Sunday Papers

For your  reading pleasure, here are a few items that caught our attention.  Presented no particular order and without logical transitions:

One Dam Thing After Another:  Seems Vermont has been getting stiffed, for years now, by richer states through which the Connecticut River also flows.  These states are downstream and, hence, benefit from our putting lands  under water for the sake of controlling floods.  Massachusetts and Connecticut were supposed to pay us for lost revenue but they welshed ...

Meanwhile, Brattleboro has gone barking mad.  Green Mountain Daily, nominally an ally of the town,  thinks it may be time for an intervention ...

And the Vermont legislature continues working on campaign finance legislation that is sure to wind up in court where the odds are 2 to 1 against.  But even if  it holds up, the Vermont statute will inevitably be trumped by a higher law.  Namely, the law of unintended consequences.   Consider this scheme to air millions of dollars worth of negative ads against ... George W. Bush who won't be running for anything.  The lesson here seems to be: before we can get the money out of politics, we need to get politics out of the money.

Finally, a graceful look at the race for governorship of Vermont and the enigmatic Peter Galbraith. By Emerson Lynn, editor and publisher of the St. Albans Messenger where the piece first appeared.  We publish with permission.

Comments

[Jon Harrison]

Peter Galbraith is an interesting and intelligent fellow. I found his New York Times op-ed piece, "Our Corner of Iraq" (July 25, 2006) useful in preparing a magazine article that I published last year.

I have to wonder, though, if the son of Ken Galbraith would bring Vermont the sort of economic policies it needs. I am also very wary of the Democrats controlling both the executive and the legislative branches of government. Jim Douglas looks to me like the only person who can bar the way to a return of primordial chaos -- pardon me, I meant to say a Democratic sweep in November.

[Mister Guy]

Your "dam" complaint actually sounds fair to me. The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (that runs most, if not all, of the flood control dams in the CT River basin) routinely calculates the savings in flood control across the entire CT River basin after a flood (and there are still floods downstream along the CT River). Those states downstream are getting a sizeable benefit from the dams that are in VT. I would think also though, that Vermonters can enjoy some very nice parklands around those dams as well...but the money would be nice too.

I also agree that Gov. Jimmy D. is currently the only one in this state that is effectively blocking real reforms in education spending, renewable energy policy, health care reform, etc., etc....Republicans rejoice!

If you don't think GWB will be on the ballot this fall, you better start listening to your buddies in the current GOP field of candidates. A lot of them sound *exactly* like him to me and a lot their policies sound a lot like his. Get ready for a disappointment this fall... :)

[Jon Harrison]

I assume your comments about the governor and GWB were directed to me, Mister Guy. I should state for the record that I consider the Bush-Cheney administration to be the second worst we've had during my lifetime.

The biggest problem with Bush is that he has conducted himself like a modern liberal - spending like a drunken sailor, instituting new social programs, and acting like a world-improving Democrat in foreign policy, as epitomized by his war in Iraq. For the first time ever, a Republican is to blame for a typical "Democrat war" - unnecessary, badly conducted, and endless.

For a full discussion, please see my article, "George Bush: Darling of the Liberals" in the August 2006 Liberty Magazine (google Liberty Unbound, then find August 2006 in the archive).

The only administration that has been more harmful to this country was that of the Democrat's Democrat - Lyndon Baines Johnson. Maybe it's something in the water down there in Texas.

[Mister Guy]

They were mostly directed at the guy that wrote this post actually, but no matter. Dems tax and spend...the GOP borrows and spends. I think one is worse than the other, and pay-as-you-go is the way to go for me.

When was the last time a Democratic President invaded and overthrew a country based on lies? I seemed to have missed that moment. GWB is a neo-con, not a liberal.

We are in agreement that the Vietnam War was a huge waste of time, but you can blame Presidents from Truman to Nixon on that one. LBJ...love the civil rights stuff and a lot of the domestic programs (Medicare/Medicaid and aid to educational/poverty programs anyone?)...hated the useless escalation to the War.

[Jon Harrison]

"Hated the useless escalation of the war . . ." Nice throwaway line for an event that killed 58,000 Americans, 2 million Vietnamese, and wrecked the U.S. economy and the social fabric of our society. Indeed, many presidents share the blame, but LBJ took the fatal step, and therefore bears the heaviest responsibiltiy.

Tax and spend, borrow and spend - each side has done both. The problem is the excessive size of government, and the corruption and loss of liberty that results from it. The Democrats wrote the book on that. But as I said, GWB's the worst, except for LBJ.

As to GWB being a modern liberal, I suggest again that you read the piece mentioned in my earlier comment. Spouting off is no substitute for reading, research, and sober reflection.

Oh, and by the way, the last time a Democratic president "invaded . . . a country based on lies" was back in 1965, when LBJ invaded the Dominican Republic. Of course, he also lied his way into Vietnam, which as I mentioned resulted in a helluva lot more deaths even than Iraq.

