I thought I'd re-post some voting and policy stats on Senator Bayh so that Kossacks can become a little more familiar with what he can bring to the Obama campaign. I think Senator Bayh guarantees an overwhelming victory for the Democrats in November, and is the best choice, but please read on and decide for yourselves.

The GOP really have nothing in their playbook to match a VP like Bayh. He's well-spoken, intelligent, young, successful, and moderate, and can parry outrageous GOP attacks with the same Jiu Jitsu grace the Obama camp has been perfecting. He's a quick and capable defender of Obama's positions, as he's proven in the snake pit (Fox News) time and time again, on behalf of Senator Obama's policies. Americans will connect with Senator Bayh.

The Bush administration made it a point to declare that the U.S. military's strategical progress in the Iraq and Afghanistan interventions, would not, could not, and should not, be judged in terms of body counts or other such statistics.

But it is perhaps in the interest of both the American and Iraqi people, as well as the two presidential candidates, to reflect on these numbers and to let the facts and the statistics speak for themselves.

I came across an article by well respected, supposedly left-leaning journalist, Mr. Chris Hedges, on common dreams.org, a "progressive" news site which I sometimes visit though I hate that label, and I felt compelled to respond to his hysterical screed on Kos, so that maybe us "liberals" can learn to avoid hysterical, childish outbursts and instead develop a firm, realistic morality in the face of our GOP opponents.

For far too long have the GOP claimed the moral high ground, and the fault is in liberalism and the Democratic party, since liberals too often leave issues about morality, justice, and what is right, up in the air.  

I stumbled across an excellent web site yesterday, which I have to recommend to Kossacks.

You can find almost all correspondence between the Founding Fathers, (and mothers I might add), in a user friendly, easily navigable format, right here.

I find Jefferson's attacks on Hamilton to be eternally amusing, and probably increasingly relevant in the face of our own King George and his corporate royalists who continue circling the globe in their ships to the detriment of our liberties and equality at home.

I know there's been a lot of uproar about the SC's recent ruling in the past few days and because this is an issue which I spent about 3 months researching, I thought that I would share the legal precedents which determined their ruling.

In my mind, the Court actually did a good job of upholding the unambiguous intentions of the Constitution, and not advancing any other agenda, which is their job, first and foremost.

Although, of course, the Court, like the current Presidential administration, did not focus on the most obvious interpretations of the 2nd Amendment to justify their ruling, which I think might have better explained the scope of the ruling.

While Americans hate bad movies, there is one thing they hate much more.

In fact, we hate this thing so much, that unlike bad movies, we refuse to even talk about it.  

"But where was the Roman people to be found? Not surely amongst the mixed multitude of slaves and strangers that filled the streets of Rome; a servile populace, as devoid of spirit as destitute of property."

About 2,000 years ago, a hyper-militarized, authoritarian state dominated by professional soldiers, domestic security forces, and international financiers, publicly auctioned off their nation's most prestigious political office to the highest bidder.

Why History?

I've decided to contribute a weekly (hopefully) series examining the development and degradation of societal institutions within the late Roman Republic and the lessons, if any, that can be drawn from the history of Ancient Rome as applied to the lives of American citizens today.

A key question to understanding any society, complex or not, and a good place to start, is to ask the question: "Who are the Soldiers?" Understanding who fights to preserve a community, who commands the soldiers, how they fight, and what they believe they are fighting for, is perhaps the most vital insight into the values of any community.  
       

   

As the Democrats are now coalescing around the Obama camp, discussing VP candidates and mending fences with Clintonians, it is important that we take care not to overlook the activities of the Cheney administration and their apologists in the supposedly Democratic Congress, ignoring the all-too-obvious signs that neo-conservatives (and their neo-liberal counterparts I might add) are scrambling to make sure that the military conflicts raging in Central Asia and the Middle East continue unhindered by the next administration and under the close supervision of war profiteers and predatory global financiers and institutions, who could undermine the next president in the region as they are the ones who directly manage and oversee the perpetuation of conflict.

In previous entries I've often cited many parallels between the evolution of American politics when compared to the history of Roman politics in the 1st and 2nd centuries. Obviously, one major reason that many commonalities can be found between the two is because the founders of our country consciously modeled our government on the Roman government, as it existed in that period.

As the primary is all but decided, and Democrats are largely focused on defeating McCain at the polls this fall, it's worth remembering that the current administration is not yet out of office, and still primarily composed of radicals, criminals, torturers, liars, thieves, and basic tormentors of the other 99% of humanity.

Once upon a time, after nearly 200 years of Republican government, and 50 years of both declared and undeclared class warfare, a citizenship crisis, economic extortion,  corrupted elections, and sweeping military reforms, a Republic was attacked by a highly coordinated criminal organization, which was worldwide in scope, these individuals were non-state actors, and their pirates burned and sacked the primary economic center of the Republic, in very close proximity to the seat of the central government.

If we take a comprehensive look at the discussions, political platforms, candidates, and media events surrounding all of the presidential elections in the United States for the past half century, the outcomes of our elections, and the failure of the polity to respond to those outcomes, reveals a startling insight:

A majority of American voters are in favor of dismantling the Constitution, in favor of abolishing many of their civil liberties, and in favor of attempting to conquer the world through overt military force or by economic pressure, enhanced by the threat of military action.  

It amazes me how shallowly "progressive" many people are, even the seeming majority of what passes for the left in American politics, including most of the subscribers to this site.

It is now overwhelmingly apparent that the recklessly optimistic relegating of history solely to the realm of nostalgia and outdated modes of style, behavior and consumption, to paraphrase Christopher Lasch nearly 40 years ago, and/or the association of all the founding American republican and legal traditions with bigotry, racism, colonialism, patriarchy, etc... has had some rather dire consequences for American republicanism and democracy, as well as western civilization as a whole.

The global Islamists are correct to identify a crisis of national identity, to challenge our ability to perceive the implications of our actions and to criticize civic values and governmental practices of the western world, namely the United States, the preeminent economic, cultural, and military leader of that community.  

Despite the fact that Buchanan is a ignorant, bitter, hate-spitting snake most of the time, it would do the two Democrats well to at least consider what, if any, reasonable perspectives he is defending or which grievances he is stating, and I think we (meaning liberal progressives) can at least find a few things worth noting. Missing a real opportunity and masking it with any type of vague, imprecise rhetoric, on either side, would be a big mistake.

I think there are two directions, both extremes, which we are drifting towards and are being equally considered in Washington at this point in regards to the war: