They Got It Right: (6) Shibley Telhami
Can anybody head off a new war that we know will end badly? This is Shibley Telhami’s question at the end of our conversation about the Iran sequel to the misery in Iraq. His answer seems to be: No — we’re in the trap already, headed for the grinder.
Shibley Telhami: on the slippery slope
Professor Telhami at the University of Maryland is the only scholar we’ve interviewed in this series who briefed Karl Rove five years ago on the fallout of war on Iraq. Telhami proceeded to sign the prophetic New York Times ad in September, 2002 that spelled out the disaster unfolding then. Rove seemed to be listening for political damage to his boss, and heard nothing of what Telhami was warning about: damage to American standing in the Middle East , in the mirror, everywhere.
Shibley Telhami has a straight-talking individual voice in think-tank circles around Washington. He speaks from a fascinating personal history. He was born into a family of peacemakers and conciliators in an Arab Christian minority in a village near Haifa in 1951, when Israel was 3 years old. In Israeli and private schools, his first degrees were in mathematics and then philosophy before he took up international relations with Kenneth Waltz at Berkeley and more recently: polling in the Mideast.
So he is a social-science theorist with a flood of facts and factoids at his fingertips. Arab opinion, he says, is the flip of what the Bush White House wants to believe. That is: Arab Muslims, in fact, love Americans for our democratic values, (who we are), and hate us for our imperial policies, (what we do). We’re still the land of freedom and opportunity and the place for the ambitious to study and grow; but next to nobody believes the US is about “spreading democracy” or even a “war on terror” in the Middle East. There’s a “pervasive anger with the United States” in the Middle East today, Telhami says, and a 80- to 90-percent consensus that American policy is to “control oil, help Israel, and weaken the Muslim world.”
The US choice on attacking Iraq sounds spookily beyond rational or even political control:
We’re right on a slippery slope toward that war. We’re on a course for war. The objective has already been stated, and our political mainstream has accepted it. It’s not just that the Bush administration has stated it. No one has challenged the basic concept that ‘I will never allow Iran to acquire the knowledge’ — not even to acquire the weapons, but ‘to acquire the knowledge and the capacity to put the weapon together.’ Once you acquiesce in that you’re on the slippery slope toward war — even the Democrats who are saying: ‘let’s try diplomacy first…’ …It’s fascinating about our political system. The most important thing is the assumption at the beginning. If you’re assuming that this is something that has to be done — something you cannot live without doing, that all your strategies are intended to prevent them from having nuclear weapons, that you have to prevent them from having them, at all costs — then in the end you’re going to have war. We don’t pay attention to that assumption at the beginning. It kind of sneaks in. The President could make it in a speech, and no one takes it on. And then it becomes Conventional Wisdom. And then we’re entangled talking about the tactics, and not paying attention to the slippery slope that was begun by the very declaration of the statement of how our interests are defined… My worry is that, if you go to war with Iran and we don’t have an end to the Iraq war, we have structural conditions that are setting in motion a process that — no matter who the President is — they cannot stop. That’s my worry, and that’s how I see Iran in this case.”
Shibley Telhami, in conversation with Chris Lydon, October 26, 2007
Click to listen to Chris’s conversation with Shibley Telhami (10 MB MP3)
Is the takeaway message that our war machine is out of all control?
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November 1st, 2007 at 7:53 am
The reason why United States policy is what it is in the Middle East is because we defend our access to the natural resources of the region. This is the raison d’être of the American Military presence there. If one owns a collection of jewelry one does not leave it in a park out in the open, trusting that people won’t come and take it. One must be able to protect ones investment. Having faith in human nature is a good thing – but the “hating the sin†and “loving the sinner†schism-thing doesn’t work in that part of the world. It’s actually a weakness i.e. one that is exploited by communists and atheists.
Shibley Telhami’s comment that “…Structural conditions that are setting in motion a process that — no matter who the President is — they cannot stopâ€, is absolutely correct. It is this way by design. It is an insurance policy to prevent the Dragon and the Mechanic from controlling the entire planet and its resources; to ensure the FACT that the lives of American Soldiers will be protected, and that the ones who fall in battle will be remembered, forever! The future belongs to them now. We understand that some people simply do not understand the Middle East and what in turn must be done to protect our interests there and ourselves at home. We understand that the Jew as Cosmic Enemy motif prevents otherwise rational people from surfacing from the weight of their blindness. We understand that the far left can shoot itself in the foot and blame someone else for pulling the trigger; that this kind of naiveté is both charming, and scandalous. But through the danger that they pose we keep in mind that their freedom to pose it must be protected. It is not actually a distraction. It is a sort of ‘discreet temperance’ – a reminder of the boundaries and limitations of *altruism*, and the delivery of the enemy right on the doorstep. (Luckily they haven’t figured out how to return the favor … otherwise we’d all be doomed), LOL.
For the record, I am against a war with Iran. I am in favor of those aspects of the “Just War†theory which indicate a minimal use of force. I think we should let Israel do Iran, but not until we tell them to. If it wasn’t for the United States and Great Britain Israel would not exist. They are standing by as a military ally and friend, but they are not calling the shots. Israel understands that food on the plate is more important than friendship, and they are working towards a solution from that angle.
November 1st, 2007 at 8:13 am
Thanks- Telhami is a frequent guest on the Newshour and he is always interesting and informative.
So more evidence ( as if we needed it) that the GWB administration had no lack of information from the other side of things. This is their betrayal of this country in it’s rawest form. They dismissed what they could not use to sell ( not inform) their own agenda. To be unecessarily kinder, they had the information-they lacked judgement and wisdom. All Rove was interested in was how Bush came off. But the real blame goes to Bush for making his political advisor primary. Telhamis poll results of the Arab street, the source of exploding discontent, meant nothing. What was really important was how to war, war which would give him, Bush, him Cheney, meaning. We can’t be harsh enough about this.
I think it was Desch here who makes the point, when speaking of realism versus idealism in our foreign policy, that the the public falls for this (Neocon) notion of transforming the world. And when we see and pay the consequences of our adventures, as we are now, we are chastened for awhile. But then we fall in love again….and swing back to this arrogant notion.
The most recent Zogby poll that shows 52% of likely voters, a majority, support a strike on Iran to prevent them from building a nuclear weapon. Considering what we have been through that is amazing. It also shows that there is little conception of how things escalate, and STILL too much belief that we can antiseptically take care of things this way.
Regarding Israel- too much is made of the US’s ability to control Israel especially regarding matters Israeli’s perceive existential. They will go it alone in those cases even given the strongest threats from the US. Absolutely. In the case of Iran, there are too many in Israel who really believe Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric. We can only make it worse for Israel with a strike.
November 1st, 2007 at 11:17 am
The reason why United States policy is what it is in the Middle East is because we defend our access to the natural resources of the region. This is the raison d’être of the American Military presence there.
We are not doing it very intelligently or wisely through “Shock and Awe” bombing, invasion, and occupation, humiliating and angering millions.
Telhami said that 90 percent of those polled by Zogby in the region felt that we were there to 1) CONTROL the oil (i.e not merely protect access), 2) help Israel, 3) WEAKEN THE MUSLIM WORLD.
(Talk about shooting oneself in the foot!!)
I f one owns a collection of jewelry one does not leave it in a park out in the open, trusting that people won’t come and take it. One must be able to protect ones investment.
Who owns the jewelry?
November 1st, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Potter,
You said “We are not doing it very intelligently or wisely through “Shock and Awe†bombing, invasion, and occupation, humiliating and angering millionsâ€.
Did you ever crash a party?
You said “Telhami said that 90 percent of those polled by Zogby in the region felt that we were there to 1) CONTROL the oil (i.e not merely protect access), 2) help Israel, 3) WEAKEN THE MUSLIM WORLDâ€.
I’m not sure what ‘weaken the Muslim world means’. I for one am rooting for them to pull through what many scholars have referred to as a [Muslim] Reformation – you know – the one that took a wrong turn in 1979. Part of the problem, Potter, is that they cannot control their own trouble makers. So they need our help. If one day they could get their act together and centralize their leadership they wouldn’t need us hanging around.
“Protect accessâ€, “controlâ€, it is all semantics. I don’t have to give you a history lesson on America’s synergistic relationship with the Saudis. Saudi Arabia is right below Kuwait. Do you think the Saudis were militarily capable to stop Saddam Hussein if he had chosen to keep on going into their country? Do you have any idea who was supplying Saddam with certain [advanced] military technology? Did you know that Saddam owed Vladimir Putin billions of dollars? And so who do you think was next in line to sign prime oil contracts with Saddam? Spiderman? Daffy Duck? Or was it the little green men from Mars?
As for “helping Israel†I don’t see why democracies shouldn’t help each other, no matter where they are. However, I do maintain that at the end of the day our relationship with Saudi Arabia is more important than our relationship with Israel. On the other hand it is to our advantage to keep our friends from fighting one another as we have done since the end of WW ll in Europe. Jews are hard to like, but they are not the “root cause†of our problems. On September 11th 2001 some people upset the balance, and THAT is why we are where we are.
You asked “Who owns the jewelry� Answer: anyone who is willing to play by the rules. And don’t ask me who makes the rules. The rules impose themselves i.e. the distribution of the planets resources indicate an even amount for everyone. But once in a while someone makes a bid for more than they need, and it has to be rectified.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:32 pm
I hope to weigh-in on this fascinating conversation soon, but in the meantime I wonder if GodzillaVsBambi might clarify this statement, the better to know where I am:
“Jews are hard to like,”
November 1st, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Thanks again Chris. Great series. I hope you can go through a few more of these. I find Mr. Telhami’s view on the slippery slope, or absorbing assertions and assumptions as conventional factoids, very interesting and I agreeable. One should make sure that the base assertion is correct before iterating through more general assertion(s).
Another person who got it right: Mohamed ElBaradei
November 1st, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Yeh, ditto to hurley! Wtf GvB?
November 1st, 2007 at 5:09 pm
Hurley,
You said “I wonder if GodzillaVsBambi might clarify this statement, the better to know where I am: “Jews are hard to likeâ€.
Take it at face value and please don’t patronize me. Going into detail with this would be completely redundant.
November 1st, 2007 at 7:41 pm
It’s terribly sorrowful that the word “democracy” ( and it’s cousin “freedom”) being used as a war cry has been so abused that you have to wonder if many understand deeply ( or care) what democracy really means and how it has been undermined.
It’s ironic that as we try to democratise others for primarily selfish reasons, we lose more of our own democracy at home and more of the power we had at one time, as an example, even an imperfect one. That seems to have evaporated. The world, looking this way, sees mainly arrogance.
November 2nd, 2007 at 6:34 am
I think Godzilla is Jewish, if I remember correctly, and I took his “Jews are hard to like” as self-deprecating. Otherwise it could be misunderstood. I don’t see any need to be circumspect about the explanation, Godzilla, if I am correct. I don’t agree that Jews are harder to like than anyone else and I don’t see the point in making a statement that refutes Jews being the root cause of our problems unless what was meant was that Israel, Israeli’s, Jewish support for Israel is not the root cause of our problems. In that case I agree. But then you would have to add that Christian evangelical support for Israel is not the root cause of our problems either.
Then we would be tempted to go on to discuss the real root cause of our problems.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:31 am
Godzilla: I was hardly patronizing you. I was being polite, perhaps too much so given the tone of your reply. Your statement so egregious that I hoped it was a mistake. It’s an ugly sentiment, anyway you look at it, particularly at “face-value.” I could go into detail as to why, but as you say, that would be redundant. A rascist is a rascist, a cad a cad, It’s rare that either can be persuaded to be otherwise.
November 2nd, 2007 at 8:33 am
P.S. Happy to be proved wrong.
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Hurley,
I do not believe the sentiment is as you say, “uglyâ€. I believe it to be true, and as a matter of course. I am sorry you misunderstood what I said. What is exquisitely prejudiced is when people hold opinions that have no basis in fact. When I said ‘Jews are hard to like’, I never thought someone would take it out of context, but yet you did.
It was mentioned within the overall context of Shibley Telhami’s comment that: “…80- to 90-percent consensus that American policy is to “control oil, help Israel, and weaken the Muslim world.†Which is to say that when one follows the media for a period of time one inevitably encounters allusions, and sometimes direct statements that if we could just somehow solve the Israeli/Palestinian problem, all our troubles would disappear. In reality [while trying hard to convey the continuum of the ‘context’] I was reminding people to use better judgment; to see past their prejudices and preconceived notions when attempting to analyze political situations of international proportion.
It is ‘also’ true that, as a Jew, my personal experience with other Jews has yielded this (hard to like) result. However, I would not for one moment allow my personal sentiments of other Jews to cloud my ability to analyze something.
My statement ‘Jews are hard to like’ stands inside, and outside of the context of this thread from both a personal and an academic perspective.
To suggest that someone’s personal experience counts for nothing is rude. As far as the word “racist†goes, that depends on what you mean since it has ‘two’ primary shades of meaning. Just like James Watson, I do not believe that correlative data and the recitation of facts and statistics in any way points to “racismâ€. It is often the case however that those who hurl the accusation of “racist†live in a fantasy world where facts and supposition trade places. One can argue the application of certain data or even its interpretation, but not the data itself.
November 2nd, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Godzilla,
Your irony maybe has the pitch of a dog whistle, so likely passing me by. My fault, no doubt.
I don’t understand what it means to be “exquisitely prejudiced,” or who you’re referring to.
The phrase “Jews are hard to like” yours of course. I wasn’t taking it out of context, but trying to situate it. That’s why I asked you to clarify it. It is, I trust you’ll admit, open to various interpretations. I know nothing of you, your past, but at first glance I had the depressing sensation there was an anti-Semite about.
Moving along, I never suggested that your personal experience counts for nothing, knowing nothing of it, so the charge of rudeness a mystery to me. Explain how I’ve been rude to you and I’ll count it a lesson, thanking you into the bargain.
James Watson a brave reference these days…
November 2nd, 2007 at 4:53 pm
Oy!
Hurley thanks for that- and that is what I thought you were thinking which is why I tried to clarify things with my interpretation. That interpretation of mine was in spite of the feelings that I had on the Edwidge Danticot exchange that there was racism about. I extricated myself from that after stating so.
But this business about “Jews are hard to like” confounds me because they are no harder to like than anyone else. To put it better, they are as easy to love as anyone else. I hope that cancels this out. I can state something as a truth as easily as the next person.
That Godzilla finds some of his fellow Jews hard to like I can understand too, particularly if he is at odds with them about certain things they hold dear, which I think is the case if I remember past postings. So “Jews are hard to like” is, as Godzilla says about personal feelings and NOT a fact. Left unqualified at first until we nudged it out of Godzilla, Hurley and Samgr’s intial responses were entirely appropriate in my view.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:03 pm
Potter,
Your comment: “I think Godzilla is Jewish, if I remember correctlyâ€, is very funny. So much so that I find it distracting when I try to think now! Thanks. To clarify … Godzilla is Japanese, but I am Jewish. On the other hand, anyone who can cause as much destruction as Godzilla must have some Jewish in them. I don’t remember any genitalia on Godzilla, so he must have been a female. Come to think of it, I don’t remember any genitalia on King Kong, either. Perhaps they should do another sequel.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Hurley,
You said “I don’t understand what it means to be “exquisitely prejudiced,†or who you’re referring toâ€. You must be kidding! The reason why I said it is BECAUSE of when you said “A rascist is a rascist, a cad a cad, it’s rare that either can be persuaded to be otherwiseâ€. THAT is exquisitely prejudiced. I come with empirical data and personal experience. You call me a “racist†attempting to circumvent my personal experience, out rightly denying it. Is that not prejudiced? Or are you just calling me a liar?
Is it politically incorrect to say that ‘Jews are hard to like’? Too bad. I try not to filter anything between my brain and the keyboard. You can sugarcoat it if you’d like, but it is more than generally true (approximately 85%), and also has a basis in historical fact that can be easily illustrated. If I say Black people score lower on SAT & GED than their White counterparts, are you going to deny that too and then call me a “racistâ€? If I point out that Black people have a more symmetrical musculoskeletal structure than White people, and as a result are better at sports, are you going to call me a “racistâ€? If I said that the average Jewish IQ is 15 – 18 points higher than the average White IQ, are you going to call me a “racistâ€? Let’s not forget: Jews are not “Caucasianâ€, they are Semitic. If I said that Germans are the best physicists in the world (in the grand Alchemical Tradition; then there is always the Russians, but they are not as accurate as we are, but that’s another story), would you call me a “racistâ€?! Hurley, your agenda is very thick! You are prejudiced, you have much to learn, and you are afraid to think for yourself!!
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Hurley,
This would be the part where I breathe fire to finish roasting the carcass of my prey.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I’ll answer for myself, Gozilla. I think you are racist. That is you see people in terms of their race and then you go ahead and generalize about it. Totally unenlightened and uninformed- not about being politically correct.
It is very important what conclusions and explanations you draw from stats such as you give.
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:16 pm
I don’t know about you Godzizzle, but I’m Jewish and I consider myself to have almost godlike powers of personal magnetism. Chris knows what I’m talking about.
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:38 am
Christopher: Thanks for continuing your thoughtful programming. This is a great topic and it’s nice to have the insights of those who got it right - especially now that other media are focused again on those who got it wrong.
A comment of Godzilla vs. Bambi:
“The reason why United States policy is what it is in the Middle East is because we defend our access to the natural resources of the region.”
There’s a foundational assumption expressed here; and it is intriguing in a number of ways:
1. This is a common belief among US citizens; that supply of these Middle East resources is threatened; that US military occupation is needed to ensure that oil will flow; that when it flows, the military will ensure that it goes to US consumers; that despite all the cover stories of WMD, freedom, war on terror, etc., the war is about securing oil for the US.
2. Even though this is a common belief it is rarely spoken. It is especially rare that someone will express it as openly as Godzilla has here. The reason: the idea of controlling the resources of another country is inimical to common notions of freedom and justice. Yet it is also painfully apparent how much the resource is craved. And given recent expressions of Middle-Eastern animosity toward US imperialism, it is easy to generate fear that the resource may become unavailable. So the belief incorporates a dilemma. Lacking a comfortable resolution, the belief has been relegated to the public subconscious - it is not openly acknowledged (except by a critical minority).
3. While referencing the belief with euphemisms like “regional strategic assets”, the political and intellectual Leadership encourages and builds the common belief – and uses it to gather support for policies that favor particular economic interests. The fact that the belief is unspoken lends it a special aura of importance in the public mind and conveniently allows the Leadership to avoid discussing the issue openly and rationally – in a way which might reveal policy implications which are not in the interest of the US public.
4. If it were more freely thought of and discussed, a major flaw in the belief would become obvious: despite the fact that the US public pays for the war and sends it’s people to fight it, the oil will not necessarily come to the US. A result of a “success†in the war would be that Leadership-favored oil companies (Shell and BP?) will be given rights to pump and sell the oil. Though their method of securing the oil supply would hardly be considered to be based on principles of “free-enterpriseâ€, their process of distribution will be: they will ship the oil to the highest bidder. Maybe to the US; maybe to China; or Europe – wherever price is best. It would be naive to believe these companies will have a special agreement to ensure a supply to the US.
Suppose the US did not have an imperialist approach to the Middle East and the resulting animosity did not exist - you might be tempted to ask: “wouldn’t an indigenous Iraq oil industry also want to sell to the highest bidder?†So do the people of the US benefit from the imperialist approach; from their personal sacrifice? Not unless they are stockholders in BP and Shell.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 am
Forton Twelve- As to your number 1, “the foundational assumption”:
that supply of these Middle East resources is threatened; that US military occupation is needed to ensure that oil will flow; that when it flows, the military will ensure that it goes to US consumers; that despite all the cover stories of WMD, freedom, war on terror, etc., the war is about securing oil for the US
That is several separate assumptions based on a “primordial” ( my word) assumption that we have some right to it. This is a philosophical discussion I would like to have. That was why I responded “who owns the jewelry?” to Godzilla’s analogy that we own the oil or access to it or the investments we have in place to get it from the ground out to market.
Just what do we own here or have a right to? And is this, in the end, as it always has been, might making right? Or are we talking about natural rights that all people have to share in the resources of the world?
What about the folks who live on top of those resources? What rights do they have?; what ownership do they have? And if we have rights to ME oil and therefore rights to go invade to assure their flow, what rights do others have as well to do the same? And what rights to other’s have to our natural resources for that matter?
And what rights to others have to object to how self indulgent we are with limited resources that belong to everybody if they do belong to everybody ( which I think they do)?
What is at the root of the problem in my view ( since Godzilla inadvertantly begs the question is lack of awareness that we are all on a a rather small ship with limited resources and the old goals in place to keep on growing population and raising living standards.
