m.castaldo's blog

In my mid 40’s myself, I feel I may be able to help some of the 'old guard’ connect with the future of the party. It is true technology is part of any resurgence but we must address what may be the most sensitive parts of our platform. This may be unwelcome to some, but I feel it needs to be said even if it disturbs. Okay make that especially if it disturbs.

Patrick Ruffini talks about the straight ticket youth vote here:

http://www.thenextright.com/patrick-ruffini/the-straight-ticket-youth-vote

The common theme I am attempting to convey is contradiction. What are supposed to be basic conservative values and how they have been twisted and folded upon themselves to resemble a macabre and ultimately shallow public image. It is falsity that is our Achilles heel nothing more. You can make it GOP3.0 and download at a terabyte per second all of the material you want, but if your message is convoluted it will end up in our mind’s spam folder (with apologies to Patrick).

Xenophobia/racism.

Some of the scariest people I meet in our party seem obsessed with “border security”. What is really alarming is that although I am usually having this conversation in New Hampshire, there is no doubt the outraged individual is talking not about the border the Granite State shares with Canada; but the border almost 3,000 miles away.

http://www.craigmarlatt.com/canada/canada&the_world/canada&us_border.html

To me the most interesting part – “boundary on water 2,380 mi.”; how do you build a fence on that? I lifted this quote from the following link… “One former senior official in the Department of Homeland Security told me: "In the history of the world, nobody's ever secured borders. The Great Wall of China didn't work. It's never worked, and we are trying to do it." Despite the inauspicious historical record, he was supremely confident that his country would succeed.”

http://www.cfr.org/publication/17452/great_wall_of_the_united_states.html

So here we are pandering to those who would use the meanest among us as some kind of “base” while giving the impression that we only clamp down with military like zeal on the border we share with the brown skinned people.

On the local level, more that one town here in NH has run into trouble for trying to post signs at a public area that are in Spanish. At the same time, when entering our state on the highway you are welcomed in English AND French. Guess what folks - racism at any level is not good - even the appearance of it. Yet we let it fester and assaulted our own national candidate over his attempts to resolve some of the logistics surrounding our southern border. This is a direct result of the empowerment we have enabled. It must be countermanded not in a policy speech, instead through persistent and dogged determination. A message must be sent - to the world AND to our own party members. Field offices need to be set up and staffed by locals. Leadership must come from the top and be clear.

Labor/trade An untapped source...

My brother in law is a union ironworker. He has been in the union for two years now. He voted straight ticket democrat. With the preponderance of corrupt union officials so commonplace it seems like a cliché... there must be an opening there. I

t has always been portrayed that the GOP is pro big business and anti union. This too can change. I understand there have been violent problems in the past but they are growing more and more into the ‘distant past’. Add to that the rules of international commerce are being rewritten as we speak and you have an extraordinary moment in history where opportunity must exist.

The American union worker is the best educated and best trained in the world. It is a good thing too – like it or not they are now competing with the world. If the GOP can demonstrate a strong effort to insuring that the rest of the world is committed to fair trade the unions will prosper again. Let us be the party of trade and commerce. We can promote American business AND the American worker. Taking deliberate and public steps in that direction is a start. This can not be as simple as singling out the worst part of the union workers current struggle and attempting to woo them on that issue. Banning secret ballots is reprehensible; winning over union voters because you point that out is not effective. Doing something about it might. Substance - not finger pointing.

Two paragraphs on the website devote to labor.

http://www.gop.com/2008platform/economy.htm#8

I believe by promoting our trade plank we can reach out to the globally conscious younger voter. We must be seen as the standard bearers for the rising tide that lifts humanity. With free and fair trade intelligently promoted we can own an issue that is sure to dominate the 21st century. This dovetails so well with a modern and articulate approach to labor relations that there will be a multiplier effect in the winning of hearts and minds. This should not be a “back burner issue” but at the fore of our national agenda.

Life.

This article is from 1996.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_/ai_18375284

A quote: “The basic legal battle about abortion has been settled. In the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision, the Supreme Court once again upheld a woman's constitutional right to choose. The Republican Party should recognize that legal and political reality. “ I do not like abortions. I do not know anyone who does. We can not hide behind horrific images of mangled fetuses and say this is the beginning and end of all discussion. As I have already outlined that in itself is a false argument no matter how much you believe life begins at conception and all abortion is murder. During my holiday travel this weekend I passed a car with a pro-life bumper sticker that made the link between a beating heart and a viable life. That does not happen until 4 weeks after conception…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_development

So obviously the argument is already flawed. Or at least very much too complicated to be conceding to those who stand at the extremes of this argument.

That fact is an abortion costs around $400. The more restrictions you place on access, the higher the cost. You will never stop abortions. You will only prevent poor women from having a safe abortion as an option. That is a class warfare issue nothing else. People see it for what it is and know it is wrong. This may be the most important change we make.

