letter to kerry

Dear Senator Kerry,

I began tonight looking at Ted Sampley's website 'Vietnam Veterans for Truth'. It is irrelevant to me if he is lying or not. I began reading the online forum on the site to try and determine why in fact Vietnam Veterans are questioning your honor.

Although there is some talk that your entering Vietnam was politically motivated and that you only enlisted because you could not avoid it. This is however not the issue that is predominant among these veterans, it is your activity during the post war time.

I sincerely believe in your bid for the presidency, despite inconsistencies in your senate voting record (not just on war), as I believe bills are not what they seem at face value. As for your war protests following the war, (I read your book 'the new soldier', I actually found it quite touching) this is something I believe if you are to win the presidency later this year, you MUST address. As I read through the forum, I found many sincere and heartfelt messages that they believed that you, a brother in arms, had in your post war protest and allegations, betrayed them. You noted war atrocities by our American soldiers, many which are quite sick, but which I am not surprised they happened given that they, in a foreign environment, fighting an unknown and politicized as evil force, were in the end only men.

I believe you have to reach out to these veterans and apologize. Not because you are wrong but because they misinterpreted your actions. I believe that you were protesting a government that put our soldiers in a situation that we would inevitably lose, not the majority of soldiers themselves. But by calling out to the Vietnam soldiers, in their camaraderie, your accusation of a few, have mutated into an accusation of the masses. They believe that you are a traitor and a communist (not that that even means anything since it is unrealistic to believe that world success is contingent upon worldwide democracy). You accused soldiers of atrocities, a claim in its truth that served to vilify all soldiers who returned home in the eyes of some. I have seen this kind of vilification. I have friends in the marines and in the navy, as my hometown of Jacksonville is a naval base, who upon returning from duty are called out to be war mongers and murderers although they were simply performing the tasks that they were ordered to do. By this kind of reception home, these men and women were hurt. I believe if you are to win them over and the non-veterans that sympathize with them; you must relive those years and apologize. Not because you were wrong, but to help them understand what you were hoping to achieve. (You must also explain somehow that you voted down an $87billion Iraq appropriations bill, not because you wanted to show Dean supporters that you were not a war monger, not because you are a flip flopper, but because it was not coming from an economically viable source nor would it have been effectively distributed. People on the whole are not willing to look for this explanation; you must tell them or allow the Republican propaganda machine to tell them. It can and it will).

I hope that you take my suggestion to heart; I do not want to see my friends in the military sent to Iraq, Iran, Sudan, etc. if there is no justifiable cause. I used to think that President Bush was an intelligent man, but one that was simply misguided in his interpretation of running the country the only way he knows how, as an M.B.A student. I think it has become clear over the past few years that not only is this true, but he is also not fit to be president because he does not know the issues and he relies on his cabinet to tell him everything. I believe this puts him in a position of having no domestic goals and locked into an imperialistic – post cold war mind set. This is unacceptable for the next four years. Please take action, Americans will not seek to discover the truth, most do not read the newspaper, do not watch the television, read the internet… Senator Kerry, you must let them know the truth and heal old wounds with veterans who (fairly and unfairly) fault you for ruining their lives. You have my vote in Florida. [the 2000 election will not repeat itself].

Very best wishes (and good luck),

<>
Stephen Wang

Columbia University ‘06

Sfw2003@columbia.edu

there's an olympics in my bush.

greek writers were fond of using hubris as the tragic flaw of their heroes. those who stood the tallest, gleamed the brightest, always seemed to ultimately meet their end by the price of their arrogance. it is almost fitting that in the olympics' return to athens that pride is still an issue.

