Republicans Abroad-Korea will have its next meeting this Sunday, August 24 (Thanks to Typepad for the cool new design.):
Republicans Abroad will have its next regular meeting at 2:00 on Sunday, August 24 It will be in the lobby coffee shop at the Millennium Seoul Hilton near Seoul Station. The hotel is a 10-minute walk up the hill from Seoul Station. It is a 10-minute taxi ride from Itaewon or City Hall (depending on traffic).
New members or anyone interested in helping Republican candidates this fall are welcome. We will also be doing voter registration and voter regirstration training.
I believe that Democrats Abroad-ROK meets on the first Sunday of every month at the Wolfhound in Itaewon. Someone please correct in the comments section if needed.
18 Comments
In the interests of equal coverage, in what ghetto of Seoul does this site plan to find a drug-addled republican to counter the incoherent ramblings by the democrat that we were treated to the other day?
I would anticipate five or six people showing up. Don’t kid yourself.
Are liberal-minded Canadians welcome?
I thought the meeting place for Democrats Abroad was in the phone booth in the alley outside The Wolfhound….where only green tea will be served.
Anton, the Republicans already have a spokesperson that fits that description. He lives in a big white house in Washington DC. He was here earlier in the month and knows all about Dokdo.
#4 Leguwan
You mean ORGANIC, FAIR TRADE green tea.
#5 Inkevitch
He also knows the true meaning of “strategery.”
#4,
You’re begging for someone to make a connection between Republican meetings and Hooker Hill.
@4, Got any original material?
Americans, I beg your forbearance while I try once more to reclaim the field from Team Fear.
You do not face a choice between capitalism and socialism. In fact your two parties offer almost no real spectrum at all. If you looked at the parties competing in the world’s other democracies, you would truly find a range of choices stretching from lunatic fringes to single-issue NGOs disguised as parties, to communists, socialists and free marketeers. Against the democratic world’s spectrum of parties, your Democrats and Republicans span just a stripe on the back of a zebra. So, don’t worry about this. That continuous drip of mind-poison known as CNN “news” makes a business out of peddling differentiation opportunities on behalf of the candidates, but that’s what marketing is: trying to set yourself apart from the competition. And it’s marketers who run the campaigns.
McSame offers no new message: the Republicans are continuing to market Fear. It’s a highly popular product. Fear of foreigners, terrorists, socialists. Fear of higher taxes, fear of becoming anti-business, fear of voting ‘for a recession’, fear of the godless, fear of armed criminals, fear of losing our ‘freedom’, fear of America becoming irrelevant, fear of losing power, fear of bowing down to nations that are beneath us.
The smart guy, on the other hand, is marketing change. Change undertaken willingly is an act of courage. Lashing out when change is forced upon you is an act of fear. When you vote, you will be consuming the product of one marketing team or another. Which marketing strategy do you wish to endorse?
End Part I.
Is change a valid product? Probably not. The only candidates who you could really believe offered actual change (Ross Perot and Ralph Nader) couldn’t and can’t win. Real change is scary. After the vote, whoever wins, they’re both likely to do pretty much the same things. 8 years of Clinton and no universal health care – but NAFTA was ratified. 8 years of Bush and social security couldn’t be privatized – but he did slap on 30% import steel tariffs that saved a few thousand jobs for just about a year.
In yesterday’s trading Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac dropped 25% because the traders think they’re going to be nationalized. Nationalized. The SEC slapped a temporary short-selling prohibition this month on just a dozen or so favored stocks. The Fed has essentially turned your central bank into a hedge fund with infinite leverage that invests in high-risk debt assets and financial stocks. Sometimes I wonder about America’s ‘free market’. Don’t kid yourself that voting for Team Fear somehow means you’re pro-business, and voting for the smart guy means you’re betraying the American Dream.
End Part II
So if nothing changes, why vote for Team Change? Because of the unexpected. With the current fool, it was thought “At least he has a team of smart people with him.” We saw where that ended up. 9/11 was unexpected. As a voter, you can’t see the future. Since you can already expect both candidates to behave similarly on foreseeable issues, all you can do is vote for the person you trust to deal with the unexpected most intelligently. No one believes that Al Gore would have invaded Iraq, for example.
America is not a declining power, but the world now has several rising powers, especially at the regional level. Believe it or not, all of them want good relations with the US. There are likely to be many, many opportunities in the next 8 years to make new friends and influence the way the world’s new power structure develops. But the way to approach it is not an insistence on continuing mono-superpower unipolarity, shouting ‘Freedom’ everywhere but only defining freedom as wholesale adoption and acceptance of the entire American system. That’s alienating. Alienation breeds more fear. Those other countries would welcome a change. Some credible leadership of the world bloc that follows free market democratic capitalism. Responsible handling of superpower status. Fair trade (which free trade would be, if it were really freed up). Charm. A touch of humility. A willingness to talk. Intelligence, the courage to accept that the power structures are changing, the hospitality to accept new powers on the world stage without fear and suspicion. All the things that Bush failed miserably at. In other words: Change.
End Part III
Team Change my sweat-pimpled ass.
All you get is different shit, same taste.
In such a democracy you only have two electoral options if you want to make a difference, either vote with your feet or vote with a gun.
America’s opportunity to improve its society and make itself a responsible member of the world community was squandered during the Clinton years. With the passage of time, it will take more than this slick black dude just to make up for the ground lost when Clinton had the country in reverse, much less when Bush got behind the wheel, did a U-turn and went backward as fast as he could.
Real change will happen when I see the price and quality of Media and the Internet improve for US consumers.
Fast Internet + Cable TV in Korea:
30 USD a month
Fast Internet + Cable TV in USA:
80 - 90 USD a month
Taxes and expenses taken out of my Korean salary per month - 15 - 20%
Taxes and expenses taken out of my US salary per month - 40% +
***
Until US citizens are taxed less and not fleeced by Corporate Greed, I don’t believe a word these buffoons are saying.
I’m hearing you Tmartin,
Democracy has consistantly failed to deliver sub-$50 ADSL Internet connections or cable (not basic, I’m talking HBO special) for less than $20 a week, even during Grecian times, and much less both of them at the same time. All this talk about pipinig Diet Coke into homes and taxpayer-funded potato chip deliveries to the living rooms of working American families will remain just that unless politicains develop and deliver the key infrastructure at an affordable rate first.
Given the economy, the numerous foreign policy successes, and its general reputation at home and abroad, I see no reason for a change of administration.
Republicans need to work in install Bush as a permanent President.
We owe Bush and his angels a debt of thanks for guiding us into these halcyon days we are all currently enjoying.
#13,
Actually, there’s a price war going on. Starting this month, some cable companies have begun offering cable and 100meg internet for under 20 000 per month. I hear it’s to try to stop people from getting internet TV, which will supposedly offer programming on demand.
“Given the economy, the numerous foreign policy successes, and its general reputation at home and abroad, I see no reason for a change of administration.
Republicans need to work in install Bush as a permanent President.
We owe Bush and his angels a debt of thanks for guiding us into these halcyon days we are all currently enjoying.”
All your Internets belong to Kujo.
#11 Linkd
Tell that to the Serbians and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. He probably wouldn’t have invaded Iraq but rather have just done a bombing run every time a scandal came up.
You’ve been listening to SOAD - BYOB again, haven’t you? It’s good music, but don’t take the cleverly crafted message too seriously.