For the record, I both For the record, I both donated to him and voted for him. But I’m severely disappointed in his (lack of) handling of the gigantic, sick banks (Citi, BOA, Wells, et al).
I’m a “not sure” at this point.
Veritas
September 21, 2009 @
12:36 PM
Romney: Obama Has Failed So Romney: Obama Has Failed So Far
Posted by University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service on September 21, 2009 | ShareThis
“Mitt Romney doesn’t think the last eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency have been successful. In an hour-long speech to hundreds of Republicans last Saturday, Romney said that Obama has failed with healthcare reform, economic redevelopment, stimulus funding and foreign relations.”
“What President Obama has done these past eight months [stimulus and bailout packages]… has not strengthened America,” said Romney at the 2009 Family Research Council Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. “To strengthen the economy and create jobs the President has to stop trying to borrow the country out of a debt problem… don’t repeat the stimulus, repair the stimulus.”
Veritas wrote:Romney: Obama [quote=Veritas]Romney: Obama Has Failed So Far
[/quote]
I bet Huckabee, McCain, Duncan “Saddle-up” Hunter, Fred Thompson, and the rest of the GOP candidates would also say he failed.
briansd1
September 21, 2009 @
12:49 PM
CricketOnTheHearth wrote:For [quote=CricketOnTheHearth]For the record, I both donated to him and voted for him. But I’m severely disappointed in his (lack of) handling of the gigantic, sick banks (Citi, BOA, Wells, et al).
I’m a “not sure” at this point.[/quote]
Give him time….
My bet is that he’ll get re-elected. Time will tell….
Listen to the young generation. They are demanding health care, environmental protection and more social justice.
I’m seeing a shift in American values.
CricketOnTheHearth
September 21, 2009 @
1:18 PM
briansd1:
Agreed.
And I want briansd1:
Agreed.
And I want those things too.
Question is, will Obama help deliver them, or will pretty speeches be all we wind up getting from him?
Granted, he has stiff headwinds (bought-and-paid-for Congresscritters terrified to write truly good bills for fear of displeasing their corporate masters, etc)
citydweller
September 21, 2009 @
9:58 PM
[quote=briansd1]
Give him [quote=briansd1]
Give him time….
My bet is that he’ll get re-elected. Time will tell….
The thing I like about Obama is that I don’t think he cares if he gets re-elected.
My opinion of him is that he is just a regular person (like us) who wants the world to be a good place for his children.
I voted “probably” on the poll, because if things move in the direction that he is leading us, I believe that 10 or 20 years from now our country will be truly oil independent, we will be creating all the energy we need within our borders, and people will look back and acknowledge that it was his presidency and his vision that brought us to that point.
Regarding health care and health insurance, if the only thing that gets passed is a mandate for covering pre-existing conditions and not being able to drop “sick” clients, this will inspire insurance companies to actually want to keep people healthy.
We currently have thousands (hundreds of thousands?)of women walking and raising money to contribute to the research of finding a cure for breast cancer. But right now there is no real incentive to find a cure, especially with all this money poring into their coffers for “research”. If all of a sudden they are required to cover the “sick” it actually becomes beneficial to the insurance companies to actually find a cure.
Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so this year, not including this week’s big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.)
I enjoy watching Obama. He’s a good-looking, gregarious and eloquent speaker.
I’d rather listen to Obama than the vulgar, low-class rants of Beck and Limbaugh. Republicans can’t have enough of those two guys. That really shows you the “real Christian” upbringing their audiences.
I enjoy watching Obama. He’s a good-looking, gregarious and eloquent speaker.
I’d rather listen to Obama than the vulgar, low-class rants of Beck and Limbaugh. Republicans can’t have enough of those two guys. That really shows you the “real Christian” upbringing their audiences.[/quote]
Brian: Yes, and when one is an engaging speaker, the audience cares far less about truth and content. That, by the way, is called demagoguery and it has stood folks like Obama in good stead for millenia.
That Obama is a gifted orator is beyond question. However, when it comes to actual facts and figures, well, then it gets a mite fuzzier, doesn’t it?
Brian, you obviously put a lot of credence in “intellect” and “breeding” and “class”. You impute these values to Obama and “liberals” (without a clear understanding of either what liberal means or its lineage) and heap disdain on those who don’t subscribe to your interpretation of these values. This sort of moral infantilism allows demagogues to have their way and aided by what Lenin called the “useful idiots of the West”.
To make my point, I’ll ask your opinion of the neoconservative “movement” and why you feel the way you do. I guarantee the answer will be hugely enlightening for you and the rest of the reading audience.
Zeitgeist
September 23, 2009 @
11:40 PM
Yes, Brian Obama is Yes, Brian Obama is attractive and articulate. For most of us it has never been about his speaking ability or his intellect. Just wondering what you think of Jeremiah Wright, since you do not seem to like religious people. I found him to be quite an entertaining speaker, too.
briansd1
September 24, 2009 @
10:17 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Yes, Brian [quote=Zeitgeist]Yes, Brian Obama is attractive and articulate. For most of us it has never been about his speaking ability or his intellect.[/quote]
That’s why I like to have him on TV.
[quote=Zeitgeist]Just wondering what you think of Jeremiah Wright, since you do not seem to like religious people. [/quote]
His an nutcase. He was just expressing his own frustrations. But the fact that your priest is a nut has no bearing on you as an individual.
I just attended my aunt’s funeral outside New York City. Their previous Catholic father was a nut too. The current priest is very nice and the congregation loves him. They don’t get to choose their priest. My cousin told me that the Catholic priests move to different parishes every 7 years. Her family has belonged to this church since forever and they would never think of changing just because of something the priest says.
BTW, to me the “real” America is more likely to be century old communities in the North-East rather than the new evangelical born-again Christian churches of the Red States.
For those who have not been, I recommend visiting the North East and visiting the small towns with 10 year-old churches. It’s a big contrast from the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.
SD Realtor
September 24, 2009 @
10:26 PM
Well in the past 2 days we Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. Of course we will now most likely have a healthcare reform pushed through congress. So, we cannot run a govt postal system without a bailout but we will get a full blown healthcare system correct. I am not saying we don’t need healthcare reform. I think it could be done on a much smaller scale.
Yes Obama does speak well, the fact that so many people love him and are simply turning deaf ears to alot of troubling things that are happening, proves it as such.
briansd1
September 25, 2009 @
6:48 AM
SD Realtor wrote:Well in the [quote=SD Realtor]Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. [/quote]
We have engaged and negotiated with the Soviet Union for decades. And we contained and defeated the Soviet Union in the end without spilling any blood.
Sure there were proxy wars but those were better than direct war with the Soviets.
In many respects the conflicts of today are a legacy of the proxy wars with the Soviets.
I think that it’s best to engage the dictators to open up their economies. Our multinational corporations and consumer goods will win the wars for us. Let their people have a taste of the American consumer lifestyle and political change will come on its own, just like it did in China Vietnam, and Eastern Europe.
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
7:17 AM
SD Realtor wrote:Well in the [quote=SD Realtor]Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. Of course we will now most likely have a healthcare reform pushed through congress. So, we cannot run a govt postal system without a bailout but we will get a full blown healthcare system correct. I am not saying we don’t need healthcare reform. I think it could be done on a much smaller scale.
Yes Obama does speak well, the fact that so many people love him and are simply turning deaf ears to alot of troubling things that are happening, proves it as such.[/quote]
No, he never said Israel needs to be wiped off the map. That was a gross mistranslation. It was more an attack at the legal inception and the current regime in charge. Which he is entitled to bring up.
Stealing land by claiming divine right is something we did hundreds of years ago but that shit does not fly in the 20-21st century. Israel is an occupying force committing genocide on an indigenous population. Period.
Why do you think Zelaya is being hunted by Israelis? Think real hard because it fits into the huge geopolitical picture that is being played out in front of our eyes.
sd_matt
September 28, 2009 @
12:46 PM
Arraya wrote:SD Realtor [quote=Arraya][quote=SD Realtor]Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. Of course we will now most likely have a healthcare reform pushed through congress. So, we cannot run a govt postal system without a bailout but we will get a full blown healthcare system correct. I am not saying we don’t need healthcare reform. I think it could be done on a much smaller scale.
Yes Obama does speak well, the fact that so many people love him and are simply turning deaf ears to alot of troubling things that are happening, proves it as such.[/quote]
No, he never said Israel needs to be wiped off the map. That was a gross mistranslation. It was more an attack at the legal inception and the current regime in charge. Which he is entitled to bring up.
Stealing land by claiming divine right is something we did hundreds of years ago but that shit does not fly in the 20-21st century. Israel is an occupying force committing genocide on an indigenous population. Period.
Why do you think Zelaya is being hunted by Israelis? Think real hard because it fits into the huge geopolitical picture that is being played out in front of our eyes.[/quote]
Israel has a pretty proficient military. So I would think that if they decided to commit genocide then it there would be no Palestinians left in that area. Especially the those that go to work every day in Israel.
briansd1
September 28, 2009 @
12:57 PM
sd_matt wrote:
Israel has a [quote=sd_matt]
Israel has a pretty proficient military. So I would think that if they decided to commit genocide then it there would be no Palestinians left in that area. Especially the those that go to work every day in Israel.[/quote]
What about our own military, the best trained and best equipped in the world? And we still can’t secure Iraq and Afpak.
Remember, we still haven’t been able to get Osama Bin Laden.
Makes you wonder what shock and awe can achieve.
Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.
4plexowner
September 28, 2009 @
1:24 PM
Afghanistan: Where Empires Go Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die
Genghis Khan could not hold onto Afghanistan. Neither will the United States
“Look at Vietnam now. The war “Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.”
here ya’ go, Allan – show us your jingoistic nature
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
1:33 PM
4plexowner wrote:”Look at [quote=4plexowner]”Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.”
here ya’ go, Allan – show us your jingoistic nature[/quote]
4Plex: See my other quote. And, yes, we were in Vietnam for largely the same reason: Maintaining an open seaway for oil, as well as containing the communist threat from China and the North.
I’d also have you answer how, exactly, we “won” in Vietnam with Coca-Cola, Citi and The Gap. This is an endemically corrupt and backward country and, regardless of how well we appear to be doing commercially, this country is riddled with problems.
Also, do a little research and tell me what you think happened post-April 1975 when US forces exited Southeast Asia. Specifically, what did North Vietnam do after securing South Vietnam? Or, more importantly, what didn’t they do?
Reducing everything to these childish black/white analogies is pointless. You are looking for, what, a 30 second answer to all of the world’s problems? Wait, I get it. “Love each other”. That’s the answer, right?
sd_matt
September 28, 2009 @
1:24 PM
Brian
What does this have to Brian
What does this have to do with my comment about whether or not Israel is committing genocide?
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
1:52 PM
briansd1 wrote:sd_matt [quote=briansd1][quote=sd_matt]
Israel has a pretty proficient military. So I would think that if they decided to commit genocide then it there would be no Palestinians left in that area. Especially the those that go to work every day in Israel.[/quote]
What about our own military, the best trained and best equipped in the world? And we still can’t secure Iraq and Afpak.
Remember, we still haven’t been able to get Osama Bin Laden.
Makes you wonder what shock and awe can achieve.
Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.[/quote]
Brian: Have you been to Israel or the Mideast? If yes, where did you go? And, what were your impressions of the country, people, government, freedoms, etc?
Been to India? The Philippines? Australia? Indonesia? Europe? Same questions for any of these countries as well.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 24, 2009 @
10:40 PM
briansd1 wrote:His an [quote=briansd1]His an nutcase. He was just expressing his own frustrations. But the fact that your priest is a nut has no bearing on you as an individual.
I just attended my aunt’s funeral outside New York City. Their previous Catholic father was a nut too. The current priest is very nice and the congregation loves him. They don’t get to choose their priest. My cousin told me that the Catholic priests move to different parishes every 7 years. Her family has belonged to this church since forever and they would never think of changing just because of something the priest says.
BTW, to me the “real” America is more likely to be century old communities in the North-East rather than the new evangelical born-again Christian churches of the Red States.
For those who have not been, I recommend visiting the North East and visiting the small towns with 10 year-old churches. It’s a big contrast from the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.[/quote]
Brian: What utter nonsense. Jeremiah Wright has been spewing this crap for 20+ years. If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.
I was raised Catholic and attended Jesuit seminary school as a grade schooler, and mixed Jesuit (priests) and Franciscan (brothers) high school in Northern California. I bring that up because I find evangelical Christians to be light on theology and long on drama (Tribulations/End Times nonsense). However, they’re free to believe what they believe, within limits.
For you to say, and I’m presuming with a straight face, that Obama sat in that pew while Wright fulminated against America (“God Damn America!”) and was unaffected is laughable horseshit. For him to then claim that he was unaware of what Wright was saying is even funnier, and far less believable.
Your willingness to buy into any shit that this man sells is alarming in and of itself. But your bigotry against Christians (and, yes, Brian, that is exactly what it is: Bigotry) is deplorable, especially when certain groups of Christians, such as Catholics, have contributed some of the finest thinkers, philosophers, scientists, doctors AND politicians/leaders to the world culture.
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. And you continue to pontificate freely, apparently with the sense that you’re possessed of some sort of superior intellect, while we conservatives of the knuckle dragging, mono-browed persuasion lurch slowly around, trying to find our way back to glory.
CostaMesa
September 24, 2009 @
11:30 PM
Quote:If you had a Catholic [quote]If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.[/quote]
You mean sort of like how they pulled the priests that were raping little boys out of their parishes?
Next caller, please.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
5:42 AM
CostaMesa wrote:Quote:If you [quote=CostaMesa][quote]If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.[/quote]
You mean sort of like how they pulled the priests that were raping little boys out of their parishes?
Next caller, please.[/quote]
CM: Yes, an absolutely shameful and despicable chapter in the Church’s history. And, not what we were talking about at all.
Oh, that’s right, I forgot: You generally react strongly when your Leftist ilk get assailed, don’t you, CM?
How about we stick with what we were discussing, hmm?
4plexowner
September 25, 2009 @
6:06 AM
I think the point he was I think the point he was making, Allan, is that the Church’s history of allowing child abuse doesn’t support the idea of the Church acting quickly to stop a priest from saying ‘unacceptable’ things to his congregation
child abuse has gone on for decades with the knowledge of church leaders – the abusers get moved to new parishes after private settlements are made with the abused
the point is a little off track from the current discussion but worthy of a quick mention
Navydoc
September 25, 2009 @
6:33 AM
I think Allen’s point was I think Allen’s point was that a Catholic priest spewing garbage from the pulpit publicly would be acted upon rather quickly. I don’t think a Catholic congregation would tolerate Reverend Wrights nonsense for very long either (and yes, I am Catholic).
The raping of little boys was going on behind closed doors, and is certainly deplorable if the Church knew it was going on, and is indeed a condition that the Catholic Church needs to be ashamed about. Throughout history there have been plenty of things the Church should hang it’s head in shame about, but a great deal of good has come from the Church as well, and I don’t think the organization should be condemned entirely because of a few rotten priests.
I find it quite difficult to believe that some would condemn an entity as large as the Catholic Church for some of it’s priests indescretions, but perhaps I’m just indoctrinated.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
7:33 AM
4plexowner wrote:I think the [quote=4plexowner]I think the point he was making, Allan, is that the Church’s history of allowing child abuse doesn’t support the idea of the Church acting quickly to stop a priest from saying ‘unacceptable’ things to his congregation
child abuse has gone on for decades with the knowledge of church leaders – the abusers get moved to new parishes after private settlements are made with the abused
the point is a little off track from the current discussion but worthy of a quick mention[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, I understood CM’s point, but my response was that it wasn’t germane to the discussion (as NavyDoc saw and caught below). NavyDoc also makes an important point of his own, and that is that the Church, like the US, on balance, has been a force for good.
Any organization, especially one the size of the Catholic Church, is going to have bad apples. Just like any country the size of the US is going to have idiots, malcontents and those too ignorant to understand the true state of things, such as the Loony Left wing of the Democratic Party and the Radical Right wing of the Republican Party.
briansd1
September 25, 2009 @
6:57 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Brian: What utter nonsense. Jeremiah Wright has been spewing this crap for 20+ years. If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.[/quote]
What about the churches spewing non-sense and hatred against gays, and choice supporters? Such vitriol has resulted in murders and violence against innocent individuals.
I honestly don’t see the difference.
The way I interpret Jeremiah Wright’s statements is that “God has yet to bless America. We still have some way to go before we are truly blessed.” His statement is simply a figure of speech meant for effect, and meant as a calling for social activism on the part of his congregants.
Anonymous
October 2, 2009 @
9:26 PM
You interpret JW’s statements You interpret JW’s statements of “God damn America” in one way, and then turn around and contradict yourself with “Churches spewing non-sense and hatred against gays????? There is a BIG difference between saying that being gay is a sin and hatred for gays. Yet, your interpretation went right to hatred. When someone comes out and says they hate America (usually when you want to damn something to hell, you pretty much hate them), you INTERPRET their meaning as God has yet to BLESS America?? Wake up, there is no intepretation needed here……… listen to what they said.
briansd1
September 25, 2009 @
7:05 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. [/quote]
Allan, it takes one to know one. 😉
I wasn’t so much concerned about my own political lineage. I was referring to that of the conservatives. Their behavior certainly doesn’t espouse the conservative Christian values they embrace.
Perhaps the end justifies the means on both side of the aisle. I happen to believe that progressives have only began playing hardball whereas conservative Republicans have been practicing such unsavory tactics for much longer.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
7:48 AM
briansd1 wrote:Allan from [quote=briansd1][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. [/quote]
Allan, it takes one to know one. 😉
I wasn’t so much concerned about my own political lineage. I was referring to that of the conservatives. Their behavior certainly doesn’t espouse the conservative Christian values they embrace.
Perhaps the end justifies the means on both side of the aisle. I happen to believe that progressives have only began playing hardball whereas conservative Republicans have been practicing such unsavory tactics for much longer.[/quote]
Brian: You must be in a constant state of ducking because damn near everything I’ve said has gone completely over your head.
I asked your opinion about neocons to make a point and was gunning after that same point when I asked about your liberal lineage.
I’m going to guess that you don’t realize that the neocon movement was started by liberals. True story and look it up if you don’t believe me.
As I’ve said before, I have no problems with liberals (TRUE liberals, a designation that does NOT include Hillary, Obama et al), but I have a major problem with Leftists (Hillary, Obama et al). You can tell (or smell) a Leftist by their use of language and their politics.
Obama is a true Leftist, as evidenced by his redistributive and confiscatory policies, such as his vigorous and unrepentant sodomizing of the Chrysler corporate bondholders, all while fending off all attempts to even view the Chrysler union CBA (collective bargaining agreement).
His (mis)handling of the Chinese tire tariff exposes him further as a tool of the Left (this is a sop to the United Steelworkers union).
The clearest example I can give of both the divide and the disconnect between true liberalism and Leftism is the differences in the approach to a social society between that of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Teddy Kennedy. Moynihan advocated for race neutral social programs that were effective, affordable and didn’t create a cycle of dependency and victimhood. Kennedy advocated, well, we all know what Kennedy advocated for.
While the American people have certainly had their moments of idiocy (the Carter Administration), they’re starting to smell the stench emanating from DC and seeing Obama for what he is and what his policies represent.
Ricechex
September 27, 2009 @
1:32 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]His an nutcase. He was just expressing his own frustrations. But the fact that your priest is a nut has no bearing on you as an individual.
I just attended my aunt’s funeral outside New York City. Their previous Catholic father was a nut too. The current priest is very nice and the congregation loves him. They don’t get to choose their priest. My cousin told me that the Catholic priests move to different parishes every 7 years. Her family has belonged to this church since forever and they would never think of changing just because of something the priest says.
BTW, to me the “real” America is more likely to be century old communities in the North-East rather than the new evangelical born-again Christian churches of the Red States.
For those who have not been, I recommend visiting the North East and visiting the small towns with 10 year-old churches. It’s a big contrast from the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.[/quote]
Brian: What utter nonsense. Jeremiah Wright has been spewing this crap for 20+ years. If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.
I was raised Catholic and attended Jesuit seminary school as a grade schooler, and mixed Jesuit (priests) and Franciscan (brothers) high school in Northern California. I bring that up because I find evangelical Christians to be light on theology and long on drama (Tribulations/End Times nonsense). However, they’re free to believe what they believe, within limits.
For you to say, and I’m presuming with a straight face, that Obama sat in that pew while Wright fulminated against America (“God Damn America!”) and was unaffected is laughable horseshit. For him to then claim that he was unaware of what Wright was saying is even funnier, and far less believable.
Your willingness to buy into any shit that this man sells is alarming in and of itself. But your bigotry against Christians (and, yes, Brian, that is exactly what it is: Bigotry) is deplorable, especially when certain groups of Christians, such as Catholics, have contributed some of the finest thinkers, philosophers, scientists, doctors AND politicians/leaders to the world culture.
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. And you continue to pontificate freely, apparently with the sense that you’re possessed of some sort of superior intellect, while we conservatives of the knuckle dragging, mono-browed persuasion lurch slowly around, trying to find our way back to glory.[/quote]
Well said Allan!
Zeitgeist
September 27, 2009 @
2:48 PM
Allan,
That is very well Allan,
That is very well written. Bigotry goes both ways. Brian is just as bigoted as the people he describes as “the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.” Beneath the hatred is pure fear.
briansd1
September 27, 2009 @
3:31 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Allan,
That [quote=Zeitgeist]Allan,
That is very well written. Bigotry goes both ways. Brian is just as bigoted as the people he describes as “the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.” Beneath the hatred is pure fear.[/quote]
Zeitgeist, I’m glad that you agree that those folks are bigoted. That’s progress right there!
Fear? Give me a break. Bring Palin on. Bring her on!!
Allan, I think that I have reasons to be disdainful towards the conservative base. That base comes mostly from the working-class of the Red States. It’s stupid for them to support policies that benefits well-off taxpayers.
For example, look at those E-rank military who vote Republican. Aside from their socialized military benefits and what they earned from their service salaries, they likely don’t have a penny to their names. They likely haven’t earned anything in the private sector aside from odd high-school jobs.
Sometimes people need to be told how stupid they are so they can “wake up, America!” Isn’t that the tough love that true conservatives embrace?
BTW, I agree that real conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. But the conservative movement as currently embodied by the “base” is full of hypocrisy and contradictions.
Allan, as I’ve said before, you seem pretty fair-minded. But the Becks and Limbaughs of this world are just vulgar, low-class buffoons.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 27, 2009 @
4:57 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Allan, I [quote=briansd1]
Allan, I think that I have reasons to be disdainful towards the conservative base. That base comes mostly from the working-class of the Red States. It’s stupid for them to support policies that benefits well-off taxpayers.
For example, look at those E-rank military who vote Republican. Aside from their socialized military benefits and what they earned from their service salaries, they likely don’t have a penny to their names. They likely haven’t earned anything in the private sector aside from odd high-school jobs.
Sometimes people need to be told how stupid they are so they can “wake up, America!” Isn’t that the tough love that true conservatives embrace?
BTW, I agree that real conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. But the conservative movement as currently embodied by the “base” is full of hypocrisy and contradictions.
Allan, as I’ve said before, you seem pretty fair-minded. But the Becks and Limbaughs of this world are just vulgar, low-class buffoons.[/quote]
Brian: You bring up the military. I have the sense you haven’t served and would recommend sitting down with someone from the Army or Marines and discussing why they vote Republican.
I served my entire time under Reagan and, while I disagreed with much of what he did, I also applauded his understanding of what the Soviets were truly about and his willingness to go the distance in bringing them down.
A quick glance at the military under Carter or Clinton will further answer that question for you. Friends of mine have served under both of those administrations and loathe them equally.
I also have the feeling that you missed my point about neocons and liberals and Leftists. The Democrats have been co-opted just as completely as the Republicans have.
Hillary’s constant and consistent invocations of 1968 show her counter-cultural chops as well as her beliefs. True liberals are part of the minority in the Democratic Party, just as true conservatives are in the Republican Party.
But, before you condemn anybody for their political or religious beliefs, understand that nothing is in black or white and the very people you feign superiority over are in fact more unflinching and realistic in their views than you are.
briansd1
September 28, 2009 @
8:21 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
But, before you condemn anybody for their political or religious beliefs, understand that nothing is in black or white [/quote]
But it seems black and white, at least to the Republicans. Single issue politics plays well to the populace.
That’s why you have anti-abortion and anti-birth-control advocates voting Republican against their economic well-being. Then they wonder why their teenage daughters get pregnant.
That’s why you have enlisted soldiers who believe in the nuke’em-big-gun approach voting Republican against their economic well-being. These soldiers have never held significant private sector jobs. All they know is the coterie of the military.
That’s why you have rural and religious conservatives Republicans who abhor homosexuality voting Republican against their own economic well-being.
Same thing applies to creationism pushers.
People vote stupidly against their own self-interests all the time because of emotional reasons.
sd_matt
September 28, 2009 @
2:02 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Allan,
That [quote=Zeitgeist]Allan,
That is very well written. Bigotry goes both ways. Brian is just as bigoted as the people he describes as “the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.” Beneath the hatred is pure fear.[/quote]
I agree strongly. I have read some of his threads.
When I watch and listen to the news I see lots of examples of shenanigans from the left and right.
This is just not so in Brians world.
sd_matt
September 28, 2009 @
2:11 PM
And I am going to repeat what And I am going to repeat what I said on another thread. The farther Left or Right you go the more you think the same fundamentally. I mean that both sides seek the easy black and white answer. Both like to warp the idea of accountability.
Example; The war on drugs and gun control. Go back in time and look. How do differentiate between the two in terms of accountability?
4plexowner
September 28, 2009 @
4:30 PM
“Reducing everything to these “Reducing everything to these childish black/white analogies is pointless. You are looking for, what, a 30 second answer to all of the world’s problems?”
nope
just having fun getting under your skin
remember you started this exchange by insulting me
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
4:36 PM
4plexowner wrote:”Reducing [quote=4plexowner]”Reducing everything to these childish black/white analogies is pointless. You are looking for, what, a 30 second answer to all of the world’s problems?”
nope
just having fun getting under your skin
remember you started this exchange by insulting me[/quote]
4Plex: Uh-huh. Okay. So that’s what that mad-dog kill spree I went on today was all about!