a few days before the olympics, coordinators stated that they were finishing their first security check. President Konstandinos Stefanopoulos said that he was enraged that the united states and nato were pushing for such security concerns that would inevitably push security costs and anti-terrorism efforts during the games to over $1 million. enraged, security would put a bad taste for the olympic games that would be destroying the true original spirit of the olympics. maybe it is an attitude of the greeks, an idealization of the world that there are no potential security threats. i would love for the olympics to be as such, an international contest of talent, of heart, of resilience that causes the world to come to a halt, for people to watch from their televisions and from the stands and for once let no other thoughts enter their minds except for pure competition. this is reality though, a reality where in probably most other olympic candidate countries they would have been on their 5th security check at that same point in time. this is not a reality where people respect competition and don't boo teams as they step onto a court. not the reality where players are so thrilled to be competing on the international spotlight for their country that they did not pass on the invitation to protect their multimillion dollar salaries and endorsements or to avoid potentially being blown up. the world didn't stop this year for the olympics, it spun on and bob costas put it all in a nice tidy package.

for the best all around swimmer in the world, michael phelps, in a sport that pits one athlete against the one next to them, it turned into a medal hunt. he was surrounded by the media propping him up to be the one to topple spitz's 7 gold medal performance and the $1 million bonus for 8 golds from speedo. records exist to be broken no? they no longer seem to exist to display the pinnacle of athletic achievement. for phelps he said he would be happy to get the chance to win just one gold medal, he realized few people in the world get this opportunity. instead of celebrating the greatest swimmer the united states has seen in years, questions posed to him such as "are you dissapointed to no longer be on track for 8 gold medals?"get misconstrued to be pompous answers. of course he's dissapointed, he didn't win. everything else was fabricated by the ever present camera hoping to catch a glimmer of humanity. he knows he is one of the best, he pushed himself against thorpe in an event that he knew he was unlikely to win, he gave crocker a shot at his own gold.

the athens games got a few other shots to put other athletes into the mold of hubris. first there was svetlana khorkina who after winning silver, said that she was still the world champion. "i'm just furius, I knew well in advance, even before I stepped on the stage for my first event, that I was going to lose." That, is a winning attitude. she said she has faced much more formidable opponents, she also seems to forget that she still lost to patterson.

and only a few days ago there was pual hamm. can you imagine being awarded the gold medal, lights flasing, your mother sobbing, girls around the country wanting to bear your children. a day later, you find out there was a judging mistake and you really got silver. the gold medal is for the best. paul was not the best, he was second best. how do you keep a medal you know you did not truly win, that you were not the best the world had to offer. that's a good question, ask paul hamm as he clutches his gold and acts like he's smeegle. your precious indeed. spirit of the olympic games, indeed.
-------------------------------------
all week senator kerry has been pushing george w. bush to specifically denounce the swift boat veterans for truth's ad running negative campaigns about his service in vietnam. bush replied that he has not and will never question kerry's service to his country. he also won't denounce the ads against kerry.

today bush came up with perhaps his most brilliant move of the presidency. he said is asking for all not endorsed by the candidate ads to be removed, that would include swiftboat ads and moveon.org ads. he says "i think they are bad for the system".

news headlines on the internet say, "bush calls for halt to swift boat veterans' ads". except once again, like war justification, it is hindsight. the ads have already done their damage. he is playing a child like, i'll do this if you do this. in one move, he could have let the damaging ads take their toll and during a time when the authenticity of the claims and the cheney/rove connection with the group (which would be illegal) is kind of being examined by the press, he can put and end to that and all of the moveon.org ads that continue to throw the same shit he throws at kerry back at him. i hope kerry keeps pushing, because this 'truce' is bullshit.

“That means that ad, every other ad,” he said. “I can’t be more plain about it. And I wish — I hope my opponent joins me in saying — condemning these activities of the 527s. It’s — I think they’re bad for the system. That’s why I signed the bill, McCain-Feingold.” - george w. bush.

that's funny, bush did the same thing to mccain when they were running for the republican ticket and now there is a campaign finance reform bill with mccain's name all over it. don't let bush take the moral highground, kerry better show he's got some back bone and pee all over this shit.

