See Which one Fills up First

I seriously believe the the two parties work major elections out in advance; that it is scripted and fixed. Okay, I am a conspiracy buff, and I also don't know the actual methods or identities of those evil few, but some things are just so out of plumb, they can't be accidents. Why did Kerry just shuffle and mumble through his last campaign? Because he was taking a dive and just barely trying to make it seem realistic. Why didn't McCain even pretend to be realistic and flexible if not also articulate and knowledgeable? The election was decided when the Democrats used their corrupt primary system to choose the best candidate of a sorry bunch, and the Republicans, inexplicably, used theirs to choose the worst (after Guiliani). Just when the world is fed up up with America, and the last penny has been emptied from the treasury, everybody rushes to the other side of the boat and starts singing in unison about equality and justice. It's obviously a punch and judy show, but we can't stop watching, or ever quite come to disbelieve, even though Plato demolished the whole scam years ago.

Hope in one hand...

http://www.freeandequal.org/ is sponsoring a vice-presidential debate that might not suck.

"Christina M. Tobin, President of Free and Equal Elections, announced this afternoon that Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate, Wayne Allyn Root, Constitution Party vice-presidential candidate, Darrell Castle, and Independent Ralph Nader running mate, Matt Gonzalez, have formally agreed to a three-way vice-presidential debate to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada this Sunday November 2, 2008."

Especially interesting as the first actual "debate" debate of this season, as opposed to the Lehrer-style love note passing, the first debate where any subject may be covered, and the participants are not constrained say anything. I hope it goes well. Will watch for on utube, I guess. I would be pleasantly surprised if it were on CSPAN.

Oops, I should have checked freeandequal before I replied. I didn't watch the Nader debate, because I can't watch Nader and I was pissed and mystified by Barr not attending. (that convinced me to "support" Baldwin [I had already contributed to the Barr campaign {and I'd like my fifty bucks back}]) So this may be the second interesting debate of this season. I'm withholding judgement until I see the video, if I'm wrong I'll admit it. I still hold a grudge against Nader for killing the Corvair, and for introducing Joan Claybrook to the world. Dude makes me squirm.

I finally watched the Nader-Baldwin debate as far as I could; the two, two-minute introductory speeches. Shorter version Chuck Baldwin, "We support the Constitution". Shorter version Ralph Nader, "We want to do a whole long list of Unconstitutional things". I couldn't watch anymore. Sorry. It may have been interesting, but what I meant was "the first actual 'debate' debate of this season that was actually watchable". We'll see.

Raimondo Recommends

My comment concerning Ron Paul and Justin's endorsement of Nader over at Taki's

Justin - I agree with your choice, but I don't think Ron Paul should be a factor in how you reached your conclusion. Ron Paul was right to dissolve the coalition when he did, because the Revolution was obviously unstable and only held together because of one Man. We need a stable coalition base and at least a handful of Pauls, some of whom may be the Congressmen of both parties that voted twice against the bailout bill. (Incidentally, if you're going to vote, take the trouble to find out how your Congressman voted on this at RP's Campaign For Liberty. Some of these "public servants" in both parties need to be sent on their way; now's your chance.)

We were enthusiastic and cooperative largely because we were getting attention. The point of the money-bombs was the money-bombs, for instance. Since no one, even at the highest point of enthusiasm expected to win (and if they did they were delusional) the goal was to expose the corruption in the system and the complicity of the media, which he did in blazing triumph. The Republicans made a major mistake (from their POV) by including him in the debates.They gambled that RP would make a fool of himself and fizzle out early, like Tancredo, which would have happened if he hadn't gone out swinging. Suddenly, this "nut" is telling the whole country, in detail, about the scam, and counter-punching hard when idiots Guiliani and Mormon boy whazziz name took the bait. At least McCain was smart enough to shut up and smirk instead of getting bitch-slapped like he would have. And later, the depantsing of Hannity. Mwah! Mission, (as far as it would go) accomplished.

My point is, however unfortunate, the Paul campaign is over, he is not a candidate and I respectfully submit that you should have left him out of your calculus for this piece. My conclusion is that Nader is a better choice than the Tweedles, and an acceptable third choice if Baldwin or Barr are not on your ballot, McKinney is head and shoulders over the Tweedles on foreign policy and no worse on domestic. What we're really looking for is a high percentage of protest votes. Then we all (together) need to start pulling up the rails in front of the Obama express.

Senate Races - the Good, the Bad and the mostly Ugly

"good " Senators up for re-election
names in bold are at risk and could use some extra help, donations, etc.

