War

I often see arguments that New York needs to work with the GOP, since they control all three branches of government, and it’s the only way to get anything done for New York. Bullshit. The only sane thing to do is work to defeat every Republican we can. There is no reason why New York State should have any Republicans representing us in Congress. And once we’ve done that, we can launch challenges from the left for politicians like Hilary Clinton and Chuck Schumer who are pro-Iraq War and pro-PATRIOT Act.

NY1 reports:

Local politicians are slamming the Department of Homeland Security Wednesday for its decision to slash New York City’s counter-terrorism funding by $83 million this year, a nearly 40 percent cut from the previous year.

The Department of Homeland Security today announced its new national distribution plan, which divides a total of $740 million between 46 cities. DHS say the cuts will help spread funding to other communities facing threats.

The new funding formula shows the Big Apple will have to make do with $124 million in federal homeland security grants for the 2006 fiscal year, down from $207 million last year.

New York State is also taking a cut of just under $115 million this year, despite promises from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff earlier this year that his department would be distributing money based on risk.

…

While New York is facing cuts in funding, the DHS has decided to increase funding for cities including Omaha, Nebraska; Louisville, Kentucky; and Jacksonville, Florida.

Funding was also cut for Washington, DC. Let’s be realistic here. If a terrorist wants to set off a dirty bomb, it’s going to happen in a dense city like New York or DC, not some place like Omaha with less than 500,000 people.

Who is the head of the House of Representatives’ Homeland Security Committee? Peter King, a Republican congressman from Long Island. If this is what “working with Republicans” get us, I can’t imagine a better reason to work on throwing them all out.

There is a post on this subject at Daily Gotham, with a link to the Act Blue page for New York congressional races if you would like to donate some money.

Also from Daily Gotham, Liza Sabater points out that the state Democratic party fears bloggers and finds them a bit harsh. Good luck with that, coming from a party that couldn’t prevent charisma-free George Pataki from being governor for eight years. As she says,

If things stay the course, they’re going to lose the 2008 elections to a pet rock.

On a somewhat related note, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gets in the press for railing about the NRA and illegal guns, but that doesn’t stop him from donating money (up to the maximum amount) to pro-gun politicians. Steve Gilliard has the text of a New York Times article on the subject.

Jean Rohe was the speaker at the New School graduation before John McCain. Many of the students were understandably outraged that the president of the school, Bob Kerrey — a war criminal — invited McCain to speak at the graduation. His right wing ideology has nothing to do with the progressive history of the New School.

She has a post about her experience, including the text of her speech, at The Huffington Post.

Some excerpts are below:

It’s been noted in several columns that anti-McCain sentiment coming from the left may actually help him to garner support from the conservatives by giving him the opportunity to paint us as extremist liberals, so we should all keep our mouths shut. I say we need some “extremist liberals” if we’re ever going to get our democracy back. Others have said that he’s a moderate at heart and that we should let him continue pandering to the religious right so he can get the vote. Once he gets into office he’ll show his true colors and be the centrist he always was. I don’t buy that. People who truly care about human beings don’t vote for an unjust war, among other things, simply as a political maneuver. Enough said.

More importantly, I feel obligated to respond to one thing that McCain told the New York Times. “I feel sorry for people living in a dull world where they can’t listen to the views of others,” he said. This is just preposterous. Yes, McCain was undoubtedly shouted-out and heckled by people who were not politely absorbing his words so as to consider them fully from every angle. But what did he expect? We could’ve all printed out his speech and chanted it with him in chorus. Did he think that no one knew exactly what he was about to say? And it was precisely because we listen to the views of others, and because, as I said in my speech, we don’t fear them, that we as a school were able to mount such a thorough and intelligent opposition to his presence. Ignorant, closed-minded people would not have been able to do what we did. We chose to be in New York for our years of higher education for the very reason that we would be challenged to listen to opposing viewpoints each and every day and to deal with that challenge in a nonviolent manner. We’ve gotten very good at listening to the views of others and learning how to also make our views heard, even when we don’t have the power of national political office and the media on our side.

Here is the conclusion of her speech:

What is interesting and bizarre about this whole situation is that Senator Mc Cain has stated that he will be giving the same speech at all three universities where he has been invited to speak recently, of which ours is the last; those being Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, Columbia University, and finally here at the New School. For this reason I have unusual foresight concerning the themes of his address today. Based on the speech he gave at the other institutions, Senator Mc Cain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our “civic and moral obligation” in times of crisis. I consider this a time of crisis and I feel obligated to speak. Senator Mc Cain will also tell us about his cocky self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others. In so doing, he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions and open ears. I am young, and although I don’t profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous and wrong, that George Bush’s agenda in Iraq is not worth the many lives lost. And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.

Finally, Senator Mc Cain will tell us that we, those of us who are Americans, “have nothing to fear from each other.” I agree strongly with this, but I take it one step further. We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet. Fear is the greatest impediment to the achievement of peace. We have nothing to fear from people who are different from us, from people who live in other countries, even from the people who run our government—and this we should have learned from our educations here. We can speak truth to power, we can allow our humanity always to come before our nationality, we can refuse to let fear invade our lives and to goad us on to destroy the lives of others. These words I speak do not reflect the arrogance of a young strong-headed woman, but belong to a line of great progressive thought, a history in which the founders of this institution play an important part. I speak today, even through my nervousness, out of a need to honor those voices that came before me, and I hope that we graduates can all strive to do the same.

[image from The Huffington Post]

The Villager has an article on the endorsement of Jonathan Tasini, who is running against Hilary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for New York Senator. I bolded one of the things of interest in the paragraph below.

Turned off by Hillary Clinton’s position on the Iraq war, plus the recent news that archconservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch will be hosting a fundraiser for her, the Village Independent Democrats last week threw their support behind one of Clinton’s rivals, Jonathan Tasini, in the September Democratic primary.

The New York GOP is in such disarray that they are unlikely to field a viable candidate. Now is a good time to let her know we don’t like her support of the Iraq War and the PATRIOT ACT, or her views on gay marriage. She is also starting to move rightward on abortion.

Related: Joseph Lieberman is probably more vulnerable that Hilary Clinton to getting kicked out in the primary.

[image from Jonathan Tasini’s website]