on elementary school and politics

i remember back when i was in third grade, back when one teacher taught every subject you needed to know in school. i think it was '92 and it was yet again election year. it was bill clinton faced off against george bush. what did i know about politics that year? nothing really, i was still collecting baseball cards, happily writing semi coherent creative writing stories, and trying to do multiplication on my fingers and in my head. the only thing that stands out about anything during that year was it was gulf war time and for some reason we had gotten war trading cards... i felt cool, i had some kind of tank and a bad ass card with a mounty on a horse.

we were going to do a mock election just like the big boys. clinton. bush. perot. what's a 9 year old to choose, i didn't know issues, all i knew was we were fighting a war and i think we were winning, being a navy town, we had a lot of pro-bush enthusiasm that was to be expected now that i look back on it retrospectively. we were the good guys, they were the bad guys, we had m-16's and were shooting all the bad guys and were winning, i probably played out kuwait action on my carpet with my gi-joes sometime along the way. my then friend sam asked me, "who are you voting for, i'm voting for bush, my mom says he's keeping us safe". what did i know, i said i was too and that i was republican. what did i know. issues? my biggest issues were making sure my homework was right, that i had a good tasting sandwich in my transformers lunchbox, and that i gave my parents a hug before i left for school. voting on issues was not something that i was prepared for, and really... i wasn't going to prepare for it and regardless of my faux vote, the sky would be blue tommorow.

sadly, i think that's how the majority of voting americans vote, not THAT mindlessly, but similarly in a biased uninformed way. that's why mass media campaigning works. i think it was in one of the more recent journals or news articles on cucomm about the swiftboat ads directed at john kerry, where ...it was probably kalonji who said, the republicans are going to throw all sorts of bullshit right at kerry and depending on if and how kerry responds gives the american public a conception of his character. are they going to vote for someone that even has a spine? someone that can take a punch to the face and then get right back up and throw on right back? these are the kinds of things that i think sway the vote, not the issues so much, but the american public's perception of their future president of the united states' character.

you may say kerry's vietnam record does not matter. bush' air national guard record does not matter. kerry's purple hearts does not matter. bush's absence during duty does not matter. but realistically i think they do. look at the statistics of random polling at key points in time. after the conventions, when people get a good look at the man/woman running for the head office in our country, to hear them speak, to look them in the eyes from the vantage point of behind a camera, do they think he can be president? from those first impressions, do they trust him to take their lives into his hands? it's the stupid things that seem to matter most.

there are so many haters in america during election time. you hear all sorts of things. that john kerry is funding terrorism. that george bush is going to bring upon the apocolypse. john kerry is unfit to be president because he comes from a family of riches and privelege. it's all in how you present yourself i guess, nobody thinks bush went to yale or has a bajillion dollars in his bank account well because... he lives on a ranch and rides horses. they hate on kerry because he is married to heinz ketchup. but nobody cares about that. what happened to the war in iraq? it seems to have faded into oblivion, things are a-ok. iraq's soccer team is winning right? bush saved the day and has paved the way for 2 countries to make their way to the olympics... sans the fact that iraqis were secretly airlifted out of the country to athens.

what happened to going to war for oil? i'm no economist but i thought gas prices would be a lot lower. instead they keep approaching $50 a barrel. what happened to going after bin laden? all the headlines say we are tracking his #3. mccain said that the swiftboat ads are awful. bush didn't say anything. now bob dole and his my happy pants viagra self is saying kerry should apologize for having been involved in the anti-war effort accusing soldiers of awful travesties. why isn't the media investigating anything? people just want the news of what the latest dirt being thrown from one of the bunkers is and they want their news to be a reflection of that. just report it, whoever throws more and counters more wins.

i find it absolutely amazing that clinton was investigated in the blink of an eye for white water, his first affair when running for president, his monica lewinsky thing, etc. a blink of an eye. people were questioning his character from 1993 to 2000. and they still do.

