Thursday, July 31, 2008

Gator Party Member Claims Uneasiness

A member of the current incarnation of the Gator Party tells TheRadikal.com that tensions in the party have been tense since talk of Drayton's impeachment. Aside from the previous comment, the only other thing my source from SW 2nd/13th would say is that: "we gave the blacks a meal ticket and it's proven to be nothing but a headache."

No one ever believed Gator would oust one of its own based off a move from the Minority - that's just plain weak. However, even older friends of the blog claim that Drayton has 'embarrassed several people' with his summer employment decision(s) and his decision to rule by proxy.

I'm not at UF and I'm glad there's new blogs sprouting up, especially since I'm studying for finals & such, but Gator is going to be the big loser in the Fall & Spring elections: the writing's on the wall.

Just to give you an idea how bad it really is, my own source is contemplating the option of walking over to Orange & Blue. An O&B hosting System kids becomes a carbon-copy blueprint of Access, Fall '04 - no longer 100% GDI, but a dangerous hybrid for all parties concerned.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Fall & Spring Will Bleed Orange & Blue


At first I wasn't going to say anything, but I personally take credit for pushing the idea for impeachment. It was this blog that roused Drayton from his NYC office to call senate, this blog that got the story in the Alligator, and this blog that rattled the O&B cage. So it's only fitting that this blog also man up and post the outcome.

Obviously, O&B failed - or did they? The most fundamental outcome of this entire process has been the fact that there are real differences between the parties of the System and the parties of the Student Body. Up until now, there's an over-abundance of rhetoric coupled with sprinklings of action - e.g. the Grapski Lawsuit, Access 2004, and the impressive Impact Fall '05 slate. However, what 'the Five' accomplished goes one giant step further into drawing a line in the sand, a line that GDI's will hold for years and years to come.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Princeton Review: UF is Number 1....


for partying: ARTICLE
What A Distinction, lol




I'm very excited that only two days after finals, me and my buddy Lawrence are taking a train to Chicago to party, sit in the studio audience of the Jerry Springer Show, and then do a bit more celebrating.

That's All Folks

Sunday, July 27, 2008

2008

I'm glad that there's new SG Blogs out and I hope unlike the others, they actually stay on the scene for a while. With the exception of the upcoming Miorelli & Kerns Q&A's, I'll be pulling back and writing more about issues of personal interest to me in the news and literature.

Thank You.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Goals for the Process


Orange & Blue will not succeed in impeaching Paul Drayton - the System will never allow it, but the fact that the Party has taken the initiative speaks volumes of 'the Five.' For starters, most SG Parties are too concerned with their own political livelihood and the marketability of their name to do anything as fringe as this. Whereas the old Ignite/Access strategy carried over to Independent parties like Impact, Unite, & Action, the idea of blending in with the mainstream party on election day. I believe that even the name of this incarnation of the Independent movement may have been a product of left-over influences of the Ignite/Access days, mainly through Tommy Jardon - the last of the Old Guard in top leadership.

However, if I had to note one basic break with the past in today's crop of Independent & GDI's at UF, is a return to old, in-your-face Independent politics. Orange & Blue won't play gecko-game, they will be very different, they will not only talk Indie lingo, they will have proven that they lacked the votes, but not the initiative or the courage to take on a larger, far more entrenched & arguably corrupt adversary.

Like I've told the Indies for almost three years, you don't earn the students' respect for mere talk. The hope is that Gator unites, that every single Gator Party Senator block votes and defends their inept & ineligible Treasurer on no grounds other than his party affiliation. It would also be lovely for Gator to rally its freshman and sophomore senators to give synchronized loyalty oathes to Gator during public debate, then have the Committee Chair profess their loyalty and so on...you get the point.

Then from the next day up until the Fall & Spring elections, we'll rip the Gator Party to pieces. The harder they rally against O&B, the more decisive and blatant the vote against impeachment draws, the stronger the argument will be that these system drones are destroying Student Government protecting subpar officials to keep party loyalty. Gator will be sold as agents of bureaucracy pouncing on Orange & Blue - agents only, to the underrepresented 50,000+ Student Body.

In one fell swoop UF will set the stage for the Access '04 of Spring '09. I really hope to read of Sen. Wolf taking an active role in these proceedings, as he's a respected leader of the Orange & Blue Party - regardless of talk from the peanut gallery to the contrary.

p.s.
I'd draw up Articles of Impeachment for the Chair of Chomp the Vote to follow Drayton and begin a process to have Reilly censured. If the Student Body President is too stupid read the Constitution, he shouldn't be giving official statements to the Alligator redefining Constitutional roles as if he were actively representing the Legislative & Judicial Branches - of which he has power in neither.