What the hell is a “human life amendment” anyway? Is anyone against human life? We will not be taken seriously if we continue to engage the electorate in the fire and brimstone ways of the past.

Marriage.

This is an issue that I can not really get my mind around – I just do not see what the problem is. As far as I know forced homosexuality is called rape and there are laws to prosecute people who are guilty of that. So if there is not a crime being committed why are we trying to ‘outlaw’ something and make it a crime? How far back in time should we go? If you find gay sex immoral - do not have any.

My party, the same party that fly’s the flag of individual freedoms and ‘states rights’; has become the vehicle to regulate what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their own home. Following through it then is trying to prevent their ability to commit to each other a lifetime of monogamy and support.

This seemingly unrelated sentence is tacked on to the “Preserving Traditional Marriage” portion of our 2008 platform: “As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.” What the hell does that have to do with preserving traditional marriage? Once again we seem to just be lashing out. What is the idea here? End with some firm statement to show we are serious? Or are the gays rounding up our kids and forcing them into marriage in San Francisco and P-Town and we need to stop it now? I bet there is already something about crossing state lines with a minor that would make that a crime too so we should be okay there… Come on folks - they are laughing at us.

So here we are claiming to have a big tent but carefully vetting people.  We can be safer at home without alienating a whole minority group.  We can promote the American worker and American business through better trade agreements. We should loose the life platform, it is deeply flawed.  We ned to stop our attack on homosexuality - that is how it is seen.    

If I do not get flamed too badly on this post I will try to flesh these ideas out a little more and go to work on other parts of our platform.

The morning after the election my wife tried to cheer me up by saying that "no one but John McCain could have made it as close as it was". I believe she hit the nail on the head.

Being tired of the rhetoric that is spewed from those who think U.S.A Today is a good source for information about what really matters has spurred me to try to tell the truth as I see it. I regret the year 1982 for little, except for the birth of that publication and its "factoids". They seem to me to have fed the soundbite, cliche, easy answer world we live in now.

www.gitell.com - today he wrote about BHO and his Ahminijad previous statements, and recent "clarifications". I commented on his (Seth’s) musings with a pithy remark concerning open toed sandals a.k.a. "flip-flops".

So that is the backstory - obviously nothing about Bush/McCain there... here is where me blog really starts... a subsequent comment refers to Bush/McCain and goes on to admit "that Obama obviously has his faults but c,mon do we really want more of our kids dying (sic)".

That statement was obviously written by someone who if they were allowed to vote in 2000 paid little attention to how the primaries played out especially in South Carolina. In 2000, I lived in San Francisco CA and wanted to vote for Senator McCain but never had the chance. For those of us who do remember the vile smears that ended McCains run in SC; the thought that he does anymore than USE the W for what he is worth, and judiciously at that is absurd. The concept that we will see "Four more years of the same failed policy" because John McCain is a carbon copy of GWB is only believable to those with either a short enough attention span or no need to believe anything other than what you want to. I have said it before and will repeat it now, if Senator McCain was our president we would not have invade Iraq under the pretext that we did and therefore would not have more that 4,000 dead Americans and tens of thousands of dead Iraqi’s plus the others who went to 'rid Iraq of the infidels' (who very probably the world is better off without).

A man who has lived through a real war as opposed to one whom has avoided it though sporadic National Guard - Reserve attendance/avoidance can have no taste for it. He would (in this former Marines opinion) only commit to the loss of life and limb of persons other than him/herself; when there was much, much more than a desire to make daddy's errors right. That is not to say I believe war is unnecessary in our enlightened age; but placating a tyrant does not work either. Just ask Neville Chamberlain.

It also needs to be said that GWB has done amazing things, and SAVED millions of lives through his establishment of PEPFAR (the Presidents Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief; As well as PMI (the Presidents Malaria initiative). And the establishment of the MCC (the Millenium Challenge Corporation) and its MCA (the Millenium Challenge Account. Like others I have only WIDELY read of the war in Iraq and the lives lost there, but am proud of the MILLIONS of lives saved because of our sitting presidents (and the congess' that have authorized the funding) actions.

It is much too easy to find the worst parts of a person and then ascribe all their actions to fall under the same umbrella. It is also to easy for me to remember the silly things I said when I was younger. I still say silly things but have also come to appreciate the fact that I have learned from my errors, and hope I am making fewer serious one as time has gone by.

In some ways I am sure McCain will follow GWB’s lead, but to say that they are one and the same is ignorant and only shows how little the person making that claim cares for facts. I know if elected that Senator McCain will continue and expand the life saving plans that GWB has started.

I will rant about the "no blood for oil B.S." soon. (Would you prefer that China had unfettered access to the oil in the Mideast?) (I mean they have done such great things in Somalia and elsewhere with their oil contracts and development plans…) To that same 'poster' et al: I am sure your town would function fine without any electricity and your life would not change a bit if we did not protect the source of our power (energy) as if it was our own. LOL.