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Why would college professors tend to lean left?
Let's see, what do they have in common?
Intelligence.
A desire to help others (through teaching).
Post secondary education.
Well read.
And on and on....
The real news story should be about the conservative 15% -- what the hell are those guys thinking?
What's even more interesting is that even with an almost 8:1 advantage (in the molding of young minds in their most formative years) that Kerry's sitting on his ass in Boston....when he's not sailing of course.
@ Rab (and JJ too)
I can't believe y'all aren't having a field day with all the scraps I left on the table in my next to previous post.
Get your fondue pots and wet-naps out guys and gals...I'm-a-gettin-ready to serve up a four course meal.
Last edited: Monday, May 09, 2005 at 9:18:41 AM
@44 -
OR
those that can't do...teach. ;)
I wonder if your reasons are also the reasons there aren't as many women and minority faculty members at institutions of higher learning?
Well - nothing against educators, as they have my utmost respect - most certainly they don't have the market cornered on brain cells.
After seeing what the media (you know the "ratings addicted sensation whores...") shows us on the news, you would think that there wouldn't be any teachers / professors left with what they have to go through nowadays.
God Bless 'em. If I were one of them I'd have to light a bowl to put up with that crap too.
Last edited: Monday, May 09, 2005 at 12:03:15 PM
@ Chief
O Chef, the grill is smoking!
Actually, leave WMD in the cold storage in the refrigerator. For some, it's a sole port in the storm now. Or a poor year for the vintage!
Not that there weren't bad things going on. (I do suppose Colin Powell burnt somebody. I hope so. I still ponder those posters of chemical tanks on flat-beds...)
Shhhh, Chief. WMD was the only reason for going to war. Saying this over and over is possibly the best part of the normal grieving curve for the MoveOn'ers. Soon the waters will calm.
'Sides, it's getting moldy, fragrant, foul on the palate, and only good on high-fiber gas-producing non-digestibles.
While you are grilling up, hold a cooking class or two. Liabilities, revenues, and expenses -- and lack of liquidity.
Yes, 44, the numbers will change constantly. A lot of people know that.
This whole SS thing is boiling down to a demi-glacé of whether the predicted numbers are right or just...cooked. 44 says they are cooked...
A lagniappe to you, Chief, for naming what may be the true motive for their denial of a problem -- who gets to keep control of the money drawer on the national cash register. Brrrrrrrinnnng! $20 buys you a cake.
Drop the denial, 44. Give it up! It's a new day. A new day is dawning...hee haw!
While we're on denial, don't let the media get you too upset, Chief. Some of the news outlets -- even the self-confessing liberal ones -- are actually good. You just have to keep those news filters of yours on and screening full blast!
What sifts out of all that flour that is drifting in the air like a huge, white smokescreen is sometimes facts. And the missing ingredients, you can fill in yourself. Just ask yourself when confused by a biased news item: "What is the exact opposite to what they are saying?"
For example, you are quite right to point out that the WHO report has some odd rankings...
For dessert, I would like (as dash pointed out quite rightly many word counts ago) a private account like the government employees are now allowed. Hey, if it's good eats for the gov't workers, it's good eats for the rest of us.
But then we may need to revisit the buffet again before dessert. If we can find our way around this denial problem and save SS before it erodes totally into a welfare program...It's beans, Jack. The cow is going dry and you're not going to sell our last possession for beans?!
BTW, Flea, you investing? You really may need all of it. Like most people today, are you already a little cynical and scrambling to enlarge that retirement nest egg with fear and trembling?
Last edited: Monday, May 09, 2005 at 5:11:17 PM
"Shhhh, Chief. WMD was the only reason for going to war. Saying this over and over is possibly the best part of the normal grieving curve for the MoveOn'ers. Soon the waters will calm."
Got integrity?
Of course not. You're modern conservatives. Got obfuscation? Yah, heaps...just read above. The possibility...turning into the probability that our president misled us into a costly, deadly war...you can't even sit down at that plate.
Funny thing...i think you both called yourselves independents at some point...but you've never taken bush's unit out of your mouth once. Neither of you! Neither of you are even remotely capable of glancing skeptically at the government, so long as that government is conservative. Ergo: integrity void.
You've both heard me lambasting clinton, kerry, and gore. Nothing but cuddling from you two...republican stalwarts, partisan hacks. Well, I guess that's easier. Throw right in with the conservative reverb. It must be nice to have your acquiesence reinforced by the corporate media sensation whores.
"save SS before it errodes totally into a welfare program..."
I've got your welfare right here: Cutting Corporate Welfare Could Fund a Bush Social Security Plan
But perhaps that's not what you meant? Well, funny, but even a conservative, reform minded stick-in-the-mud like George Will has labeled bush's SS plan of progressive indexing as welfare...
Progressive indexation is means testing politely labeled, and means testing, however labeled, is an attribute of welfare programs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/06/AR2005050601351.html
And I ask again: how is life...as a republican talking point?
^ the steaks are still on the grill.
Ps - it's posts like the above that keep me "semi" retired.
@JJ
There's still some scraps a few posts above........apparently Rab's full.
You mean, as opposed to being totally retired? XD
Yes, there are, Chef.
You occasionally cooking out is fine!
If Stink is homeward bound in a number of weeks, the West Coast border patrol should keep close watch downwind.
