The Votemaster Is...Andrew Tanenbaum 978
A reader writes: " www.electoral-vote.com, a site of daily updated maps of the US electoral college based on a number of polls is probably a site that the policially inclined check daily. Well, it has been revealed that the person behind the site, AKA the votemaster, is none other than Andrew Tanenbaum, noted author of numerous CS books." He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.
Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does running a statistical analysis website that gathers information on polls and aggregates them into something quasi-meaningful "support" the Democratic candidate?
Yes, yes, I'm well aware that while incognito he had said on numerous occasions that he was a Kerry supporter, and a Democrat. But he himself says:
Why Did You Do This?
In a nutshell, because I want to be proud of America again.
Meaning that Kerry can somehow make him proud again. Ok, fine, but what does running electoral-vote.com have to do with that? The question "Why Did You Do This?" implies that he is "do"ing something to influence people to vote in a particular way, which I simply don't see that website doing. In fact, other than the admittedly editorial sections of the site, I have found the site to be remarkedly unbiased.
He then goes on, at length, describing/proving that the world "hates" Bush/the administration/etc. This comes as absolutely no surprise to me. However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons. That's a serious question, but I doubt I'll get any serious answers. And this is an important question, because the fact that so many abroad "hate" Bush, and somehow getting more Americans to understand that, is central to Tanenbaum's multitude of statements on the topic. Why does "hating" someone mean what they're doing is wrong? (I will concede that a leader of a nation being hated probably makes it vastly more difficult to do diplomatic work, but that is somewhat tangential to my core question.)
The rest of this post amounts to what are essentially footnotes on this topic, but I believe are critical to the discussion of the belief that Kerry can somehow to a better job.
So let's address these things. The world "hates" Bush, and Kerry can somehow not only fight terrorism more effectively, but will also bring respect back to the US.
Sen McCain said it best [cbsnews.com] yesterday on Face the Nation:
"I also believe that President Bush has a vision and a view that the war on terror is not going to be over until we have some democracy in the Middle East, and I don't think he means by imposing that at the point of a bayonet. But I do believe that he's correct that the issue of radical Islamic extremism is not going away until those countries have some kind of freedom and democracy, and I think that's his long-term goal."
Now, before you start spitting and sputtering about why the US is in "Iraq", then, well, reread that last statement. I'm not going to beat around the bush, as it were, any more: the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons. But the prime one is that it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts. This strategy will make things worse in the meantime. Possibly a lot worse. People will hate us. Including some people who will ultimately be protected by our actions (i.e., Europe).
Panislamic radicalism will not go away on its own
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Serious questions (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:1, Insightful)
A fantiastic site but its usefulness is ending (Score:4, Insightful)
It was very enlightening to follow along as things went back and forth (with a sprinkling of DoS attacks on the site) and the Votemaster's analysis was always a good read. Kudos to him for a job well done.
Now, for all of the US citizens out there, go vote.
Turnabout is hardly fair play. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
Fortunately, it's US citizens and not Europeans that get to pick the next US president.
Don't rest assured: It's not the American people either... Remember that Gore had about 500000 more votes than Bush in 2000.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
The author not only read the headline but then proceded to type at 80 words per minute about topics which bear at best tangental relation to the topic at hand, which is that Andrew Tannenbaum has chosen to become involved in the electoral process by creating a site which monitors poll results.
I'm sure we'll be just as impressed when the same post shows up in response to the articles about Jon Stewart getting a manicure and the X-Box case mod that looks like a pumpkin.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
With a President Kerry, there is hope that other countries might contribute serious numbers of troops to help stabilize Iraq. With a second Bush administration they will just say: "You broke it, you fix it."
Hope? If Kerry wins it tomorrow, he'd better have those unnamed countries who supposedly have divisions of combat-ready troops they're eager to throw into the Iraq meat grinder. In two days, he's going to be on the hook to actually do all the stuff he's been promising.
Re:Minix (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
But why is the rest of the world against it? Saddam really wasn't that nice of a guy. Deposing him is just the sort of thing that human rights monkeys (which includes a substantial bit of Europe based on their usual press) normally salivate over.
Other reasons that the world hates Bush are Kyoto and the ICC. Kyoto was an exercise in lunacy, of course. And the ICC's only point is to go after the law-abiding nations. Specifically the ones who do the inevitably dirty work of wars, exporting security to the rest of the world. (Hint: The US) It will be impossible to invoke ICC provisions against Gap nations (Google Thomas Barnett) until their rulers have already been deposed in a war (Hint: By the US).
So while I don't like Bush all that much, I think that the rest of the world's hatred for him only proves their loopiness. You can't believe everything you see in a Michael Moore movie, after all. And unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't know how to take the American press with a grain of salt like Americans do. The gullible Europeans simply swallow it hook line and sinker everytime the BBC or its equivalent repeats something from CNN or another American news outlet. I hope that the Europeans discover independent thought one of these days and stop letting themselves be culturally dominated by American media and American corporations.
Re:Serious questions (Score:2, Insightful)
However - and FORGET about "Bush" for a second - how does "hating" someone have any logical correlation with whether their positions or courses of action are appropriate or inappropriate? That would seem antithetical to the viewpoints of most progressive persons.
Perhaps people hate what Bush (or anyone) has done...with the situation in Iraq, with civil liberties at home, etc. When he says people "hate" Bush, I don't know that he's saying that they hate him personally, just, they hate what he has done. I would say that that directly follows whether his positions are appropriate.
the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. Not because Saddam tried to kill Bush's "daddy", not because Bush is an angry dry drunk, and not because Cheney has a secret plan to line his pockets and that of Halliburton. This isn't a black-and-white zero-sum game where there is only one reason the US is in Iraq. There are myriad reasons.
If this is true (and I'm doubtful), then he should have said that -- to Congress, to the American people, to the world. But no, we were there for WMDs which didn't exist. That was the "reason". If history had nothing to do with it, wouldn't Iran have been a better (more threatening) target?
Intellectually honest? (Score:5, Insightful)
He is an unabashed Kerry supporter, not in and of itself a bad thing, but he is discarding poll results favorable to the President in order to show a Kerry victory. For example he claims to have averaged recent polls in Florida but a Quinnipiac poll from 10/27 thru 10/31 shows an EIGHT point Bush lead. How he ends up with a 2 point Kerry advantage with that in the average I don't know.
Today is his worst showing yet, in my opinion, and he may be indirectly helping the President. If Kerry supporters believe their man is going to win and win big then voters who are not as committed may not show up to vote.
