poliphilo | Stoical

I did think of staying up to see the results come in. I'm glad I didn't. It's turned 9 o'clock and we still don't have a result.

But it looks like four more years of Bush.

I'm not going to make a fuss. I'm going to be stoical about this. If Ohio goes for Bush (as looks likely) it'll be a convincing victory. Demos will have spoken.

Look, I'm a European; I don't get Bush at all. Apart from a certain folksiness and ease around people, I don't see anything about him that would make me want to vote for him. I think he's unintelligent. I think he's a front man for the corporations. And I think his foreign policy is wrong in every particular.

Alexander the Great and his gang come clattering up the street. Horsehair plumes and flashing bronze. And they come across Diogenes sitting in his barrel. The greatest living general meets the greatest living philosopher. It's the ancient Greek equivalent of a photo-op.

So Alexander says to Diogenes, "Anything you want I'll give it you. All you have to do is name it."

And Diogenes says, "OK. Please get out of my light."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I also think there's fairly convincing evidence that he's an inveterate liar. And I'm not just saying that because I can't stand the guy, and I'm not just meaning the was the case for the attack on Iraq was presented. I've been reading Graydon Carter's What We've Lost in the run up, and it convinced me by a comfortable margin that this is a very dangerous man, for the US and the world.

I think he and his gang are so convinced of their righteousness that lying is neither here nor there. Why baulk at an untruth when you're doing God's work?

My hope is that the neo-con project will shake itself to pieces over the next four years- with the consequence that its next standard-bearer will be unelectable.

I think he and his gang are so convinced of their righteousness that lying is neither here nor there. Why baulk at an untruth when you're doing God's work?

That's the core of it. If God's on your side, you can do anything you like.

Know what brings me a little bit of solace? I keep going back to your statement that we are in a transitional time; and that, taking the long view, there is hope someday for a world government.

There will be someone else in four years who will keep us Americans happy and sanctimonious in the New Dark Ages, and it won't matter if it's a Bush. We'll find somebody just like him.

I think Bush could have been beaten this time if the democrats had fielded a better candidate. John Kerry never established himself as anything more than the anti-Bush. If he'd forged a real connection with the electorate then things would have been different.

The Congress is dominated by Republicans. The Supreme Court will be losing probably three Justices in the next year or so, and Bush has already promised to replace them with conservatives.

We have lost our system of checks and balances. We have, I think, lost our Republic.

I wonder when we'll lose free speech?

I talked with my sister this morning, and she was near tears. She said: "What's the solution? Concede the morality issue? Let the right have its way on abortion, stem cells, and gay marriage so they no longer have any issues to mobilize their base with? Thinking people are in the minority in this country--what choice do we have? Most voters are too
busy watching the Scott Peterson trial on Fox News to actually become informed, so how does the Democratic Party tack to the right or undermine the right's base?

"I am heartsick this morning."

Who is Scott Peterson?

I don't know how to answer your fears. I'm afraid they're justified. The weighting of the Supreme Court towards the right would be a disaster.

I've got Churchill booming in my ears- that speech about having nothing to promise but "blood, sweat, toil and tears."

No. We mustn't concede the moral issues to the right. The right is backward-looking. The right is unimaginative. The right is stupid. In the long term it will be defeated. I have to believe this.

And the immediate task for us Brits is to get rid of Tony Blair and deprive Bush of his number one European lapdog/ally.

Stoical

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject