The Blogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Well, let me try to move on to a positive note. A very dear friend of mine in San Francisco recently announced that she is voting for Bush. B. and I have known each other for about seven years, and we've had many incredible conversations. She's a highly intelligent, independent-minded person. I had told her that I was voting for Bush, and why, but never pushed her to agree with me. But once she got internet access, she started reading this site and others, and chose to become better informed. What finally changed her mind was a TV interview with Michael DeLong, author of "Inside CENTCOM", which explained a lot about the Iraq war and put things in perspective for her. She has also begun noticing the media bias! Like me, B. disagrees with President Bush on many issues, but she understands that he is the only candidate with the will, the character, the resolve, and the ideas to see America and the world through this difficult time.

Here in Portland, my friend G. hasn't changed her pro-Kerry position (again, I've never pushed her to) but she has shown a genuine interest in learning more about what's happening. This, for me, is the most important thing. I wish more people had this attitude. If you are reading this blog, I hope you feel the same way.

A Few Final Thoughts

... before the election.

I'm tired of writing about politics, but we're not done yet. It ain't over 'til Fat Boy howls in anguish, which, G-d and the American people willing, will be very soon.

I received a last-minute pro-Kerry e-mail from some well-meaning friends in San Francisco. They sent me editorials by Alan Dershowitz and Rabbi Avi Wikonur. I spent the morning composing a lengthy rebuttal in my head, but at this point, frankly, I haven't got the energy.

Let me say what I really mean. I haven't got the patience to plod through the same arguments again and again. I sit in front of this computer every day, sometimes for 6 or 8 hours at a stretch, and I've heard every argument there is. There isn't anything Dershowitz or Wikonur can say that I haven't heard already.

There is only one candidate who cares about making the Mideast, and the world, a better place. Perhaps Kerry actually believes his own insane claims that the Iranian mullahs will be induced, through gentle persuasion, to give up their nuclear ambitions. Kerry, in fact, seems to have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality, which is the single thing about him that disturbs me the most.

I'm rambling. I don't know what else to say right now. I feel like I should have some profound thoughts on the eve of the election, but I'm just numb. I'm numb, and I don't know what to say.

Update

My blogroll is now in some remote semblance of order, although it still needs a lot of work. But please take a look, I've sorted out my links a bit, and, even more important, added some new ones.

I don't have time to post this morning, got to get to class. (M/W/F: Calculus and Women's Studies. Tu/Th: Early American Literature.) Hope to post a little this afternoon if time permits.

And BTW, thanks to everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedule (even if just 2 seconds!) to visit Dreams Into Lightning over the past six months. Feel free to post a comment here, if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like to see more/less of, or if you just want to chat.

Catch you later ...

Michael J. Totten returns ...

... to his homepage after helping to hold down the fort at Instapundit. If you scroll down on his current screen, you'll find his impressions from his stint in the upper realms of the blognoscenti, plus his sailing trip up north to Washington, and observations on the experiences of those annoying "liberals for Bush" like Christopher Hitchens and Marc (Armed Liberal) Danziger. MJT - who also wants you to know that he still reads Andrew Sullivan - speaks succinctly for many of us when he says, "despite the fact that I’ve been pushed toward to the right, I haven’t joined the right." Go read his blog.

UPDATE: Don't miss the new guest post by Danziger, The Struggle of Ideas.

Rabin Remembered

Reflections on Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)

Israelis recently marked the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist named Yigal Amir.

Alison Kaplan Sommer writes:

Mommy, Yitzhak Rabin was killed in Tel Aviv, right? By a bad guy with a gun named Yigal Amir. And he was Jewish, too. Mommy, tell me again, why did the bad guy kill Yitzhak Rabin?”

It’s that time of year again.

As November rolls around, the questions begin flying thick and fast from my son Eitan — questions about Rabin’s assassination, exactly how he was killed, where he was killed, who killed him, and the hardest question to answer — why?

Eitan is seven years old — he was born in September 1996, 10 months after Rabin’s assassination in November 1995. He never lived at the same time as Rabin.

Yet — with all the ceremonies, memorial rallies, and class lessons about his life, through the ever-growing number of schools, parks, roads, and buildings named after him — Yitzhak Rabin is vivid and real and familiar to my son — much more so than today’s politicians.

Eitan can regale you with stories about Rabin’s childhood, where he went to school, his army career. But mainly, he can tell you the details of the assassination — the date it happened, the location — how Rabin was approached, how many shots were fired. He knows that the man who killed him was named Yigal Amir, and that he was Israeli and Jewish. He knows that Amir was angry at Rabin for signing a peace agreement with the Arabs. He knows that Amir is in jail and will never get out. And yet, every year, he wants to know more.