John Barrasso (R-WY) (safe)
Thad Cochran (R-MS) (safe)
Elizabeth Dole (R-NC)(no clear favorite)
Michael Enzi (R-WY) (safe)
James Inhofe (R-OK) (favored)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)(safe)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA) (leaning safe)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) (safe)
Roger Wicker (R-MS) (no clear favorite) "expected to be quite close"
*Mark Udall(D) v. Bob Schaffer(R) for Wayne Allard's (Retiring "good guy)
     Mark is House "Good Guy" Polls show Udall way ahead
*Tom Udall (D) v. Steve Pearce (R) for Pete Dominici (R-NM) (retiring "bad guy")
     Tom is House "Good Guy" "NRSC...concede the seat to Udall"

"bad" Senators up for re-election
names in bold have a good shot and are worthy of extra support

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) (heavy favorite) opposed by Bob Tuke(D)
Joe Biden (D-DE) (safe) opposed by Christine O'Donnell (R)
Max Baucus (D-MT) (safe) opposed by Bob Kelleher
Saxby Chambliss (R-Georgia) (close) opposed by Jim Martin (D)
Norm Coleman (R-MN) (vulnerable) opposed by Al Franken (D)
Susan Collins (R-ME) (vulnerable) opposed by Tom Allen (D)
John Cornyn (R-TX) (vulnerable) opposed by Rick Noriega(D)
Dick Durbin (D-IL) (safe) opposed by Steve Saurberg (R)
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (safe) opposed by Bob Conley (D) Ron Paul Democrat
Tom Harkin (D-IO) (safe) opposed by Christopher Reed (R)
John Kerry (D-MA) (safe) opposed by Jeff Beatty (R)
Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) (safe) opposed by Dick Zimmer (R)
Carl Levin (D-MI) (safe) opposed by Jack Hoogendyk
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (vulnerable) opposed by Bruce Lunsford (D)
Mark Pryor (D-AK) (unopposed)
Jack Reed (D-RI) (safe) opposed by Bob Tingle (R)
Pat Roberts (R-KS) (favored) opposed by Jim Slattery (D)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) (safe) opposed by Jay Wolfe (R)
Gordon Smith (R-OR) (vulnerable) opposed by Jeff Merkley (D)
Ted Stevens (R-AK) (vulnerable) opposed by Mark Begich (D)
John Sununu (R-NH) (vulnerable) opposed by Jeanne Shaheen (D)

info from http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/senate_races.html

Constituent Response Team

I'm really getting excited about this site, and I hope they can really get the word out before the election. I intend to send a donation; I've been looking through the site to see how much is there and I'm liking it a lot.

Capitalism with a Human Face?

A response to another good Lindsay post - East Germans Getting Nostalgic for Socialism

I had a friend in the mid-80's that had escaped from Poland before the Solidarity thing. He was pretty apolitical but thought there wasn't much wrong with Communism in principle. My question to him was how they got anyone to do the shit work and hard labor if everyone was equal?

His answer was that it was done by prisoners and this was really the biggest problem, because they had to actually generate enough prisoners to fill the needed slots - curfew violations, improper documentation, drunkenness, trespassing, black-marketeers etc. because there wasn't enough actual crime to supply the manpower and the real psychos weren't suitable. This was very convincing to me, and today I look at America's gigantic prison-industrial complex with a wary eye.

It would seem that human nature works against any system, and that greed is probably a better basis for society than compulsion where everyone is either a prisoner or a guard. Equality can be a two-way street and it's much simpler for everyone to be equally poor than rich, or for some to be more equal than others.

I meant to mention. although it goes against my theory of the general evilness of all governments, the dozens if not hundreds of guys that worked to bury the reactor after Chernobyl blew up, even though they knew the were taking amounts of radiation that would inevitably lead to a slow and agonizing death. Not to mention the firemen that voluntarily went into and died in the WTC. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have, it's just a mystery to me. Maybe ideology only goes so far, y'think?

On Poetry

I personally cannot read/understand poetry without being told by human or annotation what I'm supposed to be seeing. Without help, I might as well be reading a rock wall. I don't think it's a lack of intelligence or knowledge; I would guess it's something like riding a unicycle - quite difficult and without obvious benefit beyond the skill itself. I have noticed that I use a lot (too much) of metaphor in my own writing, which is probably just a rookie writing error, so I think I have the capacity to read poetry, but lack something crucial (training, persistence, imagination - I dunno).

I'm somewhat of a hermit, and most of my family is either non-literate or non-communicative, but I can only recall one person in my adult life that spoke of an interest in poetry and I don't how extensive her interest was. For most Americans it's teevee, movies and popular music, which is a large part of why I'm the aforementioned hermit. I'm to the point where the noise has died down enough for me to receive the signal, but I still don't know how to process it.

Which brings me to my final point. Poetry should probably not be taught to most kids. It almost seems like it's designed to turn them off. The esoteric seems like gibberish and the accessible is either trite (e.g. rock lyrics) or doggerel. I think that
Seuss and Silverstein are popular because they were illustrated, which helps focus the attention on a sufficiently small piece of the universe for the imagination to work with. See also greeting cards. I think this may be key to popularizing it. Good poetry stands alone, but most people need help with it. There are also a lot of graphic artists (and musicians) who are also not making any money, so it shouldn't be hard to find collaboration if the poet isn't too concerned about purity.

I'm going to have to stick to short non-fiction myself. I have a lot of ideas, but none are original, I'm afraid. Anecdote; I recently got a phone call from a girl I went to high-school with that still has some of my poems, which I mercifully don't remember, that I had given her. She asked me why I quit writing, and I told her that when I found out there were four billion people in the world I came to doubt my uniqueness.