Can't wait to see a write-up on this story on Ken Is Speaking

Letters to the Editor, lol


Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:07:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Christian Duque"
Subject: Hey Guys
To: letters@alligator.org


It's been three years now...and TheRadikal.com has stirred up quite a lot action in UF-SG, but I can always count on the Alligator ignoring the blog. Your news was discussed on my site months before you publish it, but I digress. I'm not looking for this letter to be published, but I'm wondering how this paper takes to being duped by Paul Drayton. Read statements made by Rene Medina to my site and then compare them to the statements Paul Drayton made to your paper. Drayton was unable to live up to his OWN STANDARDS for even a calendar month from publication of your story.

Could your staff reporter been any kinder to Reilly & his cohorts? How about getting reporters that ask tough questions and I don't know, maybe write about how strange it is that the Student Body President has re-written the duties of the Student Body Treasurer, SG's second highest post out of thin air, TOTALLY contradicting the Student Body Constitution?

I wonder if the staff reporter would be a good candidate for electroshock therapy, perhaps your entire editorial board could look for a facility nearby that might give group rates.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Articles of Impeachment

TheRadikal.com is not affiliated to any political parties at UF

TheRadikal.com salutes "the Five," brave Student Senators that rise in the name of justice on the floor of the Student Senate of the University of Florida. Please use this space to comment on the situation.

For the first time IN A LONG TIME, the Minority Party engages the Majority, demanding a higher standard of representation for the Student Body. Let's hope that the Independent Florida Alligator, who ran Drayton's promise will scrutinize the official along his own actions, as opposed to the mere utterances and 'talk.

Rene Medina deserves the job. Paul Drayton has not even lived up to the lackluster duties he outlined upon abandoning the Student Body and for these actions and shortcomings, he should be removed from his post, immediately.

Petitioning for Legislative Action


Ok. Paul Drayton should not be in office, but the split favors his camp -- there's no doubt about it. However, I think room for bi-partisan cooperation should exist to pen legislation making it a requirement for the following posts to serve in physical-year-round capacities:
Student Body President
Student Body Vice President
Student Body Treasurer
Student Senate President
Student Senate President Pro Tempore
Due to the inactive nature of the Courts, special caveats could be placed in for them as a token of good faith by the two [more active] branches of government.

Another area that the Senate should address is the notion of rule-by-proxy, a touchy subject disliked by prominent alums from both the Independent & System sides. It's highly unprofessional and borderline, unethical to create offices out of thin air, tangle up salaries, and toss constitutional powers and duties like pieces of lettuce & tomato in a salad bowl, going to work wherever these functions happen to fall.

You are student leaders at an institution that's been operating for decades before you and no matter its shortcomings, has earned the respect of an entire state and quite possibly an entire nation. This is not Dipshit U, you're at the University of Florida, you represent the Gator Nation, please stop embarrassing those that came before you and those who inherit the mess YOU you have either created, or allowed to grow under your watch.

Be the next Cavatero, Huey, Norris, fight for what's right! If you're to fail, fail at trying to save the students: write letters to the alligator, pen resolutions that get voted down 77:3, sponsor bills that won't make it, use every single block of time at public debate speaking out to the deaf robots -- you'll find some are listening!, be an ASSHOLE and yell QUORUM!, demand roll call votes, cry out DIVISION!...you guys aren't JUST KIDS, I know "kids" younger than you that have come home from IRAQ maimed by I.E.D.'s and I know "kids" your age that are parents, work at GM and look like they're 35! Don't hide behind your "18" or your "19" or your "20," that's a fuckin cop-out. If you're inept and you rather be out drinking and catching venereal diseases go do that. IF YOU'RE IN SG, BE A FUCKIN LEADER, not one single senator in there should think of him/herself as anyone's follower. STOP BLOCK VOTING If it's wrong today, it'll be wrong tomorrow.

Your young age should not be a LIMITATION, it should be one of your greatest assets - and - you're in public service, you're all leaders, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ALL BEING SO CONSERVATIVE FOR? WHO ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPRESS?! WHY DO YOU VOTE AS YOU'RE TOLD, WHY ON EARTH IS IT OK FOR A AN ABSENT TREASURER TO STAY IN OFFICE OR TO CONFIRM AN ABSENT CANDIDATE FOR A YEAR-ROUND POST?!!! WHY CAN YOU ALL MAKE RATIONAL CHOICES BETWEEN BARACK OBAMA & JOHN MCCAIN FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BUT YET MUSTER THE I.Q. OF A CAVEMAN WHEN YOUR VOTE MIGHT PREJUDICE YOUR "PARTY LOYALTY?"