I insulted you how, again?
Aecetia
September 28, 2009 @
6:10 PM
Everyone filters their world. Everyone filters their world. Some just have stronger filters than others. Some even filter out the truth to hold on to some world view they believe in. I would just like to know what happened to the transparency that was promised to the voters…
briansd1
September 23, 2009 @
9:08 PM
citydweller wrote:
The thing [quote=citydweller]
The thing I like about Obama is that I don’t think he cares if he gets re-elected.
My opinion of him is that he is just a regular person (like us) who wants the world to be a good place for his children.[/quote]
I agree with you. I’m sure that Obama will run for reelection because he’ll want to continue his work.
After 16 years of Reagan and Bush, I’m glad to have Obama in the presidency. He’s a breath of fresh air.
jficquette
October 4, 2009 @
1:32 PM
CricketOnTheHearth wrote:For [quote=CricketOnTheHearth]For the record, I both donated to him and voted for him. But I’m severely disappointed in his (lack of) handling of the gigantic, sick banks (Citi, BOA, Wells, et al).
I’m a “not sure” at this point.[/quote]
If you had done any research on him you would not be surprised by his piss poor performance.
Zeitgeist
October 24, 2012 @
9:47 AM
Obama went to bed knowing Obama went to bed knowing what was happening in Benghazi, yet did nothing: “As the Arab world shakes a bloody fist at the apologetic and gutless Obama White House, new facts emerge over the recent horrific murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.”
So he is either totally incompetent or a total liar, aided by the corrupt media in the coverup.
Even Letterman is discouraged by his lies:
“Now, I don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth; you want the contender to be lying. And so what we found out today or soon thereafter that, in fact, the President Obama was not telling the truth about what was excerpted from that op-ed piece. I felt discouraged.”
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: “This is a Fox News Alert.’ New evidence at Fox News that the Obama administration knew the Libya attack was an act of terror even as it happened! Fox News has obtained internal State Department emails, the emails showing that an al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack as the assault was ongoing on the U.S. consulate.”
I know many of you do not care what he does because you support him no matter what. The truth is inconvenient.
Zeitgeist wrote:Obama went to [quote=Zeitgeist]Obama went to bed knowing what was happening in Benghazi, yet did nothing: “As the Arab world shakes a bloody fist at the apologetic and gutless Obama White House, new facts emerge over the recent horrific murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.”
So he is either totally incompetent or a total liar, aided by the corrupt media in the coverup.
Even Letterman is discouraged by his lies:
“Now, I don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth; you want the contender to be lying. And so what we found out today or soon thereafter that, in fact, the President Obama was not telling the truth about what was excerpted from that op-ed piece. I felt discouraged.”
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: “This is a Fox News Alert.’ New evidence at Fox News that the Obama administration knew the Libya attack was an act of terror even as it happened! Fox News has obtained internal State Department emails, the emails showing that an al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack as the assault was ongoing on the U.S. consulate.”
I know many of you do not care what he does because you support him no matter what. The truth is inconvenient.
PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEFING, PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEFING, OCTOBER 23RD 2012: ZEITGEIST DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN PIGGINGTON
GH
September 24, 2009 @
5:27 PM
I find Obama most interesting I find Obama most interesting with the sound off. That way I can focus on his actions rather than his rather soothing words.
Chris Scoreboard Johnston
September 25, 2009 @
7:15 AM
It is shocking to me to read It is shocking to me to read a thread like this and see the remarks that are being made here. Politically I am somewhat in the middle in general, probably a bit right leaning. With that stated, I just look at what he is doing not how he is saying it.
He is weakening our national defense, indisputable by any measure.
He has reneged on virtually every campaign promise he made except the redistribution ones. Every pres does some of this but not on this level.
His world wide apology tours make a mockery of all of us.
He hides behind the attorney general in that easter egg hunt with the CIA. I know a couple of people and I can tell you without a doubt, this is going to make us less likely to catch bad guys going forward.
Health care, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle as far as how bad this might be, but the financial aspect of it is loud and clear.
I have no idea what his real agenda is. It is possible that he is geniune and just stupid and naive about how to go about doing things. He does have the same level of experience as most of us, so this was not unexpected.
However, with all of this, in my view he has a great shot at the title of the worst president ever depending on his next 6 months or so. I see him as the Detroit Lions of politics.
How in the world anyone could think he is doing a great job is just beyond belief to me! I guess if we all agreed life would be boring.
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
7:23 AM
His world wide apology tours His world wide apology tours make a mockery of all of us.
Being an American means never having to say your sorry…
but the financial aspect of it is loud and clear.
Yes, the Fed plan has almost run it’s course and the Benny and Timmy show is coming to a close just like Thelma and Louise.
EconProf
September 25, 2009 @
10:33 AM
If you liked Jimmy Carter, If you liked Jimmy Carter, you are going to love Barak Obama.
The similarities are ominous. Both came from a populist, left-leaning background, both began big government programs that whacked the economy at the same time they were (are) long-term inflationary, and both showed weakenss to such renegade countries as Iran.
The big difference is that Obama is more persuasive and attractive, so is getting a longer trial before the country realizes what a mistake it made. But the bill is coming due and the public is waking up the more they learn about such things as bail-outs, health care “reform”, and cap and tax.
On the positive side….our reaction to Carter ushered in the era of Reagan and 20 years of above-average growth and prosperity.
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
11:05 AM
Reagan, who actually Reagan, who actually increased the size of government, started the age of easy credit, bubble economics and out of control deficits that is coming crashing down now. The prosperity, was all massive inflation, which was all a mirage.
The economic emperors that started this are all still running the show in the Federal Reserve and the trajectory has not changed in decades. Keep increasing debt until it explodes. Those guys are geniuses, I tell ya.
Now is the grand finale, as the dollar gets thrown out by the rest of the world and the US empire comes to a screeching halt.
Of course, the whole global economy came crashing down under Bush and the Fed and associated central banks threw about 6 generations of debt to stop the massive deflationary collapse temporarily. But we blame Obama for what the central banks policies, that have been working in concert around the world, have done.
We will find out what Obama is like, after this crash is complete Yes, he will be a socialist as will the rest of the globe as globalization falls flat on it’s unsustainable face.
Next leg down starts in late october/november.
Hold onto your hats..
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
11:51 AM
Arraya: Didn’t we discuss Arraya: Didn’t we discuss this perky, chipper crap from you? Dude! It’s Friday!
Thank God I’m not in any way despondent, or I’d be ready to do a double gainer off the Coronado Bridge.
Sheesh! It’s all going to be okay. Bernanke said so.
4plexowner
September 25, 2009 @
12:03 PM
“Next leg down starts in late “Next leg down starts in late october/november.
Hold onto your hats..”
just enough time to get some new sanctions implemented against Iran so come late oct/nov we can claim that Iran isn’t complying with the ‘world mandate’ and it is time to start dropping bombs
the war will provide convenient distraction from the collapsing economy and it will also provide an external scapegoat for the collapse – “Barak’s economic recovery was well under way until the unexpected crisis in Iran developed. … blah … blah … blah”
briansd1
September 25, 2009 @
12:49 PM
Few understand that Iran has Few understand that Iran has the legal standing to own a nuclear program for peaceful purposes or otherwise. The US and other countries are trying to coax (perhaps bully would a better word) Iran into abandoning it.
Look at it from Iran’s point of view. There has to be something in it for them.
I have the right to park my ugly truck in front of my house. If you want me to get rid of it, you have to make it worth my while. Or you can beat me into submission. Sure, I’m a lousy neighbor, but I haven’t done anything wrong.
Not defending Iran but simply looking at it from a realistic point of view.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
1:34 PM
briansd1 wrote:Few understand [quote=briansd1]Few understand that Iran has the legal standing to own a nuclear program for peaceful purposes or otherwise. The US and other countries are trying to coax (perhaps bully would a better word) Iran into abandoning it.
Look at it from Iran’s point of view. There has to be something in it for them.
I have the right to park my ugly truck in front of my house. If you want me to get rid of it, you have to make it worth my while. Or you can beat me into submission. Sure, I’m a lousy neighbor, but I haven’t done anything wrong.
Not defending Iran but simply looking at it from a realistic point of view.[/quote]
Brian:
How do you feel about North Korean having nukes? How do you think Japan feels about their “lousy neighbor” having nukes? Or South Korea?
Have you seen the Hezbollah flags with the nuclear mushroom cloud on them? Do you know what that mushroom cloud represents? Do you know who funds Hezbollah?
If you think Iran’s nuke program is benign in nature, okay. You’re entitled to your opinion. However, if you believe it is far more likely tied to their desire to achieve ascendancy in the region and spread their particularly virulent message throughout the Mideast, then I think we should consider our options. Easiest one being to exert sufficient pressure through soft power to close down the program.
This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy. They are enforcing their mandate through power, violence and intimidation and directed at THEIR OWN PEOPLE. Given the hardliners willingness to deny the Holocaust, what do you think their plans for Israel are?
briansd1
September 25, 2009 @
2:20 PM
Allan, it sounds like more of Allan, it sounds like more of the Bush Doctrine (one which Palin wasn’t even aware of) of preemption and prevention.
In regard to Iran, I believe that we can negotiate with them. That will come at the expense of Israel; and I believe that the Israeli lobby is pushing us act against Iran.
Iran may be threatening Israel’s security but I don’t believe that they are a threat to own national security, at this point. Our government job is to act in our best interests, not those of Israel.
Gradually normalizing relations with Iran will be to our mutual benefit.
We can convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program by loosening the economic embargo. But that will cement Iran’s position as the region’s military and economic power (something Israel is trying to avoid). But by trading with Iran we can turn them into a friend, customer and vendor.
It took us a long time after the fall of Saigon to normalize relations with Vietnam because of pride and rhetoric. We would have been better off to follow the lead of Australia and remain engaged with Communist Vietnam (which is now a large trading partner).
By isolating Iran and keeping its people disconnected from the world culture, we are helping their people remain ignorant. That’s why they are reelecting leaders like Ahmadinejad.
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
2:25 PM
Allan, there is no proof of Allan, there is no proof of nuclear weapon ambitions. NONE
Iran allows inspections.
Iran has signed the NNPT.
Israel told the UN to go screw itself regarding inspections of Israel’s nuclear facilities.
Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There is a think line between Chutzpah and looking like a hypocritical ass and Netanyahu just sailed over it.
Genocidal Israel is the problem over their not Iran.
briansd1
September 25, 2009 @
2:28 PM
I agree, Arraya.
The great I agree, Arraya.
The great fear in Israel is that if we get closer to Iran we will begin to turn away from Israel.
Israel is acting like a conniving woman trying to turn all of her boyfriend’s friends (or even potential friends), who are not her own friends first, into enemies.
Obama’s powerful presence
The president’s popularity — on view at the U.N. — has helped reduce global tensions and deprived America’s enemies of propaganda points.
Conservative critics of President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives are having a tough week. On Thursday, Obama achieved a signature victory when the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved his resolution aimed at halting nuclear proliferation. His warm reception by the General Assembly — some delegates were so awed by the American president that they couldn’t resist snapping pictures during his Wednesday speech — stood in sharp contrast to the welcome accorded George W. Bush, whose U.N. speeches were typically met with stony silence. Even the implacably hostile Russians suddenly seem amenable to U.S. desires.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
2:48 PM
Arraya wrote:Allan, there is [quote=Arraya]Allan, there is no proof of nuclear weapon ambitions. NONE
Iran allows inspections.
Iran has signed the NNPT.
Israel told the UN to go screw itself regarding inspections of Israel’s nuclear facilities.
Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There is a think line between Chutzpah and looking like a hypocritical ass and Netanyahu just sailed over it.
Genocidal Israel is the problem over their not Iran.[/quote]
Arraya: From the vantage point of controlling resources (and this is ultimately where the discussion begins and ends), I want a friendly US supplied Israel and a marginalized, non-nuclear Iran.
Yes, I realize that, from a diplomatic standpoint, this ignores certain realities and a vast number of “niceties”. I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.
Until the US is able to self-sustain when it comes to energy and energy policy, then we have no choice. It is that simple and it doesn’t have to do with liberals and conservatives or Republicans or Democrats. And you better believe that President I-Am-A-Dinner-Jacket understands that full well.
You may not agree with me, but I know you get exactly where I’m coming from, Arraya.
CricketOnTheHearth
September 25, 2009 @
4:25 PM
Allan From Fallbrook has put Allan From Fallbrook has put his finger on the skunk-scented truth that underlies all national actions. We are divvied up into human groups, called “nations”, who are competing with each other for resources. Everything else is window dressing on top of that.
Ideally, we can be nice enough to *cooperate* in a manner that gets those resources to all, but humans have a mean streak and history is full of its results.
Obama is very charming but the proof of the pudding is in the results. I’m still waiting for my affordable home to buy, and the rest of us are waiting to see what Iran, Russia, et al actually *do*.
And oh, by the way, there is significant doubt that Ah-maniac-a-jad was actually elected by the Iranian people this time around. Large numbers of Iranians think he wasn’t.
Zeitgeist
September 25, 2009 @
7:32 PM
Wake up America!
‘Israeli Wake up America!
‘Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN Speech: ‘But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? What a disgrace!'”
“Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.”
“Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?”
“A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?”
“A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!”
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
8:39 PM
“How can one imagine that the “How can one imagine that the inhuman policies in Palestine may continue?” Ahmadinejad said.
“How can crimes of the occupiers against defenseless women and children and destruction of their homes, farms, hospitals and schools be supported unconditionally by certain governments?”
The Iranian leader said it was time for the world to respond.
“It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the U.S., to attain its racist ambitions,” he said.
There are many historical events, similar historical events. Why is this one in particular so important to you?… During World War II, 60 million people were killed. Why are we just focusing on this special group alone?” Ahmadinejad asked in an interview with CBS.
When the CBS reporter answered that all the attention that is being paid to the matter is because he was ‘denying it’, Ahmadinejad responded by saying that he was ’sorry for all the 60 million people that lost their lives, equally’.
“All of them were human beings. And it doesn’t matter whether they were Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. They were killed. So, we’re sorry for everyone,” said Ahmadinejad.
“We should ask ourselves whether the event did take place; if so, where did it happen, who were the perpetrators, and, what was the role of the Palestinian people? What crime have they committed to deserve what they have received as a result?”
Ahmadinejad said since the beginning of the Israeli occupation, over 5 million Palestinians have become refugees.
“Why is the Holocaust used as a pretext to usurp the land of other people? Why should the Palestinian people give their lives up for it? Who is the occupier here? The United Nations resolutions condemn which occupying regime?” he asked.
“What fair-minded person can accept that an event that happened in Europe [results] in having his or her land occupied elsewhere in the world?
“Unfortunately Western politicians refuse to answer these questions and egress into other areas… We see the Holocaust as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people.”
CricketOnTheHearth
September 25, 2009 @
9:37 PM
Ummmmmmm….. Ummmmmmm….. what????
“Holocaust used as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people”???
As I understand history, the Holocaust finally shamed the British government into giving the Jews, hitherto without a national territory of their own, a number of scraps of land in Palestine.
Upon which the local Arabs had a “there goes the neighborhood” fit, and commenced to attack the Jewish residents who were already there. The Jews pleaded with the British government for protection… none was forthcoming. So they armed themselves and took their defense into their own hands.
For example: The Golan Heights is said to be a “controversial land grab by the Israelis”. Well, a single illustration in an issue of National Geographic served to make the Israeli case to me most thoroughly. This pseudo-relief drawing made it clear that the Heights are high indeed, constituting virtually a cliff from which you can see practically the entire northern half of Israeli territory. Or lob bombs onto it, which is what the Syrians were doing until the Israelis grabbed it.
Simple strategic self-defense. I wonder how many other actions by the Israelis which have been criticized, turn out to make perfect sense when looked at from a geotactical perspective. Certainly the transformation of “Israel” from its original 1946 swiss-cheese configuration to the current, solid bloc makes a lot of sense to me that way.
“Holocaust used as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people”???
As I understand history, the Holocaust finally shamed the British government into giving the Jews, hitherto without a national territory of their own, a number of scraps of land in Palestine.
Upon which the local Arabs had a “there goes the neighborhood” fit, and commenced to attack the Jewish residents who were already there. The Jews pleaded with the British government for protection… none was forthcoming. So they armed themselves and took their defense into their own hands.
For example: The Golan Heights is said to be a “controversial land grab by the Israelis”. Well, a single illustration in an issue of National Geographic served to make the Israeli case to me most thoroughly. This pseudo-relief drawing made it clear that the Heights are high indeed, constituting virtually a cliff from which you can see practically the entire northern half of Israeli territory. Or lob bombs onto it, which is what the Syrians were doing until the Israelis grabbed it.
Simple strategic self-defense. I wonder how many other actions by the Israelis which have been criticized, turn out to make perfect sense when looked at from a geotactical perspective. Certainly the transformation of “Israel” from its original 1946 swiss-cheese configuration to the current, solid bloc makes a lot of sense to me that way.[/quote]
Cricket: Taking your apt observation one step further, it should be noted that Israel had to wage four, very costly wars for its survival in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. The last one was very nearly Israel’s undoing and they were saved by a last minute airlift of US munitions, materials and supplies.
The attack that started the war was a sneak attack and launched on the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, which is why the war is sometimes referred to as the “Yom Kippur” War. Israel was attacked on all sides and by the armies of Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.
Israel has been in a constant state of siege from the very beginning and did not start the various wars mentioned above; wars that were designed to erase Israel from the map.
For a thug like Ahmadinejad to stand before the UN and claim Israeli complicity in Palestinian “genocide” while simultaneously denying the Holocaust is repulsive, especially given Iran’s support and financing of terror groups the world over. Similarly, to claim that Iran has no aggressive designs when it comes to their nuclear program is naive to the point of lethality.
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
10:30 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=CricketOnTheHearth]Ummmmmmm….. what????
“Holocaust used as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people”???
As I understand history, the Holocaust finally shamed the British government into giving the Jews, hitherto without a national territory of their own, a number of scraps of land in Palestine.
Upon which the local Arabs had a “there goes the neighborhood” fit, and commenced to attack the Jewish residents who were already there. The Jews pleaded with the British government for protection… none was forthcoming. So they armed themselves and took their defense into their own hands.
For example: The Golan Heights is said to be a “controversial land grab by the Israelis”. Well, a single illustration in an issue of National Geographic served to make the Israeli case to me most thoroughly. This pseudo-relief drawing made it clear that the Heights are high indeed, constituting virtually a cliff from which you can see practically the entire northern half of Israeli territory. Or lob bombs onto it, which is what the Syrians were doing until the Israelis grabbed it.
Simple strategic self-defense. I wonder how many other actions by the Israelis which have been criticized, turn out to make perfect sense when looked at from a geotactical perspective. Certainly the transformation of “Israel” from its original 1946 swiss-cheese configuration to the current, solid bloc makes a lot of sense to me that way.[/quote]
Cricket: Taking your apt observation one step further, it should be noted that Israel had to wage four, very costly wars for its survival in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. The last one was very nearly Israel’s undoing and they were saved by a last minute airlift of US munitions, materials and supplies.
The attack that started the war was a sneak attack and launched on the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, which is why the war is sometimes referred to as the “Yom Kippur” War. Israel was attacked on all sides and by the armies of Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.
Israel has been in a constant state of siege from the very beginning and did not start the various wars mentioned above; wars that were designed to erase Israel from the map.
For a thug like Ahmadinejad to stand before the UN and claim Israeli complicity in Palestinian “genocide” while simultaneously denying the Holocaust is repulsive, especially given Iran’s support and financing of terror groups the world over. Similarly, to claim that Iran has no aggressive designs when it comes to their nuclear program is naive to the point of lethality.[/quote]
Allan, he’s following ALL the rules the WORLD gave him for nuclear enrichment. There is NO proof of anything and inspectors are aloud in at all times. They are a sovereign country and Russia and China have their back. The ones that we owe all that money too. Israel does not need to start WWIII because they feel uncomfortable. Everybody will lose over this dick size contest. China could shut down our military in a second if they wanted to. It runs on the dollar.
IMO, this is a dollar proxy war. The reason the dollar is alive is because it is the reserve currency, not because of the strength of our economy. China and the petro-states are supporting us.
As far as is holocaust thing. I’m not sure why he does that, because he does not believe it. I’ve seen about a dozen interviews with him. He also says their are no gays in Iran, weird. Other than that he is no Kim Jung Il. He is not a mad man. As far as other ME states, they are more progressive.
But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Sorry, fell for that one already.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 26, 2009 @
10:47 AM
Arraya wrote:
Allan, he’s [quote=Arraya]
Allan, he’s following ALL the rules the WORLD gave him for nuclear enrichment. There is NO proof of anything and inspectors are aloud in at all times. They are a sovereign country and Russia and China have their back. The ones that we owe all that money too. Israel does not need to start WWIII because they feel uncomfortable. Everybody will lose over this dick size contest. China could shut down our military in a second if they wanted to. It runs on the dollar.
IMO, this is a dollar proxy war. The reason the dollar is alive is because it is the reserve currency, not because of the strength of our economy. China and the petro-states are supporting us.
As far as is holocaust thing. I’m not sure why he does that, because he does not believe it. I’ve seen about a dozen interviews with him. He also says their are no gays in Iran, weird. Other than that he is no Kim Jung Il. He is not a mad man. As far as other ME states, they are more progressive.
But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Sorry, fell for that one already.[/quote]
Arraya: I would direct your attention to the two major IAEA reports (2003, 2005) which declare Iran in non-compliance with the NPT, as well as the official 2006 IAEA report that was furnished to the UN Security Council.
Further, the Bushehr I reactor is a heavy-water facility, not a light-water facility and the difference is crucial. Light-water facilities exist solely for power generation. Heavy-water facilities are capable of creating fissionable materials (i.e. for bombs) and the newly discovered (I’m saying that a little tongue in cheek, since I think the NSA and CIA have been on to that for a while) “secret” facility at Qom was heavily focused on the production of fissionable materials.
So, to say that Ahmadinejad is completely in compliance and that Iran has no desire to make bombs stands at odds with US intel estimates, the IAEA reporting and the UN Security Council’s stance.
Arraya
September 27, 2009 @
8:54 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Arraya]
Allan, he’s following ALL the rules the WORLD gave him for nuclear enrichment. There is NO proof of anything and inspectors are aloud in at all times. They are a sovereign country and Russia and China have their back. The ones that we owe all that money too. Israel does not need to start WWIII because they feel uncomfortable. Everybody will lose over this dick size contest. China could shut down our military in a second if they wanted to. It runs on the dollar.
IMO, this is a dollar proxy war. The reason the dollar is alive is because it is the reserve currency, not because of the strength of our economy. China and the petro-states are supporting us.
As far as is holocaust thing. I’m not sure why he does that, because he does not believe it. I’ve seen about a dozen interviews with him. He also says their are no gays in Iran, weird. Other than that he is no Kim Jung Il. He is not a mad man. As far as other ME states, they are more progressive.
But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Sorry, fell for that one already.[/quote]
Arraya: I would direct your attention to the two major IAEA reports (2003, 2005) which declare Iran in non-compliance with the NPT, as well as the official 2006 IAEA report that was furnished to the UN Security Council.
Further, the Bushehr I reactor is a heavy-water facility, not a light-water facility and the difference is crucial. Light-water facilities exist solely for power generation. Heavy-water facilities are capable of creating fissionable materials (i.e. for bombs) and the newly discovered (I’m saying that a little tongue in cheek, since I think the NSA and CIA have been on to that for a while) “secret” facility at Qom was heavily focused on the production of fissionable materials.
So, to say that Ahmadinejad is completely in compliance and that Iran has no desire to make bombs stands at odds with US intel estimates, the IAEA reporting and the UN Security Council’s stance.[/quote]
Allan, IAEA and UN reports are schizophrenic regarding Iran. They change their stance with the wind. 2003 and 2005 was a long long time ago in regards to how many reports that have come out since then.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 27, 2009 @
9:02 AM
Arraya: I don’t disagree with Arraya: I don’t disagree with any of your contentions. I also know that the US was aware of the Qom facility for quite some time (hence my use of quotes when I referred to it as “secret”). However, it isn’t that clear cut from Iran’s side, either.
This is a renegade regime and the Qom facility was not designed and built to be a power generation facility. That number of centrifuges would be used in the main for one purpose: creation of fissionable materials.
I also don’t discount the charges against Israel. This is a country that is finding it increasingly difficult to manage their position and their populace (both Arab and Jew) and their culture.
What is beyond dispute is the fact that Iran has regional ambitions and is seeking the tools to advance that agenda. They also fund terror groups and as far away as Indonesia.
Zeitgeist
September 25, 2009 @
10:31 PM
Long live Israel!
“When I was Long live Israel!
“When I was The Post’s correspondent in Israel 10 years ago, there was urgency in the Jewish state’s warnings of the peril posed by Tehran. That urgency has now reached a fever pitch inside Israel, as Iran draws closer to nuclear capability — a fever reflected in the nearly apocalyptic shades of Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Will his speech in New York be the Jewish state’s final warning to the world?”
There are few countries There are few countries outside of the nuclear treaty system. North Korea and Israel are the two main hold outs both of whom are developing, manufacturing and threatening to use nuclear bombs. Both should be hauled before the UN and condemned. Only, AIPAC, the most powerful lobby, owns our government so they are safe from censure. This will not make us safe. This is insanity.
Zeitgeist
September 25, 2009 @
10:46 PM
“Well… boys will be “Well… boys will be boys…”
— Ronald Reagan after hearing the Israelis bombed Iraq’s nuclear facility.
4plexowner
September 26, 2009 @
4:07 AM
“This is now a renegade “This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy.”
And our scientists are hard at working proving that the Iranians are sub-human so our soldiers will not feel remorse when killing them.
“Until the US is able to self-sustain when it comes to energy and energy policy, then we have no choice.”
Yeah, what are those fucking rag-heads doing with OUR oil?!!!
Arraya
September 25, 2009 @
10:11 PM
Actually, there were no Actually, there were no problems until mass migration took place. Then the place turned into a blood bath. What is interesting is there were Jewish terrorist groups back then fighting for their holy land and now it’s the other way around. Still, mass migration took place because the europeans treated them like shit and the holocaust. The problem with the brits is the promised the land to the Arabs before the Jews and it was not until the migration to America and US influence that they were granted the land.
