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"I haven't heard anyone aroused about me speaking at the New School," John McCain said in April, defending his decision to address Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.
Nobody at all, except for virtually the entire crowd at the New School's Madison Square Garden graduation ceremony in New York City. At the beginning of the event, New School President, and former Senator, Bob Kerrey predicted a raucous affair. "Our founding purpose is proudly liberal," he said. "We began as an act of protest."
The school's tradition of dissent carried on today. Scores of New School students held orange signs, and a few banners, reading "McCain Does Not Speak For Me," and "Our Commencement Is Not Your Platform." What began as mild rumblings of disapproval before McCain's speech soon exploded into boos, catcalls and turned backs.
The spark was provided by undergraduate keynote speaker Jean Sara Rohe, a composed, seemingly innocuous jazz musician and singer. After beginning with a short folk song (true to classic graduation speech form) Rohe quickly tossed aside her prepared remarks to directly address McCain.
"This ceremony has become something other than the celebratory gathering it was intended to be," Rohe said. "The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded. This invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all." The crowd erupted.
"I consider this a time of crisis and I feel compelled to speak," Rohe continued, referencing McCain's speech at Falwell's Liberty University last Saturday.
She paraphrased McCain's words on the folly of youthful stubbornness and ignorance.
"I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous and wrong, that George Bush's agenda in Iraq is not worth the many lives lost," said Rohe. "And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction." The vast majority of the crowd gave her a standing ovation.
"Well, we're having fun now, aren't we?" Kerrey cracked before introducing McCain.
The Senator spoke in a dull monotone, without his usual charisma or charm. He was noticeably deflated by the crowd's harsh reception towards him. Remarks such as "I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq," were met with loud boos.
"I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country's interests and values required it."
"Wrongly!" one student boomed from the back. Sitting directly behind us, Maureen Dowd and Adam Nagourney of the New York Times, chuckled.
As McCain droned on, students became increasingly restless. One cried, "This speech sucks!" Several students walked out early.
Summing up the mood of the day, another shouted, "We're graduating, not voting."
Quotes have been properly updated and corrected.
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But haven't most of the wingnuts already all but anointed John McCain as our next president?!
"I consider this a time of crisis and I feel compelled to speak," Rohe continued, referencing McCain's speech at Falwell's Liberty University last Saturday.
It's good that these kids remember. I remember also. I used to have a soft spot for McCain becuase he was, at times, willing to stand up and speak his mind. But then came the Republican convention. I vividly remember him standing at the podium, with Bush's arms around him, grinning sheepishly, looking for all the world like a puppy getting his tummy rubbed.
Posted by Lillian at 05/19/2006 @ 7:33pm
Maybe Fitzgerald has nothing but his dick in his hands.
Posted by john maasch at 05/19/2006 @ 8:16pm
Not being a McCain fan, I feel bad for him as he was treated rudely by impolite students, the same who will want pay checks from the very crowd they despise. Good luck to them....they will need it.
Posted by john maasch at 05/19/2006 @ 8:18pm
The students are not yet wise and are inexperienced, but they may actually have stregnthened McCains hand. They , as I did, went to school ignorant and came out realizing that one of the things I learned was how much I didn't know, and I showed this all the time, as did the students to McCain and the world. When they grow up a little more they will see this as an opportunity lost, and as a few of them start to earn some money, will change their views to the real life view...ala Churchhill.
Posted by john maasch at 05/19/2006 @ 8:22pm
Frank,
MaCain is the next president..not my candidate, but he is the next president...your candidate, Hillary, will lose....big time.
Posted by john maasch at 05/19/2006 @ 8:24pm
McCain's reception at the New School is the same reception Nancy Pelosi would have gotten at Liberty University. WHY he thought he would receive anything different is nothing short of breath-taking.
Posted by jkbriscoe at 05/19/2006 @ 8:26pm
John,
I understand your response, as it's one I hear all the time: When these kids start dealing with the "real world", they'll get "real world" views. I, too, went to college and learned that I didn't know much, and then I, too, began making money. I've been very fortunate in my chosen profession to be very successful, and the money I make should, financially, make me a Republican. Yet there are ideals higher than money, higher than cash flow -- and for that reason, I can only say that I hope these kids do go on to earn money, and that they, too, choose to remain faithful to their youthful idealism. There's no reason to become cold and hard when you get older and wealthier; it only gives you the opportunity to actually *do* something with your age and wealth, rather than just sit back and deride those who don't yet have either.
Posted by Michael C at 05/19/2006 @ 8:30pm
Youth, the freedom to speak truth to power. Mr. Straight talk express should stop making a fool of himself. Both Hillary and McCain have pandered too much to be taken seriously.
Posted by Elucid at 05/19/2006 @ 9:31pm
If some politician can use THEIR graduation as a campaign stop, I see nothing wrong with the reaction of these students. I have lived a blessed life. I have been a troubled teen, who almost dropped out of high-school. I served in the Navy. I worked in a blue-collar job for 5 years while earning my Associates degree; and, in less than a week, I will be graduating from medical school at age 34. Life does have a way of changing our values and beliefs. I am so different now from who I was during any one of these life stages. What this has taught me is that I can never truly understand where someone is coming from, or why they believe what they believe. I cannot account for my own beliefs through the years! Who am I to say how someone should react to a situation, or who they should vote for, or what they should feel passionate about. That's the beauty of this country though. We do not have to agree on much. I only need to agree that I should be able to live my life how I want, as long as this does not affect your right to do the same. It does not matter whether I am young or old, student or working stiff, conservative or liberal. We just need to agree that we will have respect for each others rights. This is where we should begin the dialoge in this country. This is where I see evil in this administration, in this government in general. They are supposed to be our leaders. I take that back, they are our leaders. This explains why most of us now are engaged in a senseless war of words against our fellow Americans. This is why we have lost site of what is truly important. Can't we all agree that honesty, principles and courage are severely lacking on BOTH sides of the aisle? And once we agree on this point, shouldn't we then come together to fix the system? Once this is accomplished I would gladly listen to any idea, conservative or liberal.
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/19/2006 @ 9:38pm
.
The New School was once called, The University in Exile. It employed intellectuals like Claude Levi-Strauss, Jacques Maritain, Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss. They had fled a Europe where intellectuals burned books, where idealists preached religious intolerance, and where democrats where hanged on meathooks.
What were the ideals of those refugees? Would they have gone into the streets to keep in power a mass murderer who tore out the tongues of his critics? Would they have sided with a fascist insurgency that declared democracy, freedom of speech and religious toleration, wicked?
But that was what that crowd with its turned backs, hissing scholars, and chuckling Maureen Dowd supported.
They execrated a John McCain who spent five and half years a prisoner in the Hanoi Hilton. Wounded and an admiral's son Hanoi offered to swap him for NVN prisoners. He refused unless all his buddies were freed with him. That got him four more years in that hell. Dowd and Nagourney, Berman and Graham-Felsen, plus that entire graduating class aren't worth one McCain.
.
Posted by nacl at 05/19/2006 @ 9:42pm
NACL - Do share with us a list of the folks who went into the streets to keep in power a mass murderer? List of folks who sided with fascist insurgency? And no cheating - you can't include folks who disagreed with the administration. You've got to come up with folks who actually supported Hussein. Oh sorry, you've already listed them - the turned back crowd + Maureen Dowd.
Posted by Fishbite at 05/19/2006 @ 9:53pm
Exactly why would you invite someone only just to boo him?
I guess that's what passes for political discussion now-a-days.
Posted by Zeddmen at 05/19/2006 @ 9:58pm
Zed - the kids didn't invite him.
Posted by Fishbite at 05/19/2006 @ 10:03pm
The idea that McCain is a "maverick" or a "moderate" has NEVER been anything but PR and mass media bullshit. Look at his voting record, not his speeches. And frankly, the fact that he napalmed Vietnamese villagers and got captured for it doesn't really impress me.
Posted by rakhia at 05/19/2006 @ 10:15pm
Michael,
I agree that time makes conservatives of many of us. Money, however, is not a decider of party affiliation.
Nor does money make republicans by default.
NACL, of course is correct once again. What was Maureen Dowdy there for? To find a husband? Good luck.....
Posted by john maasch at 05/19/2006 @ 10:24pm
Michael,
I agree that time makes conservatives of many of us. Money, however, is not a decider of party affiliation.
Nor does money make republicans by default.
NACL, of course is correct once again. What was Maureen Dowdy there for? To find a husband? Good luck.....
Posted by john maasch at 05/19/2006 @ 10:24pm
Posted by FRANKGRITS 05/19/2006 @ 9:31pm: Some democrats have sons and daughters who are Marines.
And, some democrats have brothers and sisters who are marines...
And, some democrats have wifes or husbands who are marines...
And, some democrats have friends and family who are marines...
And, some democrats are marines.
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/19/2006 @ 10:39pm
Oh, and Dear Sweet Annie. She ain't no fucking marine
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/19/2006 @ 10:39pm
Posted by JOHN MAASCH 05/19/2006 @ 10:24pm: NACL, of course is correct once again.
This is really a strange phenomenon. The shared delusional hallucination.
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/19/2006 @ 10:45pm
Like all pandering Republicans, McCain learned much later that instead of sticking up for principles as it appeared he did during the 2000 presidential campaign, he has clearly succumbed to the nattering tolerance-for-none Religious Right whose votes he needs to win in 2008. But, to be fair, most politicians are prostitutes anyway so why should his passing muster with End of Dayers and Armageddon-seeking fanatics faze him? He passed his first litmus test in a campaign that some have predicted will force any candidate to raise upwards of $200 million to just get in the race.
The question is, will the Religious Right think McCain's ass is worth buying? After all, we have Sam Brownback of Kansas, Bill "Terri Schiavo wasn't in a persistent vegetative state" Frist and some even have George Allen in the running for the hearts and minds of the Religious Right.
My guess is, McCain has self-anointed himself far too early and I don't believe he'll win the nomination. Like most of these depraved, hypocritical Republicans though, he knows even losers will feed voraciously at the money trough that the corrupt corporate contributors are all too happy to dole out to those willing to play their high stakes, rigged monopoly game. McCain, ever the groveler and compromiser, will willingly take what ever droppings are left behind.
Posted by richard38 at 05/19/2006 @ 10:47pm
I live in the NYC area. Today on CBS radio (880 AM) I heard that "Students turned their backs" and "held up signs" to McCain, but that they "booed John Kerry"
Is this what happened? Was Kerry booed? Or McCain?
Posted by DDon at 05/19/2006 @ 10:54pm
.
French school texts say, one third of France supported the Resistance and were glad when they heard the Allies landed on D-Day. The rest of the country either regretted landings, and hoped they would fail, or was indifferent.
Does that make all those Frenchmen who did not believe it was a good idea for the Anglo Saxons to invade the Continent and drive the Wehrmacht back to Berlin, somehow fascist collaborators?
You bet it does.
And that holds also for you. When you side against a US army fighting a mass murdering tyranny, when you demand an immediate pull out which will let a fascist insurgency triumph, then you are supporting that scum, and are a fascist collaborator as surely as were the French. When on one side a regime is pulling out the tongues of human beings, and on the other men mean to stop that regime, there is no middle ground. If you demand that that regime be left alone, you are siding with it and become a collaborator in its cimes. Period.
But you hate fascims and don't think of yourself as a fascist. Yes, but what matters is not the construction you give to your behavior. What matters is the reality of your behavior. That reality makes you and your lot, fascist collaborators. If you side with fascists, even while holding your nose and flourishing shiny ideals, a fascist collaborator is what you are.
In short fishbite, you may be a sparkle saint with the smell of roses in your own mind. But in the real world you have the smell and shine of rotten mackerel by moonlight.
.
Posted by nacl at 05/19/2006 @ 11:02pm
Posted by NACL 05/19/2006 @ 11:02pm:When you side against a US army fighting a mass murdering tyranny, when you demand an immediate pull out which will let a fascist insurgency triumph, then you are supporting that scum, and are a fascist collaborator as surely as were the French. When on one side a regime is pulling out the tongues of human beings, and on the other men mean to stop that regime, there is no middle ground. If you demand that that regime be left alone, you are siding with it and become a collaborator in its cimes. Period.
My god, Salty. You have really lost it.
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
- Mark Twain, 1904
The more things change...
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/19/2006 @ 11:12pm
Maaschy, John McCain getting cozy with "Fuckwad" Falwell shows what a morally-spent, loser that he really is. Johnny will never be president. He is far to whorish to accomplish that feat.
He will not be remembered. And you already, are forgotten.
Summertime, is just around the corner.