Remember Karl Rove asking where the FOUR MILLION evangelicals were in 2000? If people think their man will win regardless of their vote then fewer people will make the effort to vote and strange things can happen.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
Change the laws if you don't agree, but getting OK, KS, and MO to move all the campaigning to NY and CA might be a little difficult...
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
A good example why.. The US$ is in the toilet at the moment. I have invested in US companies, but because of the US$ it is no longer profitable to do so. I am in two minds of removing my investments to another market or not. Really depends on this election.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree. If you'd read Tanenbaum's assessment of European attitudes of Bush (and his remarkably refreshing attitude towards American leadership in the world) you'd find that, while people may loathe Bush, they are not "loopy," they simply see American power as resting in the hands of an international bully.
I for one will be voting for Kerry not because we are unpopular, but because I desire to see America lead the world again, which we cannot do under the current administration.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the world sees differently. It is not our responsibility to tell another nation whether their way of life is correct or not. Hell, the US has big problems of their own without fighting wars in other countries.
It is this mentality that has brought the problems to the US in the first place, their constant meddling into the affairs of foreign countries. Hell, Saddam Hussain, Osama bin Laden and their cohorts are PRODUCTS of this meddling.
The rest of the world is looking very cautiously at the actions of the worlds most powerfull country. Just like children look cautiously to the school bully. Because that's how the USA is percieved right now. A bully running around pushing other people out of it's way to get what it wants..
voter turnout (Score:2, Insightful)
Get out and vote for God's sake or shut up with all your "America is the beacon of democracy" bullshit and "leader of the free world" garbage. You think you're country is so great? Then vote God damn it!
Two things, no, just one. (Score:3, Insightful)
Professor Tanenbaum has a lot of cred with me for his MINIX work. His OSDI book was the first real taste I had inside Unix, and I've been hooked ever since. Over the years he's also shown quite a bit of ivorytoweritis, which shows that we are all prisoners of the mental environment we construct for ourselves. For instance, from TFWS:
But he apparently misses the obvious converse, that the world media do a spectacularly bad job of informing the rest of the world what's going on in the U.S.
The U.S. Presidential race this year comes down to who wins Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He thinks Kerry will win.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but he's been wrong before.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Intellectually honest? (Score:5, Insightful)
Polling has reached a frantic pace over the past few weeks... if you think there are no polls running because it's Sunday I'm afraid you're mistaken. There are some pollsters he won't use, but he's very forthcoming about which ones he's written off and why (usually "Push" polling... e.g. "Are you going to vote for Kerry even though he will kill your children and eat them?")
He has changed his methodology several times over the past few months but is always consistent, even for most of October when the map showed Bush winning by 80+ electoral votes.
WHY must "the famous thread" always be brought up? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tanenbaum was around looong before Linus/Linux. Before Linux even began, before Soft Landing Linux, those of us who wanted UNIX on our home computers used/loved Minix.
Minix was the technology that sparked a lifetime love of UNIX for many a users, not just the younger Linux.
Occasionally, I'll reflect on the beautiful blue console of my Amiga, on which I ran Minix off of 3 (as I recall) floppies.
So please, let's not dismiss Andrew Tanenbaum's role in computer history. Remember that his shoulders are the giant's that Linus has been standing on.
I can't wait to see what the people standing on Linus's shoulders come up with...
No wonder it is so slow this morning! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Amazing... (Score:3, Insightful)
This site is worthless and obviously partisan
Because Zogby is so biased towards the left that even Fox News [foxnews.com] uses him. I'd provide a direct link but it's a stupid Javascript link -- go to the main page and click on the "Fox Swing States".
Zogby has publicly said that he expects Kerry to win
And he's basing that on the record number of new voters (that will likely break for Kerry) and the historical fact that most undecided voters break for the challenger. I suspect that Kerry will win for exactly the same reason. If he doesn't then I guess we'll both have egg on our face.
Re:Turnabout is hardly fair play. (Score:2, Insightful)
But try looking at it like this for a seconds:
Since the end of WWII until the end of the Cold War most of the world paid very close attention to the US and USSR because they were the two countries that could destroy most of the life on this planet. During that time most Americans could name who the leader of the Soviet Union was and it was important for them to know this as he had the ability to destroy us.
The US also encompasses a much larger land area than any European country. Most Europeans think about other countries because the countries are smaller and they are as likely to travel from say Germany to France as an American is likely to travel from Georgia to Louisiana. When Americans in say Virginia here news about say California (3 time zones away) this is equivalent to someone in Portugal hearing news about something in Greece (2 or 3 timezones away?).
These couple of things are something to consider before you start saying that Americans don't pay attention to the rest of the world. The US from east to west encompasses many disparate regions and subcultures easily as varying as any two European countries. Consider that someone from San Francisco California and Mobile Alabama barely speak the same language let alone have anywhere near the same value system.
-- Just some food for thought.
dns round robbin? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
Tough. It's our vote, not yours. I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters. We (by and large) hate the French president, do they care? Are they changing their votes because of it?
Re:Who matters?The rest of you arent worth a hill (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of you arent worth a hill of beans..
(Feeding the troll, oh well...)
You do realize that the anti-US position of the rest of the world is caused by these kinds of postures, don't you?
Re:Minix (Score:4, Insightful)
But for whatever reason, ICEs move most people to work in the morning. It just happens to work REALLY REALLY well for the particular size vehicle people drive. Besides, improvements in computer control technology have largely rounded off the rough points of ICE.
To a mechanical engineer, we all should be driving around in cars powered by turbines, or Wenkel rotary engines.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
I could not agree more. Saying you hate someone tells me something about you, not about the person you hate. People have somehow forgotten that.
In this election, the word hate is being bandied about on both sides way too much. It's a dangerous word for what it implies about the American people.
the US is in "Iraq" because it was an easy target in the region, period. [...] it is part of a comprehensive, omnibus strategy to bring free or quasi-free governments to the region, in the hopes that more of the same will be encouraged, even as organizations like al-Qaeda redouble their recruiting efforts.
Again, I could not agree more. However, it's worth pointing out that this is not the reason given to us. If it were, and if the American people still stood behind the reasoning, then there would be a lot fewer protests. The ends do not ever justify the means. This administration forgot that when they lied to get us behind them on this plan as you've described it above. I voted for Bush in 2000. I will not vote for him in 2004 because he does not represent my views on how the American system of government works.
I was raised to believe in an America that was literally for the people and by the people. I was raised to believe, however foolishly, that if we give people the power to govern themselves and set their own direction, they will progress as a community. When you take away that power (by taking away our ability to make informed decisions) you circumvent the people's will in favor of the will of the ruling class. I don't need a governmental father-figure. I need a government that facilitates my part in the "American experiment".