Following the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion, in particular the repeated requests of US President Harry S. Truman and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that 100,000 Jews be immediately granted entry to Palestine, the British maintained the ban on immigration. The Jewish underground forces then united and carried out several terrorist attacks and bombings against the British. In 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the British administration, killing 92 people.
Following the bombing, the British Government began interning illegal Jewish immigrants in Cyprus.
The negative publicity resulting from the situation in Palestine meant the mandate was widely unpopular in Britain, and caused the United States Congress to delay granting the British vital loans for reconstruction. At the same time, many European Jews were finding their way to the United States. An increasing growing influence in American politics, many Zionist backers won over sympathizers in the American and other Western governments. The Labour party had promised before its election to allow mass Jewish migration into Palestine. Additionally the situation required maintenance of 100,000 British troops in the country. In response to these pressures the British announced their desire to terminate the mandate and withdraw by May 1948.
When the British proposed on preventing immigration of Jewish Holocaust survivors to Palestine following World War II, the Jewish community began to wage an uprising and guerrilla war. This warfare and United States pressure to end the anti-immigration policy led to the establishment of The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946. It was a joint British and American attempt to agree on a policy regarding the admission of Jews to Palestine. In April, the Committee reported that its members had arrived at a unanimous decision. The Committee approved the American condition of the immediate acceptance of 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe into Palestine. It also recommended that there be no Arab, and no Jewish State. The report explained that in order to dispose, once and for all, of the exclusive claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine, we regard it as essential that a clear statement of principle should be made that Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine
Allan from Fallbrook
September 25, 2009 @
9:41 PM
Arraya: I don’t know if your Arraya: I don’t know if your posting Ahmadinejad’s comments are in response to the Bibi comments or not, but it would seem appropriate to discuss the Balfour Doctrine and the partitioning of Transjordan (prior to the creation of the State of Israel).
There is a lot of smoke surrounding this, but I would also say its appropriate to discuss Jordan’s treatment of the Palestinians over the years, as well as both Jewish and Arab actions during the War of 1948.
Both sides, Arab and Jew, have axes to grind here and to simply take Ahmadinejad’s comments at face value is wrong, especially when juxtaposed with his stance and comments on the Holocaust. His comments above are meant to essentially downplay the fact that he is a Holocaust denier and has repeatedly called for the complete and total destruction of the State of Israel.
There is no denying the plight of the Palestinians, but to lay all blame and all responsibility at the feet of the Israelis is not only wrong, but it deflects a lot of legitimate criticism and blame from other responsible parties, including the UN, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Palestine and the Palestinians have been used as a convenient foil by and for the Arabs, as well as a bargaining chip.
You might also want to reference Oslo ’93 and its effects/aftereffects.
Arraya
September 27, 2009 @
8:49 AM
Shameless. The propaganda is Shameless. The propaganda is utterly shameless.
Here is what is going on and why the US and Israel are in such a panic.
Iran is a signer of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Under that treaty, Iran has a legal right to build nuclear power stations and to produce the fuel for them. Under Article IV, the United States is supposed to help them do it.
Under IAEA rules, any nation building a new nuclear facility must notify the IAEA 6 months before any new facility becomes operational. Iran’s new facility is still 18 months away from completion, but Iran notified the IAEA last Monday IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NNPT RULES!
This revelation is embarrassing for the US and Israel for two reasons.
1. Contrary to face-save propaganda, the US and Israel did not know about this facility. Clearly it would have advanced the US and Israeli agenda to create war against Iran by revealing the facility before Iran could formally notify the IAEA. That would have put Iran totally on the defensive about the facility. That the Us and Israel did not do so tells me they were caught totally off guard (which also casts doubt on the so-called intelligence sources that claim Iran is building a weapon).
2. Iran announced the new facility to prove it is playing by the IAEA rules. Iran did so probably to underscore the fact that Israel just told the IAEA and the United Nations to go fuck themselves following a request by the IAEA and the United Nations for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and submit to IAEA inspections.
Then there is the War Crimes issue. The United Nations just concluded that Israel committed 37 war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Israel is trying to scream “Anti-Semitic” even though the report was written by a Jewish judge. The US has already pledged to use their Security Council Veto to prevent the report from being referred to the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
So once again, Iran is playing by the rules, and Israel and the US are not.
To save their own face, the US and Israel appear ready to launch a new war in Iran, simply because they cannot think of anything better to do.
OH and the Fact the our economy is going to collapse.
briansd1
September 27, 2009 @
9:09 AM
Arraya wrote:
1. Contrary to [quote=Arraya]
1. Contrary to face-save propaganda, the US and Israel did not know about this facility. Clearly it would have advanced the US and Israeli agenda to create war against Iran by revealing the facility before Iran could formally notify the IAEA. That would have put Iran totally on the defensive about the facility. That the Us and Israel did not do so tells me they were caught totally off guard (which also casts doubt on the so-called intelligence sources that claim Iran is building a weapon).
[/quote]
I would agree with this assessment. If the US knew about the facility all along, we could have used that intelligence to greater effect by revealing that information and starting sanction talks BEFORE Iran notified the IAEA. That would have put Iran on the defensive.
Why is that information such a big deal now, AFTER Iran notified the IAEA (after all, we were supposed to have known all along) ?
It’s such a big deal because our intelligence community was caught totally off guard.
——
You claim you knew that your wife has been cheating along along but never said a word.
She reveals the infidelity to the whole family and you now make a big stink.
That makes no sense at all. If you’re upset at the infidelity now, you would’ve been even more upset when you found out (but supposedly allowed the affair go on).
eyePod
September 27, 2009 @
9:14 AM
This thread is an example of This thread is an example of why Piggington’s is going down hill. During the election people who pointed out that political threads were inappropriate were told that it would only persist until election day.
They don’t say the Holocaust didn’t happen; they are suggesting something more complex than that. That last quote in particular suggests that Ahmadinejad is using the word “myth” in its correct, technical sense. Remember: myths are stories that groups of people tell to express and justify their most fundamental beliefs about themselves, their origins, their essential nature, etc. Ahmadinejad is saying that Zionism tells the story of the Holocaust in exactly this way, i.e. as a vehicle to explain and justify what Zionists believe about themselves. When he “denies” the “myth” of the Holocaust, he is not denying the Holocaust, he’s not even discussing the Holocaust as a historical event at all. He is denying the validity of the use to which the story of the Holocaust is being put. He is saying that instead of being a story that expresses an underlying truth, “the myth of the Holocaust” expresses a “truth” that simply isn’t true, and that denial of that myth is such a big deal in the West because you are not meant to question whether the underlying claim is really true.
So what exactly is the “myth of the Holocaust” that Akef and Ahmadinejad reject? Well, do you remember Wissam Tayem, the Palestinian man forced by Israeli soldiers to play his violin for them at a checkpoint in the Occupied Territories?
The reaction to Wissam Tayem’s experience at that checkpoint succinctly summarized what Ahmadinejad means by “the myth of the Holocaust”. As Chris McGreal pointed out at the time, the sight of a Palestinian being forced to play the violin for his occupiers caused quite a stir in Israel. But the main reason it made Israelis (specifically Jewish-Israelis) uncomfortable was not because they recognized that it’s simply wrong to treat a human being the way Wissam Tayem was treated. Instead, it made them uncomfortable because it challenged their image of the kind of people they are, and the kind of country they have created. In other words, it undermined the Israelis’ myth of themselves.
Of all the revelations that have rocked the Israeli army over the past week, perhaps none disturbed the public so much as the video footage of soldiers forcing a Palestinian man to play his violin…
[A]fter the incident was videotaped by Jewish women peace activists, it prompted revulsion among Israelis not normally perturbed about the treatment of Arabs. The rightwing Army Radio commentator Uri Orbach found the incident disturbingly reminiscent of Jewish musicians forced to provide background music to mass murder. “What about Majdanek?” he asked, referring to the Nazi extermination camp.
The critics were not drawing a parallel between an Israeli roadblock and a Nazi camp. Their concern was that Jewish suffering had been diminished by the humiliation of Mr Tayem.
Yoram Kaniuk, author of a book about a Jewish violinist forced to play for a concentration camp commander, wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the soldiers responsible should be put on trial “not for abusing Arabs but for disgracing the Holocaust”. “Of all the terrible things done at the roadblocks, this story is one which negates the very possibility of the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. If [the military] does not put these soldiers on trial we will have no moral right to speak of ourselves as a state that rose from the Holocaust,” he wrote. “If we allow Jewish soldiers to put an Arab violinist at a roadblock and laugh at him, we have succeeded in arriving at the lowest moral point possible. Our entire existence in this Arab region was justified, and is still justified, by our suffering; by Jewish violinists in the camps.”
Israel shocked by image of soldiers forcing violinist to play at roadblock; The Guardian, 29 Nov 2004.
snip
Are you sensing a theme here? Are you getting the message that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and Iran is the Fourth Reich and they’re just days away from nuking us and if we don’t Shock and Awe them into regime change and install a U.S.-friendly regime that will recognise Israel and sell their oil and gas to us instead of to the Chinese then we’re all a bunch of appeasing Neville J’aime-Berlin’s and WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!…? Because that’s what you’re meant to understand. That’s the new meme, to make you scared enough to support a war you wouldn’t otherwise support. Once again, our fears are being manipulated by people who want a war but haven’t got a justification for starting one. Last time, they brought public opinion on board with scary stories about Iraq’s nonexistent nuclear weapons and Saddam’s fictitious links to al Qaeda; this time around, it’s Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons and Ahmadinejad’s spurious equivalence to Hitler.
4plexowner
September 28, 2009 @
7:31 AM
“This is now a renegade “This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy.”
“And our scientists are hard at work proving that the Iranians are sub-human so our soldiers will not feel remorse when killing them.”
this is how you take a country to war
de-legitimize the government that will be destroyed
de-humanize the people who will be killed
as Arraya so correctly points out the objective is to make you support a war that you wouldn’t otherwise support
~
it occurs to me that the Israeli repulsion to making the Palestinian play his violin could be related to the de-humanizing of the Palestinians – playing the violin didn’t fit into their picture of the Palestinians being non-human – the reminder that the Palestinians ARE actually human was uncomfortable for the Israelis
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
8:52 AM
4plexowner wrote:”This is now [quote=4plexowner]”This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy.”
“And our scientists are hard at work proving that the Iranians are sub-human so our soldiers will not feel remorse when killing them.”
this is how you take a country to war
de-legitimize the government that will be destroyed
de-humanize the people who will be killed
as Arraya so correctly points out the objective is to make you support a war that you wouldn’t otherwise support
~
it occurs to me that the Israeli repulsion to making the Palestinian play his violin could be related to the de-humanizing of the Palestinians – playing the violin didn’t fit into their picture of the Palestinians being non-human – the reminder that the Palestinians ARE actually human was uncomfortable for the Israelis[/quote]
4Plex: Classic strawman argument. You even use your own quote from another post (self-referential posting? How Noam Chomsky of you) as though someone else said it.
This is a non-argument argument.
I used the term “jingoistic” as sarcasm (clearly missed), not as fact, but the fact is you don’t seem to have a feel for nuance.
“I speak for all humanity”. Well, bully for you. Unfortunately, there are certain humans out there that just don’t understand the “Peace, Love and Granola Bars” approach. That’s why we have History: To provide instruction for what to do in those instances.
No, I don’t always hold that the US is right. Far from it. We’ve had plenty of cringe inducing moments, to be sure. But, on balance, we’ve been a force for good in the world. However, don’t get that mixed up with the necessity for acquiring resources or supporting a balance of power agenda.
No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that. If memory serves, we pay an assload of money each year to buy their oil and are involved in that shitty part of the world because we, as a country, cannot seem to formulate an intelligent, self-sufficient energy policy. Until such time as we do, we’re stuck in that fucking sand pile fighting a war for resources. That’s the cold, hard pragmatic reality of it.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
7:33 AM
Arraya: I’m not agitating for Arraya: I’m not agitating for war, nor am I saber rattling. What I am saying is that Iran has nuke facilities that are not there for power generation, such as Qom, but rather are there for the production of fissionable materials.
Also, no, I’m not spreading or buying into Ahmadinejad as Hitler and haven’t said as much. What I have said, with a nod to differences in translation, is that he is a Holocaust denier and has flatly denied that Israel has a right to exist and should be wiped off the map.
The example you used of the Israeli soldiers forcing the Arab to play the violin is indeed disturbing and especially when juxtaposed with a mental vision of Nazi treatment of the Jews (using Maidenek/Majdanek). However, the revulsion shown within Israel to this and the reaction to same, illustrates that enough Jews/Israelis still understand the parallels and the dangers of losing your humanity.
On a personal note, I do a lot of business with and in Israel. It involves blast engineering for Force Protection and I’ve been in Tel Aviv immediately following VBIED (car bomb) and MBIED (suicide bomber) attacks. That city operates within a siege mentality and the stress and tension is physically palpable. You have tremendous fear and, for many people, it causes them to embrace the hardcore, hardline politicos who promise to end the violence with violence. Here in the US, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but, over there, it becomes understandable.
I don’t think things are nearly as cut-and-dried as we’d like to make them out to be, and I’m sure Obama is finding this out on a firsthand basis daily.
I’ve also been consistent in that war with Iran is not the answer. Engagement with the people of Iran is and I believe that is why the hardline elements in Iran, including the clerics and I-Am-A-Dinner-Jacket have been so brutally repressive.
This is now a renegade regime, regardless of how simplistic, jingoistic thinkers like 4Plex care to characterize it and the whole situation. People like that don’t get nuanced thinking and apparently don’t read enough history.
4plexowner
September 28, 2009 @
8:29 AM
“jingoistic thinkers like “jingoistic thinkers like 4Plex”
had to look ‘jingoistic’ up – thanks for expanding my vocabulary
“Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy”.[1] In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safe guard what they perceive as their country’s national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one’s own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.”
I’m not seeing how this definition fits anything I have said – I am advocating for ALL humans – I don’t care who is killing who, or which country is trying to fuck over the other country – at some point we will have to become a planet of united human beings or we will destroy ourselves
if anything, I would say that your position is more aptly described by jingoism – you justify the taking of other people’s oil as though the US had some right to all of the petroleum on this planet
and, you have made numerous posts about the military and Vietnam – your position is always that the US was in the right in regards to whatever was being discussed – is that not jingoism?
briansd1
September 28, 2009 @
8:43 AM
I wish we had a William I wish we had a William Safire type defending progressive thinking.
The conservative side was hardly even-handed and fair-minded.
the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: There was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
William Safir was born on Dec. 17, 1929, in New York City, the youngest of three sons of Oliver C. and Ida Panish Safir. (The “e” was added to clarify pronunciation.)
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
8:55 AM
briansd1 wrote:I wish we had [quote=briansd1]I wish we had a William Safire type defending progressive thinking.
The conservative side was hardly even-handed and fair-minded.
the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: There was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
William Safir was born on Dec. 17, 1929, in New York City, the youngest of three sons of Oliver C. and Ida Panish Safir. (The “e” was added to clarify pronunciation.)[/quote]
Brian: You do realize Safire was a conservative, right? Just curious.
Also, have you read any of his writings? How about Isaiah Berlin? Or Daniel Pipes?
Lastly, how do you define “Progressive thinking”? This is a genuine question, not an ambush. I ask because you have a tendency to oscillate between liberalism and leftism and I’m not sure where Progressivism (to you) falls.
4plexowner
September 28, 2009 @
10:41 AM
“I don’t care. We are in the
“I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …
Aecetia
September 28, 2009 @
10:51 AM
Persians are not Arabs. Persians are not Arabs.
briansd1
September 28, 2009 @
11:07 AM
Aecetia wrote:Persians are [quote=Aecetia]Persians are not Arabs.[/quote]
Iranians are Persians; and Persians are Caucasians, in case there was any confusion.
Iran means Land of the Aryans. So it should be pronounced “E-ran” not “I-ran”.
I wonder if the white rural conservatives of the Red States even know where the Caucasus are.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
12:23 PM
briansd1 wrote:Aecetia [quote=briansd1][quote=Aecetia]Persians are not Arabs.[/quote]
Iranians are Persians; and Persians are Caucasians, in case there was any confusion.
Iran means Land of the Aryans. So it should be pronounced “E-ran” not “I-ran”.
I wonder if the white rural conservatives of the Red States even know where the Caucasus are.[/quote]
Brian: Of course they don’t! No, they’re stupid, uneducated and unworldly.
Wow, you really took Thomas Franks’ “What’s the Matter with Kansas” to heart, didn’t you?
If you want to read an excellent book on how long this has all been going on, read Hopkirk’s “The Great Game”. It should help with some of the more glaring gaps in your own understanding.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
10:54 AM
4plexowner wrote:”I don’t [quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.
4plexowner
September 28, 2009 @
12:55 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.[/quote]
my mistake, Allan – I’m sure that the people in the Middle East will willingly give us their oil and no killing will be necessary
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
1:26 PM
4plexowner wrote:Allan from [quote=4plexowner][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.[/quote]
my mistake, Allan – I’m sure that the people in the Middle East will willingly give us their oil and no killing will be necessary[/quote]
4Plex: Well, it seems to me that they’ve been mighty willing to sell us their oil (see Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc), but transshipping and security have always been an issue, as well as competition from foreign players seeking to acquire these resources for themselves.
I’ll say what I said earlier: There is a lot of gray here and to try and reduce this to “US is bad and evil and everything we do is to simply kill everyone and take their shit” is not only wrong-headed and overly simplistic; it also destroys the ability to discuss or debate the issue intelligently.
If you want to put something out there that is worthy of debate, I’m game. Otherwise, this is just childish mud-slinging and gamesmanship.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
1:27 PM
Dupe. Dupe.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 28, 2009 @
10:54 AM
4plexowner wrote:”I don’t [quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.
poorgradstudent
September 28, 2009 @
11:57 PM
I’m not sure Obama will live I’m not sure Obama will live up to the legacy of a truly great President like FDR. At the same time, the recent bar has been set pretty low for him not to be the best president of the past 20-30 years. He could do nothing and be better than GWB. If he keeps his pants on in the Oval Office he’ll arguably outshine Clinton. There’s no chance of him instituting Trickle Down economic policies, and Jimmy Carter was a pretty mediocre president. Nixon’s failures have been extensively outlined.
It’s congress, and especially the Senate I’m not very happy with right now. 60 votes is acting like 50 at best. DOMA, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and many other important social issues seem to have been tabled during this Health Care debate. Hopefully they’ll get a bill out of committee and put to a vote, and let the Republicans filibuster if they dare to. In general extended filibustering is not viewed very well by mainstream moderates, and could be very bad PR if it becomes national news.
hipmatt
September 29, 2009 @
12:04 AM
You guys are hilarious if you You guys are hilarious if you buy the MTV fed hype about Obama.. what a joke.
What is it you like about him other than him “not being Bush”? Do you like all his czars, his former pals, and pastors, his former corrupt organizations that he once was a big part of? Do you really like his socialist policy? Do you like how he wastes time and gives credibility to the worlds worst dictators and leaders of corrupt governments?
I’m surprised you pigs like his “anti-capitalism, all the bailouts, the interference with markets and the fact that they eliminate irresponsible businesses naturally.
Do you like the spending? Gotta love the record spending in just what 9 months?
ohh yeah.. he’s a “breath of fresh air and he’s attractive?”.. f*ing compelling crap guys!
briansd1
September 29, 2009 @
12:42 PM
hipmatt wrote:You guys are [quote=hipmatt]You guys are hilarious if you buy the MTV fed hype about Obama.. what a joke.
[/quote]
Watch out, they are getting to your children!!
Did you guys watch the MTW Music Video Awards. Russell Brand was great!
I wonder if people in Kansas have MTV…. I can just picture a child asking her parents “daddy, why don’t we have health care?” Answer: “Because we don’t like baby killers in America. God will heal us when we are sick.”
briansd1
September 29, 2009 @
1:05 PM
Allan, I agree with you that Allan, I agree with you that as leaders of the world, we should spread freedom. That is a core Democratic ideal and that is why Clinton intervened in Kosovo. The Republicans were opposed to Kosovo claiming that it wasn’t our job to be the world’s policeman or to perform nation building.
However, freedom means that we need to let people be and choose their own leaders. We can’t bend others to out will.
Dropping bombs doesn’t help our agenda. It would be much cheaper to expand the Peace Corps and increase funding to the NGOs that perform charitable work.
We can do a lot of good through building trade ties, cultural exchanges and contact with Americans travelers.
I’ve been to about 40 countries. In November, I’m going to Myanmar.
Screw the real estate industry, I would support at $10,000 airline voucher on US-flagged airlines, for overseas travel to all high-school graduates. Israelis and Australians and others take some time off to travel and discover the world as young adults. We should do the same.
Dropping bombs is not the solution.
Allan from Fallbrook
September 29, 2009 @
2:02 PM
briansd1 wrote:Allan, I agree [quote=briansd1]Allan, I agree with you that as leaders of the world, we should spread freedom. That is a core Democratic ideal and that is why Clinton intervened in Kosovo. The Republicans were opposed to Kosovo claiming that it wasn’t our job to be the world’s policeman or to perform nation building.
However, freedom means that we need to let people be and choose their own leaders. We can’t bend others to out will.
Dropping bombs doesn’t help our agenda. It would be much cheaper to expand the Peace Corps and increase funding to the NGOs that perform charitable work.
We can do a lot of good through building trade ties, cultural exchanges and contact with Americans travelers.
I’ve been to about 40 countries. In November, I’m going to Myanmar.
Screw the real estate industry, I would support at $10,000 airline voucher on US-flagged airlines, for overseas travel to all high-school graduates. Israelis and Australians and others take some time off to travel and discover the world as young adults. We should do the same.
Dropping bombs is not the solution.[/quote]
Brian: I don’t and didn’t advocate dropping bombs on Iran. I support engagement with the Iranian people, who are largely younger, literate and pro-American. However, the Iranian government is absolutely hell bent on retaining power, whatever the cost, and we need to be aware of this, as well as their designs on the region at large.
I would love to see us out of the Middle East. The reality is that we will be there as long as we remain dependent on their oil, which is the foreseeable future (20 – 30 years). I’d like to believe we can formulate a coherent and effective energy policy, but we’ve been promised this since the Nixon Administration, so I ain’t getting my hopes up.
I’ve seen the results of suicide bombers in Tel Aviv, as well as the results of an errant F-16 strike by the IAF. I’ve been to Kabul, Baghdad, Mumbai and Singapore; always following a terrorist bomb blast. As much as I’d like to ascribe it to Dubya’s foreign policy mishaps, the cold, hard reality is that this shit has been going on for years and will continue to go on. On that front, I agree completely about NGOs and the Peace Corps and humanitarian aid. I would also point out that many of those in power in places like Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc, could care less about “humanitarianism” and “good will” and attack those doing good without cause and without mercy.
That’s when we need to be prepared for Option B (blowing the everlovin’ shit out of ’em), but only in those instances where good will and our national interests intersect. Is that a shitty, cold way of looking at things? Yup. But we can only do what we can do. You’re right: We are not the world’s policeman. I lost two very good friends of mine in Mogadishu during Task Force Ranger in 1993 and due to the cowardice and incompetence of our President, and have grown ever more cynical as regards our “civilizing mission”.
When it directly affects our national security policy, or impinges on our ability to extract those resources necessary to “feed the beast”, then I will openly agitate for a more muscular approach. If Obama can engage Iran and achieve results through soft power, I’m 100% in favor. I believe that he is a naif, however, and will find the world is not as friendly as he thinks, once we start asking for results (from our European allies) or change (from Iran, or North Korea, or whomever).
As Al Capone said, “You get more with a kind word and a gun, than just a kind word”.
briansd1
September 29, 2009 @
4:34 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
As Al Capone said, “You get more with a kind word and a gun, than just a kind word”.[/quote]
I’m in general agreement with you.
But brandishing a gun might induce fear and a needless shootout with the party you’re trying to coerce shooting first.
Better to ask with smile and a kind word. And if that doesn’t work, then pull out the cash. And if still doesn’t work, then pull out the gun.
I find that when traveling abroad, in remote regions, it’s better to act modestly and fain ignorance than to behave like a big shot, know-it-all American. When people don’t care about your cash and when you don’t have a gun, kindness is the only way to get help.
If you want your children to behave well, is it better to reason and talk to them? Or is it better to do it the old-fashioned way and administer a good spanking when they are out of line?
Yeah, I think that I’m a product of the co-opted liberal educational system. 🙂
ucodegen
September 30, 2009 @
12:06 PM
Better to ask with smile and
Better to ask with smile and a kind word. And if that doesn’t work, then pull out the cash. And if still doesn’t work, then pull out the gun.
Cash doesn’t work.. you start being thought of as a cash cow, as being stupid, and a sucker..
Case in point: North Korea and its nuclear aspirations. Under Clinton, they agreed to stop their nuclear weapons programs in exchange for financial help and low cost oil (with the United States paying the diff between sold price and cost). The result was that North Korea went underground (literally) with their nuclear program until they wanted more.. and then try to ‘extort’ more.
Case in point: Palestinian areas near Isreal. The US had been funneling $2Bil/year to the Palestinian Authority near Israel until Hamas was elected to lead. It still did not buy any friends or help. The Palestinians probably don’t understand why life is now suddenly harder.. because they didn’t know that $2Bil/year was coming to them from the US.
In many ways, the world is just one big school yard, with all of the same types of characters. Buying off the bully in school, only proved that you were a sucker and would loose all respect. Not only that, you will be bullied for your lunch money the next day. The only way that respect was earned was that you were bad and nasty enough that a bully would not want to take you on, that extorting money might result in some damage to the extortioner. ‘Schoolyard’ respect also required that you not be a bully yourself (otherwise it was just fear) and might physically defend a bully’s victim, particularly if the victim is trying to defend themselves but is just not strong enough. .. interesting what you can learn by looking inward.. to the schoolyard, a microcosm for the world..
ucodegen
September 30, 2009 @
12:09 PM
If you want your children to
If you want your children to behave well, is it better to reason and talk to them? Or is it better to do it the old-fashioned way and administer a good spanking when they are out of line?