I would love to here an interview with Robert Reich on “supercapitalism”.
The horror is how we here are losing our democracy in the process.
November 3rd, 2007 at 9:51 am
Sorry about my spelling: inadvertently, hear/here—
November 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 am
Puff the Magic Dragon,
Da capo: I don’t take your meaning, or your mien. You wrote a blatantly racist statement, which I politely asked you to clarify, an invitation you rather unpleasantly declined, and the tone was set. I wasn’t calliing you a racist — at the time. Your remark admitted of three conclusions: that you are a racist; a cad; both. I was offering you another chance, if not to redeem yourself, at least to reconsider your remarks for this informal record. In response? An unhinged recitation of your racial theories, none of them germane to the theme of this program. And then a ridiculous and belligerent statement of vainglorious delusion. Get a grip, and stop playing with matches. The only person you’ve burned is yourself. Furthermore, if you’ve any interest in Open Source finding a sponsor and getting back on the air, there’s no point in soiling the nest. I can’t imagine any potential backer short of Charles Murray reading your remarks and ponying up. For my part, this tedious discussion is closed.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Potter,
You said “It is very important what conclusions and explanations you draw from stats such as you giveâ€. I agree, but what about the following? Forget about “conclusions and explanations†just for a moment. How about the idea that these things simply exist? If you can get past this without being too concerned about what other people might think, or if it is politically correct, then we can have a real debate.
I don’t mean to be coy here, but what EXACTLY do you mean by “racistâ€? On Dictionary.com they give: “a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule othersâ€. Read the definition again because this is of the utmost importance. Do I believe that “inherent differences†are “determining factors†in individual and (by extension) cultural achievements? Yes, absolutely. Do I believe that because of these differences in IQ, aptitude, physical ability, and aesthetics that “THEREFORE, one race has the right to rule over othersâ€? No, absolutely not! But I am positive that most people are afraid to discuss the subject, not to mention maintaining composure. I believe there are hereditary differences between people, but – now this is key – that these differences in NO WAY point to, or even allude to, the idea that one man is ‘morally’ superior or inferior to the other!!
If you can’t get that right in your head Potter, it’s not my problem. You don’t have the right to call me a “racist†until you understand the issue.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:16 pm
Forton Twelve, (Part One).
In your first mistake you said “This is a common belief among US citizens; that supply of these Middle East resources is threatenedâ€.
That depends on what you mean. It was in fact being threatened, but not in the way that you suggest. It was being threatened directly by the Russians and the Chinese causing trouble in the Middle East – a whole story that I trust the reader not take my word for it, but do his or her own research. Here is a strong lead. It’s no big secret that the Soviet-Afghan War was CIA funded. It is also no secret that many scholars suggest that the cost of that war is what led to the economic collapse of the Soviet Union. And plus the fact that there were no laws there to prevent insider trading during the reign of the oligarchs. So what does all this mean? It means that enough people in Russia were convinced that the hardships they have endured since then is America’s fault. That they have been working with Al Qaeda and the Chinese in seeking revenge immediately after 1989, beginning by teaming up with Saddam, turning him against us, and by supplying him with advanced weaponry. That’s why we went into Iraq. So don’t believe what you hear. Just because you don’t understand your own propaganda, that doesn’t mean that you should embrace the enemies!
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
Forton Twelve, (Part Two).
In your second mistake you said “…The war is about securing oil for the USâ€. This is incorrect. The oil was already secure. It was a question of degree. The correct way formulate the question is as follows. To what [proportional] extent did the oil now (1990) need to be secured, since the environment in the region was changing?
In your third mistake you said “…The idea of controlling the resources of another country is inimical to common notions of freedom and justiceâ€. True enough. However, if the leader of that country is on the payroll of another country, as Saddam was once on our payroll, and he wakes up one morning and decides to ‘go it alone’, sounds to me like a serious breach of contract. Hence, if a revolution, assassination, or coup d’état is not possible – while the despotic leader remains in power with a Mafia-like hold over the population and does whatever he wants – then more serious, more obvious measures need to be taken.
Furthermore, constitutional democracy and the rule of law takes time, lots of time. The word democracy is loaded with propaganda. But it is nevertheless ‘our’ propaganda, as opposed to say communist propaganda. To think that we would march into Iraq and convert all the sand monkeys to Christianity while turning them in to constitutional scholars and law experts is of course a joke. But if this is isolated and understood only in a vacuum, then all the other reasons I sited today fall on deaf ears.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Forton Twelve, (Part Three).
In your next mistake you became critically delusional. You said “Yet it is also painfully apparent how much the resource is craved. And given recent expressions of Middle-Eastern animosity toward US imperialism, it is easy to generate fear that the resource may become unavailable. So the belief incorporates a dilemma. Lacking a comfortable resolution, the belief has been relegated to the public subconscious - it is not openly acknowledged (except by a critical minority)â€.
How amateurish is that? If Freud were alive he’d slap your face. How could you possibly even think of analyzing geopolitics and Conflict Resolution in these terms? You remind me of James Baldwin who used to apply red, black, and green poetry to everything around him – pointing his unenlightened finger at those who dragged him out of the jungle in an ungrateful and unsuccessful attempt to chastise the hand that lifted him up from his vestigial and primitive existence.
You said “If it were more freely thought of and discussed, a major flaw in the belief would become obvious: despite the fact that the US public pays for the war and sends it’s people to fight it, the oil will not necessarily come to the USâ€.
This is one reason why it should be apparent that oil is not the “only reason†why we set up shop in the Middle East. Take notice on how I don’t have a problem discussing oil as a primary reason. There are other reasons which we may or may not cover on this thread.
You said “A result of a “success†in the war would be that Leadership-favored oil companies (Shell and BP?) will be given rights to pump and sell the oilâ€.
You mean kind of like we have now? Or do you mean like how the Russians have been jealous of American and British oil contracts since WW l, and how they made a bid for what they were unable to secure in the ‘80’s? I guess we can leave this to the self loathers, the losers and the neurotics, whose poetic metaphor doesn’t stretch beyond the boundaries of fiction and creative typing.
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Forton Twelve, (Part Four).
You said “So do the people of the US benefit from the imperialist approach; from their personal sacrifice? Not unless they are stockholders in BP and Shellâ€.
That is unnecessarily cynical, and ridiculous. On the face of it do we not benefit by LIVING INSIDE the very country that secures our freedom? The country where the stockholders reinvest their capitol with their own country in mind? Indeed, who ‘should’ they keep in mind? Oh, I forgot … it is morally ambiguous to have money ‘and’ be patriotic at the same time. Now I understand. Only poor people have the right and the ability to be patriotic. How Manichaean and passé is that?
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Hurley,
I meant to give you credit for something, but then I forgot. When you asked if I would admit that my ‘Jews are hard to like’ comment is “Open to various interpretationsâ€, the answer is yes, of course.
November 3rd, 2007 at 2:34 pm
GvsV ; Hang in there your doing quite well. This is like watching a discussion group on any MSM network. 3 or 4 liberal journalists vs one who represents a clear thinking rational approach to todays important issues.
I think it’s called a fair fight.
November 3rd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
I don’t want to get involved in Godzilla’s “fair fight,” but I would like to zero in on Potter’s philosophical discussion about “who owns the jewelry.” I think the reasoning that the US invaded Iraq for the control of its oil reserves is a drastic oversimplification. Indeed, oil is a huge factor, but I think the bigger picture shows that it’s only one jewel in a very elaborate crown. The US brand of imperialism has a much more complex formula than the older models, which were simply one nation seeking to subjugate another for the spoils of war. To be sure, the US government is not, despite its rhetoric, acting in order to protect its citizens from any threat.
The invasion of Iraq was, even from a conservative viewpoint, part of an effort to restructure the Middle East (side note - how come I’ve yet to hear George HW Bush’s famous “new world order” phrase in any discourse on the war?). There was never any indication that the nation of Iraq had any ability to attack the US, its “brutal dictator” had only very loose control over a very small portion of his country, which was in shambles from more than a decade of nonstop bombing and harsh sanctions. If the US was solely interested in controlling the oil coming out of Iraq, would the full scale invasion really be necessary? Would it have been more sensible to dominate and control the resources without having to worry about things like setting up a viable government and preventing sectarian violence among the population?
It seems to me that the really valuable jewels are more abstract. What is the difference between the Iraq of 2002 and the Iraq of 2007, in terms of the economy and outside business prospects? Prior to the invasion, business prospects were thin, it was a closed market. Now, with the government of Iraq so weak it cannot even oversee basic matters of infrastructure, the market is open not only to military and government contracts, but to private industry. How long did it take Motorola to start building cell phone towers in Iraq? Surely, oil is the biggest jewel, but the impetus for restructuring the Middle East is rooted in the fact that Iraq was already an asset, having been under US domination for over a decade. But it was a “low performing” asset, and now it is a “booming market” (forgive the horrible pun, it’s really nothing to laugh about).
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Thanks ghostofdali- Interesting response. In the old model, the spoils of war were the accumulation of power ( glory) which meant conquering land for it resources (gold) subugating it’s people under the banner of civilizing primitive cultures and bringing them religion (gospel). I was thinking that the invasion of iraq is not much different from the old colonialism. Also we should be way past this considering what we know.. or should know by now.
Going forward are we doomed, still unable to emerge from the old model? What about international law?
The UN Charter forbids what we have done doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be censured or kicked out of the UN. This especially if we in the US can’t bring ourselves to impeachment hearings to show we as a people do not approve. Or do we collectively approve? 52% are okay about invading Iran to prevent that country building a nuclear weapon. That means now.
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Potter,
I think there are some big differences between the old model of colonialism and current US imperial motives. Your points of glory, gold, and gospel are right on, but the distinction I was trying to make is more a matter of methodology than ideology. The old world empires built power by conquering lands and gaining subjects, exploiting their labor and natural resources to directly support the empire, which maintained direct control over the conquered lands. I don’t think Iraq will become the 51st state, or even a “territory” like Puerto Rico or the Philippines, and it doesn’t seem like Washington wants to be bothered governing the land any longer than it absolutely has to. The intention is to create a sovereign nation that will play ball with the US, not to absorb it by direct rule.
I don’t know if the UN charter forbids what the US has done in Iraq, but I think if it were a clear violation of the “letter of the law,” then it would have been challenged by now. The groundwork for this invasion was very carefully laid, and I doubt there is any legal basis for meaningful censure either internationally or internally. The government cannot be expected to censure itself for its own actions, and most elected officials seem to be fully behind the actions in Iraq. The people, however, have been largely against it from the get go, let’s not forget the massive protests that took place even before the invasion began and they continue to the present. As far as I know, that was the first time large scale protests hit the street before the military even deployed.
I don’t know how much the 52% being okay with invading Iran really amounts to, it’s a sure thing that those 52% won’t sign up to join the military when and if that prospect matures. For me personally, I find the president’s talk of “World War Three” the be most frightening primarily because it’s a war we cannot possibly win. The US has no ground to stand on with the Iranian issue, as it insists that Iran must not even have the knowledge to create nuclear weapons, while at the same time the US government is developing new generations of those same weapons. And while ignorant right-wingers can spew bravado about such an invasion, those who can truly conceptualize the reality of what a military conflict with Iran would cost in lives and in dollars will tell you it is not a viable option. 52% may be willing to approve the invasion in a poll, but they approach it with the same mindset as if they were voting for American Idol - it is not informed consent, it is manufactured consent.
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:42 pm
also, re: my last post about opening markets. NY Times, Feb 17, 2003
hopefully this URL will work.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE2DA113AF934A25751C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
November 3rd, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Potter news flash. We invaded Iraq to free the country from a brutal dictator who practiced genocide,murder and systematic rape of it’s own people. Something the UN in it’s formation was designed to stop.It was also feared that S.H. possesed WMD’s, this later proved to be incorrect.There was a strong belief that S.H. would use (or more probable) allow terrorist groups to have access to these weapons in an attempt to inflict more damage on the USA. The majority of Dems who also had access to intelligence agreed. No need to print all the quotes and speeches from Clinton to Kerry etc.. We have all read them although most liberals have decided to forget this little fact.
We can argue the shortcomings of intelligence reports,or the cherry picking of information that supported the administrations case for invading Iraq. On this many mistakes were made. We can also debate wheather the administration had any clue as to what might happen after major combat ended. They apparently had no clue.
As to the UN, you must be joking. This is the most corrupt, ineffectual,say everything,but do nothing organization that is currently in existence. If they had done their job in the first place we would not be dealing with this problem today.
Kofi and his gang at the UN were to busy with their oil for money scam they were running with S.H. to actually care about his crimes against humanity. Hell why kill the goose that laid the golden egg. No the USA should not be kicked out of the UN, We should withdraw in protest.
This war is actually far different than any other war. We have no designs on taking over Iraq, or changing their religon. We also have no plans of subugating them as you state. We actually want to leave Iraq as a free democracy. This is totally different than most wars. Factually we are trying to help the people of Iraq not hurt them. Unfortunately many Iraquis prefer violence and murder.
I think Bushes biggest mistake was thinking these people wanted a better life. On that count he seems to be quite wrong.
November 3rd, 2007 at 8:53 pm
For the sake of continuity and thoroughness I would like to insert something on this thread that I posted on a different thread on ROS back in July.
>>
Unlike the empires of old our “empire†does not require us to occupy the territories of countries that have willingly become a part of it. We provide military protection to those regimes who gain wealth through the rule of law and democratic reform not because we say so, but because history proves that it works. In this context Iraq, which is a military issue, is an exception. Our “empire†is economic in nature and therefore does not necessarily require the presence of troops to hold on to territory. It is therefore a mistake to equate American military hegemony with resurgent “imperialism†or with what is happening in Iraq – unlike the empires of old that primarily used occupation and force to achieve their goals.
November 4th, 2007 at 11:06 am
Potter,
You present deep questions in an admirable attempt to get at the heart of the matter. I admire your curiosity. On my Nov 1, 12:25 PM post I said, to answer your “Who owns the jewelry†question: ‘anyone who is willing to play by the rules’. I can think of two rather luminous contemporary circumstances that answer your question in more detail.
First, the Chinese are pouring cheaply made goods, people, and money over the Kazakhstan border at an alarming pace. So much so in fact that it has led the Kazakhstan president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, to publically lament his concern speculating that all these Mainland Chinese goods may, sometime in the not too distant future, destabilize his country’s economy, and consequently there is now a lot of resentment in the region. There was a whole big legal battle in 2005 in which a Canadian court dismissed a lawsuit against the CNPC, China National Petroleum Company, for significantly overpaying for Petrokaz: a firm that owns ‘most’ of the oil fields in Kazakhstan. How does this fit in to your “philosophical” inquiry? Before I answer that let me just add that what is going on in Burma may also be a question ‘Southern’ Chinese expansion. I’ve only looked at that topically, so I’m not so sure about it. And finally, spying activity in America by the Chinese and Russians is currently approaching cold war levels. “Who owns the jewelry?” My answer: ‘anyone who is willing to play by the rules’. But not everyone believes in playing by the rules. So our policies, political and military, must never be static – they must be dynamic, and adjusted in direct proportion to what is happening on the ground. Chinese expansionism is a serious issue, and our military outpost in Afghanistan is deterring expansion in that direction, etc.
Second, (speaking of “Who owns the Jewelry?â€) a cursory investigation into how Russia threatens to hold the rest of Europe hostage using Gazprom, Russia’s largest oil and Gas Company, by coming to the table with its own Mafia-like rules. It has already cut gas to the Ukraine, and threatened Belarus that it would triple prices. When you take into consideration the Russian leaderships’ (Vladimir Putin and the Russian Military, but not necessarily its citizenry) thug mentality, its ideology, oil and nuclear weapons, we are left with a very powerful entity who is also exhibiting or at least feigning expansionist intentions. Why did we go into Iraq? Because we had to!
“Who owns the jewelry?†In theory we all do. But in practice it is more a matter of how different ideologies converge on the same piece of geography, and who is threatening to take food off of whose plate, or not.
November 4th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
Ther is a remedy for the Bush/Cheny policies problem: IMPEACHMENT! GET RID OF THOSE CRIMINALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND SAVE THIS COUNTRY! PLEASE DO PROGRAMS ON IMPEACHMENT!
Kucinich Will Impeach Cheney
Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced H.Res. 333 in April to impeach Vice President Cheney for his pre-war lies about Iraq and for threatening an invasion of Iran. And thanks to your heroic grassroots efforts, there are 21 co-sponsors.
Speaker Pelosi blocked Judiciary Committee hearings on the bill, but Rep. Kucinich will force a floor vote on Tuesday using his right of personal privilege.
Kucinich’s courageous act will put members of the House on record. Are they going to fulfill their oath of office to “defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic”? Or will they support a Vice President whose lies about Iraq cost the lives of nearly 4,000 Americans and possibly $2.4 trillion in our tax dollars - and whose lies about Iran threaten to start World War III?
Call your Representative (not Senators) and tell them to support Kucinich’s resolution to impeach Dick Cheney, H.Res. 333:
800-828-0498, 800-862-5530, 800-833-6354
More actions to support Kucinich’s impeachment resolution:
http://impeachcheney.org
Kucinich explains this week’s vote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSbGUOOQCpU
Brave New Films Video about Cheney’s impeachable offenses:
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/4987-impeach-dick-cheney
_____________________
Who Will Filibuster Mukasey?
Michael Mukasey refuses to say that waterboarding is torture because Dick Cheney won’t let him - otherwise he would have to prosecute Cheney and Bush as war criminals. Mukasey also believes the President can ignore FISA and the Constitution and wiretap American citizens without a warrant, which maks the President a Dictator.
Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) betrayed the Constitution and embraced waterboarding and dictatorship by announcing their support for Mukasey. But Mukasey’s nomination can be defeated if 40 Democrats support a filibuster - and it takes just one Senator to start one.
So we’re petitioning every Senator who claims to be a progressive leader: Joe Biden at JoeBiden.com … Barbara Boxer at Pac for a Change … Hillary Clinton at HillaryClinton.com … Chris Dodd at ChrisDodd.com … Russ Feingold at the Progressive Patriots Fund … Ted Kennedy at the Committee for a Democratic Majority … John Kerry at JohnKerry.com … Barack Obama at BarackObama.com … Harry Reid at Searchlight Leadership Fund … Bernie Sanders at Bernie.org
http://www.democrats.com/filibuster-mukasey
Also tell your Senators to oppose Mukasey:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/122
Call the undecided Senators and report their responses:
http://www.democrats.com/mukasey-judiciary-whip
Join the Democratic Donor Strike against Chuck Schumer’s DSCC:
http://www.democrats.com/donor-strike-2007
Tell your Senators to support Chris Dodd’s filibuster of warrantless wiretapping:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/114
November 4th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Amy Harlib,
How black and white. How crude and unsophisticated. How narrow in scope. How scandalous and unbalanced. Yet it is entertaining; an excellent example of the far left neo-Marxism that the enemy is attracted to. This is what I meant by ‘…right on the doorstep’, etc. Keep up the good work … now at least we know where to hunt!
November 4th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Amy, while your at it why don’t you also try and get all the senators who voted for going to war thrown out of office.
I would also like to know why you want to deny Mukasey his chance to serve. I watched some of the hearings. He never embraced waterboarding he just doesn’t know all the facts. It would be irresponsible to come too any type of conclusion on a subject that he does not have all the information on. His actual words were that he found it repugnent.
Why should the house have a problem with this issue. They had a chance to catergorize waterboarding as torture and they decided not to.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
BTW- I have had a hard time getting this page to load for three days and have not been able to read this thread.
Ghost of Dali thank you.
I think you make a good point about the difference between the US’s form of imperialism ( maybe it’s not “colonialism” ) arrogance and that of empires of the last centuries. But the difference is not great enough. The real world has advanced so far beyond toleratingf this kind of behavior that it can only lead to more 9/11 type wake-up calls. Susan Sontag had it right though I will be the first to say that she spoke so soon that no one who was in shock could hear her or wanted to hear her, including myself. I only wish I could hear what she would say today. We fool ourselves perhaps into thinking we are a “mature” democracy. Our democracy is apparently quite vulnerable.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Potter,
You’re welcome, glad you could make it back on. I didn’t mean to say that US foreign policy doesn’t have any relationship to colonialism or imperialism, I was just making the distinction for my own use of the terms at the time. You’re certainly right that they are strongly related, and I’m sure that it’s part of one expansionist imperative that has guided the United States throughout the past century. Chalk it up to “manifest destiny.”
