Posts in the Politics Category

A random thought that came to me at 6:40am as I was pulling records for my radio show: wouldn’t it be cool if we restructured our government so that any declaration of war had to be approved by a majority vote of the country’s citizens, and those who voted in favor of the war were required to report for combat duty if the war referendum passed?  I suppose those physically unable to fight could be required to fund another soldier’s training, transportation, supplies, and funeral (if necessary).

I just wonder how many people would be willing to go to war if they knew they’d have to fight in it, or at least go broke for it—and how much more likely it would be to create a situation where we only went to war when it was felt truly necessary and just to do so.

• Put Up or… was published on Wednesday, October 9th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.

I’m a little late coming to this party, but it was worth posting anyway: Ted Rall’s War Cry.  It just doesn’t sound quite so reasonable when we’re the rhetorical target, does it?

• Like In a Funhouse Mirror was published on Tuesday, October 8th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.

In the context of a heated debate over the prospect of going to war with Iraq and the politics surrounding that potential action, Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (Rep. – Mississippi) has posed the question, “Who is the enemy here, the president of the United States or Saddam Hussein?”

It’s an excellent question, but geez, if he has to ask, where does that leave the rest of us?

• Say, That Is a Good Question was published on Wednesday, September 25th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.

“With strict enforcement and higher ethical standards, we must usher in a new era of integrity in Corporate America… In the end, there is no capitalism without conscience, no wealth without character,” says the President.  Right.  So why did it take a court order to see the list of people with whom Vice President Richard Cheney consulted on energy policies last year, and when do we actually get to see it anyway?  The White House is still claiming executive privilege and appealing these court decisions, rather like the Nixon administration did in regard to Watergate-related files.

Still, it sounds good, doesn’t it?  “No capitalism without conscience” does have a certain ring to it.  Maybe similar rhetorical devices should be used in the struggle to make standards a priority, in spite of lazy Webmasters.  “No sites without standards, no Web without validation.”  Hmmm… needs work.

• Yeah, My Trust is Soaring was published on Tuesday, July 9th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.

As some of you know, I have a weekly radio show on a local community/college radio station.  We’ve been Webcasting for a while now.  So yes, this is going to be another rant against the recent ruling of the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (or CARP; feel free to rearrange letters as you like).

It isn’t necessarily the fees that I mind so much, although they obviously could be ruinous to any highly popular Webcaster.  They also don’t make a lot of sense, since we don’t have to pay anyone to broadcast our air signal to (potentially) about two million people in the greater Cleveland metropolitan area.  No, what I find so objectionable are the parts that regulate what you can play in a given period of time.  For example (and thanks to Jim Gilliland for pointing me to this information), per Section 114(j)(13): In any three hour period, [a Webcaster] may not play more than:

• three songs from the same record, two consecutively
• four songs by the same artist, three consecutively
• four songs from the same box set (even if “various artists”), three consecutively

On my most recent show, as it happens, I played a number of album sides and live recordings.  When you’re a non-profit, non-commercial radio station staffed by community volunteers, you can do that kind of thing.  My playlist included:

• Duke Ellington: “Small Band Shorts (1928-1935)” – Side 1 (soundtrack to the short film Black and Tan Fantasy)
• Louis Prima: “1944” – Side 1 (recording of a live broadcast from 1944)
• “From Spirituals To Swing” – Side 3 (concert recordings of various artists at Carnegie Hall, 1938-1939)
• Benny Goodman: “On the Air (1938-1939)” – Disc 1, Tracks 2-11 (recordings of radio broadcasts from 1938-1939)

Under the new CARP rules, I spent two hours violating the law with that show.  The same would be true of my D-Day special, which draws fairly heavily on the compilation “Swing Out To Victory.”  If I can’t come up with enough war-themed recordings on different records or compilations, then I’ll have to discontinue the D-Day special, which has become an annual tradition and always draws appreciative calls from listeners.  Ditto for my occasional broadcasts of the first Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington concerts at Carnegie Hall.  History?  Eh, who needs it?

Of course, all this becomes moot if we stop Webcasting.  So we have a choice: interesting and diverse music or worldwide reach.  One gets the feeling that the media conglomerates, who obviously chose reach over diversity, are trying to impose that same choice on the rest of us.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for honoring the rights of artists, and seeing that they’re fairly compensated for their work.  The CARP ruling isn’t the way to do it.  For that matter, neither are the contracts offered by media conglomerates—but I suppose that’s a whole different story.

• Saturday, 22 June 2002 was published on Saturday, June 22nd, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Culture and Politics categories.
• There have been no replies.

Apparently my recent posts have lead some people to think that it’s time to resurrect my former title of Mr. Bitter, so the following two items come just in time.

