This is on campaign politics.
Two groups of e-mails at the public account. The first wanting to know why we're endorsing Ron Paul?
I haven't endorsed anyone. Nor do I plan to endorse in the general election and didn't in 2008. I still haven't said who I voted for in that election (I've allowed that I either voted for Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader but that's as much as I've said or plan to). This is not a campaign politics site.
Ron Paul is mentioned and not nearly enough. If I wasn't having to grab Libya, he'd be mentioned more. But I can't try to follow Libya and also grab other things. Ron Paul is the only declared candidate at this point who promises to end the wars.
That is why he gets noted here.
If he were elected president, Ron Paul has said he would end the cops-of-the-world policy.
I don't need the e-mails telling me that Ron Paul really stands for this or that. Honestly, I don't see them. But they are irritating (in their number) to the people who work the e-mail accounts. (I go in and read quickly in the mornings Monday through Friday and I read on the weekends. That's really it for me. I get a tabulation of the day's e-mails from Shirley and Martha. That's what I'm using to reply in this entry.)
I'm really not concerned where Ron Paul stands on various issues. Our focus is the wars. As such, Ron Paul gets covered here.
As upset as some are about Ron Paul getting noted here, there are those who are furious with me because they've sent 'things on Iraq.' For example, seven insist, Michele Bachmann's 2006 statements!!!!!
Why the hell would I care what Michele Bachman said five years ago?
Is she an anti-war candidate?
No.
So why do I care what she says?
More importantly, to those e-mailing on this topic, why the hell do I care what you have to say?
In one case, a writer is promoting his own piece. I'm supposed to be blown away that you rip Michele Bachman apart for being pro-war?
You who haven't said a peep on the Iraq War in over four years?
You may think you've indicted Bachmann. But what you've really demonstrated is that the Iraq War was and remains a political football for you.
You had nothing to say about it for years after Bush was leaving the White House. But now you're suddenly interested in the Iraq War again so you can beat Michele Bachmann over the head with it? And you don't see that, in fact, the problem is you?
Michele Bachman is a War Hawk. As such, it's not incumbent upon me to cover her. I certainly don't need to include six-year-old statements by Bachman. If she'd been against the war and was now for it (a la Barack), that might qualify as news. If she'd been for but was now against it, that might qualify. But "Bachmann still supporting war"? That's obvious and it's known.
In 2007 and 2008, we tried to treat everyone fairly here. That meant if you were against the war, you got included (even Barack did). I don't like Dennis Kucinich. I'm sorry. I don't. But if you went back to the coverage prior to the Iowa caucuses, you'd think (as many reading did) that I was a Kucinich supporter. Kucinich got massive coverage here because he spoke about the war frequently. Bill Richardson got plenty of coverage here for the same reason.
Both offered real plans to end the war.
Barack didn't do that.
If you think about it, people who offer real plans to end the war get ridiculed (a point Ron Paul makes in this Justin Raimondo column). That's happening now with Ron Paul, it happened with Kucinich and, most should remember, it happened in 2004 with Howard Dean.
It never happened with Barack because everyone looked at the Carr Center War Hawks hovering and knew he wasn't a dove or that he would do just what Bush had done. (And that foreshadowin was certainly on the money.)
It's also true that in 2007 and this year, I've called out those who try to say, "Oh forget ___, they don't stand a chance." It is way too early for anyone to know who the front runners will be. People who says that ___ doesn't stand a chance are often just unwilling to do the work required to include ____.
Ava and I did a piece calling out the crap offered last Friday on The NewsHour (PBS). 20 minutes and 50 seconds of the show were spent 'covering' Republican candidates. But not one of those minutes bothered to inform you about any position a candidate had.
20 minutes-plus of news timethat dealt with nonsense and horse racing but forgot the actual issues?
How do you do that? Sadly, more and more outlets do that all the time.
We're not interested in mirroring that garbage here.
It's over, I'm done writing songs about love
There's a war going on
So I'm holding my gun with a strap and a glove
And I'm writing a song about war
And it goes
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Na na na na na na na
I hate the war
Oh oh oh oh
-- "I Hate The War" (written by Greg Goldberg, on The Ballet's Mattachine!)
Last Thursday, ICCC's number of US troops killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war was 4477. Tonight it is [PDF format warning] still 4477.
The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.
iraq
i hate the war
the ballet