What you have to say about our “mature” democracy (who called it THAT, anyway?) is also very interesting. Funny thing about how people think about democracy always as something positive. If a group of people were to democratically decide to do something terrible or immoral, it wouldn’t be thought of as being positive simply because it was a democratic decision. Israel, as a democracy, has consistently chosen to brutally oppress the Palestinians for generations, now going so far as to even deny them access to electricity and running water. The US government democratically chose (and continues to choose) an “assimilate or die” policy with the indiginous populations in its conquered territories, sometimes choosing outright genocide instead of even offering that choice. Democracy has no inherent virtues, and there is no need to support governments solely because they proclaim themselves (often erroneously) to be democratic.
What’s interesting about the rebuilding of Iraq is that the rhetoric is always centered around “giving them” democracy. Hidden in that prospect is the less appealing discourse about “winning hearts and minds,” which is a terribly Orwellian prospect. Giving a population access to a ballot is one thing, but controlling how they will use that right is much more suspicious. The successes of the US government to systematically marginalize the popular vote and control its own democratic process are not assumptions that can be relied on in “less mature” nations. The truth is that people will choose democratic processes whenever and however they can, unless they are prevented from doing so. The results of those processes can vary widely, however.
November 5th, 2007 at 6:32 pm
RC21- News Flash! You’ve been demagogued! But little reality crept in: at least you can admit some mistakes though you excuse them by saying Democrats made the same mistake by approving. No they did not. Not the same crime, though they did enable. Not so for leader in chief who was salivating for war.
As far as I know, the US invaded without UN approval under weak guise of self-defense through preemption using this trumped up cherry-picked evidence (a special thanks goes to Colin Powell). That is in violation the Un Charter which we have signed- never mind the other international laws we have broken nevermind the US Constitution which dies not allow a president to go to war without approval from Congress. Congress cannot give that decision to the President as it did. Correct me anybody who knows better.
We should at least suffer a resolution against us at the UN- that is if the UN was working properly. Can you imagine one? You are right that it isn’t. But it needs to happen. However imperfect the UN though, it’s all we have in terms of an international body. We are sorely in need of one that works and this episode proves.
Are you one of the 52% of likely voters that want to invade Iran?
November 5th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Regarding the UN Charter and the [legality of] Use of Force Sgainst Iraq,
http://www.lcnp.org/global/iraqstatement3.htm
November 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am
Sorry for my typos- typing in the dark without my specs is not a good idea.
Ghost of Dali the “mature democracy” phrase comes from Sontag linked above. Read the whole quote above (not long), very sober:
The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy.
Are we a “mature democracy”? What would a healthy mature democracy be like? Does it go through periods such as this? This is the experiment. It’s corrupted. Sometimes I think Israel is a better one. At Israeli’s seem more involved and informed. This may be a function of size and collective feelings of vulnerability .
Here, unharnessed capitalism and it’s interference in the electoral process has diminished our democracy brought us immature leaders like Bush even as we have grown fat (literally), powerful. Our shamefully partisan Supreme Court in a one-off decision after a close tainted election literally put a gun in the hands of a kid, so unprepared Bush was to lead us. And his guardian( Cheney) was a gross disappointment- a man we thought we knew but did not.
A mature democracy to my mind assumes a much more informed and involved citizenry and a shared vision of who we are. We don’t share that most basic vision. And we have been vulnerable ( especially since 9/11) to demagoguery like “the war on terrorism” and “war†against “islamofascism”. “Getting and spending weâ€, here in the workaday world, “lay waste our powersâ€. We don’t revolt anymore. We post. Some of us.
In Israel, the majority were in favor of a land deal with the Palestinians in exchange for peace long ago. Also on the Palestinian side. Those opposed were very loud and active. After Rabin’s murder, the failures of Oslo, the second more violent intifada uprising at the end of Barak’s term, the election of Sharon- most lost heart. The vocal energized minority on both sides felt a right to every bit of the land and would fight for it. But put to a referendum majorities on both sides would have agreed to fair peaceful settlement that included concessions– long ago. Or so the polls would have us believe. Even today, if Olmert and Abbas could come up with something, I think you would find a majority of the people voting for it. And Hamas would follow suit; they would have to or lose power.
I don’t know to what degree Israel is cutting off water and power but to be fair, I read by only a fraction- for short periods. Not that I am in favor of this method of squeezing Hamas to control terrorists groups within Gaza firing rockets into Israel.
November 6th, 2007 at 11:24 am
On September 11th, 2001, the world changed. A group of people attacked the United States in a way similar to that of the attack on Pearl Harbor. I wonder if the same people when discoursing on the tragedy of 911, who opportunistically avoid mentioning that we were in fact attacked, would have also suggested that the United States do nothing in response to the Japanese attack in 1941. Could the agenda ridden rhetoric of the far left be twisted to such an extent to blame America for 1941 as it blames America for 911? The two tragedies are similar. But one major difference is the quality of the ‘people’ who interpret these events.
There is more information available to us now in 2007 than there was in 1941, but some people do not know how to interpret it. They gather up a few facts, a few loosely connected correlations, and then they think they know more than the people who are directly involved, who do it for a living. What a joke. One thing people here on ROS do not understand is the difference between defending an individual, or a country. The rules that apply to personal sentiment and ideology DO NOT APPLY with countries as a whole. One person’s privacy is not more important than an entire country’s safety! The NSA eavesdrops on us because they sift for certain data which may indicate an attack on the country AS A WHOLE, not on some self loathing far left loser working for the Pope and taking it up the ass in his mommy’s basement.
November 6th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Potter, No I’m not in favor of invading Iran. I would have to look at all the intell when it comes to a decision on a surgical strike to take out nuclear sites.
GvB; At work several people were discussing the war a documentry about WW2,by Ken Burns, and the overiding consensus was this. If todays media was covering WW2 we most assuredlly would have been defeated. I’m not sure when or why so many liberals actually turned into anti Americans and I’m sure many are not anti American, but they seem to own the media as well as academia.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Rc21,
I am not in favor of a war or strike on Iran either. I think it’s all hype on both sides. However, one cannot rule out the possibility of a “suicide nation†i.e. if enough crazy people in Iran have just enough power to pull something off – say a nuke strike on Israel – then a response would be forced. But I do know this. The best way to get Iran to continue uranium enrichment is to browbeat them and tell them not to do it. What is the first thing a teenager does when you tell him not to do something? And so it is the same with nations who look to become major players. What is more important than the leadership in Iran at the moment is our relationship with the Russians. The Russians have billions of dollars invested in Iran (as do the Chinese) and they are helping them with nuclear technology. Iran is not going to start a war with Israel without Russian approval, in the same way that Israel will not do anything to Iran without our approval. So there is a sort of stalemate in the region in which Iraq is the playground that the boys can fight and get it out of their system, while not wiping each other out. It will just take them a while to admit that they’re losing.
You said “I’m not sure when or why so many liberals actually turned into anti Americans and I’m sure many are not anti American, but they seem to own the media as well as academiaâ€.
That is a really big question which can be approached in many different ways. In the most general terms it is because liberalism is given to selfishness. I am talking about the selfishness of ‘ideas’. Just a little bit of logic and you can convince some people of almost anything. But when it comes to politics logic does not necessarily indicate truth. It is the same thing with religion and philosophy. Then it becomes more complicated when other people and nations are involved because they each interpret reality in different ways. This liberal ‘selfishness’ is also illustrated when liberals condescend that they know better because of a masters degree, or two or three years at some collage. (I call Liberal Arts witchcraft).
I have had many conversations with liberals in person, in which they inevitably hit below the belt, questioning ones intelligence or morality, level of education, etc. It soon becomes obvious that they think everyone else should think the way they do. They judge other’s not by relating to and respecting their experience, but by attempting to replace it with their own perceptions, to tear it down and break it because the ego wishes to retain the original construct. It is easier to destroy than it is too build or preserve, and if a liberal can destroy someone else’s ‘idea’, it makes them feel better, probably a mammalian reflex of some kind. And that’s selfish. It is of course much more structured that I have just presented, but it serves as workable outline.
November 6th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
What baloney. We were attacked by little more than an aspiring criminal gang hoping to expand further. They had friends that gave them a great place to hide and train ( Taliban/Afghanistan). We have gone and made it much worse for ourselves by invading Iraq, killing untolled 10’s of thousands, hundreds of thousands, causing the continuing displacement millions. Our own numbers lost are about 1000 more than we lost on 9/11. We have gone into tremendous debt that our children and granddhildren will be paying for. So as you cheer each other, answer what have we got? Made any progress? Are we in better shape at home? More secure? Is the US considered a force for good in the world? Are we more secure because of warrantless eavesddropping? Are we gaining any valuable information we need through torture and rendition? Is all this worth breaking international law never mind our own law?
9/11 as horrible as it was, was no Pearl Harbor except it was another wake up call. There was no war in progress on 9/11. Osama Bin laden was no country equipped with a large army and all the machinery of war at his disposal. OBL had no powerful allies in the West as Japan was in concert with Germany and Italy.
Instead of carefully considering our course of action, our president acted like a cowboy. He and his sidekick, the VP, were cowards that evaded service themselves. But they were quick to take our guns and our boys girls women and men and start shooting in all directions .
The world changed as much as it did after 9/11 largely because of our ill-considered responses which were more than OBL could have wished for. Comfortable somewhere OBL’s program is alive and well.
RC21. When you get the “intell” on Iran, it please share it with us.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
You don’t get it Potter. You have the ability to think deeply, but you just don’t get it. You have to think horizontally as well as vertically. Here is how the game is played. They broke the rules by flying planes into buildings killing almost 3000 people. Potters solution? Do nothing! You’ve GOT to be kidding bro!! Just lay down and die because we deserved it. And if they do it again, no problem, it must be the Israeli-Palestinian thing … yeah, that’s it, they want to kill us because we support Israel. Get a life my sorry son. Get a life! We invaded Iraq because no one was in the mood to hand the people over to us. So we had to go and get them. And here’s the part that your gonna hate the most. It makes NO DIFFERENCE who we kill in process, just like it MADE NO DIFFERENCE to them who they killed on 911. This is how the game is played. It doesn’t matter what you think!!
You asked “Are we in better shape at home? More secure� So far there is NO DIFFERENCE to the average citizen. NOTHING has changed except the invisible methods that our government now uses to protect us. Potters solution? Change nothing. While the world changes around Potter, while the Geneva Convention is a joke to the enemy, nothing changes for Potter because HE can’t accept it. Potter knows MORE than all of the intelligence agencies in the West PUT TOGETHER because he has some kind of light, some kind of SOLUTION that he is going to bestow on mankind to create peace, worldwide. Potter the Messiah!! The people need your wisdom Potter. Speak now … or crawl back under your rock and continue stroking your own ego. Yeah, that’s what I thought.
You asked “Is the US considered a force for good in the world� Your moral relativism is boring. If you can’t tell the difference, move to China. There everything is relative, even the people.
You asked “Are we more secure because of warrantless eavesdropping� Yes we Potter, but you can’t see how. It is mostly technological. What has changed for the average citizen? NOTHING! Would you rather live in Venezuela where the police walk around with military assault rifles? Or would you prefer a place like Russia where the human spirit is crushed by the communist mechanism, and by thugs who assassinate their opponents? Yeah, something tells me you would fit right in over there.
You said “9/11 as horrible as it was, was no Pearl Harbor except it was another wake up call. There was no war in progress on 9/11â€. Actually there was Potter. You just weren’t aware of it. Did you think it was a “spontaneous eventâ€? Get real son. You live in a dream world Potter. You haven’t a clue (although I provided many on this thread) about what makes the world tick. But yet you think you know more than those directly involved. How ridiculous is that?
You know what I just noticed about you? You make these little negative statements to tear things down and criticize. You antagonize by asking certain key questions. And then you run away. You NEVER offer any solutions, just these short played out little questions – designed to stroke your own ego.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Jeez I didn’t know Sean Hannity posted on this site! I wouldn’t even know where to start replying to this ignorant vitriol so I’ll stick with Potter’s question of “are we a mature democracy?”
I can’t see how anyone could think the United States is mature in its democratic system. There are still people who are alive and well who can remember a time when neither African Americans nor women could even vote! Even the most recent elections show very low turnout rates among eligible voters, never mind the high percentages of people who have lost the right. The government of the United States can really only be called “democratic,” I don’t know if it qualifies as even being called “a democracy” in the sense of political or social equality. Even discounting the inequities of instruments like the electoral college, there is undoubtably a certain class of people who are eligible to be elected officials. They are a small minority, their interests are heavily influenced by their funders who are often corporate entities and not real live “citizens.”
Democracy did not start with the US, it has been around for a very long time. The US was the first to implement it as a matter of nationwide governance, but even then it was designed to be a fair and equal balance of power within a very small minority of powerful people. The majority of people living in this country did not have any say whatsoever in the actions of its government, and were often subject to harsh policies that were disigned to keep them powerless. Not very democratic, if you ask me. We’ve made a lot of progress, but I think the nation has barely hit puberty in respect to its democratic values.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Thanks ghostofdali- that was good. I think sontag was obviously wrong assessing this as a mature democracy. Obviously we are not. We are a troubled one now too.
I ran across this excerpt from a Rolling Stone ( current isssue) interview of Al Gore:
RS: If you were a historian, how would you describe the Bush administration from that point of view?
Gore: They have done so much damage to the spirit of America, to the worldwide reputation of America, to the morale of our people, to the core belief that we’re capable of managing our fears without sacrificing our freedom. But nobody’s going to be surprised to hear me give a thumbs-down rating to Bush and Cheney.
RS: What’s the worst damage they’ve done, other than the climate crisis?
Gore: They have promoted the idea that freedom and security are mutually exclusive, that you can have one only to the extent that you’ve sacrificed the other. That is an un-American idea. When our founders framed the Constitution, they understood the reality of war. When the Declaration of Independence was written, it was written by Americans who were in danger of being hung. They had reason to fear for their very lives, every single one of them, but they insisted on the protection of habeas corpus and freedom of speech and freedom of the press and freedom of assembly and freedom of religion, and the separation of self-government from the establishment of a religious dogma as an official set of beliefs. They had real courage that bridged their devotion to freedom and their need for security.
But instead of courage, this administration has used fear to undermine the system of checks and balances and the carefully balanced relationship between separate branches of government and the principle that all of the operations of our self-government should be accountable to the people. The arrogance and unaccountability of absolute power is corrupting, and our founders knew that so well. They embodied in our nation a universal principle derived from a millennium and a half of history, from Athens to Rome through the Enlightenment to the American Revolution. But all of that has been blithely ignored by this administration because of their lust for power.
November 6th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Maybe Sontag was wrong, but after reading the quote again I think there’s room for multiple interpretations. Perhaps she was saying that the rhetoric is unworthy of a mature democracy, therefore it’s support for the idea that the US is NOT currently a mature democracy. Could be, or it could have been idealism. No one wants to admit that a nation such as ours, built on so many people’s backs and the outcome of such a passionate struggle, could be immature. We like to think of our elected officials as wise and responsible, that the systems and processes they develop for the governance of our nation is just and equitable. But sometimes we’re faced with flaws beyond the facade, and there’s no denying that there are serious institutional and systemic problems that undermine the structural integrity of our government.
It’s appropriate to blame the Bush administration and the ravenous neo-cons in Washington for the recent damage, but we’ve been on a slippery downhill slope since at least 1980. I enjoyed Al Gore’s recent book, “The Assault on Reason,” and I’m glad to hear mainstream political figures addressing these important issues. But let’s not forget that Gore was in office when the Extraordinary Rendition program was started, while Iraq was sanctioned into oblivion and bombed relentlessly, and while corporate greed reached its zenith. I’m not saying we shouldn’t support him when he’s right, as he is on climate change and the current state of affairs in Washington, but he’s got some mighty dirty hands himself.
November 6th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Well don’t you wonder if as VP to Clinton Gore did not have much of a final say even though he was invited to advise? It may be unfair to blame him for Clinton’s decisions and what happened on that watch. Even if Gore was responsiblet for those decisions we must, I believe, allow people to evolve and so they should be given that chance. Gore has evolved- very much so- and he’s not only a guru on climate change ( which he was for many years and during his term in office). I have saved his speeches. He screamed about not going into Iraq. He is screaming again about how far we have departed, during this administration especially, from the original spirit of this country, how divided we have become.
To be sure the stucture that the founders built in the form of the constitution and the bill of rights however thoughtful and brilliant after all could not suffice if the spirit did not hold. There was a lot unspoken and taken for granted in those documents and one cannot expect a law or laws to cover and take care of everything. But at the very least we should know and follow and amend where necessary that good original spirit upon which we were founded. That more than anything is missing now. We are split about what that founding spiirit means and how that translates in the modfern world. We are very split about how to carry it forward, about how to evolve it into a more global world with exploding communications and knowledge about ourselves and the planet. There is so much that the founders could not imagine and a lot that they just took for granted.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Describing Al Queda and by extension Radical islam as just an aspiriring crimminal gang pretty much sums it up.
Yup your right. These guys are really no worse than Bonny and Clyde, or the James gang, nothing much to really worry about. Sorry for the concern.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Radical Islam is a fraction of a fraction of Islam. Radical Islam is not only al Qaeda and their jihads are not all about blowing us up here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism
Police work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Six
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_Most_Wanted_Terrorists
We made ourselves weak both militarily and diplomatically by invading and occupying Iraq. We fell into a deep hole that our commander-in-chief would have us believe was about fighting an advancing well equipped world-conquering foe like kind of adversaries the Allies faced in WW2. It’s hard to believe this line of argument is alive and well here on this thread.
We were encouraged on the home front by this administration to fight this world conquering enemy by great sacrifice: to mobilize by shopping and driving our SUV’s, not complain too loudly about higher gas prices, just like we did during WW2. A draft was not necessary so great was this challenge. And don’t even notice that your rights ( see the first and the fourth amendments to the Constitution) are being shaved. Don’t notice the broken vets, don’t ask where the coffins are on the news. Don’t even think about the Iraqi’s dead or displaced. Don’t you really feel you are part of the war effort?
See how the country was really mobilized in that Ken Burns WW2 documentary.
Fearing Fear Itself
November 7th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Foreign Policy after George W. Bush: The Case for Restraint The Barry Posen call and response sessions
I think of this as the paradox and confusion of failure due to the fact that I’m not hitting your hammer hard enough with my head yet strategy for I thought I was engaged upon the exercise of hitting my hammer with my adversaries head with really, really forceful repetitious gusto:
The activist U.S. grand strategy currently preferred by the national security establishment in both parties thus has a classically tragic quality about it. Enabled by its great power, and fearful of the negative energies and possibilities engendered by globalization, the United States has tried to get its arms around the problem: It has essentially sought more control. But the very act of seeking more control injects negative energy into global politics as quickly as it finds enemies to vanquish. It prompts states to balance against U.S. power however they can, and it prompts peoples to imagine that the United States is the source of all their troubles.
Iraq should therefore be seen not as a singular debacle, but as a harbinger of costs to come. There is enough capacity and motivation out in the world to increase significantly the costs of any U.S. effort to manage global politics directly. Public support for this policy may wane before profligacy so diminishes U.S. power that it becomes unsustainable. But it would be unwise to count on it.
Avoid the four horse in the third race … no matter what the CW suggests, the house takes all pushes …
November 7th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Post script to http://www.radioopensource.org/they-got-it-right-6-shibley-telhami/#comment-89054
I find myself having some disagreement with both Prof. Posen and the responses of his peers. Granted Prof. Posen’s document is not a lengthy treatise nor a comprehensive statement of the problems and ills of the current foreign policy issues, but I do find the absence of some thought cycles poured over the urbanization of the globe and the ramifications on energy markets and capacity/delivery one of several shortcomings in his position.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
Thank you so much for this series, Chris. It’s not just an interview series; it’s an important historical document. I listened to all of the interviews twice, and I especially liked Michael Desch’s “party of war†take. You’ve managed to coalesce the disparate crying voices of objective reason – something the mainstream media has neglected to do because as one gentleman in this series says, “they are intimidated.”
When the media presents a discussion of this farce, they revert to the bullsh*t global warming dynamic: one person for (resolutely stay the course), one person against (reluctantly stay the course). And the “anti-war” talking head was most likely on board in the beginning; consequently he/she has inherent empathy for the complicit media that was embedded (in-bed-with) in the march to war.
And Chris, your stock market analogy was great. You said if this was Wall Street they would be calling on the scholars from this series to run the big funds – they got it right! And your Joe Torre reflection was spot on as well - he was held accountable! Isn’t that what these conservatives spout about the victims of the mortgage crisis – if they signed up for a bad loan they need to bite the bullet and be accountable, right?
So where does this leave us? Well, It leaves me with faint pains of despair.
I have a new burgeoning fear, a fear that’s been kindled by the overwhelmingly underappreciated common sense displayed in your series. My fear is the gross mistakes this administration made post invasion, are beside the point. There was only one decision necessary to employ their only important idea - the initial occupation!