All of this feels eerily familiar. I was born in September 1964, 10 months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy — an event now being marked with 40th anniversary commemorations. At Eitan’s age, I, too, could rattle off stories of the Kennedy clan, recount the drama of Oswald and Ruby, describe where the grassy knoll was located and the color of the suit Jackie Kennedy was wearing that was splashed with her husband’s blood. ...

- An Unsealed Room: Rabin

Sharon's Gaza Plan Moves Ahead

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scored a major political victory on October 26, with the Knesset's passage (by 67 votes to 45) of his controversial Gaza withdrawal plan. An earlier post on the subject can be found here: Disengagement.

I haven't blogged a lot on Israel/Palestine issues, mostly because Iraq and Iran have been occupying the geopolitical center stage at Dreams Into Lightning. Also, I don't believe the Palestinian/Israeli issue will be resolved in Jerusalem or Ramallah, because the problem really lies in Tehran, Damascus, and Cairo. As long as these foreign regimes are in power, they will do everything they can to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians impossible.

Also, my opinions on Palestine and Israel are not quite as clear-cut as they are on Iran and Iraq. But I feel I can say a few things with confidence, so I'll say them here.

I think President Bush is on the right track. People who see Sharon and Bush as being ideological twins, and those who see Sharon as Bush's "lapdog" (or, depending on how anti-Semitic they are, who see Bush as Sharon's lapdog), simply don't know what they are talking about. Sharon is traditionally a hardliner, and he has come toward an accommodation with the Palestinians after a long, hard struggle. President Bush - the first US President to explicitly call for the recognition of a Palestinian state - has also been leaning very hard on Sharon to plan for a withdrawal from Gaza, and to evacuate unauthorized Jewish settlements.

Both Sharon and Bush have been facing stiff opposition from hardliners on the Right. By pursuing his disengagement plan, Ariel Sharon is risking his political career - and, as the ninth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination reminds us, perhaps more than that. Sharon cannot act without his government's consent, which often has not been forthcoming. President Bush, too, faces opposition from conservatives who accuse him of being "soft on the Palestinians".

Bush isn't going to get everything he wants from Sharon, and Sharon isn't going to get everything he wants from his government. There are no lapdogs in this picture - just a collectioin of factions with different goals and occasionally overlapping interests.

The folks at Debka have made no secret of their opposition to Gaza withdrawal and settlement evacuation. Now I don't claim to be a Mideast expert and I don't have to worry about Qassam missiles hitting Oregon, but I do understand the Israelis' concerns about a militarized Palestinian state in either the West Bank or Gaza.

Still, Israel can only be Israel. The goal of statehood - and I mean Israeli statehood - must be to secure borders: In here, it is our land; out there, it is your land. Any Palestinian-Israeli agreement must work concretely toward that end.

Danny at The Head Heeb offers some helpful comments. I'll quote the central paragraph of his reflection on Rabin:

On Rabin’s Jahrzeit, one talks a lot of “Rabin’s legacy” which usually means the Oslo agreements. How do those agreements look from retrospect? Overall the outcome cannot be positive. It was a bold gamble, and it was largely unsuccessful. The agreements attempted to reverse drastically the way in which Israel, and beforehand the Zionist movement, approached the Arabs since the 1920s; reverse the logic of Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall”, which though serving Israel well in the past, was now proving harmful. This change has been very hard to implement. It turns out that certain elements of “Iron Wall” thinking has remained sound; as I mentioned above, the jury is still out about whether ‘land-for-peace’ is a workable formula (the jury should always be out on this issue as long as Israel is in the OT. What else is there?). What Oslo did make clear is that the “Iron Wall” which controlled the lives of millions of Palestinians, could simply not be maintained (indeed another way of looking at Oslo is as an acknowledgement of defeat in the first Intifada posing as a peace agreement – it was a shame that it relied on Arafat). The moderate Right has also come around to this point of view, which is why Sharon is promoting disengagement.

Go read the whole post at The Head Heeb: Rabin's Legacy.

Belmont Club: What Arafat Forgot

'Palestine was cursed by the example of Algeria, which after evicting the French, could spend the next three decades cleansing itself of the poisons of terrorism. Arafat forgot that the Jews, unlike the French in Algeria, were as much a part of region as themselves. In place of protracted war, which at all events ends, Arafat embarked upon an eternal war with the eternal Jew. He would enter Algeria's tunnel of terror with no light at the end of it.