IMPEACH DRAYTON!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Senate Rules & Ethics Committee


This was my committee, blacklisted from the Judiciary by vindictive members of Innovate/Ignite, I was voted down four times, voted in once for about five hours until the Majority coerced Access/SAP to rescind the fourth-deciding vote; the Alligator wrote favorable article but has since removed these pages from it's list - a major disservice to the students. Nonetheless, R&E was home.

I've been urged to profile Sen. Carlsen following my side-panel shot, but I don't feel that turning the heat on any single senator is going to do anything positive. So, I'd like to put the spotlight on the entire Rules & Ethics Committee. I invite submissions, as well as anonymous comments (libelous material will be not be published) pertaining to their voting record, public comments, and/or any other pertinent information.

First, is this list even accurate?

"Rules & Ethics"

(Open seats: 1)

Carlsen, Jimmy (a Senator with a future in the game?...)
Curran, Chris
D'Oyley, Danielle (running-mate material? longshot?)
Duffie, Cecil
Frail, Beau
Michel, Matt
Samuels, Ju'lia ((Renfroe ally?)
Vincent, Jeremy
Let's get started. Who are these people? Controversies? Seniority? Which are deal-makers? Which have aspirations for higher office? I hope the comments will blow up. I want the skinny on all, this is not going to be just a Gator witch hunt, though I must say that keeping Sen. Michel seems to have been strictly-politically-motivated, further illustrating the abysmally inept and shady image of the present administration.

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Life


It's 6:55pm and steam is rapidly filling the bathroom, slowly escaping from the cracked open door. The apartment is extremely neat. senators Norris & Wolf sit by the dining table, reviewing notes and highlighting email printouts. Tommy Jardon paces around the kitchen, arguing with GDI alum Will Foster, who's called in to chew out the O&B leader over the Paul Drayton issue.

"Shut up! Seriously, we can't think over here," Norris exclaims. Tommy is then overhead: "I'll have to call you back Will, David [Meyrowitz] is calling." The former presidential candidate leaves the kitchen and peaks his his head into the steamy bathroom, "hurry it up Sam, we gotta get you to Senate." "Ok Tom, hang tight, I'll be out shortly.

Downstairs Sen. Frank Bracco leans up against the O&B 2008 Nissan Armada. He enjoys some Orbitz gum and looks up at the Gainesville sky. Miorelli is out of the shower, towels off, and dresses quickly.

"Is he ready yet?" -- Mark [McShera] wants to know. Norris & Wolf wrap up their impromptu meeting and file down with Jardon to the waiting Armada, as Bracco can be heard revving V6 muscle. Jardon awaits by the door, helping Miorelli into his Calvin Klein coat and reminding him that tonight he must be in top form to review the O&B Senators, next he will have to briefly attend a NORML meeting where dozens will want to shake his hand, hug him, and/or have their photo taken with him. But the night won't be over, he'll have to ARRIVE at the Swamp, flanked by party brass and this week's favorite senators.

Per usual, Jardon will go ahead, getting a choice table and ordering a freshly opened bottle of Chivas Regal, several glasses, plenty of ice, one chair for all the senators "that count," enough glasses for the rest of 'em. "One drink, Sam, we don't have time for more," Jardon insists. Per usual, all the O&B take a drink and then Miorelli goes over to the Reilly's table and gives him what's left of the bottle, "here, you & yours can have a real drink," then he'll grab Reilley his designer-knock-off suit and tell him, "nice threads."

Then back to the Armada to drive around town and discuss pressing matters with Jardon & Wolf at his side, with Cavatero, Norris, Huey, & McShera on the Blackberry and Bruce Haupt on the BlueTooth.

[later in the car to Jardon]"This life [Miorelli lazily kicks off his shoes, stretches out, and slumps in the seat]...sometimes I wish I could be just like everyone else." But of course, Jardon replies back, "you're the one we've been waiting for, Sam, you're the one that's going to defeat the Machine and save the movement."