as far as i know the majority of the american public doesn't give a shit about cheney's involvement with haliburton + iraq. nobody cares about bush's actions with the iraq plan. they care that bush is going to put on a happy face and tell them everything is going to be alright. america is depressed, anyone who says there is a light at the end of the tunnel is going to cut it. there's a little more to it that will swat a vote i think, i've talked about it in past journals and that's niche issues. the formula is, put on a happy trusting face and hope the voters agree with you on niche social issues or economic ones. we know we predominantly votes anyways. your mom.

national review sucks

the original journal was just going to say, "Rich Lowry is an asshole" and that was it. but apparently i kept on writing...
-------this wasn't a well written journal, it's long, not cohesive and i apologize. i didn't even want to write it, but not doing so just made me sick. the political situation is just in the shit hole.-------
i was trying to stay away from watching and writing about politics for a while (i don't know when the hell i started getting interested at all to tell you the first place... the things an election year fires you up to do) BUT.

i was having a pretty good night of watching the jaguars play their first preseason game when i started flipping channels. somehow i landed on C-Span, that was a bad idea. Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review was speaking to the "young america's foundation". you know the drill, Rich stands at the podium and University students from across the U.S. throw questions at him. now i firmly believe that regardless of if you are liberal or conservative you should at the very least be civil and do some research if you intend to blast the opposition, but watching the 20 minutes of this Q&A session made me cringe. this was also the first time that i ever heard conservatives use a mentality of "anyone but kerry". i realize that if you are trying to get across an agenda there will be a fair amount of spin involved, but you are talking to your constituents for god's sake, you don't need to make every argument one sided and every freaking question was like the kids were trying to pat themselves on the back and get Rick Lowry to pat them on the head for how smart and what good conservatives they were.

The first thing that i heard was a girl pose the question about why the liberal slanted media keeps pushing for embryonic stem cells as opposed to adult stem cells and why we hard headed liberals are just out to abort fetuses and burn villages. (ok so i made up that last part). Rich Lowry starts off by calling Ron Reagans speech at the DNC shameful. He said that the only reason that Ron was up there was because his dad had died. I ask you, what's wrong with that? Ron Reagan never thought about using science to help his dad and other people who have incurable disease until his dad had alzhymers and died, but he was made aware about it and now he's being pro-active and trying to do something about it. He's not trying to bring Ted Williams back to life or something. Why try and make a room full of "america's future" see a man as a self motivated asshole? his response to the stem cell question had no science or logic backing it up aside from that the decision for embryonic stem cells is pure politics and the furthering of an anti-pro-life agenda. ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

not to get into a big argument, but the man really needs to look at science. If science was able to harvest stem cells from adult humans stem cells that are able to change into AS MANY different kinds as embryonic ones, I would avoid the whole ideological debate and go with adult stem cells. but this isn't the case. there is currently no magic adult stem cell. currently you have to go digging and sucking out a portion of your hip bone bone marrow, from your blood, or from your umbilical chord and even those don't have a whole lot of possibilities. but look at the alternative, i really think that the biggest problem with bush's stem cell policy is that he has limited funding so much that it is very difficult to compare the advantages and viability differences between the two sources of stem cells. i have no idea how to get around this because people who feel very strongly about pro-life just isn't going to allow that out of pure ethics. you can call it stupid, a lack of separation of church and state hindering science or you can call it a staunch stance of ideology, but there is no way to argue to millions of americans that you aren't killing babies (even if they are still blastocysts that are just a pile of cells floating around). now if this was his answer in some way shape or form, i would have had a lot of more respect for him. but it wasn't. he makes it as if the conservatives take the moral high ground and liberals are always trying to do something underhanded and shake the core values of america and blow up the world.

the next question was about hilary clinton. apparently there is a big conspiracy in the left where the clintons are secretly wishing that john kerry lose the election to protect the viability of hilary's running for president in 2008. true or not, lowry has stated concretely that this is the Clintons' mission, to regain and hold power, the endure four more years of Bush for their own agenda. sure Hilary may want to run, but do we really think that democrats who have turned 2003-2004 into one of the biggest political protests seen in years are just going to hope for a Bush victory out of self interest? i think that's far fetched. big accusation to make. good thing no one watches C-Span.