Love, (even to losers)
Bloppy
Posted by bloppy at 05/19/2006 @ 11:49pm
DDon, you are confusing John Kerry with Bob Kerrey. the latter, who DIDN't run for pres in 2004, is an admitted war criminal, think MyLai, though he was not connected with that incident. he is also the pres of the NEW School, and it was he who invited McCain.the NEW SCHOOL was set up as a progressive institution, and was staffed with refugees from Hitler. For Kerrey to invite such a duplicious right winger was unconscionable and a slap in the face of the student body.Kerrey is an intelligent man and his motives are a big question mark.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/19/2006 @ 11:53pm
I apologize for straying a bit, but I promise to bring it around to the current issue. It does NO good arguing superficially. Define what we are fighting for, and who is the enemy please. If we fight for freedom, we must protect freedom (especially here). If we fight to make our country "safer", then we really need to have a long, rational discussion about what this means. Would I kill a group of innocent people to get one "bad guy" in order to save my family if they were personally under attack? This is one of the core questions we face. In fact, we kill innocents for far less. I want security as much as anyone. Yet, I can't help but ask myself if what we are doing will actually make us LESS safe. Whatever your political stance, think about the logic here. If a foreign army came into your neighborhood in the middle of the night, ransacked your house, took away your son/father/uncle/etc.., all in the name of "freeing you from a tyrant", how would you react? I can't help but think that all of the killing, destruction, and hate will only serve to make us LESS safe. Imagine if I came to your house and killed your (insert someone you love). Would ANY justification I gave you matter at all? Maybe I was not free before, but I was alive, my loved-ones were alive, my house was still here. Again, this is about making us more safe right? Most of us (conservative/liberal) saw something in McCain that we liked. Yet he must have decided that this would not get him enough votes. His recent actions (whether you like them or not) make perfect sense in politics these days. No matter what you say, what you think, he is just playing the game to get the votes. No matter who boos, no matter who turns their back; nothing will change. Nothing will change until we ALL decide that nothing will ever be accomplished until one or two core items are addressed. We need the dirty money out of politics and we need an open and honest government. I hear the laughing and nay-saying now. Do you really think it would be so difficult if we took all of the passion, talent, spirit, faith, strength, diversity, etc of this country and focused them on these two things? Keep your opinions. You will not have to change one thing about your current beliefs and values; whether they be conservative or liberal. What good is playing the superbowl if the refs give whatever call the owners tell them to? The "game" becomes a joke, no matter how good any of the players are, no matter how good the coaching is, no matter how well trained or conditioned the team. You could never really know which was the better team. It is my opinion that our government (and since we currently have a Democracy, this means the American people) is a joke. Let's not turn our backs on each other. Let's stand together no matter how much they try to make us hate one another. You are my friend; we have the same goals.....Life, Libery, and the persuit of Happiness.
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/20/2006 @ 12:15am
Anyone who still thinks the Vietnam War or the Iraq War were honorable enterprises, defending American freedom or some such nonsense, really needs to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. There is no controversy over the fact that tens of thousands of dead civilians are being piled up in Iraq, just like in Vietnam. But every Bush-loving moron thinks they're just "fascists."
As a student at the New School, I can tell you Bob Kerrey is a sonofa bitch who only came here to lie low when the scandal broke about his death squad mowing down unarmed villagers. Politically, he serves the same function as McCain: to provide cover for disgusting rightwing policies with nice mushy rhetoric.
Posted by rakhia at 05/20/2006 @ 12:35am
John McCain chose which of the two sides to be on once again, in these times where Republican Conservatives are playing the race card in a pathetic lasp gasp attempt to find common ground, he had to go and speek at a cracker racist university - in defense of the idiot George Bush and his disaster in Iraq - no less. His speech was pathetic, he asked those who adhere to the truth to forgive him, saying he is doing what he thinks is right. Right,
Mavericks like John McCain and Colon Pile bear even more responsibility for the disaster in Iraq and other Conservative failures and lies - than George Bush himself. When George Bush was running for office, people said, wait, but hes an idiot - doesnt matter; but hes a religious nut - doesnt matter; but hes an alcoholic and a coke head - doesnt matter. Why? Because he has Colon Pile by his side. Its okay because John McCain endorses him. Should we be concered about the blowback that will result from invading Iraq? No - why? Because Colon Pile John McCain thinks it is a good idea.
Colon Pile is disgraced for life - he even admits it. Colon Pile is now disgusted with his own lies to the world. The speech he made at the height of his career and his fame will now live with him for the rest of his life, as he lives out his scum days in shame and disgrace.
John McCain couldnt stand up to George Bush - the idiot. John McCain is not only a liar, an enabler of torture with his silly bill for Bush to put a signing statement on, John McCain is not only responsible for enabling mass murder of innocent people, John McCain is also a loser. He let George Bush walk all over him, he let George Bush whisper campaign around that he had a black baby. Now McCain wants to be a race card player and a leader? McCain is not only a liar, he is a loser too. He wont get nominated. Besides, Conservatives believe their own propaganda that McCain is a moderate.
John McCain dropped bombs on Vietnamese people, he tried to blow up power plants - which would result in indirect civillian deaths. For that, he was imprisoned Guantanamo-style without legal rights, enemy combatant style. Rather than complain about his treatment, he should be thankful he is still alive - many of the innocent people he bombed are dead. Vietnam like Iraq never attacked America.
Posted by conshame at 05/20/2006 @ 12:36am
Support 2500 more troops, Conservatives.
Posted by conshame at 05/20/2006 @ 12:39am
A 1989 Senate resolution condemning Saddam Husseins gassing of the Kurds was defeated on a party line, Republican vote. A contingent of Republican Senators led by Bob Dole visited Saddam Hussein, re-assuring him to ignore the failed Senate resolution. Then, Donald Rumsfeld flew to Baghdad to shake hands and offer Saddam Hussein more VX Nerve Gas, Mustard Gas, Smallpox, Aimes-strain Anthrax, West Nile Virus, Plage, Sarin, etc. Republicans to this day claim Saddam Hussein was their ally.
Posted by conshame at 05/20/2006 @ 12:48am
I forgot to mention that Kerrey (Bob) didn't weasel his way into the New School JUST to keep from being embarrassed on the Senate floor about his peasant-killing ways . . . the invitation to McCain is part of a pattern: he is methodically trying to strangle the last shreds of left political culture at the New School . . . which won't be a difficult task from what I can see. Over three years of bloody war in Iraq and there STILL isn't any visible antiwar group at the New School University!! Much less any activity by the cowardly faculty.
Posted by rakhia at 05/20/2006 @ 12:55am
Posted by LVLIBERTY1 05/20/2006 @ 12:13a
Ah, the haters are at it again. John McCain's sin for the liberals is that he served his country honorably, sitting in a commie prison while thousands here chanted support for his captors.
That's it? thousands? In a nation of a few hundred million thousands is nothing to get all hamstered up about
I may not agree with some of his views but he is a genuine American hero and the left and those students should be ashamed of themselves. Those criticizing McCain aren't worthy of licking his boots.
Ahhhhhhh. So it was B & D sites you were checking out when your computer caught that virus
And Frankg, Anne Coulter is right. Many dems hate our military and no matter what you say or think will change that. Even the anti-war vets. They at least earned the right to be stupid.
yes she did.
More and more we are witness to the moral depravity of much of the left in this country. They no longer can even honor those who fought and often died serving our country. They make me sick with their arrogance and cowardice.
so not only do you eveangelics require us to worship your lord lucipher, now we have to worship eveyone that fought in a war. Hey, does anyone happen to have a graven image of the ten commandments? Say... a big ugly grey granite one lying around somewhere?
What do you say we worship that too.
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 01:07am
John McCain and Bob Kerry. I can understand how those two might get along at some war buddy level, but HOW, pray tell, did either become associated with the New School!!??
As a serious Veblen scholar, I have a pretty comprehensive understanding of the school's beginnings. The idea that the school founded by the victims of the repression associated with World War 1 should now have, as its president, a self-admitted war criminal, is quite literally beyond my comprehension.
The slide from Veblen or Dewey to Bob "Blow them Away" Kerry makes the decline from Lincoln to W seem trivial.
The students of the New School were WELL within their rights to protest a defender of the assault on Iraq. In fact, considering what they were promised by a school with probably the most interesting intellectual tradition in USA, they should be demanding their money back. They have been robbed. McCain was just there to rub it in.
Posted by eltechno at 05/20/2006 @ 01:07am
NACL
Does that make all those Frenchmen who did not believe it was a good idea for the Anglo Saxons to invade the Continent and drive the Wehrmacht back to Berlin, somehow fascist collaborators?
You bet it does.
And that holds also for you. When you side against a US army fighting a mass murdering tyranny, when you demand an immediate pull out which will let a fascist insurgency triumph, then you are supporting that scum, and are a fascist collaborator as surely as were the French. When on one side a regime is pulling out the tongues of human beings, and on the other men mean to stop that regime, there is no middle ground. If you demand that that regime be left alone, you are siding with it and become a collaborator in its cimes. Period.
More ridiculous McCarthyite nonsense. First, the idea that Sunni insurgents could possibly triumph anywhere except in central Iraq only shows that you don't know things one about the strategic balance there. By your logic, I could also say that since you don't favor invading Congo to deal with Mai-Mai killers, that you must be in favor of that or, gee here's a thought, maybe you don't consider putting US troops on the line every time there's a bad guy afoot a good idea. Especially when the Administration had to lie about that guy's WMDs and links to al-Qaida to prove a point. But such elementary logic is no doubt beyond you.
By the way, Lincoln was against the Mexican War, no doubt you'll be calling him a collaborator with Santa Ana soon, right?
Posted by brunowe at 05/20/2006 @ 01:18am
Hey John Maash buddy.
I purely do admire the way you trashed that damn librul Fitzgerald in your 8:16 post ( nothin' in his hand but his dick ! HAW HAW HAW ) and then two minutes later at 8:18 turned around and got all teary eyed and mushy-ly sensative over the "impolite" treatement of John McCain by them damn librul students. Hot damn buddy yer alright !!!
God bless John McCain, the Red, White and Blue, Ralph Reed, the Dixie Chicks ( before they got all crazy-like ) and Nascar fans everywhere.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 01:30am
Hey John Maash
Come on down here to McCain country. You'd fit right in. The Klan isn't dead ol' buddy. We jest call ourselves Minutem Men now.
God bless our present president George W. Bush ( God he looks good in a flight suit don't he ? )and our future president John McCain.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 01:33am
Hey lvliberty
I love liberty too ol' buddy. I mean it's like apple pie ain't it ? "And Frankg, Anne Coulter is right". Damned if she ain't. She's so far right they're scared o' her in Kansas. Dumb as a box o' rocks but she's got a fine ass don't she though ?
And speakin' o' Kansas God bless Senator Roberts of the great state of Kansas and the fine work he's doin' coverin' every thing up with the flag.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 01:55am
Hey salty
"If you demand that that regime be left alone, you are siding with it and become a collaborator in its cimes. Period".
I don't know what regime you're talkin' about here but it better not be the U.S. of A. because I'll side with it and become a collaborator in its crimes as is my right as an American citizen.
And God bless our marines in harms way in Iraq and that 75 year old woman they killed in the Haditha massacre was undoubtably an islamo-fascist and that three month old baby they executed would o' grown up to be one.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 02:13am
McCain's base of support among self-described Democrats isn't "20 year old New School graduates"....it's the OLDER Dems, even libs ....who vote!
Keep hope alive, but this doesn't mark the "end of the McCain love affair".
Posted by Mask at 05/20/2006 @ 07:44am
I'm sure I'm not the only one puzzled by the vehement hatred so consistently spewed by NACL et al. Why is it so important for them to express current events in Armageddon-like terms? Such a "last bastion of decency" mind set, such fear and loathing.
I think the recipe goes something like this:
- take one deep-seated vein of isolationism
- mix with blind faith
- add some white male panic at growing loss of stature (to women! to non-english speakers! to dark-skinned folks!)
- fold in some anti-gay hysteria (e.g. homophobia masking those shameful homoerotic twinges)
- sprinkle with worship of the warrior (actual warrior service not mandatory given "other priorities")
- sieve carefully to remove any sense of balance or perspective
- throw in a 9-11 splash of brutal awakening from a slumber of false security/immunity on the world stage
- mix well and bake (or half-bake) and you get:
One wacky xenophobic homophobic dude, constantly trumpeting his one-note sermon of panic and hatred, desperately re-ordering reality to fit his own definition
Posted by Fishbite at 05/20/2006 @ 07:53am
.
Hey Red, what have you grown up to be?
What does it mean when you line up with a national socialist Baath regime? Just like old times eh, when you fellows were denouncing the British as imperialists while the Nazis blitzed London and the Soviets delivered daily trainloads of iron ore and petroleum to the Third Reich. Now you sided with a mass murdering Arab fascist who promised to turn a Jewish state into a sheet of flame. His soccer teams trembled for their lives, when they lost a game, and you trembled with rage when the US dared to wring his neck.
You have grown up into a supporter of a terrorist insurgency whose ferocity has not been seen since Heydrich hanged democrats from meathooks? You have grown into a left fascist, Red. Moreover, as befits your persuasion, you are a racist to boot.
If someone says, all blacks are killers because of Willie Haughton, Abromovitz proves, Jews are swindler, Chirac is the evidence that the French are corrupt, that would reveal a racist bigot. There is no doubt about that.
What do you think defaming the Marines because a squad apparently went amok, amounts to? You are inclined to tar hundreds of thousands in and out of uniform, on the basis of an aberration. Zero has it too, and not just he, that racist bigot mind set. Sure, you guys are not focused on some religious or colored minority, at the moment, but that generalizing inclination is in you. You jump at the chance to hate large groups. You have grown into a well appointed, left fascist, comrade.
.
Posted by nacl at 05/20/2006 @ 08:35am
.
I'm sick of you. You're the guy who opened an umbrella when God rained intelligence to earth. One go-around was more than enough. You are too boring.
.
Posted by nacl at 05/20/2006 @ 08:44am
Richard,
"knows even losers will feed voraciously at the money trough that the corrupt corporate contributors are all too happy to dole out to those willing to play their high stakes, rigged monopoly game. Hillary, ever the groveler and compromiser, will willingly take what ever droppings are left behind."
Great wording and insight....perfect description of Hillary if there ever was one..Look how it reads with McCain replaced by the big H..in fact replace the name McCain in the entire post and put in Hillary..Kerry and Dean..
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 08:54am
Red Nickers,
"I purely do admire the way you trashed that damn librul Fitzgerald in your 8:16 post ( nothin' in his hand but his dick ! HAW HAW HAW ) and then two minutes later at 8:18 turned around and got all teary eyed and mushy-ly sensative over the "impolite" treatement of John McCain by them damn librul students. Hot damn buddy yer alright !!! "
Maybe you should read the posts after the Fitzgerald....The fitz posts means he has nothing for his efforts so far...
Teary Eyed, mushy? Read further, as in "not my candidate.."...liburl, no...never mentioned, but educated and ignorant of the real world, yes, as was I at the ime of graduation, and as you are now..
"Come on down here to McCain country. You'd fit right in. The Klan isn't dead ol' buddy. We jest call ourselves Minutem Men now. "
Klan?..maybe this should re written to you in Spanish,comrade? Hey
Red pants...how about them red colored patches for Christians and Jews in Iran? Could be fun, eh? Remind you of something somewhere?...nah, the evils are right here with Bush,....get real...take a look, you are4 missing history repeat itself right in front of your eyes and you are missing it.....klan,Jesus..
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 09:06am
Why did John McCain even speak at New College? US News ranks it as a third tier university (along with such prestigious institutions as the University of Wyoming and West Virginia University). Basically the student body is comprised of individuals who pulled Bs and Cs in high school and got an 1100 on the SATs.
Posted by shapur at 05/20/2006 @ 09:26am
Shapur,
He was invited...by my states old governor..Bob Kerry,... who has spent most of his life in over his head.
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 09:27am
very nice, Fish, and welcome back
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 10:16am
an absurd post, Shapur.I doubt your numbers, and as one who has lived in NYC for 44 years, I can report that the New School enjoys a good reputation here, at the same time we realize that Columbia it ain't.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 10:19am
By the way, Lincoln was against the Mexican War, no doubt you'll be calling him a collaborator with Santa Ana soon, right?
very nice, Bruno, my old sparring partner
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 10:20am
NACL - so you're sick and bored. Then, be off with you - heal yourself among your brainwashed brethren. I will not lament your departure. Your self-satisfied, delusional rants bring nothing of importance to the discussion.
Posted by Fishbite at 05/20/2006 @ 10:55am
Hey Salty don't get mad at me ! I'm on your side.
Get mad at that damn Knight Ridder press who's been reporting this sort of thing instead of the good news coming out of Iraq like our president asked them to. Thank god Knight Ridder has been bought out by a large corporation who will soon put a stop to that sort of reporting which only encourages the terrorists !
God bless Rupert Murdoch whose helping redefine freedom of speech and of the press for all Americans even though he is a god-damn Aussie..
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 11:21am
Bye fer now.
"Reality has a liberal bias." - Stephen Colbert -.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 11:23am
And lest any of you damn liberals take exception I know it's who's and not whose above. Only our president never makes mistakes.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 11:27am
Reddy, the dripping irony of your posts are smearing my computer screen.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 12:25pm
I think McCain's motives here are barely hidden. he knew very well what kind of reception was awaiting him. call it reverse psychology. by showing how much he is hated by liberal new yorkers, he is bound to pick up some sympathy from the extreme right. cynical calculation? you bet.
I think the new school students showed a lot more class, than their peers at Columbia, where McCain also delivered the address.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 12:29pm
The Sunni insurgency in Iraq would have been defeated shortly, and Americans should be embarrassed, most Iraqis hated Saddam Hussein.
Had the top priority not been to privatize, steal, not re-build, privatize, hand out contracts, burn bricks of freshly minted 100$ US bills, burn up all Iraqs oil revenue in no-bid no-accounting contracts, privatize, steal, not re-build, not restore electricity, not restore sanitation, not restore drinking water.
As it is now, we have the Salvadoran Option in play, recommended by John Negroponte when he was ambassador, we have the Salvadoran Option. What is the Salvadoran Option in Iraq? What was the Salvadoran Option in El Salvador? In sterilized terms, its training militias. Those militias are the Salvadoran Option militias. Conservatives will forget where they came from and say that Liberals support the Shiite militias.
What does it matter if Conservatives now accuse Liberals of supporting Hitler - something Prescott Bush was convicted of doing - something IBM did, something Ford Motors did, something lots of Conservative racists did - Americans realize that we are not in World War 2 in Iraq.
Libya is now doing business with the Bush family, like the Bin Laden family - and is it fair to say, the Hitler family - as Prescott Bush was the manager of the German and primary branch of Union Thyssen bank, which funded Hitlers militias? The concern with Libya was never that they had a serious nuclear weapons program, the concern with Libya was that they had presumably blown up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie Scotland and killed Americans.
So 1989 is ancient history now, 1989 is ancient history, and Iraq was our ally? Our ally? Ally of the Conservative Republicans. A Senate resolution condemning Saddam Husseins use of American Mustard gas to kill 5,000 Kurds at Halabja, was defeated on a party line, Republican vote. Donald Rumsfeld and Bob Dole flew to Iraq, told Saddam Hussein heres more WMDs to use to kill people with, said dont worry about the Democrat resolution condemning the massacre of the Kurds. Ancient history was 1989, but liberals are fighting World War 2 on behalf of the Sunni militias?
Posted by conshame at 05/20/2006 @ 12:32pm
"MaCain is the next president..not my candidate, but he is the next president...your candidate, Hillary, will lose....big time."
Are you down with Jeb, John? I'd bet money he's our next president.
Posted by pcr at 05/20/2006 @ 12:34pm
NACL, I know that most of your ilk feel oppressed by facts and reality, but if you open a high-school history book, you'll find out that the people who opposed US involvement in WWII were conservative Republicans.
So I guess you meant to say that conservative Republicans were the ones so much in favor of Heydrich hanging people on meat-hooks, right?
Facts? Facts? We don' need no stinkin' facts!
In most countries, people who invent their own reality are called lunatics and locked up. Here, we let them vote and call them Republicans.
Posted by sdeleve at 05/20/2006 @ 12:36pm
there will NOT be another pres named Bush. pay no mind to Maasch, whose mind is a closed book and who has been peddling that fantasy for a long time. Gore for president, 8 years in the House, 8 years in the Senate, 8 years as vice pres. what about public service don't you understand?
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 12:53pm
McCain has made the mistake so many have - he actually believes he's a moderate, and a maverick. He's not, of course - he's a dyed-in-the-wool winger, who will happily make my reproductive choices for me, bomb and invade other countries, sell our country and it's resources to the highest bidder and deny our gay brethren the same rights we have.
McCain may be a genuine war hero - but when he gave Bush that big sweaty hug, after Bush/Rove did their best to ruin him in 2000, he sold his soul, and any claim he had to legitimacy, in my humble opinion.
Bless college radicals. We need thousands more just like them.
Posted by susanb red at 05/20/2006 @ 1:50pm
I wonder if Hillary Clinton would've been booed the same way. There's virtually no difference between her position on Iraq and McCain's.
Intrepid Liberal Journal
Posted by trebor007 at 05/20/2006 @ 3:44pm
I have a newbie question. What is the point of posting comments? I have spent most of my life thinking that whatever happens in this country, I will be just fine. Over the years as I have begun a family and have made deep connections with all sorts of people. I now want very much for my children and your children to enjoy all of the things that I have seen and experienced. So I have begun looking around at this country, and this world. It took me two seconds to realize that the "mainstream media" has no interest in informing me about anything unless it is telling me what I need in order to be happy/secure/etc.. and where I can buy it. Is this right or wrong? Who cares, it just IS. This is just a symptom of a deeper pathology in this country. So I began searching the internet for real news, real stories, and real information. What I like best about the internet is that you can find anything. You cannot assume that anything is all true or all false. It takes the important step of THINKING. (By the way, support internet freedom!) So my question again; what is the point of posting a comment? Is this just some sort of therapy? We can write here instead of our diaries and journals. When you write a comment, what is your intention? When I read some of these comments here, I think the intention is to verbally pat ourselves on the back (and those that agree with us) or to stick it in the face of those who don't agree. Again, what is the point of that? I am pissed off at many things happening to our country, aren't you? In fact, this is our starting ground for real conversation. Either you are happy with business as usual but are mad as hell that a lot of people are not (we call them traitors, commies, terrorists, etc.); or we are just mad as hell about business as usual. So I ask, do you just want to be mad? Do you just want us to continue to separate ourselves into smaller and smaller groups so we can agree about everything? That's what happens when we forget about what is REALLY important. You know, freedom, life, liberty, happiness. Don't we all agree about this? We only disagree about how to achieve this. It's my opinion that many people in power (political/economic/spiritual) want us to keep fighting each other. We fight about what some students did at their graduation, or about what Ann Coulter said, or about what political party supported something 60 years ago. We fight and the true evil-doers are robbing us, making us less safe, and killing innocent people; all for more money, more power. I may not agree with you about a lot of things, but I will fight side-by-side with you to protect our freedom. Once we have rid ourselves of the cancer in our government, then I will gladly sit down with you and listen. How about some real discussion?
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/20/2006 @ 4:04pm
good questions Middle, I'll get to them in a moment. first, you can do us and yourself a big favor. try to brake up your post into smaller chunks. just hit return twice after each thought. that will make it far easier to read.
like this, for instance. now to your question of why. I can only speak for myself. I am interested in what others have to say on the big issues, and I have things to say myself, many many things to say.
I think of it kind of like a big virtual tavern, you speak to someone, an acquaintance, or stranger, who then becomes an acquaintance. you speak and then move on to another. some you enjoy speaking to, others are loathsome. that's what the ignore button is for, and sometimes it's good to vent.
I find this venue stimulating, some posters are really well informed, and have good citations of sources. if you don't find this discussion "real" enough, go ahead and show us how it should be done.
I have found that by writing a lot my writing skills have improved, like a muscle when it is used.in other words it is about expression. by expressing yourself, and or debunking someone else, I find out where I stand. and guess what, some people have told me that they appreciate my input, though some may disagree.
I realize that it sometimes seems like an echo chamber, but the positive side of that is that it fosters a kind of solidarity.
so, stick around, let us know what you are made of, and by all means try to elevate the discourse
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 4:28pm
Bless college radicals. We need thousands more just like them. Posted by SUSANB RED 05/20/2006 @ 1:50pm | ignore this person
And a Washington press corps that would be worthy of wearing the mantle free and independent press instead of bootlickers for Bush.
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/20/2006 @ 4:37pm
Hi MIDDLEWAY. We're just readin' and writin' here, there's not all that much to it.
I'll just tell you why I do it. One, some of the regular contributors are really sharp and their observations are worth considering. Two, if you have a strong feeling about something, you can post it and come back a little later and see how your thoughts look in context. Three, over time you can see trends - less swagger from the conservatives, less support for mainstream Democrats from liberals are some I've seen over the past six months.
It's raw data. It's probably not gonna change your mind very often.
And at night, some of the posts are really funny. So stick around.
Posted by MyParadigm at 05/20/2006 @ 4:52pm
Jo
Thanks for the tips. I never thought about it like that. Yes, I can see how this would help communications skills (something that should be valued). It also has forced me to think more about what I do believe since writing it is much different than thinking it.
I am frustruated. It seems to me that we waste too much time trying to prove each other wrong. This almost turned me off of blogs in the beginning. If we all think our comments are important, we should make an effort not to turn off too many newbies looking to participate in national discussion.
My last comment could be a good test case for the perceived problems with true freedom. I try never to lecture someone about what they should and shouldn't do. Post whatever you want, regardless of what I, newbies, or anyone else thinks. However, we shouldn't forget the reason we all take time to write here. For me, it's to find common ground with complete strangers when everything I seem to see and hear today illustrates how different we are.
If I am free to write anything, then write things that make no one ever listen to me (ie, they hit the handy ignore link) than I have accomplished nothing. This is a secondary goal of writing this comment; to maybe cause those who write attacking comments to stop and think about what they are trying to accomplish.
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/20/2006 @ 4:55pm
Paradigm, sometimes it's readin', writin', and raggin'
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 5:01pm
Thank God for young people. There is only one issue now.
One Issue [gpln.com]
Mark A. Goldman
Posted by MarkAGoldman at 05/20/2006 @ 5:22pm
Leadership does not come from government, business, mainstream media, religious centers, colleges or universities. Leadership does not come from institutions; it only comes from individual human beings who take personal responsibility.
That's what Jean Sara Rohe did and she did not stand alone. Thank you, Jean.
The Bush administration has betrayed us a thousand ways. Our efforts to address so many issues dissipates our energy and leads to distractions, confusion, disillusionment, and lost hope.
Yet when all is said and done what emerges is clarity and only one issue:
We must restore integrity to the rule of law.
That one issue is the only issue where any of us can actually make a lasting difference. We have no say in any issue if the loss of the Constitution and our basic rights and freedoms become acceptable in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.
We must confront and bring to justice the charlatans and their accomplices who fraudulently took the reigns of power, committed unconscionable crimes, and have taken it upon themselves to dismantle the rule of law, thinking they have done so with impunity.
If this issue is not resolved, no other issue can ever be resolved… if this issue is not resolved, citizenship is irrelevant... our heritage and our children's birthright is lost.
This administration must be removed and the rule of law must be restored.
The following are links to two commentaries which, with their supporting links, are a roadmap for turning things around:
www.gpln.com/simplenoteasy.htm
www.gpln.com
Posted by MarkAGoldman at 05/20/2006 @ 5:34pm
Posted by JOHANNESROLF 05/20/2006 @ 12:25am |
Reddy, the dripping irony of your posts are smearing my computer screen.