That's the life, that's the price. DON'T WHINE! Sam Miorelli may have doors opened for him - literally, he may have senators shine his shoes, press his clothes, fluff his pillows, he may have men willing to die to protect his every life & limb, but Sam Miorelli doesn't get to live life like you, he's the messiah of the movement.

for entertainment purposes only.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The End of White Flight


Article

What an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal - ironic really, because I would expect to read such an article in more liberal papers like the New York Times or my favorite paper (The Washington Post). Though not a popular term in the mainstream media, 'White Flight' & similar terms were often heard from conspiracy theorists and White Supremacists throughout the 1990's. In fact, members of the Ku Klux Klan & National Alliance were often heard referring to a white homeland to be created in states like Idaho, the Dakotas, and even eastern portion of Washington state. The term is also quite commonplace in another almost-all-white enclave: the state of Vermont. If I gave you $1 for each African American you could point out in that state, by the end of the day, you'd be scrounging around for change to have enough money to buy a value meal at McDonald's.

Apparently White America sees promise in the inner-city...so now, the move-back has begun and the urban-poor (largely African American, Hispanic-Latino, Asian, & White Blue Collar) will surely be met with "redevelopment". Demolish the old, lagging, and unpleasant. Build larger houses, plan for parks with swings and slides and sandboxes for the children and lit tennis courts for the adults, maybe even racketball; pave the roads, invest in city & municipal bonds for sidewalks and new lampposts, covered busstops, too! Only catch..."when it's all said & done, the rent will be so jacked up, that most of the old residents will have to leave and make room for the rich.

You didn't think all this good would be done for the residents, did you? You don't believe me? Go to the Bronx, NYC or go to the largely Black/Working class 9th Ward in New Orleans. The French Quarter was back & running in a couple of weeks, but the poor neighborhoods STILL REMAIN UNDER WATER! and those that are "clear," have owners living in hotels around the area, waiting for their insurance checks.

Whether we're talking about Katrina victims in the 9th Ward, or senior citizens living in the last of the Rent-Control apartments in NYC (receiving daily buyout offers from greedy building owners to sell out the corporate mobsters and/or waiting for these to 'finally die,' or we're talking about children that go to sleep at night hungry or are so poor they can't afford shoes to go to school, the poor in America are always the last on the politicians' mind.

Glenn Beck sits in an air-conditioned television studio, donning fine tailored garments, he leans back in the comfortable chair, looking around the clearinghouse of technology in a temple of corporate idolatry, with exhibits ranging from the well groomed robots that will spend a lifetime as slaves to the grind, as feeds come from all over the world, people dying in typhoons, Nazi hunters in Argentina, maimed Iraqi children crying in hospital beds, and all he can do is rant about Che Guevara, with so much death and so much suffering and so much ruin and so much hunger and so much disparity in our country....he sits back, takes in a deep breath of elitist filtered air and spouts off nonsense.

One day a revolution will come about. Where the poor and forgotten will take control of the means of production and will punish the oppressors with unrelenting viciousness for ages of senseless exploitation. A day will come, when Robespierre himself will turn in his grave; "the end of white flight" -- great.

Where Will The Poor Go?!!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The Legacy Shall Live On Forever!


Glenn Beck...there's a name I haven't heard since the wonderful Islamophobist screening of 'Radikal Islam's War on The West,' and the outrage that caused at UF and progressive college campuses across America. Beck wasn't part of the movie, but his medium provided moral support to its agents. I believe today, as I believed then, that Glenn Beck is nothing shy of a neocon (a neo-conservative) and an political obstacle to the interests of progressive, hard working Americans of all races, RELIGIONS, and ETHNICITIES. His views on "Radikal Islam" aside, it seems that Beck also has a bone to pick with Che Guevara. Only a big man has the balls to challenge the deeds of deceased freedom fighter, on a network with a Marxist population of "0," in a country with "0" leftist newspapers in circulation, radio stations on air, or much less television stations.

"If you have any respect for humanity, you shouldn't be wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt," Glenn Beck says.


The above quote comes directly from CNN...how pitiful. I find this individual to be incredibly ignorant to the plight of the Latin American workers and peasantry, but I believe he's ignorant by choice. Like so many Americans, Beck seems poised to make everyone believe that the 'American Dream' exists in all countries and that 'hard work will set you free.' Does that sound familiar? That's what the Nazis used to put over the entrance to the death camps.

