(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
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[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Monday, July 26, 2004
I just wanted to add a few things to the last post. Right now, Kerry is winning. If the election were held today, and I'm assuming daft Aussies know very little about electoral counts or trend lines, but there's this Time Poll.
NEW YORK, July 25. — Democratic challenger Mr John Kerry would have an advantage over incumbent Republican President Bush if the presidential elections were to be held today, a new poll showed. The poll just released by Time magazine shows that 48 per cent of the voters surveyed would vote for Mr Kerry compared with 44 per cent for Mr Bush. But the President’s job approval remained at 50 per cent.
And then there's the Rasmussen Poll, which I think leans Republican, which has shown Kerry with a one to four point advantage. Rasmussen also does state polls and shows Kerry with a lead in Pennsylvania of 5 points. I saw another poll of my homestate that showed him with an 8 point lead. Rasmussen also has Kerry with a five point lead in Florida. Gallop also has Kerry leading in Ohio. It's not over yet. We have a long way to go. But I like Kerry's prospects.
Now, in the comments section, it was mentioned that the Republicans have their usual lot of crazed fundie church support and evil Big Corp backers. Yeah, they had that and they still lost in 2000. If not for the infamous purge of black voters in Florida (which they're still trying to do), Gore wins. What's different has to be the door to door groups. We're in every single swing state. It's probably worth a point or two. Now, while I'm dying to take apart this latest Den Beste missive, where he touches upon my two pet peeves with his work (disdain for an alt fuel future and his support for the Iraqi War), I'm going to let that wait, get some sleep and go register voters tomorrow. Blogging can wait. I'm sure I'll have more free time and a better paying job under a Kerry administration anyway...
One final note, as someone who talks to voters everyday, Bush is not a popular guy. Even people who support him say stuff "Well, Kerry is just as bad...they're all crooks". Not exactly a ringing endorsement. I did meet one articulate Bush spokesperson. She just happened to work for the oil industry and she even had some nice Instapundit style factoids about how cool Halliburton is and don't you pay no mind to them no bid contracts and that man behind the curtain...I think I ended our little debate by saying "I wouldn't follow Bush across the street, let alone to Iraq."
Gotta go. Got real work to do. And you right wing bloggers, or as I refer to you, the worst intellectuals of our time, don't dream of knocking on doors or putting in 10 hour shifts registering voters. It's beneath you. Blog away Instapundits, Pejmans, Den Bestes and others. Punditry from crazed ideologues really helps Bush...I'm sure of that.
I haven't posted here in a while because, like other commentators I suspect, I have more important things to do than critique the obvious failings of the worst intellectuals of our time. And I don't miss the clueless often nameless Aussie commentators ("'ealth care is free in Amurica by crikey...you scum!") who defend them. In fact, after the Dean debacle, I decided to get away from the keyboard and do something hard and difficult for political change in America.
I've joined the Vast Left Conspiracy, which consists of the NAACP/ACORN/ACT/MOVE On and a dozen other groups and I register voters door to door and on busy streets when I get a spare moment. I do it six days a week. I left my job selling Dell computers to do this. And if you're wondering about what's wrong with the American economy, I make more money working for the non profit. I actually wrote about this in my newest column for Better Humans. Excerpted here:
Today, I'm back at it in Pittsburgh, knocking on doors and asking people if they're registered to vote. You might ask yourself what this has to do with the transhumanist dream, where we live out our lives in fusion-driven Betterhumans space habitats, whiling away our several century lifespan seeking to understand every allusion and reference in the works of Joyce or Alan Moore, or actively partaking in the terraforming of Venus or Titan, or even studying up on that hot new personal genomic cosmetic item, the black rhino horn, grown wherever you like, with accessories.
The answer is that unless transhumanists think seriously about politics and self-promotion, this vision will always remain an interesting dream and not a reality. In fact, not only will you have to work for such a future—a future with real self-determination, no wage slavery and more than a vote every two or four years when all the real issues have already been settled—you will have to fight for it. And most likely, your opposition will be violently stupid people who refuse to give up what Carl Sagan described as the "demon-haunted world" and the obligatory yet soothing bliss stations—an eternity with Jesus and departed loved ones or Allah's 40 virgins—that go along with it. I might note that this is the most evil administration that I've ever lived under.Or as Bob Harris so eruditely put it over at Tom Tomorrow: "Yes, I do believe that Team Chimpy is likely to exploit any possibility of postponing our elections in one way or another. My opinion only, but it seems delusional to imagine they wouldn't, given the laundry list of the unimaginable we already know they're perfectly happy to do: muscle into power, steal multiple entire Congressional districts by redistricting, expose our own intelligence people for political gain, start an entire war based on obvious lies, endanger our safety by subordinating the fight against Al-Qaeda, treat our own wounded troops as pariahs, claim the right to imprison indefinitely at the president's whim, rationalize torture, try to time the arrest of Bin Laden to sabotage the Democrats, and build their entire freakin' convention around the shameless exploitation of a mass murder. I can't think of a single damned thing that these people won't try to spin and twist and distort into a political advantage. Right this very minute, it's an uphill fight to make sure the voting machines themselves aren't simply hijacked. And you know perfectly well which side Chimpy is on.
If you truly imagine there's a line they won't cross if they can, you're not paying attention. This is not about democracy for them. It never has been. As Molly Ivins put it so well: They wish not to govern, but to rule.
These are guys who not only stole the election once, but would ineptly try again, get busted, and then act as if nothing is wrong. Even "reasonable" liberal commentators are outraged. It's about the war, but it's also beyond that, a clear strong choice between pure evil and shades of patrician gray. I'll take the gray.