Last edited: Monday, May 09, 2005 at 9:14:39 PM
:)
seriously...JJ and chief...you guys have been shilling for bush for years now. Don't get yer panties in a wad because I point out the obvious. Prove you're not hacks! I dare you.
I got some copy for you: a litany of bush insiders who we all should have been listening to all along. This memo isn't a surprise.
The document almost reads like satire. "Bush wanted to remove Saddam," reads the leaked secret British intelligence memo dated 23 July 2002, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy? You don't say.
Plenty of people have been bellowing about this for years now, often risking their own well-being and that of their families in the process. Richard Clarke, former White House Counter-Terrorism Czar, spent a lot of time talking about how the books were being cooked to justify an invasion of Iraq. Tom Maertens, who was National Security Council director for nuclear non-proliferation for both the Clinton and Bush White House, backed up Clarke's story with his own eyewitness testimony.
Roger Cressey, Clarke's former deputy, witnessed one of the most damning charges that has been leveled against the administration by Clarke: They blew past al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, focusing instead on Iraq. Donald Kerrick, a three-star General who served as deputy National Security Advisor under Clinton and stayed for several months in the Bush White House, likewise saw this happening.
Paul O'Neill, former Treasury Secretary for George W. Bush, was afforded a position on the National Security Council because of his job as Treasury Secretary, and sat in on the Iraq invasion planning sessions which were taking place months before the attacks of September 11. Those planning sessions kicked into high gear when the Towers came down.
Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Issues in the State Department, watched with shock and awe as the White House rolled out the 'uranium from Niger' war justifications that had been so thoroughly debunked. Joseph Wilson, former ambassador and career diplomat, was the one who debunked it.
After Wilson described what he didn't see in Niger in the New York Times, the White House reached out and crushed his wife's career. His wife, Valerie Plame, was a deep-cover CIA agent running a network dedicated to tracking any person, group or nation that would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. The White House torpedoed her career and her network as a warning to Wilson, and to any other whistleblower who might come forward.
The most damning testimony regarding "fixing intelligence and facts around the policy" came from Air Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski. Kwiatkowski worked in the office of Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, and worked specifically with a secretive outfit called the Office of Special Plans. Kwiatkowski's own words tell her story: "From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq."
"I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy," continued Kwiatkowski, "favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. Intelligence agencies. I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president."
In other words, they fixed the intelligence and facts around the policy. The policy, of course, was invasion.
Each of these people, and others like them who reported similar intelligence book-cooking, were brushed off by the White House, dismissed out of hand as liars, or worse, Democrats. With the leaking of the secret British intelligence memo, however, their reports have been confirmed.
Some other tasty tidbits from the memo:
1. "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
Despite the fact that Hussein was considered less of a threat than Iran, North Korea and even Libya, Bush had made up his mind to invade. Wrapping this around the flatly-declared statement that the intelligence and facts were being framed around the 'policy,' i.e. The invasion, is damning.
2. "The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change."
The British Attorney General made it clear that the war plan as constituted was illegal. Therefore, other justifications for war were required. "The situation might of course change," reads the text. It did. They fabricated WMD evidence to justify self-defense.
3. "The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work."
In many ways, this is the worst of the three. Hans Blix and his inspectors went into Iraq and found no weapons of mass destruction in their searches. Ergo, there was no self-defense justification and no legal basis for war. Yet in order to create the legal and political justification of self-defense, as stated in the memo, Hussein had to be seen as blocking those inspections. He didn't. In fact, it was the Bush administration that thwarted Blix while stacking hundreds of thousands of troops on the border. At one point, Bush even went so far as to declare that Hussein had actually not allowed the inspectors in, even as Blix and his people were shaking the Iraqi dust off their boots.
Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran CIA analyst, nails it to the door. "It has been a hard learning - that folks tend to believe what they want to believe," wrote McGovern in an essay regarding this leaked memo. "As long as our evidence, however abundant and persuasive, remained circumstantial, it could not compel belief. It simply is much easier on the psyche to assent to the White House spin machine blaming the Iraq fiasco on bad intelligence than to entertain the notion that we were sold a bill of goods. Well, you can forget circumstantial."
The butcher's bill to date: 1,594 American soldiers dead, times ten grievously wounded; over 100,000 Iraqi citizens dead, uncounted more wounded, with a recent upsurge of violence claiming more than 200 lives in the last week alone; a nine-figure pricetag that spirals ever-upwards by the day, mortgaging our children's future for the profits of the few; no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq.
We need two exit strategies: one to get our forces out of that country as soon as humanly possible, and the other to get George W. Bush out of the White House and into a cellblock in The Hague. Save a bunk for Mr. Blair, too. Criminals belong in prison.
Now...imagine the impossible: that GW isn't the son of god...that he lied to us...that he has his own reasons for going to war in Irag (reasons outlined by richard perle at AEI).
Now what? Or does this not compute?
I'm still not convinced that George "lied" to get the Iraq war going. Sure, he may have wanted Saddam out and hoped to find a way to do it, so that may have caused him and others to view the evidence given to them with a certain spin. Perhaps he put more emphasis on supporting documents than those that ran contrary to his objective. I don't know if that constitutes lying since I'm sure that's how we all operate. And at the time we believed Saddam had WMD and Saddam did everything he could to make us keep believing. So we take out a dictator and discover he was bluffing. The world is a better place...but.