I still believe in our forefather's experiment, even with all its failings and problems. We've made progress, and I expect we will continue to do so, but not so long as our leaders feel the need to patronize us with lies to facilitate their own goals and plans. They work for us. Let us never forgot that.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
You think he runs this country? Think again. This country is run by two parties - nothing else. They both have their own agendas to some degree, but they are essentially the same and whoring themselves out to the highest bidder. If you want my opinion, you better move your investmens if either a Democrat or Republican wins. America is screwed no matter what the outcome is - and that's because of the people as much as the politicians.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Reply it is.
Your comment makes some excellent points about foreign policy. Unfortunately, they're points that I feel you understand better than our president does.
Yes, it's key to stop Panislamic terrorism. It's critical to our safety, to peace around the world, to a solution to the mid-East crisis. All that.However, our methods have, to put it mildly, sucked a whole lotta ass. We did a really, really fantastic job of just bombing the shit out of Iraq. We shocked 'em. We awed 'em. And then we alienated 'em.
Instead of enlisting aid to actually secure the peace (rebuilding infrastructure, training Iraqi civil forces, promoting education), we chose to go it alone. Why? Because we'd be better at finding the WMDs without interference.
But at the point that we'd won the war, the WMDs didn't matter! They made a reasonable excuse for invading, but after the war, they were pointless.We'd already invaded, we were now stuck there, WMDs or no WMDs. They really only mattered for political points. At that point, to really do good in Iraq, we needed to make it perfectly clear that we were *not* there as conquerors, that we were *not* there to stay, and that we were *not* there to subdue Islam. We needed to make rebuilding Iraq a collaborative, global effort. We needed help. And Bush did NOTHING to seek it out. That's why it's our boys who are being killed, and it's a big part of why terrorist recuiting efforts are so incredibly successful in Iraq today. (Yes, I'm forgetting Poland. I know.)
And that's why Iraq is a debacle. That's a big part of why the rest of the world has come to really hate us. That's why I think voting for Bush is a mistake. Does Kerry have the solutions? Probably not. Certainly not all of them. But he's someone that the rest of the world doesn't actively despise, and that opens a lot of doors. We need help in Iraq if we're going to instill a workable democracy. Bush can't get it. Perhaps Kerry can.
And all that's to say nothing of Bush's really miserable record on the environment and science. Stifling stem cell research? Ignoring global warming? Overruling EPA guidelines on arsenic and air quality? Come on, now...
Todd
Re:Minix (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Electoral College is Obsolete (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to remember that this country is (or at least, is supposed to be) a federation of states, and the president is supposed to be the representative of the states, not necessarily the people in them. People do not cast ballots for presidents -- states do. The states can decide the procedures in which they determine how to cast their ballots in any way they deem appropriate.
If this does not make sense to you, think about the UN. You, as a person who lives in a country represented in the UN, do not get to vote for UN resolutions. Rather, your country's representative does.
As for our congressional election system, I think that although the Senate should remain in tact, it would probably benefit the country to change the House to a more European-style parliament so that people outside the Republican-Democrat duopoly could actually have a voice.
Re:Serious questions (Score:5, Insightful)
Easier than Afghanistan? If we'd stayed in Afghanistan, we'd have the same problem with insurgents moving in from other countries, but the native populace was actually sick of radical Islamic rule. Add in the fact that the infrastructure was already in a shambles (any improvement we could make would be dramatically better than the existing situation) and the reason it was in a shambles was because the Soviets had bombed the heck out of them... and the U.S. was the country that helped them. Not to mention the worldwide support for the invasion of Afghanistan.
The insurgents would have had a lot less native support, and we'd have had a lot more international support. If we'd ponied up the kind of dough there that we are currently hemorrhaging in Iraq, the place would be well on its way to a stable democracy.
Instead, we opened up a two-front war, in far less favorable conditions. The Bush administration vastly underestimated the amount and kind of resistance they'd face. Either that, or they flatout lied to rally support for it. Now that we're there, we have to finish the job, but it would be vastly easier with some international support for the operation, and that ain't gonna happen while Bush is in charge.
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, please. They were sitting on billions in defense and oil contracts ready to go when they finally got the UN sanctions lifted; and none of them have the logistics to put a really significant force (>10k men) on the ground in Iraq anyway.
They won't support firm action against blatent genocide in Sudan, and you think they would have backed Kerry in Iraq? Madness.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
So what? If you took a Slashdot poll of who the next CEO of Microsoft should be, you might find widespread support for some guy who would give away all their IP and then disband the company. If you took a poll of the shareholders, they would have a different opinion. Why would anyone need to poll 113,000 people to realize that third parties have different agendas than the people doing the voting?
Even if foreigners are well-informed about the platforms of the candidates in a different country, why would they care about things like domestic issues or tax policy? Such people would have no interest in picking the candidate who would act in the best interest of Americans, but rather who would do things that were best for people in the poll-respondant's part of the world, regardless of whether the policies were good or bad for the candidate's own constituency. People in India want might more outsourcing, people in Japan might want America to run a bigger trade deficit with them, others might want to take America down a notch or two economically, politically, militarily, and so on.
Consider this interpretation of your data: people who actually have to live under the administration they are voting for are many times more likely to support Bush than are poll respondants who are foist a candidate upon someone else's country from afar.
France may not affect America (Score:4, Insightful)
The worlwide poll results reflect to a minimum extent the feelings generated by the current administration's actions.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
And it's people like you who were asking "why do they hate us" after 9/11...
Anyway, if we keep this national attitude up, in a few more years the rest of the world certainly won't give a damn about the U.S. elections. Because they won't give a damn about the U.S. - we won't matter in world affairs anymore. The "American Century" is over, and we can either be a player, maybe even "first among equals", in the new century, or we can be a second-rate laughing stock as nations that value cooperation and intelligent behavior lead the way.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be correct to tell the rest of the world to piss off and mind their own business because the U.S. presidential elections are U.S. business if the U.S. stopped meddling in foreign governments.
Whatever the outcome of this election, it WILL have repercussions on the rest of the world.
THAT'S why the rest of the world feels they must state their opinion, obviously.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
Saddam Hussein has/had no proven connections to Al Quaeda. No secret relationships with Osama Bin Laden. No Weapons of Mass destruction. No ability to threaten America or American citizens (except those who wandered into Iraq) directly.
Was he a "bad man"? Oh, probably. But so is Kim Jong Il.