the next question was attacking the Mccain compaign finance reform bill. move-on.org and george soros are psychos and the "liberal hate machine" and it was a sneaky but succesful trick by the democrats to get a supposedly not-affiliated organization to run ads and raise money for kerry. maybe so, but doesn't seem like it's a one sided issue when most of the endorsed by GW bush ads are "kerry sucks, kick him in the balls" and you have the Swiftboat veterans for truth. how can these people go on tv and act so morally superior to the rest of the world?
politics has gotten increasingly stupid. both sides everything is character assasination, who really cares about the issues and the people they are supposed to help? all people want to do is talk buzz words and hot topics these days without knowing a glimmer of what they are talking about. "bush is stupid", "kerry is a flip flopper", "bush doesn't hide his faith", "kerry is unpatriotic and lied about his purple hearts", "kerry only got shot in the butt, wussy". the biggest thing i have been dissapointed in the bush campaign has been their focus on why john kerry is the wrong choice for president. i haven't ever seen a why bush is right for president. it seems they are running their own, "anyone but kerry" campaign. you should have seen the miffed faces when Lowry was talking about how he has been very critical of Bush and how he doesn't think he has been conservative enough.

hmmmm other highlights... the comments about libertarians. how lowry thinks that libertarians aren't serious about their own issues and how they should just concede some things and be republican. apparently he doesn't believe in the viability of anything but the two party system. you might call that... conservative.

rich lowry... thanks for being a douche.

direction of politics

my dad got a phone call this evening, right as we were all sitting down for dinner. it was the republican party florida division. from the dinner table i heard my dad say "yes we were just about to start dinner, well yes i guess i have a minute... i am currently undecided... i am pro-choice". and then he hung up and sat down.

my dad has said many times that he wasn't voting for bush, the undecided assertion was so that he wouldn't get inundated with political drivel and be able to eat. he loves to eat. which brings me to what i wanted to write about, niche issues driving the direction of politics.
when we look at the past few years and we reflect on what we want improved in the next four what do you think of? improved race relations? a better economy? availability of jobs? education? healthcare? i think these are all very important issues, the kind that benefit the vast majority of americans, i think this is what should be focused on.

but a lot of what i've been seeing on tv while i run on the treadmill, a lot of what i read in the newspapers, a lot of what i hear on the radio, it almost seems as if a large portion of voting america cares about other things. why was the one question that my dad was asked in the 30 seconds he gave the guy about abortion? it's times like this where i wish we had statistics, especially those pertaining to income and voting. i'm very interested if someone knows if there is a statistic that points out like a sore thumb what income bracket dominates the voting during elections or if there is a dominant group.

i was listening on NPR say a week ago, and they were interviewing across rural america who they were going to vote for. the answer, at least that presented on the show was predominantly for george w. bush. to me i think george w. bush hasn't been successful catering to majority of america. to me i think that much is very clear. to me i think he caters largely to a small percentage of america and groups that are not interested in the general welfare of the nation, but of their own. one woman said, "i'll vote for bush bc he isn't afraid to show his faith, he's a good christian". why do we, as voters care that our president is a good christian? is that trait somehow indicative of his ability as the leader of our nation, does that 'moral' foundation make someone operate within the confines of a pre-set ethic? i don't think so, but a lot of america does.
so back to why did they call my dad and ask him about his stance on abortion. i think they see that the vast majority of voters (i'm guessing that's the case) is of the middle class and they are for the most part the families that are portrayed in commercials. they are the decently stable income parents, the soccer moms buying the new sporty nissan van, the overweight executive on the atkins diet, that guy who wants to buy a new $60 verizon cell phone plan. we, the upper middle class, are the ones who are in a stasis bubble away from the economic problems of the nation, the ones that have time to focus on other issues that don't have a profound effect on our day to day lives. so when the republicans and democrats call our house, they aren't going to care much what we think about a $300 tax return or the increasing unemployment rate (which realistically is not improving), they want to get our vote by asking us things that aren't directly connected to us but that we may be passionate about. my parents are 50, they aren't going to have kids again. biologically, as of a few years ago, my mom is not able to bear more children. but that's where they pull you in.