I have to agree that if "W" violated the law then he has to face justice as well. I'm sure there are plenty of people working that issue as we play TT, so rest assured he'll have to face up to it IF that's where the evidence leads.
And I think I'm going to have to start sharing the idea with more people that just because George is a Christian and "God's man", that doesn't mean every decision he makes is from God and that he can't do any wrong. Let's think about King Saul for a moment. So I agree that some people are taking their trust in the President a little too far, but I think that can be true for any group of people when their man is in power. We all still have the responsibility to keep our leaders accountable, whoever they are.
Thank you for that rabby :)
1st, why does a political post have 241 posts on a ThinkTanks page -_- ;) ?
Dubya did not necessarily 'lie', cuz they didn't have any info on the weapons (I don't think he shoulda said they did or didn't, either way), but it was proved that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction...
I use multi-billion dollar military satellites to find tupperware hidden in the woods... What do YOU do?
Um.
Anyway, now the same administration that hired pundits to shill for policies and granted press clearance to a paid hack/male escort are turning on PBS...because they fear its "liberal slant."
Again...integrity void.
Of course, if Tomlinson and his colleagues were looking for good news about PBS instead of bad, the wider poll results -- a healthy 80 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of public broadcasting -- would have been trumpeted as a triumph. (In an NPR interview aired last weekend, Tomlinson suggested that that 80 percent should be higher.) Meanwhile, a strong majority thinks PBS's news and information programming is more trustworthy, and more in-depth, than that of ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN. Most viewers think PBS is a "valuable cultural resource," and a plurality of 48 percent want the government to provide more funding to PBS. (Only 10 percent want it to provide less.) But despite the good news, the CPB board refused to tout these results or even release them independently.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051005O.shtml
Nixon took on PBS in the 70s because it despised its coverage of vietnam. Now bush co is displeased with its coverage of iraq and the administration generally. I'm sure they'd like to see a more Fox News component take place.
How many of you all have lamented the nut-less press? If the republicans get their way, one of the last bastions of free inquiry will be snuffed out.
The attacks on dissent and freedom of thought just keep mounting...anyone starting to see the writing on the walls yet?
What if GW isn't the son of god? What if he's just one more corporate whore?
Someone find that bit about false prophets, quick style.
Dont you think this continent has enough Canada already? I actually like the diversity represented by our little North American arrangement. There's Canada, Mexico, America, and San Francisco! (Something for everyone!) Multiculturalism at work in the real world just like old white male professors long for in journalism schools on fine University campuses everywhere. If only America could figure out how to preserve the French culture through draconian legislation like those ingenius Québécoise. I mean, we could really learn a lot from the french.. Like how to throw a party in style for the invading army, how to become part of the burgeoning Algerian empire, how to go on an antisemitic rampage and remain chic, how to negotiate deals with despotic sanctioned regimes and obtain a significant portion of our energy from nuclear power plants! Oh the list goes on and on.
Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Those BIG BAD Republicans are going to poison the water earth and air, force women to actually give birth to their children and then starve those children to death all for a big Texas-sized vat of evil oil! (( ooooooohh NO! )) I have been brainwashed by the clearly biased media (aka Vast Right Wing Conspiracy). Please save me Big Brother stink before I hurt myself!
Btw, is that finger-odor thing from the cheese or the chicks? Nevermind...
Hilarious!
Still giggling... Especially at the 1st paragraph :)
"Btw, is that finger-odor thing from the cheese or the chicks?"
A little of each, actually.
So, do I take it that you don't give a shit that we've all been manipulated into a bullshit war? That america benefits by its new identity as a corporate whoredom? That this somehow balances out the continent?
Chile's privatization
A Real Flat Tax
And something stink said to me just the other day.
I am looking forward to completing your training. In time, you will call me... Master. - The Emperor , Star Wars 6
Last edited: Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 1:32:45 PM
Great links...you're progressing faster than expected. Good...very good muhaahahahahahahha! Pant pant, weez weez.
Goldfish to the other side of the tank problem?
To quote the Chef:
...then how on earth did he convince the THOUSANDS of people that would need to buy into it that there was a real need to invade? To boot - where in the hell where all of these report writers / leakers when all of this was going on? The run up to the invasion was MONTHS in the making - plenty of time for SOMEONE to leak the "goods" to the ratings addicted sensation whores we call an objective media. Especially as pissed as everyone was after Gore lost the election?
I'd like my fish cooked not so raw next time?
And trouble with the cart and horse thing again, I see. Taxes or pensions? Which problem first? Chicken or the omelette...again.
Nice repartee, oooooh my no!
Come on, Stinkest, editorial piece.
Pick something like this instead, from FactCheck.org:
Democrats have been using a web-based "calculator" to generate individualized answers to the question, "How much will you lose under Bush privatization plan?" For young, low-wage workers it projects cuts of up to 50% in benefits. And a $1-million TV advertising campaign is amplifying the claim, saying, "Look below the surface (of Bush's plan) and you'll find benefit checks cut almost in half."
In fact, the calculator is rigged. We find it is based on a number of false assumptions and deceptive comparisons. For one thing, it assumes that stocks will yield average returns of only 3 percent per year above inflation. The historical average is close to 7 percent.
The calculator's authors claim that they use the same assumption used by the Congressional Budget Office. Actually, CBO projects a 6.8 percent gain.