Sprichst Deutsch nicht wahr Johannes ? Gut. Weil ich dir 'was sagen will "entre nous", zwischen uns, ok ? Hier sage ich und drueke mich aus wie 's mir gefaelt. Hast du 'was dagegen ? Shade ! Wirklich 's tut mir leid denn ich finde deine Meinungen ziemlich interessant. Aber der "ignore" Knopf ist immer da zu Hande. Drueck an wann und wie du willst und leb' wohl.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/20/2006 @ 6:06pm
.
Sure, the Right was anti-war. The entire country was largely isolationist before Peal Harbor. No one denies that. But what you fellows want to forget is that the Left was right up there with Lindbergh and the America Firsters; and it went much further.
WWII began a week after Stalin/Hitler signed a pact that agreed, Hitler would grab half of Poland, and Russia would grab the other half. The Left in America supported that fully. It not only opposed US interference, it raged that the British were imperialist war mongers, and worse than the Nazis.
That was the line even as the Luftwaffe pounded London! Throughout that time the Soviet Union was selling Hitler daily trainloads of strategic materials. Those trains kept rolling until the very day Germany attacked Russia.
You fellows saw nothing wrong with that. A typical example of how the Left raged at Roosevelt and opposed Lend Lease is this extract from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade newspaper of February 1941.
A virtual tavern, a public house
that's an excellent way of looking at this JR
:)
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 6:25pm
NACL - you might choose to distinguish between the "Left" in the WWII era and leftists/liberals today. The Abe Lincoln Brigade included a high number of communists (perhaps majority - not sure). I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't believe that the left wing is dominated by communists today.
However, it's just as irrelevant to somehow ping today's neo-con/right-wing movement for the "Right"'s position pre WWII.
Posted by Fishbite at 05/20/2006 @ 6:29pm
.
You have a point. What the nation is unaware of is that the economy and local services are improving, and two thirds of Iraq is already under the exclusive control of Iraqi security forces. There was a time when they would drop their rifles and run when they heard a shot, now they stand and fight.
There obviously is still a problem of split loyalty within the police, and there will yet be set backs. But the chances are growing that the US will be able to steadily reduce its presence and that at the end of the day, Iraq will be an Arab state with an elected govt and have a military able to defend it. That news has not yet perculated through.
Do you know, incidentally, that Horst Mahler, a founder of the Baader-Meinhoff Gang, and long a leader of Germany's radical left, is now the head of Germany's largest neo Nazi party?
.
Posted by nacl at 05/20/2006 @ 6:58pm
Interesting that this article focuses alot on the reception that McCain got from an admittedly Liberal university.
I thought Liberals prided themselves on tolerance, another liberal fallacy, isnt it interesting that it is extreme liberal radicals that cannot tolerate differing viewpoints and feel the need to act obnoxiously. As Dowd chuckled? What class you liberals demonstrate when confronted.
Posted by CPT at 05/20/2006 @ 7:39pm
JR,
"there will NOT be another pres named Bush. pay no mind to Maasch, whose mind is a closed book and who has been peddling that fantasy for a long time. Gore for president, 8 years in the House, 8 years in the Senate, 8 years as vice pres. what about public service don't you understand?"
I am not sure why you think I expect Jeb to be president. I don't. I do expect him to run, and like Hillary, will lose....Fatigue(sp)...I do not have a closed mind...I understand public service just fine....what I can't understand is what it is you find Gore has done in the 24 years he was in government(a shame in it self, he should have a real job)beside advocate government everything and higher taxes. He is a dolt, JR, and I don't know too many Democrats who want to see him anywhere but on a rocking chair on his own front porch. Maybe he could visit Tennesee, if he can find it.
The only people who wish for Gore are the Hollywood left and the green nuts,which differ from true enviromentalists, and the hard left, where I believe you reside. I respect your opinions even as you disrepect mine and as I have said many times, will be happy to share an ale or lager of your choice, any time, anywhere, on me.
But, if you want to ensure another Republican White House hands down...run Gore...every republican will rejoice and give thanks for a Gore candidacy.
Again, if you missed it, Jeb will run someday, but he will lose. McCains running mate will be the president when McCain retires after his first term...watch his pick, as that is the next president after McCain, unless it is Bush..my prediction.
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 7:46pm
"Who gives a good god damn about the hives of the rich and privileged?"
The rich and powerful as well as those who rely on them for their paychecks.....and the treasury as they pay 96% of all taxes.
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 7:48pm
you mean all those illigal aliens and people in slave wage countries that the rich and powerful employ.
now I understand
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 8:15pm
but what i don;t iunderstand is why they always whine about paying all the taxes when to lower their tax burden it would be so easy for them to spread the wealth.
Instead they kill all those high paying american jobs, send them to slave wage commie china, make even more money and then even have to pay more tax
and have even more to complain about
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 8:23pm
it's maaschicism if i ever saw it
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 8:24pm
You are one strange dude, Will....and getting more so..
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 8:26pm
it is strange to have one point out alternatives to the dogma of hamsterland
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 8:29pm
Will,
Off to see Da Vinci Code..hint: He gets the girl in the end....
Posted by john maasch at 05/20/2006 @ 8:38pm
.
Johannesrolf gave you good advice about writing (and thinking) in paragraphs. Your earlier posts were too dense in form and too diffuse in content.
Even now you offer no real position. You view the situation so:
First of all, the people here don't all agree about freedom, life, liberty, happiness.
A considerable number are hard bitten old Stalinists, even as the world knows what Stalin did to the life, liberty and happiness of million. Most supported the Soviet Union with its walls, gulags, censorship, KGB. Almost all bitterly opposed removing Saddam, though they knew of his terrible deeds. You assumptions about our common values are therefore, certainly in this venue, problematic.
As to "people in power want us to keep fighting each other", you'll have to offer concrete examples that support that supposition. Moreover, what are "real evil-doers"? When you have insurgents machine gunning voters, and those fighting the insurgents, who are the evil-doers?
Suppose you were president, or the V.P. or heade the Pentagon, would it occur to you to undertake a war to enrich yourself and to acquire more power?
I assume that the question strikes you as absurd and the answer obvious. But why do you assume the people in the White House are such completely different creatures from you? You earlier assumed that we all have the same feelings regarding life, happiness, etc. Why do you exlude the people in the administration? What makes you think they wired differently? Why are they more irrationally greedy and power hungry than you?
You brush aside as irrelevant, the controversies of 60 years ago, why? In the 1930s, as Hitler loomed, the British students in the Oxford Union voted: Not to fight for king and country. Is there no thread to the New School graduates who turned their backs on Senator McCaine? Are we today really any different from the people back then? Are we different biologically, psychologically, sociologically?
If we are the same creature of sixty years ago, isn't it wise to examine how our mental habits and inclinations, misled us back then, especially as they are precisely the attitudes, down to the very slogans, being flourished today?
.
Posted by nacl at 05/20/2006 @ 8:48pm
thanks
I wasn't going to see it
Posted by Will C. at 05/20/2006 @ 9:01pm
If being 'grown up' is reflective of what we are seeing in this administration and in Congress and the media, I, for one hope that those who were dissenters at the graduation ceremony never 'grow up' to become what we have presently.....oh, you know, those people who are adults that are representing the 'people' of this country! Hey, you guys, keep protesting what you never want to become........it's very refreshing to see such brave young people.
Posted by kclaf at 05/20/2006 @ 9:36pm
and two thirds of Iraq is already under the exclusive control of Iraqi security forces.
First, if you're referring to the assertion that insurgent activity is limited to 4/14 provinces, you may also want to add that those 4 provinces account to almost half of the population.
Also, if you're going to look at the swearing in of a government months after the election as good news, you may want to remember that the Defence, National Security and Interior Ministries had to be left vacant--hardly an auspicious sign.
There's also the pattern of Shi'ite-Sunni ethnic cleansing that's become common since the attack on the Samarra mosque.
What the nation is unaware of is that the economy and local services are improving
Check the Brookings Institution's Iraq Index [brookings.edu]. The record is mixed. The supplies of fuel (diesel, kerosene, gasoline) are all slightly lower than they were a year ago. Electricity provision is slightly higher than in last April but lower than last July. Per capita GDP growth doesn't appear to be keeping up with inflation. There are favorable numbers in the stats for car traffic, phone ownership and internet access but, as I said, the economic record is mixed.
Posted by brunowe at 05/20/2006 @ 10:37pm
Red, that was an observation, not a criticism. I always enjoy reading a little german, and your german is flawless. I'm sorry I was not more precise in my sarcastic observation, and caused you to take it the wrong way. as the GIs in germany used to say: max nix.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 10:40pm
thanks Will and Red.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 10:43pm
excellent points on Iraq, Bruno. the party line doesn't cut it. for the REAL story on Iraq I read Juan Cole everyday, he surveys the arabic media, speaks arabic,and is a national resource. Tom Dispatch too has very good information, and very good guest writers.pounce.
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 10:45pm
Thanks JR, I have J. Cole as an RSS feed and I've just added TomDispatch. Now if I can only keep up!
Posted by brunowe at 05/20/2006 @ 11:03pm
NACL
Yes, summarizing how I feel or what I think about these huge issues into a few paragraphs does leave more questions than answers.
Yes, we all have very different ideas about what freedom means; about what it is to be happy. I would love to see more discussion on that topic. My take on it now BEGINS with something like this: we should be free to do, say, or think most anything as long as it does not affect the freedom of others to do the same. A statement worthy of much discussion I'm sure.
As to the venue, what better place to stand up for something in which you believe, than that place where most disagree? This, of course, if my intentions were to influence. However, my intentions are only to understand. I do not fancy myself as having all the answers; but I know that the answers come from a complete understanding of the problem. This means getting all points of view.
I kind of get the feeling that you don't agree with most people here. Is this true? Why do you pick this venue?
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/20/2006 @ 11:07pm
French school texts say, one third of France supported the Resistance and were glad when they heard the Allies landed on D-Day. The rest of the country either regretted landings, and hoped they would fail, or was indifferent. Posted by NACL 05/19/2006 @ 11:02pm | ignore this person
Yes, Nacl, history is intriguing and interesting to some us. While I share your apparent affection for studying the days of yore, I do wish you would get past hitting the macro key on your word processor that automatically inserts fascist as a synonym for one opposed to Mr. Bush's military adventure in Iraq. Equally obnoxious is your second macro key inserting the tongue pulling and meat hook language. That two people can witness the same event and have entirely different accounts is well known to defense attorneys. Presumably, at least one person in the Bush regime argued against his contemplated invasion of Iraq. Does that make this person – if he or she really existed – in favor of tongue pullers and hanging people on meat hooks? I think not.
In an effort to support your "with us or agin' us" thesis, you feebly reach out to history. You write the majority of the French were either opposed to or indifferent to the Allies landing on D-Day. I am interested to learn your source for this item.
Was Nazi Germany a threat to the US? It is your fellow traveler, Pat Buchanan, who suggests the answer is maybe not. So I guess that makes Buchanan one who supports tongue pullers and hanging people on meat hooks?
Of the volumes written about World War II, an intriguing chapter concerns the Nazi leanings of the House of Windsor. Did Edward VIII really abdicate the throne for marital bliss with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson, or was his departure into exile pressure applied by the British and American governments who believed him a Nazi sympathizer? (Both governments already had suspicions about Mrs. Simpson's political leaning particularly after her alleged affair with the Nazi ambassador, Ribbentrop, to London.) President Roosevelt ordered the FBI to spy on the couple out of concern they were Nazi collaborators. A lot of this information came out a few years ago when the BBC filed a FOIA request from the FBI.
The psychoanalytical crowd probably had a field day with Edward the VIII. His Nazi support was completely contrary to the views of his heavy disciplinarian father Edward VII. Eddie the elder wanted to surround Prussia, later Germany, and annihilate it. Although he was "only a king" and had no real power in the government, the man is a study in influence and manipulation. Personally, I am not into psychological profiles of dead historical personages, but father-son power wielders are intriguing figures.
Your position of all or none is silly. As a presumed student of history, do you not understand that world events have been and are debated by intellectually honest people holding differing views on any subject? I suggest you pick-up a copy of Foreign Affairs at your favorite bookstore.
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/20/2006 @ 11:12pm
Posted by WILL C. 05/20/2006 @ 8:29pm: it is strange to have one point out alternatives to the dogma of hamsterland
he he
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/20/2006 @ 11:20pm
Posted by NACL 05/20/2006 @ 8:48pm: First of all, the people here don't all agree about freedom, life, liberty, happiness.
See, here we go MW. First, we're gonna dazzle you with kind and polite version of Salty...
A considerable number are hard bitten old Stalinists, even as the world knows what Stalin did to the life, liberty and happiness of million. Most supported the Soviet Union with its walls, gulags, censorship, KGB.
Oh, but wait.... What's this?
Ah... First, you need to understand the true nature of the people we are dealing with here, MW. You see, most of us that offer, to use Will C's words, alternatives to the dogma of hamsterland, are really sadistic bastards who enjoy watching people suffer.
(Not to mention the fact that, although the delusional Salty does seem to primarily occupy the time space of 1915-1945, in reality, most of the hard bitten old Stalinists on the planet are, um.... dead.)
As to "people in power want us to keep fighting each other", you'll have to offer concrete examples that support that supposition.
Right. Like constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage and, um, declaring English to be the national language are urgent issues that the public demands be addressed above all others. It certainly couldn't be that the people in power want us to keep fighting each other. No. That would be absurd.
Moreover, what are "real evil-doers"
This criminal Decida regime, and possibly, delusional enablers like Salty.
When you have insurgents machine gunning voters, and those fighting the insurgents, who are the evil-doers?
Um... I know. The ones who chose to create this mess!
