Who would vote for Bill Frist?

I just saw Bill Frist cementing his support for President Bush on the News Hour.

Hey Rhode Island, if you vote for Chafee (R) you're sealing a victory for Bill Frist and the GOP "don't catch Bin Laden, sink billions in Iraq, and ask questions later," road show.

Simple things

Tonight I begin my quest to put Democratic ideas into accessible language.

So Karl Rove is waging wars all over this country to keep Democrats from winning seats in Congress--he historically uses lies and disortions to label people as simply weak, bad, or crazy. He does this, it seems, because Republicans can't win on their own merits.

I'm a Democrat. Democrats generally don't hire people to dig into their opponents records for negative information. I think it's because we actually have values like:

I teach my children that playing fairly benefits everyone.

I teach my children that you can win without someone else losing (win/win).

I teach my children that if you have to cheat to win, you're not winning.

I teach my children to show respect for other people.

I teach my children that people are not all bad or all good, we are all good and bad and let's hope the good outweighs the bad, greatly.

I teach my children that people matter more than things, or even ideas.

I teach my children that if you have to win by making someone else look all bad, you look all bad.

Peace

Democrats are unheard and disrepected

I've been recieving Media Matter's www.mediamatters.org updates every day. Yes, they do occassionally make more than a little something about a little thing, but most of the time their facts are absolutely correct--and equally depressing.

Over a week it has become apparent that Democratic leaders are regularly ignored and disrespected. When people say, "Democrats don't have a plan," or "Where are the Democratic leaders?" just say, "You can find them on the internet or C-Span--but the press ignores them."

Sen. Harry Reid's written and spoken response to Bush's 9/11 speech was not reported by ABC or CBS. Chris Matthews insulted Al Gore's leadership compared to "bad manager but charming" Rudy Giuliani with some nebulous judgement. MSNBC lied about a 9/11 poll that measures how Americans blame Bush and Clinton for 9/11 (they lied so that Clinton looked worse.) Republicans get away with lies to the media, Democrats get challenged on truths!! It really is a skewed game--and involves very shallow cults of personality.

I used to think that the media's motivation for promoting Republicans was to follow the ball of the team that's winning (well, they're in power, I wouldn't call them "winning") but I think there's more to the press' motivation than that. I sense that there's a really fundamental core of anti-intellectualism going on. Facts don't matter, truth isn't important, journalism doesn't exist, we're getting, "he said, she said," or rather, "he said this about him," and ego, "This is what I think."

In the press there seems to be little sense of the common good or, gasp, God's will.

Peace

Democrats would benefit by pointing out, over and over, that Republicans get our arguments wrong--and by stating Democratic arguments simply and clearly.

Republicans have a self-interest to keep in power so they define our arguments as the opposite of what they want. The left takes it for granted that Americans understand that Democrats want to disable the terrorists, that we have more intelligent ways of doing it, and that's why we're like, "Gees, Bush is so incompetent, what the hell is he doing torturing prisoners in addition to not catching the terrorists?" Yes, we are the peace party--which means we are willing to fight for American peace--yet Bush's goal now is not PEACE. On this point, why are we so afraid to invoke Clinton's successful, brief war? There sits Bosnia, Croatia, et. al, peacefully co-existing. Iraq could use such a "let's break up and you live over there and rule yourselves, and we'll live over here. Peace."

In nature, behavior that goes in, comes out, patterns occur as above, so below. We do not benefit ourselves or our soldiers by adopting terrorist tactics. Guess what? The terrorists enjoy having Bush as their warmonger (the terrorists, like American hawks, thrive on having a constant state of war). Chris Mathews has it all wrong when he implies terrorists want Democrats to win...the terrorists helped Bush get re-elected by scaring us with Bin Laden just before the 2004 election (I still think Bush cheated to win the electoral college in Ohio and Florida, at least). The terrorists KNOW that fear works for the Republicans. But who cares about applying logic to big problems these days?

Cultural Proportion

I just called a preschool that charges $1260 per month for tution for a 14-month old child.

That is $15,120 per year, before miscellanous fees--that's for 8am - 2pm, three times a week!!

Paying that for three or four years adds up to a private college education!

Now, I agree that quality childcare providers should be handsomely paid, so maybe it's not out of proportion to spend a lot on the very young. Maybe that investment leads to scholarships for those children in the future...but I don't think the stats of infant daycare (maybe preschool) hold up to that. So what are parents paying for?

Luckily, I can hire a quality daycare provider for a few hours a week so that I can continue my career at home. It took me over a YEAR to discover this and it just took calling childcare places and asking questions. I found a very helpful person at the Children's Creative Center. Through her, I found Connections for Children (.org). After several visits to home daycare providers, I found one I'm very comfortable with, hooray!!! If you work at home, a daycare is the best bet for you if your baby is under 3! I hired a babysitter and it would only work for me if she took my son to the park...sometimes it was too hot, too hard to walk, too far...etc.

Peace

Political scapegoats

I think it's so illuminating that our President can't say anything without throwing stones at the Democrats. He's says, "Yeah, we're bad, but they [who are not in charge of anything right now] are worse."

1.) That's not true, the Clinton years were good for nearly everybody except Rwandans and Serbs. And who was the last Democrat to lose or quit a war?
2.) Clean up your own house before taking inventory of your opponent, Mister.
3.) He's basically admitting that he's out of ideas. Blame becomes handy there.

Katrina's anniversary will be very interesting...

Peace,
Karen

Maddening debate

I just listened to the second half of a debate between two of L.A.'s leading Jewish and Muslim leaders. Exhausting and circular arguments--and I frankly think that the Muslim came out ahead simply because he kept advocating peace.

I've been on both sides of the Lebanon debate, and now I just don't know enough about it to make a decision. I can say that I hope that there are not thousands of civilian casualties (probably not realistic) and that Israel is effectively taking out Hezbollah. It was a mistake of Lebanon to allow it's borders to become a breeding ground for missiles.

I do know that unless some principled leaders step up in the middle east; leaders that are willing to make sacrifices (why did we force Palestine to have an election when Abas was a good leader?) we're never going to stop warring there.

Lebanon is actually the least of the issues that remain there.