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The Weblog at The View from the Core - Tuesday, March 23, 2004
   
   

"The War on War?"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXXXVI

This is precious.

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The so-called war on terrorism is a misnomer because war itself is a form of terrorism. It should, therefore, be called the terrorism on terrorism, or maybe even the war on war. That sounds insane because it is insane. More insanity leads only to more insanity. Any good therapist will tell you it's necessary to own your own feelings. Seen in this light, terror is a feeling of intense fear that needs to be owned by the person who feels it.

Other people don't make you feel intense fear, but rather you feel intense fear when other people say or do something. That's a paradigm shift away from blame and toward personal responsibility.

No longer blaming others for your own feelings of terror, you can then come to accept your feelings and deal with them appropriately.

Ask yourself, "Shall I seek an outer war to find an inner peace, or shall I seek an inner peace without an outer war?"

Alexander J. Boros
Rochester, N.H.

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Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 03/23/04 07:45:42 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Social/Cultural.


   
   

"John F. Who?"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXXXV

Brendan Miniter writes at OpinionJournal today.

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When John Kerry returns from his snowboarding vacation, it'll be time to set about deciding who he is, what his candidacy is about. It may seem to be a strange quest to begin this far into a presidential campaign. But it's essential when there is no obvious answer in most voters' minds to this question: Why is Mr. Kerry running for president? Wanting to be president or opposing the current occupant of the Oval Office is rarely an adequate answer. What Mr. Kerry really needs now is a defining moment.

We all know why Howard Dean ran — to pull back from the war on terror (usually voiced as opposition to liberating Iraq), raise taxes and institute universal health insurance. His defining moment was arguing that catching Saddam Hussein didn't make America safer (defining moments aren't always good for candidates). Ronald Reagan didn't have much trouble defining himself. He ran on a series of ideas — shrinking government, promoting economic growth and confronting the evil empire. Vice President Bush promised to continue implementing those ideas in 1988 and gave himself a defining moment by saying "Read my lips, no new taxes" (a moment he later wished was less defining). Bill Clinton was able to win by offering new ideas of his own. Mr. Clinton ran as a New Democrat, a man who was liberal enough to look out for the little guy but conservative enough not to go gooey when it came to keeping law and order.

This is all something Mr. Kerry and the press corps, now panting about "negative ads" running so early in the campaign cycle, might want to keep in mind. Candidate Clinton emerged from the primaries in 1992 victorious but somewhat battered; among other things, voters already had a glimpse of his philandering. What he needed was a new defining moment, and Republicans made a fatal tactical error by giving him until late summer before rolling out the attack ads. In the meantime, as a secret memo leaked to the New York Times after the election revealed, the Democrats quickly developed a plan: Hillary Clinton should be publicly more affectionate toward her husband, the campaign should focus on Mr. Clinton's humble and at times rough childhood, and Bill needed to find a way to humanize himself. As Michael Kelly described it after the 1992 election, "by the time the Republicans made their move, the program of image modification drafted by Clinton's consultants had so changed the Clintons' public persona that the feared attack failed to wound him at all."

George W. Bush isn't going to make his father's mistake, which is why he's already airing ads nailing down Mr. Kerry's defining characteristics. This is where the strategy — dreamed up by Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe — of an accelerated, nonbruising primary season will start to cut against the Democratic candidate. Nothing defines a candidate like a good fight, and Mr. Kerry never had to fight for the nomination, which means he hasn't gotten around to staking out the rationale for his candidacy. A real attack from John Edwards might have pushed Mr. Kerry into a defining moment. He would have had to take a stand, look courageous and serve as an inspiration.

Instead, Mr. Kerry rode an "anybody but Bush" wave, winning not because anyone really wanted to vote for him but, paradoxically, because Democrats deemed him "electable." Now he has to win over the broader electorate by defining himself on the national stage, while already being attacked by the Bush campaign.

The first test of whether Mr. Kerry would be able to play this higher-stakes game came with his claim of support from foreign leaders. That line of reasoning would have played well in Democratic primaries — the party's base loves "internationalist" talk. But once Mr. Bush started promising to keep his campaign "right here in America," and some unsavory foreigners openly endorsed Mr. Kerry, he was forced to disavow his foreign support.

Welcome to the national stage, Mr. Kerry. Now, who are you?

Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com. His column appears Tuesdays.

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The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

See also "Where Were You?" and "The Constitution Be Damned".

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 03/23/04 06:54:28 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry & Political.