Suppose you were president, or the V.P. or heade the Pentagon, would it occur to you to undertake a war to enrich yourself and to acquire more power?
You mean, like, um, it occurred to the Decida and Vice-Decida?
Although, I agree with your point. It wouldn't occur to normal people.
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/20/2006 @ 11:44pm
Seattle is back.
a little more history. most of the Maquis, the french resistance was the commies. then there was a little episode with the french fleet, which was sunk by the british, at a loss of 1,000 french lives, they were a bit bitter about that. the invasion forces were attacked by french partisans, for this reason and others. not so clear cut is it?
Posted by johannesrolf at 05/20/2006 @ 11:45pm
"The students are not yet wise and are inexperienced, but they may actually have stregnthened McCains hand. They , as I did, went to school ignorant and came out realizing that one of the things I learned was how much I didn't know, and I showed this all the time, as did the students to McCain and the world. When they grow up a little more they will see this as an opportunity lost, and as a few of them start to earn some money, will change their views to the real life view...ala Churchhill."
What a ridiculously lame explanation for not having the balls to do half of what these students did... arrogant and pathetic yet pointless - they did not *lost* any *oppoprtunity.*
Posted by szlevi at 05/21/2006 @ 02:58am
John McPain: The WAR Criminal! Is a: SHAM! Rained Bombs down: On Viet Nam! Talk about W.M.D's More Napalm Please!
Helped: Killed Millions! Anonymously. Antiseptically: From the Sky! Once a victum & Now a Salesman: For, The War Profiteer's: Lies!
A POW Selling; Death and Destruction.
Did he learn anything? While prisoner?
He is, The prime example! Of everything that is: Wrong with this country!
Forty years later; All we have left. Is: The Shell of the man! They sent to Viet Nam.
What a waste! At what a cost!
Himself a Victim of: LBJ's & Nixon's: TREASON!
He spews Bush-isms! Crusades for: More Death! More Destruction!
More: Lies! & MORE TREASON!
For all the wrong: Reasons!
Posted by williameon at 05/21/2006 @ 07:14am
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Are you asking because you think it is a "feeble reaching into history," or because it is a telling point?
French school books teach that one third of France supported the Resistance, one third supported Vichy and one third was indifferent. Moreover, on 30 March 2003 Le Monde conducted a poll on how the French viewed the invasion. One third said they hoped the US/UK would win, one third hoped the Iraqis would beat les anglo saxons, one third did not care who won. It was then commdented that that had been the French attitude on D-Day.
This should call for another one of your suggested macros: I have said repeatedly, I have no beef with someone who thought the invasion a mistake. There were plenty such people, Bent Scowcroft for one.
I have explained it this way: Suppose Ike had decided to clean out Franco. My grandfather, might have thought that a bad idea. Perhaps he would have written a harsh letter to his senator, or a letter to the editor. But would he have execrated the administration as criminal, would he have joined protests, gone on marches, agitated - on behalf of a fascist? He would have said, I'm not crazy. Wringing Francisco's neck is unnecessary, but it's not that he doesn't deserve it. I'm not going to waste my breath, let alone a tear on that tyrant.
Most everybody on the right, however opposed to that policy, would have been ashamed to passionately denounce the administration, and actively support Franco - once it was clear that the US was committed to closing down that dictatorship.
You complained about "feebly reaching into history" and now pull in Edward VIII, Mrs. Simpson's amour with a Nazi, and Buchanan who is suddenly my buddy? The only thing clear in that mishmash is that "feeble" applies to you.
If you think that, you won't have to respond to my posts in the future.
You are, incidentally, correct about my using the 'tongue amputation' and 'fascist collaborator' lines a lot. It is excessive. I'm rather tired of that myself. But I'm keeping it up. You guys are like the donkey that stopped in the middle of the bridge and refused to budge. Finally the farmer walked over with a baseball back and delivered it an enormous shot to the head, the beast half collapsed.
Are you crazy, demanded his wife, that didn't get him to start. No, replied the husband, but it got him to start thinking.
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Posted by nacl at 05/21/2006 @ 10:28am
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Why; are you unhappy? Do you think one can talk oneself into happiness? There is a new field called "positive psychology" which seems to believe that that is possible. The most popular course in Harvard nowadays is by Ben-Shahar, an Israeli, who has for the last two years been entertaining 2 sections of 400 students each, on how to be happy.
I'm not so sure. The issue of freedom and its limits is pretty well settled in the US. Certainly in law. Brandise said, we are free to say most anything, but not to shout fire in a theater. We are free to swing our hands in any direction, but not into another person's nose.
Furthermore, why are you treating freedom and happiness as though they were synonyms. Are they? Aldous Huxley in Brave New World has his protagonist, the Savage, protest his lack of freedom by demanding: I want the right to experience cold and hunger, to have syphilis and cancer, to know danger and fear.
In short, freedom and happiness are not necessarily identical. Some people are lost in their freedom and can't function because they can't decide among the many possibilities. Some feel happiest when they are thoroughly regulated, as in the military. There, when you get leave, you go on "liberty". Yet, millions have freely made the military their life's work.
You've answered your own question.
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Posted by nacl at 05/21/2006 @ 10:40am
In 2000 I liked John McCain. He was shafted by Bush and the Karl Rove machine. But he seemed to speak from the hip. But not today. It is clear that JohnMcCain will now do anything inorder to get the 2008 nomination.
Posted by rockieball at 05/21/2006 @ 11:02am
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I thank you for that interesting link.
Yes, 4 of Iraq's 18 provinces, containing less than 42% of the population experience 85% of the attacks. But is it a small thing that 14 provinces with almost 60% of the population are controlled by the Iraqi Security Forces and suffers few attacks? The Iraqi military is also active in the volatile parts of the country. For example, it is responsible for security in 60% or 87 square miles of Baghdad. (The site says 460 square miles, but that can't be right).
Thirty-seven Iraqi Army battalions now control their own battle space and are conducting more independent operations than the Coalition forces. That is not chopped liver either.
Moreover, tips from the population, about insurgent activity, rose from 483 in March 2005 to over 3300 five months later and that volume is continuing. That sounds like positive news to me. When red neckerson worries about news being suppressed, does he have that in mind?
Also interesting is the statistic that -
Posted by NACL 05/21/2006 @ 10:28am | ignore this person
I must take you on your word regarding the teachings of D-Day in French schoolbooks. For discussion purposes here, I will do that. However, you cite a poll from Le Monde in March 2003 that sampled French opinion on "the invasion." Initially, this appeared a continuation of your D-Day theme. Then, reading further, you indicate the article refers to the French opinion of the Iraq invasion. Given the French position on our invasion of Iraq, I do not find the results surprising. You conclude with It was then commdented that that had been the French attitude on D-Day. Do you suspect there might be a problem with Le Monde asserting this? After all, D-Day was more than 60 years ago and the population with first-hand knowledge of that event is rapidly dwindling.
You speculate how your grandfather might have reacted should Ike had made a decision disagreeable to him. You write his method of protest might have been to put a pen to paper and communicate his disagreement with his senator or newspaper editor. Certainly many Americans choose that method of dissent. Some, on the other hand, take to the streets with placards denouncing the actions of our government. The point is writing letters and marching in protest are two methods arriving at the same effect: communicating displeasure with our government's policy, not supporting the enemy. Presumably, as a student of history, you must know that protesting by both methods is as old as our republic.
Yet, your beef seems to be with those who employ one method over the other. You write, Most everybody on the right, however opposed to that policy, would have been ashamed to passionately denounce the administration, and actively support Franco - once it was clear that the US was committed to closing down that dictatorship.
Why would they be ashamed to passionately denounce the administration? Are you saying they lack the courage of their convictions? Or is it the "passionatelely" aspect you detest? I fully understand it can be personally uncomfortable to publicly display one's passions. However, passionate men founded our republic.
We could end our discussion here by agreeing that protest comes down to a matter of methodology most comfortable to the protestor. EXCEPT, you add the clause and actively support Franco - once it was clear that the US was committed to closing down that dictatorship. This presents two objections here. First, you suggest that if someone chooses to protest by the passionately marching in the streets method, then he or she is actively supporting the dictator; whereas, presumably, if he or she simply writes a letter to the editor expressing their disagreement, they are NOT supporting the dictator.
Secondly, the problem of a fait accompli by the government if all protests should cease "once it becomes clear that the US was committed to closing down that dictatorship." In the military, a junior officer may be invited to voice his opinion, but once the commander makes a decision the officer must salute and carry out the order. This is not true in civil society. The entire geographic land mass of the US is one giant protest zone. Disagreeing with US policy either by writing letters or marching in protests is as American as apple pie and as traditional as a Fourth of July parade and in no way reflects support for the dictator.
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/21/2006 @ 1:06pm
I apologize if this comment seems OT.
I think regardless of political leanings, an honest reader will admit that Jean Sarah Rohe spoke with great courage. Many students would have been intimidated going up against a popular Senator like that, while remaining polite and respectful. [huffingtonpost.com]
Like Harry Taylor, she was compelled by her honesty and her sincere beliefs to speak out against a candidate who is pandering to the racists and warmongers among us. It seems to me the student body indicated their appreciation that she spoke so well on their behalf. For this, she should be applauded as a great speaker and a patriotic citizen. Jean showed beyond a doubt she has more guts than a thousand "fighting keyboards".
If you disagree with that, then tell me when was the last time you stood up like that.
Posted by klevenstein at 05/21/2006 @ 2:27pm
Posted by KLEVENSTEIN 05/21/2006 @ 2:27pm | ignore this person
If you disagree with that, then tell me when was the last time you stood up like that.
I disagree with that Klevenstein and I'll tell you why. "Going up against a popular Senator like that" is not all that difficult when that Senator's views represent what has become, unfortunately, the views of an increasingly marginalized segment of the population. ( This marginalization, by the way, is just a passing fad and as soon as we get another big terrorism scare it will all blow over and things will be back to normal.
In the meantime you really want to know what courage is ? Getting up in front of people and saying the kinds of things that Senators Frist, Sessions, Inhof, Kyl, Roberts and yes McCain and many others say every day: saying them 1 ) with a straight face 2 ) with conviction and 3 ) with the knowlege that you don't even believe it yourself !
Now that takes courage Mr. Klevenstein. Little Miss Sarah Rohe's moment of glory "speaking truth to power" was nothing compared to what Senator McCain had to go through when he had to stand up in front of college students and fearlessly defend an essentially indefensible position.
That, sir, takes courage.
Posted by Red Neckerson at 05/21/2006 @ 5:58pm
Middleway, I post on these kinds of lists because I like to argue, and I'm intrigued by the post-modernist methods used by folks like NACL, who, when asked a question about the natural consequence of his "agree with George Bush or you support Saddam torturing people" argument, pulls a lunatic fringe group like the Abraham Lincoln Brigade out of history, rather than the dominant "liberal" thought of that era, typified by FDR.
My point was that it's no more rational to say that opponents of the Iraq invasion support anything about Saddam Hussein than it is to say that conservative Republicans of the 30s and 40s supported Hitler. I should have been more direct.
I'm curious to see what NACL thinks about the historical parallel between (using his own facts) the French people being split 33/33/33 on D-Day, and the estimate (again, in most high-school history texts) that, at the time of the American Revolution, one-third of the colonists supported the Revolution, one-third were Tories, and one-third didn't care or couldn't/wouldn't pick a side.
I have no point at all in this curiosity, I just wonder what he thinks about the coincidence in the numbers -
Posted by sdeleve at 05/21/2006 @ 6:44pm
NACL,
Great questions. Am I happy? This depends on WHEN you ask. My emotions tend to come and go on their own accord. I try to find rhyme or reason for this, but I have not as of yet. However, I do feel joy most of the time. I consider this a deeper, more fulfilling emotion. It is possible for me to feel joy even when angry, sad, etc. So I do not see freedom and happiness as synonyms, but sometimes I feel that true freedom is the definition of joy. Free to be NOT free if need be. Choosing to serve in the military vs being drafted might cause completely different experiences in an otherwise similar environment.
I spent over 3 years in the military, and I have to say there is great freedom in not having to worry about what to wear, what to eat, etc. But I did choose to join. I would support anyone who wants to experience cold, hunger, pain, the effects of drugs, or venereal disease. However, before we can make such a decision, it would really help to know all the information about, and consequences of such decisions. But these things are labeled "bad", and so no honest and open discussion can ever be undertaken.
There is also the issue of how certain choices we make can affect other people's rights. I support an informed person's right to smoke, but think it's unfair that nonsmokers should help support this habit by subsidizing their expensive health care costs through our ever increasing insurance premiums. Also, the right not to have to smell someone's dirty cigarette is just as important.
Can we see the choices made by McCain and the students as an exercise of their freedom? We can discuss our opinions about the matter but still agree that they were BOTH right. They were both right because they exercised their freedom. They were both right because it fostered some discussion. If all sides can begin with this premise (and maybe most do, it's just difficult for me to see sometimes) then this discussion can be very fruitful.
I would like to see more discussion in this country about what it means to be happy, and whether we truly are with our current course. It's my opinion that our society is obsessed with "being happy". More correct would be to say that we are obsessed with "NOT being UNhappy".
Orwell describes some great examples of how those in power try to keep us "against each other". Another, along these lines, has to do with the "happiness" issue. Every single day, we are bombarded with thousands of advertisements in our lives. The whole purpose of these advertisements is to convince us that we NEED something in order to be safe/sexy/successful/accepted.......happy.
Think about how many times we hear this message, that we are not happy. Any productive discussion (which may lead to the realization that we actually need very little) is stifled by those that make money off of our collective misery. Wouldn't a national discussion about the pros and cons of this omnipotent force in our lives be helpful to most people?