The reason why there is so much anti-american sentiment is that America (through its governmental representation) is so anti-global-community. So blatantly false in its motivations. And has proven to be very untrustworthy.
The war was NEVER about terror, Weapons of Mass Destruction, regime change, or making the world a safer place. It was always about securing oil resources and securing a military foothold in the middle-east.
The rest of the world knew this immediately (except for the UK government). We didn't swallow anything hook-line-and-sinker. We called a spade a spade, and are frankly quite disgusted by the lack of respect that America has demonstrated to the international community.
At the very least, if the American government would've said, "uh, we're going into Iraq because the instability of the area threatens our Oil supply." At least they would've been honest.
Are Americans evil? Hardly. My wife is American. I visit my inlaws regularly and they are fantastic folks. So are all of the people I've met on a face-to-face basis. However, the American government is NOT a good representation of its people. All that the rest of the world is saying with these fake votes and inconsequential opinion polls is that we'd like your government to give you the international representation that the good people of America deserve.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right, it is your vote, and it's perfectly justifiable for Americans to consider their election a purely internal matter for Americans to deal with.
Oddly enough though, whenever another country has elected a leader that Americans happened to dislike, you always went in and removed them. It didn't matter if it required an invasion (too many to list), a kidnapping (Panama), an assassination (Cuba), or a fake coup (Guatemala), you supported it.
And to think all we're doing to express our dislike of your leaders is letting you know about it. Oh the horror! But you're getting pissed that we would dare interfere in your election by *talking about it*? What a fucking hypocrite.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm getting really sick of these arrogant Europeans thinking their oppinion in our election even matters.
Let's make this simple:
Their opinions of our nation affect our individual lives. Sometimes the effects aren't obvious, but the effects are there. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of us.
Their opinions of our nation are largely determined by our nation's actions in the area of foreign relations. Foreign relations is handled by the State Department under the direction of the President. Ergo, their opinion of us is principally affected by our President. Therefore, we have a reason to care about what they think of our President.
Their opinion matters. It's not decisive by any means, but to the extent that our interests and theirs coincide, we should at least give consideration to what they have to say.
Beyond that, sometimes it's good to get a point of view that is at a remove from the problem. Marriage counselors aren't necessarily all that smart, but they are fairly effective because they're outside of the problem. Sometimes I think the US citizens and the US government could use some intervention to help us work out our differences :-)
Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Worldwide results (Score:1, Insightful)
Then try to keep him/her/it at home, and make sure his decisions do not interfere with my life. Otherwise, it is fair game to hold you, the american voter, responsible for the shit your elected president creates abroad.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:1, Insightful)
Terrorism is an idea. In America's specific case (there are many, many others) its the idea that America is Evil. Muslim kids go to school and have that drilled into their heads on a daily basis. Then they go to church and have it drilled into their heads. And then some soldier's stray bullet mows down their best friend, cementing that idea so firmly in their mind that they're willing to kill themselves and their own people if they can take out some of the "evil people" with them.
Neither Kerry nor Bush address this fact because its a very scary thought: the end of war as its been fought for millenia. No longer can its effectiveness be judged based on the body count or how many millions of dollars worth of bombs have been dropped. The war of the new millenium is an information war, fought with concepts and memes, where the deathtoll is no longer an end but merely a means towards the goal.
To that end, we need to drastically alter the way we treat this war. Hire some of IBM and Microsoft's marketers to do what they do best: spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. Every time an Iraqi native is killed by a terrorist, hammer that home to the Iraqi people: America is your friend, the terrorists are evil murderers. Terrorists burning your trucks and having a party? Rather than strafing the crowd with gunfire, rig the trucks with a small electrically triggered heat-resistant charge, enough to cause injury if you're nearby and maybe kill someone stupid enough to stand on the hood of a burning truck. Set it off and hit the airwaves, lambasting the carelessness and incompetence of the terrorists in using their explosives. Use this intermittently (if it happened every time people would figure it out) and suddenly those parties won't be so fun. Osama making a new appearance every now and then? Given that it takes days for American intelligence (then again...) to "analyze" the tapes for authenticity, it must be easy to produce fakes of our own? Spread confusion and doubt. Have "Osama" tell his forces to quit killing Muslims, since they're starting to stray from his version of Islamic rule. Have him announce that they'll be retaking some small, inconsequential city and see who shows up. Have him go batshit crazy on TV. While we're at it, whatever happened to the leaflet bombing that showed some effectiveness in softening Afghanistan's troops?
Around the time of World War II, we saw the beginnings of concepts that should have become the new world of war: encryption, counter-intelligence, inflatable decoy military bases (suicide bombing is only fun when you kill more of the enemy than you do of yourself) and so on, but it seems in the past 60 years we've forgotten all of that, reverting to the "tried and failed" method of carpet bombing and footsoldier rampaging we saw in Vietnam and Korea and now in Iraq.
Re:Electoral College is Obsolete (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
It would also be misguided to think that the Arab peoples will unite under Jeffersonian democracies. It ignores their history, their writings, and their speeches to believe that they will. Any democracy in that region will break down or become a shadow of itself. Pakistan is a good example. It remains a democracy as long as that democracy behaves like a dictatorship. On the other hand, the Jordanian Monarchy is perhaps the most stable and moderate government in the region.
Back on the subject of our pretext for invasion, whatever the reason Bush invaded Iraq, he felt it was one we wouldn't swallow, and so lied to us to get his support. That should carry the gravest of consequences. It is far beyond his rights as President to lie to us because he knows what's best even if we don't. If he is kicked out of office (and that appears to be big "if" right now) he will be getting off easy. Because to do such a thing as he has done, to ignore our wishes, or to divert around them by lying to us so that our wishes are those of uninformed or misinformed people, so that he can run the country as he alone sees fit, is to make a mockery of democracy. To pay lip service to democracy in the U.S. (I know we're a democratic republic, not a true democracy; but the point is still valid) while behind the backs of the American public (or in front of them after they've been manipulated) executing your own policies is to defy our constitution and everything it stands for.
So, if your point about Bush's real designs with Iraq are true, I hardly think it supports his re-election.
The way to defeat Islamic radicalism is to make it radical. You need to get Islam to heal itself. Islam is killing itself with this radicalism, and you need the moderates to see it and take action. Until then, every defeat is proof of the need for jihad. Every victory is proof of Allah's grace and support. I don't know if we can accomplish that ourselves. I do know that we can't accomplish it with boondoggles like Iraq. Certainly, we kill those who attack us. That's justice...
