At a local film event, a birthday party for Harry Knowles (http://aintitcool.com/), I wore a "Dean -- Democrat for President" tee shirt for the twenty-four hours we were there.  At such events it is generally considered in poor taste to be partisan, and ordinarily it would have been no problem for me to leave it all at the door, but this time it is different.  If Bush is not re-defeated, he will at least know he has been in a fight; and you can contemplate five more years of the illegitimate Bush regime as easily as I can.

 

It is interesting that one of the unintended consequences of our system of govt was the development of two parties.  And I am hoping that our party can act as a check and a balance at a time when the three branches seem to have broken down somehow.  It has happened before in our history -- it was while studying American history in the eleventh grade that I came to realize that the two-party system was vital to the continuation of American democracy.  

 

Except for the Bill of Rights, our Constitution (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html) is very similar to that of the USSR (http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/docs/ussr64.htm), but what neither stated was how many political parties there would be.  They had one, we have two. 

 

The branches can function as checks and balances as intended, but when they don't, the other party can take over (as they did in the Gingrich revulsion).  At least that's how it has worked sometimes in the past.  But also in the past, things have gotten a whole lot worse before they got better, so I am hoping we will not see another Herbert Hoover experience. 

 

Incidentally, I saw on C-SPAN 3 a historian (Richard Norton Smith (http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/PrintPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=1&RecNum=2297) talking abt his latest book, The Triumph of Herbert Hoover, and realized that the revisionists are out in full force. 

 

The NY Times had an anti-Dean editorial on its Op Ed page on December 9 (the day of Gore's endorsement, which had been leaked the afternoon before) by David Brooks, Senior Editor at The Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/default.asp):  THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER -- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/09/opinion/09BROO.html -- "At each moment, he [Dean] appears outspoken, blunt and honest.  But over time he is incoherent and contradictory."  It is my firm belief that the article was written a long time ago and was not meant to be printed until later, but their hand was been forced by Gore's endorsement.  By "they," I mean Bush supporters in influential places.

 

HEALTH MINISTRY ORDERED HALT TO COUNTING OF CIVILIAN DEAD FROM WAR

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1994&dept_id=339133&newsid=10645370&PAG=461&rfi=9

A war without casualties... as Yakov Smirnof (http://www.yakov.com/default.html) would say, "What a country!" only it's not really very funny, is it?  It reminds me of the Bush education program = show improvement by not counting the failures.  It's "no child left behind" except those who don't belong to the right country club; no one killed in a war unless they happen to be where our guns and bombs are, guns and bombs which should be nowhere near anyone ever.

 

Courtesy of my friends at http://www.txdemocrats.org/

PERRY, GRAMM PUSH 'DEAD PEASANT' POLICIES ON RETIRED TEACHERS

Governor Rick "unlawfully-parking-in-a-handicapped-space" Perry is considering a proposal by former Republican Senator Phil Gramm to have the state purchase life insurance policies on thousands of retired teachers while using the death benefits to fund a state agency. Gramm stands to gain financially by the scam because he is now affiliated with UBS Investment Bank (http://www.ibb.ubs.com/), which would likely profit from the sale of bonds used to finance the annuities and the premiums on the life insurance policies. During the regular legislative session, Republicans cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the Teachers Retirement System (http://www.trs.state.tx.us/) and increased health insurance premiums for retired teachers by 30 percent.

 

For those of you who missed it, Robert F Kennedy Jr's article, CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, in Rolling Stone magazine:

http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2154

"George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president."  Robert F Kennedy Jr is a member of the International Program staff of the National Resources Defense Council (http://nrdc.org/default.asp).