South Chicagoland Young Democrats: The Blog

While on the outside the Pledge of Allegiance appears to be an oath of loyalty, there are certainly parts which seem to contradict the fundamental values of America, most of which have been violated time and time again.  There is of course the religious controversy about adding “under God” to the Pledge, which occured in 1954.  “Indivisible” is clearly a reference to the Civil War, though secession is still held as a right in many states, even those in the north, such as New Hampshire (Article 10).  If America is founded on rebellion, why should this country be indivisible?  Even Thomas Jefferson believed that “a little revolution now and then is a good thing.”  I could go on for hours about “liberty and justice for all.”  But I will not make this a philosophical argument about the ethics of the Pledge.  Instead I have created a new, more realistic version of the Pledge of Allegiance, according to what I believe that those in power (ahem:  King George II) wants everyone to be really saying.  Enjoy.

I pledge obediance to the Flag
of the Corporate Feudalism of America
and to the Empire for which it stands
One Conglomerate, under the Christian God,
Superficial, with Serfdom and Conformity for all.
Amen.

~From the mind of Eamon Driscoll

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

Everyone knows the leading contenders in the Democratic Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton, Barrack Obama, and John Edwards. Few people, however, know much more than their names. As a result, and given that I have to do this as part of an assignment for my political science class, I am going to begin posting news about the presidential race on a weekly basis. I am also going to add the results of weekly national polls on who the leaders are.

With President Bush’s announcement that he will follow General Petraeus’s advice and begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, 30,000 by July of next year, many of the Democratic presidential hopefuls spoke out against his plan. Hillary Clinton called this plan “too little, to late,” and added that she believes the president should be doing more as the Commander in Chief to expedite the process of troop withdrawal. Barack Obama shared Clinton’s negative view of Bush’s new plan calling it a return to the original failed military policy in Iraq. He in turn proposed his own plan for a drawdown of troops that would involve the withdrawal of one to two brigades a month every month, which would mean to complete withdrawal of American forces by the end of next year. John Edwards called for the immediate withdrawal of 40-50,000 troops, while also calling Obama’s plan a copy of the president’s. Chris Dodd also criticized Bush’s plan but did not offer any ideas of his own.

In other news, Hillary Clinton rejected criticism over her acceptance of campaign contributions from lobbyists. Both Obama and Edwards used her acceptance of this money as proof that she is too firmly involved in the Washington institution. Both men, however, have accepted contributions from the employers and family members of lobbyists, a fact that greatly weakens their criticism of Clinton.

This weeks polls (excluding Al Gore):
Clinton 39%
Obama 20%
Edwards 13%
Richardson 1%
Kucinich 2%
Biden 1%
Dodd 1%
Unsure 11%

From the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly soon to be ex-Sargeant at Arms.

Some online fun that arrived via email today:

1. Open a new file in your computer.
2. Name it: “George W. Bush “
3. Send it to the trash.
4. Empty the trash.
5. Your PC will ask you:
   1. “Do you really want to get rid of George W. Bush?”
6. Firmly Click “Yes.”
7. Feel better?

PS: Tomorrow we’ll do the same with Dick Cheney…

We are changing the date for this week’s meeting ONLY from July 19 to July 18.

So, I’ll see you all tomorrow, July 18, Wednesday, at 7 p.m., instead of Thursday this week.

The South Chicagoland Young Democrats meet at Borders in Matteson.  Address is on our main home page: http://www.southchiyd.org

Your attendance is vital.  We’re planning a golf outing, remember!

Thank you!

As the Iraq war drags on we are constantly searching for reasons as to why we have yet to pull out. Every time that I get into an argument with someone on this topic, it always comes back to the idea of killing off members of Al Qaeda. To an extent I have been able to accept this as a reason to keep on fighting. As against the war as I am, there is some appeal to taking the fight to the enemy. A recent report by the CIA has shown however that we are not even accomplishing anything in that respect.

The recently published CIA report stated that Al Qaeda has risen to its pre-9/11 strength despite waging a six year war, originally in Afghanistan and now in Iraq as well. The content of this report seems to show that even with how rapidly we are killing off potential terrorists, which, if you have been keeping track of the death tolls from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is very rapidly, we are creating more at an even faster rate. Therefore, the war in Iraq officially has no purpose. What have we accomplished then, if we have not weakened the terrorists at all but rather given them strength and a place to kill our troops?

It is scary to think that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations can regain strength while simultaneously fighting two wars against the US and waring with other governments throughout the Middle East. The only conclusion that one can come to is that we have some how managed to make the people of the Middle East hate us even more than they did six years ago. I wonder how. This is a scary thought because six years ago they hated us enough to kill thousands of people in a matter of minutes.

From the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms

Olbermann at his best. Watch it. Now.

A good chunk of my friends who have graduated high school within the past two years enlisted in some branch of the military. I am incredibly proud to say that I know these people. I, like so many other Americans, also live in daily fear of them getting that call to go to Iraq. These soldiers are eighteen and nineteen years old and are taking the places of the twenty-four and twenty-five year old soldiers being killed.

While I have sympathy for the soldiers who enlisted to help pay for college, and are now fighting for their country and their lives in the Middle East, I have to say, that is what the army does and it is to be expected, especially in such globally turbulent times. Most of the people I know who joined the military did so for just that, college. Some joined because they didn’t see themselves in college and wanted a way out a life working in the Ford factories.

The twenty-something brother of a friend of mine was sent to Iraq on Monday. His deployment made me so sick. He did enlist for college tuition and to do something for his country. But in post-9/11 circumstances, he knew he did not want to go to war. He enlisted in the National Guard. He led tanks into New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and now he’s being led into a war zone by a self-righteous President.

The National Guard was formed so that the American people had protection while the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force were in fighting in foreign lands. They are supposed to be here if anything happens to us back home. It disgusts me that they are being sent overseas to war. I don’t support the President’s call for more troops, but if he must send more, send only who is supposed to be sent. Who is protecting us if every member of our military is overseas? Maybe it’s just me, but the National Guard should stay within the nation it is guarding.

Cait Phipps, 1st Vice Pres

The upcoming primary for the presidential election has already sparked two debates for both parties. The Democratic debates were mostly concerned with issues including the war in Iraq, education, and health care. This is really not surprising and none of the candidates really said anything notable. For the most part all of the Democratic candidates agree.

The Republican debates, however, did not really touch on any of these topics except for the war in Iraq. As is the usual tendency with conservatives in the country in recent years, the debates both centered around the religious beliefs of the candidates. Every question seems to revolve around each officials religious beliefs or feelings about gays. The biggest topic of discussion yesterday seemed to have been Giuliani’s position on abortion.

I cannot think of any topic less relevant to the well being of this country than abortion and gay marriage. What difference does it make if a politician believes in a woman’s right to choose or if two men can get married. The only thing that I can think of is whether or not he or she believes in God. Frankly, I have had quite enough of God. Religion is a beautiful thing but in the hands of idiots it becomes something terrible. This is truly the case in the world today with everyone killing each other over what to call God or arguing constantly over whether the Bible is literal or figurative. How about for once, for the first time in this millennium, we spend our time worrying about things that are relevant rather than over religion.

From the brilliant mind of Mike Kean, your friendly Sergeant at Arms