Last edited: Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 9:52:45 PM
Hilarious how you guys just dig your heads deeper into the sand re: the memo! Hilarious! Or a little scary maybe. Guys like you...could justify anything...eh?
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54
Well, some of them are stupid, but many of them are cynical geniuses. And sorry Ike, but their numbers are no longer negligible. If you’ve been living under a rock, or have had your head in someone’s lap for the past couple years, you may have missed these stories proving just how prescient Ike was…here’s a few representative samples…
Kill SS: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/03/10/MNGHOBN6LR1.DTL
One sided legislation for big business: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3796-2005Mar26.html
Anti-labor: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/af7c6434-a466-11d9-9778-00000e2511c8.html
Starve unemployment insurance:
http://www.cbpp.org/10-13-04ui.htm
Hammer farms and farmers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23705-2005Apr3.html
As I’ve said, if you don’t get it by now…you’re maybe just stupid. Or you are exceedingly wealthy and are concerned with only your ability to hang onto your wealth, the rest of us be damned. Or you’ve fallen for the religious con. Or a little of each. One thing is clear: the ability to persist ala JJ or Chief in the alternate reality spoon fed to morons via Fox news is certainly taking more concerted effort now than ever. You've really gotta believe in your guy...worship him almost.
It should be absolutely clear by now: GW is all about big business and nothing else.
More objective observers have understood this while many of you hang on to your impression despite the facts. But what do you get in return for your support? How about the lowest real world wages in 14 years?
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/f269a8f4-c173-11d9-943f-00000e2511c8.html
Or disappearing civil liberties? http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1115789411104890.xml
(and one of you monkeys referred to me as Big Brother!)
To this horrifying reality, add 1600 dead American soldiers…and recruitment drives ending up 40% short of needed levels. A military that doesn’t think it can win another campaign…. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/03/news/military.php Underfunded schools http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=47123, and a national health care crisis http://www.chronicle.duke.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/26/426e1bf0b7c97 and the fastest growing federal government of all time http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/017wgfhc.asp
Are you really all that stupid out there? Is none of this hitting home? Christ! He couldn't fail any worse!
Oh! And I love how Bush’s Big Iraq Lie took two weeks to finally make headline news in America: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/britain.war.memo/index.html
http://spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=812
Liberal Press indeed! What a goddam joke! This despite the fact that the memo came from MI6 and was authenticated and released by america’s number one lapdog, Tony Blair! Some of you dittoheads pathetically deflect...digging your head deeper into the sand. Funny, you turds might have wondered how so many germans could have given blind support to hitler...look in the mirror brown shirts. Seig heil!
Are you really that stupid? Or just a bunch of moral bankrupts?
So yeah, go ahead and talk about how bush lied to us about Iraq, but how it was still the right thing to do because Saddam slaughtered tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Kurds. I’ll even overlook how Bush didn’t lift a finger to stop an equal number of people being killed in Darfur. http://www.darfurgenocide.org/ (so you don’t have to be in the ironic position of saying that we can’t be the world’s police). So, let’s say I give you that…that I say his genocidal treatment of Kurds was worth 1600 of my countrymen’s lives…100,000 Iraqi’s lives, almost universal resentment and hatred, increasing terrorist violence http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=47174 and over 200 billion of our dollars.
But why didn’t he just say so in the first place? Justify the war on principle alone?
What I’m really curious about is this: who the hell are you people? Do you even know anymore?
And…
I guess I must have blinked, but…
When did rooting for Goliath become an American virtue?
Last edited: Friday, May 13, 2005 at 3:35:07 AM
Stinkfingers! You hit the nail on the head. I fear that the American public has forgotten how to think critically. I can find no other explanation for G-dub being elected TWICE.
Conservatism As Pathology
Are Bush supporters literally insane?
By Timothy Noah
The working class's refusal to synchronize its politics with its economic interests is one of the enduring puzzles of the present age. Between 1989 and 1997, middle-income families (defined in this instance as the middle 20 percent) saw their share of the nation's wealth fall from 4.8 percent to 4.4 percent. Yet Al Gore lost the white working class by a margin of 17 percentage points, and John Kerry lost it by a margin of 23 percentage points. As the GOP drifts further to the right, and becomes more starkly the party of the wealthy, it is gaining support among the working class.
I have never seen a wholly satisfactory explanation for this trend, which now spans two generations. It's the decline of unions, says Thomas Frank. It's values, says Tom Edsall. It's testosterone, says Arlie Russell Hochschild. Each of these explanations seems plausible up to a point, but even when taken together, their magnitude doesn't seem big enough. Republicans, of course, will argue that it's simply the working man's understanding that the GOP has the better argument, i.e., that the best way to help the working class is to shower the rich with tax breaks. But the Bush administration has been showering the rich with tax breaks for more than four years, and the working class has nothing to show for it.
Let's consider another possibility, then: The working class, or at least a large segment of same, suffers from a psychological disorder.
We take for our text "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," a study that ruffled conservative feathers a couple of years ago, especially after it was discovered that the research had been underwritten by the federal government to the tune of $1.2 million. The study's authors (who include Frank Sulloway, the famous birth-order theoretician) assure readers that they are not out to prove that conservatives are crazy, or that conservatism is "necessarily false, irrational, or unprincipled." Rather, "like virtually all other belief systems," conservative beliefs are adopted "in part because they satisfy some psychological needs." But the snotty use of the word "necessarily" gives the game away. The authors of the study plainly believe that conservatives have a screw loose, and they're curious to find out why.
