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That also troubles me, and strikes me as a "back-door draft", as they are calling it. These poor folks did not sign up for 18 months in Baghdad; they wanted to put in their one weekend a month, be prepared to be called into some domestic disturbance if required, supplement their family's income, and perhaps get some assistance with their education. I
recently read something interesting that is pertinent to this issue. The first
President Bush, George H.W. Bush, wrote a book which was published in
1998 called A World Transformed in which he addressed his
decision not to go forward with the offensive in the Gulf War of the early
1990s. His reasoning was very telling, in my view. Here is the specific excerpt
from the book:
"Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of
Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in
midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable
human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been
unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been
forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would
instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies
pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable "exit
strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had
been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the
post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding
the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international
response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion
route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a
bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps
barren — outcome."
These aren't the ramblings of some left-wing liberal...they are from the President's father. I
think that he was absolutely right. When John F. Kerry was choked for his words as his eyes filled with tears I busted out balling myself. Not only for the rightful guy for the job but the future of our country. I've
worked with many Canadians who put Americans down and I would battle them to the
end. For the first time I agree. More ignorant, redneck folks make up this
country than smart people. The World needs The United States to have an extremely intelligent leader. But here we are facing another 4 years of incompetence. If you ask the common Bush voter why he voted for Bush, he'll say we needed to go to war with them terrorists who bomb the trade centers and without Bush we would be facing another World WarŠbla, bla, bla. They don't even realize that the Saudi's bin Laden is not from Iraq, nor that we are killing harmless women and children in an Oil War justified by a self made hero president. I
could rant all night but needed to cry out to someone on my page. We had the base fired up and we were unified. We won the debates. We had the advertising dollars. We were running against the worst administration in US History who continually gave us ammo to use against them.
We should have had it in the bag. What we did not and do not have is a mainstream media voice. How can you fight a party that owns the AM airwaves? Kerry would say something like the "global test" remark. I knew what he meant, you know what he meant, but within minutes the RNC would fire off its spin and talking points to Rush, Hannity, Snow and the rest and within hours the spin was now "fact" to millions. Yes, some of those listeners were already going to vote for GW but some were not. On Election Day Hannity was melting down on the air, begging people to GO to vote because it looked bad. Those people then phoned friends and so on and so on. Savage said Kerry had won it at 5 pm on Tuesday. Those lines of folks who were waiting in Ohio long after dark were not just die hard Democrats - they were the ones that had been given the marching orders from the RNC am radio brigade. Negative ads (no matter how much truth there is to them) produced by the Democrats and popping up a few months before the election are useless against the AM spin machine. A powerful pro Kerry ad was 30 seconds top...they had 16 hours of airtime everyday to tear it to shreds. We have some awesome progressive AM radio talent - Bernie Ward for one, who not only share our views BUT can articulate and debate them in a manner that makes sense to the middle of the road guy. When
do I listen to Bernie Ward? 10-pm to 1 am when most of America is sleeping. I am sure all of us could add a name of someone we listen to who is awesome but only gets 5% of the numbers Limbaugh and Hannity get. So what do we do? We need the people who spent the millions last time to start to infiltrate AM radio across the nation. Not with ad time but with personalities. If we could buy slots, or radio stations outright, we could level the playing field, but it has to start soon! If we do not have our own voice on the airwaves and reaching large numbers within 12 months its over. Bush
is sitting on his own demise right now. He has to deal with everything he
created in term #1 and we need voices to hammer it home to the public as he
fails. The right wing AM crew will be justifying and spinning Bush's moves at
every step and we need voices to counter it. It's very simple - you have to fight fire with fire. If you think about it we already know that there are 50 million of us who share the same ideals. There should be a way to capitalize upon this fact as a "sell point" to an investor. That's a HUGE number of audience share to sell to advertising sponsors. I do not have the finances or the contacts with anyone who could get the ball rolling, but it all needs to start at a grass roots level. The pity party is over folks - time to get back to work. November 2nd 2008 starts now. |
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