Sure the neocons would have preferred the fallout to go their way, but that’s what’s called collateral damage. The bottom line is, these guys have established a new reservoir of fuel for our war economy.
Most of us have been waiting out the game, their incompetence/hubris will surely seep through and our country will recalibrate, right? Well, not only is the game being lost, the rules have changed to boot. When the democratic candidates refused to pledge to get out of Iraq by the end of their first term they were (begrudgingly?) agreeing to play with the new rules. How convenient.
We desperately need a game-changer or Cheney is gonna take us full-tilt.
Thank you Chris, for keeping your beacon blaz’n.
November 7th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
So where does this leave us? Well, It leaves me with faint pains of despair.
To despair or not? The courage of one can be of much more consequence than the considered complacency of the many. On the other hand, that lifestyle trajectory can set one up to become a lone wolf patsy in some sort of conspiracy plot orchestrated by those who feed plausible deniability to the groove tube.
No one said this would be easy… well, some have said some that things that weren’t cakewalks would be cakewalks. I guess only cakewalks are likely to be cakewalks? A reasonable conclusion, but one must consider: what other ill-conceived rhetoric awaits from the realm of the metaphoric? All non-cakewalk endeavors can force wobbly consideration of the spectacle which is where complacency, fanaticism, and despair dine like Homer at an all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant.
We desperately need a game-changer or Cheney is gonna take us full-tilt. One cure for empire is simply to become one. This muse is rarely satisfied by anything less. Some cures require much pain, and much suffering directed at those who have little to no stake in these matters. On the other hand, perhaps we will collectively take the pill that makes us smaller. At times, the looking glass confounds reason. The gyre continues to widen.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
The cakewalk does not sound like a cakewalk actually. But fascinating.
Just post 9/11 there were articles, many, about being a good empire, the responsiblity involved. We were not up to it but the idea of a cure for empire being to become one is close to those ideas which assumed we were already one but needed to be more conscious enlightened generous and responsible about it.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Potter, that sounds a lot like “compassionate conservatism” - It’s an oxymoron.
The fact is, you cannot have absolute power - and be more “conscious enlightened generous,” it never holds.
Does being a good empire entail being above the UN? Is that the paradigm in play, us as the empire on top, then the UN, then everyone else?
Howabout I give you the empire term, and you give me a check and balance to our power.
That is a great irony, our country is founded on the principle of checks and balances, and that principle is suspended in foreign affairs.
For our country to flourish (or even survive) in globalization, at some point we have to start practicing what we preach. We must bolster the UN and let that be a check on us.
November 7th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
btw, that wasn’t all directed to you Potter, I’m just a preach’n in general.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Hello Nother!
November 9th, 2007 at 2:34 am
GodzillaVsBambi says:
“I have had many conversations with liberals in person, in which they inevitably hit below the belt, questioning ones intelligence or morality, level of education, etc. It soon becomes obvious that they think everyone else should think the way they do.â€
And whose way should they think? Yours, GodzillaVsBambi? Also, what does one’s intelligence, morality, level of education, etc. serve if not to develop ideas of his/her own, or to evaluate the ideas of others?
“They judge other’s not by relating to and respecting their experience, but by attempting to replace it with their own perceptions, to tear it down and break it because the ego wishes to retain the original construct.â€
Here’s my own experience:
Spent the first 18 years of my life living on Air Force bases all over the world, raised by a liberal/democratic father who proudly served in the both the Vietnam and first Gulf War. Our evening news reported the number of missions flown by each squadron instead of the football score; the National Anthem preceded every movie; and it wasn’t uncommon to wake-up at 4 AM to the sound of sirens blaring across the neighborhood followed by a recorded message stating that a drill was in progress and all personal should report to duty. And when my school bus wasn’t being pulled over to allow President Regan and his entourage to make their way to Air Force One (parked a few blocks from our house at Andrews A.F.B.) it was being boarded each morning by a soldier with a sidearm and machinegun, who verified that each kid was carrying his two military I.D. cards. Have you been to the beaches of Normandy, GodzillaVsBambi? I have. I was with my liberal/democratic grandfather as he recounted that impressive, horrific, yet inspiring day back in June of 1944. And you know what scarred him more than coming face-to-face with a German soldier? It was serving alongside city kids who loved to talk tough, the same kids who, no doubt, occupied the role of the school bully. But hand them a rifle and place them on the battle field, and they turned into sniveling cowards. Grandfather swore there were days when he saw more American soldiers die or wounded from friendly fire because of those fools. “They’d shoot anything that moved!†Kind of like hunting with the vice-president, huh? And when the war was over, Grandfather became an engineer (that requires an education) and helped designed some of the very bombers that are flying over Iraq as I write this. Does April 12, 1985 hold any significance for you, GodzillaVsBambi? It does for me? My family was living in Spain at the time when a restaurant frequented my American families – mine included – was blown to Kingdom Come by terrorists. Eighteen people died that day, all Spaniards. But guess what, GodzillaVsBambi? Our very own State Department reports a different story. Not only do they claim 18 American soldiers died -which is a lie - they also got the damn date wrong. They said the bombing occurred April 12, 1984, instead of April 12, 1985. Don’t believe me? See for yourself. So much for accurate intelligence! And then there was September 11, 2001. The first words out of this bleeding heart liberal’s mouth when the second tower swallowed that airliner was, “Where’s the nearest recruitment center?†Because what those monsters did that day made me sick. HOWEVER, I also think to myself, “You’ve got to be !@#$ kidding me!†when my fellow Americans continue to play the innocent card, or belittle those who have the courage to suggest that these great United States might do well to air out her own dirty laundry once in a while. I empathize for those military families who will spend this Thanksgiving with an empty place at the table; I grieve for those same families whose loved one will return in a pine box, and I curse the Bush administration who claims that taking pictures of the coffins is somehow disrespectful. Hmmm? Where might we show those pictures in order to guarantee the greatest amount of exposure? Hey! I know! How about the!@#$ mall! My point is, GodzillaVsBambi, I’m damn proud to be an American – perhaps more than you could ever hope to know. It’s in my family, my DNA. And though it may boil your blood to hear it, I am a liberal – just like my father and his father – and I am convinced that our current administration is headed by a man who is genetically incapable of having an original thought, let alone reading it off a teleprompter if he tried. So, that’s my experience. Judge away!
“You know what I just noticed about you? You make these little negative statements to tear things down and criticize. You antagonize by asking certain key questions. And then you run away. You NEVER offer any solutions, just these short played out little questions – designed to stroke your own ego.â€
Be careful, GodzillaVsBambi. I do believe you just insulted most of the law professors in this country. Besides, what’s wrong with the Socratic Method? It’s a great for feeding someone’s grand theory back to them piece by shredded piece.
“One thing people here on ROS do not understand is the difference between defending an individual, or a country.â€
Whenever you’re ready to enlighten us, GodzillaVsBambi, you let us know.
“The rules that apply to personal sentiment and ideology DO NOT APPLY with countries as a whole. One person’s privacy is not more important than an entire country’s safety! The NSA eavesdrops on us because they sift for certain data which may indicate an attack on the country AS A WHOLE, not on some self loathing far left loser working for the Pope and taking it up the ass in his mommy’s basement.â€
And exactly what are the rules that apply to personal sentiment and ideology? And how do they different from the rules that apply to countries? I just finished going through the Constitution and I’ll be damned if I could find them.
November 9th, 2007 at 8:48 am
Bobby my father was a tough city kid who landed at Normandy I’m sure if he was alive today he would have been happy to hear that he was a probably a coward. Perhaps thats why he rarely spoke of his war experiences. Talk about asinine statements. Your f–cking clueless. Sorry for the bad language. I just find your comments not only disrespectfull but also totally false. I’ve also heard the same things said about black soldiers.
On another note. I constantly hear this why don’t we see the coffins cry from people. The truth of the matter is this. During the first gulf war the networks one in particular kept showing a split screen of flag draped coffins,and on the split they showed G Bush laughing and telling jokes. What they purposely failed to do was inform the public that Bush was at a totally different event that had nothing to do with the coffins.
The media did a great job of making Bush look like an uncaring cad.
I don’t blame Bush for refusing to allow himself to be ambushed by a biased media,who it seems will go to any lengths to distort the truth.
November 9th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Rc21
I obviously don’t know your father, but I’m willing to bet he was anything but a coward. Insofar as my grandfather’s comment regarding “tough city kids†is concerned, I, too, question the number of deaths by friendly fire. After all, he was telling me the story some 50 + years after the fact. However, the point he was making – and why I put it in the post – is that often those who speak with such puffed-up bravado tend to be the weakest! And like your father, the only time I ever heard my grandfather talk of the war, was that one week he, my father, and I spent in France following the journal he kept during that time. Truth is, I’ve spent my entire life around the military, and one thing I do know is soldiers seldom, if ever, talk about war. About the split-screen showing G. Bush laughing alongside the coffins, I think that’s despicable. But then again, while all that was happening, I was just hoping my father wasn’t IN one of those coffins. Regarding your last comment about Bush refusing to allow himself to be ambushed by a biased media, I completely agree. I have no patience for any individual, media, government, etc. that purposely tries to humiliate someone purely because they disagree with his/her views. Again, rc21, I sincerely doubt your grandfather was a coward, and, if you’re like me, you no doubt treasure those few times your father did speak of his war experiences.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
OK, No problem sorry for the rant.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Something must be said about Al Gore.
I happen to admire Al gore. I wouldn’t vote for him as president, but I think he is a very thoughtful person and I enjoy listening to him. However, he is not always right. The following statement of his (inserted by Potter on this thread) “They [the Bush Administration] have promoted the idea that freedom and security are mutually exclusive, that you can have one only to the extent that you’ve sacrificed the other. That is an un-American ideaâ€, is complete propaganda. How? The framers of The Constitution and the writers of The Declaration of Independence had NO CLUE what life would be like in the 21st century or even the 20th century. They couldn’t even anticipate the Industrial Revolution. So what makes Al Gore think that The Founders had any notion of terrorism, trade tariffs, and the different international laws that are being written as we speak? All of a sudden Al Gore becomes a strict originalist interpreting The Constitution, literally? One would expect a religious fundamentalist or conservative republican to interpret legalese in this manner, not a liberal democrat. What accounts for this uncharacteristic assessment? When it comes to “freedom and security†Al Gore uses the word “sacrifice†to suggest that the Bush administration is responsible for throwing away our freedoms. In reality the bush administration is interpreting The Constitution more flexibly – allowing it to grow and flourish in a changing environment – in contrast to Al gore who ignores these changes by suggesting that NOTHING has changed since these documents were written. On the one hand Al Gore is flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism. But on the other hand he promotes a lack of flexibility of The Constitution – oblivious to the dangers in a post 911 world. This is agenda driven opportunism at its best, and sneakiest.
November 9th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Bobby,
You asked “And whose way should they think? Yours, GodzillaVsBambi� Answer: no. There is nothing I can do about the way people think. Silly question.
what does one’s intelligence, morality, level of education, etc. serve if not to develop ideas of his/her own, or to evaluate the ideas of others?
You are right about this. A redundant question.
Have you been to the beaches of Normandy, GodzillaVsBambi? I have
I respect you for that, and I also respect your liberalism and your family’s military background. I just don’t agree with your political assessment.
Grandfather swore there were days when he saw more American soldiers die or wounded from friendly fire because of those fools. “They’d shoot anything that moved!†Kind of like hunting with the vice-president, huh?
The Vassal, the Fief, and the Lord are three prototype branches of our modern day senate, congress, and military. Surely you are not suggesting that these divisions should not exist – that the warrior, the politician, and the Priest should all be wrapped up in one person? How far back would you like to go to illustrate your point? The Dark Ages? Pagan Rome? Corrupt Israelite Temple? It’s a terrible thing what you describe. I am not old enough to have been there, or Vietnam either. In a way I wish I had. But all that doesn’t stop me from being a conservative and having fun while pounding liberals over the head. A close friend of mine is a First Class Sergeant in the United States Army. He doesn’t have much money, is very conservative, republican, and one of the most inspiring and endearing people I’ve ever met. He makes me proud not only of him, but also of what I can do to improve my own relationship with my country. How I can give to my country, and not the reverse – which is what so many inner city liberal teenagers think these days. It’s incredible … I’ve seen them interviewed on TV. When they ask them what they think they should give to their country, they give a quick inner city hiss through their teeth and say, nothing – in fact, sometimes they actually say that the government OWES THEM something. I ask you – what kind of garbage is that?
Does April 12, 1985 hold any significance for you, GodzillaVsBambi? It does for me? My family was living in Spain at the time when a restaurant frequented my American families – mine included – was blown to Kingdom Come by terrorists.
I am sorry to hear that.
And I curse the Bush administration who claims that taking pictures of the coffins is somehow disrespectful. Hmmm? Where might we show those pictures in order to guarantee the greatest amount of exposure?
I agree that those who want the pictures should have easy access to them, but I don’t believe in extremes either. I think they should have some less conspicuous venue do to the nature of the subject, but perhaps more visible than they are now. No need to go to such extremes as a shopping mall. That’s silly.
And though it may boil your blood to hear it, I am a liberal – just like my father and his father – and I am convinced that our current administration is headed by a man who is genetically incapable of having an original thought, let alone reading it off a teleprompter if he tried. So, that’s my experience. Judge away.
No one can ever take your personal experience away from you. Different experiences do different things to different people. Some get stronger, some get bitter. Take a look at Cindy Sheehan. My Sergeant friend in the Army was in Desert Storm. I am not going into detail any detail, but let’s just say that he is still on active duty, very active. And about George Bush. If you think that he is “the only one calling the shotsâ€, you should have your head examined. You know how the whole thing is structured. You don’t need any details from me.
Be careful, GodzillaVsBambi. I do believe you just insulted most of the law professors in this country. Besides, what’s wrong with the Socratic Method? It’s a great for feeding someone’s grand theory back to them piece by shredded piece.
I like law. Law is my friend.
“One thing people here on ROS do not understand is the difference between defending an individual, or a country.†Whenever you’re ready to enlighten us, GodzillaVsBambi, you let us know.
This is a worthy issue. I will, but not today, I don’t have time. Check back over the weekend. But seriously … does the difference between an individual’s safety and a entire country’s really need explaining? Do the “Needs of the many†not outweigh “The needs of the few� Doesn’t that just speak for itself??
November 10th, 2007 at 10:19 am
No hard feelings, rc21. It’s people like you who keep people like me in line! Insofar as your rant, I just returned from Scotland earlier this week. Ten days schlepping through my childhood stomping grounds, along with ten evenings sitting in a pub listening to old Scotsman drink whiskey like water, while seeing how many times they could fit the word F–K in a sentence
November 10th, 2007 at 10:30 am
GodzillaVsBambi,
Do you really believe it’s a silly question asking if liberals – or any other group whose views differ from yours – should believe differently? Or that it’s impossible to change the way people think? If so, then why even post to this, or any other forum? And what purpose, then, do shows like ROS, the Socratic Method, even tourism for that matter, serve if not to inform, expose, and educate people whose views may be – often are – supported by less than all the information available? When you make comments like “One thing people here on ROS do not understand is the difference between defending an individual, or a country.”, are you not implying that it’s because they lack some essential information? Isn’t that why you said to check back this weekend? I assume it’s because you plan on providing information with the intent to inform/persuade? Finally, don’t you also have to acknowledge that there might be information out there that could change your views? That an individual may hold a viewpoint that conflicts with yours, not because he’s ill-informed, but because he knows something you don’t?
“How I can give to my country, and not the reverse – which is what so many inner city liberal teenagers think these days. It’s incredible … I’ve seen them interviewed on TV. When they ask them what they think they should give to their country, they give a quick inner city hiss through their teeth and say, nothing – in fact, sometimes they actually say that the government OWES THEM something. I ask you – what kind of garbage is that?â€
In an earlier post you said liberals: “judge other’s not by relating to and respecting their experience, but by attempting to replace it with their own perceptions…” May I ask what criteria you used when forming your opinion about those inner city kids? Did you make any attempt to understand their experiences, to discover what would prompt them to give the answers they gave? And is it possible that you might have given the same answers had you lived/experienced their life? I know of an inner city kid who is now Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins University; in his autobiography Gifted
Hands Dr. Carson says that it was because someone invested time in him. It’s the same thing Walter Anderson – former editor of Parade Magazine – says made the difference in his life. So, rather than criticize those kids, perhaps you could mentor one instead. (I’m serious) My point is that is you attack liberals for not respecting people’s experiences – experiences that, in the end, are all we really have, and from which each of us form our opinions. Like you said above:
“No one can ever take your personal experience away from you. Different experiences do different things to different people. Some get stronger, some get bitter.†That’s fine, but you then attack anyone whose views differ from yours. According to you, Potter lives in a dream world, ‘inner city liberal teenagers’ believe the government owes them something, anyone who question how the Bush administration interprets the law should move to either China, Russia, or Venezuela “where the police walk around with military assault rifles”. And I’m not exactly sure what the “self loathing far left loser working for the Pope and taking it up the ass in his mommy’s basement” did to piss you off, but one can only imagine. Anyway, if you’re truly practicing what you preach, and judging these people by their experiences and not your own
perception, then I seem to be missing something.
“I happen to admire Al gore. I wouldn’t vote for him as president, but I think he is a very thoughtful person and I enjoy listening to him. However, he is not always right.â€
So be it. However, I suspect Al Gore is wrong only when his views conflict with yours.
“The framers of The Constitution and the writers of The Declaration of Independence had NO CLUE what life would be like in the 21st century or even the 20th century. They couldn’t even anticipate the Industrial Revolution. So what makes Al Gore think that The Founders had any notion of terrorism, trade tariffs, and the different international laws that are being written as we speak?â€
Are you proposing that if the framers did have that knowledge, The Constitution and The Declaration of Independence would read differently than it does now? Can you suggest what changes they may have made?
“It’s a terrible thing what you describe. I am not old enough to have been there, or Vietnam either. In a way I wish I had.”
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.”
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Like my grandfather and rc21’s father - both were at Normandy - we each say in an earlier post that neither of them talked about their experiences. And why would they? It was ‘F-in’ hell the first time around.
“When it comes to “freedom and security†Al Gore uses the word “sacrifice†to suggest that the Bush administration is responsible for throwing away our freedoms. In reality the bush administration is interpreting The Constitution more flexibly – allowing it to grow and flourish in a changing environment – in contrast to Al gore who ignores these changes by suggesting that NOTHING has changed since these documents were written.â€
I can only assume that when Benjamin Franklin said: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.†did so because he had seen it happen before and/or he anticipated it could happen in the future. Either way, you believe Al Gore is wrong. I respect that. However, where do you draw the line? At what point would you say our government’s interpretation of the Constitution is infringing upon the rights/freedoms of the people it claims to protect?
“On the one hand Al Gore is flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism. But on the other hand he promotes a lack of flexibility of The Constitution – oblivious to the dangers in a post 911 world.â€
Are you now suggesting that it’s flawed reasoning for someone to be flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism while simultaneously showing a lack of flexibility regarding the Constitution? One has nothing to do with other. Or are you implying there’s a correlation between weather patterns and civil rights?
“I like law. Law is my friend.â€
You might be better off thinking of law like the family car: It works for you, and not you it; it designed to protect that which you value most; and should it become unreliable, you can scrap the whole thing and buy a new one.
“does the difference between an individual’s safety and a entire country’s really need explaining? Do the “Needs of the many†not outweigh “The needs of the fewâ€? Doesn’t that just speak for itself??â€
“There exist certain natural rights inherent in every society of which not only one nation but all the nations together could not justly deprive an individual.â€
- Marquis de Lafayette
If I come across sounding condescending, I apologize, GodzillaVsBambi. That’s not my intention. And I’d like to believe the hostility found in your posts is simply a measure of the passion you have for this country. If that’s true, then I’m willing to look over it; though I’m not sure if I agree with your methods. Meanwhile, I look forward to reading your post this weekend.
November 10th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Bobby,
You said: Do you really believe it’s a silly question asking if liberals – or any other group whose views differ from yours – should believe differently? Or that it’s impossible to change the way people think?
It all depends on context and timing. If, for example, one is in the middle of a debate such as my debate with Potter, and person B: Potter does not take into consideration what person A: Myself has to say, then we are reduced to communicating PAST each other not WITH each other. When I say ‘take into consideration’ I do not mean ‘converted over to what I say’. It means to acknowledge where the other person is coming from. Such as ‘I follow you, I understand you, but I disagree’. Very simple. Here on ROS people give off the impression that the other person’s point of view doesn’t exist. No one asks questions because they think they know everything. And then they often gang up on the dissenter while passing the torch, and suddenly your debate is continuing with someone else. I think that’s tacky, rude, and weak. Then again I’ve buried so many carcasses here on ROS I am beginning to lose count. Here on ROS all I get is Ego and agenda ridden dialogue designed to save face with a small ROS group while provoking conversation. The provocation part I can understand and I don’t blame the ROS regulars for stimulating a debate. They want people to visit the site and I think that’s great.
