Kerry Got Baited

Though it's been very difficult arriving at this conclusion, I've decided to write a column in support of a Bush campaign initiative. I felt baited while weighing the issue out and I wasn't able to solidify my own position until hearing Kerry's weak rebuttal. The issue was George Bush deciding to bring home 70,000 troops from their Asian and Western European posts. Bush supported this decision with his own ideology of "Force Transformation," which I feel was inapplicabable and was only brought up to successfully bait Kerry.

"Force Transformation" has been a stable of neocon lexicon for the past four years, referring to the now discredited belief that we simply do not need as many infantry in our Army because of advances in weapons technology. Rumsfeld & Co have been trumpeting the idea of a leaner, stronger, more mobile army without tanks and artillery that packs more punch with fewer logistical requirements. While we do need a more mobile force, few of the reservists in Iraq that left families and idling careers half a world away would agree that our current active duty army is too large.

Bush has packaged this ideology with a military necessity that John Kerry should be behind too - changing our militaries basing structure. We're on the brink of a global realignment of our military posture. With the Cold War over, we no longer need troops poised to stop Soviet armor from passing through the Folda Gap into Western Europe. What we need now is the ability to contain possible Chinese expansion in addition to being able to project our forces anywhere we need them in the Terror Wars - which has a front stretching from the Atlantic coast of Morocco, as far north as the Caucuses, and as far east as the Philippines. It looks as if the center of this will be in Iraq, where we will be sure to have a large military presence for many, many years to come so long as we "win the peace." The conventional wisdom has held that he troops stationed in Western European NATO countries will be moved into the more amiable "New Europe," as Rumsfeld so eloquently put it. These are the former Soviet Bloc nations eager for US aid and protection, and are consequently more easily in line with our foreign policies

Instead of building huge new bases and simply shuffling troops around, Bush wants to build a series of skeleton bases around the globe that would easily expand to carry tens of thousands of troops and their pre-positioned weapons. Far from shrinking the size of the Army, this would be an anecdote for the "Second Christmas Syndrome," wherein soldiers are far less likely to stay in the military after spending a second Christmas away from their families in a far off corner of the globe.

Tags: Treyopia Current Events Spinnaker Bush Kerry Force Transformation

Please, Won't You Be A Democrat?

Political pragmatism has been one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn out of class as an undergrad. I had to learn it as a Senator during my two-terms at our Student Government. Four years ago (I now work for a man I campaigned against during the election). Four years ago, as a UNF Freshman stomping around the Hall, I proudly cast my first vote as an adult in the General Election. My vote was solidly for Ralph Nader, something I trumpeted until I found out who won a month later.

My vote counted. A lot. The official score gave Bush 537 more votes than Gore. However, 19,488 Floridians voted for Ralph Nader. Had 3% of Florida Nader voters not felt so disenfranchised by the Democratic Party, Al Gore would have been President and their would have been no invasion of Iraq. The EPA, UN, and HUD would still be relevant. No children would have been left behind because of tax cuts for the rich. There also wouldn’t be an Attorney General with such blatant disregard for our Constitution and for a woman’s right to choose – in fact, John Ashcroft would have remained That Guy Who Lost to a Dead Guy in Missouri. Dick Cheney would have just been another former official sucking taxpayers dry as CEO of a government contractor, not the former CEO of the only contractor in Iraq.<

The Democratic Party is still not where it needs to be. It lacks the leaders of yesteryear and instead has weak willed political wind-veins like Tom Daschle and John Kerry at the helm of the party, who never put up serious opposition to the tax cuts, Iraq Invasion, the PATRIOT Act, or the abolition of the 40-hour work week for millions of Americans. The reason Democrats did so bad in 2002 mid-term elections was because they wanted to be Republican-lite. So now we’ve got an elitist billionaire who supported the war running against an elitist billionaire who sponsored the war. I can understand how many of you who identify yourselves as leftist and generally populist would feel left out of the election. I beg you though, cast your vote Democrat. Don’t sit at home and don’t vote for Nader. Kerry isn’t an inspiration to any of us, but he’s a step in the right direction. Voting purely on conscious will feel good for a few days, but damn it’ll suck three and half years and 13,000 dead Iraqi civilians later.

Tags: Treyopia Current Events Spinnaker Kerry Democrat Democratic Party Florida Elections polls weakness regain

A Modest Proposal for Gas Prices

Many people don’t know why gas prices are so high, so today I’ll share what I know of it: crude oil is selling right now for about $1.40 a gallon, of which 20¢ is rumored to be terrorism insurance. Add transportation costs, refining costs, federal and state taxes (Florida: 14¢), and mark it up a few cents for the gas stations themselves, and suddenly you’re paying $2 a gallon to go to school.