In the past, the authors write,
....research and theory on conservatism in sociology, economics, and political science has often assumed that people adopt conservative ideologies out of self-interest….Although we grant that self-interest is one among many motives that are capable of influencing political attitudes and behavior…motives to overcome fear, threat, and uncertainty may be associated with increased conservatism, and some of these motives should be more pronounced among members of disadvantaged and low-status groups.
One particularly Dubya-ish psychological state identified by the authors is "intolerance of ambiguity." This arises, at least one theorist has posited, "from an underlying emotional conflict involving feelings of hostility directed at one's parents," which of course instantly calls to mind Dubya's famous 1972 confrontation with his father in which he drunkenly suggested that they go "mano a mano" and then, displaying the full magnitude of his defiance, told Dad that…he'd been accepted to Harvard Business School. The authors don't cite this incident, but they do say that intolerance of ambiguity may "provide a psychological context" for Dubya's declaration, at an international conference of world leaders, "I know what I believe and I believe what I believe is right."
Then there's "terror management theory," which, as best I can make out, posits that an inordinate fear of death "engenders a defense of one's cultural worldview" and therefore a resistance to outsiders and new ideas. Conservatives are also said to "score lower on measures of extraversion" and "general sensation seeking," which I think is a polite way of saying that they don't get enough sex.
The further you get into this line of thinking, I'm afraid, the more ridiculous it starts to sound. I've never observed, and I doubt you have either, that members of the working class demonstrate a greater tendency than people higher up the income scale to be more fearful, or more threatened, or more intolerant of ambiguity, or more irrationally fearful of death, or more inclined to pick fights with their parents, or more sex-deprived.
So I guess it's back to the drawing board.
"intolerance of ambiguity."
Indeed.
IMHO...working class conservatives aren't crazy. They may be naive, angry and uninformed -- but they aint crazy. I think they mean to do the right thing, and do the right thing on principle. I also think that as a class, they aren't doing very well...they've been losing economic ground since...as long as I've been on the planet.
And in america...we don't really talk about economic, class issues. We have them. We just don't talk about them. Perhaps you can thank mc carthy for that, I don't know.
GW comes along with his Orwellian double speaking gurus...calls environmental roll-backs "clear skies" initiatives. Talks about tax and spend liberals; then nominally cuts taxes, and out spends any democrat in history. Makes false claims about Iraq's ability to commit another 9/11 on us...frightens and angers us, riles us up and off to war. Spends what money's left in the coffers, and then says that because we're broke...we'll have to slash spending on social programs. Meanwhile, they're close-fisted with the facts. Invoke executive privaledge so that we can't find out that Enron set national energy policy...until they're safely out the door.
Riding shotgun to this right-wing ideologues tragedy of errors...is the "liberal press." Complacent, corporate, info-tainment spewing ratings whores. Anything but liberal minded...this is big business, with big business interests.
The american working class...increasingly impoverished as real wages drop and inflation rises, increasingly insecure as companies lay off workers, fold on their health care plans, default on their pensions, ship off their production jobs over-seas and temp them out like pimps...the american working class is scared and angry.
Scared, angry, and uninformed. Its a dangerous combo platter. Who's gonna make them feel better? Which message is more palatable?
The ambiguous...or the unambiguous? Obviously...the unambiguous. GW's line is the most unambiguous line in political history. What's more...it's reverberating through the national conscience via Rush, Hannity, Coulture, Murdoch, O'Reilly, and a billion other right wing ideologues. So, it sounds like horse-sense. Its easy to make the mistake of taking the echo in your head for actual thought...see JJ, Chief -- its not your fault! The line bears little resemblance to reality...in fact, it offers up an alternate reality -- the Bush version. The Bush version goes unchecked by the corporate media. When reality seeps in through cracks in the establishment via international or independent press, it is quickly marginalized away or outright absorbed by the bloated corporate media machine, or spun off into irrelevance by well-paid spin-masters.
And what about the democrats message -- it's a study in ambiguity. Disjointed, jumbled, short-sighted...they don't know if they should continue serving corporate masters or strike out for the common man in borrowed and musty class-war language. So they do both, in a half-assed, limp-dick fashion: witness john kerry.
The american working class has been put in a desparate, precarious position and are hungry for answers: democrats are serving up confusion, and republicans are serving up escapism.
Imagine that you're under-employed, under-insured, under the constant threat of being laid off or outsourced; that you can no longer dream of educating your children because of rising tuition, constantly beseiged by crime or news of crime, constantly beseiged by advertising; barely able to keep up with credit debt...well, which plate would you eat off of?
You eat up a plate of escapism, and you come back for seconds.
Last edited: Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 6:21:29 PM
Hammer time.
Cat posted this in another thread, and it's a nice way to close it up:
Last edited: Monday, May 16, 2005 at 6:39:08 PM
44, the article is interesting set of...?????
It isn't even worth going into much.
"The working class's refusal to synchronize its politics with its economic interests is one of the enduring puzzles of the present age."
Who? What? Am I supposed to swallow that unquestioningly? If I swallow that first, the rest of the article might make some sense...if I stand on my head and kick a puppy.