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/21/2006 @ 7:12pm
SDELEVE,
I do enjoy a good debate. If we use war as an analogy to debate, than the tactic of forever labeling someone because of one particular belief or comment is like dropping the atom bomb; no more room for discussion.
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/21/2006 @ 7:30pm
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No, that is not at all OT, but it is BS.
You don't know what courage is. Nor does she. That girl was in no danger, took no chances, risked nothing. She knew no one would punch her in the nose, she would not be denied her diploma, not so much as a mean look would be thrown at her. To the contrary. She was speaking the common wisdom. She was saying what was expected, almost demanded of her. She cheer-leading, saying the one thing sure to get applause. And, unless you are a moron, you know that that is the truth. That girl was the opposite of courageous, she was a cheap opportunist, a wimp in shining armor.
Difficult and courageous would have been for her to say:
Had she spoken thus to a crowd that might have jeered her, that would have been brave and decent. Instead she insulted the man sure to have been the first to defend her were she in any real danger.
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Posted by nacl at 05/21/2006 @ 8:01pm
(and what is UP with Howard Dean?!??!)
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) secretly placed political operatives in the city of New Orleans to work against the reelection efforts of incumbent Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean made the decision himself to back mayoral candidate and sitting Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu (D-LA), sources reveal.
Dean came to the decision to back the white challenger, over the African-American incumbent Nagin, despite concerns amongst senior black officials in the Party that the DNC should stay neutral.
The DNC teams actively worked to defeat Nagin under the auspice of the committee's voting rights program.
The party's field efforts also coincided with a national effort by Democrat contributors to support Landrieu.
Landrieu had outraised Nagin by a wide margin - $3.3 million to $541,980.
Preliminary campaign finance reports indicate many of Landrieu's contributions came from out of state white Democrat leaders and financiers, including a $1,000 contribution from Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) PAC.
The defeat of Mitch Landrieu is the latest setback for Dean's often criticized field operation.
In his victory speech late Saturday night, Nagin praised President Bush.
"You and I have probably been the most vilified politicians in the country. But I want to thank you for moving that promise that you made in Jackson Square forward," Nagin said.
Posted by Mask at 05/21/2006 @ 8:44pm
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Le Monde did not make those comments. (It is pretty much a govt newspaper. It was created after WWII because all the French papers had supported Vichy and were tainted.) Those comments were in opinion columns provoked by that poll. But it should not require being around in 1944 for a history buff to know that most of France, indeed, most of Europe, had made its peace with Nazi Germany, and did not feel menaced by her but by the Russians approaching from the East. Most Europeans did NOT want the US/UK to break into the Continent from the West, turning their villages and cities into a battlefield. Realize that half a million Europeans had voluntarily joined the Waffen SS and defended the Third Reich in Nazi uniforms to the bitter end?
You don't get the point.
It would have been one thing to disagree with a policy of ejecting Franco, and to explain why. But once the US was committed to that policy and GIs were fighting Franco's Falangists in Spain, who would been the people execrating the administration, calling it criminal, marching in the street and hoping for that invasion's failure?
Those would have been Franco sympathizers without doubt. More than just upset by an unwise US policy, it would have been clear, they did not want Franco's regime to end.
Spain's regme was fascist, and its ardent American supporters would have been recognized as fascists. The spectacle of Franco getting his neck wrung and Spain getting an elected govt would have caused not one non-fascist American, of any party, a moment's regret.
To repeat, calling Ike's White House criminal and deserving of impeachment for closing down Franco could not have masqueraded as an act of high principle. Those protesters would have been recognized as fascists sympathizers. That would not have been debatable.
It isn't today either, you guys are just too too dumb, or dishonest to realize it.
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Posted by nacl at 05/21/2006 @ 8:55pm
Posted by NACL 05/21/2006 @ 8:55pm: Those comments were in opinion columns provoked by that poll.
And we know that anonymous comments in opinion columns are wonderful fact sources. Try this one:
Salty is a delusional fool
We know this to be a fact since it is an anonymous comment in an opinion column.
Posted by orwell2005 at 05/21/2006 @ 9:14pm
The point that should be made about the McCains and Bushes, et al of this regime is that they as their German predecessors have waged aggressive war and are guilty of crimes against the peace. All that is thus far missing for this lot is a guilty verdict, a sentencing and an execution of the sentence.
Posted by grubbybest at 05/21/2006 @ 9:34pm
Posted by FRANKGRITS 05/21/2006 @ 10:24pm | ignore this person
He's 100% wrong?....no, not always!
And given Dean's track records since 2004 and becoming Chairman, is this TOTALLY unbelievable?
If so, apologies to the Good Doctor. But if NOT???
Posted by Mask at 05/21/2006 @ 10:25pm
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Some people clearly have a gift for happiness and others don't. It doesn't matter what the political situation is. Testers claim, blacks have the greatest capacity for happiness.
I think it is true that there are societies, as in the serious northern climes, were smiling and easy cheer is rarer than in sunnier places. Even just in Switzerland one notices the up tight, efficient German Swiss, while in Ticino, an Italian speaking canton, people seem more relaxed and friendly.
My mother forces herself to see the good side of everything and usually succeeds. My dad is the opposite. He has bad teeth. Look at that fellow bite into his apple with relish he once groused to my mother at a picnic. Don't envy him, who knows what troubles he has, consoled my mom. At that moment, the apple eater rose and walked away limping on a club foot.
Franz Werfel's play, Jacobowsky and the Colonel, features an optimist for whom every situation is either, "serious but not hopeless," or "hopeless, but not serious." The Jews have a reputation as comics, though they have the least to joke about. It is perhaps a psychological defense mechanism, to search out and create a reasons, often amid misery, for a smile.
People have a need for happiness to different degrees. Some are happy to be miserable. I think happiness, in the end is a matter of how well we are matted to the circumstances of our lives. How well we are matched to our spouse, to the norms of our society, to our work.
The history of humankind has been largely one of people forced to spend most of their lives in onerous labor. There were always a few barons at the top who were free to exercise their proclivities, but all the tens of thousands of Mozarts and Newtons, and Pasteurs potential in the vast bulk of humankind across the millennia, those were all lost, they never had a chance to be more than coolies and serfs. And even today, too many people have the work that lets them live, rather than work, to live for. I mean work they enjoy and for which they have a talent. All too many people wake up every morning, hating the eight hours in the office or factory ahead of them, and grateful for the five o'clock bell, or the weekend. Others however, can't wait to get to their work place and can't tear themselves away at the end of the day. That, I think is the challenge for the future. To discover each child's aptitude and then polish it with specialized education, so that everyone becomes a champion at some demanding skill, manual or intellectual, or both.
Why do men often die soon after retiring? Is it because their work drove them, challenged them, kept them alive?
Incidentally, tbhose who deeply engrossed in their work, are not necessarily cheerful souls, gushing with happiness. Their happiness is not one of bubbling joy, but of agon, struggle, the excitement and satisfaction of being immersed in and wrestling a challenge.
I'm all for a national discussion of where we are headed. (Actually, isn't that what election campaigns should be all about?) In the past it was never a question of what to do, where to go next. That tasks forced themselves on US society. It was necessary to plow the land and wrestle nature for enough to eat, to fight Indians, settle the west, cut canals, lay railroads across the country, build cities, grow rich. Those jobs and ambitions created themselves.
But now we still want more, but don't really know what more there is, and where. Is it earning $400 million? How many meals can Lee Raymond eat on any one day? How many suits does he wear? On how many mattresses does he sleep? The fact is his family doesn't live better than most middle class families. He doesn't have a better wife, nicer kids, hotter sex, more laughs, deeper sleep, etc. The value put on various frills is mostly in our head. A $35,000 sedan delivers us to our destination as quickly, safely and comfortably as a $135,000 Bentley.
So money, while not to be sneezed at, has diminishing returns. The direction for our society, I think, is to focus on making everyone a champion and finding a setting where that champion is needed and can make a good living. That requires, as I said, discovering our aptitudes early, and training them intensely and then finding the demand for that championship skill. As our economy grows and diversifies and working abroad becomes a real posibility, and English becomes universal, and computers make exact match-ups possible, that can be the direction of our future. Huey Long, had the slogan: Everyone a King. I think that can become the direction of the future.
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Posted by nacl at 05/21/2006 @ 11:35pm
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This is the best place I know for letting go of my buckets of drivel. Do you think I would inflict that stuff on people I like? Do you go to the bathroom and insist on depositing your load into that white enamel bucket because you like it better than the living room sofa? Or vis a versa? So there you have your answer.
Another answer is that I don't play your game. You crawl into a hole where you are safe and warm alongside comrades who share your point of view. You crave support for your opinions and prejudices. I crave a chance to try out my opinions and prejudices on people who disagree. I want to see how well my ideas stand up to challenge.
You don't want to test your thoughts. You don't want to have to defend them. Thus you jam yourself into your hole and hope no stranger will amble in. When confronted, you either clap your hands to your ears and dive for the ignore button, or you try to drown me out blabbing rubbish. You are incapable of examining what you think, or of defending it.
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Posted by nacl at 05/22/2006 @ 12:05am
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(I overlooked this post of yours from earlier in the thread. I remember googling the Lincoln reference, and believed I had responded to it, and the rest; but apparently only in my head.)
You are right, I don't know much about Iraq's strategic balance. But Anthony Cordesman does; maybe almost as much as you. He discussed the question of Three Iraqs in an op-ed in the NYTimes about ten days ago. He emphasized that Iraq is not neatly divided between ethnicities, that there are significant Sunni minorities across the country, and Iraq's cities are multi-ethnic.
In short, it is not a given that the Sunni insurgency would only fight for and prevail in its third of the country. Sunnis have significant populations in the other two thirds and would be fighting for the oil wealth there. Moreover, they would be assisted by the neighboring Sunni states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, though Iraq is predominantly Shia, for over a millennia her Sunni minority have ever overpowered and dominated the rest. Is it so sure that tendency would not again assert itself?
But even if that ferocious insurgency would in the end, as you suggest, come into control of only one third of Iraq's 28 million people, is that acceptable?
That is a discredited and fake argument, and you know it.
If the US debated a plan to free the central Africa from the murderous Mai Mai and to transform the Congo into a healthy society with a lawful govt, I would be very skeptical.
But an America irretrievably committed and embarked on such a venture would have my support, though it only had a small chance of success. I would not discourage people so engaged, and certainly not disparage and revile their effort. Why for heaven's sake?
Would I think another Somali anti-famine mission a good idea? No! But should it nevertheoess be undertaken, would I throw bricks at the people involved? Of course not. I would hope they succeeded. How about you?
Another fake argument, another transparent sheet pulled up to your chin to hide your nakedness. The WMD threat was sincerely believed in and supported by all the intelligence agencies. The Israelis had their entire country in gas masks, with the expensive chemical pouches activated , because they believed the threat of Scuds with chemical warheads was real. The al-Qaeda link-up were suggested by Czech intelligence observing an Iraqi agent meeting an OBL man in Prague. But that connection was soon abandoned when it could not be substantiated.
President Polk claimed that the war began when Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grand and attacked Americans. Lincoln demanded to know where the spot of that first engagement was. Thus he was called, Spotty Lincoln. But that objection was only raised by Abe after the war had been fought to a close, which was when he became a congressman.
Ulysses Grant, incidentally, who served in that conflict, also thought it was an unjust war.
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Posted by nacl at 05/22/2006 @ 08:40am
Isn't Arkansas a red state?
The moral depravities of evangelic hamsters is like a virus
Posted by Will C. at 05/22/2006 @ 09:17am
The al-Qaeda link-up were suggested by Czech intelligence observing an Iraqi agent meeting an OBL man in Prague.
But it didn't stop pro-war advocates from still citing to it.
The WMD threat was sincerely believed in and supported by all the intelligence agencies.
Well no, none of them believed it was a "slam-dunk", they had reservations which were conveniently ignored by Bush & Co. None of them said, like Cheney and Rumsfeld did, that we knew were the weapons were.
But even if that ferocious insurgency would in the end, as you suggest, come into control of only one third of Iraq's 28 million people, is that acceptable?
But you're presupposing that continued US presence is going to somehow suppress all this. If anything, civil strife has increased since the Samarra incident with Iraq becoming reminiscent of Bosnia or Lebanon, our presence there notwithstanding.
But that objection was only raised by Abe after the war had been fought to a close, which was when he became a congressman.
Actually, Lincoln served from 1847-49. He offered the "Spot" resolution in December 1847, before peace had been concluded and when we still had an army of occupation in Mexico. In fact, his Douglas many years later had no problem impugning Lincoln's patriotism for that reason during their debates.
Moreover, tips from the population, about insurgent activity, rose from 483 in March 2005 to over 3300 five months later and that volume is continuing. That sounds like positive news to me.
That rather depends on how good the tips are, if they are or aren't being used just to settle vendettas that have no relationship to the insurgency. Re the rest, as I said, the economic news is mixed.
Posted by brunowe at 05/22/2006 @ 10:54am
At least McCain had the nutz to speak in front of something other than a hand-picked audience.
(Although this will probably be the last time...)
Posted by drhammer at 05/22/2006 @ 11:36am
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Should it not have been cited?
Iraq was famous for sheltering terrorists, Abu Nadal for example. The earlier bomber of the WTC, Ramsy Youssef sought and received shelter in Baghdad. And then the Czechs approached the US with information their secret service picked up. Was it not reasonable for the US to say, we think there is an OBL/Saddam link? When no additional information turned up the administration eased off the claim. What was wrong with that?
What reservations did they express, to your knowledge?