Obviously, the biggest part of the price is for the raw crude, but why? Two reasons: supply and demand. Supply has been edging off, as OPEC has been trying to raise oil prices to bring in more revenue to their dilapidated economies. As strange as it may seem, oil-producing nations right now tend to be the most financially insecure, mostly because elites have mismanaged their wealth instead of investing it at home. Secondly, the world is consuming more oil –because we Americans are becoming less fuel-efficient and because nations like China are now consuming as much oil as Japan. Less oil on the market and higher demand equals less Corona and more Bud Lite for you, the college consumer. It’s also early summer, when energy demand is greatest and prices peak.

“So what do we do to lower the costs?” the budget-minded undergrad asks. The way I see it is if we really want to put a dent in oil prices, we need to ask if we want to do it long term or short term. See, oil prices aren’t even that high right now compared to the 70’s OPEC oil embargo or even to what they will be when we pass peak production. Within our lifetimes, oil-nations will be unable to pump more oil than previous years but demand will be even higher than it is now. Gas prices will be astronomical compared to today, even when adjusted to inflation.

If we want to counter the big oil crunch of tomorrow, we’re going to have to take a bigger bite today. Like Europe, we’d need to jack up gas prices through taxation to provide demand-side incentives for fuel efficiency. People are going to need a good reason to buy a station wagon instead of a Hummer.

Who wants to pay more for gas right now? Therefore, I propose that we fix the problem in the short term, in the new American fashion: from the supply-side. We need to withdraw our Marines from Iraq and place them back on the ships that brought them there. We then need to sail them to three places: a few hundred miles south to the Saudi oil fields, out to the Nigerian oil fields, and then out to the Venezuelan oil fields south of Aruba. We’ll let the 82nd Airborne take over the Caspian. We need to secure these oil fields, free the people living and working inside of them, and open the pumps and let the oil flow, flow, flow. After taking out a small fee to pay for the Marines, bullets, and whatnot we’ll give the rest of the revenue to the governments that host the liberated fields. This modest proposal gets to the heart of what we should be doing in Iraq: we don’t come to steal the oil, we’re more than happy to pay for it; we just want to make sure it flows at peak capacity so it’s cheap.


Tags: Treyopia Current Events Spinnaker Gas Prices Modest Proposal military 82nd Jonathon Swift satire China Japan markets

Early Summer

Summer is here and the Spinnaker isn't publishing but once, so I'm not writing nearly as much. I have more homework now than I've ever had since starting college, which means less free time for free lance writing. I've put in ad in the Folio Weekly advertising photography services, but no such luck yet. I'm also eagerly awaiting Bonnaroo. I promise there will be a plethora of photos and some stories to tell when I get back.


So anyways, here's some loosely condensed thoughts on current events:

June 30 Turnover:

At core, I think it's a good idea. It's even a better idea as the British are proposing it, wherein the Iraqi's can have a veto on major offensives like was witnessed in Fallujah. Interestingly enough, Stratfor's CEO is saying that the occupation as it's going on now is unwinnable and that the more we goals we set as to what the Iraqi government looks and behaves like, the more we're letting "Mission Creep" drag us into a quagmire. He advocates moving US troops presense out of the populated areas and into the deserts where they can both be less of a target to insurgents while still putting pressure on Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran. I don't know if I completely agree, but it sounds like one of the clearest idea's I've heard.


Abu Ghraib:

Rumsfeld should resign, as should his batch of hand picked undersecretaries that trash talk the Geneva Convictions (Douglas Fieth). No other democratic government in the world would survive this kind of scandal, so a secretary certainly shouldn't. Honestly, what more does it take to loose your job? No matter how you look at it, it all comes down to him. Either he lost control of the troops on the ground, the troops on the ground were getting hints to keep it up, or this was coming from hire up. Furthermore, he tells Congress that he takes full responsibility. IF that was more than just a trite cliche to look somber, he should take responsibility and fall on his sword for this one.


McCain-Kerry ticket, err, Kerry-McCain ticket:

Honestly one of the most beautiful ideas I've heard in a long, long time. The polls show the people love it, the minority vote loves it, it's an unbeatable ticket that might be the only salvation to us Democrat's appointing M. Duchakas's Lt. Governor. Those who know me well know that I love the Westminster style of Democracy, where ad hoc coalitions rise and fall and minorities have their voices heard and more than just two (rich white) voices are heard on any given subject. I think this ideas represents something beautiful: a biartisan effort to stomp out this extremely polarized atmosphere in American politics. People like McCain, even when they disagree with his politics, because he represents a style of civic populist leadership sadly missing inside the Beltway.

My fear is that we Democrats might be putting too much stock in this idea, and if it doesn't float we're going to loose a lot of interest in Kerry and probably be really disappointed in his veep pic (who I'm thinking will be Max Cleland).

That's all for now. I'm writing from a friend's PC, I'll come through and spell-check later.


Tags: Treyopia Current Events Abu Ghraib Kerry-McCain McCain Kerry Iraq War politics