The Rational Radical's Weblog

Thursday, November 14, 2002

Scott Ritter is really tearing up Bush about the Iraq war, and speaking the unvarnished truth about the aims of U.S. foreign policy: A Call to Arms By an Enemy of War Against Iraq

Jack Clark 10:25 PM [+]   
Post #84564975

After posting directly below about Newsmax.com going crazy, I then read this totally non-crazy, sobering story on their site, which I didn't see anywhere else. The opening paragraph:

War with Iraq could result in the unleashing of unimaginable horrors such as the use of chemical and biological weapons against Western cities, and a nuclear holocaust killing millions in retaliation for Iraq's use of chemical and biological agents, a pair of new reports warn.

Read it!

Jack Clark 10:19 PM [+]   
Post #84564799

Jackson to Blacks: Return to the Plantation, Now!   I'm left speechless by this Newsmax.com article. That right-wing site has gone crazy.

Jack Clark 10:07 PM [+]   
Post #84564399

Bill O'Reilly, who has falsely claimed to be from a "working class" background when he grew up solidly middle class, has taken his charade one step further: now he claims to have been "poor." As I scribbled it down tonight from his TV show:

Guest Robert Reich:

Why not give a tax cut to people at the bottom and in the middle, instead of a tax cut to people like you, who are very wealthy --

Bill Oreilly:

Primarily because -- but I used to be poor, so you've got to respect me for that --

Some more spinning from O'Reilly, we should be surprised?

Jack Clark 10:20 PM [+]   
Post #84459194

Well, I want to thank all the many people who have told me to "Love it or leave it" all these years, starting back in the Vietnam era and continuing to the present day. Back then they demanded to know "Why don't you go to Russia?" and now they ask "Why don't you go to Iraq?" Of course, these logic-challenged question-askers would actually themselves be happier in a place like Iraq or the old Soviet Union, since they would not have to be challenged in those countries with hearing dissenting views. But pointing this out is not why I write.

I write because finally, the hidden-to-them logic of their question struck me the other day: I will leave, but not to go to Russia or Iraq. And I won't leave alone. How about I take New York, California and a few other states with me? That's right, how about the Prime Blue States secede, and leave all the Red Bushian wasteland expanses to their own devices!

Who needs them? Besides growing our food and providing some other natural resources, what good are those places? Populated largely by morons who continually vote to screw themselves, I don't want to be associated with them any more.

They'll still sell our new country food and resources, because who else could buy them? But the rest of us won't have to be stuck with their fundamentalist-inspired, imbecilic social claptrap and their bellicose, kill-them-all foreign policy that bloodies our name and besmirches our souls more and more with each passing year.

The brains, money and creativity are in the Blue States. Argue with me on that, if you dare.

So citing irreconcilable differences, a select group of us Prime Blue States should amicably separate from the Dunderhead Nation and call ourselves, oh, how about the United States of New America, or USNA?

I like to think outside the box. This may well be thinking outside the entire paper mill. But the inexorable logic of the secession idea just strikes me as so perfect.

A million questions naturally arise, the four main ones of which are:

--There are Constitutional means to add states to the union, so are there -- or could there be enacted -- Constitutional means for states to leave?

--Which states (or even counties within states?!) should be included in our select departing group?

--What's the easiest and fairest way to allocate Federal government land, property and debts between the two new political entities?

--What about population transfer issues prior to the secession date, since no state is monolithic, and even hard-core Bushian states have some decent people in them, and, God help us, even we Prime Blue States have some Bushian Neanderthals who I'd love to see permanently cross over the border into the Red Nation.

I guess I need to take out the law books, as well as analyze that 2000 election Blue-Red map while cross-referencing with state population and economic data. (Anyone having any relevant legal cites or economic date please send it!)

Even if there are no established procedures for secession, shouldn't the Red States want us to leave and make it easy for us to do so? Listening to Limbaugh, Hannity, Lott et al blast liberals, let alone anyone further left, all day and night, 24/7, we would only be giving them what they really want, wouldn't we?

But just imagine the wonderful feeling that you and I could have if the likes of George Bush, Newt Gingrich, Anton Scalia and Trent Lott were in another country that was now incredibly weak. We wouldn't have to give a damn what they thought, or what the cretins who considered them their leaders thought either.

It's just too sweet to imagine...

more on this idea
yet more on this idea
2004 Update: The Red Bush states are the moochers!
even more on this idea

Jack Clark 10:10 PM [+]   
Post #84349215

I got a bunch of hits on my Colin Powell page from the weblog of some right-wing Australian named Tim Blair. He cited me for the proposition that the Left practices racism. Poor Tim doesn't even know what the word means. Racism is attributing negative characteristics to an individual or group solely because of their race. Some would add that the power to harm that individual or group is also required for racism to exist. In any event, I made no such attribution with Powell. I laid out a case that because of Powell's actions � killing and injuring multitudes of innocent Third World people of color in order to enforce U.S. foreign policy � Powell is playing a role analogous to the person of color in the slave days who helped oppress and control other people of color: the slave who assisted the white overseer. Nowhere do I attribute a negative attribute to Powell because of his race, only because of his actions.

Jack Clark 10:00 PM [+]   
Post #84348850