The definitive, not to say exhaustive, analysis of Dean’s foreign policy speech is now up over on Rhetorica.net. Warning: nearly 6,000 words; reading time > 20 minutes, and that’s if you don’t follow any of the links to sources or definitions of rhetorical terms. It’s dirty work, but I guess somebody’s got to do it. ;)
This is the Loyal Opposition?
Apparently, DNC stands for “Do Not Comment”. I visited the Democratic National Committee website, and proceeded to check out their blog page, Kicking Ass . I read a short blurb regarding the Halliburton story, and then I registered on the blog and posted a comment to the effect that Halliburton could use Cheney back at the helm. My posted comment elicited this somewhat unrelated response:
When Cheney went to work at Halliburton, it is reported they had about 4 off shore accounts. When he left, they had 44. Two, with the joblessness, what are our troops going to do for jobs when they return home. Thirdly, last night we heard the doctors in Iraq are furious because after all these months the hospitals there still don’t have antibiotics.
Posted by Don and verna withrow :: 12/16/03 04:37 PM
I posted a second response comment, very lucid, no ranting or profanity. Immediately following my second comment, a new poster who identified himself as a Democrat opined that if the Dems could merely offer up a candidate with a credible National Security agenda, he would happily vote for him/her. As of 8 o’clock this evening, both of my comments have been deleted from the blog and my login has been disabled. They even pulled the comment from the registered Democrat in search of a viable candidate. This is their idea of tolerance, inclusion, The Party of the People. They should be selling some nice brownshirts at the DNC online giftshop.
Dictators and Enablers
Steve has a great post about evil dictators and the lefty jerks who enable them. He is discussing Cuba rather than Iraq but the principle is the same.
Speaking of Cuba, what really frosts me is those ads for tour excursions, where they talk about the decrepit old cars as though these were manifestations of some quaint custom — perhaps a Latin version of the New England covered bridge — rather than tragic reminders of a wrecked society. For these morons it’s all about appearances and posturing, and the old cars serve as props to their immoral power-fantasies. Never mind how Cubans actually live, for “progressive” tourists Cuba is a kind of revolutionary Colonial Williamsburg where they can show solidarity with the inmates people in charge and pretend they’re fighting the evil Yanqui imperialists. Who knows — without those old cars, it might feel like just another third-world country that’s been run into the ground by a bunch of gangsters. That wouldn’t be any fun. (How many of these tourists realize that Cuba was a first-world country before Castro took over?)
The tourists get to go back to their nice homes in the U.S. and not be bothered by pesky ingrates who would rather risk being eaten by sharks than live in the workers’ paradise. Not to mention that if you don’t spend much time there you don’t have to deal with the Cuban medical system, which functions at around the same level as those old cars.
Iraq: Ideas, Incentives and Institutions
Economist Reuven Brenner argues that distribution of national oil revenues among the Iraqi populace would contribute greatly to peace, freedom and prosperity in the region, and that this would be the case even if the country eventually split along ethnic or religious lines.
Ideas have long lives. Embodied in institutions, they outlive their usefulness – and bring about instability. Ideas, which were initially useful in fighting misgovernment by foreigners and which were a response to growing mistrust among the increased population within each European “tribe”, were transformed into deeds and institutions. These institutions sustain myths, create habits, which are then exported to other countries. Habits of thought slowly harden into character – with the origins of thoughts and events that set this sequence in motion, long forgotten.
Oil money sustains both dictatorships and much outdated institutions and character traits. This is why the crucial first step in achieving stability in the Middle East is to disperse the funds among people living within the now recognized borders, rather than let it flow through the hands of unaccountable and corrupt rulers and governments. Unless the people within the present Iraq borders are given such tangible stake in the future, “democracy” and “constitutions” will become nothing but empty promises and worthless pieces of paper, with the vast majority of people mired in poverty and ignorance.