But be careful in how you evaluate your own actions. The phrase "Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining." comes to mind. If you kill my rapist brother I may see the justice in it; but don't expect me to thank you for improving the family's overall worthiness. Don't expect me to welcome you. And if you kill my Uncle who gave him a place to sleep, and threaten to kill my father for proclaiming his love for his dead son, you can expect me to come after you.
We need to be a friend to the moderates. Currently, we're not.
Re:Converse is not true (Score:1, Insightful)
Brainwashed into a preprogrammed reaction (Score:2, Insightful)
A threat of a good example might give similar ideas to other countries...So they demonize/propagandize Americans via the mass media, the better to manufacture consent for invasion or a coup.
So the lesson for Europe is, I suppose, you best watch you asses, the Rich people in America and the multinationals don't like your opulent welfare states that keep the citizens from being at the mercy of the upper class/the corporations. So watch out for an invasion/a coup/a trade embargo in a few years, once Rush Limbaugh/The NY Times et al have worked Americans into a hate frenzy at the very mention of the word "Europe".
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that you have 'said it best':
This election is not (or rather should not) be 'about' the war in Iraq. Niether canidate would do anything signifcantly different about the current situations in Iraq, or Afganistan. The war with Al Queada (primarilly in Afganistan) will continue in about the same manor. If you really believe Bush's FUD that Kerry wouldn't 'stand up for America', then I've got a bridge to sell you. Kerry brings in hope that we could 'off load'. some responsiablity for Iraq to parts of NATO, but even that chance is slim. The only place where change would make a difference is if we had to press a fight against Iran, or North Korea, Kerry would have some 'fresh creditability' (note: that 'some' might be marginal). The real difference between these two canidates is domestic policy, including those other items, as well as stem cell research, hydrogren research and production, a more unified (but still private) health care system.As far as McCain goes, I feel betrade by the 'strait talk express', here is a man who has made numerous public complaints against the Bush administration for the last 4 years, yet, he's more than willing to 'tow the party line'. Perhaps he still has hope for the 2008 election and is pandering to the republican fateful, but it doesn't play well to those of us who used to admire him.
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, read this:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaySt
This from a magazine that endorsed Dole and Bush on previous US elections...
"It's our vote, not yours" (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering just how crappy our economic health is at the moment, an international boycott would only make things in the U.S. worse, irregardless of the size of our economy. And I wouldn't be surprised if that came to pass.
Geoff
Re:This is the question we need to be asking! (Score:1, Insightful)
There's plenty of "evil" places in the world. Bin Laden has links to Sudan, and unless we fix the Sudanese problems it'll probably generate terrorists. We need to pick our battles and not boldly stomp into a situation that we can't pay for or maintain.
How to go your own way (Score:5, Insightful)
A true free thinking rebel has no problem doing exactly what the huge masses of idiots do, if he happens to enjoy it.
Re:Serious questions (Score:2, Insightful)
Another intersting thing to note is that Bush's administration, specifically Defence Dept., alienated the rest of possible allies by telling them that there are no contracts to be given to anyone who didn't help out in the first place. If the country's companies are unable to gain any benefit from the occupation, there's much less interest by the country to support the occupation. If you have a lot of your own citizens working in the threatened area, you want to provide the proper troop support to protect their safety.
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
The news from Iraq isn't great. It's understandable that we keep hearing of the new attacks, new deaths of U.S. and Iraqi troops, and new civilian casualties while less attention is paid to progress in the country. But when the President of Iraq comes to the U.S. to report on the progress of his country, and gives them a speech basically written by White House operatives, you have to wonder if there is any progress being made at all.
Bush has refused to admit to any major blunders in his planning of the war, his execution of the war, his plans for winning the peace, or the way he sold the war to Americans. The first time I've heard him ask to wait for further analysis before drawing a conclusion was when Democrats started blaming him for the missing explosives.
"Where is Saddam?" was never as important a question as you make it out to be. It was pretty clear before his capture that he was no longer running the show. From a tactical standpoint, the capture of Hussein changed little. At best it served as a psychological blow to the enemy.
Plus, the question doesn't speak to our reasons for invading the way "Where are the WMD?" does. Hell, we already knew that Iraq was chock full of Hussein and family. But the WMDs were the proof that we were in imminent danger, and our justification for going in and removing Hussein ourselves, rather than building a decent coalition.
Nor is it the only question worth asking. Others include:
"Where was Hussein's nuclear program?"
"Why weren't we welcomed as liberators like your administration repeatedly promised?"
"Why didn't we send in enough troops to make sure that we could secure critical sites like the one from which the explosives disappeared?"
"Knowing now that there was no connection between Iraq and 9-11, that there were no WMDs, that our invasion would spawn a tenacious and destabilizing resistance movement, that over a thousand of our servicemen and women would die, that our actions would alienate our allies, energize our enemies, and make it harder to gain the sort of international cooperation we need to defend ourselves against terrorism, why do you continue to say that you would have made the same decisions?"
Re:Worldwide results (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, Mr. Slippery, you're a friend of a friend and all, but I think you're kidding yourself. What countries are those, exactly? The same countries that kicked us out of the UN Human Rights commitee, and appointed Libya as the leader? Is that cooperation? Is that "intelligent behavior"? Whatever you have to say about our human rights record, you MUST admit that we're better than Libya, for crying out loud.
The world is not truly cooperating for anything good, not yet. They are paying lip service to the idea of cooperating. Personally I think we should slowly sideline the UN and form our own organization. The UN is pretty much controlled by Islamic interests at this point. Evidence: they pass all kinds of resolutions about how Israel needs to be nice, but ignore the atrocities committed by the palestinians.
I really hate to say it, but the UN is practically a terrorist organization. As a group, they're no more interested in intelligence, cooperation, and human rights than Stalin was.
Who's the real spin doctor? (Score:3, Insightful)
The links you are pointing to are ones which use a slightly different algorithm that averaged polls over a multi-day period. When the site switched to using that algorithm, he got a lot of complaints from people, and so he switched back. This happened long before today, and if you look through the site history, Bush has been leading more than Kerry with the original algorithm. These choices of algorithms were made well in advance of today's result.
If you go back and look at the Oct. 29 versions of the site, you'll find Kerry [electoral-vote.com] losing using the original algorithm and Kerry [electoral-vote.com] winning with the averaging algorithm. The original algorithm was what was on the front page. So I guess a couple of days ago he was manipulating things for Bush then?