When I say tersely ‘it is impossible to change the way people think’ – in general I believe this to be true as far as fundamental core beliefs are concerned which are formed in early adulthood. This is not to suggest that conversions are not possible. But we are here referring to the rule, not the exception. People often have life changing experiences, although usually not in the form of a debate on the internet.
I am very conservative, but, I don’t blindly agree with whatever conservatives have to say. Sometimes it seems to me like they don’t “get itâ€, either. For instance I think Sean Hannity is, on radio, extremely boring and has a tendency to repeat himself all day long. With Hannity you can turn on the radio a month later, and he’s still talking about the same thing, in the same way. The TV program Hannity and Colmes on Fox News is a different story. They are on television and the environment is dynamic because a second person is involved. I like how Alan Colmes discusses things without getting overly emotional. He’s a cool character.
To answer your question in a more concise manner would be to say that in the grand scheme of things it is theoretically possible (after adulthood) to deeply influence someone in such a way that it causes them to reevaluate the way they think. I have met several people, so far, that have had that kind of effect on me. But none of them are from ROS. So when I feel the debate is going nowhere, I reduce myself to hitting people over the head, roasting them, and devouring or sometimes burying their remains. Right now Potter cannot be resurrected without my expressed and written approval.
Bobby, please do not respond to this (Part One) answer. I will do the rest tomorrow. No time now. I will not answer any intermittent comments. Expect four parts. If that changes I will inform you. Thank you for attempting to engage me. This is the first step toward a real debate.
November 10th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Godzilla says:
It all depends on context and timing. If, for example, one is in the middle of a debate such as my debate with Potter, and person B: Potter does not take into consideration what person A: Myself has to say, then we are reduced to communicating PAST each other not WITH each other. When I say ‘take into consideration’ I do not mean ‘converted over to what I say’. It means to acknowledge where the other person is coming from. Such as ‘I follow you, I understand you, but I disagree’. Very simple. Here on ROS people give off the impression that the other person’s point of view doesn’t exist. ….etc.
Godzilla, This post of yours directed at me:
http://www.radioopensource.org/they-got-it-right-6-shibley-telhami/#comment-89020
was so totally outrageous and uncivil that you have a lot of nerve talking about proper dialogue and injecting me in your example. Insofar as I can understand you, I disagree with what I am understanding profoundly. I may not be understanding you correctly. I hope that is the case, but I have NEVER been so uncivil to you.
November 10th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Godzilla justifies our loss first and fourth amendment rights since 9/11 like this:
In reality the bush administration is interpreting The Constitution more flexibly – allowing it to grow and flourish in a changing environment
It’s pretty scary how easily and willingly some folk give up rights that we have held so long and fought so hard to preserve for well over two hundred years, through wars AND terrorist attacks ( remember the natives?) That is what Al Gore meant. Basic rights are basic, regardless- that is the whole point of having a consitution and bill of rights and keeping to it. It can be interpreted and adjusted, slowly deliberately through checks and balances but when it is re-interpreted by the executive at will, by appointed cronies, under the guise of protecting us, then we are in big trouble. We then are at the mercy of the executive branch and whatever it decides to do.
November 10th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
GvB; Actually people can change. I was once a person of the far left, blame America first crowd. I grew up in a liberal household. Almost all my teachers were liberal and I lived in an extremly liberal state (Mass)
When I read potter or some of the other posts by people on this forum it reminds me so much of myself when I was younger.
I think some liberals mean well and truly believe that liberalism/socialism /communism whatever you want to call it, is the way this country should be headed. It’s hard to debate because they usually can’t or won’t acknowledge all the great things this country and capitalism have done for the world. They tend to isolate themselves with the company of other liberals and refuse to even give conservative ideas or thought a chance. (I’m sure they think the same about us)
Just look at this sight. How politically and socially balanced are the guest speakers or topics we hear or read. I’d say 80% liberal 20% conservative,and I would be generous with the 20%. The reason I come on this forum is because I like listening to all ends of the political spectrum.It’s to bad that Chris has decided to make this a forum where only liberal thinking people are valued.
I have no choice when it comes to the MSM, but at least I can watch FOX for a different slant and I have many web sights to also choose from. both liberal and conservative.
Another small point that seems to pop up frequently. Generalizations and stereotypes. We all do it my self included. In some cases there is factual data to back up such generalizations,in some cases it is personal experiences. There really is no way to avoid it when communicating on these forums. It would take far to long to put into specifics every point we want to make.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
Bobby, (part two of four).
May I ask what criteria you used when forming your opinion about those inner city kids? Did you make any attempt to understand their experiences, to discover what would prompt them to give the answers they gave? And is it possible that you might have given the same answers had you lived/experienced their life?
You are being very condescending here! “Understand their experiences� My God!! I live in Brooklyn, NY!!! I went to public school with them!!!! I was friends with some of them on in to adulthood. Do I “understand them� Hell yes. If there is one thing in this world I understand, it is this! And I thank God every day that I am not like them!! They don’t have the ability to take from the system what they need to take to improve their situation. It is a circular pattern without variation. Nothing ever changes for them. So you’re asking me to do WHAT? To donate some money to a Black charity? Never happen! To devote my time to a people who essentially hate me – who have an itch that can never be scratched? Never happen! The answer is YES – I understand them BOBBY, or whatever your name is. And the reason why I don’t like them or want anything to do with them is BECAUSE I understand them. So don’t you EVER, ever condescend to me again about THEM. I have been as close to THEM as a person could possibly be – much closer than you can imagine, if you get my drift. I’ve had more than one Black girlfriend in my life, and I lived ‘deep’ inside a Black neighborhood sometime ago. So please don’t ever talk to me like that again. You have no f***ing clue what you’re talking about! Besides, I don’t have to turn myself into a poverty stricken crusader to know that I would not want to live that way. Where did you ever get that idea? Or is this just your way of judging others by your own standards and not theirs?
November 11th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Potter,
You said [my post] “Was so totally outrageous and uncivil that you have a lot of nerve talking about proper dialogue and injecting me in your example. Insofar as I can understand you, I disagree with what I am understanding profoundly. I may not be understanding you correctly. I hope that is the case, but I have NEVER been so uncivil to youâ€.
That is correct. The reason for it is as follows. In your post directly above my uncivil post you called my post before that “Baloneyâ€. I guess this your idea of a “civil†debate. And ‘then’ what did you have to say? Once again you put forward all the typical washed out questions that your far left friends here on ROS expect you to ask. You said “What have we got? Made any progress? Are we in better shape at home? More secureâ€? You are like a broken record. If you think that these repetitive questions are instructive in some way, believe me, they are not! All they do is act as a rhetorical device to encourage likeminded people to feel comfortable; a worn out trope or primitive bonding mechanism of some kind. You were doing the same thing last year. What is worse is that you simply throw out questions while giving no answers … as if the answer is somehow imbedded in the question. Well it isn’t, duh. You go on “Is the US considered a force for good in the world? Are we more secure because of warrantless eavesdroppingâ€? You NEVER attempt to provide an answer. You just keep reiterating the same questions like a bot. And then you kept going “Are we gaining any valuable information we need through torture and rendition? Is all this worth breaking international law never mind our own lawâ€? You remind me of the automated tech support from Cablevision: all questions, and then finally I’m transferred to a real person. You have no interest in a real debate. If I were you I’d be embarrassed by now.
You said “It’s pretty scary how easily and willingly some folk give up rights that we have held so long and fought so hard to preserve for well over two hundred years “…Basic rights are basic, regardless- that is the whole point of having a constitution and bill of rights and keeping to it “…Re-interpreted by the executive at will, by appointed cronies, under the guise of protecting us, then we are in big trouble. We then are at the mercy of the executive branch and whatever it decides to doâ€.
You know what your problem is Potter? You don’t even understand your own rhetoric! The average citizen notices NO CHANGES in his or her life. The changes are technological. They are invisible. They are perceptual. Your freedoms have not been curtailed. There is NOTHING you cannot do now that you could do before 911 and the Patriot Act. If President Bush did not have the best interests of America in mind, I would yell the loudest. Trust me Potter – you wouldn’t want to live under Vladimir Putin or some communist/atheist Chinese polity. There is a much bigger picture here. Your little generic jabs are played out. They don’t work anymore. The world is different now. Put down your ego and update yourself. Nothing personal.
November 11th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Bobby, (part two continued).
Like I’ve said before on ROS ‘you want to bend over, then bend over’. But don’t ask me to bend over. Don’t try to take the food off my plate. That spells trouble. You are a military man, Bobby. I don’t have to explain that to you.
November 11th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Bobby, (part three of four).
That’s fine, but you then attack anyone whose views differ from yours.
WRONG! I do not attack people because their “views differ from mine†– I attack them when they ether condescend the way you do (judging me by their own standards and not mine) and/or when they communicate in such a way to suggest that my view doesn’t exist. Do I have to go to Russia and become an alcoholic to “understand†– to KNOW that it probably will not work out to my advantage? Do I have to take drugs to “understand†what a drug addict goes through? Do I have to die to “understand†that I don’t WANT to die? And likewise – do I have to live amidst poverty with cockroaches and crime to know that I don’t want to? How stupid and redundant are these questions? But you enjoy asking them – as if you think you have some point you’re making. LOL.
So be it. However, I suspect Al Gore is wrong only when his views conflict with yours.
There you go again. Short, terse, and completely shallow. You respond to NOTHING of what I said of the DETAIL in my posting on Al Gore, but only to those aspects that YOU embrace – that you use to condescend and judge others by your own standards. I said ‘I happen to admire Al gore. I wouldn’t vote for him as president, but I think he is a very thoughtful person and I enjoy listening to him’. So I ask you – WHY was THIS PART of what I said overlooked? Is there not right and wrong in everything and everyone? Stop isolating parts of what I say in a vacuum. Consider the ENTIRE context – and not just those little pieces to entertain your lackeys.
Are you proposing that if the framers did have that knowledge, The Constitution and The Declaration of Independence would read differently than it does now? Can you suggest what changes they may have made?
This is an unrealistic question. The framers’ lifestyle would not accommodate contemporary knowledge. Therefore I cannot suggest what “changes they may have madeâ€, but I can suggest what changes we should make – that is, if you believe in the mutability of such doctrines as I do. Can I? Yes. Will I? No. I don’t discuss anything seminal on the internet.
November 11th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
Bobby, (part four of four).
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.â€
Although I am not a soldier, I agree with you on that score. Unfortunately the human condition is such that war is still a part of it. I agree that war shouldn’t exist, but it does. And I would not want to be on the side that had any doubts about winning it! You’ve done your duty and I respect you for it. Wisdom can take many forms – if you have grandchildren now, do yoga and relaxation techniques to ward of your first or second heart attack – no one can blame you for it, you’ve earned it. However, to think that you will somehow spread the light of peace and tranquility upon the rest of humanity by relating one person’s experience is, of course, a joke. I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on why you think some people stay in the military for life, and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones, while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it.
I can only assume that when Benjamin Franklin said: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.†did so because he had seen it happen before and/or he anticipated it could happen in the future. Either way, you believe Al Gore is wrong. I respect that. However, where do you draw the line? At what point would you say our government’s interpretation of the Constitution is infringing upon the rights/freedoms of the people it claims to protect�
Franklin was then, as Al Gore is doing now, using the language opportunistically by reading something into it that isn’t there. Or perhaps it is there so it can be called upon in times of emergency by those who know what they are doing. The generic and almost universal wording contained therein allows one to invest certain emotions, notwithstanding certain ideas, so that we ALL can get something out of it. It was deliberately designed as such. Therefore it can be used to invoke the first amendment to climb a tree, smoke pot and write poetry all day, or, if need be, to catch someone in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever, for murdering 3000 American citizens in cold blood. If you lost your nerve Bobby that’s totally understandable. But please, try not to get in the way of those in the contemporary generation who must do what they must to preserve our way of life.
“On the one hand Al Gore is flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism. But on the other hand he promotes a lack of flexibility of The Constitution – oblivious to the dangers in a post 911 world.â€
Are you now suggesting that it’s flawed reasoning for someone to be flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism while simultaneously showing a lack of flexibility regarding the Constitution? One has nothing to do with other. Or are you implying there’s a correlation between weather patterns and civil rights?
That’s a good one. Touché!
“I like law. Law is my friend.â€
You might be better off thinking of law like the family car: It works for you, and not you it; it designed to protect that which you value most; and should it become unreliable, you can scrap the whole thing and buy a new one.
I disagree with this characterization in the strongest possible terms! Especially the part when you say “Not you itâ€. It is a two way street. Most people understand that in order to get something out of the system, they must first put something into it, etc. For example. Could there be a correlation between crime in the Black community being nine times higher than in the White community, and the fact that The Law does not work as efficiently in Black communities as it does in White communities? I believe there is.
“There exist certain natural rights inherent in every society of which not only one nation but all the nations together could not justly deprive an individual.†- Marquis de Lafayette.
Now I feel warm all over. Maybe someday … maybe.
End.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Everything is so black and white, so pristine and so orderly
Whose order? – I cried. Tit for tat – this and that – I judge thee by the earth is flat
I sit and I look at my cousin the crook – a cake not baked – that he hath chosen to took
God blames man – man blames woman – woman blames snake – but the snake has no legs – yet there is always one in the garden
Can you do what I cannot do cried the dolt?
Why yes – otherwise it is not I who would be
November 11th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
rc21,
You said “When I read potter or some of the other posts by people on this forum it reminds me so much of myself when I was youngerâ€.
Me too, but I’m not old. (Johnny Carson once said that someone told him that old is “Anyone who is 15 years older than you areâ€). That always made sense to me.
They tend to isolate themselves with the company of other liberals and refuse to even give conservative ideas or thought a chance. (I’m sure they think the same about us).
Probably. However, I have no problem agreeing with liberal ideology if I think it suites the situation. For example, in principle I am against abortion. I witnessed two abortions a long time ago. They weren’t pretty. If a female gets raped, who am I to tell her she cannot have an abortion? And if one day she has to “take it up with Godâ€, that won’t be my problem. I think that many “liberal ideas†that work in a big city do not work in rural or suburban areas; that what may work in one state may not work in another. And then it depends if the state is blue or red. People have a right to live how they want. And if you don’t like your state, move out! It gets more complicated and volatile when we are focusing on Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Supreme Court Judges i.e. positions of national prominence.
It’s to bad that Chris has decided to make this a forum where only liberal thinking people are valued.
Chris has the right to keep it this way if he wants to. It is a left wing site. I’m not so sure there is such a thing as complete balance. It is up to us to distil the information from all the available sources. And even so – who are we to tell people in other states what is good for them? Don’t you think ‘they’ know that? It is at once both a business, and a real and serious topic. I’ve often wondered – how many of those in the business approach it with a purely business mindset? And how many of them are ideologically driven. I believe the most successful of the batch are cognizant of both aspects and probably do their best to avoid turning into a prostitute. But if you REALLY want to go prime time a little prostitution may not be such a bad thing – as long as people still recognize you at the end of the day. But that’s a sort of reconciliation that not everyone can come to grips with. I think Chris is a grass roots kind of guy, and I think he is down to earth. The reason why I like ROS is primarily because of its “organic complexionâ€: no ads or incessant self promotion to distract me from thinking.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Potter,
You said “Basic rights are basic, regardless- that is the whole point of having a consitution and bill of rights and keeping to itâ€.
I believe that if we can discuss this one sentence rationally we may be able to make progress. To say that “basic rights are basic†is hard to disagree with. But herein lays the problem. The language is so generic, so universal, and so non-descript that it can fit anyone, anywhere, at any time. This kind of reasoning is good for an anthropology class, but cannot be applied to a war situation, or a legal one, necessarily. It’s like trying to fit five pounds of flour in a one pound jar. It just doesn’t work. And furthermore, what is “basic†in America may or may not be “basic†elsewhere. You use it as a way to pass judgment on other people. You probably interpret the Bible very literally also. You are saying that no matter how the world changes and how people’s lives are affected by those changes, the Constitution and The Bill of Rights does not, and cannot change – even if their lives depend on it. And then when you use the word “regardless†directly after “basic rights are basicâ€, you further illustrate your intolerance towards other people’s views. Why? Because you do not specifically state [exactly and empirically and contextually] what those “rights†are. You wave a nebulous a priori wand over the world – and then run away like a kid throwing water balloons from a rooftop at passers-by on a sidewalk.
November 11th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
GvB Yes I agree with you on the abortion issue. I see both sides. As to ROS.That is not so simple. You see when ROS started it was taxpayer funded. I think Chris had an obligation as a journalist to keep the show as balanced as possible. It is wrong to take money from an unknowing public and use it to further your own political agenda. I have a big problem with this.
Now that public funding has ended Chris should be able to run any kind of show he desires. He can go as far left as he want’s. It is his show and the first amndt protects his right to discriminate against conservative speakers or writers. I don’t have a problem with this.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
rc21,
You said [ROS] was “taxpayer fundedâ€? That “Chris had an obligation…â€? I would have to research this for myself. I know nothing about it. I have to ask … what did Chris promise ‘before’ he received the donations, to whom did he promise it to, and how can you prove it? If you are saying that, as a matter of your opinion, he had an “obligation as a journalist†to be “balancedâ€, I disagree. If he made false promises that can be verified, then I would agree. But don’t expect me to take your word for it.
Now that public funding has ended Chris should be able to run any kind of show he desires. He can go as far left as he want’s. It is his show and the first amndt protects his right to discriminate against conservative speakers or writers. I don’t have a problem with this.
Neither do I.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
UMass Lowell a public university funded by taxpayer dollars was the original host There was contoversy from the begining because the student run radio station suffered as a consequence of UML sponsering ROS. This is no secret It was in all the media throughout the Merrimac valley.
This is not unlike the ongoing debate with PBS and NPR using taxpayers money to push a liberal agenda.
To me the issue is pretty straight forward. When a media outlet that focuses mainly on politics and social issues (as ros and npr do ) Takes taxpayer money to help operate it’s show, it has at the very least a moral obligation to serve all the taxpayers not just the ones it feels belong to the same political party as the network.
Chris should not have to promise. It is an obligation that is due all the people who pay for the show.I think this should especially hold true when it comes to journalism . An advocation that by its very definition should seek to be fair and truthfull.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:08 am
My “baloney”, Godzilla, regarding the substance of what you say, which is within reasonable bounds, is a lame excuse for your ongoing ad hominem ( personal) responses/attacks.
In the first instance you complain that I don’t understand you and then you return the favor by making up a totally false, straw man argument (”Potters solution? Change nothing” etc etc..). and then ascribing it to me.
Since this post, which you defend:
http://www.radioopensource.org/they-got-it-right-6-shibley-telhami/#comment-89020
I am not interested in having any dialogue with you until you know the difference and apologize .
You might start trying to understand what I was trying to say by reading this:
The Coup at Home
November 12th, 2007 at 11:39 am
Frank Rich seems to be advocating an invaion of Pakistan.
November 12th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Potter,
I admit that my attack was ad hominem and over the top. I am prepared to offer an apology. Please hear me out first.
My attack was in ‘utter frustration’ in an attempt to engage you in dialogue. I do not believe that my side of the debate is “a straw man argumentâ€. I now believe that you are genuinely unaware that you are not answering the questions or providing any ‘solutions’ to the issues we discuss or that you yourself pose. I am a solution, reality based empirical kind of person, and when I encounter repetitiveness and equivocation it makes feel like I am being disrespected … especially when the person I am debating with speaks in a rhetorical tone. Not to mention the fact that when someone else picks up your end of the discussion and continues to debate it with me, you say nothing.
And don’t shove articles in my face in the middle of asking for an apology – that’s rude! I am familiar with “the Coup†rhetoric. But I’ll probably take a look at it anyway.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
The following quotes are from The Coup At Home article sited by Potter in todays post.
“…So what if America’s chief law enforcement official won’t say that waterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You’re either willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, or you’re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad.
“…It’s been apparent for years that America was suicidal to go to war in Iraq, a country with no tie to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction.
“…A memorable highlight of our special relationship with this prized “ally†came in September 2006, when the general turned up in Washington to kick off his book tourâ€.
Let me just interject here (before I finish the article) that opportunists like Frank Rich always show up ‘after’ a kill like vultures circling a carcass – honing in on the past tense with the proverbial ‘see, I told you so’. Some people make history happen while others take it in the ass. Hindsight is always 20/20 – and Mr. Rich has an eye for inconsistencies: pieces that don’t fit so conveniently back in to their deductive vision of reality – but serve as a subjective and personalized vision – one that echoes the phrase “they never had an idea that worked on the groundâ€. These personalized visions are fine for an individual, yet they have no value whatsoever in guarding the collective, save to commercialize their surrealism, package it, and feed it to the uneducated masses just to earn a living as a [literary] prostitute. It doesn’t matter if it is true or false, real or unreal, what matters is that people want dope, and they are willing to pay for it!