"Alan Keyes ripped into Democratic rival Barack Obama, saying his views on abortion are “the slaveholder’s position.”"-AP . these are the kinds of words that will not cause a massive uproar as you and i might think. these are the kinds of words that a lot of people will go, "yea, you know you're right, that's a fucked up position"

everyone, from the media to politicians know that people are infinitely more interested in other people's lives rather than their own. point to reality tv, our obsession with movie stars, etc. everyone wants to stick their nose into other people's business and take a little bit of it with them everyday. for the state of our nation right now, i don't think abortion issues, gay marriage, defense of marriage, etc are at the top of the american priority list right now. i'm liberal, i whole heartedly believe in pro-choice, when i look at people race, sexuality, etc. these are not the first things that come to my mind when i paint a picture of someone in my head. but at the same time i think at this point in time there are far more pressing issues. but who in the majority of voters cares about pressing issues? (i don't know the stats, but i think if the majority of voters were the poor and the jobless and those that are fighting for social rights right now, there is no way in hell the presidential race would be nearly this close). a lot of people think that the problem with american politics is the partisan system of two parties to choose from.

i think the problem is completely economic. there are two branches of people that vote, those who are poor and are getting screwed by the economic situation and those who make enough and are more concerned about what to buy next rather than how to get to tommorow. those that are poor, they don't have the luxury to vote in a system that hopes to benefit the whole of society. they know their situation sucks and they need a fuckin miracle. they are hoping for any buzz words pertaining to tax break or couple hundred bucks. // the other group, they see the poor and then they see their stable financial situation. they sit back and say yes, my economic condition is well deserved and i work hard for it. i want someone in office who will protect my interests. how do you argue with either position? they are both right but cause a fundamental conflict of interest. so what i'm getting at is this. the problem with american politics is that no one cares about the welfare of the nation as a whole, everyone is overly, albeit fairly, concerned with their own welfare. thus it is special interest that drives the nation and not a sense of doing the most possible for everyone to live... peacefully.

it is impossible, but i would wish that niche issues be issues for the senate, for congress, not for the presidential election.

“As I travel around this state, I don’t get asked about gay marriage, I don’t get asked about abortion,” Obama said. “I get asked, ‘How can I find a job that allows me to support my family?’ I get asked, ‘How can I pay those medical bills without going into bankruptcy?”’ - Barack Obama

what is the meaning of life?

what is the meaning of life?
what do i hope to gain by going to columbia? after working for almost 3 months at my internship (not that it's a bad company or anything, actually it's great and has been invaluable experience) i've pretty much concreted that there are much better things for me out there or at least for me to be satisfied doing with my life.

yesterday i attended University North Florida's law school + LSAT orientation workshop. i was in a room with about 10 other people ranging from college seniors to those that have decided that they are ready for a profession change. i have decided that the LSAT is one of the easiest tests i've ever seen, but. that's aside from the point. we had a sample question posed to us early.
"insurance company finds that the percentage of red cars in fatal acidents is higher than other cars, thus they want to ban the manufacturing of red cars. what is the flaw in the argument from the insurance company? a. b. c. d. e.? " - i can tell you that without even seeing the answers, most of us could have come up with the right answer. in our workshop the woman to my left answered choice e, that it is flawed because the statement does not give definitive percentages on red cars in accidents. the guy behind me answered b. that the logic is flawed because not all car accidents result in fatalities. 50% of our class got the answer wrong, these, are our lawyers and politicians of tommorow. obviously the answer is that that the insurance comp's claim does not address that aggressive drivers may be more inclined to buy red cars.

ok where am i going with this? our county has more than its share of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals. they all make a good sum of money, but none of them truly needed to goto an ivy league school, they predominantly graduated from UF and FSU. did i go to columbia to take a path towards the same end point?