Che image and his legacy are everywhere, when that filthy gangster Felix Rodriguez (who currently resides in Miami, Fl and frequents a certain Costco there) murdered Che, he didn't kill a man, he made a martyr. Whenever Christian Duque or Glenn Beck kick the bucket, we'll soon be forgotten, but Che will live in the hearts and minds of campesinos and all those oppressed for hundreds if not thousands of years, much like other egalitarians like Jesus Christ. What I think Beck and his kind hate most, is that like heavy metal in Christian Fundamentalist homes in the 1980's, Marxism has found its way into the homes of the McCarthyists of today, innocently through a t-shirt or a sticker, but inquiring minds grow restless and soon the youth begin to poke around and soon they much rather opt to bear the image of martyred freedom fighter who left big government titles and the lap of luxury to die alongside peasants in a Bolivian jungle...for FREEDOM, than yet another meaningless corporate icon.

FUCK YOU GLENN BECK, FUCK YOU!

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

U.S. Troops Pull Out of Afghan Base!

Source Article

The War in Afghanistan seems to be intensifying after our first loss in major fighting has left many beneficial our efforts there have been. The Taliban seems alive and well, adapting to military concepts, and carrying out fanatical attacks against their current Western occupiers with the same ferociousness that fueled their efforts at ousting Soviet Occupiers in the 1980's.

A flurry of articles have been published since the one in question, with a concerted effort at minimizing the attack. Everything from the fact the base was allegedly built only three days ago to the fact that insurgents only breached the first level of the base. That's asinine. How is a remote base built only three days ago going to have multi-levels that can be breached by manpower? And how remote could it have been if U.S. military gunships arrived within minutes to fight back the rebels?

Also, the numbers are damning. 40 militants dead, with nine U.S. soldiers dead and fifteen injured. For a guerrilla army charging a U.S. military installation, protected by twenty-first-century military air-cover...someone's fibbin'.

It doesn't please me that my countrymen are falling in combat in foreign lands, but I vocally oppose our presence there and I also believe our media is LYING to us.

With 150 banks on the verge of failure, horrible unemployment, and a lunatic president that's just authorized off-shore drilling, we have plenty on our plate to deal with than occupying foreign countries. Imagine all the troops and resources we have in Iraq and Afghanistan having been available for disaster relief in New Orleans, imagine how many lives we could have saved! Imagine what the Army Corps. of Engineers could have done, had our president used the military for the betterment, not the downfall of the people (take a lesson from Cuba!).

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Few, The Idealistic, The Independents!


The funny thing about Student Government at the University of Florida is that no matter how bad it gets, that spark that every Independent counts on, rarely ever sets the stage for dynamic change. Absent treasurer, absent applicant, it's only going to get worse, but there's a certain level of comfort taken by the despots in power - there's the comfort that their good ole boy network shalt prevail!

The Independents can hoard all the demonstrative evidence they'd like, they can get testimonials, they can launch creative referendums, they can even come to the rescue of the students time after time, but like lambs to the slaughter, the students will consistently elect those least suited to fight on behalf of their interests.

ReillY, however, will be different. This administration will sink UFSG quite conceivably to the very bottom of the barrel. I predict it will get so bad, that for the first time in a long time, we'll see turncoats, but from the System side to the Independents. I have a feeling people will grow so disgusted with Reilly, that they will rather get voted out, than be associated with his kind for posterity.

Friday, July 11, 2008

UF Student Government: Incubator of Nepotism


Leave it to the Gator Party, the ruling majority of the University of Florida's Student Government to blatantly abuse its powers in the Student Senate and the Student Executive. UF's Student Body President, a member of Theta Chi & Florida Blue Key, has allowed his Student Body Treasurer to take a summer-long leave of absence, in addition to relying on shaky constitutional grounds to create a proxy and work through that proxy from a cush Wall St. internship (that he applied to after being elected, but priort to inauguration).

The Student Body Treasurer oversees one of the largest student budgets in the United States, exceeding $15 million per annum. In a May 29th article for the student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator Student Body Treasurer Paul Dratyon said: "Rene [Medina/the Proxy] and I will communicate daily,” Drayton said. “SG Finance will operate as if I was still physically present."

However in an exclusive with www.TheRadikal.com on June 25th, Rene Media acting in the capacity of the newly-created Chief Financial Officer position, stated that: "When I first began working as CFO, Paul and I communicated a couple times daily. However, now we communicate more than anything if and when a major problem arises. The last couple weeks have been very slow in the Finance Office, with work mostly limited to approving SAR's. The need for constant, daily communication, therefore, is momentarily unnecessary."

Whether momentarily unnecessary or necessary, Paul Drayton failed to live up to the standard he purported to be setting in the student newspaper not even one month before.

----------And through all of this, nothing from Student Body President Reilly: nothing, nada, zilch. To a fly on the wall, one would think Paul Drayton was the Student Body President.