Should anyone really give someone who writes like that any credibility about anything? Really? He's just proved that he can write in an emotionally charged way and that he really has a predisposition against whatever he's against...btw, again, what's he against? Kinda hard to tell...
Last edited: Monday, May 16, 2005 at 9:59:10 PM
"the sky is falling, the sky is falling..."
For all those who like baaaad news, let me award the Fickle Finger of Fate to Newsweek Magazine....
First, you may recall the West Coast woman who alleged finding a finger in her Frosty at a Wendy's. She told her horror story on Good Morning America. She wowed the media. Shudder, shudder.
She's now behind bars. Seems her husband's friend's finger that he lost in an accident was put to good use. She assumed the fuzz (the police, not the cotton stuck to the old digit when it was in the packing) wouldn't check her previous record. And she also assumed that there's no better capital than the kind that you get when telling a bad ol' story. No Frosty or lawsuit for you!
BTW, did you get your free Frosty this week? That dastardly corporation Wendy's gave them away as a public relations thing. Carlyle Group type trick!
Now, the Fickle Finger award goes to Newsweek, the news magazine. Tell the world the horrors of the way the US treats the Koran in Cuba. Another Abu Ghraib!
Fifteen people dead in Muslim riots and SRY!, the story was incorrect!
And now for some good news...
From none other than The New York Times :
April 1: In Iraq, Iraq's Kurds, divided for decades by their loyalty to two rival local governments...announce the merger of the two administrations.
April 2: Iraq's Ministry of Planning announces it is now supervising 121 major reconstruction projects that will cost $1.8 billion.
April 3: Iraq and Kuwait move to end the longstanding border dispute that led to the Gulf War, establishing a joint commission to decide on best way to administer the Rumalia oil field.
There's one for every day, but skipping a few...
April 6: More than 900 companies from 44 countries participate in an Iraqi reconstruction exposition in Amman.
April 7: Ibrahim al-Jaafari named prime minister, becoming the first Shiite leader of Iraq in centuries...
April 9: Government announces it will begin 24 water projects, costing $15 million, in the restive Sunni areas of Latifiya, Yousifiya...
April 10: Iraqi security forces announce the capture of Ibrahim Sabawi, a nephew of Saddam, suspected of playing a major part in financing the insurgency.
April 12: Oil output in the south of Iraq reaches 1.1 million barrels per day, close to prewar levels.
April 16: Ministry of Health announces completed construction of two hospitals in the poorest areas of Baghdad.
April 18: Reforestation program begins in forest areas near Erbil that were razed by Saddam in the 1990's and overharvested for fuel by local residents.
April 19: Educational television channel begins broadcasting again for millions of Iraqi students. The channel had been closed down in 1993 after Uday Hussein confiscated its equipment for his private TV channel.
April 21: Government announces Iraq's inflation rate fell by 6 percent in March...
April 23: Two major Sunni political parties that had boycotted January's election...announce they will take part in future votes.
April 28: Prime Minister Jaafari's cabinet of 36 members is approved by the National Assembly (on Saddam's birthday).
Sorry, I skipped a few of the consecutive days of good news. And it's not from Fox! It's from my liberal pals at the NYT. They still have some foundation left...
Last edited: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 3:17:33 PM
Oh, and let's talk sometime about food again...
I liked that. Makes me hungry.
The dessert (which we probably won't get) and the spinach (which the Democrats will be on the front row helping serve up) of Social Security.
Standby for food!
Eat this:
Of course you mention the newsweek debacle but skirt the downing street memo. Classic move for you. I predicted you’d pull that weak $hit. Surprised you didn't bring up dan rather too. And you have the sack to talk about getting people killed. In order of magnitude, what is worse? Retracting your story because your pentagon official can't get his references sorted out? Or lying and fabricating and conniving your country into war? How many people did that little fib get murdered? Come on dude. Borrow some integrity.
The Newsweek report was not the first public airing of allegations about U.S. Personnel at Guantanamo Bay desecrating a Quran. In August and October 2004 there were news reports based on a lawsuit and a written report by British citizens who had been released from the prison in Cuba. They claimed abuse by U.S. Guards, including throwing their Qurans into the toilet. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050517/ap_on_re_us/newsweek_quran
Of course, we know that the guards at gitmo would never throw the koran into the crapper. That's beneath them. Nor would they lead inmates around on leashes, make naked human pyramids, make them simulate sex with each other, shock their testicles and so on. Right?
"In January, Kristine Huskey, a lawyer representing Kuwaitis detained at Guantanamo, said they claimed to have been abused and in one case a detainee watched a guard throw a Quran into a toilet."
In the meantime, as part of his ongoing reporting on the detainee-abuse story, Isikoff had contacted a New York defense lawyer, Marc Falkoff, who is representing 13 Yemeni detainees at Guantánamo. According to Falkoff's declassified notes, a mass-suicide attempt—when 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves in August 2003—was triggered by a guard's dropping a Qur'an and stomping on it. One of Falkoff's clients told him, "Another detainee tried to kill himself after the guard took his Qur'an and threw it in the toilet." A U.S. Military spokesman, Army Col. Brad Blackner, dismissed the claims as unbelievable
From newsweek: "Our original source later said he couldn't be certain about reading of the alleged Qur'an incident in the report we cited, and said it might have been in other investigative documents or drafts."