• How weird is the world?  Try Mr. Elmo goes to Washington.  This is one of those news items that proves to me that I didn’t really miss anything by passing on recreational chemical use.  Is it a sign of the End Times that we have unkempt sock puppets testifying before Congress?  (Besides Rep. James A. Traficant, I mean.)  Speaking of the Apocalypse…
• How weird are people?  Try publishing an article claiming that PURE EVIL lurks in every Apple Macintosh.  (Scroll down a bit to get to the largest section, titled “Apple Macintosh.”)  I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks.  What makes it even better is this: read through the whole article, taking special note of the points about how the core of Apple’s new OS is a type of Unix and thus runs “daemons” in the background and contains the “secret code” chmod 666.  So obviously Unix is a tool of Satan, and no God-fearing Christian could possibly consider associating themselves or their data with any such operating system.  Got all that?  Now go to the root level of the server, and check out the OS information at the bottom of the page.  Now that’s funny!

So don’t worry: the world is too amusingly surreal for me to stay permanently bitter.  I get outraged sometimes, but that’s because I want the world I inhabit to improve, not deteriorate—and I want it now more than ever.

• Wednesday, 24 April 2002 was published on Wednesday, April 24th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Mac and Politics categories.
• There have been no replies.

Despite being a techogeek of the second order, I’ve long been opposed to the Strategic Defense Initiative.  It never made sense to me that a few satellites, or even a few hundred, could protect the country from a missile attack by the Soviet Union.  Suppose the SDI system managed to survive an opening-round EMP pulse (which is highly unlikely) and had to defend against a first strike of 5,000 ICBMs and 30,000 decoys.  Now suppose that the SDI system somehow managed to shoot down 99.5% of the incoming vehicles, warheads and decoys alike.  In that case, 25 missiles would make it through, not to mention 150 decoys, all of which will do at least some kinetic damage when they land.  Oops.

Even today, SDI makes little to no sense no matter what you call it.  If a “rogue state” obtains a nuclear weapon and wants to hit us with it, they’re going to smuggle it into (or even just really close to) America and then set it off.  Why leave a very obvious ballistic trace on NORAD’s radars when you can fly/sail/drive/walk the device up to your target?  The only real purpose to SDI seems to be propping up a few aerospace companies, and maybe making the Chinese more tense.

Now we have one more reason to avoid putting weapons in orbit: post-battle debris.  If you blow up stuff in orbit, it doesn’t just vaporize like in Star Wars—all the shrapnel has to go somewhere.  Like into orbit around the Earth.  We’d get pretty meteor showers for a while, but is that really worth taking down the entire global communications and positioning infrastructure, not to mention imprisoning ourselves on this increasingly stupid planet for several centuries?

What I find really depressing is that it’s probably too late: the technology is available today, assuming you’re satisfied with putting up comparatively crude weapons.  If it hasn’t been done already, it will be done by somebody within the next 50 years or less.  Then everyone else will have to follow suit.

And just to top off a bad situation with a pitch-black cherry: the Orbital Debris Program Office, which is the agency that keeps track of the small-scale junk we’ve already put in orbit, is due to be shut down this year for lack of funding.  Now there’s a good idea.  Hey, why not shut down the air traffic control system while we’re at it?  I’m sure nothing could possibly go wrong with that plan, either.

I’m beginning to see how Earth eventually becomes the Planet of the Apes.  I just wish the apes weren’t already running the show.

• Tuesday, 23 April 2002 was published on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.

Hooray!  It’s Income Tax Day in the United States, which means that carping and whining about our tax burden will be at an annual high.  Boy oh boy, what could be more fun?  How about griping about a closely related topic?  I’m here for ya!

Personally, I don’t get most of my fellow Americans.  Compared to most countries in the industrialized world, we have a fairly small tax burden, while still expecting basically the same level of service from our government.  In addition, our gasoline is incredibly (some would say criminally) inexpensive compared to most countries.  Our income tax averages around 30% of direct income, with some shifting on either end of the wealth/poverty scale.  I can’t speak to capital gains taxes, but my general thinking has always been that if you’re well-off enough to have capital gains at all, then you can darned well afford the taxes on them.  Ditto the inheritance tax, only more so.

If we want government services, then taxes are inevitable.  If we don’t want those services, then enough people need to elect enough representatives to cut the unwanted services.  Then the taxes can drop.  (Assuming the debt’s been paid off, which of course it won’t be any time soon, but that’s an entirely different gripe of mine.)  If there aren’t enough such representatives, then the “will of the people” must be to keep the services.  Ergo, the taxes need to be able to support the expenditures on those services.  It all seems kinda simple to me.

And hey, if you don’t like the value received for the money you’re required to pay, then nobody’s forcing you to live here.  Find a better country.  Ever think you’d hear a liberal say that?

• Monday, 15 April 2002 was published on Monday, April 15th, 2002.
• It was assigned to the Politics category.
• There have been no replies.