Fast forward to less than a month from that controversy and now you have Reilly in the picture! Only thing is, Reilly is in the picture for no less than appointing an absent candidate to a year-round top cabinet position. But that's not even the tip of the iceberg! Whereas Paul Drayton phoned into a Student Senate meeting out of fears of impeachment, Reilly's candidate phoned into a Senate Meeting to take questions pending confirmation by the Student Senate.

Student Body President Reilly is by and far the worst Student Body President that the University of Florida has had in the last twenty-five years. His ineptness will only continue to herald new lows for UF's once prominent SG and it will only be a question of time until the Florida Leader and other top SG publications get wind of UF's dropping of the ball.

Sadly, any formal opposition to Reilly and his minions would be ineffective, as the Minority Orange & Blue Party lacks the sufficient numbers in Senate to carry out any kind of lasting defiance, except for desperate measures such as Filibustering -- a tactic they have not used before.

The Machine (a slang term referring to the four Greek Councils + Florida Blue Key) has been almost exclusively been run by System Parties (e.g. the current ruling Gator Party); this control extends, arguably, into the courts. There have been years when Independents, failing to rally efforts in Senate, have gone back to the students and secured popular petitions and/or won referendum options, but the System-dominated Courts have been used as a desperate measure to counteract even the will of the STUDENTS!

Although it's always been an unspoken truth that the secret elites control UF's Student Government, many still refused to believe, even after the successful Grapski lawsuit of the mid 1990's. With Reilly, the once subtle control is now more blatant that it ever has been. And with it being out in the open, the iron grip can only tighten.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

My Letter To Reilly


Frank Bracco, GDI


Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:50:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Christian Duque"
Subject: To SB President Reilly
To: president@sg.ufl.edu, "Frank Bracco" , "Will Foster" , "Thomas Jardon" , "David Meyrowitz"
CC: letters@alligator.org, me@kenkerns.com

President Reilly:

As you may know I run a blog that occasionally covers UF Student Government. I'm sure you're aware that we share very little in common insofar as how to run the institution properly, but as an alum and former student senator, I find your leadership to be substantially lacking. You are, to the best of my knowledge, the worst student body president the University of Florida has had in the last twenty-five years - the last 25 years!

Your administration has made a mockery of public service, the Student Constitution, and the will of the electorate. From allowing the Student Body Treasurer to work by proxy for the entire summer and for now appointing an out-of-state candidate for a top agency position. You clearly have no respect for the Student Body if you appoint officers to posts they can't even physically hold.

Past System leaders have been able to uphold legacies and control the various branches of government, though by subtler means; you, however, have chosen to be most shameless of the fact Gator is in full command of the Executive, the Senate, and the Courts.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

God Save The Students.

Christian Duque
Fmr. Student Senator
www.TheRadikal.com
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Tuesday, July 08, 2008

The Veep, Do You Care?



To most, the idea of a running mate (either Democrat or Republican)is of little importance. But there's limits. No I'm not talking about giving Mike Myers or Michael Moore a slot, but some names in the game will certainly cause an eyebrow - or two - to rise. Joe Lieberman for McCain or Diane Feinstein or even Jesse Jackson for Obama. Oh how bad is the American' recollection of history.



I earnestly believe that the Rev. Jesse Jackson if not already, will be considered a top choice for Vice President of the United States. This is a man that did what Obama is doing today 20 years ago! He won key states and has redefined himself to no ends. Some will discuss that this can't happen b/c of a 'generational gap' -- could this be like the one between George W. Bush & Dick Cheney?

Americans can deny that race will play a part in this election, but I'm talking to everyday Americans and hope to talk to thousands by November 2008 and I am of the belief I will run into more and more Americans, Democratic Americans, that have very strong emotions about this election.







Tommy:


You know I have a great deal of respect for you, but when Jesse Helms passed, I was in shock to read 'may the angels lead him to heaven' on your Facebook profile. I can understand your anti-communism, but you are now openly Gay and freely disclose being in a Gay relationship.

I'm sorry to put you on the spot like this...but how can you have such love for such a bigot and homophobe? Do you consider your sexual orientation somewhat of a fault or a sin? Because I believe Gay & Lesbians are as God created them, no different than how he created Staights. God doesn't make mistakes.

Helms accused Gay Men 'revolting behavior' for simply living OUT, he accuses Gay Men for a behavior that's responsible for the 'proliferation of AIDS,' and refused until the day of his death to deny Gays & Lesbians of a shot at a normal life.