Now, about your disney portrayal of iraq...sounds wonderful! Will you be vacationing there soon? But didn't see any body count in there...here's a few sources that claim that Iraq isn't such a rosy place to be after all. Your list of bureaucratic get togethers plays real nice. Looks great on paper. Meanwhile...all hell is breaking lose in the streets. Turns out that april and may have been the bloodiest months for civilians yet! Overlook that?
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L16348474.htm
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=13459
http://www.sundayherald.com/49799
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1698213,00.html
And many people in the know are starting to see a steady decline in order and are beginning to predict a civil war may be in the offing:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1304852,00.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0122-01.htm
http://www.sltrib.com/nationworld/ci_2739002
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7877476/
Of course, this ain't the bush version. So, why would you bother with it?
You never cease to amaze me. Your first reaction to the downing st memo was to try to marginalize it, and then to bring up newsweek as a sign of liberal conspiracy (even though the story has been reported in several other outlets and was only retracted in newsweek because of the trivial reason that the source attributed the story to the wrong report) your enthusiasm for conservative authority (compassionate fascism) your rationalization of murderous policy, acceptance of the lies, of corporate greed, avarice, government deceit, GW's cynical use of religion...i find it disgusting, and because of it's similarity to the behavior that leads to the realization of places like auschwitz, I find it infuriating... You didn't even consider the possibility that the downing st. Memo was authentic...which, by the way...it is. You go right to bat for your ideology. Just like a f@cking nazi defending heir furor.
For the Nazis to exterminate the lives of 6 million innocent people, it took a tremendous degree of complicity on the part of german citizenry. Every time you open your mouth to rationalize the death of civilians, to justify the war, to spin off evidence that the war was unnecessary and immoral, based on lies…I smell the distinct stench of that complicity. It would be bad enough if you stopped there. But you've also attacked darwinism and social security, the system of checks and balances, defended the federal governments meddling ala schiavo... Everything a partisan hack could do.
Wtf is wrong with you? Let me just say this: I cringe when I think of the power of rotten people to commit atrocities on others out of PURE IDEOLOGY. That you operate in your analysis on pure ideology is proven time and time again. Always on the side of the Bush adm and never on the side of the people. You're just too eager to side with authority, so long as its conservative authority…all the better if its nascent fascist authority. You've done it in every opportunity you've had. Well, I'll be goddammed if I'll listen to anymore of your partisan fascist apologetics. If I wanted to hear such weak ass spin, I'd go to someone who gets paid to suck GW off, like one of those pundits he pays off...not a happy volunteer.
For me, the last straw was your over-eagerness to explain away the Downing St/Blair memo, as 1) manufactured by political enemies (do your homework next time) or 2) accept it as a con gone wrong. You really would have made fantastic German circa 1938. One need not even exert one's imagination to appreciate that.
I strongly recommend you search for a soul. You could start by reading this: Backing Hitler. Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany by Robert Gellately
And put down the Nietzsche, you aren’t ready for it. Probably never will be. If you were capable of understanding it…you’d hurl it against the wall…so inimical as it is to little minds.
Somewhere there are still peoples and herds, but not with us, my brethren: here there are states.
A state? What is that? Well! Open now your ears unto me, for now will I say unto you my word concerning the death of peoples.
A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people."
It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life.
Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them.
This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath it devised for itself in laws and customs.
But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.
False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the biting one. False are even its bowels.
Confusion of language of good and evil; this sign I give unto you as the sign of the state. Verily, the will to death, indicateth this sign! Verily, it beckoneth unto the preachers of death!
"On earth there is nothing greater than I: it is I who am the regulating finger of God"--thus roareth the monster. And not only the long-eared and short-sighted fall upon their knees!
Get off your GD knees.
Last edited: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 3:58:59 AM
Yeah, yeah. Go stinker.
Gee, I'd like to know more about this Downing Street memo... Who released it? Who found it? Why did it cause so many, well, little ripples. Is our alert media too stuck on the Michael Jackson trail, do you think? Or is it a little smaller than the funny business in California.
If the Downing memo proves sort of flimsy, can I be un-called a pro-Hitler advocate?
From the Wall Street Journal Op/Ed page on the strange adversarial nature of today's media:
The best example of this [the media’s adversarial] mentality has been the coverage of Abu Ghraib, which quickly morphed from one disgusting episode into media suspicion of the motives and morals of the entire military chain of command. Certainly the photos of sick behavior on the nightshift by a unit from the Maryland Army Reserve were news. But they were first exposed by the Army itself, through the Taguba investigation that was commissioned months before the photos were leaked.
The press corps nonetheless spent weeks developing a "torture narrative" that has since been thoroughly discredited, both by the independent panel headed by former Defense Secretary Jim Schlesinger and by every court martial to look at the matter. But rather than acknowledge that perhaps the coverage had been wrong, the media reaction has been to declare the many probes to be part of a wildly improbable cover-up.
BTW, Nietzsche had an unique ability to sort of cannibalize himself at times, don't you think?
Last edited: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 4:11:34 PM
Oh, ah, cough, cough, BTW:
Don't think I don't anticipate where this [Downing Street memo] is all going.
Being a vet of the "Bush is a moron" halcyon days of this forum, I being a dumb, stoopid Rebuplican know how to watch the incoming surf.
Last edited: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 4:39:37 PM
You're not a stupid republican...you're much worse than that. You're a ideological partisan hack that can rationalize or justify any horror from torture, to war, class-war, and nascent fascism so long as your party is the progenitor.
