Expats Against Bush

Continued Discussion

Don't get too excited, this is just a housekeeping post.

I see that the what was meant to be the last post on EAB has generated over 200 comments now, which is cool - but I know that is mostly due to it being the most recent commentable post. It's starting to get really bloated and I know it can't be that pleasant to wade through.

I want to remind you that the EAB Forums are still there and available to use for Bush- and politics-related discussions. I would urge you to use them as I will be shutting down the commenting facility on blog posts soon in order that they not become unrealistically huge pages. I plan to leave the Forums going indefinitely, so you would be well served to take the discussion there.

Thanks,
-Luke

A new year, and a new project

I’ve got good news and bad news.

The good news is that my work with the Democrats Abroad UK executive committee is likely to bring about some positive change in their website and the way that DA-UK members use it to coordinate their activities. Hopefully as time goes by we can work on the DA parent website as well and work on unifying the look and feel of the websites across the different countries. We will also be working on improving the way that DA-UK members communicate with each other.

The bad news is that I cannot commit to doing a good job for them and continue to maintain this site as well. Therefore, I will not be adding any new posts to this site from today (barring any exceptional circumstances). I will leave the site up and running so that you can go back and review old posts, and the comments section will remain open on all posts, but I will not be adding any new content.

I thought long and hard about this decision, and it basically came down to two factors: time and relevance.

Firstly, with what looks like a large time commitment to DA-UK, this website would only be getting the leftovers, so to speak, and that isn’t fair on you the audience.

Secondly, I feel that now that Bush has won, this website can only snipe from the sidelines, and it could start to come off as sour grapes. There are plenty of other blogs out there calling the Bush administration out on its missteps and miscarriages, and doing a better job of it to boot.

I am proud of what we achieved with this site and the work that everyone has done, but I am also conscious that this site was symptomatic of a larger issue during this election: the belief that being anti- something is as good as being pro-something else. We of the Anyone But Bush brigade were so focused on getting Bush out that we forgot to tell people what we were going to replace him with. We lost the initiative trying to tell people what we were against rather than what we stood for.

That’s why I believe my work for Democrats Abroad will, in the end, have a better chance of helping us get back in the driver’s seat next time round. I will be helping to get the message out that we are “for the good guys” and not just “against the bad guys”. That is our only shot at taking back the initiative and, ultimately, the country.

I want to leave you all with my sincerest thanks to everyone who has come along for the ride, everyone who has read along, everyone who has posted thousands upon thousands of comments (yes even you right wingers :) ) and especially to everyone that’s helped out over the last year-and-a-bit. You know who you are, and to the UK folks, well, you’re going to be seeing a lot more of me in the flesh.

Thank you all again,
Luke Robinson
Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Happy New Year

Just wanted to say a quick Happy New Year to you and yours from Expats Against Bush. I hope you have all had a great Christmas break and will return refreshed and ready for more activism and informed debate :).

Sincerely,
-Luke Robinson

Technical Difficulties

It appears that the problems affecting posting on Typepad this week have been resolved, so I should be able to post properly again now. I have also re-published the previous 2 entries (Colin Powell & the CIA) so you should be able to comment on them now. And I know you will want to.

Housekeeping

You may notice that some sets of links, banners and so forth have disappeared. That's just me doing some housecleaning; I don't think links to the Kucinich campaign site or the Electoral Vote Predictor are particularly relevant nearly 1 week on. Of course, new sets of links will appear as we re-gear the site to face the challenge ahead.

Banned in China

I noticed in my referrer logs a website of an expat in China mentioning one of my posts - and then saying to get to this site from China you had to go through an anonymous proxy service (presumably because the state-owned firewalls would not allow you through).

Does that mean that China has banned Expats Against Bush? Or (more likely), does that mean that we have not been placed on the "approved sites" list?

Do any of our China-based expats or ex-China-folks know what the score is here? Is this standard practice to have to go through a proxy?

Back in Action

First off, apologies for the lack of posting recently - I was unexpectedly called out to work onsite at a client's facility for nearly the last 2 weeks and thus I have been totally unable to post or even check news sites. Don't you hate it when work intrudes in more important parts of your life? Add this to the fact that I have just moved house and am temporarily internet-less.... But all that is irrelevant. I am back in the office now and ready to stoke the flames of liberal expat anger once again.

What a couple of weeks to have been out of the action! I leave for a few days and all of a sudden everyone's gone glum... And everyone is up in arms about the forged/genuine Bush National Guard documents. Meanwhile Kerry is creeping back up in the polls and seems to be back up near his previous level in the electoral college.

I just haven't seen as much out of Kerry image-wise as I would have hoped by this point. The undecideds need more reason to vote for him than simply "he's not Bush". Kerry is starting to go on the attack on Bush & Co's mismanagement of Iraq but Kerry needs to define what he would have done differently a little more clearly. We need to keep our eyes on the ball here... less than two months to go.

Of course, if it were up to the rest of the world, it would be pretty clear by now who the next President would be [thanks Sally].

Update

I just wanted to post quickly and apologise for the relative paucity of posts this week - work at the day job has well and truly landed like the proverbial ton of bricks. This week, of all weeks! I was looking forward to some quality RNC-bashing too.

I will be posting a look back over the week this weekend, and a look forward to the final stretch into the election. I am very very concerned about the current state of play in the electoral college, to say the least. But at least we will have gotten both conventions behind us and this time next week we should have a better idea of where we stand.

I won't be able to catch Bush's speech tonight - but I'd rather watch it on a net feed where I can fast-forward if I start to feel ill, anyway.

CIA Asks Bush to discontinue blog

Heh. You have to love the Onion sometimes:

WASHINGTON, DC—In the interest of national security, President Bush has been asked to stop posting entries on his three-month-old personal web log, acting CIA director John E. McLaughlin said Monday.

According to McLaughlin, several recent entries on PrezGeorgeW. typepad.com have compromised military operations, while other posts may have seriously undercut the PR efforts of White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

Holiday time (again)

Well as of tomorrow I am away again until next Monday the 28th - this time to join a bunch of muddy people in a field in Somerset. Yes, it's that time of year again. Glastonbury.

I have asked a couple of people to post in my absence, but that will be time-permitting and so don't be surprised if this message stays up top for a while :)

On my return I will be discussing current events in the runup to the Democratic National Convention, and whether or not Kerry can convert the sure boost in the polls he will receive from the event into a solid lead over Dubya.

See you next week!