It is you who are dissembling. You don't know what they said. You are clutching an American locution on the hunch that the Russians and French etc., did not use it. But you have no evidence that the belief in WMDs by the various intelligence agencies was equivocal and hedged. Even Hans Blix, in his book Disarming Iraq, admits that until the eve of the war, he believed the WMDs were real. And the Israelis, spent $100 million protecting their population, on the bet that the WMDs were real. How do you answer that? That was hedging? In your determination to make the administration out a liar, it is you who are showing up as deeply dishonest.
The presupposition is that while the US holds the insurgency in check, the Iraqi Security Forces can gain confidence, grow competent, purge themselves of unreliable elements, and gradually take over and wear the insurgency down. That may take years, but so what. If the ISF can protect the govt and keep the insurgents on the run, they will win. And most of our forces can leave, with perhaps two or three divisions, 35,000 to 55,000 men as back up. Those are the numbers we have kept in South Korea for fifty years.
About the sectarian killings that upset you so, around ten years ago six bodies on average were turning up every day of the year on the streets of NYC. The homicides under Mayor David Dinkins reached over 2,200 per annum. That was in a city of 7.5 million, not 28 million, and a city not at war. That didn't worry you, that didn't make you think of Lebanon and Bosnia.
Lincoln's first term began 6 Dec 1847. The war which had started in April 1846 was over. All the battles had been fought. The army had withdrawn. The treaty had been negotiated. It only remained to be signed which it was on 2 February. The Spot resolution was in fact a political gambit. Lincoln was trying for a little attention, to make a name for himself. That failed and Lincoln shut up when it turned out most of the country was highly satisfied with the war's outcome.
Nonsense. There were false alarms when there were only 483 tips a month and so too among the 3300 a month. What counts is that the total increased spectacularly. That means something.
BTW, does the possibility that the insurgency might be defeated and that Iraq might get a democratic replacement for the Baath after all, make you glad or sad? Is that something you hope for, or fear?
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Posted by nacl at 05/22/2006 @ 2:48pm
Posted by NACL 05/21/2006 @ 8:55pm | ignore this person
You don't get the point.
It would have been one thing to disagree with a policy of ejecting Franco, and to explain why. But once the US was committed to that policy and GIs were fighting Franco's Falangists in Spain, who would been the people execrating the administration, calling it criminal, marching in the street and hoping for that invasion's failure?
Those would have been Franco sympathizers without doubt. More than just upset by an unwise US policy, it would have been clear, they did not want Franco's regime to end.
Your point is not well thought out. Unresolved is the question "what is a patriot to do?" when he sees his government committing folly. You supply no answer. Instead, in your hypothetical example, you suggest it is hunky dory to disagree with the government BEFORE our troops engage with Franco's Falangists. However, once gunfire commences all protests must cease or else the protesters should suffer labeling by people like you (George Bush's crowd) as un-American or supporters of the enemy. (This tactic has been effective. It stifled free thinkers in the 1950s and it silenced an entire major political party for the past five years.)
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/22/2006 @ 2:57pm
To repeat, calling Ike's White House criminal and deserving of impeachment for closing down Franco could not have masqueraded as an act of high principle. Those protesters would have been recognized as fascists sympathizers. That would not have been debatable. It isn't today either, you guys are just too too dumb, or dishonest to realize it. Posted by NACL 05/21/2006 @ 8:55pm | ignore this person
You are being disingenuous here. You set-up a hypothetical scenario from Eisenhower's day decades ago and pretend it is a snug fit overlay of today's Bush Iraq adventure. It is not. I believe you know that. It is the proverbial square peg in a round hole. Who is acting dishonestly here?
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/22/2006 @ 3:00pm
The presupposition is that while the US holds the insurgency in check, the Iraqi Security Forces can gain confidence, grow competent, purge themselves of unreliable elements, and gradually take over and wear the insurgency down. That may take years, but so what. If the ISF can protect the govt and keep the insurgents on the run, they will win.
You mean until the Sadrists and other Shi'ite militias can totally subvert the security forces and the mutual exchange of acts of ethnic cleansing can really get underway. It's exactly this level of distrust in Iraq re the security forces that has led to the Interior, Defense and National Security ministries remaining unfilled. If you look at the number of casulties in the Brookings Iraq Index, you won't see many signs of forward progress in terms of attacks or casualties.
But it didn't stop pro-war advocates from still citing to it.
I didn't cite the Administration, but pro-war advocates--who did stick to the story. See this overview in Slate [slate.com].
Well no, none of them believed it was a "slam-dunk", they had reservations which were conveniently ignored by Bush & Co. None of them said, like Cheney and Rumsfeld did, that we knew were the weapons were.
Well, there was the "Curveball" source from Germany, who was used as a source for Powell's now-discredited UN speech. If you want an overall view of how hedging was misrepresented as certainly, this USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-09-02-WMD-indepth_x.h tm) article provides a good overview.
About the sectarian killings that upset you so, around ten years ago six bodies on average were turning up every day of the year on the streets of NYC. The homicides under Mayor David Dinkins reached over 2,200 per annum. That was in a city of 7.5 million, not 28 million, and a city not at war. That didn't worry you, that didn't make you think of Lebanon and Bosnia.
I think you get another Red Herring award for that one.
BTW, does the possibility that the insurgency might be defeated and that Iraq might get a democratic replacement for the Baath after all, make you glad or sad? Is that something you hope for, or fear?
It's something I don't expect.
Posted by brunowe at 05/22/2006 @ 3:35pm
Lincoln's first term began 6 Dec 1847. The war which had started in April 1846 was over. All the battles had been fought. The army had withdrawn. The treaty had been negotiated. It only remained to be signed which it was on 2 February. The Spot resolution was in fact a political gambit. Lincoln was trying for a little attention, to make a name for himself.
Actually, it had a lot to do with Lincoln wanting to refute arguments that his voting for war supply appropriations constituted support for the war. And his actions were apparently close enough to the war for Douglas to impugn is patriotism ten years later.
Posted by brunowe at 05/22/2006 @ 3:43pm
Posted by NACL 05/21/2006 @ 11:35pm I agree with what you say here. As we advance in society and government, our challenges become ever more complex.
One of our current challenges, as I see it, is that which you spoke about. We need to redefine success. This may prove very difficult since, as you point out, our country has been built upon the notion that money equals success.
We do need a new American Dream. That's what leaders are supposed to offer. That's why I can't claim a political party. No one inspires me (within the ranks national politicians that is; my wife and daughters inspire me daily).
Question: Do you think that politics will always be "dirty"? People are always telling me that "it has been this way since the beginning, and it will always be that way". Are we too far gone?
Are McCain's recent actions (and reactions) that of a real leader?
Posted by MiddleWay at 05/22/2006 @ 5:01pm
All of this talk about slam-dunk WMD intelligence, and who-all believed Saddam had WMDs, is really a red herring. It doesn't really matter who believed what, what matters is the actions taken.
Only one person was afraid enough of Saddam Hussein to launch Quagmire II. That person, of course, is George Bush and his merry men (and Condi).
What anyone else may or may not have thought is irrelevant.
(By the way, has anyone thought lately about the dishonor it brought our country when Bush gave Saddam and his sons 48 hours to "get out of town," and then attacked before that deadline had run?)
Posted by sdeleve at 05/22/2006 @ 8:03pm
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Our modern obsession with politics is nuts. We overrate these people. Politicians in democracies are almost by definition third rate men. With the exception of Lincoln and maybe FDR, that is what they have all been for the last 190 years.
How can it be otherwise? They must periodically jump through hoops for Joe Public. To get his vote they must sit on a stool and make the expected noises like trained seals. They must beg for money all the time, listen to endless boring speeches, spend their lives fawning and faking and fetching. They must suffer heroics and moral teachings of insolent girls. Which self respecting individual subjects himself to that? Moreover the country's real leaders are her scientists, businessmen, inventors and artists, not politicians. The capital is at the periphery of the nation, not at its center, and not just geographically. It is not where the real action is.
Politics looms so large because it is so entertaining. It is our drama. The VP shoots his friend. The FBI bribes Congressman Jefferson who hides his loot in the freezer. We gape for weeks as Cindy Sheehan swings her dead son like a bat at Bush's head. Howard Deane is a presidential contender one moment, one inspirational speech later he is a lunatic. It is all foolishness, a circus. Take your wife and kids seriously, not politics, it is show business.
No. Politics nowadays is clean, elegant and high minded compared to the past. Slander, election fraud and dirty tricks were already rife in the days of Adams and Jefferson. The newspapers in the early years were insolent, scandal sheets. Hate, malice and lies were the Republic's second language from the get-go. Aaron Burr was one vice president who didn't shoot people by mistake. John Quincy Adams was called "the Pimp" while Andrew Jackson's mother was called a prostitute who married a mulatto. Cleveland was charged with fathering illegitimate children. The Hayes/Tilden election, and the entire Gilded Age, was endless vote buying and thievery. John Kennedy's election no less. Vote early and often was an actual Boston practice. Machines and bosses ran politics until recent decades. Truman owed his career to Boss Pendergast who ended up in jail. Congressman Claude Pepper was accused of having matriculated while in college, and even worse, his sister was a thespian.
The proof that politics has never been so elevated as nowadays is Watergate the butterfly ballots, Monica Lewinsky. Never before was such a fuss made over so little, little in comparison to what used to go on.
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Posted by nacl at 05/23/2006 @ 07:27am
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Yes, we have to push on into Melville's wilderness of untried things. If we don't it will be a long while before someone else will. We must move to stay young. Gertrude Stein observed, the US is the oldest country on earth because she was the first to enter the 20th century.
The up and coming power, China, has just built a shiny new skyscraper city, Shanghai. It is fantastic, but in all the old ways. It is not really new. It is the kind of city, much improved, but in principle the same, that Chicago started to build in the 1880s.
We are in a rut. We need a new tack, perhaps a new view of human beings and society. The public is slowly becoming aware of nanometrics, scales enormously smaller than our accustomed dimensions. When we fly over a metropolitan area at night, or look down from the top of a skyscraper, we see millions of lights turning on and off. Behind them are human beings, falling sleep and awaking, going to and coming from their jobs, eating and excreting, dying and being born. These lights are like so many cells, they flow down streets like down arteries, transporting materials, food, refuse. We see discrete buildings with specialized functions. Inside, layers of human tissue flow around the bones and tendons of machinery. It is a braiding of different skills to perform complimentary and symbiotic functions. Multi layered strata turn factories, schools, hospitals, restaurants, etc., into productive, living organs.
What is this? We have here human beings forming the cells of tissue creating a variety of organs all of them linked and interdependent, and part of what? A city; but what is a city?
Can it be a new life form whose subordinate material are human beings? Is this how evolution is moving? It took eons for the first one celled animals to evolve, and then multi-celled organisms, and slowly the higher life forms. Is this what is going on on an entirely different scale?
If such a new creature is being born, what does it say and mean to us, psychologically, and politically?
Our cities along both seashores are in the process of linking up. Seen from the sky their night lights blaze intensely and then thin out and scatter into the suburbs, but before long they thicken again. America is now a series of scattered metropolitan areas. In time those dark or empty spaces will probably slowly fill up, a freckled face that eventually will be just one big freckle.
In short, conceivably, we are cells of an evolving creature which in time will become a single organism covering the entire continent, the hemisphere and eventually the entire globe. Imagine a creature whose skeleton is the round globe but whose organs and outer skin are formed of the nations with their cities and towns, their living flesh made up of us human beings crowded together as cells. Interestingly, the Talmud speculates that when the Messiah comes the world will eat leviathan. Wales would be like sardines to this new, huge all encompassing creature.
Is this a dream or a nightmre? What would such a self image do to our politics?
This speculation could go on to suppose similar developments elsewhere in the universe. One can imagine hundreds of millions of living planets giving the cosmos a population scaled to its dimensions and with an intellectual and physical resources, and longevity, able to navigate space.
In the meantime we are worrying about senator and the folk singer.
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Posted by nacl at 05/23/2006 @ 08:36am
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Why? Almost every week a dozen or two Iraqis corpses are discovered, victims of murderous gangs. That is like Lebanon you groan, like Bosnia. But in the 1990s murderous gangs roamed New York City. They mugged, maimed, and killed, for money, out of hate, for sport. Some years it came to more than 6 corpses a day. That was in a city population that had shrunk to 7.5 million.
But that did not drive you to despair. That did not cause you to suggest, society in NY was unraveling, that the city was experiencing civil war, that it was like Beirut and Bosnia. Incidentally that slaughter was even worse, per capita, in places like Washington DC, Newark, Houston. In short, it is fair to point out that even two dozen sectarian killings every day would not mean that a country of 28 million is breaking up.
That overview is lousy as the link doesn't provide the document.
That Slate article offers a good view of how the Czech information was debated. That pro war advocates, like Safire, wanted to believe it is understandable. That the CIA and FBI and White House lost confidence in its veracity, and stopped relying on it supports rather than undermines their credibility.
That probably will be the crucial in deciding the outcome. In the end it may be Muqtada al-Sadr vs Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. But the point is, it is a fight. The issue is unsettled. Much can yet happen. The only ones yelling, the situation is lost and hopeless, let's go home are ideologues like you for whom victory means a US failure.
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Posted by nacl at 05/23/2006 @ 08:45am
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You were asked a reasonable question. It was a straight question. It was a question to which you obviously know the answer. But you denied me a direct answer.
What does that suggest? I think the answer embarrasses you. You are ashamed to speak the truth.
