all the news that print will fit.
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| notes from underground - societal whispers all the news that print will fit. |
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Thursday, October 14, 2004 np: q and not u - power i just had a half-hour's worth of typing eaten by my browser. i am so distraught, since i thought i'd typed a great bit on the debate last night. so apologies if this seems less spirited. kat had pounced on me (pun intended) about not posting about the debates in recent weeks. there's not a lot i can say about last night's debate that isn't being run into the ground by more professional political bloggers today, but there are a few things. first off, mister president, can you please stop lying and claiming that you did not say this? (thanks to atrios for the link.) second, what was with the president's rather off-the-wall claims that education is going to be the cure-all for worker woes? hey there, 50 or 60 year old manufacturing worker who was laid off thanks to outsourcing! what you need is to go back to school to get some learnin'. am i missing something? did the president just basically tell american workers that they're too stupid? i'll let him go down to kannapolis and tell those laid-off pillowtex workers that he has some school grants for them. in the meanwhile, i assume he's going to give them stipends to live on as well? george, you are lost on this front. sure, make worker education easier to get, but how 'bout working on keeping the jobs they have in the first place? one of the quotes that really boiled my blood was his comment regarding kerry's criticism of bush's funding of education. "only a liberal senator from massachusetts," he balked, "would call a 49% increase in funding 'not enough.'" here are the problems: a) you legislated no child left behind, forcing schools to shift funds into accountability, testing, etc. this means that you're making them re-allocate money from teacher pay increases, attempts to hire new teachers, classroom needs, etc. "well, we gave them money to pay for the new programs." yeah, but not nearly enough. you see, mister president, when you force states to do something, you better damn well make sure they have the money to do it. you forced states to do no child left behind, then underfunded them. so no, mister president, 49% is not enough. not to mention that he has some nerve to claim that there is somehow a cap on education spending. if i were kerry, here's how i would've reacted to that 'liberal senator' statement: "well, i guess only a clueless, smirking chimp of a president would somehow think that there is such a thing as 'overfunding' the future of our country. are you saying, mister president, that you look at these numbers and say to yourself: 'oh, no. i mean, that really is too much to be spending on the public education of children. i have an un-needed, misleading war to start and besides, if kids really deserved an education, they'd be born to families wealthy enough to send them to private schools somewhere.'" sorry. of course, that's why i'm not running for president (yet). whenever bush opens his mouth about education, i need to start learning to tune out. it's not healthy for me. finally, the gay issue. was it impolite for kerry to bring up mary cheney? no, and here's why. first off, it's not like he was outing her. she's quite openly gay. nor was he criticising. in fact, he was using mary cheney in a positive, supportive light. nor was he the first person to bring her up. she came up in the VP debate as well. republican hackles are up all over the nation today, calling kerry's use of mary cheney all sorts of names. but explain to me this: why is it anathema for kerry to mention mary cheney in a positive light, but bush can try to amend her civil rights out of the constitution and no one bats an eye? and by the way: shame on you, john kerry, for having the nerve to stand up there and in one breath say that you refuse to "legislate morality" (in reference to abortion rights) and then turn around in the next and support laws that would prevent same-sex couples from having their civil rights. the public face of the democratic party has a long, long way to go on that issue. get out of the gutter. please. posted by J. Neas | 10/14/2004 03:18:00 PM
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