to see our side do something similar, but it's harder because we are heterogenous. The left in this country comprises feminists, gays, the different ethnic constituencies, Greens, peaceniks, old-style liberal Democrats, New Democrats, and anti-globalists, among others. In other words, leading them is like trying to herd cats. I'm glad to have all these folks on our side--I'd love to have everybody just to the left of W, and vote Kerry in with 60% of the popular vote--but it makes crafting a message, and putting together a government, that much harder. Each group wants different things, and sometimes things that contradicts what another group wants.
The other reason for talking about values, just as one of Kerry's reasons for choosing Edwards for VP, is to make Bush fight for ground he'd wish to take for granted. Just as Edwards on the ticket makes the Rethugs spend resources on the South which they'd rather use in the battleground states, so talking about values makes them defend themselves when they'd rathter talk about Kerry flip-flopping or somethign equally stupid.
Old shithead, meet the new shithead.
Among other reasons, Democrats do not attack Bush on the discrepancies between his professed religious beliefs and actual governmental policies because evangelical christians are well practiced in denying their perceived enemies any basis for criticizing them. You cannot question Bush's moral authority because in the very act of questioning it you establish yourself as un-christian and therefore morally bankrupt. The subsequent "discourse" then moves away from important policy issues and toward irrelevant political caricature, the latter being a much more effective mode of persuasion among swing voters (as well as the electorate as a whole).
Now, one could hope for significant internal dissent within Bush's fundamentalist base, but this won't happen anytime soon. The fundamentalist christians aren't going to start disagreeing on how to interpret the bible or what parts to focus on until it becomes apparent to them that their biblically based worldview would have serious flaws if ever realized. But, as we have just seen with the failed marriage amendment, the fundamentalists will never get the "christian" system they want and so they will forever be able to assert its hypothetical virtues without having to experience its negative consequences. Bush has thus happened upon a potent formula for political success: Republicans--being in control of all three branches of government--set the fundamentalist agenda, Democrats foil it to varying degrees, and then Republicans can cast themselves as the downtrodden but morally invincible champions that will never stop fighting for that ethereal city on the hill. In short, for the Republicans failure is the best kind of success.
i have only one value i adhere to religiously, smoke a lot of pot. so i'm a little shallow.
october surprise? blog story on 40,000 troops to iraq from russia? another unholy alliance?
I have not met a Bush voter yet who can accurately delineate his positions on anything, really, except for tax cuts. Most of them just know that Bush irritates the hell out of "Liberals" and must, therefore, be just like mother makes. Look at what's going on now in terms of terrorism. Bush tells his base America is "safer" thanks to his policies. Yet we are talking about postponing elections and the certainty of a terrorist attack before the election.
He spouts about "values" while nothing about him, or his family, (by their fruit...) demonstrates anything except lack of same.
Anyway, that's not what I was thinking about. I'm beginning to wonder if my earlier prediction (or prognostication, if prognostication is the word I want) is coming true.
To wit:1- Bush goes further and further right during the campaign. 2-Keryy follows, seeking the swing vote, just staying two steps behind. 3- Bush circles back and cuts Kerry of from the center. Remember "humble foreign policy" and "no nation building"
There has been some indication this week Kerrry is staking out a position which is not simply a reaction to Bush. I hope he continues.
"The culture of America is changing from one that said, "if it feeds good, do it; and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else"
Isn't that the platform of the 'current' Republican party?
Bush lets people feel good about themselves while doing nothing for others. He lets them desire more money without guilt, and tells them that they are good people doing that.
The wingnuts in general give people complete freedom to do whatever they want in the so-called free markets but want people to have zero freedom in their bedrooms. In practise this translates into only some people having freedom and the others having nothing.
But it sure sounds good that you can be as greedy and bossy as you wish, and yet be a really ethical person!
That's the base of the Republican party.
Echidne
But I thought Al Franken declared the ME generation was over and done with years back.
I guess it is Retro_Me_Ism.
Al needs to get royalties in that case.
What about children raised by wolves? Or box turtles, for that matter?
Actually The Johns are running on those sorts of values, and seem to be dooing a pretty good job of it
Kerry's ACLU speech
If he keeps this sort of speech up I think he's going to suceed in pulling the "Values" rug right out from under Bush.
Oh, manners aren't necessary if you wave your little flag hard enough and bash the fags. That's straight from God's Elect, and don't you argue!
Scorpio
Eccentricity
anybody know the difference between a million and a billion besides the zero's? one million seconds is 12 days as one billion seconds is 32 years...
and they talk about millions and billions as if they were right next to each other ...and the pentagon has lost and unaccounted for over one trillion...put that in your pipe and smoke it...
I've been working on character education with my summer school students, without a mandate from George Bush to do so.
What we do is we look at clips of George Bush talking and then we go to the library to research how his words are the opposite of the truth.
Then we connect the dots, and pretty soon we're talking about character.
And I'm assigning this post as an extra credit reading.
Just doing my part to save the country here in Phoenix.
If Bush has any values and really cares about children, he would look into the paedophilia being carried out in his name in countless Iraqi jails, and being filmed by his own operatives.
Everything that Bush has done can be answered with Americans don't do that.
Uncla $cam- That comparison between million and billion in seconds is brilliant! I have been screaming about that ever since the welfare-is-bankrupting-the-country crap started during the Reagan regime. My cry is: Count the Zeroes! But your comparison: 1 million seconds= 12 days 1 billion seconds= 32 years, is so good I will use it henceforth.
Thanks!
Radical change, progress, and innovation, freedom from the tyranny of government and religion, freedom of movement, assembly and speech, are all American values.
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