South Chicagoland Young Democrats: The Blog

In honour of Fred Thompson throwing his name into the political maelstrom of the 2008 presidential election, I first will salute him for his bravery.  This is a turbulent time, what with the War on Terror and the subsequent rape of Islamic culture.  If the United States continues on the path that George W. Bush has set forth, if the USA remains in Iraq beyond the point of no return (which may very well have already passed) and if we continue to consume non-renewable resources at ever-increasing rates, then the world in twenty-five years will be a pitiful war-torn excuse for civilization.  On that positive note, I would like to announce that I am running for President of the United States in 2032.  I will be forty-two years old, one of the youngest to ever run.  Now, if you will humour me, the situation all candidates will be facing in 2032 unless something is done right now:

• Rising sea levels worldwide cause flooding of countless millions of people worldwide, but especially threatening to under-developed nations with large populations such as Bangladesh.  In the United States, Floridians have evacuated to Georgia and Alabama, while those from New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and countless other cities move inland.  Chicago becomes the capital of the United States.
• Peak Oil is old news, as stockpiles in the thawed Arctic Ocean are used up by 2015.  Millions of Chinese return to their bicycles, but most Americans can’t seem to leave their cars.  The non-renewable resources are extremely scarce, and so expensive as to be absurd.
• “Alternative” energy no longer exists.  There is no alternative to alternative energy, and solar farms become increasingly prevalent.  Entire cities place solar panels on top of their buildings, while nuclear reactors make up for what wind and solar cannot.
• NASA has fallen apart in favour of private companies for the American space program, but the Europeans, Russians, Chinese, and Japanese are surpassing the US in nearly every category.  The International Space Station is obsolete, while the Russians and Chinese jointly share a colony on the moon.  Asteroids are mined in a futile attempt to secure more resources for power. 
• International borders have collapsed due to increasing advances for the internet, making any sort of local government nearly ineffective.  In the US, elections are fraut with corruption and bribery, making present-day (2007) elections in countries like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela look as pure as the new-driven snow (by the way, snow is a distant memory, still present only in Antarctica, Siberia, and Greenland).
• The collapse of borders means people are flooding into the US and Europe, leaving Latin America, Turkey, Africa, and various other locales struggling to retain any sense of stability. 
• Wars come into being daily, as less people in the under-developed areas means an easier path to creating an empire, for those political leaders too inept or too apathetic to care about the rest of the world in favour of their own personal power.  In the developed “superpowers,” chaos reigns in Paris, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, England, and the US as the hordes of newcomers topple established methods and bring an abrupt end to what was once a stable society. 
• In the midst of the chaos and anarchy, highly intelligent thieves are able to sneak into the nuclear stockpiles of the US and Russia.  Several thermonuclear bombs explode over major cities, including Jerusalem.  No one really pays much attention, as each nation has much more important matters to attend to.
• The idea of a nation as a separate entity falls apart, as local governments are able to establish much better control in a chaotic world than the federal government.  This results in the fragmenting of much of the world, and a renaissance of the Dark Ages.

Isn’t that a wonderful picture?  It is the most extreme possibility I could imagine, though it would not be too difficult to imagine given how easily the internal societies can change when given drastic external changes, such as rising sea levels and the continued occupation of Iraq.  We cannot hold off the future, and we must do something right now to change this.  It certainly changes my campaign slogan (Driscoll is good for your Fiscal)- there would be no need for a solid fiscal year in such a situation as described above.  It remains to be seen how humanity will respond to these crises, but one thing is certain:  the only way to respond fully is to respond before the stimulus occurs.  Yet, on our present path, we may never respond.  (But it isn’t the first time a strong government denies the truth until it is no longer an issue.)

I feel sort of sorry for Fred Thompson.  He doesn’t realize what he’s getting himself into. 

~From the mind of Eamon Driscoll

An Iranian diplomat that was recently freed from captivity in Iraq has alleged that he was interrogated and tortured by the CIA. The diplomat was taken captive by an unknown group of armed men several months ago while working in Iraq. The US army denied any involvent and continues to deny involvement. Despite this denial, the diplomat appeared an Iranian TV yesterday claiming that he was taken prisoner by Iraqi troops under the command of Americans. While the White House and the Pentagon are both claiming that there was no such involvement and that this man was never a prisoner of the CIA, we must ask if we really believe them.

Ever since President Bush made it clear that he believes in the use of forms of torture and that we discovered that there were secret prison camps around the world containing detainees in the war against terrorism, we cannot ever truly know whether or not this man is telling the truth. As an American citizen, I cannot help but think that if I do not know whether or not to believe our government, what must the rest of the world think. What is worse is that this claims are coming from Iran, a nation that is currently under scrutiny because of its nuclear program and because of the recent fiasco with the captive British sailors and marines. One would think that the US would be more credible it does not appear as such.

While this is all merely speculation on my part, I cannot help but think that if I feel this way, more people, notably the rest of the world, must feel similarly. This is the curse of President Bush’s abysmal foreign policy, or rather, lack there of. His public feelings on torture and the treatment of prisoners at camps like Guantanamo Bay have damned our country to forever be questioned by the global community. How will we ever be able to achieve success in this “war on terror” if in the eyes of the rest of the world we are no better than the terrorists that we are fighting?

Some food for thought from the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms.

Controversy and anger surrounds a bill recently passed by France making it a crime to deny that the Armenian Genocide of 1915 was, in fact, a genocide. Most of the world’s political figures refer to it as a merely a massacre or just a “tragedy” that happened to occur.

Before I begin, let me explain for those who have never heard of this genocide. Between 1915 and 1918, the Ottoman Empire in Turkey methodically killed 1.5 million Armenians. For a population of around 2 million, it’s a bit more than a tragedy. A relocation program was set up by the Ottoman Empire for the unknowing Armenians, whose destination was a more primitive version of Hilter’s comcentration camps. They walked there, with no food, no water, no protection from the elements, and with armed Turkish soldiers. Any of this sound familiar? Yeah, guess where Hitler got his idea.

Turkey claims to this day that all 1.5 million people were killed during the times of civil unrest as the empire collapsed under stress from World War I.

France passes this bill as Turkey is attempting to enter the European Union. Until Turkey acknowledges the “tragedy” as what is really is, France refuses to back their entry.

Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust, from Rwanda, or from the current genocide in Sudan? How many many more millions of people must die before we take action? America is such a powerful voice, yet we never speak up. We say “That’s horrible, you should stop,” but why should anyone stop when they face no consequences? Staying silent and allowing Turkey, or anyone, to keep getting away with a genocide will help this murderous train rolling. We cannot stop genocide until we recognize and ackowledge genocide. We can do it with one sentence. This was not just a massacre, this tragedy was genocide.

Americans have a stereotype about France. The French are weak, they are cowards, they would rather sit in cafes eating croissants than go fight for what’s right. But France had the courage to stand up for what’s right, and are facing the consequences. How can we call them cowards when we will not stand up for those 1.5 million people who cannot speak for themselves? It makes me proud to say that I am 2 percent French. C’est le temps pour se lever.

Cait Phipps, 1st Vice President