The Intifada may have hurt Israel, but it consumed Palestine...'

Read Wretchard's full post "The Noonday Train" at Belmont Club.

Afghan Women Lead the Way

Hat tip: Rickvid in Seattle, at the Healing Iraq comments.

Barbara Walters of 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked about 5 paces behind their husbands.

She returned to Kabul recently and observed that women still walk behind their husbands, but now seem to walk even further back and are happy with the old custom.

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you used to try and change?"

"Land mines," whispered the woman.

MORAL: BEHIND EVERY MAN -- WAY BEHIND -- IS A SMART WOMAN!!!!

A Year of Healing Iraq

This past week marked the first anniversary of the blog Healing Iraq by Zeyad. The first post is dated October 15, 2003 and was posted on October 17. "Healing Iraq" was the first blog to open the window for Westerners on the Iraqi people's yearning for freedom. Zeyad has posted some very important articles on Iraqi history and culture as well. Go check out Healing Iraq.

Where Wings Take Dream

If you'll look QUICKLY at the bottom of my right-hand sidebar, you might still see that the TTLB Ecosystem has promoted me to "Flappy Bird"! Well, I'm just chirping with joy. I zoomed RIGHT PAST the Reptile stage this time around ...

Of course I know this particular evolutionary burst is probably just an artifact of having been rotated to the top of the Blogs For Bush list, so I'm currently linked on a bunch of blogs that don't even know I exist. But still. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.

It feels good to be soaring among the higher realms of the blognoscenti, even if it's just for a little while.

LCR Responds to Presidential Debate

Log Cabin Republicans singled out Senator John Kerry's tasteless remarks on Mary Cheney for criticism, but also called on both major parties to elevate the level of dialogue on gay issues:

Statement by Log Cabin Executive Director Patrick Guerriero

(Washington, DC)—"Senator Kerry could have made his point about gay and lesbian Americans without mentioning the Vice-President's daughter.

However, this shouldn't distract us from the fact that President Bush, Karl Rove and other Republicans have been using gay and lesbian families as a political wedge issue in this campaign. 

Log Cabin Republicans have a message for both campaigns.  For Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards, you do not need to talk about the Vice President's daughter in order to discuss your positions on gay and lesbian issues.  For President Bush and Karl Rove, you have a moral obligation to stop using gay and lesbian families as a political wedge issue.  Our country and our party deserve better."

Log Cabin Republicans is the nation's largest organization of Republicans who support fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian Americans. LCR believes in the ideals of small government, individual rights, and individual responsibility. Visit their homepage at the link: Log Cabin Republicans

The Blogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves

May I safely assume I'm not the only one whose nerves are frayed? Who finds these last few agonizing, nerve-wracking, nail-biting days of razor-close polls, well ... agonizing?

You too? Thank you, I knew I could count on your nod of assent. Then we are agreed: the next 20 days are going to be murder. But we will survive! And if we stay strong and keep up the fight, we will win.

Look, I've been watching the polls, and overall Bush is still ahead of Kerry. I'll feel a lot more comfortable when the margin is wider, but I guess that just means we've got work to do.

Remember this: our position is morally unassailable, and theirs is morally indefensible. The Dems have built up a culture of victimization over a period of years. They don't really believe that they have to actually earn votes. Many are still in denial about the consequences of misguided actions. They have so immersed themselves in their own propaganda that they can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality. (Case in point: John Kerry. Him and that eighteen-point deer ... but I digress.)

The process that George W. Bush and his supporters have begun is, in the large sense, irreversible. The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq will never again accept dictatorships. The other peoples of the Middle East will begin making greater demands on their rulers. The United Nations has been exposed for the fraud-riddled syndicate that it is, and the big media are hemorrhaging credibility while pajama-clad citizen journalists build a network of information and dialog.

The followers of the bizarre cult called the "Democratic Party", and of its witless figurehead Kerry, will grow ever more shrill in their desperate attempts to drown out the din of cognitive dissonance. They will continue to alienate the sane and rational people among their number, and eventually the crazies will turn on one another.

Those who still believe in cultural pluralism, individual rights, and the possibility of a better society, will realize that the so-called "liberals" of today are in fact reactionaries, whose only agenda is to perpetuate fascist regimes in order to create a new crop of victims. And they will realize that there is a better way.

More and more, Americans - and especially young Americans - are growing tired of the intolerance that passes for "liberalism" and are looking for something deeper and truer. What they will find in the years to come remains to be discovered. The first step toward that discovery will come on Election Day.

G-d bless America.