Yesterday I met the Alice Woldt, who is running for the Washington State House of Representatives in Seattle's 36th district, challenging the 32-year incumbent Helen Sommers. Although Sommers represents the ultra-liberal wing of the Democratic Party, she is at least of the faction that still visits the Planet Earth from time to time. Woldt, on the other hand, is challenging Sommers from the Democrats' Outer Limits left-wing, whose inhabitants believe the laws of economics, logic and physics shouldn't always be strictly enforced.
Woldt was out campaigning yesterday by taking part in the "Green Lake Peace Vigil", a weekly ritual of sclerotic hippies, anti-Semites, Kucinichoids and other assorted misfits who, for lack of anything better to do, prance around with Bush=Hitler signs and mutilated American flags to protest the "liar's oil war" and the "Occupation" (of liberated Kurdistan, Tel-Aviv, etc.). This google-cached page from its now-defunct website reveals the vacuum at the "Green Lake Peace Vigil"'s core. Less than two weeks after ecstatic Iraqis toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein, the Peace Vigil commandante wrote:
On Sunday, April 20th, we had about 70 people. Everyone there want to continue the vigil. The focus is yet to be decided.But enough about Alice Woldt's core constituency.
I asked Alice herself why she was protesting. Did she want to give Saddam his country back? No, she said, she wanted to give Iraq back to the Iraqi people. And she didn't like Saddam and she also protested before the war against the sanctions because they hurt the Iraqi people more than they hurt Saddam. I tried to explain that the war had the effect of fulfilling both her goals of ending the sanctions and returning Iraq to its people, but this message somehow didn't penetrate into her personal version of reality space.
Then she started talking about state issues and explained that she wanted to change the state's unfair tax structure and lower the sales tax and do away with the B&O Tax. It's hard to disagree with this until you press her to confess that she wants to institute an income tax and that she also supports I-884, which seeks to raise the sales tax by a billion dollars a year.
In other words, Alice Woldt, if elected, will simultaneously raise and lower the sales tax. Which is about what you'd expect from somebody who still protests against the President for ending Saddam's brutal regime, saving thousands of Iraqi lives and returning the country to its citizens even though that's what she says she wanted in the first place.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 27, 2004 05:38 PMAt last, someone who's willing to tell the truth!
She opposed the war and she opposed sanctions before the war.
Okay, so here's the question (and Stefan, I'm curious what her answer was, if you asked her this question): What would you actually DO?
If sanctions weren't the answer, and war wasn't the answer, and you agree that Saddam was a bad guy who shouldn't remain in power (or maybe she doesn't care?), then what was the right policy decision?
Posted by: Dean on June 27, 2004 07:48 PMOh, Dean, you racist, fascist, sexist oppressor, you! Not everyone buys into the so-called "logic" of your Eurocentric patriarchy, maaaaan!
By the way, is "Eurocentric" still a bad word? I mean, since the EUniks have so conclusively demonstrated their moral superiority to us dumb 'Muricans. What with being so nuanced and all, and unwilling to act since they see all possible sides of any gien question and to choose one "solution" is to claim that it is somehow more valid than the others?
Hey, just asking. I want to know if I can still use Eurocentric as a perjorative.
Posted by: Steve Skubinna on June 27, 2004 09:41 PMIn what sense can that partisan hatefest on Green Lake be called a "peace vigil"?
Tyrants love pacifism. Especially this belligerant, pugilistic, violent kind of pacifism.
Posted by: Bleeding heart conservative on June 28, 2004 07:22 AMDean asks, "If sanctions weren't the answer, and war wasn't the answer, and you agree that Saddam was a bad guy who shouldn't remain in power (or maybe she doesn't care?), then what was the right policy decision?"
Taking him out the first time in 1991, like we should've done. End of story.
Posted by: jimg on June 28, 2004 09:58 AMjimg, you mean during Gulf War One? That presupposes that Woldt supported that (remember, we're discussing her lack of solutions for Saddam, not what you or I think would have been the best one).
Now, the Shark didn't discern her attitude to that first war. I'm going out on a limb here, though, and suggesting that she was against that one, too. Hey, it's a working hypothesis until she clarifies what she would have done (another bold hypothesis from me: it would have involved joining hands and singing "Kumbaya").
Posted by: Steve Skubinna on June 28, 2004 10:34 AMWhat Steve Skubinna said.
Moreover, we had no UN mandate to replace the government in Baghdad. I've little doubt that rolling onwards into Baghdad (and being tied down for months in street-fighting/counterinsurgency, as has happened since) would be acceptable to Ms. Woldt either.
But I'd like to hear what she would have had to say about it.
Posted by: Dean on June 28, 2004 03:24 PMOh, criminey. A UN mandate?
How about the numerous UN Security Council resolutions depicting SH in violation of the 1991 ceasefire? You know, the ceasefire which stopped the Gulf War the first time? Those don't count?
Or do they not fit your idea of UN "approval."
Posted by: jimg on June 28, 2004 07:08 PMJimg:
I think you're missing my point:
Alice says that she opposes going to war this time around.
She ALSO says that she opposed sanctions.
If she claimed that we should have toppled Saddam in '91, she'd be violating the sanctity of the UN, b/c the UN hadn't authorized then the toppling of Saddam.
If she DOESN'T think we should have toppled Saddam (indeed, if she doesn't think we should have gone to war in '91), then she's pretty much left w/ saying that she opposes Saddam but doesn't think anyone should have done thing-one about it.
Posted by: Dean on June 28, 2004 08:05 PMMy mom rocks. You people make me sick. My best freind groing up was jewish. My mom is no anti-semite. That is a low cheap blow. My mom belives in peace. She belives in defense not offense. Iraq was offense. Besides who the hell cares what her veiws on the war are? Shes not running for the presidency. She wants to represent her districts views and belifes in Olimpia. Go back to eastern Washington and shoot something you conservative redneck. By the way progressive tax systems have a home on "planet earth." Cutting health care and giveing tax breaks to walmart dosent.
If your such a tough guy who likes picking on little old woman who go to peace vigils, pick on me. I'm 22 years old and I will teach you how to bleed like a bleeding heart liberal. my number is 206 819 2827. call me up. You punk.
Mother must weep, being a pacifist, to have raised such a violent son.
Posted by: Joel (No Pundit Intended) on August 13, 2004 01:55 PMSommers cut a deal with the Republicans that eviscerated voter-mandated education spending. She is not ultra-left. The author of this blog is living a dream.
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