I'm glad. You could have brazenly said: yes, I don't want a democratic Iraqi govt to succeed, because thatwould vindicate the administration. And it would strengthen the US power position in the world. I am opposed to that. That would have been honest but shameless.
Instead you equivocate. Because you are ashamed. You realize that at bottom your position is indefensible.
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Posted by nacl at 05/23/2006 @ 08:58am
You were asked a reasonable question. It was a straight question. It was a question to which you obviously know the answer. But you denied me a direct answer.
You didn't ask a straight question but a loaded one, exuded from your McCarthyite skey that anyone protesting against this war must be in favor of a "fascist insurgency". I simply refused to buy into a "have you stopped beating your wife yet" type question, a question you ask because you can't defend your position on the facts.
But in the 1990s murderous gangs roamed New York City. They mugged, maimed, and killed, for money, out of hate, for sport. Some years it came to more than 6 corpses a day.
Now you ARE raving. I've lived in New York for twenty years and it certainly never felt like a civil war. The homicide rates of the early 90s were tied to the crack epidemic, which is why I don't say that it suggested a society unravelling--a crime problem is not a civil war. In Iraq, we are looking at sectarian killings, which is a situation comparable to Bosnia or Beirut.
Http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-09-02-WMD-indepth_x.h tm is being broken up by the website. Close up the space in h tm and the link works.
Posted by brunowe at 05/23/2006 @ 10:22am
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If that was a McCarthyite question, then McCarthy wasn't such a bad fellow after all.
Nothing prevented you from saying: - I thought the war a mistake, I still do. But if Iraq comes out of this a functioning unitary state, with a stable, elected govt, I will be glad, not sad. - Your inability to say that much, speaks worlds.
My point was precisely, that even though 6 corpses were showing up on average every day, no one called it a civil war, or that society was unraveling. But you want the occasional sectarian atrocities to signify in an Iraq of 28 million, what they did not in NY of 7.5 million.
Incidentally, there is always some kind of narcotic epidemic raging in NYC. The fact is the annual homicides reached over 2200 under Dinkins and quickly headed to a 2/3 reduction under Giuliano and his police chief, Bratton.
I looked at it. It is a tendentious article which brings up the Downing St Memo (which turned out not to be a smoking gun), the late Dr. John Kelly, who believed WMDs existed, and Hans Blix who in his book admits he also believed in the reality of WMDs. I nowhere saw any discussion in that article, of the other foreign intelligence agencies, hedging their estimates. Only Britain's Dossier is discussed and Scarlet insisted the WMDs were real. So what you advertise as hedging, is your own fudging, which you do consistently.
Your remarks sound ever more bitter. I can well se why.
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Posted by nacl at 05/23/2006 @ 12:27pm
Your remarks sound ever more bitter. I can well se why.
I'm not the one who regularly accuses opponents of the war of rooting for a fascist insurgency.
Nothing prevented you from saying: - I thought the war a mistake, I still do. But if Iraq comes out of this a functioning unitary state, with a stable, elected govt, I will be glad, not sad. - Your inability to say that much, speaks worlds.
Nothing except a refusal to be drawn into your ongoing attempt to tag anyone against the war with the label of favoring the insurgents. My refusal to be drawn into that speaks nothing except the McCarthyite strain of your argument.
My point was precisely, that even though 6 corpses were showing up on average every day, no one called it a civil war, or that society was unraveling. But you want the occasional sectarian atrocities to signify in an Iraq of 28 million, what they did not in NY of 7.5 million.
That's because people weren't killing each other in New York for being Sunni or Shi'ite or Kurd. That's what makes it sectarian. Incidentally, the Safe City, Safe Streets program that help bring crime down was initiated under Dinkins.
Hans Blix who in his book admits he also believed in the reality of WMDs.
Blix also said that he found no evidence.
Posted by brunowe at 05/23/2006 @ 1:06pm
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I called your charge that the intelligence agencies had reservations that were suppressed. You replied with an article which does not show examples of the intelligence services offering reservations, let alone reservations which were suppressed. (When they disputed a claim, it was removed.)
You end up returning to what is not in dispute, that Blix's inspectors found no WMDs. You ignore that the issue is: was the WMD claim, that they existed, made with the knowledge that they did not exist?
You refuse to concede, in the face of all the evidence, that the administration was sincere in its WMD fears. Tenet and the CIA honestly believed they existed. So did MI-6 and Britain's JIC. The Lord Hutton inquiry declared the charge, the dossier was "sexed up," unfounded. The Mossad believed it and convinced the Israeli govt to waste $100 million in the week before the war, to protect against Scuds with chemical warheads. The French, Russian, Italian, etc., spy agencies believed it too. You offer no evidence that they hedged their conclusion. Even Hans Blix believed they existed, and said so in, Disarming Iraq, his book that describes that time.
You lamely reiterate, but Blix's inspectors "found no evidence."
What words other than pathetic and dishonest apply?
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Posted by nacl at 05/24/2006 @ 01:02am
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NACL: Nothing prevented you from saying: - I thought the war a mistake, I still do. But if Iraq comes out of this a functioning unitary state, with a stable, elected govt, I will be glad, not sad. - Your inability to say that much, speaks worlds.
BRUNOWE: Nothing except a refusal to be drawn into your ongoing attempt to tag anyone against the war with the label of favoring the insurgents.
Not "anyone." I am labeling those who have done all this:
You think you can have it both ways. You despise the administration, despise the American system, desire the collapse of her power position in the world, yearn for Israel's defeat, for all of which you were willing to back a fascist police state, and now a fascist insurgency. At the same time, you are indignant at being called a fascist collaborator and insist on your masquerade as an anti-war humanitarian.
Why do you think you are kidding!
My refusal to be drawn into that speaks nothing except the McCarthyite strain of your argument.
McCarthy proceeded with innuendos and bluff waving evidence which did not exist. Most of McCarthy's victims did not deny that they were socialists. He tried to make that anathema, and a crime, automatic proof that they opposed the US and meant her harm.
You however, make no bones about opposing the US. You bluntly oppose an American attempt to defeat a fascist regime and replace it with a democratic govt. Not because you fear it can't succeed, or fear it will have unforeseen consequences inimical to US interests. You oppose it because you fear it might succeed and will advance US interests. That is not a slander or innuendo, that is your position. If it isn't say so.
The only real issue between us is your denial that your support of fascists makes you a fascist collaborator. Yet you cannot and don't explain why that is not apt. Your sole response is to call me a McCarthy. To counter a label which fits you like a glove you slander me with one that is unjust. Who is the real McCarthy here?
My refusal to be drawn into that speaks nothing except the McCarthyite strain of your argument.
Rubbish, you don't hesitate to contest me endlessly on the most incontestable issues, eg, that the WMD claim was sincere. But you stand on your dignity on a matter where you could easily silence me with: of course I want an elected Iraqi govt to prevail and the US effort to succeed, thought I still believe it futile and a waste of US lives, prestige and money.
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Posted by nacl at 05/24/2006 @ 01:07am
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NACL: Nothing prevented you from saying: - I thought the war a mistake, I still do. But if Iraq comes out of this a functioning unitary state, with a stable, elected govt, I will be glad, not sad. - Your inability to say that much, speaks worlds.
BRUNOWE: Nothing except a refusal to be drawn into your ongoing attempt to tag anyone against the war with the label of favoring the insurgents.
Not "anyone." I am labeling those who have done all this:
You think you can have it both ways. You despise the administration, despise the American system, desire the collapse of her power position in the world, yearn for Israel's defeat, for all of which you were willing to back a fascist police state, and now a fascist insurgency. At the same time, you are indignant at being called a fascist collaborator and insist on your masquerade as an anti-war humanitarian.
Why do you think you are kidding!
McCarthy proceeded with innuendos and bluff waving evidence which did not exist. Most of McCarthy's victims did not deny that they were socialists. He tried to make that anathema, and a crime, automatic proof that they opposed the US and meant her harm.
You however, make no bones about opposing the US. You bluntly oppose an American attempt to defeat a fascist regime and replace it with a democratic govt. Not because you fear it can't succeed, or fear it will have unforeseen consequences inimical to US interests. You oppose it because you fear it might succeed and will advance US interests. That is not a slander or innuendo, that is your position. If it isn't say so.
The only real issue between us is your denial that your support of fascists makes you a fascist collaborator. Yet you cannot and don't explain why that is not apt. Your sole response is to call me a McCarthy. To counter a label which fits you like a glove you slander me with one that is unjust. Who is the real McCarthy here?
Rubbish, you don't hesitate to contest me endlessly on the most incontestable issues, eg, that the WMD claim was sincere. But you stand on your dignity on a matter where you could easily silence me with: of course I want an elected Iraqi govt to prevail and the US effort to succeed, thought I still believe it futile and a waste of US lives, prestige and money.
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Posted by nacl at 05/24/2006 @ 01:12am
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Easy, vote it out of office. In the 2004 elections however, the majority did not think the govt was foolish. It received a vote of support.
Your question really is not just, what is a patriot to do nowadays. It is, what is patriotism nowadays?
Is today's patriotism, that America's mountains are taller, her valleys greener, her air sweeter than elsewhere?
We knows better. Patriots believe rather in America's ideals and principles, and in supporting and protecting them.
How?
By reducing, wherever possible, pools of intolerance, backwardness and repressions, and draining those swamps. Because those brackish places attract and breed a pestilence of hate and fanaticism which ends up crashing crowded airliners into US cities.
Today's patriot believes that America's retreat after WWI was a mistake and America's decision after WWII, to do the reverse, to actively support her principles and interests, wherever practical, was sound. That policy has given the world 60 years of unprecedented progress, free of a major war. Never in history has the globe so thrived. Never have populations so mushroomed, economies so blossomed, the general standards of well being and human decency so burgeoned.
The single most important factor behind this global revolution has been the US. Because she was the predominant military, economic, technological, financial and cultural force. Despite all the mistakes and crimes, the crudities and follies littering all those decades since WWII, the overall American performance has been benign and tremendous. There have been many other hegemons across the millennia. They all, the US no less, have been selfish. But always before, the great powers saw it in their interest to use their advantage to suppress and oppress, to take and reduce. The United States has been the first superpower in history to see it in her interest to benefit the generality of humankind, to help it to freedom and prosperity. Enlightened self-self interest is the keyword.
Now we are engaged in helping an elected Iraqi govt prevail against undeniably intolerant, fanatic and undemocratic forces. What do these circumstances require of a patriot? If by all indications beating those forces will be a cinch, of course he will support the Iraqi govt. But suppose the job promises is difficult and costly?
It is then that the real patriot steps up to the plate. That is when real patriotism is required, when it costs something to uphold American principles. When it isn't easy, then it become noble.
Are people who want to abandon Iraq to the insurgents, though there is still reasonable hope it can succeed, patriots? Or are they the ones who have hoped Iraq would prove a debacle from the start? Because they really don't care about democracy or America's prestige and power position in the world. In fact, rather than see George Bush vindicated they prefer America to suffer a defeat. Is such a person a patriot?
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Posted by nacl at 05/24/2006 @ 08:42am
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That that scenario dates to Ike is beside the point. What matter is that it is apt. It is a solid analogy. It is about a tyrant, a fascist, a dictatorship which the US opts to close down, though it is not an immediate threat to America.
You don't have an answer. You call me dishonest and quibble - because it has you licked.
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Posted by nacl at 05/24/2006 @ 09:01am
Posted by NACL 05/24/2006 @ 08:42am | ignore this person
A nice fourth-of-July speech that. Has America been a force for good in the world? There is no argument here that she has indeed. It is agreed here that Patriots believe rather in America's ideals and principles, and in supporting and protecting them.
It is the "how" where we part company. Bush the second ushered in a radically different approach to American foreign policy by inviting neoconservatives into policymaking positions in our government. The result is America now practices hegemony Soviet style – using naked military aggression. You confuse invading and occupying a mineral rich and militarily diminished Middle Eastern country that was no threat to the US with "uphold(ing) American principles." The truth is this act upheld the neoconservative hegemonic agenda and its commission is the antithesis of American principles.
You prove my point with this reference to the post WWII world: Never have populations so mushroomed, economies so blossomed, the general standards of well being and human decency so burgeoned. America did not practice neoconservative preemption then. She did fight and defeat her real enemies. Moreover, after the conflict ended, her economic and diplomatic investments produced the result of which you write.
Back to the original point of this exchange, patriots today must do what they've always done: they must insist their government adhere to our principles. In a previous post, you used your grandfather as an example of how a patriot should undertake this duty when he disagrees with his government. Your message was it is ok to write letters to newspaper editors and senators, but not take to the streets. I thought that a matter of personal style and have no issue with it. I pressed on inquiring what a patriot should do after he writes his letters and finds his government continues in folly. You responded with a hypothetical example using Ike and Franco. The message I took from that posting was you believe it ok to protest up to and until the point where bullets are exchanged. After that point, I infer from your post, a patriot should silently stew in his juices or suffer being labeled a sympathizer of enemy forces. Did I read you incorrectly?
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/24/2006 @ 2:20pm
That that scenario dates to Ike is beside the point. What matter is that it is apt. It is a solid analogy. It is about a tyrant, a fascist, a dictatorship which the US opts to close down, though it is not an immediate threat to America. You don't have an answer. You call me dishonest and quibble - because it has you licked. Posted by NACL 05/24/2006 @ 09:01am | ignore this person
No. It is not "a solid analogy." You can't dream up a fictitious encounter and call it analogous to reality. In your fictional account, you get to make up all the variables without any objective measure against reality. That is a product of Hollywood.
BTW – You are the one who charged dishonesty in your earlier post.
Posted by seattlescribe at 05/24/2006 @ 2:23pm