Is water boarding torture? What a joke! Marines practice water boarding on each other for the hell of it, just to toughen up. I won’t mention how I define torture here on ROS. Have a cream soda — an oatmeal raisin cookie, or something.
November 12th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
The above non- apology is noted. Also noted the lecture that linking an article is being rude.
Supreme Disgrace
November 12th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
Potter,
You are not gracious enough to realize that I am trying to reach out to you. It is not a “non-apologyâ€. It is a recognition that I was hard on you and that I am ‘prepared’ to apologize, but you don’t have the wisdom to see it. Linking an article is not as you say “rudeâ€. That’s ridiculous. You are having trouble, once again, with CONTEXT. Therein it is rude to ask someone to read something that supports your point of view, at THE SAME TIME, no less, that you are asking for an apology.
Jesus H. Christ – somebody give me a break with this savant!!
November 13th, 2007 at 7:04 am
GodzillaVsBambi,
I deliberately stated at the end of my last post that I apologized if I came across sounding condescending; that it was not my intent. I did so for two reasons: (1) I – as well as you and everyone else – know emotions run high when discussing these topics: tempers flare, people feel misunderstood, etc. (2) I don’t know you; I have no idea of your experiences, cultural background, sense of humor, etc. Consequently, it can be difficult to read the tone of your posts, which can result in their being misinterpreted. (This obviously applies to everyone) That’s why I also stated: “I’d like to believe the hostility found in your posts is simply a measure of the passion you have for this country.†So…
When I asked what criteria you used when forming your opinion about inner city liberal kids, and did you make any attempt to understand their experiences, I was being sincere. How would I have ever known that you were raised in the inner-city? Or that you went to school with them? And speaking of ‘them’: We are still referring to ‘inner city liberal kids’, right? Because after accusing me of being condescending, you started talking about how you would never donate money to a Black charity, that you’ve lived ’deep’ inside a black neighborhood, and have had more than one black girlfriend in your life. (I assume you’re not black?) Question: When you say “I thank God every day that I am not like them!!â€, exactly what ‘them’ are you referring to?
“To say that “basic rights are basic†is hard to disagree with. But herein lays the problem. The language is so generic, so universal, and so non-descript that it can fit anyone, anywhere, at any time. This kind of reasoning is good for an anthropology class, but cannot be applied to a war situation, or a legal one, necessarily.â€
You do realize that you’ve just defined a basic right: something that can fit anyone, anywhere, at any time; and that it’s precisely this idea on which the United States is founded: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…†Thus, when our Founding Fathers went about writing the Constitution, it wasn’t to establish a system of laws that we, citizens, were to conform to; rather it was to create a government which preserved those rights; it also recognized that no government – including itself – can take them away from us any more than an individual could give them away. Hence the word unalienable. Thomas Jefferson: “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual…â€. And what should happen if the government attempts to limit those rights? It was the citizens’ right –their duty, in fact – “ to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.â€
My concern is this: You say basic rights are difficult to define. Suppose that’s true. That being said, each time the United States has gone to war, what exactly do you believe we are fighting for? The fifty-five thousand names at the Vietnam Memorial: What exactly did they die for? If rc21’s father or my grandfather had asked General Eisenhower, “Precisely why are we here, general?†what should he tell them, GodzillaVsBambi? (300,000 American soldiers died in WWII. Died for what?) And what about the 3000 + soldiers who have died so far in Iraq and Afghanistan? They didn’t die for you, GodzillaVsBambi; nor did they die for those inner city liberal kids you love to hate. They died for something much more basic. The question is: What? And when you can answer that question, you should answer this question: How quickly are you willing to hand it over to your government, the same government that professes are so important that it’s willing to go to war and fight for it.
Earlier you asked “Do the “Needs of the many†not outweigh “The needs of the fewâ€? Doesn’t that just speak for itself?†My answer is, “No, It doesn’t speak for itself.†Thankfully, the Founding Fathers didn’t agree with it either; and, consequently, it’s one of the fundamental reasons why they wrote the Constitution; so that very thing never occurred. Are you familiar with the idea “violence of the majorityâ€, that in a pure democracy, the majority could potentially ‘gang up’ on the minority and sacrifice the rights of the minority in order that the majority prevails? James Madison – “Father of the Constitution†– was aware of it. Go read The Federalist Papers. He’ll tell you all about it. His solution was to write a document that limited the powers of a majority; to acknowledge that everyone has basic rights, and that under no circumstance could a government, or majority take those rights away. But let me ask you this: if you truly believe that the needs of the majority outweigh the needs of the few, and you were to find yourself in the minority, would you go freely? Would you give away your needs so that the majority could carry on? But then again, if you truly were part of the minority, you wouldn’t have a say in the matter anyway. Your objections would fall on deaf ears; the last thing you’d hear would be: “resistance is futileâ€. So, if you sincerely believe Lafayette’s quote “There exist certain natural rights inherent in every society of which not only one nation but all the nations together could not justly deprive an individual.†is nothing more than words to make you “feel warm all over†then I’m sorry to hear that.
“I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on why you think some people stay in the military for life, and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones, while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it.â€
I’ll try and answer this by giving an example:
Suppose the Unites States were attacked, and I knew if we lost the war it would entail that you and I would no longer be able to share ideas, e.g. exactly what we’re doing now; I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line thinking, “Sure, GodzillaVsBambi’s ideas are usually full of $hit, and that he probably thinks the same about mine! HOWEVER! I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them. That’s total bull$hit!†That being said…
Suppose our government said, “GodzillaVsBambi and Bobby! Here’s the deal. We’re all about freedom and defending the constitutional rights, etc. etc., but we’re going to have to ask you both to no longer share your ideas. It’s not their content per se, but in the interest of national security, we can’t have you both dialoging anymore. Yes, we know all about rights, and we know that our powers have been granted to us by the citizens, which technically means the both of you, but come on, guys, we’re your government; we’re always looking out for your best interest, right? Oh, and by the way. If you’re not for us, you’re against us. Pass it on.†I wouldn’t put up with that $hit for a second, GodzillaVsBambi, and I hope you wouldn’t either. And I would like to think that both of us would be standing together saying, “Ahh, I don’t F-ing think so!†It’s like Woodrow Wilson said:
“Liberty never came from government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.â€
The point, though subtle – and therefore easily overlooked – is this: If you and I decided to temporarily end our dialog because we know doing so would protect the interests of this great nation, then so be it. It was fun talking to you. However, when our own government starts interfering with the rights of her citizens, that’s unacceptable. When our government starts putting limits on our rights – no matter how innocent or temporary – or when they start tampering with them – even if we’re unaware of it happening – all in the name of national security, then that’s a problem. For example, if you were to tell me that the NSA, CIA, etc. is keeping a list of what library books I check out, I could say, “I don’t care. I have nothing to hide.†And that would be true. But that’s not the point. There’s something more fundamental at stake. I believe I – and everyone else – have a right to check out any book I want, and know that what I check out is simply between me and the librarian. Now, you may not agree with that. You may think everything I’ve said is a bunch of nonsense. My response is to say I don’t give a $hit. However, I’d be willing to serve/die – as many people have – in order that your right to respond always resides with you, and no one else.
November 13th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Bobby, with your last post I think you sound a bit more like a conservative. I wonder how you came to call yourself a liberal. To me some of your thoughts seem more libertarian
One point ;I hear what your saying about our rights being compromised by the war on terror. I think we need to take a look at what is actually being taken and why. The library topic that you spoke of has been greatly exagerated by the dems and media. I’m not sure it has been used more than a few times. Also the govt must show reason before snooping around. 2nd point ;The govt has taken action based on a threat to the security of our nation. I’m not saying this allows a free pass for the govt to do anything it wants. Oversight is needed.
It is also the govt’s job to protect us from people who would try and destroy us. This has put the govt in a tough situation.
Look at the 9/11 episode. Everyone and most loudly Democrats were attacking Bush and the govt for not doing anything to stop the terrorists. They say there was info showing that these people had been taking flight lessons some had expired visas. etc.. You get the picture.
Well tell me when was taking flight lessons against the law, We know what liberals think about people with expired visas. They want no action taken They have set up sanctuary cities. Dem governors have instructed police not to arrest any illegalls or people who may have expired visas.You also have the ACLU and almost every democratic leader fighting tooth and nail to prohibit the authorities from any sort of profiling.
So factualy if you follow the Liberal mind set, than there is absolutely nothing that should be done to stop terrorism in this country until an actual attack has been made.
Sorry I don’t see the liberals offering anything better than slow but inevitable suicide.
November 13th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
“Bobby, with your last post I think you sound a bit more like a conservative. I wonder how you came to call yourself a liberal. To me some of your thoughts seem more libertarianâ€
You’re right, rc21; I do call myself a liberal. And you’re also right that some of my thoughts align with the libertarian. And there are topics I have opinions on that I’m sure you would label ultra-conservative, should they ever be brought up. And therein lies the problem. If I say I’m liberal, that implies at least two false – dare I say dangerous – assumptions: (1) Your definition of liberal matches my definition of liberal. (2) I must somehow embrace – believe as true – everything that falls under this political theory we call liberalism. But look up that theory – any political theory – and we quickly discover that each covers such a broad number of topics that to reduce it (define it) to a few lines would be both unfair and foolish. It’s why I agreed with a point you made in an earlier post: “Generalizations and stereotypes. We all do it my self included. In some cases there is factual data to back up such generalizations, in some cases it is personal experiences. There really is no way to avoid it when communicating on these forums. It would take far to long to put into specifics every point we want to make.†The point is, can I label rc21 a conservative? Can you even label yourself a conservative? I’d say no. I’d go so far as saying that I’d be doing you a disservice if I did try and label you – particularly since all I truly have to go on are a few of your posts directed at a few limited topics.
“One point ;I hear what your saying about our rights being compromised by the war on terror. I think we need to take a look at what is actually being taken and why. . .Also the govt must show reason before snooping around. 2nd point ;The govt has taken action based on a threat to the security of our nation. I’m not saying this allows a free pass for the govt to do anything it wants. Oversight is needed.â€
Agreed!
“But politics rest on necessary foundations, and cannot be treated with levity. Republics abound in young civilians, who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living, and employments of the population, that commerce, education, and religion, may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people, if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum.” - Emerson
But like you said our government IS taking action against a grave threat. It’s a challenging responsibility; a thankless job performed by men and women who I have the upmost respect for. However, when Bobby and rc21 inquire into how they’re going about providing that protection, we do so not because we’re bored, distrustful, or believe we can do it better (but God help them if they tell us to head to our nearest mall and leave the work to the ‘professionals’); we make inquiries because that’s OUR job, whether we like it or not.
“The library topic that you spoke of has been greatly exagerated by the dems and media. I’m not sure it has been used more than a few times.â€
I admit I was simply using it as a hypothetical rather than a legitimate concern. However, if the democrats and media have been exaggerating the library topic – or any topic for that matter – to push their agenda, then they, too, should be held accountable. Trust me; if I think a member of the Democratic Party is pulling the wool over my eyes, I’d be the first to say, “If you’re lying to me, I’ll sick rc21 on you’re a$$ faster than you can hug a tree!†Truth is, rc21, my loyalties belong to no particular party; and sometimes I get irritated when I’m forced to pick one. Perhaps you feel the same way.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Ok Bobby, I can’t say I disagree with much of your post.
Myself, I think I’m libertarian with a conservative leaning insofar as I think we should not deviate to far from the constitution and the bill of rights, or in the beliefs of the founding fathers. Admitting that there were various opinions as to the different forms of govt we should have.
November 13th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Bobby, (part one of two).
Imagine that you are the only one walking down the street and suddenly you see someone coming towards you. The closer they get, the faster your mind races thinking of all sorts of scenarios. You can tell it is a man. As if from nowhere he is now about three feet away standing directly in front of you holding a knife. He says “give me your walletâ€! The options available to you in this situation are very limited. A moment ago you were alone memorizing answers to the BAR exam that you are preparing to take next week. And now there is this man standing in front of you with a knife asking for your wallet. What do you do? There is no time to call the police. You are the police now. Do you rattle off a few cases that you remember from your freshman year, hoping to “reason†with the desperate robber? Do you just give him your wallet? Do you run? Do you fight? Or do you offer him a settlement like any good lawyer would do? (I couldn’t resist that, sorry).
The point is this. When life and limb are being threatened the options available to that person are severely limited; the mammalian “fight or flight†response kicks in and we revert to the limbic system: the most primitive area of the brain. If America as a whole, as an ‘entity’ if you will, can be thought of as a living being as you would think of yourself or your grandmother or a new born baby, with three hundred million living souls inside of it, then we can get a clearer picture of the options available to “that entityâ€, America, when it is attacked by people who murdered 3000 of its citizens in cold blood. At a time like this the option of hurling nebulous quotes from the Declaration of Independence at the murderers is not available to us. Do we attempt to “reason with themâ€? We can’t. It is too late for that! So what do we do about the 3000 lives that were just snuffed out by the murderers? Do we let them escape because some of us feel they may have a point? Do we cavort with them and strangely admire the carnage because we cannot possibly comprehend the murder of 3000 people, all at once? Or do we mobilize the military and hunt them and kill them and burn them and torture them until they SCREAM AT THE TOP OF THEIR LUNGS – giving us the answers we need to prevent this from ever happening again?
……
Your words in italics.
How would I have ever known that you were raised in the inner-city?
I never said I was raised in the inner city. You are hallucinating. But I did go to school with them, and I did live ‘deep’ inside a black neighborhood once for over a year.
When you say “I thank God every day that I am not like them!!â€, exactly what ‘them’ are you referring to?
Blacks – and their perpetual condition of vestigial squalor and hereditary incompetence.
Hence the word unalienable.
I thought the word was inalienable? Indecently, I agree with all the lofty language you quoted. I.e. that I agree that it is worded that way. I just don’t agree with the mismatched tenses and contexts in which you apply your interpretation. The circular and poetic reasoning behind the quotes you sited shall be duly noted notwithstanding to the extent to which they apply; that they are useful to the point that all participants involved agree that these “fundamental aspects†are applicable to situations in which a) laws in foreign countries conflict with the laws of the “host nation†[the plaintiff or litigant] that b) if in the event that these laws are circumvented, moreover in one fell swoop, to the disregard of life and limb to the inhabitants of said country, then that country shall exercise it’s [inalienable] right to self preservation.
Thomas Jefferson: “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual…â€. I agree. But Al Qaeda doesn’t agree. Vladimir Putin does not agree. Kim Jong Il does not agree, and the Politburo in China does not agree. So since the world is a much smaller place than it used to be because of technology, how do you get EVERYONE to believe in the precepts of Thomas Jefferson? YOU CAN’T Bobby! Wake up and smell the provincialism!! You are attempting to apply, to unreasonably stretch 235 year old non descript philosophical language, in a technologically advanced world, to a situation involving self preservation – of which not all players play by the rules that you site. My God! I have to wonder … what agenda could you possibly have, and who the hell are you working for? As if I don’t already know.
Question is, do YOU know?
I’m not going to get into a whole thing about the philosophical differences between the ‘excessive nature’ of the Cartesian thought process Vs the more practical Anglican approach of American Realism, and the history of The Church of England. I trust that this would be enough to send the reader off in the right direction. My effort in this post will be confined to the new aspects you raise, but not to those I feel were sufficiently responded to beforehand on this thread.
“…Each time the United States has gone to war, what exactly do you believe we are fighting for? The fifty-five thousand names at the Vietnam Memorial: What exactly did they die for?
It was a proxy war against communism.
300,000 American soldiers died in WWII. Died for what?
So we didn’t have to learn German. You know what they say … “Americans are tongue tied”.
And what about the 3000 + soldiers who have died so far in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Al Qaeda and Russia. And Chinese is a difficult language.
They didn’t die for you, GodzillaVsBambi; nor did they die for those inner city liberal kids you love to hate. They died for something much more basic.
You are both correct and incorrect. They did die for me and the inner city kids, ‘and’, they are also dying for “something much more basicâ€.
How quickly are you willing to hand it over to your government, the same government that professes are so important that it’s willing to go to war and fight for it.
Since 911 and the Patriot Act I have handed nothing over to my government, and they have taken nothing from me. Other than be inconvenienced at an airport from time to time, life for me is the same. I can still call the president an ass and nothing will happen to me. I can still have the same boring conversations with my friends about our lives on the phone, and I can take a Greyhound to Colorado tomorrow (from New York) if want to, and no one can stop me. I can hand out political flyers on the street, like Lee Harvey Oswald did, and nothing will happen to me. I can get a passport if I want one and leave the country. I can write anything I want and nothing will happen to me. I can take The Anarchists Cookbook out from the library if I want, and nothing will happen to me. The only difference I see is that *delusional* people are somehow connecting the 21st century methods that our government is using to protect us, against the non descript and generic language (which we still hold precious) of a more than two hundred year old [civil] document.
“Do the “Needs of the many†not outweigh “The needs of the fewâ€? Doesn’t that just speak for itself?†My answer is, “No, It doesn’t speak for itself.†Thankfully, the Founding Fathers didn’t agree with it either; and, consequently, it’s one of the fundamental reasons why they wrote the Constitution; so that very thing never occurred. Are you familiar with the idea “violence of the majorityâ€, that in a pure democracy, the majority could potentially ‘gang up’ on the minority and sacrifice the rights of the minority in order that the majority prevails?
You are absolutely right about this. I was over zealous, and wrong! It was the wrong way to describe what I wanted to convey. What I meant was that when someone starts hitting you – declares war etc, (911), your choices become more limited than under “normal†circumstances; that the lofty wording in the Declaration of Independence has no meaning when someone is in the midst of killing you.
PS: part two tomorrow.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
GvB, I’ll only adress the first part of your post because it is the most important.
You are making one big mistake. You suppose that liberals (I wont include Bobby I think there may be some hope for him.) Acknowledge that we have been attacked and are at war with violent muslim extremists.
The fact is most liberals don’t feel this way at all. They think Al Qaeda, and other terrorist groups are at worst small criminal gangs (remember potters post on this, her opinion is shared by many on the left). Many even worse feel these people are freedom fighters who are merley responding to the west’s and in particular the USA’s imperialistic behaviour.
So we have a disconnect in thinking. The rest of your post makes no sense at all to people like this. It’s a waste of time. It is the USA who is the bad guy.
November 13th, 2007 at 9:31 pm
GVB your posts addressed to me are so over the top regarding respectful dialogue that to ask me to have some further consideration for you as you “prepare” yourself to actually bestow me with an apology is genuine chutzpah. Hurley just left the scene, Bobby has more patience. You started out by telling us that Jews are hard to like. I defended you, thought you were misunderstood. You were ungracious to Hurley. I gave Hurley a better interpretation of your remark. Little did I know that you were signaling about yourself.
A straw man argument is when you impose an invented oppositional point in order to argue your point. This you have done. If you simply misunderstood it would be another thing. How can you talk of graciousness and ungraciousness after your own posts? REad them. Would you like to be onthe receiving end of that? You might have the wisdom to give a simple apology, not a conditional one and we would have been done with it. Instead you ask for MY wisdom. I will follow Hurley, the wisest of us, and exit here. No apology is apparently forthcoming.
November 14th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
rc21,
You said “You suppose that liberals (I wont include Bobby I think there may be some hope for him.) Acknowledge that we have been attacked and are at war with violent muslim extremistsâ€.
Are you kidding me? Out of all the following questions answer only this next one. The ones after it are rhetorical. Do you believe that the people that I/we have been conversing with on this thread (other than Bobby) do not believe that America was attacked on September 11, 2001, and that almost 3000 American citizens died as a result of that attack? Are you telling me that they don’t believe that it happened? If this is true then how come none of them made it a point to say it? Isn’t that very strange? The only way I can see it is if they were too young to remember. Perhaps they were between the ages of say one and ten, living on the West Coast, and had no interest in current affairs. That means that they would now be between eight and eighteen – still young enough to be ignorant, unconcerned, an anarchist, a revisionist like many people here on ROS, or some other non conformist anti-authoritarian “school†of thought. Am I debating with a bunch of teenagers who don’t remember whose memory is foggy because they were too young? Or am I debating a more sinister crowd who claims “not to rememberâ€, but in reality really does? Please spell it out for me rc21 – I can be a little slow sometimes.
November 14th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Yes I should clarify. When I went back and read my post I should have made the distinction between being attacked and being at war.
