Aug 04 2008
Meet the Candidates II - Washington Gubernatorial Candidates
Last post we wrote about candidates for representative to the U.S. Congress from Washington’s 7th District. I want to give a tip of the hat to Nisi Shawl here, as it was her interpretative reading of candidate profiles that inspired us to speak out.
Indeed, I want to instigate a write-in campaign: Nisi in the 7th on the Punctuation Party ticket. Anyone who can’t write a candidate statement with proper punctuation and without excessive use of capitals gets a vote of NO CONFIDENCE. As Nisi says, “Punctuation is sexy. People who can punctuate are sexier.”
Although he immediately gets a NO CONFIDENCE vote for numerous and glaring errors in punctuation, Washington gubernatorial candidate Javier O. Lopez makes an interesting claim:
“I have invented an air engine that has the power to operate an automobile while relying on air as its fuel source. Adoption of this technology would mean an end to reliance on fossil fuels, stopping carbon-monoxide emissions, pollution and global warming.” Sweet. How’s that work again?
Nisi thinks cynically that Mr. J-Lo’s air engine will prove to be nothing more newfangled than a sail affixed to the roof of your favorite hoopty. But she is aching to be proven wrong.
A certain Lopez does hold a patent for a compressed air engine, but it’s not Javier, it’s Daniel F. Mr. Lopez’s’s campaign Web site repeats the language in his Voters’ Guide statement, but with no further detail. Despite that, Zoomy’s Thing says (and is likewise referring to the same Voters’ Pamphlet I am),
What makes Javier O Lopez really cool is that he just slips this into the middle of an otherwise more or less sensible platform for election.
Guess it depends on your definitions of “sensible” and “cool” and whether your platform is located in space or somewhere a little closer to Earth.
I’m not sure what to make of Mohammad Hassan Said, who is running as an independent and describes himself as a “Self Employed Medical Doctor,” immediately earning a vote of NO CONFIDENCE for excessive capitalization (entitlement?) and lack of hyphenation in the modifier. (And let us note the “that” of dehumanization in the description of his family: “Three children, one a physician, one a media personality and a daughter that will attend Seattle University Law School.”) But what of his ideas and positions?
“WITHDRAW WASHINGTON NATIONAL GUARD FROM IRAQ IMMEDIATELY. The unfair Iraqi occupation was engineered by New Conservative for Israel. Request for Freedom Of Information Act November 14, 2005 with their answer November 21, 2005 control number COPS2006004 is still pending to prove evidence.”
New Conservative for Israel? Pluralized or not, Google returns no results not found in Mr. Said’s statement; in other words, he appears to be talking to himself—unless he means AIPAC. Lobbyists are by nature conspirators, as “breathing together” (co respiring or conspiring) means talking. Money talks, AIPAC has money, so there is a conspiracy, as one Web site puts it, to “foment… support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is playing an even greater role in supporting a future military strike against the people of Iran.”
In other words, Mr. Said is speaking in code in the first point of his candidate’s statement in calling AIPAC by a confusingly capitalized moniker which sounds like an acronym, so boo on that. Lower on the page he comes right out and veers toward the anti-Semetic:
“Finally I would like to sound the alarm, that AIPAC and other Jewish Zionist Lobbies who represent less than 2% of American People are using the United States through their mighty power in the News Media, Financial Institutions, Hollywood and Entertainment Industry, Both Political Parties, Congress and the White House as Proxy to wage war against any country perceived to be threat to Israel, like in Iraq. This will lead us into conflicts for generations with Arab and Muslim World. This has got to stop!”
Opposition to Zionism is not equivalent to anti-Semitism. But Mr. Said’s knuckles begin to drag when he talks about “Jewish Zionist Lobbies.” Zionism has allies among Christian evangelicals who pray for apocalypse, while many Israelis support statehood for Palestine. Zionism is a political ideology, a virulently colonialist one that no more maps one-to-one onto Jews than al Qaeda does onto Muslims or witch-burning onto Catholics.
If only the world could be sliced and diced as simply as conspiracy theorists like Mr. Said seem to think. But then, if wishes were fishes we’d all make a living from the sea.
[…] much for the candidates from the 7th; next time we’ll take a peek at a couple Washington gubernatorial candidates. But first, this snip from a […]