i very much respect everyone of these professionals. they are the doctors who take care of me when i'm sick and when i was a kid, they are the dentist who filled my cavities, they are the lawyer who got me out of my traffic ticket. everyone of these people has made their impact in their community and that is a great service. why then do we go to a school of the best of the best if we do not intend to be destined for things held by the best of the best?

why do we exist then? i was thinking this on the way home as i worked far past my normal work hours on a friday. everyone i work with is working in order to make it to tommorow, everyone is working for money. is that all there is to life then, to make money so that we can accumulate it and then pass what is left to our children and then die? is it the human condition to exist in our little bubbles of existence, a ripple in an infintely large pond. i think everyone who has questioned this, whether it be at columbia or at any school for that matter is destined for something else away from the grind of things. i cannot let myself believe that the meaning of life is solely, to exist. i don't want to leave my undergraduate life preparing for 30 years of the daily grind, for what purpose? did i spend $40k a year to become the best developed intellectual mind that i could be just to be in the same position as someone who just fucked away at life? at this level of education, which is supposed to be higher education, i hope that i, i hope that we aspire to and become more than living and working to make it to the next day. I hope we are the ones who seek to make the world a better place, we are the ones who change the face of social welfare, we are the ones who shake the earth instead of merely treading on it.

they asked the interns what they expected from their jobs, 60% wanted to be rich, the rest of us wanted to help people and change the world.

EDIT: anyways, so my point was that, if i was going to goto law school it wouldn't be to become a lawyer, it'd be to become a politician. not duval county school board representative, i want to heal the world, not michael jackson style.

politics and the warped tour

i just got back from the 10th anniversary warped tour show. i finally got a chance to eat when i got home, so i'm going to write while i digest my ribs, cheese and crackers.

today was the most politically inspired warped tour i have ever seen. it had long been my belief that much of the youth vote steered toward liberalism. we have had more experience i think and more opportunity to interact with that which is different from us that we have a different sense of things than our previous generation. the vans warped tour is full of self proclaimed "punk rockers". punk for much as i can remember until its distillation and diluted mass market mtv/hot topic distribution was in the spirit of anti-establishment. it was my belief that this would translate in some ways to liberalism, a hope that stereotypes and social institutions of the past could be progressed over.

in some ways i think i was right. how many bands did i see today spouting the message of, in the words of anti-flag, "george w. bush is the worst president america has ever had". i saw a lot. how many cheers went up when justin sane said this, a lot. fat mike of the band nofx had even set up a website, www.punkvoter.com in hopes that the youth of america would come out and vote W out of office. but as many people out across the crowds that would probably translate to a vote for john kerry if they did indeed vote this year, there were just as many "fuck kerry, he's a douche" voices out there. maybe it is because i live in the south, maybe it's because this is florida (not the most liberal and progressive areas of thought), but the so called "punk vote" is not completely anti-bush.

i saw a tent today. i'm not sure if it was for a band or if it was an organization, but it really bothered me. it was called "american dream". on the logo of the shirt, was a picture of an M16 rifle. in the front of their booth was a man about 25 with a vote kerry poster with a big electrical tape X on it. he shouted, "fuck john kerry, if you're voting for john kerry fuck you too". what exactly is the premise of this organization? i wasn't willing to ask since they were all antagonistic and looked like they'd start shit with me if i started a discussion. so all i can tell is that they probably believe in some fundamental rights of america, say, freedom to bear arms, which would explain the rifle on the logo. what's the premise of the kerry hating, i don't understand rhetoric like that, which brings me to the point of, if you probably don't know what you're talking about, especially in politics, shut your fucking mouth. i don't think it would matter if you were republican or democrat, one of the most annoying things that people do not like putting up with is bullshit.