When Helms and other Republicans go on homophobic tirades do you tell yourself they're not really talking about you? I'm just curious if there's an on & off switch that's being hit continuously throughout the day? I'm truthfully, sans any sarcasm, most interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Barack Obama: Kerry For A New Generation


Obama says trip to Iraq to help
him refine his policy on US presence there.


God Damn Barack Obama. Yeah that's a sentence. It's a sentence I have a feeling I'll be uttering often throughout 2008 and for the next four years - if he's elected. I hate using the Lord's name in vain - He knows that. But Barack Obama and the Democratic [Eunuch] Party need understand that Americans want change; this is the Marine Corp Counter-Insurgency Manual or the Anarchist Cookbook, people are not looking for radiKal change, they're not looking for government to reinvent the wheel, but the people have spoken in pretty sound numbers that they, we do want OUT OF IRAQ and bad!

So why is Barack "JK" Obama talking about refining his stance? What's their to refine but more oil? More oil for more foreign debt and more dependency on countries that hate us. What's going to happen on his trip to Iraq? Will be base his views on the heavily fortified Green Zone? Will he assess the situation based on the fact more Iraqis are willing to face supersonic fighter jets, heavily armored battle tanks, torture at the hands of military contractors at Abu Gharib & Guantanamo but do in serving Muqtada Al Sadr than dying as slaves to an occupying power - will Barack base his 'refined' new opinion on this? Or will he travel to the north, where the Bush administration has given our nuclear allies (Turkey) carte blanche to bomb, displace, and terrorize our allies in the Iraqi civil war (the democracy, peace loving Kurds)?

Oh there's so many places to do, so many people to meet. Will Barack venture down to Basra....the second largest city and sole Iraqi success story, where the Brits pulled out and Iraqis are....actually governing Iraqis. Will Barack go there - or - is Barack prey to the school of thought that Iraqis are incapable of self-rule? Perhaps when Obama steps off the plane, instead of shaking hands with Prime Minister Nouri al-Malik, he'll pet him - on the head, then walk by and salute the U.S. troops that protect the Iraqi Head of State.

This all bullshit. I hope you're all privy to the fact you're living a lie, Barack Obama or John McCain, neither one can get us out of the war in Iraq. There's so many special interests involved that no single man (or woman) can even begin to properly address the situation, much less remedy it. You've all heard a ton of lies in that everyone's losing in Iraq.

BULLSHIT!



Americans are known for their business acumen. American troops don't just land and occupy if there's no money to be made. Don't mistake the high oil prices and the out-of-control gold index with the inability of global powers to reign in runaway economies or chaotic state of affairs in places like Iraq. Money talks folks, there's a lot of people profiting in Iraq.

If Blackwater can pay a mercenary who in all likelihood is a military grunt with no specialized skills or a college degree, but can shoot straight, can torture, and not wakeup in the middle of the night like the rest of us, suffering from a guilty conscience for the horrors committed of the day, then you have to wonder someone raking in the cheddar. How are you going to pay a guy that could maybe if he's lucky land a security guard job or at best work as a cop, a whopping $130,000 a year in Iraq? With life insurance that ridicules its Armed Forces counterpart?

Blackwater is a private security contractor hired by the business sector. Imagine businesses not having enough security in the heavily-fortified Green Zone, hiring out for Blackwater. Why all the security folks? If so much money is being lost, why are so many military contractors experiencing an economic boom, hiring more merc's to send to Iraq?

WAKE THE FUCK UP!



Refine? Refine? Shut the fuck up Barack Obama...you make me sick asshole.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

2 Parties; 1 Curbed, Another Not.



It's about time we start looking at what kind of a country we live in and just what kind of leaders we're electing into office. We live under two-party rule - get used to it. One party, the Democratic, is routinely held under a ideological-microscope. To be dubbed a liberal in certain congressional districts could mean the end of your political career - and we're talking Democratic [blue] here. Perhaps it's a remnant of the Cold War, or perhaps the Red Scare, but Americans fear the Left.

Notwithstanding the fact that we are living one of the worse eras for organized labor, where the cost of living (from gasoline to medicines to education and retirement) is rising at unprecedented levels, meanwhile incomes remain stagnant, economic growth is halted under one of the least popular presidents since the Great Depression, and a false sense of hope is pinned to the illusion of greater underemployment as a facade of the tide turning against unemployment.

The jig is up! But nonetheless, the notion of electing a tried and true liberal, of giving 'the other side' a try seems moot. There's a ceiling, a barrier in how far to the left a Democrat can go. The people want universal healthcare, students neede more government subsidized loans, the general electorate want this administration to pull us out of Iraq, but you take all the issues and roll them up and smoke 'em, b/c the people refuse to vote out the moderate in the DNC and replace them with true liberals.