Depends upon how far out of line.. the spanking should be equivalent to capital punishment, after all else has failed… and don’t try ‘bribes’ instead of punishment. This only creates a mentality of entitlement through threats and extortion.
hipmatt
September 29, 2009 @
12:21 AM
BTW.. I voted nope for much BTW.. I voted nope for much different reasons than the one offered.
His policies are harmful to America, his spending and government expansion too extreme, he surrounds himself with loosers, crooks, tax cheats, extremists, and worse. And his apologetic/I’ll meet with anyone foreign policy will only weaken us internationally/militarily and probably get Israel killed in the process.
4plexowner
September 29, 2009 @
3:52 AM
“I insulted you how, “I insulted you how, again?”
“regardless of how simplistic, jingoistic thinkers like 4Plex care to characterize it and the whole situation. People like that don’t get nuanced thinking and apparently don’t read enough history.”
according to you this is sarcasm
“I used the term “jingoistic” as sarcasm (clearly missed), not as fact, but the fact is you don’t seem to have a feel for nuance.”
being simplistic and non-nuanced in my thinking the only way I can take your comment is as an insult
and I still don’t see the sarcasm
Allan from Fallbrook
September 29, 2009 @
7:58 AM
4plexowner wrote:
being [quote=4plexowner]
being simplistic and non-nuanced in my thinking the only way I can take your comment is as an insult
and I still don’t see the sarcasm[/quote]
4Plex: It appears a lot more likely that I got under your skin, than vice versa.
Your comments displayed neither nuance nor complexity and simply boiled down to vitriolic, mouth breathing ranting. You imputed all sorts of untruths to me when I had said nothing of the kind, but claim you were insulted. You are unable to discern subtle differences and display a complete vacuity when it comes to diplomacy versus appeasement and the basis for war, but its insulting for me to point that out. Okay. Whatever.
Have a couple of glasses of wine from the box and a good cry. You’ll feel better.
Aecetia
September 29, 2009 @
9:51 AM
Ouch! Ouch!
jameswenn
September 30, 2009 @
1:16 PM
He had a chance to build out He had a chance to build out infrastructure and create jobs with the stimulus, but he chose to just hand it out to all his friends in congress instead.
Veritas
September 30, 2009 @
2:13 PM
Who Wrote Dreams From My Who Wrote Dreams From My Father?
By Jack Cashill
Prior to 1990, when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing. Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called — with a straight face — “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”
The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Father on his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant. I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all. Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf. To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour. It doesn’t happen.
And yet, given the biases of the literary establishment, no reviewer of note has so much as questioned Obama’s role in the writing, then or now. As the New York Times gushed, Obama was “that rare politician who can write . . . and write movingly and genuinely about himself.”
What do Sarah Palin and Bill What do Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton have in common? Both are book authors but neither wrote their memoirs completely on their own.
Ghostwriter, collaborator, co-author. These sidekick writers go by many names, but they all serve the same purpose: to get the book finished. A true ghostwriter gets no public credit for the work but in reality there are varying degrees of involvement by these pinch writers.
A ghostwriter’s involvement can range from writing the whole book using interviews of the “author” to a more authentic collaboration. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s posthumously released memoir, “True Compass,” benefitted from something more akin to the latter arrangement. In an interview with NPR, the book’s publisher Jonathan Karp said “all the important material” was Kennedy’s, while his collaborator, Ron Powers, was working with “rich material, and it really is Senator Kennedy’s work.”
Veritas
September 30, 2009 @
2:26 PM
The Emperor has no The Emperor has no clothes!
“It was noted that ” the Obama writing samples unearthed before 1995 “are pedestrian and uninspired.” “There is no precedent for this kind of literary transformation,” well until now!”
“The problem is not who wrote the book, ghost writers are common. It is not that Ayers, a known terrorist and traitor to America was that ghost writer, hell the liberal media love Amerian traitors. What is important to me, is that like all liberals this is more proof of Obama being a pathological liar.”
Veritas wrote: What is [quote=Veritas] What is important to me, is that like all liberals this is more proof of Obama being a pathological liar.”
[/quote]
Did Obama claim that there was no ghost writer? Why is that even an issue then?
Based on how well Obama speaks, his ghost writer did a lot less work than Bush’s ghost writer.
I believe that there are a few
Kansans on Piggington. You can leave Kansas to move to San Diego, but you can’t leave the Kansan behind. 😉
Veritas
September 30, 2009 @
3:35 PM
More lies!
Robin Beaton’s More lies!
Robin Beaton’s insurance company retroactively canceled her policy because she had failed to inform them of her history of acne and a rapid heartbeat.
First of all, the woman, Robin Beaton, had her insurance canceled not because of her acne condition. She also had a heart condition she knew about and hid this from her insurance company:
Obama forgot to mention this in his talk.
Also, President Obama forgot to mention that the breast cancer survival rate is much greater here in the United States than in countries with socialized medicine.
In fact, women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it’s 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent.
Obama forgot to mention this, too.
Now, what was it Rep. Wilson was saying about Obama again?
Since when does not mentioning something equate to telling a lie? Don’t Realtors do that all the time?
It was a lie when Bush claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction when there were not.
sd_matt
September 30, 2009 @
10:27 PM
He was passing on erroneous He was passing on erroneous info. The CIA, MI 5 and the former KGB all said there were WMDs. Lo and behold they were wrong.
By that standard anyone who passes erroneous info along is a liar. So we are all guilty on a regular basis no matter how hard we try to get good info.
Bush did plenty of other bad stuff so it is not necessary to resort to this BS to bash him.
This argument is so chicken shit and cheese dick it lowers you to the likes of Hannity and Rush.
Arraya
September 30, 2009 @
10:57 PM
WMDs were not even really the WMDs were not even really the issue with Iraq. It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least. Bushco actually gave modified intelligence reports to congress that said they were a dire threat. They actually changed the part where intelligence agencies said they were not for congress to see.
The presence of WMDs was a phony debate for the most part.
The nuclear stuff was pretty much all made up a la yellow cake uranium.
Saying bush lied about WMDs is a simplification of a complex matter. Yeah, they flat our lied about much but also thought there could be some sort of material that could be labeled a WMD. Most thought he had chemical weapons that we sold them under reagan. Nobody thought he could harm the US though.
sd_matt
October 2, 2009 @
1:43 PM
Arraya wrote:WMDs were not [quote=Arraya]WMDs were not even really the issue with Iraq. It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least. Bushco actually gave modified intelligence reports to congress that said they were a dire threat. They actually changed the part where intelligence agencies said they were not for congress to see.
The presence of WMDs was a phony debate for the most part.
The nuclear stuff was pretty much all made up a la yellow cake uranium.
Saying bush lied about WMDs is a simplification of a complex matter. Yeah, they flat our lied about much but also thought there could be some sort of material that could be labeled a WMD. Most thought he had chemical weapons that we sold them under reagan. Nobody thought he could harm the US though.[/quote]
“It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least.”
Yes. Call him on the real lies.
And here’s a whopper. Iraq was going to take only a couple years to pacify and rebuild. LOL.
Veritas
October 2, 2009 @
6:19 PM
Sure. We can go have a beer Sure. We can go have a beer with him and talk about the Olympics.
Veritas
September 30, 2009 @
11:00 PM
“President Barack Obama “President Barack Obama ‘doesn’t lie… He’s too subtle for that,’ says Charles Krauthammer, the conservative, prize-winning Washington Post columnist, and the columnist rolls out a litany of examples today examining Obama’s “relationship with truth.”
According to Krauthammer, “The president promises not to sign a health-care bill that “adds one dime to our deficits… period.” Yet the proof that the president offers of that promise cannot be delivered, Krauthammer argues: The promise that the president made in his speech to a joint session of Congress last week to require further spending cuts if the savings envisioned in the health-care initiative don’t materialize.”
“(2) And then there’s the famous contretemps about health insurance for illegal immigrants. Obama said they would not be insured. Well, all four committee-passed bills in Congress allow illegal immigrants to take part in the proposed Health Insurance Exchange.”
“But more importantly, the problem is that laws are not self-enforcing. If they were, we’d have no illegal immigrants because, as I understand it, it’s illegal to enter the United States illegally. We have laws against burglary, too. But we also provide for cops and jails on the assumption that most burglars don’t voluntarily turn themselves in.”
“When Republicans proposed requiring proof of citizenship, the Democrats twice voted that down in committee. Indeed, after Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” shout-out, the Senate Finance Committee revisited the language of its bill to prevent illegal immigrants from getting any federal benefits. Why would the Finance Committee fix a nonexistent problem?”
“(3) Obama said he would largely solve the insoluble cost problem of Obamacare by eliminating “hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud” from Medicare.”
“That’s not a lie. That’s not even deception. That’s just an insult to our intelligence. Waste, fraud and abuse — Meg Greenfield once called this phrase “the dread big three” — as the all-purpose piggy bank for budget savings has been a joke since Jimmy Carter first used it in 1977.”
An Olympics We Can Believe An Olympics We Can Believe In
The picture now comes into sharp focus. Americans voted for president a man who thinks that government creates wealth; that “greed” caused the current economic crisis; that taxpayers should provide health insurance for those who don’t have it; that a government-induced housing and financial crisis can only be addressed by more government; that government can more efficiently and profitably run businesses than can the private sector; that “global warming” requires the imposition of job-killing and price-hiking action against emitters; and that government should “spread the wealth” by taking from those who have “too much” and giving to those who have “too little.”
National security is, as always, job one. We are at war against Islamofascists. To accomplish their ends, they seek chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. This is a conflict that, not unlike the Cold War, will likely take decades.
For now, though, President Obama intends to fly to Copenhagen to personally lobby to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Iran and Afghanistan can wait.
Veritas wrote:
For now, [quote=Veritas]
For now, though, President Obama intends to fly to Copenhagen to personally lobby to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.[/quote]
I was disappointed that Chicago didn’t get it. It’s not like we didn’t try.
But I believe that Rio deserved it. So all the best of luck to them.
I always like to visit Olympic cities after all the venues and infrastructure are built.
Veritas
October 2, 2009 @
11:04 AM
Where did I write that? I Where did I write that? I have heard about sleep walking, but not sleep writing… Rich can you shed light on this?
Veritas
October 2, 2009 @
11:14 AM
Brian,
Did you go to public Brian,
Did you go to public school? You keep crediting the conservative movement for calling Obama distant and imperial when in fact, again it is a quote from Charles Krauthammer. Here is his bio from Wiki:
“Krauthammer was raised in Montreal, Canada where he attended Herzliah High School and McGill University and obtained an honors degree in political science and economics in 1970. From 1970 to 1971, he was a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford. He later moved to the United States, where he attended Harvard Medical School. Suffering a paralyzing diving accident in his first year of medical school,[5] he was hospitalized for a year, during which time he continued his medical studies.[6] He graduated with his class, earning an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1975, and then began working as a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital. In October 1984, he became board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.[7]”
Make no mistake about it. He is not your normal conservative. Try rereading what I wrote and not planting quotes from me that don’t exist. I do not need your help. You are a weasel.
briansd1
October 2, 2009 @
12:04 PM
Veritas wrote: You keep [quote=Veritas] You keep crediting the conservative movement for calling Obama distant and imperial when in fact[/quote]
So Ok, the conservatives don’t think that Obama is distant and imperial. I’ll take that.
So it means that Obama is a just a regular guy who’s very much in touch with the American public. I’ll take that too. 🙂
briansd1
September 30, 2009 @
11:42 PM
Veritas wrote:”President [quote=Veritas]”President Barack Obama ‘doesn’t lie… He’s too subtle for that,’ says Charles Krauthammer, the conservative, prize-winning Washington Post columnist[/quote]
So Veritas, which is it? Does he lie or doesn’t he lie? Make up your mind.
I see that the “Kansans” among us have been whipped up by their preachers to redouble their evangelizing.
briansd1
September 30, 2009 @
11:51 PM
sd_matt wrote:
This argument [quote=sd_matt]
This argument is so chicken shit and cheese dick it lowers you to the likes of Hannity and Rush.[/quote]
I was speaking
Kansan so the Kansans could understand. 😉
[quote=Arraya]WMDs were not even really the issue with Iraq. It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least. Bushco actually gave modified intelligence reports to congress that said they were a dire threat. They actually changed the part where intelligence agencies said they were not for congress to see.
The presence of WMDs was a phony debate for the most part.
The nuclear stuff was pretty much all made up a la yellow cake uranium.
Saying bush lied about WMDs is a simplification of a complex matter. Yeah, they flat our lied about much but also thought there could be some sort of material that could be labeled a WMD. Most thought he had chemical weapons that we sold them under reagan. Nobody thought he could harm the US though.[/quote]
Yes, Arraya, I agree. First Saddam was a threat to us. Then he was a threat to his own people. Then it was “aren’t you glad he’s gone?”. That’s why we invaded Iraq so we can be glad he’s gone. Like aren’t you glad that Jesus is watching over us?
Simplification is needed for the Kansans. 😉
Veritas
October 1, 2009 @
12:21 AM
I am not Charles Krauthammer. I am not Charles Krauthammer. You know the answer to that Brian and your blind loyalty is positively Germanic! Too bad we can’t tax stupidity. We could pay off the national debt! It is almost painful to have you continue to make excuses for Obama. You remind me of a woman who knows her husband is cheating on her, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when all around her the evidence piles up. I understand now. It is the battered Obama voter syndrome. How sad for you. Maybe you should find a shelter.
briansd1
October 1, 2009 @
12:31 AM
Veritas, first you claim that Veritas, first you claim that Obama is full of lies. Then you post an article that says that “President Barack Obama ‘doesn’t lie… He’s too subtle for that,’.
I think that you’re confused.
[quote=Veritas] Too bad we can’t tax stupidity. We could pay off the national debt! [/quote]
I only wish…
[quote=Veritas] It is almost painful to have you continue to make excuses for Obama. [/quote]
I only respond to the Kansan type zealotry.
[quote=Veritas] You remind me of a woman who knows her husband is cheating on her, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when all around her the evidence piles up. How sad for you.[/quote]
Those who don’t repent are also condemned to eternal damnation. How sad for them.
If my wife were cheating, what makes you think that I would care? Maybe I have a hot mistress waiting for me.
However, I hear that Kansan women are very dedicated to their husbands. After all, adultery is sinful so I’m sure that there is none of it in Kansas.
I think that Allan would say that in any kind of potential conflict, you need to be well-armed and have a strong deterrent system. If she cheats, maybe I can cheat better. And if I have all the weapons (bank accounts), then I’ll win. 😉
Aecetia
October 1, 2009 @
10:58 AM
Brian,
It looks like Veritas Brian,
It looks like Veritas was trying to point out that he quoted Krauthammer, not that he agreed with him. I think the point is that Obama lies. He also said you act like a battered woman, not that you have a cheating wife. Perhaps you read too much in to things or do not read carefully enough. Nice try, though.
briansd1
October 1, 2009 @
11:57 AM
Aecetia wrote:. I think the [quote=Aecetia]. I think the point is that Obama lies. [/quote]
Isn’t that over simplification by itself?
You should notice that anti-Obama spam incessantly comes from the right. Look at of off-topic posts. It generally starts with some post showing outrage at Obama, the Democrats, immigrants, etc… That was even before Obama got elected.
I never bothered to answer before, but it’s about about time the right got some of their own medicine.
If they want a culture war, let’s have it.
Remember that even kids of conservatives watch MTV (unless it’s banned in Kansas). One generation ago listening to Rap was out of the mainstream. But now, even Kansans practice that art form. So, in the end, who’s gonna win?
BTW, Allan, I shop at Walmart myself. The prices are too good to pass up. Think of it as going to the zoo, but you can buy toothpaste as the same time and admission is free! 😉
“Obama doesn’t lie. He “Obama doesn’t lie. He implies, he misdirects, he misleads — so fluidly and incessantly that he risks transmuting eloquence into mere slickness.
Slickness wasn’t fatal to “Slick Willie” Clinton because he possessed a winning, near irresistible charm. Obama’s persona is more cool, distant, imperial. The charming scoundrel can get away with endless deception; the righteous redeemer cannot.”
~Charles Krauthammer
briansd1
October 2, 2009 @
11:03 AM
Aecetia wrote:
Slickness [quote=Aecetia]
Slickness wasn’t fatal to “Slick Willie” Clinton because he possessed a winning, near irresistible charm. Obama’s persona is more cool, distant, imperial. [/quote]
I find Obama just right. I’m not black but I can relate to him just fine. If Obama were more common, then he’d be accused of being too vernacular black.
There’s a reason Clinton was called America’s first Black president.
The fact that right finds Obama too distant and imperial shows how down-brow the conservative movement has turned. And they want to make English the official language? Kansan or Texan would be more to their liking.
America should leave Afghanistan, he says. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.” The “War on Terror” was “made up”, Vidal says. “The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction’
I don’t say there was a golden age, but there was an age of general intelligence. We had a watchdog, the media.” The media is too supine? “Would that it was. They’re busy preparing us for an Iranian war.
Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.”
Vidal raises his fingers to signify a gun and mutters: “Bang bang.” He is referring to the possibility of Obama being assassinated. “Just a mysterious lone gunman lurking in the shadows of the capital,” he says in a wry, dreamy way.
The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush.”
Instead, America has “no intellectual class” and is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn’t realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.”
“Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.”
Allan from Fallbrook
October 1, 2009 @
9:43 PM
Arraya: Oy vey. Tell me you Arraya: Oy vey. Tell me you didn’t quote Gore Vidal! That pompous, effete windbag has been bloviating about American fascism and dictatorships since McCarthy and the John Birch Society days.
It’s starting to get a little threadbare and his constant denigration of America and her stupid citizenry has had an equally long and ill-starred run. Not that I completely disagree with him, mind you (about the stupid citizenry part), but this shtick has clearly seen better days.
And, now he’s predicting that Obama is going to be assassinated? Wow. By whom, pray tell? He and Ollie Stone ought to get together and draft a screenplay on this.
He needs to crawl back under his rock and play with his catamites. He’s an irrelevancy and it drives him crazy.
Aecetia
October 2, 2009 @
12:21 AM
Allan,
I happen to enjoy his Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.
Allan from Fallbrook
October 2, 2009 @
7:48 AM
Aecetia wrote:Allan,
I happen [quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.
Arraya
October 2, 2009 @
8:07 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you on that. Though, I do enjoy good writing. Also, I find myself agreeing with him more often the not.
Allan from Fallbrook
October 2, 2009 @
9:38 AM
Arraya wrote:Allan from [quote=Arraya][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you on that. Though, I do enjoy good writing. Also, I find myself agreeing with him more often the not.[/quote]
Arraya: I think some of his points are valid and others are not, which is probably pretty true for everyone.
This “grand old man of American letters” stature that he has largely accorded himself galls me, though. One interview, in particular, stands out. He was a guest on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and one of the other guests started on in him and his reaction was unbelievably crass. Here is someone that attacks others for close-mindedness and parochialism and is exhibiting the very same “qualities”. That’s the height of hypocrisy to me and it also shows someone who is both egotistical and insecure.
Out of curiosity: Have you read any Victor Davis Hanson? Not his political writings, but any of his works on antiquity history.
Arraya
October 2, 2009 @
9:50 AM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Arraya][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you on that. Though, I do enjoy good writing. Also, I find myself agreeing with him more often the not.[/quote]
Arraya: I think some of his points are valid and others are not, which is probably pretty true for everyone.
This “grand old man of American letters” stature that he has largely accorded himself galls me, though. One interview, in particular, stands out. He was a guest on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and one of the other guests started on in him and his reaction was unbelievably crass. Here is someone that attacks others for close-mindedness and parochialism and is exhibiting the very same “qualities”. That’s the height of hypocrisy to me and it also shows someone who is both egotistical and insecure.
Out of curiosity: Have you read any Victor Davis Hanson? Not his political writings, but any of his works on antiquity history.[/quote]
Ha, funny you bring him up. My father is actually a fan and as recommended him to me recently. No, I have not read him, yet.
Allan from Fallbrook
October 2, 2009 @
1:07 PM
Arraya: One of my favorite Arraya: One of my favorite teachers, a Jesuit priest named Father John, gave me a copy of Thucydides “The Peloponnesian War” in 6th grade. As he explained, pretty much of all of human history was captured in the book. He was right and I make a point of reading it every year.
Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a book about the Peloponnesian War, entitled “A War Like No Other”. Its excellent and only superseded by Kagan’s four volume set dissecting the war in detail.
In my opinion, the Thomas Hobbes’ (“Leviathan”) translation of Thucydides is among the best.
briansd1
October 2, 2009 @
6:32 PM
Allan from Fallbrook [quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Arraya: One of my favorite teachers, a Jesuit priest named Father John, gave me a copy of Thucydides “The Peloponnesian War” in 6th grade. As he explained, pretty much of all of human history was captured in the book. He was right and I make a point of reading it every year.[/quote]
It’s interesting that a Catholic priest would have kids read works in which the Gods play no role — the Greek Gods were pagans anyway, so maybe it was just as well.
I love Greek mythology. Those legends do represent human history — greed, love, lust, war, etc…
Catholics who excelled at statecraft were Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and, of course, the Medicis and Borgias.
Different times, different places but still the same, in may ways.
briansd1
October 2, 2009 @
11:12 AM
Aecetia wrote:Allan,
I happen [quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
Yes, he’s a brilliant writer who’s gotten more prone to exaggeration and hyperbole over time. He’s an intellectual in the French mold — the ideas are more important than the practice.
That’s OK by me. Nothing wrong with some intellectual elitism.
Arraya
October 1, 2009 @
7:14 PM
Veritas wrote:I am not [quote=Veritas]I am not Charles Krauthammer. You know the answer to that Brian and your blind loyalty is positively Germanic! Too bad we can’t tax stupidity. We could pay off the national debt! It is almost painful to have you continue to make excuses for Obama. You remind me of a woman who knows her husband is cheating on her, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when all around her the evidence piles up. I understand now. It is the battered Obama voter syndrome. How sad for you. Maybe you should find a shelter.[/quote]
Funny, I just read this on another blog,
The truly outstanding thing about it is that the writer confesses he knows he’s being screwed, and goes into detail about how. And simultaneously demands his right to continue being screwed.
I’ve long subscribed to the idea that blue-collar Republicans exist basically because they’re all victims of a syndrome parallel to “Battered Wife Syndrome”.
That’s were the abused wife goes to extraordinary lengths to rationalize why she doesn’t leave the abuser. I deserved it, he’s my husband, it’s my duty, it’s for the children, it’s what god tells us to do, it’s none of your business… etc.
That’s exactly it- Battered Republican Syndrome.
Allan from Fallbrook
October 1, 2009 @
11:10 AM
Aecetia: Brian veers from Aecetia: Brian veers from (intentionally) misreading conservative comments to oversimplification in his responses (largely to avoid having to admit that the Dems are as f**ked up as the Repubs).
Like I said earlier, his by now constant references to Franks’ “Kansas” book are a clear indication of what informs his thinking. Namely, if you don’t agree with him, you’re obviously a rube from the sticks who shops at Wal-Mart and suffers from an overdose of religiosity.
When he receives an intelligent rebuttal or refutation, that thinking clearly breaks down and he falls back on either misreading the comment (which leads to those goofy responses) or oversimplifying further using some clearly wrong analogy (the wealthy cuckold).
I actually found myself in Wal-Mart yesterday before suddenly realizing that, based on my schooling and socioeconomic ranking, I shouldn’t be there. I decamped for Whole Foods, but then it dawned on me that I couldn’t shop there, either, since the Dems now hate the Whole Foods CEO for publicly disagreeing with Obama. Wow. That scenario seems to illustrate why hewing to the center might be the best option. Albertson’s it is.
PCinSD
October 1, 2009 @
11:20 AM
Allan from Fallbrook wrote: [quote=Allan from Fallbrook] Albertson’s it is.[/quote]
Stay away from their chicken.
afx114
October 1, 2009 @
11:35 AM
Screw all those shops. Grown Screw all those shops. Grown your own food. Tastes better, cheaper, sense of accomplishment, self-sufficient. How can anything be better than that?
September 21, 2009 @ 12:22 PM
For the record, I both
For the record, I both donated to him and voted for him. But I’m severely disappointed in his (lack of) handling of the gigantic, sick banks (Citi, BOA, Wells, et al).
I’m a “not sure” at this point.
September 21, 2009 @ 12:36 PM
Romney: Obama Has Failed So
Romney: Obama Has Failed So Far
Posted by University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service on September 21, 2009 | ShareThis
“Mitt Romney doesn’t think the last eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency have been successful. In an hour-long speech to hundreds of Republicans last Saturday, Romney said that Obama has failed with healthcare reform, economic redevelopment, stimulus funding and foreign relations.”
“What President Obama has done these past eight months [stimulus and bailout packages]… has not strengthened America,” said Romney at the 2009 Family Research Council Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. “To strengthen the economy and create jobs the President has to stop trying to borrow the country out of a debt problem… don’t repeat the stimulus, repair the stimulus.”
http://talkradionews.com/2009/09/romney-obama-has-failed-so-far/
September 21, 2009 @ 12:40 PM
Veritas wrote:Romney: Obama
[quote=Veritas]Romney: Obama Has Failed So Far
[/quote]
I bet Huckabee, McCain, Duncan “Saddle-up” Hunter, Fred Thompson, and the rest of the GOP candidates would also say he failed.
September 21, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
CricketOnTheHearth wrote:For
[quote=CricketOnTheHearth]For the record, I both donated to him and voted for him. But I’m severely disappointed in his (lack of) handling of the gigantic, sick banks (Citi, BOA, Wells, et al).
I’m a “not sure” at this point.[/quote]
Give him time….
My bet is that he’ll get re-elected. Time will tell….
Listen to the young generation. They are demanding health care, environmental protection and more social justice.
I’m seeing a shift in American values.
September 21, 2009 @ 1:18 PM
briansd1:
Agreed.
And I want
briansd1:
Agreed.
And I want those things too.
Question is, will Obama help deliver them, or will pretty speeches be all we wind up getting from him?