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just the fanatical Bush supporters, the ones who live in an entirely different reality [pipa.org] filled with entirely different "facts". They generally beleive that we did find WMD's in Iiiiqar, or that there was an active WMD program, that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack or otherwise supported Al Quaeda, who think we still have the vitally needed international support for hunting down terrorists across the globe.
And based on that view of reality, obviously the French are aiding the terrorists. They are all obviously currupted by the Oil for Food program. And most of all they simply want to see a weak America so they can puff-up their own relative importance and strength.
But as I said, that's the Bush supporters. The rest of us may have chucked at the "Freedom Fries" stuff, and laughed at the French-surrendering jokes, but we in no way hate the French or your President.
I'd say 20% of the problem is our administration intentionally deceiving the public, 20% of the problem is idiot people beleiving the administration's baloney, but the majority of the problem is that our media has rolled over for the Whitehouse. Immediately after 9/11 attack we all naturally came together in unity and support. After the attack any critisism of the country or of the president was simply UnAmerican and Not Done. While the effect has faded, it is not gone. The press has been reluctant to carry news that was critical of the US or of the President. When they do critique the administration and their statements and their 'evidence', the media tends to softpeddle that critique.
Half of the country is outraged at the lies the administration has foisted on us and on the world, and the other half still beleives those lies. It is human nature that people do not like to find out that they are wrong - that they have been fooled. Bush supporters are emotionally invested in not accepting evidence that they have been fooled, and that they have been supporting a war that most of them would have opposed had they known there were in fact no WMD's and no WMD programs.
The people on each side have a very different view of reality. This election is increadibly polarized. A one or two percent shift in voting will throw the electorial college vote massively one way or the other. There seems to be good reason to believe that that major shift will be in Kerry's direction. And hopfully after a Kerry election the public will become more accurately informed.
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Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive (Score:3, Insightful)
You know what you must do! YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY IS CLEAR!
Re:Worldwide results (Score:4, Insightful)
Foreign government security services didn't say much about it at all, as far as I know. But US government experts, including weapons inspectors, said that there was no way there were WMD there anymore, or even to create them.
Just look at the financial relations that exist between the US and everyone else.
Yes: a result of the dollar having become the international standard of exchange after WWII. The question is: will the US let the Euro take over that role?
If we were so anti-global we would create tarrifs on imports that duplicate the tarrifs our good face when exported to other countries. Almost every country in the world has much more severe barriers to foreign competition and foreign ownership or acquisition of companies than the US.
The US has low trade barriers in some areas (e.g., high tech) and high trade barriers others (e.g., agriculture). Those policies don't represent a general commitment to free trade, but the political influence of selected US constituencies. Some of those policies, like US (and EU) agricultural policies, can only be described as evil.
The US government sends more aid to other countries than any other country in the world. They probably (unsubstantiated) send more aid to other countries than the entire EU combined.
The US is one of the stingiest nations [globalissues.org] when it comes to foreign aid. And even those official figures are overestimates because what the US counts as "foreign aid" is often thinly disguised political or military aid, or tied to the purchase of US goods and services. So, in effect, that "foreign aid" is US corporate subsidies, which is not only bad foreign aid policy, but also in violation of fair trade principles.
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
And perhaps Bush did The Right Thing. Perhaps he knows the things which we as Americans can never know, and perhaps 9/11 part II will be avoided simply because he took Saddam out of power. But had Clinton taken out OBL and 9/11 had never occured, we would still not have supported him or his efforts. And taking out Hitler would have never had popular support since we would have never knew he was one of history's greatest monsters.
Look at how things work - reactionary is more popular than precautionary. In hindsight it would have been better to search those terrorists and taken away box cutters. But when we search an old lady and take away her fingernail file, it's cruel and unusal. We want our lives to be safe but not inconvenienced. We want terrorists taken out, but only when we know which ones.
But if Bush knows something we don't and can never tell us, then he did what he did (invade Iraq) full well knowing it may cost him the re-election. Lincoln did what he knew to be right even though he knew it would cost him half the country. Today's politicians won't do the right thing if it costs them a district. Perhaps Bush did the right thing and is perfectly ready to accept defeat.
Re:Brainwashed into a preprogrammed reaction (Score:2, Insightful)
what would stop you? What makes you think a "stagnant" economy would stop a good welfare state? What, Rush didn't go into any more depth on that? He just keep repeating a few key phrases? Huh, go figger.....
Actually, there is plenty of wealth to go around in any industrialized country, as long as you have a progressive taxation system, little corruption, a relatively transparent government and some creative destruction applied periodically to the government itself.
And as for the birth rate declining, just take more money from those who earn more, and depend less on sheer numbers of earners. Create new taxes on the wealthy. They have most of the wealth in any industrialized capitalistic country.
Also use economies of scale and increasing efficiency. Large governmentally administered social welfare programs are run quite efficiently. For example, the Social Security Administration is run FAR MORE efficiently than any private healthcare company. One percent of costs are administrative in SSA. HMOs require about 15% admin costs. Gee, I wonder if it has anything to do with executive bonuses and perks? What, Rush did not mention that aspect of it on his radio show?
Re:Worldwide results (Score:3, Insightful)
Way off topic, but did you vote for Le Pen, then?
Re:Worldwide results (Score:5, Insightful)
You are shortsighted and and dooming our efforts to defend ourselfs against terrorist attack if you think overwhelming world oppinion is irrelevant.
The world - our staunchest allies - they all beleive that the US has been lying and that *WE* have become the rouge nation. I'd say the evidence is that they are right, but even if they are wrong, the fact is that they do beleive it. The fact is that they no longer trust us. The fact is that they no longer support our efforts to track and catch or kill terrorists.
How the hell are we supposted to find and catch or kill terrorists across the globe - even in nations that have been our staunchest allies - when we no longer have their public support and police support and intelligence support and their military support?
Bush has been increadibly damaging to our international relations. Bush has destroyed our capacity to find and catch and kill terrorist cells outside the country and planning attacks on us.
We are talking about Australia, and England, and Mexico, and Canada. And yes, France and Germany as well.
Bush is famous for saying "you're with us or you're against us". Well he got his wish, now the entire world is against us. How the hell are we supposed to keep out terrorists when even Canada and Mexico are against us?
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Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's to say you're more right than they are?
Re:Brainwashed into a preprogrammed reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
If you look at the perception of Europe in Israel, say, you'll find that the Israeli's consider Europe to be Arabist. This is their term. It is born out of the was European members vote against Isreal in the UN.
What would be a more meaningful measure that American voters would be more inclined to listen to is the opinion of their Coalition partners who took part in this survey. Britain and Australia, say. You'll find similar results there, but from people who entirely back America as a nation. So the net result from the public from your Coalition Partners is :
"Love you guys and fight side by side, but Geez, could you pick a better figurehead?"