this brings me to the question of why mobilize the youth of today to vote? it is already a very pronounced statistic that the 18-? vote (youth) is basically meaningless and does nothing to affect the outcome of an election. the swing vote of independents or border line democrats or republicans (7% of the total vote which is undecided) seems to be more important to those keeping track of statistics, than the voices of those who will one day inherit the foundations of our country. if we are so meaningless as a bloc of votes, are they trying to persuade us early on to become liberal or conservative so that we add to the larger, more concrete statistic when we come of age?

what is our position in the world though, more specifically, what is mine? i was talking to my friend at warped tour today and he said he was really annoyed with mtv and many of the bands just telling kids to go out and register to vote. there is somewhat of a liberal slant on many of the bands' rhetoric and when they tell you to vote and accompany it with, "george w. bush has ruined the country, we entered into an illegal war, we torture prisoners, etc etc etc" is that fair to send one sided opinion into the voting booths? one of the things i was thinking about today was exactly that, the many people who will believe the commercials, the newspaper articles, the political speeches, the ad campaigns, their friends, without ever giving a subject any critical thought. if these are the people that we are sending to the polls, is this the kind of democracy that we want to run? what i mean is this. i went to the best public highschool in the nation (based on some crazy us news ranking system), pay $40,000 a year to attend one of the best universities in our country, i am intellectually smarter than a large percentage of america, what does this do for me? is it ethical for me to take the intellectual high ground and say, this is what i believe and it is not my job to educate people but rather have them vote blindly and through their trust in me. it is better for them to all vote in line with my opinion because in the end, regardless if they know what they were voting for, what ideals, we result in a better america in the end. is that my place, am i able to take an intellectual high ground for expedient means? the immediate answer to my mind was of course.

i looked around myself and i saw the trashiest and the most socially warped people i have ever seen. those that are utterly lost in a world of materialistic satisfaction and having it dictated to them. they are almost like the down syndrome zombie where what the intellectuals of the world know what is best for the country because we see it all around and we know what we want to fix.

i thought about it some more. i think i was dead wrong at that momment. there should not be any sort of intellectual high ground, no intellectual/moral superiority. for i do not know what is best for this country, i know what i think is best, and in any facsimile of a democracy, what's best for the country is voiced by its people, all of its people. those people that i have developed a pretty snobby disdain for, this is their america as much as it is mine. i very much believe that abortion is the right of a mother to choose, it is entirely in her hands, for if it is not we put the pretense that we know what is best without having any knowledge of it. but, my opinion is no better than those of faith or those of some other principle that believe in pro-life. i do not want to straddle the fence on any issue, and if we debate i will give you my beliefs, but in the end, it is a collection of these beliefs, varied across the board that should dictate where our countries policies ultimately lead, because it will reflect the idealism and the beliefs of our citizens. this is how i think it should be, i make no reference back to a world dominated by underhanded political tactics utilized by the left and the right, the obvious control of democracy by those that we trust to represent us in the upper echelons of power. but as for intellectual superiority governing politics, i think we must remember that it is not we the privileged few to determine direction, but it is the entirety of all of us, all citizens that live life, have our fears, have our dreams, have our ideals, have our ethics, and have our faith to weigh in on what is best for us. us not the privileged few, but us, the constituents of the entire country.

on the other hand, i would love for people to decide and come to conclusions for themselves, but it is also pretty obvious that most of the nation is too lazy too. how do you think we perpetuate such common themes in the 2004 election such as, "kerry is a flip flopper, bush is stupid" while i think if you examined them, both are untrue, but that is what repetition has done, made it true in the eyes and ears of those who are unwilling to discover for themselves.

also. fuck rush limbaugh, what kind of political and personal integrity does he have? upon release of the NASA kerry photos of kerry + graham, etc etc. he said that the blue containment suit kerry was wearing ....
"Did you see this picture of Kerry down at Cape Canaveral? This is worse than Dukakis and the helmet. Kerry looks like a sperm. When I saw this, I thought a sperm was swimming up a uterus. "

excellence in broadcasting? i don't think so rush limbaugh. you truly are a big fat idiot.