Granted, he has stiff headwinds (bought-and-paid-for Congresscritters terrified to write truly good bills for fear of displeasing their corporate masters, etc)
September 21, 2009 @ 9:58 PM
[quote=briansd1]
Give him
[quote=briansd1]
Give him time….
My bet is that he’ll get re-elected. Time will tell….
The thing I like about Obama is that I don’t think he cares if he gets re-elected.
My opinion of him is that he is just a regular person (like us) who wants the world to be a good place for his children.
I voted “probably” on the poll, because if things move in the direction that he is leading us, I believe that 10 or 20 years from now our country will be truly oil independent, we will be creating all the energy we need within our borders, and people will look back and acknowledge that it was his presidency and his vision that brought us to that point.
Regarding health care and health insurance, if the only thing that gets passed is a mandate for covering pre-existing conditions and not being able to drop “sick” clients, this will inspire insurance companies to actually want to keep people healthy.
We currently have thousands (hundreds of thousands?)of women walking and raising money to contribute to the research of finding a cure for breast cancer. But right now there is no real incentive to find a cure, especially with all this money poring into their coffers for “research”. If all of a sudden they are required to cover the “sick” it actually becomes beneficial to the insurance companies to actually find a cure.
September 23, 2009 @ 2:23 PM
Obama’s Speeches– Obama
Obama’s Speeches– Obama Mentions Self Nearly 1,200 Times!
Obama loves to hear himself talk – about himself. In just 41 speeches so this year, not including this week’s big speech at the United Nations, Obama has talked about himself nearly 1,200 times – 1,198 to be exact. (That breaks down to 1,121 “I”s and just 77 “me”s.)
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/23/dan-gainor-obama-speeches-ego/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r2:c0.132515:b27912276:z0
September 23, 2009 @ 9:16 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Obama’s
[quote=Zeitgeist]Obama’s Speeches– Obama Mentions Self Nearly 1,200 Times!
[/quote]
I enjoy watching Obama. He’s a good-looking, gregarious and eloquent speaker.
I’d rather listen to Obama than the vulgar, low-class rants of Beck and Limbaugh. Republicans can’t have enough of those two guys. That really shows you the “real Christian” upbringing their audiences.
September 23, 2009 @ 9:48 PM
briansd1 wrote:Zeitgeist
[quote=briansd1][quote=Zeitgeist]Obama’s Speeches– Obama Mentions Self Nearly 1,200 Times!
[/quote]
I enjoy watching Obama. He’s a good-looking, gregarious and eloquent speaker.
I’d rather listen to Obama than the vulgar, low-class rants of Beck and Limbaugh. Republicans can’t have enough of those two guys. That really shows you the “real Christian” upbringing their audiences.[/quote]
Brian: Yes, and when one is an engaging speaker, the audience cares far less about truth and content. That, by the way, is called demagoguery and it has stood folks like Obama in good stead for millenia.
That Obama is a gifted orator is beyond question. However, when it comes to actual facts and figures, well, then it gets a mite fuzzier, doesn’t it?
Brian, you obviously put a lot of credence in “intellect” and “breeding” and “class”. You impute these values to Obama and “liberals” (without a clear understanding of either what liberal means or its lineage) and heap disdain on those who don’t subscribe to your interpretation of these values. This sort of moral infantilism allows demagogues to have their way and aided by what Lenin called the “useful idiots of the West”.
To make my point, I’ll ask your opinion of the neoconservative “movement” and why you feel the way you do. I guarantee the answer will be hugely enlightening for you and the rest of the reading audience.
September 23, 2009 @ 11:40 PM
Yes, Brian Obama is
Yes, Brian Obama is attractive and articulate. For most of us it has never been about his speaking ability or his intellect. Just wondering what you think of Jeremiah Wright, since you do not seem to like religious people. I found him to be quite an entertaining speaker, too.
September 24, 2009 @ 10:17 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Yes, Brian
[quote=Zeitgeist]Yes, Brian Obama is attractive and articulate. For most of us it has never been about his speaking ability or his intellect.[/quote]
That’s why I like to have him on TV.
[quote=Zeitgeist]Just wondering what you think of Jeremiah Wright, since you do not seem to like religious people. [/quote]
His an nutcase. He was just expressing his own frustrations. But the fact that your priest is a nut has no bearing on you as an individual.
I just attended my aunt’s funeral outside New York City. Their previous Catholic father was a nut too. The current priest is very nice and the congregation loves him. They don’t get to choose their priest. My cousin told me that the Catholic priests move to different parishes every 7 years. Her family has belonged to this church since forever and they would never think of changing just because of something the priest says.
BTW, to me the “real” America is more likely to be century old communities in the North-East rather than the new evangelical born-again Christian churches of the Red States.
For those who have not been, I recommend visiting the North East and visiting the small towns with 10 year-old churches. It’s a big contrast from the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.
September 24, 2009 @ 10:26 PM
Well in the past 2 days we
Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. Of course we will now most likely have a healthcare reform pushed through congress. So, we cannot run a govt postal system without a bailout but we will get a full blown healthcare system correct. I am not saying we don’t need healthcare reform. I think it could be done on a much smaller scale.
Yes Obama does speak well, the fact that so many people love him and are simply turning deaf ears to alot of troubling things that are happening, proves it as such.
September 25, 2009 @ 6:48 AM
SD Realtor wrote:Well in the
[quote=SD Realtor]Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. [/quote]
We have engaged and negotiated with the Soviet Union for decades. And we contained and defeated the Soviet Union in the end without spilling any blood.
Sure there were proxy wars but those were better than direct war with the Soviets.
In many respects the conflicts of today are a legacy of the proxy wars with the Soviets.
I think that it’s best to engage the dictators to open up their economies. Our multinational corporations and consumer goods will win the wars for us. Let their people have a taste of the American consumer lifestyle and political change will come on its own, just like it did in China Vietnam, and Eastern Europe.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:17 AM
SD Realtor wrote:Well in the
[quote=SD Realtor]Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. Of course we will now most likely have a healthcare reform pushed through congress. So, we cannot run a govt postal system without a bailout but we will get a full blown healthcare system correct. I am not saying we don’t need healthcare reform. I think it could be done on a much smaller scale.
Yes Obama does speak well, the fact that so many people love him and are simply turning deaf ears to alot of troubling things that are happening, proves it as such.[/quote]
No, he never said Israel needs to be wiped off the map. That was a gross mistranslation. It was more an attack at the legal inception and the current regime in charge. Which he is entitled to bring up.
Stealing land by claiming divine right is something we did hundreds of years ago but that shit does not fly in the 20-21st century. Israel is an occupying force committing genocide on an indigenous population. Period.
Why do you think Zelaya is being hunted by Israelis? Think real hard because it fits into the huge geopolitical picture that is being played out in front of our eyes.
September 28, 2009 @ 12:46 PM
Arraya wrote:SD Realtor
[quote=Arraya][quote=SD Realtor]Well in the past 2 days we have had a man speak at the UN who has denied that 6 million jews were killed and who has said Isreal needs to be wiped off the map. Obama wants to engage with this man. Furthermore Obama is supporting another man Zelaya who now has publicly stated he is being basically hunted by Isrealis. Of course we will now most likely have a healthcare reform pushed through congress. So, we cannot run a govt postal system without a bailout but we will get a full blown healthcare system correct. I am not saying we don’t need healthcare reform. I think it could be done on a much smaller scale.
Yes Obama does speak well, the fact that so many people love him and are simply turning deaf ears to alot of troubling things that are happening, proves it as such.[/quote]
No, he never said Israel needs to be wiped off the map. That was a gross mistranslation. It was more an attack at the legal inception and the current regime in charge. Which he is entitled to bring up.
Stealing land by claiming divine right is something we did hundreds of years ago but that shit does not fly in the 20-21st century. Israel is an occupying force committing genocide on an indigenous population. Period.
Why do you think Zelaya is being hunted by Israelis? Think real hard because it fits into the huge geopolitical picture that is being played out in front of our eyes.[/quote]
Israel has a pretty proficient military. So I would think that if they decided to commit genocide then it there would be no Palestinians left in that area. Especially the those that go to work every day in Israel.
September 28, 2009 @ 12:57 PM
sd_matt wrote:
Israel has a
[quote=sd_matt]
Israel has a pretty proficient military. So I would think that if they decided to commit genocide then it there would be no Palestinians left in that area. Especially the those that go to work every day in Israel.[/quote]
What about our own military, the best trained and best equipped in the world? And we still can’t secure Iraq and Afpak.
Remember, we still haven’t been able to get Osama Bin Laden.
Makes you wonder what shock and awe can achieve.
Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.
September 28, 2009 @ 1:24 PM
Afghanistan: Where Empires Go
Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die
Genghis Khan could not hold onto Afghanistan. Neither will the United States
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15281
September 28, 2009 @ 1:26 PM
“Look at Vietnam now. The war
“Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.”
here ya’ go, Allan – show us your jingoistic nature
September 28, 2009 @ 1:33 PM
4plexowner wrote:”Look at
[quote=4plexowner]”Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.”
here ya’ go, Allan – show us your jingoistic nature[/quote]
4Plex: See my other quote. And, yes, we were in Vietnam for largely the same reason: Maintaining an open seaway for oil, as well as containing the communist threat from China and the North.
I’d also have you answer how, exactly, we “won” in Vietnam with Coca-Cola, Citi and The Gap. This is an endemically corrupt and backward country and, regardless of how well we appear to be doing commercially, this country is riddled with problems.
Also, do a little research and tell me what you think happened post-April 1975 when US forces exited Southeast Asia. Specifically, what did North Vietnam do after securing South Vietnam? Or, more importantly, what didn’t they do?
Reducing everything to these childish black/white analogies is pointless. You are looking for, what, a 30 second answer to all of the world’s problems? Wait, I get it. “Love each other”. That’s the answer, right?
September 28, 2009 @ 1:24 PM
Brian
What does this have to
Brian
What does this have to do with my comment about whether or not Israel is committing genocide?
September 28, 2009 @ 1:52 PM
briansd1 wrote:sd_matt
[quote=briansd1][quote=sd_matt]
Israel has a pretty proficient military. So I would think that if they decided to commit genocide then it there would be no Palestinians left in that area. Especially the those that go to work every day in Israel.[/quote]
What about our own military, the best trained and best equipped in the world? And we still can’t secure Iraq and Afpak.
Remember, we still haven’t been able to get Osama Bin Laden.
Makes you wonder what shock and awe can achieve.
Look at Vietnam now. The war that our GIs couldn’t win, Coca Cola, Citibank and The Gap won for us.[/quote]
Brian: Have you been to Israel or the Mideast? If yes, where did you go? And, what were your impressions of the country, people, government, freedoms, etc?
Been to India? The Philippines? Australia? Indonesia? Europe? Same questions for any of these countries as well.
September 24, 2009 @ 10:40 PM
briansd1 wrote:His an
[quote=briansd1]His an nutcase. He was just expressing his own frustrations. But the fact that your priest is a nut has no bearing on you as an individual.
I just attended my aunt’s funeral outside New York City. Their previous Catholic father was a nut too. The current priest is very nice and the congregation loves him. They don’t get to choose their priest. My cousin told me that the Catholic priests move to different parishes every 7 years. Her family has belonged to this church since forever and they would never think of changing just because of something the priest says.
BTW, to me the “real” America is more likely to be century old communities in the North-East rather than the new evangelical born-again Christian churches of the Red States.
For those who have not been, I recommend visiting the North East and visiting the small towns with 10 year-old churches. It’s a big contrast from the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.[/quote]
Brian: What utter nonsense. Jeremiah Wright has been spewing this crap for 20+ years. If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.
I was raised Catholic and attended Jesuit seminary school as a grade schooler, and mixed Jesuit (priests) and Franciscan (brothers) high school in Northern California. I bring that up because I find evangelical Christians to be light on theology and long on drama (Tribulations/End Times nonsense). However, they’re free to believe what they believe, within limits.
For you to say, and I’m presuming with a straight face, that Obama sat in that pew while Wright fulminated against America (“God Damn America!”) and was unaffected is laughable horseshit. For him to then claim that he was unaware of what Wright was saying is even funnier, and far less believable.
Your willingness to buy into any shit that this man sells is alarming in and of itself. But your bigotry against Christians (and, yes, Brian, that is exactly what it is: Bigotry) is deplorable, especially when certain groups of Christians, such as Catholics, have contributed some of the finest thinkers, philosophers, scientists, doctors AND politicians/leaders to the world culture.
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. And you continue to pontificate freely, apparently with the sense that you’re possessed of some sort of superior intellect, while we conservatives of the knuckle dragging, mono-browed persuasion lurch slowly around, trying to find our way back to glory.
September 24, 2009 @ 11:30 PM
Quote:If you had a Catholic
[quote]If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.[/quote]
You mean sort of like how they pulled the priests that were raping little boys out of their parishes?
Next caller, please.
September 25, 2009 @ 5:42 AM
CostaMesa wrote:Quote:If you
[quote=CostaMesa][quote]If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.[/quote]
You mean sort of like how they pulled the priests that were raping little boys out of their parishes?
Next caller, please.[/quote]
CM: Yes, an absolutely shameful and despicable chapter in the Church’s history. And, not what we were talking about at all.
Oh, that’s right, I forgot: You generally react strongly when your Leftist ilk get assailed, don’t you, CM?
How about we stick with what we were discussing, hmm?
September 25, 2009 @ 6:06 AM
I think the point he was
I think the point he was making, Allan, is that the Church’s history of allowing child abuse doesn’t support the idea of the Church acting quickly to stop a priest from saying ‘unacceptable’ things to his congregation
child abuse has gone on for decades with the knowledge of church leaders – the abusers get moved to new parishes after private settlements are made with the abused
the point is a little off track from the current discussion but worthy of a quick mention
September 25, 2009 @ 6:33 AM
I think Allen’s point was
I think Allen’s point was that a Catholic priest spewing garbage from the pulpit publicly would be acted upon rather quickly. I don’t think a Catholic congregation would tolerate Reverend Wrights nonsense for very long either (and yes, I am Catholic).
The raping of little boys was going on behind closed doors, and is certainly deplorable if the Church knew it was going on, and is indeed a condition that the Catholic Church needs to be ashamed about. Throughout history there have been plenty of things the Church should hang it’s head in shame about, but a great deal of good has come from the Church as well, and I don’t think the organization should be condemned entirely because of a few rotten priests.
I find it quite difficult to believe that some would condemn an entity as large as the Catholic Church for some of it’s priests indescretions, but perhaps I’m just indoctrinated.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:33 AM
4plexowner wrote:I think the
[quote=4plexowner]I think the point he was making, Allan, is that the Church’s history of allowing child abuse doesn’t support the idea of the Church acting quickly to stop a priest from saying ‘unacceptable’ things to his congregation
child abuse has gone on for decades with the knowledge of church leaders – the abusers get moved to new parishes after private settlements are made with the abused
the point is a little off track from the current discussion but worthy of a quick mention[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, I understood CM’s point, but my response was that it wasn’t germane to the discussion (as NavyDoc saw and caught below). NavyDoc also makes an important point of his own, and that is that the Church, like the US, on balance, has been a force for good.
Any organization, especially one the size of the Catholic Church, is going to have bad apples. Just like any country the size of the US is going to have idiots, malcontents and those too ignorant to understand the true state of things, such as the Loony Left wing of the Democratic Party and the Radical Right wing of the Republican Party.
September 25, 2009 @ 6:57 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
Brian: What utter nonsense. Jeremiah Wright has been spewing this crap for 20+ years. If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.[/quote]
What about the churches spewing non-sense and hatred against gays, and choice supporters? Such vitriol has resulted in murders and violence against innocent individuals.
I honestly don’t see the difference.
The way I interpret Jeremiah Wright’s statements is that “God has yet to bless America. We still have some way to go before we are truly blessed.” His statement is simply a figure of speech meant for effect, and meant as a calling for social activism on the part of his congregants.
October 2, 2009 @ 9:26 PM
You interpret JW’s statements
You interpret JW’s statements of “God damn America” in one way, and then turn around and contradict yourself with “Churches spewing non-sense and hatred against gays????? There is a BIG difference between saying that being gay is a sin and hatred for gays. Yet, your interpretation went right to hatred. When someone comes out and says they hate America (usually when you want to damn something to hell, you pretty much hate them), you INTERPRET their meaning as God has yet to BLESS America?? Wake up, there is no intepretation needed here……… listen to what they said.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:05 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. [/quote]
Allan, it takes one to know one. 😉
I wasn’t so much concerned about my own political lineage. I was referring to that of the conservatives. Their behavior certainly doesn’t espouse the conservative Christian values they embrace.
Perhaps the end justifies the means on both side of the aisle. I happen to believe that progressives have only began playing hardball whereas conservative Republicans have been practicing such unsavory tactics for much longer.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:48 AM
briansd1 wrote:Allan from
[quote=briansd1][quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. [/quote]
Allan, it takes one to know one. 😉
I wasn’t so much concerned about my own political lineage. I was referring to that of the conservatives. Their behavior certainly doesn’t espouse the conservative Christian values they embrace.
Perhaps the end justifies the means on both side of the aisle. I happen to believe that progressives have only began playing hardball whereas conservative Republicans have been practicing such unsavory tactics for much longer.[/quote]
Brian: You must be in a constant state of ducking because damn near everything I’ve said has gone completely over your head.
I asked your opinion about neocons to make a point and was gunning after that same point when I asked about your liberal lineage.
I’m going to guess that you don’t realize that the neocon movement was started by liberals. True story and look it up if you don’t believe me.
As I’ve said before, I have no problems with liberals (TRUE liberals, a designation that does NOT include Hillary, Obama et al), but I have a major problem with Leftists (Hillary, Obama et al). You can tell (or smell) a Leftist by their use of language and their politics.
Obama is a true Leftist, as evidenced by his redistributive and confiscatory policies, such as his vigorous and unrepentant sodomizing of the Chrysler corporate bondholders, all while fending off all attempts to even view the Chrysler union CBA (collective bargaining agreement).
His (mis)handling of the Chinese tire tariff exposes him further as a tool of the Left (this is a sop to the United Steelworkers union).
The clearest example I can give of both the divide and the disconnect between true liberalism and Leftism is the differences in the approach to a social society between that of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Teddy Kennedy. Moynihan advocated for race neutral social programs that were effective, affordable and didn’t create a cycle of dependency and victimhood. Kennedy advocated, well, we all know what Kennedy advocated for.
While the American people have certainly had their moments of idiocy (the Carter Administration), they’re starting to smell the stench emanating from DC and seeing Obama for what he is and what his policies represent.
September 27, 2009 @ 1:32 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=briansd1]His an nutcase. He was just expressing his own frustrations. But the fact that your priest is a nut has no bearing on you as an individual.
I just attended my aunt’s funeral outside New York City. Their previous Catholic father was a nut too. The current priest is very nice and the congregation loves him. They don’t get to choose their priest. My cousin told me that the Catholic priests move to different parishes every 7 years. Her family has belonged to this church since forever and they would never think of changing just because of something the priest says.
BTW, to me the “real” America is more likely to be century old communities in the North-East rather than the new evangelical born-again Christian churches of the Red States.
For those who have not been, I recommend visiting the North East and visiting the small towns with 10 year-old churches. It’s a big contrast from the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.[/quote]
Brian: What utter nonsense. Jeremiah Wright has been spewing this crap for 20+ years. If you had a Catholic parish priest going before a congregation and saying the things that Wright said, the diocese or archdiocese would pull him in a heartbeat.
I was raised Catholic and attended Jesuit seminary school as a grade schooler, and mixed Jesuit (priests) and Franciscan (brothers) high school in Northern California. I bring that up because I find evangelical Christians to be light on theology and long on drama (Tribulations/End Times nonsense). However, they’re free to believe what they believe, within limits.
For you to say, and I’m presuming with a straight face, that Obama sat in that pew while Wright fulminated against America (“God Damn America!”) and was unaffected is laughable horseshit. For him to then claim that he was unaware of what Wright was saying is even funnier, and far less believable.
Your willingness to buy into any shit that this man sells is alarming in and of itself. But your bigotry against Christians (and, yes, Brian, that is exactly what it is: Bigotry) is deplorable, especially when certain groups of Christians, such as Catholics, have contributed some of the finest thinkers, philosophers, scientists, doctors AND politicians/leaders to the world culture.
You are unaware of your own political lineage, and simply regurgitate the going party line, without a thought or a care. You embody the very prejudices you rail against and do so without any apparent self-evident irony. And you continue to pontificate freely, apparently with the sense that you’re possessed of some sort of superior intellect, while we conservatives of the knuckle dragging, mono-browed persuasion lurch slowly around, trying to find our way back to glory.[/quote]
Well said Allan!
September 27, 2009 @ 2:48 PM
Allan,
That is very well
Allan,
That is very well written. Bigotry goes both ways. Brian is just as bigoted as the people he describes as “the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.” Beneath the hatred is pure fear.
September 27, 2009 @ 3:31 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Allan,
That
[quote=Zeitgeist]Allan,
That is very well written. Bigotry goes both ways. Brian is just as bigoted as the people he describes as “the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.” Beneath the hatred is pure fear.[/quote]
Zeitgeist, I’m glad that you agree that those folks are bigoted. That’s progress right there!
Fear? Give me a break. Bring Palin on. Bring her on!!
Allan, I think that I have reasons to be disdainful towards the conservative base. That base comes mostly from the working-class of the Red States. It’s stupid for them to support policies that benefits well-off taxpayers.
For example, look at those E-rank military who vote Republican. Aside from their socialized military benefits and what they earned from their service salaries, they likely don’t have a penny to their names. They likely haven’t earned anything in the private sector aside from odd high-school jobs.
Sometimes people need to be told how stupid they are so they can “wake up, America!” Isn’t that the tough love that true conservatives embrace?
BTW, I agree that real conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. But the conservative movement as currently embodied by the “base” is full of hypocrisy and contradictions.
Allan, as I’ve said before, you seem pretty fair-minded. But the Becks and Limbaughs of this world are just vulgar, low-class buffoons.
September 27, 2009 @ 4:57 PM
briansd1 wrote:
Allan, I
[quote=briansd1]
Allan, I think that I have reasons to be disdainful towards the conservative base. That base comes mostly from the working-class of the Red States. It’s stupid for them to support policies that benefits well-off taxpayers.
For example, look at those E-rank military who vote Republican. Aside from their socialized military benefits and what they earned from their service salaries, they likely don’t have a penny to their names. They likely haven’t earned anything in the private sector aside from odd high-school jobs.
Sometimes people need to be told how stupid they are so they can “wake up, America!” Isn’t that the tough love that true conservatives embrace?
BTW, I agree that real conservatives and liberals have a lot in common. But the conservative movement as currently embodied by the “base” is full of hypocrisy and contradictions.
Allan, as I’ve said before, you seem pretty fair-minded. But the Becks and Limbaughs of this world are just vulgar, low-class buffoons.[/quote]
Brian: You bring up the military. I have the sense you haven’t served and would recommend sitting down with someone from the Army or Marines and discussing why they vote Republican.
I served my entire time under Reagan and, while I disagreed with much of what he did, I also applauded his understanding of what the Soviets were truly about and his willingness to go the distance in bringing them down.
A quick glance at the military under Carter or Clinton will further answer that question for you. Friends of mine have served under both of those administrations and loathe them equally.
I also have the feeling that you missed my point about neocons and liberals and Leftists. The Democrats have been co-opted just as completely as the Republicans have.
Hillary’s constant and consistent invocations of 1968 show her counter-cultural chops as well as her beliefs. True liberals are part of the minority in the Democratic Party, just as true conservatives are in the Republican Party.
But, before you condemn anybody for their political or religious beliefs, understand that nothing is in black or white and the very people you feign superiority over are in fact more unflinching and realistic in their views than you are.
September 28, 2009 @ 8:21 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
But, before you condemn anybody for their political or religious beliefs, understand that nothing is in black or white [/quote]
But it seems black and white, at least to the Republicans. Single issue politics plays well to the populace.
That’s why you have anti-abortion and anti-birth-control advocates voting Republican against their economic well-being. Then they wonder why their teenage daughters get pregnant.
That’s why you have enlisted soldiers who believe in the nuke’em-big-gun approach voting Republican against their economic well-being. These soldiers have never held significant private sector jobs. All they know is the coterie of the military.
That’s why you have rural and religious conservatives Republicans who abhor homosexuality voting Republican against their own economic well-being.
Same thing applies to creationism pushers.
People vote stupidly against their own self-interests all the time because of emotional reasons.
September 28, 2009 @ 2:02 PM
Zeitgeist wrote:Allan,
That
[quote=Zeitgeist]Allan,
That is very well written. Bigotry goes both ways. Brian is just as bigoted as the people he describes as “the new born-again churches in the new Southern, Mid-Western and Western Red-State communities comprised of Walmarts and strip malls.” Beneath the hatred is pure fear.[/quote]
I agree strongly. I have read some of his threads.
When I watch and listen to the news I see lots of examples of shenanigans from the left and right.
This is just not so in Brians world.
September 28, 2009 @ 2:11 PM
And I am going to repeat what
And I am going to repeat what I said on another thread. The farther Left or Right you go the more you think the same fundamentally. I mean that both sides seek the easy black and white answer. Both like to warp the idea of accountability.
Example; The war on drugs and gun control. Go back in time and look. How do differentiate between the two in terms of accountability?
September 28, 2009 @ 4:30 PM
“Reducing everything to these
“Reducing everything to these childish black/white analogies is pointless. You are looking for, what, a 30 second answer to all of the world’s problems?”
nope
just having fun getting under your skin
remember you started this exchange by insulting me
September 28, 2009 @ 4:36 PM
4plexowner wrote:”Reducing
[quote=4plexowner]”Reducing everything to these childish black/white analogies is pointless. You are looking for, what, a 30 second answer to all of the world’s problems?”
nope
just having fun getting under your skin
remember you started this exchange by insulting me[/quote]
4Plex: Uh-huh. Okay. So that’s what that mad-dog kill spree I went on today was all about!
I insulted you how, again?
September 28, 2009 @ 6:10 PM
Everyone filters their world.
Everyone filters their world. Some just have stronger filters than others. Some even filter out the truth to hold on to some world view they believe in. I would just like to know what happened to the transparency that was promised to the voters…
September 23, 2009 @ 9:08 PM
citydweller wrote:
The thing
[quote=citydweller]
The thing I like about Obama is that I don’t think he cares if he gets re-elected.