Of course this is my reading of the poll,not my opinion on the war or the worthiness of GW Bush.
I think everyone in the whole world stands to learn a lot by seeing how Americans dictate their own President and working in response. No point bitching and moaning. Americans are going to elect whomever they deem fit, and the sooner we can work with both outcomes, the better. That is my opinion.
I've read the constitution, thank you (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that was what I was saying! We don't get to vote for the president and I think that is why we need to change the constitution to allow us to do just that. The un-ammended constitution has many bad ideas that have been fixed by ammendments over the years. As written there, we couldn't even vote for US Senators, they were appointed by the state legistlators. That was a bad idea that was fixed by an ammendment. The constitution is a wonderful document but it's far from flawless. Don't forget that the Bill of Rights was added almost immediately after the constitution was ratified due the fact that the constition did nothing to protect individual rights. If the founding fathers thought that the constitution was to be written in stone, they would not have ammended it themselves within a year.
Note that I'm not for ammending it for any new popular idea; the difficult ratification system that they put in does a good job of keeping most dumb ideas (I know prohibition was pretty darn dumb) but I think that this is one thing that needs to change. Whatever you think about the activities in Florida in 2000, it's just wrong that one candidate can win the popular vote but lose the electoral. And don't think that I'm just saying this because I support the Democrats; Bill Clinton did not get the majority of votes in either 1992 or 1996. It's a posibility that most voters did not want Bill in there but he won anyway. No matter who wins on Tuesday, I the system is broken and needs to be fixed.
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
And we'll kill/imprison/make unhappy anyone who disagrees with us! 100,000 dead and counting...
If you force your people to pray to one god and the women to wear masks around all over the place, you are wrong. Period.
That is probably more likely to happen in Iraq now than before. I would guess christians in iraq are more nervous now. I don't know whether even a good plan would have improved the fundamentals of that though. Germans voted for Hitler. Many Americans voted for Bush. A significant number of europeans would vote for parties that would reduce democracy. Iranians voted for the revolutionaries IIRC. Iraqis could do the same.
Re:I disagree (Score:5, Insightful)
Required by what? To have a military that is as bloated and useless as the US military?
Most of your nations
You're making unwarranted assumptions.
still operate under a US-provided nuclear umbrella.
I gather most Europeans would prefer not to, if they ever did.
"Asserting leadership" is impossible without military might.
What is the US going to do with its military might? Bomb Europe? Bomb China? The instant that happened, the US economy would be in complete ruins and the US would be an international outcast. Those hundreds of billions of dollars spent on Iraq and Afghanistan haven't even been able to bring those nations under control. Military might is an outdated concept: what little the US has, it can't seriously exercise.
I don't consider Europe a threat, and neither does this administration
This whole notion of "threat" is so cold war. If you want to talk about "threats", Europe is an economic threat to the US, along with China and India. And if the US wants to counter that "threat", it can only do by becoming more open, more tolerant, and more competitive, not through more military power and intervention.
Re:Worldwide results (Score:4, Insightful)
Speaking as a Canadian .... very well said. TO be clear though, we do have a lot of respect and are protective of our friends in the US, as they generally are of us.
We whole heartedly support the fight against terrorism
We just get upset when our VERY large friend to the south doesn't think strategically, becomes unreasonably impatient, works outside their network of friends, alienates most of them, and then opens up an unnecessary second front to fight an unnecessary (Iraq was well contained) war, instead of the War Against Terrorism.
In short, Bush has made the US has looked like a lurching, violent, idiot on the world stage
Re:Thank you (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Brainwashed into a preprogrammed reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair US is the only ally Israel has. They regard everybody else as being arabists, not just europe but russia, africa and the far east too.
The only two countries that see the palestenian occupation as just and moral are Israel and the US. Everybody else sees it as immoral and unjust.
Re:Serious questions (Score:3, Insightful)
But Germany under Hitler was clearly arming for war. Iraq under Saddam was clearly not.
So perhaps a better question would be: suppose Hitler had not invaded the Sudentenland, or Poland , and England and her allied colonies (not America, who did not enter the war until over two years later even after those invasions took place) had invaded Germany on the pretext that we thought they might someday re-arm and invade Czechoslovakia, Austria, and quite a few other places?
Suppose Chamberlain had lied, and claimed Germany was building new weapons in secret laboratories, and had used that as a pretext for an invasion?
Would you think that that was wrong? Perhaps even evil? I would.
--Tom
Re:Where can I find the underlying poll data onlin (Score:3, Insightful)
They poll based on the previous election's turnout. That is, they start from the assumption that Republican/Democrat turnout (as percentages) in 2004 will be identical to 2000. Since registered Republicans apparently had a higher turnout than registered Democrats in 2000 (40% to 33%), they include proportionately higher numbers of Republicans in their polling sample. That's how they determine their mix of "likely voters". Here's an (admittedly partisan) article on it: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/002806.htm
As for what polls electoral-vote.com uses, he always uses polls with the most recent median date.
BIg Media is NOT Liberal on Important Issues (Score:3, Insightful)
What's fascinating is the sheer control of the media by people who lean to the left, or even further to the left. The biggest spreaders of FUD are you ABC's, CBS's, NBC's, and CNN's. All of them are liberal outlets. The closest one to the right is Fox News, which is still a liberal station.
NONE of those media giants are liberal. And unlike you, I will present actual reasoning, evidence etc to backup my claim. Here goes:
Big Media is liberal on minor, token issues: affirmative action, abortion, gay rights. These are the offically approved liberal issues. But when it comes to the really important issues, the economic issues, Big Media is solidly conservative. For example, recently, we have had a lot of discussion on network and cable tv political news shows about the "Problem with Social Security." And there has been some discussion of "solutions" to this problem. Of all the many times possible solutions have been mentioned on tv news shows, there are only two possible solutions ever listed: raise the age of retirement, and reduce benefits. Gee, what about all the other possible solutions? What about raising the ceiling on the payroll tax? Currently, the payroll tax stops at about $87K, and income above that is not taxed at all for SS purposes. ALso, why not just create a special tax on high incomes and use that to fund SS? For example add a 1% tax on all earned and unearned income above $250K. That would take care of all SS problems, just like that!