[Jon Harrison]

Something I forgot to mention in my previous comment, regarding your statement, "GWB is a neocon, not a liberal." Perhaps you're too young to remember this, but I wonder if you know what the neocons were before they became neocons. They were liberal Democrats, every one of them. That's how the term "neoconservative" came into being. Liberals like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz gave up being liberals because they were disgusted with the Democratic Party.

Now, in my view the neocons are a bigger danger to the Republic than are liberal Democrats. But's it important to remember that that's where neocons came from - the liberal wing of the Democrat Party.

[Jon Harrison]

Let's talk for a moment about Brattleboro considering the arrest of Bush and Cheney. I frankly despise both men, but should Brattleboro really be spending time on this?

I suppose the people of Brattleboro have a right to do what they want, but this nonsense is just the latest instance (though, sadly, hardly an isolated one) of Vermonters acting like . . . well, complete idiots. At some point even a shameless bunch of fruitcakes ought to pause and reflect on their actions.

[Mister Guy]

Let's be fair here...LBJ didn't start the Vietnam War...like I said before, you can spread the blame out a long ways on that one...across party lines.

Look at when the federal deficit ballooned massively and who was in the White House when it happened. It happened when Congress was controlled by either party BTW (but there was a Republican in the White House), but when the voodoo "supply-side" economics was being pushed by Republicans. I suspect that we'll differ on this point though. The "slash taxes like it's going out of style" and then hope and pray that everything in the federal budget will pay for itself somehow doesn't work.

GWB, Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Wolfowitz, and company...you can keep them in the GOP where they've always been...we don't want your leftovers on our side.

[Mister Guy]

So, you wish that GWB was more fiscally conservative...join the club.

As for your "liberal" talk, you, of course, are obscuring the meaning of that term here in the USA. I agree that when you look worldwide that the political names that we call each other here lose (and sometimes flip) their meanings. Some of the early neocons did, in fact, come out of the *conservative* wing of the Democratic Party (not the liberal wing as we view it today and have for some time). The "Coalition for a Democratic Majority", the AEI, etc....we on the left know where these people stand and have for quite some time now. I can't say for myself that I always disagree with my more "conservative" Democratic friends either.

You can't fool me on that alone...nice try though...it's been tried before. :)

[Jon Harrison]

When I use the term liberal, I'm referring to the Anglo-American tradition only. The word is obviously bandied about in all sorts of odd ways in countries that are outside of that tradition.

Irving Kristol started out as a Trotskyite. He was a liberal Democrat in the 1960s. I'm not talking about the left wing of the Democratic party post-1968, when it went completely left-looney. Those who call themselves liberal today (isn't it actually "progressive" now - liberal having become almost a dirty word?), are hardly that, at least not in the true sense of the word.

A lot of the second-generation neocons came out of Scoop Jackson's Senate staff. Now, Jackson was a "conservative" Democrat on national security issues and busing, but otherwise he was a Great Society liberal.

Anyway, my point was that GWB acts like a modern liberal (as opposed to a "classical" liberal), in that he supports massive social spending (NCLB, the Medicare drug benefit, etc.), not to mention all sorts of corporate welfare programs (most of which were invented under Democrats in the post-WWII period) and a world-improving, interventionist foreign policy.

I am not trying to fool you in the least. I'm trying to educate you. I don't want to teach you too much, however, because you perform an invaluable service on this sight. You are a foil for the rest of us (and usually a good-natured one, too, for which I commend you). This sight would be a lesser thing without you. We've got to have someone with cockamamie ideas that we can shoot down.:)

[Mister Guy]

I'm a liberal...you "conservatives" haven't dirtied that word enough for me yet. :) You have to be careful in VT when you use the word "progressive" yanno, as there's a party by that name here...they are really just really, really liberal Dems IMO. Why don't you do yourself a favor a stick to defining your side of the fence...you'll get yourself in less of a pickle that way.

I think we would rather do without GWB's useless NCLB, half-assed Medicare Part D (my Mom almost confused herself into a tizzy this past year trying to figure that part of the program out), and corporate welfare. You can keep them on the GOP side of the fence, where they belong...

[Jon Harrison]

May I remind you that Ted Kennedy worked hand in glove with GWB on NCLB . . . and that the Medicare drug benefit was embraced by Democrats wholeheartedly?

I'm a libertarian conservative. As such I oppose the evangelical right's agenda, just as I oppose the absurd initiatives of the Democrat left.

I believe I'll talk about "liberals" and "progressives" w/o worrying unduly about the Progressive Party of Vermont. As to defining only my side of the fence, I'll exercise my right of free speech and talk about yours as well, thank you very much. Typical of the Left, trying to stifle open debate.

[Mister Guy]

Yes, Teddy did do that...he also thought that they would actually fund the program...they didn't. And, it turned out that they lied about the usefulness of "high-stakes" testing down in TX, which has been well-reported by now. I say scrap NCLB and try again.

May I remind you that Medicare can't even negotiate drug prices with the pharmacutical companies? People would get a better deal if they simply went to Canada, which is not a long-term solution by any means.

The lucky thing for you is...you're obviously new to VT & I doubt Progressives read this website very much. It was merely a suggestion...try & stop being so touchy Mr. Harrison.