My opinion of him is that he is just a regular person (like us) who wants the world to be a good place for his children.[/quote]
I agree with you. I’m sure that Obama will run for reelection because he’ll want to continue his work.
After 16 years of Reagan and Bush, I’m glad to have Obama in the presidency. He’s a breath of fresh air.
October 4, 2009 @ 1:32 PM
CricketOnTheHearth wrote:For
[quote=CricketOnTheHearth]For the record, I both donated to him and voted for him. But I’m severely disappointed in his (lack of) handling of the gigantic, sick banks (Citi, BOA, Wells, et al).
I’m a “not sure” at this point.[/quote]
If you had done any research on him you would not be surprised by his piss poor performance.
October 24, 2012 @ 9:47 AM
Obama went to bed knowing
Obama went to bed knowing what was happening in Benghazi, yet did nothing: “As the Arab world shakes a bloody fist at the apologetic and gutless Obama White House, new facts emerge over the recent horrific murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.”
Continue reading at NowPublic.com: New facts on how Obama White House abandoned our ambassador | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/new-facts-how-obama-white-house-abandoned-our-ambassador#ixzz2AEcPlHnA
So he is either totally incompetent or a total liar, aided by the corrupt media in the coverup.
Even Letterman is discouraged by his lies:
“Now, I don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth; you want the contender to be lying. And so what we found out today or soon thereafter that, in fact, the President Obama was not telling the truth about what was excerpted from that op-ed piece. I felt discouraged.”
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/24/letterman-upset-and-discouraged-obama-lied-about-romney-wanting-detro#ixzz2AEbbzbvg
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: “This is a Fox News Alert.’ New evidence at Fox News that the Obama administration knew the Libya attack was an act of terror even as it happened! Fox News has obtained internal State Department emails, the emails showing that an al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack as the assault was ongoing on the U.S. consulate.”
I know many of you do not care what he does because you support him no matter what. The truth is inconvenient.
http://nation.foxnews.com/benghazi-gate/2012/10/24/bolton-obama-administration-cant-sweep-away-benghazi
October 24, 2012 @ 10:24 AM
Zeitgeist wrote:Obama went to
[quote=Zeitgeist]Obama went to bed knowing what was happening in Benghazi, yet did nothing: “As the Arab world shakes a bloody fist at the apologetic and gutless Obama White House, new facts emerge over the recent horrific murder of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.”
Continue reading at NowPublic.com: New facts on how Obama White House abandoned our ambassador | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/world/new-facts-how-obama-white-house-abandoned-our-ambassador#ixzz2AEcPlHnA
So he is either totally incompetent or a total liar, aided by the corrupt media in the coverup.
Even Letterman is discouraged by his lies:
“Now, I don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth; you want the contender to be lying. And so what we found out today or soon thereafter that, in fact, the President Obama was not telling the truth about what was excerpted from that op-ed piece. I felt discouraged.”
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/10/24/letterman-upset-and-discouraged-obama-lied-about-romney-wanting-detro#ixzz2AEbbzbvg
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: “This is a Fox News Alert.’ New evidence at Fox News that the Obama administration knew the Libya attack was an act of terror even as it happened! Fox News has obtained internal State Department emails, the emails showing that an al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack as the assault was ongoing on the U.S. consulate.”
I know many of you do not care what he does because you support him no matter what. The truth is inconvenient.
http://nation.foxnews.com/benghazi-gate/2012/10/24/bolton-obama-administration-cant-sweep-away-benghazi%5B/quote%5D
Wow, this is huge. Obama knew it was an act of terror and he said so. What a scandal!
October 24, 2012 @ 11:22 AM
LOL!
LOL!
October 24, 2012 @ 11:39 AM
Liars and frauds:
how to
Liars and frauds:
how to double vote for Obama-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_iJfnbMzI0
October 28, 2012 @ 9:38 PM
On the
On the Verge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6sERm4h9TRI&noredirect=1
October 28, 2012 @ 10:50 PM
PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEFING,
PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEFING, OCTOBER 23RD 2012: ZEITGEIST DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN PIGGINGTON
September 24, 2009 @ 5:27 PM
I find Obama most interesting
I find Obama most interesting with the sound off. That way I can focus on his actions rather than his rather soothing words.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:15 AM
It is shocking to me to read
It is shocking to me to read a thread like this and see the remarks that are being made here. Politically I am somewhat in the middle in general, probably a bit right leaning. With that stated, I just look at what he is doing not how he is saying it.
He is weakening our national defense, indisputable by any measure.
He has reneged on virtually every campaign promise he made except the redistribution ones. Every pres does some of this but not on this level.
His world wide apology tours make a mockery of all of us.
He hides behind the attorney general in that easter egg hunt with the CIA. I know a couple of people and I can tell you without a doubt, this is going to make us less likely to catch bad guys going forward.
Health care, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle as far as how bad this might be, but the financial aspect of it is loud and clear.
I have no idea what his real agenda is. It is possible that he is geniune and just stupid and naive about how to go about doing things. He does have the same level of experience as most of us, so this was not unexpected.
However, with all of this, in my view he has a great shot at the title of the worst president ever depending on his next 6 months or so. I see him as the Detroit Lions of politics.
How in the world anyone could think he is doing a great job is just beyond belief to me! I guess if we all agreed life would be boring.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:23 AM
His world wide apology tours
His world wide apology tours make a mockery of all of us.
Being an American means never having to say your sorry…
but the financial aspect of it is loud and clear.
Yes, the Fed plan has almost run it’s course and the Benny and Timmy show is coming to a close just like Thelma and Louise.
September 25, 2009 @ 10:33 AM
If you liked Jimmy Carter,
If you liked Jimmy Carter, you are going to love Barak Obama.
The similarities are ominous. Both came from a populist, left-leaning background, both began big government programs that whacked the economy at the same time they were (are) long-term inflationary, and both showed weakenss to such renegade countries as Iran.
The big difference is that Obama is more persuasive and attractive, so is getting a longer trial before the country realizes what a mistake it made. But the bill is coming due and the public is waking up the more they learn about such things as bail-outs, health care “reform”, and cap and tax.
On the positive side….our reaction to Carter ushered in the era of Reagan and 20 years of above-average growth and prosperity.
September 25, 2009 @ 11:05 AM
Reagan, who actually
Reagan, who actually increased the size of government, started the age of easy credit, bubble economics and out of control deficits that is coming crashing down now. The prosperity, was all massive inflation, which was all a mirage.
The economic emperors that started this are all still running the show in the Federal Reserve and the trajectory has not changed in decades. Keep increasing debt until it explodes. Those guys are geniuses, I tell ya.
Now is the grand finale, as the dollar gets thrown out by the rest of the world and the US empire comes to a screeching halt.
Of course, the whole global economy came crashing down under Bush and the Fed and associated central banks threw about 6 generations of debt to stop the massive deflationary collapse temporarily. But we blame Obama for what the central banks policies, that have been working in concert around the world, have done.
We will find out what Obama is like, after this crash is complete Yes, he will be a socialist as will the rest of the globe as globalization falls flat on it’s unsustainable face.
Next leg down starts in late october/november.
Hold onto your hats..
September 25, 2009 @ 11:51 AM
Arraya: Didn’t we discuss
Arraya: Didn’t we discuss this perky, chipper crap from you? Dude! It’s Friday!
Thank God I’m not in any way despondent, or I’d be ready to do a double gainer off the Coronado Bridge.
Sheesh! It’s all going to be okay. Bernanke said so.
September 25, 2009 @ 12:03 PM
“Next leg down starts in late
“Next leg down starts in late october/november.
Hold onto your hats..”
just enough time to get some new sanctions implemented against Iran so come late oct/nov we can claim that Iran isn’t complying with the ‘world mandate’ and it is time to start dropping bombs
the war will provide convenient distraction from the collapsing economy and it will also provide an external scapegoat for the collapse – “Barak’s economic recovery was well under way until the unexpected crisis in Iran developed. … blah … blah … blah”
September 25, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
Few understand that Iran has
Few understand that Iran has the legal standing to own a nuclear program for peaceful purposes or otherwise. The US and other countries are trying to coax (perhaps bully would a better word) Iran into abandoning it.
Look at it from Iran’s point of view. There has to be something in it for them.
I have the right to park my ugly truck in front of my house. If you want me to get rid of it, you have to make it worth my while. Or you can beat me into submission. Sure, I’m a lousy neighbor, but I haven’t done anything wrong.
Not defending Iran but simply looking at it from a realistic point of view.
September 25, 2009 @ 1:34 PM
briansd1 wrote:Few understand
[quote=briansd1]Few understand that Iran has the legal standing to own a nuclear program for peaceful purposes or otherwise. The US and other countries are trying to coax (perhaps bully would a better word) Iran into abandoning it.
Look at it from Iran’s point of view. There has to be something in it for them.
I have the right to park my ugly truck in front of my house. If you want me to get rid of it, you have to make it worth my while. Or you can beat me into submission. Sure, I’m a lousy neighbor, but I haven’t done anything wrong.
Not defending Iran but simply looking at it from a realistic point of view.[/quote]
Brian:
How do you feel about North Korean having nukes? How do you think Japan feels about their “lousy neighbor” having nukes? Or South Korea?
Have you seen the Hezbollah flags with the nuclear mushroom cloud on them? Do you know what that mushroom cloud represents? Do you know who funds Hezbollah?
How about this: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052901.html.
Mike Totten discusses Iran’s regional superpower ambitions and their “need” for a nuke: http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2009/04/hezbollahs-mush.php
If you think Iran’s nuke program is benign in nature, okay. You’re entitled to your opinion. However, if you believe it is far more likely tied to their desire to achieve ascendancy in the region and spread their particularly virulent message throughout the Mideast, then I think we should consider our options. Easiest one being to exert sufficient pressure through soft power to close down the program.
This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy. They are enforcing their mandate through power, violence and intimidation and directed at THEIR OWN PEOPLE. Given the hardliners willingness to deny the Holocaust, what do you think their plans for Israel are?
September 25, 2009 @ 2:20 PM
Allan, it sounds like more of
Allan, it sounds like more of the Bush Doctrine (one which Palin wasn’t even aware of) of preemption and prevention.
In regard to Iran, I believe that we can negotiate with them. That will come at the expense of Israel; and I believe that the Israeli lobby is pushing us act against Iran.
Iran may be threatening Israel’s security but I don’t believe that they are a threat to own national security, at this point. Our government job is to act in our best interests, not those of Israel.
Gradually normalizing relations with Iran will be to our mutual benefit.
We can convince Iran to abandon its nuclear program by loosening the economic embargo. But that will cement Iran’s position as the region’s military and economic power (something Israel is trying to avoid). But by trading with Iran we can turn them into a friend, customer and vendor.
It took us a long time after the fall of Saigon to normalize relations with Vietnam because of pride and rhetoric. We would have been better off to follow the lead of Australia and remain engaged with Communist Vietnam (which is now a large trading partner).
By isolating Iran and keeping its people disconnected from the world culture, we are helping their people remain ignorant. That’s why they are reelecting leaders like Ahmadinejad.
September 25, 2009 @ 2:25 PM
Allan, there is no proof of
Allan, there is no proof of nuclear weapon ambitions. NONE
Iran allows inspections.
Iran has signed the NNPT.
Israel told the UN to go screw itself regarding inspections of Israel’s nuclear facilities.
Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There is a think line between Chutzpah and looking like a hypocritical ass and Netanyahu just sailed over it.
Genocidal Israel is the problem over their not Iran.
September 25, 2009 @ 2:28 PM
I agree, Arraya.
The great
I agree, Arraya.
The great fear in Israel is that if we get closer to Iran we will begin to turn away from Israel.
Israel is acting like a conniving woman trying to turn all of her boyfriend’s friends (or even potential friends), who are not her own friends first, into enemies.
September 25, 2009 @ 2:48 PM
LA Times editorial:
LA Times editorial:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-nuclear25-2009sep25,0,1397109.story
Obama’s powerful presence
The president’s popularity — on view at the U.N. — has helped reduce global tensions and deprived America’s enemies of propaganda points.
Conservative critics of President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives are having a tough week. On Thursday, Obama achieved a signature victory when the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved his resolution aimed at halting nuclear proliferation. His warm reception by the General Assembly — some delegates were so awed by the American president that they couldn’t resist snapping pictures during his Wednesday speech — stood in sharp contrast to the welcome accorded George W. Bush, whose U.N. speeches were typically met with stony silence. Even the implacably hostile Russians suddenly seem amenable to U.S. desires.
September 25, 2009 @ 2:48 PM
Arraya wrote:Allan, there is
[quote=Arraya]Allan, there is no proof of nuclear weapon ambitions. NONE
Iran allows inspections.
Iran has signed the NNPT.
Israel told the UN to go screw itself regarding inspections of Israel’s nuclear facilities.
Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There is a think line between Chutzpah and looking like a hypocritical ass and Netanyahu just sailed over it.
Genocidal Israel is the problem over their not Iran.[/quote]
Arraya: From the vantage point of controlling resources (and this is ultimately where the discussion begins and ends), I want a friendly US supplied Israel and a marginalized, non-nuclear Iran.
Yes, I realize that, from a diplomatic standpoint, this ignores certain realities and a vast number of “niceties”. I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.
Until the US is able to self-sustain when it comes to energy and energy policy, then we have no choice. It is that simple and it doesn’t have to do with liberals and conservatives or Republicans or Democrats. And you better believe that President I-Am-A-Dinner-Jacket understands that full well.
You may not agree with me, but I know you get exactly where I’m coming from, Arraya.
September 25, 2009 @ 4:25 PM
Allan From Fallbrook has put
Allan From Fallbrook has put his finger on the skunk-scented truth that underlies all national actions. We are divvied up into human groups, called “nations”, who are competing with each other for resources. Everything else is window dressing on top of that.
Ideally, we can be nice enough to *cooperate* in a manner that gets those resources to all, but humans have a mean streak and history is full of its results.
Obama is very charming but the proof of the pudding is in the results. I’m still waiting for my affordable home to buy, and the rest of us are waiting to see what Iran, Russia, et al actually *do*.
And oh, by the way, there is significant doubt that Ah-maniac-a-jad was actually elected by the Iranian people this time around. Large numbers of Iranians think he wasn’t.
September 25, 2009 @ 7:32 PM
Wake up America!
‘Israeli
Wake up America!
‘Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s UN Speech: ‘But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? What a disgrace!'”
“Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.”
“Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?”
“A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie? But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?”
“A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!”
September 25, 2009 @ 8:39 PM
“How can one imagine that the
“How can one imagine that the inhuman policies in Palestine may continue?” Ahmadinejad said.
“How can crimes of the occupiers against defenseless women and children and destruction of their homes, farms, hospitals and schools be supported unconditionally by certain governments?”
The Iranian leader said it was time for the world to respond.
“It is no longer acceptable that a small minority would dominate the politics, economy and culture of major parts of the world by its complicated networks, and establish a new form of slavery, and harm the reputation of other nations, even European nations and the U.S., to attain its racist ambitions,” he said.
There are many historical events, similar historical events. Why is this one in particular so important to you?… During World War II, 60 million people were killed. Why are we just focusing on this special group alone?” Ahmadinejad asked in an interview with CBS.
When the CBS reporter answered that all the attention that is being paid to the matter is because he was ‘denying it’, Ahmadinejad responded by saying that he was ’sorry for all the 60 million people that lost their lives, equally’.
“All of them were human beings. And it doesn’t matter whether they were Christians or Jews or Buddhists or Muslims. They were killed. So, we’re sorry for everyone,” said Ahmadinejad.
“We should ask ourselves whether the event did take place; if so, where did it happen, who were the perpetrators, and, what was the role of the Palestinian people? What crime have they committed to deserve what they have received as a result?”
Ahmadinejad said since the beginning of the Israeli occupation, over 5 million Palestinians have become refugees.
“Why is the Holocaust used as a pretext to usurp the land of other people? Why should the Palestinian people give their lives up for it? Who is the occupier here? The United Nations resolutions condemn which occupying regime?” he asked.
“What fair-minded person can accept that an event that happened in Europe [results] in having his or her land occupied elsewhere in the world?
“Unfortunately Western politicians refuse to answer these questions and egress into other areas… We see the Holocaust as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people.”
September 25, 2009 @ 9:37 PM
Ummmmmmm…..
Ummmmmmm….. what????
“Holocaust used as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people”???
As I understand history, the Holocaust finally shamed the British government into giving the Jews, hitherto without a national territory of their own, a number of scraps of land in Palestine.
Upon which the local Arabs had a “there goes the neighborhood” fit, and commenced to attack the Jewish residents who were already there. The Jews pleaded with the British government for protection… none was forthcoming. So they armed themselves and took their defense into their own hands.
For example: The Golan Heights is said to be a “controversial land grab by the Israelis”. Well, a single illustration in an issue of National Geographic served to make the Israeli case to me most thoroughly. This pseudo-relief drawing made it clear that the Heights are high indeed, constituting virtually a cliff from which you can see practically the entire northern half of Israeli territory. Or lob bombs onto it, which is what the Syrians were doing until the Israelis grabbed it.
Simple strategic self-defense. I wonder how many other actions by the Israelis which have been criticized, turn out to make perfect sense when looked at from a geotactical perspective. Certainly the transformation of “Israel” from its original 1946 swiss-cheese configuration to the current, solid bloc makes a lot of sense to me that way.
September 25, 2009 @ 9:53 PM
CricketOnTheHearth
[quote=CricketOnTheHearth]Ummmmmmm….. what????
“Holocaust used as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people”???
As I understand history, the Holocaust finally shamed the British government into giving the Jews, hitherto without a national territory of their own, a number of scraps of land in Palestine.
Upon which the local Arabs had a “there goes the neighborhood” fit, and commenced to attack the Jewish residents who were already there. The Jews pleaded with the British government for protection… none was forthcoming. So they armed themselves and took their defense into their own hands.
For example: The Golan Heights is said to be a “controversial land grab by the Israelis”. Well, a single illustration in an issue of National Geographic served to make the Israeli case to me most thoroughly. This pseudo-relief drawing made it clear that the Heights are high indeed, constituting virtually a cliff from which you can see practically the entire northern half of Israeli territory. Or lob bombs onto it, which is what the Syrians were doing until the Israelis grabbed it.
Simple strategic self-defense. I wonder how many other actions by the Israelis which have been criticized, turn out to make perfect sense when looked at from a geotactical perspective. Certainly the transformation of “Israel” from its original 1946 swiss-cheese configuration to the current, solid bloc makes a lot of sense to me that way.[/quote]
Cricket: Taking your apt observation one step further, it should be noted that Israel had to wage four, very costly wars for its survival in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. The last one was very nearly Israel’s undoing and they were saved by a last minute airlift of US munitions, materials and supplies.
The attack that started the war was a sneak attack and launched on the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, which is why the war is sometimes referred to as the “Yom Kippur” War. Israel was attacked on all sides and by the armies of Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.
Israel has been in a constant state of siege from the very beginning and did not start the various wars mentioned above; wars that were designed to erase Israel from the map.
For a thug like Ahmadinejad to stand before the UN and claim Israeli complicity in Palestinian “genocide” while simultaneously denying the Holocaust is repulsive, especially given Iran’s support and financing of terror groups the world over. Similarly, to claim that Iran has no aggressive designs when it comes to their nuclear program is naive to the point of lethality.
September 25, 2009 @ 10:30 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=CricketOnTheHearth]Ummmmmmm….. what????
“Holocaust used as a pretext to commit genocide against the Palestinian people”???
As I understand history, the Holocaust finally shamed the British government into giving the Jews, hitherto without a national territory of their own, a number of scraps of land in Palestine.
Upon which the local Arabs had a “there goes the neighborhood” fit, and commenced to attack the Jewish residents who were already there. The Jews pleaded with the British government for protection… none was forthcoming. So they armed themselves and took their defense into their own hands.
For example: The Golan Heights is said to be a “controversial land grab by the Israelis”. Well, a single illustration in an issue of National Geographic served to make the Israeli case to me most thoroughly. This pseudo-relief drawing made it clear that the Heights are high indeed, constituting virtually a cliff from which you can see practically the entire northern half of Israeli territory. Or lob bombs onto it, which is what the Syrians were doing until the Israelis grabbed it.
Simple strategic self-defense. I wonder how many other actions by the Israelis which have been criticized, turn out to make perfect sense when looked at from a geotactical perspective. Certainly the transformation of “Israel” from its original 1946 swiss-cheese configuration to the current, solid bloc makes a lot of sense to me that way.[/quote]
Cricket: Taking your apt observation one step further, it should be noted that Israel had to wage four, very costly wars for its survival in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973. The last one was very nearly Israel’s undoing and they were saved by a last minute airlift of US munitions, materials and supplies.
The attack that started the war was a sneak attack and launched on the Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, which is why the war is sometimes referred to as the “Yom Kippur” War. Israel was attacked on all sides and by the armies of Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.
Israel has been in a constant state of siege from the very beginning and did not start the various wars mentioned above; wars that were designed to erase Israel from the map.
For a thug like Ahmadinejad to stand before the UN and claim Israeli complicity in Palestinian “genocide” while simultaneously denying the Holocaust is repulsive, especially given Iran’s support and financing of terror groups the world over. Similarly, to claim that Iran has no aggressive designs when it comes to their nuclear program is naive to the point of lethality.[/quote]
Allan, he’s following ALL the rules the WORLD gave him for nuclear enrichment. There is NO proof of anything and inspectors are aloud in at all times. They are a sovereign country and Russia and China have their back. The ones that we owe all that money too. Israel does not need to start WWIII because they feel uncomfortable. Everybody will lose over this dick size contest. China could shut down our military in a second if they wanted to. It runs on the dollar.
IMO, this is a dollar proxy war. The reason the dollar is alive is because it is the reserve currency, not because of the strength of our economy. China and the petro-states are supporting us.
As far as is holocaust thing. I’m not sure why he does that, because he does not believe it. I’ve seen about a dozen interviews with him. He also says their are no gays in Iran, weird. Other than that he is no Kim Jung Il. He is not a mad man. As far as other ME states, they are more progressive.
But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Sorry, fell for that one already.
September 26, 2009 @ 10:47 AM
Arraya wrote:
Allan, he’s
[quote=Arraya]
Allan, he’s following ALL the rules the WORLD gave him for nuclear enrichment. There is NO proof of anything and inspectors are aloud in at all times. They are a sovereign country and Russia and China have their back. The ones that we owe all that money too. Israel does not need to start WWIII because they feel uncomfortable. Everybody will lose over this dick size contest. China could shut down our military in a second if they wanted to. It runs on the dollar.
IMO, this is a dollar proxy war. The reason the dollar is alive is because it is the reserve currency, not because of the strength of our economy. China and the petro-states are supporting us.
As far as is holocaust thing. I’m not sure why he does that, because he does not believe it. I’ve seen about a dozen interviews with him. He also says their are no gays in Iran, weird. Other than that he is no Kim Jung Il. He is not a mad man. As far as other ME states, they are more progressive.
But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Sorry, fell for that one already.[/quote]
Arraya: I would direct your attention to the two major IAEA reports (2003, 2005) which declare Iran in non-compliance with the NPT, as well as the official 2006 IAEA report that was furnished to the UN Security Council.
Further, the Bushehr I reactor is a heavy-water facility, not a light-water facility and the difference is crucial. Light-water facilities exist solely for power generation. Heavy-water facilities are capable of creating fissionable materials (i.e. for bombs) and the newly discovered (I’m saying that a little tongue in cheek, since I think the NSA and CIA have been on to that for a while) “secret” facility at Qom was heavily focused on the production of fissionable materials.
So, to say that Ahmadinejad is completely in compliance and that Iran has no desire to make bombs stands at odds with US intel estimates, the IAEA reporting and the UN Security Council’s stance.
September 27, 2009 @ 8:54 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Arraya]
Allan, he’s following ALL the rules the WORLD gave him for nuclear enrichment. There is NO proof of anything and inspectors are aloud in at all times. They are a sovereign country and Russia and China have their back. The ones that we owe all that money too. Israel does not need to start WWIII because they feel uncomfortable. Everybody will lose over this dick size contest. China could shut down our military in a second if they wanted to. It runs on the dollar.
IMO, this is a dollar proxy war. The reason the dollar is alive is because it is the reserve currency, not because of the strength of our economy. China and the petro-states are supporting us.
As far as is holocaust thing. I’m not sure why he does that, because he does not believe it. I’ve seen about a dozen interviews with him. He also says their are no gays in Iran, weird. Other than that he is no Kim Jung Il. He is not a mad man. As far as other ME states, they are more progressive.
But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
Sorry, fell for that one already.[/quote]
Arraya: I would direct your attention to the two major IAEA reports (2003, 2005) which declare Iran in non-compliance with the NPT, as well as the official 2006 IAEA report that was furnished to the UN Security Council.
Further, the Bushehr I reactor is a heavy-water facility, not a light-water facility and the difference is crucial. Light-water facilities exist solely for power generation. Heavy-water facilities are capable of creating fissionable materials (i.e. for bombs) and the newly discovered (I’m saying that a little tongue in cheek, since I think the NSA and CIA have been on to that for a while) “secret” facility at Qom was heavily focused on the production of fissionable materials.
So, to say that Ahmadinejad is completely in compliance and that Iran has no desire to make bombs stands at odds with US intel estimates, the IAEA reporting and the UN Security Council’s stance.[/quote]
Allan, IAEA and UN reports are schizophrenic regarding Iran. They change their stance with the wind. 2003 and 2005 was a long long time ago in regards to how many reports that have come out since then.
September 27, 2009 @ 9:02 AM
Arraya: I don’t disagree with
Arraya: I don’t disagree with any of your contentions. I also know that the US was aware of the Qom facility for quite some time (hence my use of quotes when I referred to it as “secret”). However, it isn’t that clear cut from Iran’s side, either.
This is a renegade regime and the Qom facility was not designed and built to be a power generation facility. That number of centrifuges would be used in the main for one purpose: creation of fissionable materials.
I also don’t discount the charges against Israel. This is a country that is finding it increasingly difficult to manage their position and their populace (both Arab and Jew) and their culture.