But you never hear anything about that on tv because that is a LEFTist solution, and leftists are hardly ever seen on tv. All centrists and rightwingers. Go look at all the broadcast networks and look at each political news show. List all the neutral regular guests and all the rightwing and leftwing regular guests and hosts. Can't think of many leftists, can you? Well, maybe you never paid much attention to that kind of stuff? Maybe you just repeat what you hear on Rush Limbaugh, or what you read in the wall st journal?
Well, there is really only ONE true leftist regularly given a voice on broadcast TV: Bill Moyers, and he is being driven out this year. You might make a case for Eleanor Clift and Lawrence O'Donell on McLaughlin and and Juan Williams on Fox News Sunday, althoug they are really more classic democrats, which is not the same as true liberal/progressive leftist. Also, that lady who is on the PBS show run by the Wall St Journal editorial board.
Now, do you want to run down all the rightwingers on broadcast tv? And then we can get started on cable tv. And that is far worse.
You see, you really don't know much about the situation at all, do you? You just repeat talking points drilled into you by talk radio, WSJ, and other mainstream media outlets.
Anyone think of any other lefists regularly on broadcast TV?
Re:If anything, that crap is counterproductive (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, that really says more about US journalists than European politics. They do just as poor a job covering US elections, too, since all they seem to be able to do is repeat each party's talking points and discuss the latest poll results.
I still don't think your point is really valid, though. Regardless of what country you are talking about, I think any voter would either regard the opnion of some other country as either irrelevant, or as added justification for their own chosen cadidate.
Is the US really helping Israel anyway? (Score:3, Insightful)
The only two countries that see the palestenian occupation as just and moral are Israel and the US. Everybody else sees it as immoral and unjust.
I am not even sure that the Bush administrations (either this one or the previous one) saw it as moral or just. Indeed *both* W and his father went as far as withholding foreign aid from Israel and if you look closely at the politics with regard to the foreign aid that was delivered, it is far more slanted against Israel than others might thing (more emphasis on loan guarantees and less on grants, etc).
The problem is that Americans as a whole are far more pro-Israel than they should be, and this ties the administration's hands. Now, it should also be noted that Clinton was far more pro-Israel than either Bush.
But there are funny things here-- this support creates a situation where problems which need to be peacefully resolved don't get resolved. And it means that other countries (Lebannon, f. ex.) will exploit US foreign policy to, say, push the line regarding water rights, etc. So this support doesn't really do Israel any good in the long run.
Israel has peace treaties with two of its neighbors (Jordan and Egypt). Its occupation of the Golan continues to make such treaties impossible with Syria and Lebannon. Netenyahu understood this which was why he had secret meetings with the Assad to discuss this situation. Such meetings eventually went nowhere, primarily because of the way in which Clinton and Barak handled this.
---Hope---
There are a couple of things to be hopeful here. THe first is that the Israeli High Court of Justice has been relatively progressive on addressing issues of the legal rights of Israel's Arab citizens (about 20% of their population) and has even come close to endorsing the ICC. It is likely that practices such as inhuman conditions in prisons and torture will be stopped as the High Court of Justice continues to hear these cases. The only thing missing for the Israeli population to really have liberty is some abolishment of administrative detention and some right similar to that granted by a Habeas petition here in the US. There is a growing movement to ensure that these rights become recognized as a part of law.
Also, despite a lot oft he resistance to it, I think that Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan has the potential to be the first step towards the renewal of a peace process. Sure, Sharon wants to use this to fortify his position with the West Bank settlements, but even this simplifies the solution and makes things easier to eventually resolve. I am not saying Sharon could do it or even that he wants to (Sharon probably lacks credibility as a negotiating partner with both the Israelis and the Palestinians, so negotiating with him would be like negotiating with someone randomly selected from the street corner).
Israel will only have security when the issues of Gaza, Golan, and the West Bank are settled, when rule of law rather than force of arms prevails in the Palestinian lands, and when peace treaties are signed and recognized with all of Israel's neighbors. These will not happen overnight. But it will happen probably within my lifetime. Whether Israel is at that time a Jewish or a secular state will be their choosing. But it will lose some of its association with a single religion because either its Arab citizens (who have larger families and less education) will continue to have more children, or they will be given a fair education and set of economic opportunities and be better integrated into Israeli society.
Israel being against all Arabs is sort of like the US being against all people of African decent. Oh wait....
Not that I expect it to continue indefinitely.
Re:I've read the constitution, thank you (Score:2, Insightful)
The Electoral College is not broken. The process that states use to pick their electors is broken. A lot more would get accomplished if people would realize:
1. Your STATE gets to vote for president.
2. Your STATE gets 2 votes plus a number determined by the population of your state. This number is the sum of your 2 senators plus the number of representatives.
3. The laws of YOUR STATE dictate how those votes are cast.
4. If you don't like the "winner-take-all" allocation of electoral votes, campaign to make YOUR STATE change the law. For example, my state, Nebraska, allocates one per each congressional district, with the 2 senate-seat votes going to the popular winner for the whole state.
Imagine how the last presidential election would have turned out if Florida allocated its electoral votes by congressional district. Imagine an election where California, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Florida and New York all did that?
The Electoral College isn't broken, the states are.
Re:The million-dollar question (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think cost is a factor. If it was they would have stopped by now.
RE Arab population and Israel as a Democracy.
Isreal needs to make up it's mind. Is it a jewish state or is it a democracy. You can no more have a jewish democracy then you can have a christian democracy, a white democracy or a muslim democracy. You either have full sufferage or you don't have democracy. Israel is not a democracy, it's the fullfillment of zion. I frequently describe it as a theo-democracy. It a theocracy that is governed by pseudo democratic process.
RE Borders:.
THere are UN resolutions that draw the Israeli border.
RE Fence:.
I agree with you to an extent. I agree that whoever is left on the israeli side of the fence gets to become a full fledged israeli citizen. The only thing you have to be careful of is that the fence is not constructed so as to take all of the available water, arable land, etc.
RE Geneva convention:
It's toothless. For all practical purposes israel is the most powerful nation on the planet. If anybody attacks israel the US will turn them into a parking lot. If the UN attempts to pass a resolution to force israel to do something the US will veto it. If Israel bombs another country and the country attempts to retaliate the US will destroy that country.
Israel is not bound by any laws of man or god. It can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants to whoever it wants. They could carpet bomb syria tommorow and kill everybody in there and nobody can do anything about it.
The only thing that is holding back israel from massive ethnic cleansing in the occupied terratories is their own internal morality. Right now the people calling for genocide are a minority. Who knows what will happen in the future. I suspect if the soul of the israeli nation continues in it's current path that minority will become a majority and a final solution will be proposed in the knesset by the likes of netanyahu and sharon.