I think all people be they from the left or from the right of the political spectrum Know we were attacked. Yet many don’t think we are at war. Sorry for the confusion.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Bobby, (part two of two).
Your words in italics.
Suppose the Unites States were attacked, and I knew if we lost the war it would entail that you and I would no longer be able to share ideas, e.g. exactly what we’re doing now; I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line thinking, “Sure, GodzillaVsBambi’s ideas are usually full of $hit, and that he probably thinks the same about mine! HOWEVER! I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them. That’s total bull$hit!â€
Very well said. So would I. And this is why it is important to remember that Congress voted unanimously to go to war with Afghanistan in ‘01 – except of course for that one monkey who dissented. The country pulled together when, as I have been pointing out to you, our collective safety was deemed to be, and still is, in peril. Perhaps they were under some sort of spell or mass hallucination of some kind or controlled by aliens from another planet. Could it be the Planet Leprechaun from the Anarchy Constellation in the Latin Quarter of the Galaxy? (It’s not ‘really’ Latin, but we’ll save that for a rainy day).
According to your description we would be fighting on the same side. I agree, but that doesn’t answer my question. I shall reinsert the question here for the sake of continuity. >> I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on why you think some people stay in the military for life, and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it. “…I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line’ “…I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them’ “…I wouldn’t put up with that $hit for a second, GodzillaVsBambi, and I hope you wouldn’t eitherâ€, I’m sure you can see why I am confused. On the one hand you come off as a “patriotâ€, a pro war person willing to ‘go to war at the drop of a dime’ (or so it seems), who enjoys listening to drunken Scotsmen say the word f**k every other word in a sentence on his old “stomping groundâ€, and on the other hand NONE of the wars mentioned in our correspondence, so far, have met your professional approval. Only you alone can give approval for a “just warâ€? Forgive me for being so suspicious but … how can I account for this huge schism – this apparently bipolar description of your words not matching your reasoning?
When our government starts putting limits on our rights – no matter how innocent or temporary – or when they start tampering with them – even if we’re unaware of it happening – all in the name of national security, then that’s a problem.
Explain HOW, once and for all, your freedoms have been curtailed! Be descriptive, give evidence, and please be direct and to the point. Allegorical responses will not work here. Poetry has NOTHING to do with this! I know you’re a good poet, a good writer, a thoughtful person. I listed a few things in yesterdays post illustrating how I feel nothing has changed. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it now, or you will be held in contempt!
There’s something more fundamental at stake. I believe I – and everyone else – have a right to check out any book I want, and know that what I check out is simply between me and the librarian. Now, you may not agree with that. You may think everything I’ve said is a bunch of nonsense.
Now here is a question that needs to be answered; that conservatives and the people at Fox News constantly reiterate. How is ‘one’ person’s privacy more important than the security of an ENTIRE NATION? ‘This’ is the question of the day. How much of a miscreant and a low life scum bag must one be to suggest that his or her phone call or tryst in a motel with another adulterer or homosexual lover is, in some cosmically poetic but yet realistically inconceivable way, “more important†than the life and limb of 300,000,000 people?
My response is to say I don’t give a $hit. However, I’d be willing to serve/die – as many people have – in order that your right to respond always resides with you, and no one else.
That goes without saying … I guess we’ll put you on the front line then.
Thank you.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Bobby,
Correction. The middle two paragraphs run as follows:
According to your description we would be fighting on the same side. I agree, but that doesn’t answer my question. I shall reinsert the question here for the sake of continuity. >> I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on why you think some people stay in the military for life, and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it. “…I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line’ “…I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them’ “…I wouldn’t put up with that $hit for a second, GodzillaVsBambi, and I hope you wouldn’t eitherâ€, I’m sure you can see why I am confused. On the one hand you come off as a “patriotâ€, a pro war person willing to ‘go to war at the drop of a dime’ (or so it seems), who enjoys listening to drunken Scotsmen say the word f**k every other word in a sentence on his old “stomping groundâ€, and on the other hand NONE of the wars mentioned in our correspondence, so far, have met your professional approval. Only you alone can give approval for a “just warâ€? Forgive me for being so suspicious but … how can I account for this huge schism – this apparently bipolar description of your words not matching your reasoning?
November 14th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Bobby, (part two of two).
Your words in italics.
Suppose the Unites States were attacked, and I knew if we lost the war it would entail that you and I would no longer be able to share ideas, e.g. exactly what we’re doing now; I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line thinking, “Sure, GodzillaVsBambi’s ideas are usually full of $hit, and that he probably thinks the same about mine! HOWEVER! I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them. That’s total bull$hit!â€
Very well said. So would I. And this is why it is important to remember that Congress voted unanimously to go to war with Afghanistan in ‘01 – except of course for that one monkey who dissented. The country pulled together when, as I have been pointing out to you, our collective safety was deemed to be, and still is, in peril. Perhaps they were under some sort of spell or mass hallucination of some kind or controlled by aliens from another planet. Could it be the Planet Leprechaun from the Anarchy Constellation in the Latin Quarter of the Galaxy? (It’s not ‘really’ Latin, but we’ll save that for a rainy day).
According to your description we would be fighting on the same side. I agree, but that doesn’t answer my question. I shall reinsert the question here for the sake of continuity. >> I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on why you think some people stay in the military for life, and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it. When our government starts putting limits on our rights – no matter how innocent or temporary – or when they start tampering with them – even if we’re unaware of it happening – all in the name of national security, then that’s a problem.
Explain HOW, once and for all, your freedoms have been curtailed! Be descriptive, give evidence, and please be direct and to the point. Allegorical responses will not work here. Poetry has NOTHING to do with this! I know you’re a good poet, a good writer, a thoughtful person. I listed a few things in yesterdays post illustrating how I feel nothing has changed. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it now, or you will be held in contempt!
There’s something more fundamental at stake. I believe I – and everyone else – have a right to check out any book I want, and know that what I check out is simply between me and the librarian. Now, you may not agree with that. You may think everything I’ve said is a bunch of nonsense.
Now here is a question that needs to be answered; that conservatives and the people at Fox News constantly reiterate. How is ‘one’ person’s privacy more important than the security of an ENTIRE NATION? ‘This’ is the question of the day. How much of a miscreant and a low life scum bag must one be to suggest that his or her phone call or tryst in a motel with another adulterer or homosexual lover is, in some cosmically poetic but yet realistically inconceivable way, “more important†than the life and limb of 300,000,000 people?
My response is to say I don’t give a $hit. However, I’d be willing to serve/die – as many people have – in order that your right to respond always resides with you, and no one else.
That goes without saying … I guess we’ll put you on the front line then.
Thank you.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Bobby,
Sorry about this. ROS is not taking my post correctly. It could be the way I used Word. What I will do is insert them back in as sections, one at a time.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Bobby, (part two of two). Section one.
Your words in italics.
Suppose the Unites States were attacked, and I knew if we lost the war it would entail that you and I would no longer be able to share ideas, e.g. exactly what we’re doing now; I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line thinking, “Sure, GodzillaVsBambi’s ideas are usually full of $hit, and that he probably thinks the same about mine! HOWEVER! I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them. That’s total bull$hit!â€
Very well said. So would I. And this is why it is important to remember that Congress voted unanimously to go to war with Afghanistan in ‘01 – except of course for that one monkey who dissented. The country pulled together when, as I have been pointing out to you, our collective safety was deemed to be, and still is, in peril. Perhaps they were under some sort of spell or mass hallucination of some kind or controlled by aliens from another planet. Could it be the Planet Leprechaun from the Anarchy Constellation in the Latin Quarter of the Galaxy? (It’s not ‘really’ Latin, but we’ll save that for a rainy day).
November 14th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Section two.
According to your description we would be fighting on the same side. I agree, but that doesn’t answer my question. I shall reinsert the question here for the sake of continuity. >> I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on why you think some people stay in the military for life, and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it.
November 14th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Section three.
What accounts for your inconsistencies and misapplication of logic and analysis is as follows. In part one of this response posted yesterday I gave short answers to your past wars question: “What exactly did they die forâ€? This indicates to me that none of these wars met your approval. (I’m sure you can see why I got that impression from the way you phrased it. Correct me if I’m wrong). So when you say “…I’d be down at the local recruiter’s office signing up. I’d don my uniform, grab my rifle, and head straight to the front line’ “…I’ll be damned if I let anyone tell us that we can’t share them’ “…I wouldn’t put up with that $hit for a second, GodzillaVsBambi, and I hope you wouldn’t eitherâ€, I’m sure you can see why I am confused. On the one hand you come off as a “patriotâ€, a pro war person willing to ‘go to war at the drop of a dime’ (or so it seems), who enjoys listening to drunken Scotsmen say the word f**k every other word in a sentence on his old “stomping groundâ€, and on the other hand NONE of the wars mentioned in our correspondence, so far, have met your professional approval. Only you alone can give approval for a “just warâ€? Forgive me for being so suspicious but … how can I account for this huge schism – this apparently bipolar description of your words not matching your reasoning?
November 14th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Section four.
When our government starts putting limits on our rights – no matter how innocent or temporary – or when they start tampering with them – even if we’re unaware of it happening – all in the name of national security, then that’s a problem.
Explain HOW, once and for all, your freedoms have been curtailed! Be descriptive, give evidence, and please be direct and to the point. Allegorical responses will not work here. Poetry has NOTHING to do with this! I know you’re a good poet, a good writer, a thoughtful person. I listed a few things in yesterdays post illustrating how I feel nothing has changed. If you have evidence to the contrary, please provide it now, or you will be held in contempt!
November 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Section five.
There’s something more fundamental at stake. I believe I – and everyone else – have a right to check out any book I want, and know that what I check out is simply between me and the librarian. Now, you may not agree with that. You may think everything I’ve said is a bunch of nonsense.
Now here is a question that needs to be answered; that conservatives and the people at Fox News constantly reiterate. How is ‘one’ person’s privacy more important than the security of an ENTIRE NATION? ‘This’ is the question of the day. How much of a miscreant and a low life scum bag must one be to suggest that his or her phone call or tryst in a motel with another adulterer or homosexual lover is, in some cosmically poetic but yet realistically inconceivable way, “more important†than the life and limb of 300,000,000 people?
November 14th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Section six.
My response is to say I don’t give a $hit. However, I’d be willing to serve/die – as many people have – in order that your right to respond always resides with you, and no one else.
That goes without saying … I guess we’ll put you on the front line then.
Thank you.
November 14th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
rc21,
Yes I should clarify. When I went back and read my post I should have made the distinction between being attacked and being at war. I think all people be they from the left or from the right of the political spectrum Know we were attacked. Yet many don’t think we are at war. Sorry for the confusion.
Not that they “deny†that we are at war, but that they do not agree with the ‘reason’ for it. To “deny” that we are [currently]: the operative word here I guess, ‘at war’, is the same as denying that you are alive or that there are other people in the world besides yourself. But that would be so ROS – so revisionist, so funky and off base. Right rc?
November 14th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Well I’ve been told this is the me generation .
November 15th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
A parenthetical remark.
Why would someone deny reams of data, statistical evidence and correlation, and even in some cases personal experience, just to deny that another way of looking at something exists? I have experienced this many times here on ROS. So I ask myself – are the people here on ROS really that ignorant? I don’t think so. It’s not that. Are they simply incapable of seeing what I see? That could be part of it, but not all of it. Could it be that the agenda here on ROS is so strong, so far left, that as a matter of principle they will disagree with ‘anything’ I have to say? I think this one is most likely the one that applies the most. I know they stick together and pass the torch when I debate with them, and that’s OK, because I’m very good at what I do and I enjoy the challenge. But like Bobby said recently (paraphrasing) I hope that when the chips are down that we would run to the others side with the readiness to defend each other if life and limb were threatened. I know I would. And it is to that spirit that I offer my time to ROS; to act as a liaison to “the other halfâ€, and hopefully bridge the gap between cooperation, and oblivion. Because the latter is too terrible to contemplate.
November 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
GvB, In some ways it is a complex issue. Unfortunately there is a small but evergrowing segment of the political left that just dislikes America,and especially Bush. It really does not matter what the issue is.
I know this because I was once one of them and I know and am friends with many of them now. I think it may just be that some people hate a winner or a person or entity that projects power.Not unlike a certain segment of the population that hates the Patriots or hated the Yankees when they were always winning. There really is no rational reason.
The sad thing is these people/groups are taking over the democratic party. Moveon, DailyKos,George Soros and his group all exert great power in the Dem party. With people like these running the govt who needs enemies.
November 16th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
“So would I. And this is why it is important to remember that Congress voted unanimously to go to war with Afghanistan in ‘01 – except of course for that one monkey who dissented.â€
It’s my understanding that Representative Lee voted ‘No’ on passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists bill because she was concerned that it didn’t clearly defined the limits/scope of the powers of the president. She worried that by passing the bill, Congress was in effect handing the president a blank check. Is that true? (I’m just asking if that was her reason. I’m not asking whether you agree with her reason. Not yet, anyway.)
Because when the Bush Administration cited that bill as grounds it could detain Hamdi – an American citizen – indefinitely because he was deemed an ‘unlawful enemy combatant’, the Supreme Court ruled (Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld) that the Bush Administration could not, in fact, detain a U.S. citizen indefinitely (unlawful enemy combatant or not), and by doing so, refuse him rights guaranteed him by the Constitution. Even Justice Scalia – the poster child of conservatism – disagreed with the Bush administration explanation. He said:
“The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive. Blackstone stated this principle clearly: ‘Of great importance to the public is the preservation of this personal liberty: for if once it were left in the power of any, the highest, magistrate to imprison arbitrarily whomever he or his officers thought proper…there would soon be an end of all other rights and immunities…to bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole kingdom.â€
What Scalia is saying– and what I’ve been proposing all along – is when our government starts interfering with the rights/liberties of its citizens – even just one citizen, e.g. Hamdi - it should cause us all to be concerned. That even “the state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of its nation’s citizens.” It’s why Thomas Jefferson said it was the government’s role to protect the liberties of each citizen, and that it was the citizens’ role to replace the government if it didn’t. So when I said “I’d be willing to serve/die – as many people have – in order that your right to respond always resides with you, and no one else.†I was implying that I’d fight our own government if they encroached upon your – or anyone’s – rights/liberties. It’s also why I get nervous when – as you suggested above – “that conservatives and the people at Fox News constantly reiterate. How is ‘one’ person’s privacy more important than the security of an ENTIRE NATION?â€. Or when you asked how my rights have been “curtailedâ€, my answer might be to quote the ACLU – the bane of rc21’s high blood pressure
– who, after being accused of turning to the dark side for representing Rush Limbaugh stated that the Bill of Rights was the true client. And it’s essentially what Scalia – as well as 7 of the other justices – stated in Hamdi vs. Rumsfeld. And let’s face it: Scalia would disown Hamdi if he was his son, and the ACLU lawyer that represented Limbaugh would just as soon french kissed Jabba the Hut; however, both Scalia and the ACLU appreciated/understood that no matter what the crisis, no matter what good intentions the government might offer, there has to be limits on what the government can do to protect the citizens. And they seem to suggest that invading the rights/liberties of its citizens – even just one citizen – is where that power ends. Another answer is to ask this question: When a soldier is captured by the enemy, why do fellow soldiers risk their own life to participate in an elaborate rescue mission? Why endanger the lives of other soldiers, why risk loosing millions of dollars in equipment, e.g. one helicopter costs the tax payer how much, just to save one man? It doesn’t make sense? But they do it anway. It’s equivalent to John Adams (Founding Father/President) who, knowing that his career, his very reputation was on the line, nevertheless represented the British soldiers (the enemy) who were accused of shooting into, and subsequently killing, American civilians. (Boston massacre) Adams recognized that they had rights/liberties, (the true client) that needed rescuing. In some respects, it’s why I admire the courage of Representative Lee when she voted No. Now we can certainly disagree with her reasons; I have not problem with that. But I admire someone who can stand alone even as the entire Congress is glaring at her; even while fellow citizens are calling her a traitor, or threatening her life/family. Conversely, just because someone voted Yes doesn’t imply they, therefore, must be patriotic. Because I’m willing to bet a few voted Yes simply out of peer pressure; or because they were coming up for reelection. I’m sure there were some who secretly agreed with Representative Lee, yet voted Yes, not because they were willing to put aside their views in order to protect the greater good of the nation. No, I’m willing to bet there were some who voted Yes because they were too cowardly to do anything different; because they were frightfully aware, as Representative Lee surely was, that they’d be crucified if they didn’t vote Yes. It’s why there are times when I find myself respecting someone who may endorse a view I disagree with, while suspicious of someone who purports to share my views. I know there will be times when I can at least trust the former; he’ll always speak on behalf of his principles. I can’t trust the latter; he’ll always speak on behalf of himself.
“On the one hand you come off as a “patriotâ€, a pro war person willing to ‘go to war at the drop of a dime’ (or so it seems)…on the other hand NONE of the wars mentioned in our correspondence, so far, have met your professional approval. Only you alone can give approval for a “just warâ€? Forgive me for being so suspicious but … how can I account for this huge schism – this apparently bipolar description of your words not matching your reasoning?â€
If I came across sounding “bi-polarâ€, I apologize. It wasn’t my intention. When I asked what the reason was for us going to war in the past, when I asked what Eisenhower should have told rc21’s father and my grandfather if asked why they were storming the beaches, I wasn’t implying that the reasons hadn’t met my ‘professional approval; rather, I was simply suggesting that the answer/reason should always be the same: to defend the Principles upon which this nation was founded: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Furthermore, it wasn’t my intention to come across as someone willing to “go to war at the drop of a dimeâ€. War is ugly; plain and simple. And I’d question the humanity of anyone who says otherwise. But I also recognize that sometimes there is no alternative. That being said, we – the United States – had better be damn sure are reasons honorable when the bombs start falling.
“Imagine that you are the only one walking down the street and suddenly you see someone coming towards you. The closer they get, the faster your mind races thinking of all sorts of scenarios. You can tell it is a man. As if from nowhere he is now about three feet away standing directly in front of you holding a knife. He says “give me your walletâ€! The options available to you in this situation are very limited.â€
I assume you presented this scenario as an analogy to 9/11? Either way, my answer is this: I use to carry a concealed weapon. (I no longer do now, though) And – like any military unit, athlete, etc. – I would practice ‘real world’ scenarios. I’d meet each week with a private instructor and he and I would practice on the range and then at the end we’d review. Now my reason for even bringing this up is because the lessons my instructor continually drilled into my head relates to what we’ve been discussing (it also might clarify my “bi-polarâ€
First lesson: If you have to shoot someone in self-defense, you better be able to show that you first exhausted all other options, that you were incapable of doing anything else except use your firearm. Also, when you do shoot/kill your assailant, do so with the notion that you’re not fighting/killing an enemy insomuch as you’re protecting the right of every citizen (that includes you AND the assailant) to walk safely down the street; to be able to go outside and not be harmed. Doing this keeps it from getting personal; it’s why I now appreciate how Justice Scalia can protect Hamdi’s rights, when he’d rather dip him in blood and then feed him to a family of starved rabid wolves.
Second lesson: Never draw your firearm until you’re ready to use it. The idea being: (1) simply pulling out your gun to threaten, intimidate, etc. presents scenarios that are potentially hazardous to yourself, e.g. the perpetrator somehow takes your gun and uses it on you, or perhaps a police officer or another armed citizen walks into the scenario and – ironically – shoots you, because (you guessed it) a person should be able to walk outside and not be accosted by someone with a gun. (2) more importantly: when you draw your firearm, the entire situation has now escalated. i.e. if there were other options that could have brought a more “diplomatic†ending, they are less likely to be utilized. Because when tensions are high, when both parties are looking at the gun, each thinking, “$hit!!! Now what do I do?†everyone’s ability to reason – obviously – is now hindered.
Third Lesson: (something I’m not sure I would have ever thought about, but my instructor said is is essential to remember if one decided to carry a gun. It’s also something I actually thought about 9/11) If you do have to shoot your assailant, and even if you can prove your actions were warranted, and no charges are pressed, there is now a small possibility that your assailant (let’s call him Billy), though considered a criminal in the eyes of the community, has a family who thinks differently. And now Billy’s mom is pissed. She doesn’t like you; and is now looking to avenge her son’s death. So, be aware that a day may come when you find yourself standing fact-to- face with a woman you’ve never seen before, a woman who is holding a gun in her hand, and screaming at you for killing her precious little Billy (that also may be the first time you learn the name of your assailant) and now you must pay. The point being (and what I sometimes believe Americans who say we ‘invited’ 9/11 may – but not always – be trying to say) is this: though you certainly didn’t ‘invite’ this maniac woman into your life, and though you could not have predicted this scenario would be a consequence of your actions when you shot your assailant (Hell! You were minding your own business to begin when Billy got in your face), and though it is by no means justifies the woman’s actions – because she too will now be held accountable for her actions – you realize that had you not shot Billy, you would not be facing this crazed woman now. It’s similar to the idea of ‘Blowback’, that there can be unseen consequences stemming from actions taken, e.g. Sept 11. Again, it’s not to presume it’s our fault for what happened, and it certainly does not excuse those responsible; it’s simply making an observation without making a judgment. Anyway, it’s simply an observation I’ve thought about when looking back over the last 7 years. I’ll now step off my soapbox
November 16th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
But if you didn’t shoot Billy you probably wouldn’t be alive to worry about his mother. Billy would have already finished you off.