What is beyond dispute is the fact that Iran has regional ambitions and is seeking the tools to advance that agenda. They also fund terror groups and as far away as Indonesia.
September 25, 2009 @ 10:31 PM
Long live Israel!
“When I was
Long live Israel!
“When I was The Post’s correspondent in Israel 10 years ago, there was urgency in the Jewish state’s warnings of the peril posed by Tehran. That urgency has now reached a fever pitch inside Israel, as Iran draws closer to nuclear capability — a fever reflected in the nearly apocalyptic shades of Netanyahu’s rhetoric. Will his speech in New York be the Jewish state’s final warning to the world?”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/israels_final_warning_to_the_w.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
September 25, 2009 @ 10:36 PM
There are few countries
There are few countries outside of the nuclear treaty system. North Korea and Israel are the two main hold outs both of whom are developing, manufacturing and threatening to use nuclear bombs. Both should be hauled before the UN and condemned. Only, AIPAC, the most powerful lobby, owns our government so they are safe from censure. This will not make us safe. This is insanity.
September 25, 2009 @ 10:46 PM
“Well… boys will be
“Well… boys will be boys…”
— Ronald Reagan after hearing the Israelis bombed Iraq’s nuclear facility.
September 26, 2009 @ 4:07 AM
“This is now a renegade
“This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy.”
And our scientists are hard at working proving that the Iranians are sub-human so our soldiers will not feel remorse when killing them.
“Until the US is able to self-sustain when it comes to energy and energy policy, then we have no choice.”
Yeah, what are those fucking rag-heads doing with OUR oil?!!!
September 25, 2009 @ 10:11 PM
Actually, there were no
Actually, there were no problems until mass migration took place. Then the place turned into a blood bath. What is interesting is there were Jewish terrorist groups back then fighting for their holy land and now it’s the other way around. Still, mass migration took place because the europeans treated them like shit and the holocaust. The problem with the brits is the promised the land to the Arabs before the Jews and it was not until the migration to America and US influence that they were granted the land.
Following the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion, in particular the repeated requests of US President Harry S. Truman and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that 100,000 Jews be immediately granted entry to Palestine, the British maintained the ban on immigration. The Jewish underground forces then united and carried out several terrorist attacks and bombings against the British. In 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the British administration, killing 92 people.
Following the bombing, the British Government began interning illegal Jewish immigrants in Cyprus.
The negative publicity resulting from the situation in Palestine meant the mandate was widely unpopular in Britain, and caused the United States Congress to delay granting the British vital loans for reconstruction. At the same time, many European Jews were finding their way to the United States. An increasing growing influence in American politics, many Zionist backers won over sympathizers in the American and other Western governments. The Labour party had promised before its election to allow mass Jewish migration into Palestine. Additionally the situation required maintenance of 100,000 British troops in the country. In response to these pressures the British announced their desire to terminate the mandate and withdraw by May 1948.
When the British proposed on preventing immigration of Jewish Holocaust survivors to Palestine following World War II, the Jewish community began to wage an uprising and guerrilla war. This warfare and United States pressure to end the anti-immigration policy led to the establishment of The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946. It was a joint British and American attempt to agree on a policy regarding the admission of Jews to Palestine. In April, the Committee reported that its members had arrived at a unanimous decision. The Committee approved the American condition of the immediate acceptance of 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe into Palestine. It also recommended that there be no Arab, and no Jewish State. The report explained that in order to dispose, once and for all, of the exclusive claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine, we regard it as essential that a clear statement of principle should be made that Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine
September 25, 2009 @ 9:41 PM
Arraya: I don’t know if your
Arraya: I don’t know if your posting Ahmadinejad’s comments are in response to the Bibi comments or not, but it would seem appropriate to discuss the Balfour Doctrine and the partitioning of Transjordan (prior to the creation of the State of Israel).
There is a lot of smoke surrounding this, but I would also say its appropriate to discuss Jordan’s treatment of the Palestinians over the years, as well as both Jewish and Arab actions during the War of 1948.
Both sides, Arab and Jew, have axes to grind here and to simply take Ahmadinejad’s comments at face value is wrong, especially when juxtaposed with his stance and comments on the Holocaust. His comments above are meant to essentially downplay the fact that he is a Holocaust denier and has repeatedly called for the complete and total destruction of the State of Israel.
There is no denying the plight of the Palestinians, but to lay all blame and all responsibility at the feet of the Israelis is not only wrong, but it deflects a lot of legitimate criticism and blame from other responsible parties, including the UN, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Palestine and the Palestinians have been used as a convenient foil by and for the Arabs, as well as a bargaining chip.
You might also want to reference Oslo ’93 and its effects/aftereffects.
September 27, 2009 @ 8:49 AM
Shameless. The propaganda is
Shameless. The propaganda is utterly shameless.
Here is what is going on and why the US and Israel are in such a panic.
Iran is a signer of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Under that treaty, Iran has a legal right to build nuclear power stations and to produce the fuel for them. Under Article IV, the United States is supposed to help them do it.
Under IAEA rules, any nation building a new nuclear facility must notify the IAEA 6 months before any new facility becomes operational. Iran’s new facility is still 18 months away from completion, but Iran notified the IAEA last Monday IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE NNPT RULES!
This revelation is embarrassing for the US and Israel for two reasons.
1. Contrary to face-save propaganda, the US and Israel did not know about this facility. Clearly it would have advanced the US and Israeli agenda to create war against Iran by revealing the facility before Iran could formally notify the IAEA. That would have put Iran totally on the defensive about the facility. That the Us and Israel did not do so tells me they were caught totally off guard (which also casts doubt on the so-called intelligence sources that claim Iran is building a weapon).
2. Iran announced the new facility to prove it is playing by the IAEA rules. Iran did so probably to underscore the fact that Israel just told the IAEA and the United Nations to go fuck themselves following a request by the IAEA and the United Nations for Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and submit to IAEA inspections.
Then there is the War Crimes issue. The United Nations just concluded that Israel committed 37 war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. Israel is trying to scream “Anti-Semitic” even though the report was written by a Jewish judge. The US has already pledged to use their Security Council Veto to prevent the report from being referred to the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
So once again, Iran is playing by the rules, and Israel and the US are not.
To save their own face, the US and Israel appear ready to launch a new war in Iran, simply because they cannot think of anything better to do.
OH and the Fact the our economy is going to collapse.
September 27, 2009 @ 9:09 AM
Arraya wrote:
1. Contrary to
[quote=Arraya]
1. Contrary to face-save propaganda, the US and Israel did not know about this facility. Clearly it would have advanced the US and Israeli agenda to create war against Iran by revealing the facility before Iran could formally notify the IAEA. That would have put Iran totally on the defensive about the facility. That the Us and Israel did not do so tells me they were caught totally off guard (which also casts doubt on the so-called intelligence sources that claim Iran is building a weapon).
[/quote]
I would agree with this assessment. If the US knew about the facility all along, we could have used that intelligence to greater effect by revealing that information and starting sanction talks BEFORE Iran notified the IAEA. That would have put Iran on the defensive.
Why is that information such a big deal now, AFTER Iran notified the IAEA (after all, we were supposed to have known all along) ?
It’s such a big deal because our intelligence community was caught totally off guard.
——
You claim you knew that your wife has been cheating along along but never said a word.
She reveals the infidelity to the whole family and you now make a big stink.
That makes no sense at all. If you’re upset at the infidelity now, you would’ve been even more upset when you found out (but supposedly allowed the affair go on).
September 27, 2009 @ 9:14 AM
This thread is an example of
This thread is an example of why Piggington’s is going down hill. During the election people who pointed out that political threads were inappropriate were told that it would only persist until election day.
September 27, 2009 @ 10:08 PM
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blog
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2006/07/everything_you_.html
snip
Are you sensing a theme here? Are you getting the message that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the new Hitler and Iran is the Fourth Reich and they’re just days away from nuking us and if we don’t Shock and Awe them into regime change and install a U.S.-friendly regime that will recognise Israel and sell their oil and gas to us instead of to the Chinese then we’re all a bunch of appeasing Neville J’aime-Berlin’s and WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!…? Because that’s what you’re meant to understand. That’s the new meme, to make you scared enough to support a war you wouldn’t otherwise support. Once again, our fears are being manipulated by people who want a war but haven’t got a justification for starting one. Last time, they brought public opinion on board with scary stories about Iraq’s nonexistent nuclear weapons and Saddam’s fictitious links to al Qaeda; this time around, it’s Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons and Ahmadinejad’s spurious equivalence to Hitler.
September 28, 2009 @ 7:31 AM
“This is now a renegade
“This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy.”
“And our scientists are hard at work proving that the Iranians are sub-human so our soldiers will not feel remorse when killing them.”
this is how you take a country to war
de-legitimize the government that will be destroyed
de-humanize the people who will be killed
as Arraya so correctly points out the objective is to make you support a war that you wouldn’t otherwise support
~
it occurs to me that the Israeli repulsion to making the Palestinian play his violin could be related to the de-humanizing of the Palestinians – playing the violin didn’t fit into their picture of the Palestinians being non-human – the reminder that the Palestinians ARE actually human was uncomfortable for the Israelis
September 28, 2009 @ 8:52 AM
4plexowner wrote:”This is now
[quote=4plexowner]”This is now a renegade regime and one that has abandoned all pretense of legitimacy.”
“And our scientists are hard at work proving that the Iranians are sub-human so our soldiers will not feel remorse when killing them.”
this is how you take a country to war
de-legitimize the government that will be destroyed
de-humanize the people who will be killed
as Arraya so correctly points out the objective is to make you support a war that you wouldn’t otherwise support
~
it occurs to me that the Israeli repulsion to making the Palestinian play his violin could be related to the de-humanizing of the Palestinians – playing the violin didn’t fit into their picture of the Palestinians being non-human – the reminder that the Palestinians ARE actually human was uncomfortable for the Israelis[/quote]
4Plex: Classic strawman argument. You even use your own quote from another post (self-referential posting? How Noam Chomsky of you) as though someone else said it.
This is a non-argument argument.
I used the term “jingoistic” as sarcasm (clearly missed), not as fact, but the fact is you don’t seem to have a feel for nuance.
“I speak for all humanity”. Well, bully for you. Unfortunately, there are certain humans out there that just don’t understand the “Peace, Love and Granola Bars” approach. That’s why we have History: To provide instruction for what to do in those instances.
No, I don’t always hold that the US is right. Far from it. We’ve had plenty of cringe inducing moments, to be sure. But, on balance, we’ve been a force for good in the world. However, don’t get that mixed up with the necessity for acquiring resources or supporting a balance of power agenda.
No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that. If memory serves, we pay an assload of money each year to buy their oil and are involved in that shitty part of the world because we, as a country, cannot seem to formulate an intelligent, self-sufficient energy policy. Until such time as we do, we’re stuck in that fucking sand pile fighting a war for resources. That’s the cold, hard pragmatic reality of it.
September 28, 2009 @ 7:33 AM
Arraya: I’m not agitating for
Arraya: I’m not agitating for war, nor am I saber rattling. What I am saying is that Iran has nuke facilities that are not there for power generation, such as Qom, but rather are there for the production of fissionable materials.
Also, no, I’m not spreading or buying into Ahmadinejad as Hitler and haven’t said as much. What I have said, with a nod to differences in translation, is that he is a Holocaust denier and has flatly denied that Israel has a right to exist and should be wiped off the map.
The example you used of the Israeli soldiers forcing the Arab to play the violin is indeed disturbing and especially when juxtaposed with a mental vision of Nazi treatment of the Jews (using Maidenek/Majdanek). However, the revulsion shown within Israel to this and the reaction to same, illustrates that enough Jews/Israelis still understand the parallels and the dangers of losing your humanity.
On a personal note, I do a lot of business with and in Israel. It involves blast engineering for Force Protection and I’ve been in Tel Aviv immediately following VBIED (car bomb) and MBIED (suicide bomber) attacks. That city operates within a siege mentality and the stress and tension is physically palpable. You have tremendous fear and, for many people, it causes them to embrace the hardcore, hardline politicos who promise to end the violence with violence. Here in the US, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but, over there, it becomes understandable.
I don’t think things are nearly as cut-and-dried as we’d like to make them out to be, and I’m sure Obama is finding this out on a firsthand basis daily.
I’ve also been consistent in that war with Iran is not the answer. Engagement with the people of Iran is and I believe that is why the hardline elements in Iran, including the clerics and I-Am-A-Dinner-Jacket have been so brutally repressive.
This is now a renegade regime, regardless of how simplistic, jingoistic thinkers like 4Plex care to characterize it and the whole situation. People like that don’t get nuanced thinking and apparently don’t read enough history.
September 28, 2009 @ 8:29 AM
“jingoistic thinkers like
“jingoistic thinkers like 4Plex”
had to look ‘jingoistic’ up – thanks for expanding my vocabulary
“Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy”.[1] In practice, it refers to the advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safe guard what they perceive as their country’s national interests, and colloquially to excessive bias in judging one’s own country as superior to others – an extreme type of nationalism.”
I’m not seeing how this definition fits anything I have said – I am advocating for ALL humans – I don’t care who is killing who, or which country is trying to fuck over the other country – at some point we will have to become a planet of united human beings or we will destroy ourselves
if anything, I would say that your position is more aptly described by jingoism – you justify the taking of other people’s oil as though the US had some right to all of the petroleum on this planet
and, you have made numerous posts about the military and Vietnam – your position is always that the US was in the right in regards to whatever was being discussed – is that not jingoism?
September 28, 2009 @ 8:43 AM
I wish we had a William
I wish we had a William Safire type defending progressive thinking.
The conservative side was hardly even-handed and fair-minded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/us/28safire.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=william%20safire&st=cse
the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: There was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
William Safir was born on Dec. 17, 1929, in New York City, the youngest of three sons of Oliver C. and Ida Panish Safir. (The “e” was added to clarify pronunciation.)
September 28, 2009 @ 8:55 AM
briansd1 wrote:I wish we had
[quote=briansd1]I wish we had a William Safire type defending progressive thinking.
The conservative side was hardly even-handed and fair-minded.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/us/28safire.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=william%20safire&st=cse
the Safire world of politics and journalism it was simpler: There was his own unambiguous wit and wisdom on one hand and, on the other, the blubber of fools he called “nattering nabobs of negativism” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.”
William Safir was born on Dec. 17, 1929, in New York City, the youngest of three sons of Oliver C. and Ida Panish Safir. (The “e” was added to clarify pronunciation.)[/quote]
Brian: You do realize Safire was a conservative, right? Just curious.
Also, have you read any of his writings? How about Isaiah Berlin? Or Daniel Pipes?
Lastly, how do you define “Progressive thinking”? This is a genuine question, not an ambush. I ask because you have a tendency to oscillate between liberalism and leftism and I’m not sure where Progressivism (to you) falls.
September 28, 2009 @ 10:41 AM
“I don’t care. We are in the
“I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …
September 28, 2009 @ 10:51 AM
Persians are not Arabs.
Persians are not Arabs.
September 28, 2009 @ 11:07 AM
Aecetia wrote:Persians are
[quote=Aecetia]Persians are not Arabs.[/quote]
Iranians are Persians; and Persians are Caucasians, in case there was any confusion.
Iran means Land of the Aryans. So it should be pronounced “E-ran” not “I-ran”.
I wonder if the white rural conservatives of the Red States even know where the Caucasus are.
September 28, 2009 @ 12:23 PM
briansd1 wrote:Aecetia
[quote=briansd1][quote=Aecetia]Persians are not Arabs.[/quote]
Iranians are Persians; and Persians are Caucasians, in case there was any confusion.
Iran means Land of the Aryans. So it should be pronounced “E-ran” not “I-ran”.
I wonder if the white rural conservatives of the Red States even know where the Caucasus are.[/quote]
Brian: Of course they don’t! No, they’re stupid, uneducated and unworldly.
Wow, you really took Thomas Franks’ “What’s the Matter with Kansas” to heart, didn’t you?
If you want to read an excellent book on how long this has all been going on, read Hopkirk’s “The Great Game”. It should help with some of the more glaring gaps in your own understanding.
September 28, 2009 @ 10:54 AM
4plexowner wrote:”I don’t
[quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.
September 28, 2009 @ 12:55 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.[/quote]
my mistake, Allan – I’m sure that the people in the Middle East will willingly give us their oil and no killing will be necessary
September 28, 2009 @ 1:26 PM
4plexowner wrote:Allan from
[quote=4plexowner][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.[/quote]
my mistake, Allan – I’m sure that the people in the Middle East will willingly give us their oil and no killing will be necessary[/quote]
4Plex: Well, it seems to me that they’ve been mighty willing to sell us their oil (see Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, etc), but transshipping and security have always been an issue, as well as competition from foreign players seeking to acquire these resources for themselves.
I’ll say what I said earlier: There is a lot of gray here and to try and reduce this to “US is bad and evil and everything we do is to simply kill everyone and take their shit” is not only wrong-headed and overly simplistic; it also destroys the ability to discuss or debate the issue intelligently.
If you want to put something out there that is worthy of debate, I’m game. Otherwise, this is just childish mud-slinging and gamesmanship.
September 28, 2009 @ 1:27 PM
Dupe.
Dupe.
September 28, 2009 @ 10:54 AM
4plexowner wrote:”I don’t
[quote=4plexowner]”I don’t care. We are in the end game stage of acquisition/extraction of Mideast and Persian Gulf oil supplies and I want our hand on the tiller, not Moscow’s, not Beijing’s and not Tehran’s.”
“No, I don’t support the idea that we kill all the Arabs and take their oil. Never said that.”
silly me …[/quote]
4Plex: Yes, my first quote says, “Kill all the Arabs”.
September 28, 2009 @ 11:57 PM
I’m not sure Obama will live
I’m not sure Obama will live up to the legacy of a truly great President like FDR. At the same time, the recent bar has been set pretty low for him not to be the best president of the past 20-30 years. He could do nothing and be better than GWB. If he keeps his pants on in the Oval Office he’ll arguably outshine Clinton. There’s no chance of him instituting Trickle Down economic policies, and Jimmy Carter was a pretty mediocre president. Nixon’s failures have been extensively outlined.
It’s congress, and especially the Senate I’m not very happy with right now. 60 votes is acting like 50 at best. DOMA, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and many other important social issues seem to have been tabled during this Health Care debate. Hopefully they’ll get a bill out of committee and put to a vote, and let the Republicans filibuster if they dare to. In general extended filibustering is not viewed very well by mainstream moderates, and could be very bad PR if it becomes national news.
September 29, 2009 @ 12:04 AM
You guys are hilarious if you
You guys are hilarious if you buy the MTV fed hype about Obama.. what a joke.
Someone said that people want to see health care reform??? Uhh maybe, but not obama’s..
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform
What is it you like about him other than him “not being Bush”? Do you like all his czars, his former pals, and pastors, his former corrupt organizations that he once was a big part of? Do you really like his socialist policy? Do you like how he wastes time and gives credibility to the worlds worst dictators and leaders of corrupt governments?
I’m surprised you pigs like his “anti-capitalism, all the bailouts, the interference with markets and the fact that they eliminate irresponsible businesses naturally.
Do you like the spending? Gotta love the record spending in just what 9 months?
ohh yeah.. he’s a “breath of fresh air and he’s attractive?”.. f*ing compelling crap guys!
September 29, 2009 @ 12:42 PM
hipmatt wrote:You guys are
[quote=hipmatt]You guys are hilarious if you buy the MTV fed hype about Obama.. what a joke.
[/quote]
Watch out, they are getting to your children!!
Did you guys watch the MTW Music Video Awards. Russell Brand was great!
I wonder if people in Kansas have MTV…. I can just picture a child asking her parents “daddy, why don’t we have health care?” Answer: “Because we don’t like baby killers in America. God will heal us when we are sick.”
September 29, 2009 @ 1:05 PM
Allan, I agree with you that
Allan, I agree with you that as leaders of the world, we should spread freedom. That is a core Democratic ideal and that is why Clinton intervened in Kosovo. The Republicans were opposed to Kosovo claiming that it wasn’t our job to be the world’s policeman or to perform nation building.
However, freedom means that we need to let people be and choose their own leaders. We can’t bend others to out will.
Dropping bombs doesn’t help our agenda. It would be much cheaper to expand the Peace Corps and increase funding to the NGOs that perform charitable work.
We can do a lot of good through building trade ties, cultural exchanges and contact with Americans travelers.
I’ve been to about 40 countries. In November, I’m going to Myanmar.
Screw the real estate industry, I would support at $10,000 airline voucher on US-flagged airlines, for overseas travel to all high-school graduates. Israelis and Australians and others take some time off to travel and discover the world as young adults. We should do the same.
Dropping bombs is not the solution.
September 29, 2009 @ 2:02 PM
briansd1 wrote:Allan, I agree
[quote=briansd1]Allan, I agree with you that as leaders of the world, we should spread freedom. That is a core Democratic ideal and that is why Clinton intervened in Kosovo. The Republicans were opposed to Kosovo claiming that it wasn’t our job to be the world’s policeman or to perform nation building.
However, freedom means that we need to let people be and choose their own leaders. We can’t bend others to out will.
Dropping bombs doesn’t help our agenda. It would be much cheaper to expand the Peace Corps and increase funding to the NGOs that perform charitable work.
We can do a lot of good through building trade ties, cultural exchanges and contact with Americans travelers.
I’ve been to about 40 countries. In November, I’m going to Myanmar.
Screw the real estate industry, I would support at $10,000 airline voucher on US-flagged airlines, for overseas travel to all high-school graduates. Israelis and Australians and others take some time off to travel and discover the world as young adults. We should do the same.
Dropping bombs is not the solution.[/quote]
Brian: I don’t and didn’t advocate dropping bombs on Iran. I support engagement with the Iranian people, who are largely younger, literate and pro-American. However, the Iranian government is absolutely hell bent on retaining power, whatever the cost, and we need to be aware of this, as well as their designs on the region at large.
I would love to see us out of the Middle East. The reality is that we will be there as long as we remain dependent on their oil, which is the foreseeable future (20 – 30 years). I’d like to believe we can formulate a coherent and effective energy policy, but we’ve been promised this since the Nixon Administration, so I ain’t getting my hopes up.
I’ve seen the results of suicide bombers in Tel Aviv, as well as the results of an errant F-16 strike by the IAF. I’ve been to Kabul, Baghdad, Mumbai and Singapore; always following a terrorist bomb blast. As much as I’d like to ascribe it to Dubya’s foreign policy mishaps, the cold, hard reality is that this shit has been going on for years and will continue to go on. On that front, I agree completely about NGOs and the Peace Corps and humanitarian aid. I would also point out that many of those in power in places like Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans, Afghanistan, etc, could care less about “humanitarianism” and “good will” and attack those doing good without cause and without mercy.
That’s when we need to be prepared for Option B (blowing the everlovin’ shit out of ’em), but only in those instances where good will and our national interests intersect. Is that a shitty, cold way of looking at things? Yup. But we can only do what we can do. You’re right: We are not the world’s policeman. I lost two very good friends of mine in Mogadishu during Task Force Ranger in 1993 and due to the cowardice and incompetence of our President, and have grown ever more cynical as regards our “civilizing mission”.
When it directly affects our national security policy, or impinges on our ability to extract those resources necessary to “feed the beast”, then I will openly agitate for a more muscular approach. If Obama can engage Iran and achieve results through soft power, I’m 100% in favor. I believe that he is a naif, however, and will find the world is not as friendly as he thinks, once we start asking for results (from our European allies) or change (from Iran, or North Korea, or whomever).
As Al Capone said, “You get more with a kind word and a gun, than just a kind word”.
September 29, 2009 @ 4:34 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]
As Al Capone said, “You get more with a kind word and a gun, than just a kind word”.[/quote]
I’m in general agreement with you.
But brandishing a gun might induce fear and a needless shootout with the party you’re trying to coerce shooting first.
Better to ask with smile and a kind word. And if that doesn’t work, then pull out the cash. And if still doesn’t work, then pull out the gun.
I find that when traveling abroad, in remote regions, it’s better to act modestly and fain ignorance than to behave like a big shot, know-it-all American. When people don’t care about your cash and when you don’t have a gun, kindness is the only way to get help.
If you want your children to behave well, is it better to reason and talk to them? Or is it better to do it the old-fashioned way and administer a good spanking when they are out of line?
Yeah, I think that I’m a product of the co-opted liberal educational system. 🙂
September 30, 2009 @ 12:06 PM
Better to ask with smile and
Cash doesn’t work.. you start being thought of as a cash cow, as being stupid, and a sucker..
Case in point: North Korea and its nuclear aspirations. Under Clinton, they agreed to stop their nuclear weapons programs in exchange for financial help and low cost oil (with the United States paying the diff between sold price and cost). The result was that North Korea went underground (literally) with their nuclear program until they wanted more.. and then try to ‘extort’ more.
Case in point: Palestinian areas near Isreal. The US had been funneling $2Bil/year to the Palestinian Authority near Israel until Hamas was elected to lead. It still did not buy any friends or help. The Palestinians probably don’t understand why life is now suddenly harder.. because they didn’t know that $2Bil/year was coming to them from the US.
In many ways, the world is just one big school yard, with all of the same types of characters. Buying off the bully in school, only proved that you were a sucker and would loose all respect. Not only that, you will be bullied for your lunch money the next day. The only way that respect was earned was that you were bad and nasty enough that a bully would not want to take you on, that extorting money might result in some damage to the extortioner. ‘Schoolyard’ respect also required that you not be a bully yourself (otherwise it was just fear) and might physically defend a bully’s victim, particularly if the victim is trying to defend themselves but is just not strong enough. .. interesting what you can learn by looking inward.. to the schoolyard, a microcosm for the world..
September 30, 2009 @ 12:09 PM
If you want your children to
Depends upon how far out of line.. the spanking should be equivalent to capital punishment, after all else has failed… and don’t try ‘bribes’ instead of punishment. This only creates a mentality of entitlement through threats and extortion.
September 29, 2009 @ 12:21 AM
BTW.. I voted nope for much
BTW.. I voted nope for much different reasons than the one offered.
His policies are harmful to America, his spending and government expansion too extreme, he surrounds himself with loosers, crooks, tax cheats, extremists, and worse. And his apologetic/I’ll meet with anyone foreign policy will only weaken us internationally/militarily and probably get Israel killed in the process.
