Difference Between the 2

Dennis Perrin has let go another scorching anti-Democrat screed from Denver, or "Demver" as he calls it. But even he admits he got emotional in 1980 when Kennedy spoke as he stood up to oppose Carter.

So did I. Kennedy, who is now fading quickly, was the last of the generation of Democrats truly committed to actual social change. No more like him are being made, nor ever will be.

To keep this very simple, people keep saying to me, "You've got to admit they're (Democrats) better than the Republicans." And I do admit it. They're obviously better.

At least they're not fascists. That's about the nicest thing I can think of to say about them. And how much better are they, really? Are they better enough?

I compared the Clinton administration to the one we're still suffering from. Clinton didn't run an endless war, but he had an on-again off-again bombing of Iraq going on most of the time he was in office. How many civilians, I wonder, died in that years-long, casual dropping of explosives? Also, to keep his cred with the war machine, Clinton took advantage of the opportunity to put on a splendid little war in Kosovo, "to stop the atrocities," as it were, although some political observers such as Chomsky believe Clinton's war there was the cause of atrocities rather than the result of them.

Bush's budget for the Pentagon this year is $455.5 billion -- the highest it's ever been, and that's not even counting the $200 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's the most ever except for 1968, when the war machine's tab was somewhat over 460 billion in 2004 dollars. The smallest Clinton era defense budget was $315.8 billion. That's better.

So if I do the calculation 315.8/455.5, it yields .6933, which tells me that the Democrats will spend about 70 percent as much as Republicans on wars and maintaining the Empire of the Pentagon. Doing the math, that means the Democrats are about 30 percent better than the Republicans.

Other than that, they're just as tiresome and silly to listen to, and Barack Obama is already rolling up his sleeve with the intention of keeping a war going in Afghanistan for a good long time.

Not good enough, I'm afraid. The Democrats are less overtly bloodthirsty and jingoistic than Republicans, slightly more inclined to social programs to address societal ills, and certainly not as ridiculous in their assertions of manly virtue and moral superiority, but nonetheless unacceptable.

When it comes to war, the Democrats are kind of like the kid who wanted to "just do it until I have to wear glasses."

We need to overturn the status quo, not live with it. The solution to our problems is not to be a nice, tame liberal, then vote for Bush's war. That's hypocrisy, and all the posturing at the Democratic convention is just too much monkey business for me to be involved with.