The Democratic Party is curbed.

The Republican Party is not.


You can be a conservative and win in America. You can be an ultra-conservative in America and win. You could be dubbed a Fascist by several segments of society and still pull off electoral victory after electoral victory in the United States. It's often said 'no extreme is good', but in America we know almost the exact opposite to be the truth.


We are a nation led by almighty, virile Republicans & neutered, eunuch-Democrats.

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Freedom Fighters Maligned


Below is my letter to Reuters:
Reuters:

It's a sad day for journalism when only one side is portrayed. I find your reporting on the 'Freed Hostages' in Colombia absolutely slanted to the Right. You fail to clearly distinguish the extent of the American 'hostages' involvement in Colombia between that of a civilian profile to that of hired mercenaries. A military contractor is elegant nomenclature for nothing more than a hired gun, no different than the Blackwater contractors in Iraq that do not operate under the Uniform Military Code and do not adhere to the tenets of the Geneva Convention.

Just what were these "military contractors" doing in Colombia? And to what extent did Clinton's Plan Colombia (which send over $1 billion Colombia's way per annum) truly affect the drug trade? Have you mentioned in any of your articles that the FARC-EP & the ELN, both, enjoy substantial popular support or that much of the money American' tax dollars are being used to counteract a popular workers movement that predates even the Cuban Revolution?

Have any of your recent reports included the FARC-EP's attempts at dialog with previous Colombian heads of state, the many ceasefires, and/or the fact that cocaine funds many more entities than just the guerrillas?

Colombia remains one of the most violent, most corrupt, and most under-developed nations in all of Latin America. Colombia, ironically, is also own of the richest nations (in terms of natural resources) in the Western Hemisphere. Sadly, for those looking to prop up the Urribe government, Colombia's short comings cannot be pinned on the backs of the FARC-EP freedom fighter or even on the neighboring Hugo Chavez.

I suspect if Reuters continues delivering articles such as the last few I've seen, you will no doubt be in contention for dethroning Fox as the primary source of news for neocons and right-wingers worldwide.

Reuters and AP should be the neutral, all-encompassing news mediums that people (including myself), have always respected for a step above the rest. I find it extremely troubling that in the last few days, this news agency has begun to resemble the Baghdad Bob, in reporting ridiculous articles that hold the Urribe regime as being the Godsend those of us wise to Colombian politics know it to hardly be.


Christian Duque
Law Student
Lansing, MI


The Reality At Hand

What the media has considerably played down, is the fact that 'American Hostages' in question were not Catholic nuns or Buddhist monks, they were military contractors paid to help a brutal regime remain in power by suppressing the people. Colombia cannot free itself from the ballot box, it's simply not possible to counteract the irreparable harm done to the Colombian people and/or to bridge the disproportionate, jaw-dropping divide between filthy rich and abject poor.

How much of Colombia's hardships is fair to pin on the guerrillas? How does one explain the poverty in Cartagenas or Barranquia where there is no guerrilla activity? And how much of Colombia's natural resources...how much of its petroleum, coffee, coal, and nickel must be pilfered by multi-national corporations that reap a lion's share of the profits, with the next biggest chunk dispersed into the various coffers of a vile, corrupt government continue until the people blow the whistle -- or take up arms for a better government? Otherwise, what's left? The crumbs for the people of the major cities - or - the broken dreams and endless misery for the men, women, and children of the beaten down countryside - the major bastion of FARC, ELN support? There's no choice other than armed insurrection for Colombia, even today's modern day centrists (whose political lineage goes back the Conservadores & Liberales which started the civil war that today's guerrilla's wage), so please Int'l Media: GET REAL!

"QUIT DEMONIZING THE REDS WHEN IT WAS THE CAPITALISTS THAT DESIGNED THE TEMPLATE COLOMBIA IS LIVING."


There's usually something wrong in a country that's been ravaged by civil war for over half a century. Shame on the Int'l media for implying that Colombia is a beacon of hope and a model democracy and portraying the FARC Freedom Fighters as little more than well-armed drug runners.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

D.C. Trip Recap




There's going to be a series of videos posted under a new YouTube.com account: TheRadikalDigital so be sure to check that out. I was really happy to see my close friends, Peter Gruskin & Andrew Hoffman, both of which are doing really well, pursuing their paths in life - as am I.

GRUSKIN