Actually I can see your point on American citizens and their constitutional rights being observed. I don’t however think non citezens should be afforded the same protections.
As a matter of fact I think a strong case can be made that all the combatants that were picked up on the battle field could be executed under the geneva conventions definition of spies and their punishment.
November 18th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Bobby,
It is often that people devise reasons and excuses to compensate for a lack of better judgment of the things they cannot comprehend. They may go to great lengths to invent grandiose schemes in an attempt to intoxicate their minds against things, people, and ideas that, for one reason or another, cannot be explained. Thus we sometimes attach “purpose†to the “next lifeâ€, due to a lack of courage on how to live fully in ‘this’ life: the one that we were born into. I myself am guilty of this, but I do not pass judgment on others or blame or compare them to the world view that works or does not work, for me. I take full responsibility for my achievements, and failures. It is only when other people’s view of the world comes into direct conflict with my own that I realize that a more sophisticated – shall we say less provincial and more democratic adaptation needs to be initiated – because I am educated enough to know that in order for me to get something from the system, I must first make room for others. The less flexible the person, the harder the life. I do not burden others with my own pathos and metaphysical interpretation of the Universe. It seems to me that some people are already overburdened with it. However, I do indeed take offence when I feel that others are judging me by their standards, and not my own. Deep down I am preoccupied with not judging others. It is to this raison d’être that I live my life.
……
I need a direct answer to a follow up question I have on your opinion of my example of the mugging situation. You have dubbed the mugger “Billyâ€. OK, let’s call him Billy. What I need for you to do is explain in the most possible detail how the following components of your adaptation of my example work.
You words in italics.
There is now a small possibility that your assailant (let’s call him Billy), though considered a criminal in the eyes of the community, has a family who thinks differently.
Stop right there! This is your first mistake. Who knows if Billy is a criminal “In the eyes of the communityâ€? No one else knows about what is happening except the two of us. Unless you meant that he is a criminal ‘now’, for the first time at least, by robbing me, then OK. Right away you chose, for reasons unknown, to reshape my example to fit into some preexisting schema that has nothing to do with the point I was making. Your second mistake is when you suggest that his “Family [may] think differentlyâ€. According to you, when in the process of being mugged, I should ponder “the reasons†Billy may have for mugging me? LOL … any psychologist will tell you that when the danger level is to such a high pitch, under those circumstances, that access to the reflective and quiescent thought processes we would otherwise need to analyze it, are not readily available. The mammalian reflex of “fight or flight†kicks in and the self preservation mode takes over. And now, this is the funniest part, I should think about “his familyâ€. How utterly ridiculous is that? Should I also see to it that he has the proper clothing so he doesn’t catch cold after he runs away and sweats? Perhaps I should also offer an apology for having a few dollars in my wallet because I worked for it and he didn’t? Or maybe I should just offer up my life because I am in his way? I must have really done something wrong to deserve this kind of punishment, but yet I am innocent.
Before I indulge in conjecture involving the concept of “original sin†or allegories composed of leprechauns or strange Cosmic Poetry which seems to be an ROS favorite – which is just a bunch of hereditary maladroitness based on the inability to separate the Church from the State, yet you make such a good impression. You can achieve it metaphysically, but not in some cases socially, and certainly not in a court of law!! It is a pre-enlightenment “weltanschauungâ€, of sorts – a concoction involving a bit of Descartes, a smattering of [misplaced] Euclidean Geometry, and a few leprechauns.
So please Bobby, spell it out for me! Describe to me EXACTLY HOW (it works), WHY (it exists), WHO (put it there) and WHAT (is the nature of) this mechanism that would allow me to ponder what is going on in the mind of a mugger, while he is mugging me. I would really appreciate it.
Thanks.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Bobby,
Your words in italics or otherwise quoted.
It’s my understanding that Representative Lee voted ‘No’ on passing the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists bill because she was concerned that it didn’t clearly defined the limits/scope of the powers of the president. She worried that by passing the bill, Congress was in effect handing the president a blank check. Is that true? (I’m just asking if that was her reason. I’m not asking whether you agree with her reason. Not yet, anyway.)
I have no idea what her “reason†was. The Monkeys and The Leprechauns don’t need a “reason†other than to oppose the powers that be simply because they exist; that a *hereditary maladroitness* prevents them from seeing the big picture; that they had no hand in its history, evolution, and construction – and therefore no concern for its future. They tear down whoever and whenever any chance they get out of jealously and ineptness. So let’s ‘assume’ for the sake of argument that she, as you claim, was worried about “Handing the president a blank checkâ€. And then you ask “Is that trueâ€? I can only say that I am not psychic and that I have no way of answering that question. However, if you have EVIDENCE to illustrate your supposition, such as a formal quote from the congresswoman, please submit it to me for review.
It must be stressed in the strongest possible terms that the exception (Barbara Lee) does not prove the rule (self preservation)! When life and limb are threatened and murderers are on the loose, philosophical notions (such as when you quoted Marquis de Lafayette: There exist certain natural rights inherent in every society of which not only one nation but all the nations together could not justly deprive an individual, and other such abstract language of a nascent democracy); inasmuch as The Bill of Rights and The Declaration of Independence, is not applicable when people are trying to kill you!! Would you at least agree that self preservation is, if only temporarily, more important than philosophizing about rights during an act of murder? Please return your answers with the same level of accuracy and clarity in which my questions are posed.
Thanks.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Bobby,
Your words in italics.
I was implying that I’d fight our own government if they encroached upon your – or anyone’s – rights/liberties.
Except perhaps for the murder victims of 911! That could have been any one of us. How did you feel at the time of 911? And is there any difference insofar between then and now as far as those feelings are concerned? Why did you turn your back on them now Bobby? And if that isn’t true, then I guess you would have fought the terrorists back then, right Bobby? Or is it Humpty?
“…Both Scalia and the ACLU appreciated/understood that no matter what the crisis, no matter what good intentions the government might offer, there has to be limits on what the government can do to protect the citizens.
I agree. Now answer the question! Did our government do the right thing by going into Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as a response to the murders in New York a month before? Please try not to answer any other question besides this one, and please do not ‘twist’ the question into something that it isn’t.
Wait till you hear about the Coalition Forces vs. Afghan kill ratio Bobby. It’s over 100 to 1 in our favor! And the terrorist to child kill ratio is about 15 to 1. Pretty good huh? I was just wondering how the leprechauns in your head are going to make up for these numbers. How does your cosmic poetry account for such a disparity? Some of those Afghans were innocent Bobby – just like the people in the Twin Towers!! But you don’t care about innocence, do you Bobby? Everybody is ‘guilty’ as far as you’re concerned. Guilty as charged – we’re all guilty. Obviously you can’t rap your mind around man made evil. So you invent unrealistic excuses. The leprechauns in your head possess a *hereditary maladroitness* free will and many other legal, philosophical, historical, and current events issues. You do not understand how the lines between transcendence and immanence and existentialism intersect.
You have a nice day now Bobby. Have a green tea late or something.
Thanks.
PS: I am not finished answering your November 16th post. Please be patient, I am otherwise busy. I intend to finish answering you by Friday of this week. For the sake of continuity please wait until I am finished before you respond. I will let you know when I post the last posting of this response.
November 20th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Bobby,
Correction:
In the above post after *hereditary maladroitnes* it should read: that prevents you from understanding …
Here is the whole paragraph once again:
Wait till you hear about the Coalition Forces vs. Afghan kill ratio Bobby. It’s over 100 to 1 in our favor! And the terrorist to child kill ratio is about 15 to 1. Pretty good huh? I was just wondering how the leprechauns in your head are going to make up for these numbers. How does your cosmic poetry account for such a disparity? Some of those Afghans were innocent Bobby – just like the people in the Twin Towers!! But you don’t care about innocence, do you Bobby? Everybody is ‘guilty’ as far as you’re concerned. Guilty as charged – we’re all guilty. Obviously you can’t rap your mind around man made evil. So you invent unrealistic excuses. The leprechauns in your head possess a *hereditary maladroitness* that prevents you from understanding free will and many other legal, philosophical, historical, and current events issues. You do not understand how the lines between transcendence and immanence and existentialism intersect.
November 20th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
GodzillaVsBambi,
I’m afraid to say this conversation has come to an end; that it has run its course. Potter commented earlier that I had more patience than others; perhaps she’s right. But even my patience has its limits; and it ended where your accusations began in that last post. So, respond to my November 16th post, if you wish. I cannot stop you. However, I will not be back to read it.
November 23rd, 2007 at 2:21 pm
Bobby,
I disagree because you did not answer some key questions. It is as if you appeared to entertain others of like mind, but then ran out on the debate. Your word must be the last, even though between the two of us you spoke first. I consider that rude. Nevertheless I am dismayed to see such a worthy (debate) opponent simply disappear. That is not my style, and I owe it to the people who were left hanging on this thread and to myself to complete my side of it. I thought we had connected on at least one point, but in reality we did not. It seemed as if Bobby and Godzilla would actually fight on the same side for their country if only … and this is part of the problem: you criticized all military conflicts to date from WW ll to Iraq, but did not spell out the specific circumstances under which we would fight together. I will list these issues and questions that you/we have avoided in a concise manner on Tuesday, November 27, on this thread.
Thank you anyway.
November 23rd, 2007 at 6:54 pm
“Rude”?
Got mirror?
Less actual rudeness (not imagined and accused) might help to encourage uncomfortable lurkers to post here again, as they did in the golden olden days of ROS.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:50 am
Bobby,
All of the following questions were NEVER ANSWERED by you. The list is incomplete. I will post part 2 of 2 this Friday. Your words in italics.
One. This is a key question.
I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on ‘why you think some people stay in the military for life and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones, while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it’?
Two. I can only assume that when Benjamin Franklin said: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.†did so because he had seen it happen before and/or he anticipated it could happen in the futureâ€.
Why not? However, the part you DO NOT UNDERSTAND is the difference between talk of war to come, talk of war after the war from the past, and talk of war DURING the war IN THE PRESENT TENSE! I have reiterated in many ways on this thread the differences between theory and practice: how DURING war the choices available to the people being attacked are, in the most blatant and obvious way, critically limited especially when the enemy does not play by the same rules! In order to survive, the playing field must be leveled. The CONTEXT is not the same as it is during peacetime, in a classroom or a think-tank. The language and the context of the Law in this situation are also quite complex, but like I said, I do not discuss anything seminal on the internet. (Suffice it to say that President Bush’s legacy of saving the country, along with his grace under pressure, and patriotism, will be protected well into the distant future)!
One context is theoretical and/or ideological and a priori in nature, and the other is the practice of the theory of and/or non ideological and a posteriori in nature.
And so the question arises: are you ‘able’ to see a difference between the two contexts?
If you answer ‘yes’ to this question, it does not mean that “therefore†you are admitting to some other pretext I may or may not have in mind. I simply wish to know if you are ‘able’ to see the difference. An honest answer to this question would clarify a few things for me.
Three. In reference to “Billyâ€, our fictitious mugger. Do I have the right to defend my life under the circumstances in the example I gave?
Four. As a citizen, what can you not do now that you could do before 911 and the Patriot Act?
Five. What are the specific circumstances in which you feel a war between America and any other country would be justified? What are the specific reasons and circumstances in which you would fight for America?
Six. My point is that is you attack liberals for not respecting people’s experiences – experiences that, in the end, are all we really have, and from which each of us form our opinions.
This is incorrect. Experiences are NOT “the only way†people accumulate knowledge.
Do you agree that this claim is a mistake?
Seven. About 911. How about a little reverse engineering? Would you invite the terrorists back to kill more people? Can we start with that question? Or is the answer “too complicated†because I don’t accept your brand of [ROS far left] Cosmic Poetry? Maybe Palestine or the Jews or Original Sin have something to do with it? You think? Could it be the FACT, the TRUTH about how the Jews suffered under Roman rule during The Second Temple Period has anything to do with the way you view (what is he nuts) contemporary reality? The FACT that because the political reality of that time was intentionally kept out of the New Testament – shall we say, has *interfered* with your ability to weigh up the truth about who the real terrorists are? Perhaps you feel that we (America) were correct in chasing down the terrorists wherever they may be, but would rather not admit it in public. I am sure that the claim will be made that I am completely wrong about all this. I am willing to be wrong, but only under one condition. That you provide an answer to the following question!
What would you have done shortly thereafter 911 about the 3,000 lives that were snuffed out by the murderers?
Eight. John Locke on Of Political Power and the preservation of property, “…Employing the force of the community …in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this for the public goodâ€. On September 14, 2007, congress passed a joint resolution: “The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” Terrorism is defined by what happened on 911 when almost 3,000 American people were murdered in cold blood. Terrorism is also defined by the 25k Saddam Hussein sent to the families of homicide bombers in Israel back in the early part of the current decade.
Do you agree with the unanimous congressional approval (except for the lone congresswoman, Barbara Lee) to invade Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as a response to the murders of almost 3,000 American citizens on 911?
……
Revisiting some of your comments.
How would I have ever known that you were raised in the inner-city?
I already answered this one, but I should have added that you did not know. Yet you chose to assume that I had “no experienceâ€. Where did you ever get the idea that I must first live as a minority does, to “understand†what they go through? And secondly, isn’t observing, or just knowing about their lifestyle – the crime, the cockroaches, deadbeat dads, welfare, prostitution, low literacy, and the various other minutiae of hereditary incompetence – enough to “understand†(a priori), that I do not desire to ‘be’ like them? Did you EVER consider the possibility that I am well enough equipped to avoid these misfortunes in the first place?
And is it possible that you might have given the same answers had you lived/experienced their life?
You just don’t know how to stop being so presumptuous! I answered this question as well – but I must reiterate a resounding NO. The reason why my answer is no is not only because I’ve lived in a Black neighborhood for over a year, but because I have experience with Black people going much further back than that. In case you forgot I went to public school here in New York. I was not, as you assumed incorrectly, raised in the inner city, but I have been living close enough to them for most of my life. I know them well enough both personally and academically to know that I DO NOT WANT TO BE LIKE THEM, AND THAT I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE WAY THEY LIVE, AND THINK. Can you respect that? Is that OK with you? Or what?
At what point would you say our government’s interpretation of the Constitution is infringing upon the rights/freedoms of the people it claims to protect?
When you say “Claims to protectâ€, you make it sound as if you doubt the fact that they protect us? This is condescending and unnecessarily cynical, but I will answer you anyway.
Would you agree that the bureaucracy in our country moves slowly? I think most people would. Now follow me on this. There are three modes of human behavior: thought, speech, and action. Right now I don’t see anything on the “thought horizon†threatening our way of life except the forthcoming and possibly inevitable alliance with Canada and Mexico, while losing the Southwest to the latter. I also see China and Russia vying for control in the Middle East – causing trouble there and in various other locations around the globe. If you see the planet as one big happy family – which I would not argue against that it may turn out that way ‘some’ day (but obviously not today) – then the human garbage you are looking for now is in Moscow, not Washington. As of this posting, there is a crackdown on democratic reform in Russia with many arrests and people thrown in jail. Will we hear a word from ROS concerning this or, say, Chinese influence and mass murder in Darfur? Perhaps we will – but unfortunately I am all to positive that we will hear much more in the way of Bush Bashing, and other self righteous and counterintuitive appraisals of the hand that feeds us.
Our ‘perception’ is different than it was before 911 because we know that the government is watching, and that alone puts a whole new perspective on reality. Considering human nature and what people will attempt to get away with if given the opportunity, I think it is a good thing that big brother is watching. Our freedom to speak out and move around the country at will is still the same. Nothing has changed – except that the Leprechauns in your head come out of the Pope’s basement from time to time, and they have to be cut down to size. Other than that and long lines at the airport, nothing has changed.
According to your Cosmic Poetry who protects us? Putin? The Mafia? The Pope? Leprechauns? Jesus? Who? SOMEBODY must be doing it, OBVIOUSLY! So tell me who? Aliens from another planet? Black people? LOL, they wouldn’t do it. They COULDN’T do it! They can barely feed themselves and keep track of who belongs to whom in their communities. Cut me some slack here and tell me … who watches over the people in America? Who preserves their sweet innocence and their freedom to dream?
Are you now suggesting that it’s flawed reasoning for someone to be flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism while simultaneously showing a lack of flexibility regarding the Constitution?
No. What I am saying is that there is an air of opportunism about it. All of a sudden Al Gore becomes a strict constructionist? According to classic political and legal theories one may expect that ‘Bush’ would act in this fashion, but certainly not Mr. Globalization himself. I think the difference between them is most striking when we make a not so difficult attempt to realize that the political and legal theories between these two men switches places in times of crises, i.e. that Gore talks a good game and would no doubt perform better on domestic issues such as health care, and by putting some economic life back in to the middle class, whereas Bush is more decisive and keen to act when it comes to threats on property, and life and limb such as 911.
Thanks.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Interesting that the word ‘Pakistan’ has only occurs once in this multi-logue! Iran does not have nukes; Pakistan does. Iran may have received help on its nuclear program — along with North Korea, Libya, China — from Pakistan. Iran has not sold nuclear technology (to our knowledge) around the world as a commercial venture; Pakistan has. — And all the drum-beating is about (nope) NOT Pakistan’s ‘loose nuke’ problems, but Iran. Go figure! I strongly suggest folks get and read a copy of ‘Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy, by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark. It explains in large part why the American political elites have studiously ignored Pakistan’s contribution (ongoing!) to nuclear proliferation and the possibilities of nuclear terrorism. It should come as no surprise that several American administrations have been complicit in the creation of Pakistan’s nuclear horror. So, like the magician, they shift attention away from the core of rottenness to a convenient scape goat. Fascinating that for the most part their ‘magic trick’ seems to be working. It will be fascinating when the first Pakistani manufactured or designed nuke is detonated somewhere… the finger pointing will be a sight to see (assuming the finger pointers are not at the point of detonation, in which case they won’t be pointing anything).
December 14th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Did these guys get it right?
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/
December 14th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
What does “zeit geist” mean?
December 14th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
Hi Flow,
Zeitgeist - The spirit of the
time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time.
December 14th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Not sure why the link doesn’t work. But that’s the basic definition
December 14th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Thank you Bobby.
December 21st, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Sent this as a mail to Chris ans Mary earlier. Chris wrote me back and suggested I post it here to add to he debate.
==============
Dear radio opensource,
From the moment I started listening to radio opensource podcasts I enjoyed them immensely. So this is hard to say and not meant to you personally in any way. But is has to be said.
It just finished listening to your 6-part series ‘they got it right’ on a group of people that foresaw some of the disastrous effects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As is most often the case the interviewees were smart, thoughtful and reasonably well-informed. But something as bugging me all the time and now that I have discovered what is is I feel I have to share.
Shame.
Shame on the interviewer and the interviewees.
Not a word. Not one word in 6 talks about the 1.2 million Iraqi citizens (30+% of them children) that are dead. Not apology, no regret. Not even a word of sympathy. How can this be? Has even the top 1% of US intellectuals gone utterly insane? They did nothing to you. They were innocent. And you complain about the fact you’ve been lied to by your government? You think you have a problem? Every day you allow your government to stay in power you a condoning genocide.
Why should the rest of the world care what happens to the US if its citizens are unable to take basic responsibility for what has been done (and is being done) in their name? Ask ‘Why do they hate us?’ This is one of your answers.
Why are you sitting behind your computer? Why are you not in the streets by the millions taking back what is left of your country?
The dollar is falling apart, your military is unable to even occupy a single city in a third world country. You’re so far in debt the rest of the planet will soon have no choice but to pull the plug on your $800 billion trade deficit and your $3 trillion housing bubble. Your problem is not about the messed-up 2 party system or your messed-up media system it’s how you will import enough fuel to survive next winter after the dollar goes down the tube. You will need friends and navel gazing and intellectualizing about your internal politics quite frankly does not cut it anymore if your government is overseeing the largest genocide since Pol Pot.
Are you still here? Get up! Get out! Do something! Show the rest of the world that you are willing to take personal risks to end genocide financed by your taxes!
Saddened and flabbergasted but still a subscriber.
Arjen
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
January 7th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404308.html