   
   

Some of the Fruits of the "Spiritual Leadership" of Sheik Ahmed Yassin

The Ten Worst Hamas Attacks: 186 Dead

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of the Moslem Hamas terrorist organization who was killed yesterday in a daring Israeli missile attack, oversaw a total of 425 attacks — including the Park Hotel Seder massacre — that killed 377 Israelis and wounded 2,076.
Among the worst Hamas attacks in the past 3.5 years of the Palestinian Authority-initiated Oslo War were the following ten, which ended the lives of a total of 186 people:
  • June 1, 2001 — Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, 21 killed — mostly new-immigrant teenagers from the former Soviet Union
  • Aug. 9, 2001 — Sbarro's Pizzeria in Jerusalem, 15 killed, including the parents and three children of the Schijveschuurder family
  • Dec. 2, 2001 — Haifa bus, 15 killed
  • March 27, 2002 — Park Hotel in the midst of the Passover Seder, 30 killed, including six husband-and-wife couples
  • March 31, 2002 — Matza Restaurant in Haifa, 15 killed, including two sets of a father and two children
  • May 7, 2002 — Rishon Letzion hall, 16 killed
  • June 18, 2002 — #32 bus from Gilo, Jerusalem, 19 killed
  • March 5, 2003 — #37 bus in Haifa, 15 killed
  • June 11, 2003 — #14 bus, Jerusalem, 17 killed
  • Aug. 19, 2003 — #2 bus from Western Wall, 23 killed, including a mother and baby; father and son; and four other children

And that's only their "best" efforts.

(Thanks, Charles.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 03/23/04 06:35:39 PM
Categorized as International.


   
   

"Black Clergy Rally Against Gay Marriage"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXXXIV

And why are they "black", not "African-American"?

So reports AP at Yahoo News! today:

More than two dozen black pastors added their voice to the critics of same-sex marriage, attempting to distance the civil rights struggle from the gay rights movement and defending marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
"When the homosexual compares himself to the black community, he doesn't know what suffering is," said the Rev. Clarence James, an African-American studies professor at Temple University.
Jones and 29 pastors rallied late Monday with their supporters at an Atlanta-area church where they signed a declaration outlining their beliefs on marriage and religion.
The declaration is meant to pressure state representatives to approve a constitutional ban on gay marriages, which will be considered again by the Georgia House as soon as this week.
The declaration, to be presented to state leaders Tuesday, says same-sex marriage is not a civil right, and marriage between a man and a woman is important because it's necessary for the upbringing of children.
"To equate a lifestyle choice to racism demeans the work of the entire civil rights movement," the statement said. "People are free in our nation to pursue relationships as they choose. To redefine marriage, however, to suit the preference of those choosing alternative lifestyles is wrong."
Same-sex marriage is already illegal in Georgia, but supporters of the ban say the constitution needs to be changed to make sure a judge does not direct Georgia to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
"It is a threat to who we are and what we stand for," said Bishop William Shields of Hopewell Baptist Church. "If nothing else gets us out of the pews, this ought to."

But the Rev. Paul Turner, a gay pastor from Atlanta who helped organize a pro-gay marriage rally last month outside the Georgia Capitol, disagreed: "How do they figure that it's not a civil rights issue?"
"This is just a way for those conservative leadership in the black community to say, 'Look, this isn't a matter of civil rights because we're black and we didn't have a choice in being black.' And they think gays do, and that's not true," Turner said....

I must admit, Faithful Reader, I'm getting confused. Did somebody send out a memo that I didn't get? I mean, aren't these African-American pastors? Where did this word "black" come from? ("African-American" does appear in the article — but refers to "studies" not persons.)

For crying out loud. When the Beltway Sniper(s) were finally caught, mainstream media insisted on calling Lee Malvo "African American" even though he is Jamaican.

Back then, they wanted to call a black "African-American" though he wasn't even American let alone African. Now, though, actually American "African-American" pastors are being called "black". Again.

What's up with that?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 03/23/04 06:03:03 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.


   
   

George Bush Wants People to be Sick

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCXXXIII

That's what I get out of this.

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Noam Chomsky, the political theorist and leftwing guru, yesterday gave his reluctant endorsement to the Democratic party's presidential contender, John Kerry, calling him "Bush-lite", but a "fraction" better than his rival.

Professor Chomsky — a linguist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as well as a renowned chronicler of American foreign policy — said there were "small differences" between Senator Kerry and the Republican president. But, in an interview on the Guardian's politics website, he added that those small differences "can translate into large outcomes".

He describes the choice facing US voters in November as "the choice between two factions of the business party". But the Bush administration was so "cruel and savage", it was important to replace it.

He said: "Kerry is sometimes described as 'Bush-lite', which is not inaccurate. But despite the limited differences both domestically and internationally, there are differences. In a system of immense power, small differences can translate into large outcomes."

He reserved his especial venom for the Bush administration's plans for the health sector: "The people around Bush are deeply committed to dismantling the achievements of popular struggle through the past century no matter what the cost to the general population."

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The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 03/23/04 07:13:33 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.


   
   

Re: "Find Them and Kill Them"

I understand that Hamas is threatening retaliation — read "more terrorism": more murdering of innocent men on their way to work, innocent women on their way to the market, innocent children on their way to school — for Israel having rid the world of a monstrous "spiritual leader".

The response ought to be clear: find more of them and kill them, too. Let the murdering bastards take their every breath wondering if it might be their last.

P.S. See also Yassin's death: right or wrong?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 03/23/04 07:04:31 AM
Categorized as International.


   

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