September 29, 2009 @ 3:52 AM
“I insulted you how,
“I insulted you how, again?”
“regardless of how simplistic, jingoistic thinkers like 4Plex care to characterize it and the whole situation. People like that don’t get nuanced thinking and apparently don’t read enough history.”
according to you this is sarcasm
“I used the term “jingoistic” as sarcasm (clearly missed), not as fact, but the fact is you don’t seem to have a feel for nuance.”
being simplistic and non-nuanced in my thinking the only way I can take your comment is as an insult
and I still don’t see the sarcasm
September 29, 2009 @ 7:58 AM
4plexowner wrote:
being
[quote=4plexowner]
being simplistic and non-nuanced in my thinking the only way I can take your comment is as an insult
and I still don’t see the sarcasm[/quote]
4Plex: It appears a lot more likely that I got under your skin, than vice versa.
Your comments displayed neither nuance nor complexity and simply boiled down to vitriolic, mouth breathing ranting. You imputed all sorts of untruths to me when I had said nothing of the kind, but claim you were insulted. You are unable to discern subtle differences and display a complete vacuity when it comes to diplomacy versus appeasement and the basis for war, but its insulting for me to point that out. Okay. Whatever.
Have a couple of glasses of wine from the box and a good cry. You’ll feel better.
September 29, 2009 @ 9:51 AM
Ouch!
Ouch!
September 30, 2009 @ 1:16 PM
He had a chance to build out
He had a chance to build out infrastructure and create jobs with the stimulus, but he chose to just hand it out to all his friends in congress instead.
September 30, 2009 @ 2:13 PM
Who Wrote Dreams From My
Who Wrote Dreams From My Father?
By Jack Cashill
Prior to 1990, when Barack Obama contracted to write Dreams From My Father, he had written very close to nothing. Then, five years later, this untested 33 year-old produced what Time Magazine has called — with a straight face — “the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”
The public is asked to believe Obama wrote Dreams From My Father on his own, almost as though he were some sort of literary idiot savant. I do not buy this canard for a minute, not at all. Writing is as much a craft as, say, golf. To put this in perspective, imagine if a friend played a few rounds in the high 90s and then a few years later, without further practice, made the PGA Tour. It doesn’t happen.
And yet, given the biases of the literary establishment, no reviewer of note has so much as questioned Obama’s role in the writing, then or now. As the New York Times gushed, Obama was “that rare politician who can write . . . and write movingly and genuinely about himself.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/who_wrote_dreams_from_my_fathe_1.html
September 30, 2009 @ 2:19 PM
What do Sarah Palin and Bill
What do Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton have in common? Both are book authors but neither wrote their memoirs completely on their own.
Ghostwriter, collaborator, co-author. These sidekick writers go by many names, but they all serve the same purpose: to get the book finished. A true ghostwriter gets no public credit for the work but in reality there are varying degrees of involvement by these pinch writers.
A ghostwriter’s involvement can range from writing the whole book using interviews of the “author” to a more authentic collaboration. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s posthumously released memoir, “True Compass,” benefitted from something more akin to the latter arrangement. In an interview with NPR, the book’s publisher Jonathan Karp said “all the important material” was Kennedy’s, while his collaborator, Ron Powers, was working with “rich material, and it really is Senator Kennedy’s work.”
September 30, 2009 @ 2:26 PM
The Emperor has no
The Emperor has no clothes!
“It was noted that ” the Obama writing samples unearthed before 1995 “are pedestrian and uninspired.” “There is no precedent for this kind of literary transformation,” well until now!”
“The problem is not who wrote the book, ghost writers are common. It is not that Ayers, a known terrorist and traitor to America was that ghost writer, hell the liberal media love Amerian traitors. What is important to me, is that like all liberals this is more proof of Obama being a pathological liar.”
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/ayers_did_co-write_obama_memoir_they_were_close_frineds
September 30, 2009 @ 2:49 PM
Veritas wrote: What is
[quote=Veritas] What is important to me, is that like all liberals this is more proof of Obama being a pathological liar.”
[/quote]
Did Obama claim that there was no ghost writer? Why is that even an issue then?
Based on how well Obama speaks, his ghost writer did a lot less work than Bush’s ghost writer.
I believe that there are a few
Kansans on Piggington. You can leave Kansas to move to San Diego, but you can’t leave the Kansan behind. 😉
September 30, 2009 @ 3:35 PM
More lies!
Robin Beaton’s
More lies!
Robin Beaton’s insurance company retroactively canceled her policy because she had failed to inform them of her history of acne and a rapid heartbeat.
First of all, the woman, Robin Beaton, had her insurance canceled not because of her acne condition. She also had a heart condition she knew about and hid this from her insurance company:
Obama forgot to mention this in his talk.
Also, President Obama forgot to mention that the breast cancer survival rate is much greater here in the United States than in countries with socialized medicine.
In fact, women with breast cancer have a 14 percent higher survival rate in the United States than in Europe. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Breast cancer mortality is also 9 percent higher in Canada than in the US. Less than 25 percent of U.S. women die from breast cancer. In Britain, it’s 46 percent; France, 35 percent; Germany, 31 percent; Canada, 28 percent; Australia, 28 percent, and New Zealand, 46 percent.
Obama forgot to mention this, too.
Now, what was it Rep. Wilson was saying about Obama again?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/09/of-course-obama-omitted-critical.html
September 30, 2009 @ 6:55 PM
Veritas wrote:More
[quote=Veritas]More lies!
Obama forgot to mention this, too.
[/quote]
Since when does not mentioning something equate to telling a lie? Don’t Realtors do that all the time?
It was a lie when Bush claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction when there were not.
September 30, 2009 @ 10:27 PM
He was passing on erroneous
He was passing on erroneous info. The CIA, MI 5 and the former KGB all said there were WMDs. Lo and behold they were wrong.
By that standard anyone who passes erroneous info along is a liar. So we are all guilty on a regular basis no matter how hard we try to get good info.
Bush did plenty of other bad stuff so it is not necessary to resort to this BS to bash him.
This argument is so chicken shit and cheese dick it lowers you to the likes of Hannity and Rush.
September 30, 2009 @ 10:57 PM
WMDs were not even really the
WMDs were not even really the issue with Iraq. It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least. Bushco actually gave modified intelligence reports to congress that said they were a dire threat. They actually changed the part where intelligence agencies said they were not for congress to see.
The presence of WMDs was a phony debate for the most part.
The nuclear stuff was pretty much all made up a la yellow cake uranium.
Saying bush lied about WMDs is a simplification of a complex matter. Yeah, they flat our lied about much but also thought there could be some sort of material that could be labeled a WMD. Most thought he had chemical weapons that we sold them under reagan. Nobody thought he could harm the US though.
October 2, 2009 @ 1:43 PM
Arraya wrote:WMDs were not
[quote=Arraya]WMDs were not even really the issue with Iraq. It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least. Bushco actually gave modified intelligence reports to congress that said they were a dire threat. They actually changed the part where intelligence agencies said they were not for congress to see.
The presence of WMDs was a phony debate for the most part.
The nuclear stuff was pretty much all made up a la yellow cake uranium.
Saying bush lied about WMDs is a simplification of a complex matter. Yeah, they flat our lied about much but also thought there could be some sort of material that could be labeled a WMD. Most thought he had chemical weapons that we sold them under reagan. Nobody thought he could harm the US though.[/quote]
“It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least.”
Yes. Call him on the real lies.
And here’s a whopper. Iraq was going to take only a couple years to pacify and rebuild. LOL.
October 2, 2009 @ 6:19 PM
Sure. We can go have a beer
Sure. We can go have a beer with him and talk about the Olympics.
September 30, 2009 @ 11:00 PM
“President Barack Obama
“President Barack Obama ‘doesn’t lie… He’s too subtle for that,’ says Charles Krauthammer, the conservative, prize-winning Washington Post columnist, and the columnist rolls out a litany of examples today examining Obama’s “relationship with truth.”
According to Krauthammer, “The president promises not to sign a health-care bill that “adds one dime to our deficits… period.” Yet the proof that the president offers of that promise cannot be delivered, Krauthammer argues: The promise that the president made in his speech to a joint session of Congress last week to require further spending cuts if the savings envisioned in the health-care initiative don’t materialize.”
“(2) And then there’s the famous contretemps about health insurance for illegal immigrants. Obama said they would not be insured. Well, all four committee-passed bills in Congress allow illegal immigrants to take part in the proposed Health Insurance Exchange.”
“But more importantly, the problem is that laws are not self-enforcing. If they were, we’d have no illegal immigrants because, as I understand it, it’s illegal to enter the United States illegally. We have laws against burglary, too. But we also provide for cops and jails on the assumption that most burglars don’t voluntarily turn themselves in.”
“When Republicans proposed requiring proof of citizenship, the Democrats twice voted that down in committee. Indeed, after Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” shout-out, the Senate Finance Committee revisited the language of its bill to prevent illegal immigrants from getting any federal benefits. Why would the Finance Committee fix a nonexistent problem?”
“(3) Obama said he would largely solve the insoluble cost problem of Obamacare by eliminating “hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud” from Medicare.”
“That’s not a lie. That’s not even deception. That’s just an insult to our intelligence. Waste, fraud and abuse — Meg Greenfield once called this phrase “the dread big three” — as the all-purpose piggy bank for budget savings has been a joke since Jimmy Carter first used it in 1977.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2342659/posts
September 30, 2009 @ 11:22 PM
An Olympics We Can Believe
An Olympics We Can Believe In
The picture now comes into sharp focus. Americans voted for president a man who thinks that government creates wealth; that “greed” caused the current economic crisis; that taxpayers should provide health insurance for those who don’t have it; that a government-induced housing and financial crisis can only be addressed by more government; that government can more efficiently and profitably run businesses than can the private sector; that “global warming” requires the imposition of job-killing and price-hiking action against emitters; and that government should “spread the wealth” by taking from those who have “too much” and giving to those who have “too little.”
National security is, as always, job one. We are at war against Islamofascists. To accomplish their ends, they seek chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. This is a conflict that, not unlike the Cold War, will likely take decades.
For now, though, President Obama intends to fly to Copenhagen to personally lobby to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Iran and Afghanistan can wait.
http://townhall.com/columnists/LarryElder/2009/10/01/an_olympics_we_can_believe_in?page=2
October 2, 2009 @ 10:49 AM
Veritas wrote:
For now,
[quote=Veritas]
For now, though, President Obama intends to fly to Copenhagen to personally lobby to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago.[/quote]
I was disappointed that Chicago didn’t get it. It’s not like we didn’t try.
But I believe that Rio deserved it. So all the best of luck to them.
I always like to visit Olympic cities after all the venues and infrastructure are built.
October 2, 2009 @ 11:04 AM
Where did I write that? I
Where did I write that? I have heard about sleep walking, but not sleep writing… Rich can you shed light on this?
October 2, 2009 @ 11:14 AM
Brian,
Did you go to public
Brian,
Did you go to public school? You keep crediting the conservative movement for calling Obama distant and imperial when in fact, again it is a quote from Charles Krauthammer. Here is his bio from Wiki:
“Krauthammer was raised in Montreal, Canada where he attended Herzliah High School and McGill University and obtained an honors degree in political science and economics in 1970. From 1970 to 1971, he was a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford. He later moved to the United States, where he attended Harvard Medical School. Suffering a paralyzing diving accident in his first year of medical school,[5] he was hospitalized for a year, during which time he continued his medical studies.[6] He graduated with his class, earning an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1975, and then began working as a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital. In October 1984, he became board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.[7]”
Make no mistake about it. He is not your normal conservative. Try rereading what I wrote and not planting quotes from me that don’t exist. I do not need your help. You are a weasel.
October 2, 2009 @ 12:04 PM
Veritas wrote: You keep
[quote=Veritas] You keep crediting the conservative movement for calling Obama distant and imperial when in fact[/quote]
So Ok, the conservatives don’t think that Obama is distant and imperial. I’ll take that.
So it means that Obama is a just a regular guy who’s very much in touch with the American public. I’ll take that too. 🙂
September 30, 2009 @ 11:42 PM
Veritas wrote:”President
[quote=Veritas]”President Barack Obama ‘doesn’t lie… He’s too subtle for that,’ says Charles Krauthammer, the conservative, prize-winning Washington Post columnist[/quote]
So Veritas, which is it? Does he lie or doesn’t he lie? Make up your mind.
I see that the “Kansans” among us have been whipped up by their preachers to redouble their evangelizing.
September 30, 2009 @ 11:51 PM
sd_matt wrote:
This argument
[quote=sd_matt]
This argument is so chicken shit and cheese dick it lowers you to the likes of Hannity and Rush.[/quote]
I was speaking
Kansan so the Kansans could understand. 😉
[quote=Arraya]WMDs were not even really the issue with Iraq. It was whether they were a threat to the US. Which ALL intelligence agencies uniformly said not in the least. Bushco actually gave modified intelligence reports to congress that said they were a dire threat. They actually changed the part where intelligence agencies said they were not for congress to see.
The presence of WMDs was a phony debate for the most part.
The nuclear stuff was pretty much all made up a la yellow cake uranium.
Saying bush lied about WMDs is a simplification of a complex matter. Yeah, they flat our lied about much but also thought there could be some sort of material that could be labeled a WMD. Most thought he had chemical weapons that we sold them under reagan. Nobody thought he could harm the US though.[/quote]
Yes, Arraya, I agree. First Saddam was a threat to us. Then he was a threat to his own people. Then it was “aren’t you glad he’s gone?”. That’s why we invaded Iraq so we can be glad he’s gone. Like aren’t you glad that Jesus is watching over us?
Simplification is needed for the Kansans. 😉
October 1, 2009 @ 12:21 AM
I am not Charles Krauthammer.
I am not Charles Krauthammer. You know the answer to that Brian and your blind loyalty is positively Germanic! Too bad we can’t tax stupidity. We could pay off the national debt! It is almost painful to have you continue to make excuses for Obama. You remind me of a woman who knows her husband is cheating on her, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when all around her the evidence piles up. I understand now. It is the battered Obama voter syndrome. How sad for you. Maybe you should find a shelter.
October 1, 2009 @ 12:31 AM
Veritas, first you claim that
Veritas, first you claim that Obama is full of lies. Then you post an article that says that “President Barack Obama ‘doesn’t lie… He’s too subtle for that,’.
I think that you’re confused.
[quote=Veritas] Too bad we can’t tax stupidity. We could pay off the national debt! [/quote]
I only wish…
[quote=Veritas] It is almost painful to have you continue to make excuses for Obama. [/quote]
I only respond to the Kansan type zealotry.
[quote=Veritas] You remind me of a woman who knows her husband is cheating on her, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when all around her the evidence piles up. How sad for you.[/quote]
Those who don’t repent are also condemned to eternal damnation. How sad for them.
If my wife were cheating, what makes you think that I would care? Maybe I have a hot mistress waiting for me.
However, I hear that Kansan women are very dedicated to their husbands. After all, adultery is sinful so I’m sure that there is none of it in Kansas.
I think that Allan would say that in any kind of potential conflict, you need to be well-armed and have a strong deterrent system. If she cheats, maybe I can cheat better. And if I have all the weapons (bank accounts), then I’ll win. 😉
October 1, 2009 @ 10:58 AM
Brian,
It looks like Veritas
Brian,
It looks like Veritas was trying to point out that he quoted Krauthammer, not that he agreed with him. I think the point is that Obama lies. He also said you act like a battered woman, not that you have a cheating wife. Perhaps you read too much in to things or do not read carefully enough. Nice try, though.
October 1, 2009 @ 11:57 AM
Aecetia wrote:. I think the
[quote=Aecetia]. I think the point is that Obama lies. [/quote]
Isn’t that over simplification by itself?
You should notice that anti-Obama spam incessantly comes from the right. Look at of off-topic posts. It generally starts with some post showing outrage at Obama, the Democrats, immigrants, etc… That was even before Obama got elected.
I never bothered to answer before, but it’s about about time the right got some of their own medicine.
If they want a culture war, let’s have it.
Remember that even kids of conservatives watch MTV (unless it’s banned in Kansas). One generation ago listening to Rap was out of the mainstream. But now, even Kansans practice that art form. So, in the end, who’s gonna win?
BTW, Allan, I shop at Walmart myself. The prices are too good to pass up. Think of it as going to the zoo, but you can buy toothpaste as the same time and admission is free! 😉
October 1, 2009 @ 12:01 PM
Speaking of Wal-Mart:
Speaking of Wal-Mart: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
October 1, 2009 @ 1:34 PM
“Obama doesn’t lie. He
“Obama doesn’t lie. He implies, he misdirects, he misleads — so fluidly and incessantly that he risks transmuting eloquence into mere slickness.
Slickness wasn’t fatal to “Slick Willie” Clinton because he possessed a winning, near irresistible charm. Obama’s persona is more cool, distant, imperial. The charming scoundrel can get away with endless deception; the righteous redeemer cannot.”
~Charles Krauthammer
October 2, 2009 @ 11:03 AM
Aecetia wrote:
Slickness
[quote=Aecetia]
Slickness wasn’t fatal to “Slick Willie” Clinton because he possessed a winning, near irresistible charm. Obama’s persona is more cool, distant, imperial. [/quote]
I find Obama just right. I’m not black but I can relate to him just fine. If Obama were more common, then he’d be accused of being too vernacular black.
There’s a reason Clinton was called America’s first Black president.
The fact that right finds Obama too distant and imperial shows how down-brow the conservative movement has turned. And they want to make English the official language? Kansan or Texan would be more to their liking.
October 1, 2009 @ 1:44 PM
afx114 wrote:Speaking of
[quote=afx114]Speaking of Wal-Mart: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/[/quote]
Afx: Yeah, I’ve been on the site before. It is frickin’ hilarious.
Is it wrong to laugh?
October 1, 2009 @ 5:37 PM
http://women.timesonline.co.u
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article6854221.ece
Gore Vidal: ‘We’ll have a dictatorship soon in the US’
The grand old man of letters Gore Vidal claims America is ‘rotting away’ — and don’t expect Barack Obama to save it
America should leave Afghanistan, he says. “We’ve failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it.” The “War on Terror” was “made up”, Vidal says. “The whole thing was PR, just like ‘weapons of mass destruction’
I don’t say there was a golden age, but there was an age of general intelligence. We had a watchdog, the media.” The media is too supine? “Would that it was. They’re busy preparing us for an Iranian war.
Obama believes the Republican Party is a party when in fact it’s a mindset, like Hitler Youth, based on hatred — religious hatred, racial hatred. When you foreigners hear the word ‘conservative’ you think of kindly old men hunting foxes. They’re not, they’re fascists.”
Vidal raises his fingers to signify a gun and mutters: “Bang bang.” He is referring to the possibility of Obama being assassinated. “Just a mysterious lone gunman lurking in the shadows of the capital,” he says in a wry, dreamy way.
The Republicans will win the next election, Vidal believes; though for him there is little difference between the parties. “Remember the coup d’etat of 2000 when the Supreme Court fixed the selection, not election, of the stupidest man in the country, Mr Bush.”
Instead, America has “no intellectual class” and is “rotting away at a funereal pace. We’ll have a military dictatorship fairly soon, on the basis that nobody else can hold everything together. Obama would have been better off focusing on educating the American people. His problem is being over-educated. He doesn’t realise how dim-witted and ignorant his audience is. Benjamin Franklin said that the system would fail because of the corruption of the people and that happened under Bush.”
“Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.”
October 1, 2009 @ 9:43 PM
Arraya: Oy vey. Tell me you
Arraya: Oy vey. Tell me you didn’t quote Gore Vidal! That pompous, effete windbag has been bloviating about American fascism and dictatorships since McCarthy and the John Birch Society days.
It’s starting to get a little threadbare and his constant denigration of America and her stupid citizenry has had an equally long and ill-starred run. Not that I completely disagree with him, mind you (about the stupid citizenry part), but this shtick has clearly seen better days.
And, now he’s predicting that Obama is going to be assassinated? Wow. By whom, pray tell? He and Ollie Stone ought to get together and draft a screenplay on this.
He needs to crawl back under his rock and play with his catamites. He’s an irrelevancy and it drives him crazy.
October 2, 2009 @ 12:21 AM
Allan,
I happen to enjoy his
Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.
October 2, 2009 @ 7:48 AM
Aecetia wrote:Allan,
I happen
[quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.
October 2, 2009 @ 8:07 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you on that. Though, I do enjoy good writing. Also, I find myself agreeing with him more often the not.
October 2, 2009 @ 9:38 AM
Arraya wrote:Allan from
[quote=Arraya][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you on that. Though, I do enjoy good writing. Also, I find myself agreeing with him more often the not.[/quote]
Arraya: I think some of his points are valid and others are not, which is probably pretty true for everyone.
This “grand old man of American letters” stature that he has largely accorded himself galls me, though. One interview, in particular, stands out. He was a guest on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and one of the other guests started on in him and his reaction was unbelievably crass. Here is someone that attacks others for close-mindedness and parochialism and is exhibiting the very same “qualities”. That’s the height of hypocrisy to me and it also shows someone who is both egotistical and insecure.
Out of curiosity: Have you read any Victor Davis Hanson? Not his political writings, but any of his works on antiquity history.
October 2, 2009 @ 9:50 AM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Arraya][quote=Allan from Fallbrook][quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
I’ve read most of his stuff and don’t dispute his gift. However, when it comes to this topic, he continuously excoriates the US and American citizenry. Like I said, some of his criticisms have validity, but many do not, plus he’s an asshole.
I’ve seen him interviewed dozens of times and God forbid if anyone tries to disagree with him or question him. He considers himself something of an eminence grise and nothing could really be further from the truth. He doesn’t hold much, if any, sway and I think it pisses him off.[/quote]
Allan, I agree with you on that. Though, I do enjoy good writing. Also, I find myself agreeing with him more often the not.[/quote]
Arraya: I think some of his points are valid and others are not, which is probably pretty true for everyone.
This “grand old man of American letters” stature that he has largely accorded himself galls me, though. One interview, in particular, stands out. He was a guest on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and one of the other guests started on in him and his reaction was unbelievably crass. Here is someone that attacks others for close-mindedness and parochialism and is exhibiting the very same “qualities”. That’s the height of hypocrisy to me and it also shows someone who is both egotistical and insecure.
Out of curiosity: Have you read any Victor Davis Hanson? Not his political writings, but any of his works on antiquity history.[/quote]
Ha, funny you bring him up. My father is actually a fan and as recommended him to me recently. No, I have not read him, yet.
October 2, 2009 @ 1:07 PM
Arraya: One of my favorite
Arraya: One of my favorite teachers, a Jesuit priest named Father John, gave me a copy of Thucydides “The Peloponnesian War” in 6th grade. As he explained, pretty much of all of human history was captured in the book. He was right and I make a point of reading it every year.
Victor Davis Hanson recently wrote a book about the Peloponnesian War, entitled “A War Like No Other”. Its excellent and only superseded by Kagan’s four volume set dissecting the war in detail.
In my opinion, the Thomas Hobbes’ (“Leviathan”) translation of Thucydides is among the best.
October 2, 2009 @ 6:32 PM
Allan from Fallbrook
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]Arraya: One of my favorite teachers, a Jesuit priest named Father John, gave me a copy of Thucydides “The Peloponnesian War” in 6th grade. As he explained, pretty much of all of human history was captured in the book. He was right and I make a point of reading it every year.[/quote]
It’s interesting that a Catholic priest would have kids read works in which the Gods play no role — the Greek Gods were pagans anyway, so maybe it was just as well.
I love Greek mythology. Those legends do represent human history — greed, love, lust, war, etc…
Catholics who excelled at statecraft were Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and, of course, the Medicis and Borgias.
Different times, different places but still the same, in may ways.
October 2, 2009 @ 11:12 AM
Aecetia wrote:Allan,
I happen
[quote=Aecetia]Allan,
I happen to enjoy his books, especially Lincoln. He is a brilliant writer, but probably a troubled human.[/quote]
Yes, he’s a brilliant writer who’s gotten more prone to exaggeration and hyperbole over time. He’s an intellectual in the French mold — the ideas are more important than the practice.
That’s OK by me. Nothing wrong with some intellectual elitism.
October 1, 2009 @ 7:14 PM
Veritas wrote:I am not
[quote=Veritas]I am not Charles Krauthammer. You know the answer to that Brian and your blind loyalty is positively Germanic! Too bad we can’t tax stupidity. We could pay off the national debt! It is almost painful to have you continue to make excuses for Obama. You remind me of a woman who knows her husband is cheating on her, yet steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it when all around her the evidence piles up. I understand now. It is the battered Obama voter syndrome. How sad for you. Maybe you should find a shelter.[/quote]
Funny, I just read this on another blog,
October 1, 2009 @ 11:10 AM
Aecetia: Brian veers from
Aecetia: Brian veers from (intentionally) misreading conservative comments to oversimplification in his responses (largely to avoid having to admit that the Dems are as f**ked up as the Repubs).
Like I said earlier, his by now constant references to Franks’ “Kansas” book are a clear indication of what informs his thinking. Namely, if you don’t agree with him, you’re obviously a rube from the sticks who shops at Wal-Mart and suffers from an overdose of religiosity.
When he receives an intelligent rebuttal or refutation, that thinking clearly breaks down and he falls back on either misreading the comment (which leads to those goofy responses) or oversimplifying further using some clearly wrong analogy (the wealthy cuckold).
I actually found myself in Wal-Mart yesterday before suddenly realizing that, based on my schooling and socioeconomic ranking, I shouldn’t be there. I decamped for Whole Foods, but then it dawned on me that I couldn’t shop there, either, since the Dems now hate the Whole Foods CEO for publicly disagreeing with Obama. Wow. That scenario seems to illustrate why hewing to the center might be the best option. Albertson’s it is.
October 1, 2009 @ 11:20 AM
Allan from Fallbrook wrote:
[quote=Allan from Fallbrook] Albertson’s it is.[/quote]
Stay away from their chicken.
October 1, 2009 @ 11:35 AM
Screw all those shops. Grown
Screw all those shops. Grown your own food. Tastes better, cheaper, sense of accomplishment, self-sufficient. How can anything be better than that?