Author: Bryant

I’ve been chewing over these two posts from Kevin Drum about the Texas Republican Party platform. First off, I agree with him: the platform as a whole is pretty damned radical. I would certainly be interested in hearing President Bush, who presumably has signed a similar document, talk about whether or not he supports all those positions. And much of the platform is way the hell out of the mainstream.

However, it’s wrong to say that the platform has no place in American politics. For example, there is absolutely no reason to recoil from the sight of a politician who wants to return to the gold standard. It might not be a bright thing to do, but it hardly signifies the destruction of the republic. Most if not all of the economic planks fall into that bucket. Dumb ideas? Maybe. Radical? Sure. Shouldn’t be discussed in polite company? Uh…

Now, when you get to creationism being taught in public schools and eliminating separation of church and state, there I’m more or less in agreement. But even the anti-abortion plank isn’t something you can just sweep away with a magisterial comment or two. Democrats should realize that whether or not they like that position, it’s a position which is fully in the mainstream. Sure, it’s disturbing that the Texas wing of the Republican Party has so much influence, because their platform as a whole really is scary. However, when you point at it and say “look, radical ideas!” you just alienate a pretty big section of America.

And it’s healthy to be able to discuss ideas. Just about any idea. You can’t gain consensus by squashing dissent, even wacky radical right wing dissent. The country’s better off for having dissenting voices, even those we really don’t like.

The implication of this Metafilter post is that someone is providing soldiers with pre-written letters which they simply sign and send to newspapers. Or, according to this article, someone is signing the letters for them.

This kind of thing has been nicknamed astroturf — i.e., a fake grassroots. The Republican Party is fairly fond of it.

I think it’s more than usually repugnant when it’s used to misrepresent what our soldiers think, however. The men dying in Iraq deserve better than to have their views hijacked by a public relations flack.

The news that Ivan Reitman was named to Arnold’s transition team is only significant insofar as Reitman’s an old friend of David Cronenberg’s. I’m going to be very disappointed if we don’t start seeing biocybernetic devices propagating throughout California.

If I were part of any sort of political movement in California, I would pay close attention to this map. I would not waste time complaining about how foolish people were. I would figure out why the map looks like that, and take advantage of the reasons.

Talking about how it’s time to stop holding back counts as complaining, by the by.