You riding the waves on the news week story too? Or did you hop on that like a fly on $hit?
No integrity.
You pulled me in at first with your intelligence and humor. But your non-stop drum beating for this right wing ideological government replete with selective praise or damnation of the press, and party line positions on all issues makes you irrelevant. I know what the republican talking points are. Why do I need to read your rehashing them? That's what fox news is for.
If you had any interest in answering the questions you had about the downing street memo, you could have done some homework. But here is a start: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505170052may17,1,5984426.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
"The memo was written by British national security aide Matthew Rycroft, based on notes he took during a July 2002 meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisers, including Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain's MI-6 intelligence service who had recently met with Bush administration officials."
"Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD," the memo said. "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his-ability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."
Blair's office has not disputed the authenticity of the memo, but the White House categorically denies the assertions in it. And on Capitol Hill, where investigations already have denounced prewar intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as "deeply flawed," there appears to be little appetite for reopening the question of why the U.S. Went to war."
"At the time, the Bush administration was assuring the public that a decision to go to war had not been made and that Iraq could prevent military action by complying with existing United Nations resolutions that were intended to curtail its chemical, nuclear, biological and missile weapons programs."
You'll love this: "But the potentially explosive revelation has proven to be something of a dud in the United States. The White House has denied the premise of the memo, the American media have reacted slowly to it and the public generally seems indifferent to the issue or unwilling to rehash the bitter prewar debate over the reasons for the war."
Congratulations. Put another W in Goliath's column. This is the biggest W of all. "the public generally seems indifferent to the issue" . This last W celibrates the victory of perspective over the power of truth.
Leo strauss and machiavelli got a good laugh out of that.
Last edited: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 5:57:41 PM
And you slink off to a conservative paper's op/ed piece. Masterstroke of a pathetic toady sychophant.
"The best example of this [the media’s adversarial] mentality has been the coverage of Abu Ghraib, which quickly morphed from one disgusting episode into media suspicion of the motives and morals of the entire military chain of command. Certainly the photos of sick behavior on the nightshift by a unit from the Maryland Army Reserve were news. But they were first exposed by the Army itself, through the Taguba investigation that was commissioned months before the photos were leaked."
1) adversial media: is this the same media that took over two weeks to break the downing street memo? The same media that gave bush carte blanche to "do iraq?"
2) abu grhaib as one episode. Do some homework: there are countless accusations of civilian abuse/torture/rape/murder that have nothing to do with abu grhaib. Inmates at gitmo have made similar allegations. Humanitarian organizations have documented these and other allegations. It isn't just an isolated incident. http://hrw.org/press/2003/12/us-iraq-press.htm
3)Maryland army reserve vs the army. Yeah, it was just a couple of hicks from maryland. Nothing to do with the prevalent atmosphere of the prison or of the people in command, or memos from gonzales calling the geneva convention "quaint" and unapplicable. Of course, the army investigated ITSELF and found out - lo and behold! - the problem wasn't systemic! Hey! Just some randy hillbillies from maryland getting outta hand! But they did demote one high-up:
The former Abu Ghraib commander Army Reserve General Janis Karpinski was demoted and reprimanded, but has accused the Army of using her as a scapegoat. In an interview with ABC Television's Nightline program this past week, she said she believes higher U.S. Officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, knew or should have known what was going on at Abu Ghraib. http://www.voanews.com/english/2005-05-14-voa1.cfm
4) exposed by the army itself. The army knew about these immoral actions MONTHS in advance but did nothing. That is, until the photos were leaked. Then it went into hyperdrive scapegoating the rubes from maryland. The army sat on the story until whistleblower Spec. Joseph Darby came forward.
Keep throwing me softballs Rush.
Last edited: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 6:35:17 PM
The link is dead, Stinker.
Actually, I didn't need it. But thanks. I have already read the memo and various news stories around it. And noticed some other things about it too.
Want to discuss it? No? You've got your mind already made up...
One thing that disturbs me about politics is this thing of twisting an incident out of its context and using it as the mother of all smoke screens. Both sides do it, don't they?
So what the average person appreciates is folks who can keep things in context.
Actually, don't stop your tirades. You are your own worst enemy, John Kerry.
The audience, which is the electorate and those who can read context pretty well, is watching and evaluating. When they hear things from your mouth and the mouths of others that go like they do when you do your "thing" about serious political decisions that affect their futures, they know instantly who you are and where you are coming from. Ecce Homo.
It's about substance.
So, you might want to get your predispositions a little better in hand before you ladle your tirades up atop them. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times are pretty solid sources of information, by the way. Not bloggers who sells opinions, mugs, and t-shirts. The whole world blogs now...
Oh, BTW, stay in touch with the judicial nominations. You are about to see some railroading. It's actually sad, but it's going to be true. We could all hope for a little compromise.
Last edited: Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 9:39:08 AM
Also, what is this comparing body counts?
You are comparing the death toll of the war and the suicide bombers to the fifteen who died in the riots?
That I value each and every life as important is a problem to you?
I can't even try that kind of arithmetic. Murdering and murders can happen a lot of different ways and none of them are good, but comparing the relative value of different murderings and murders is over the edge.
And it's not about George Bush being called a murderer. It's about a low idea of life. You got one? You sling that at people? Just say yes if you do.
"It's about substance." you had better hope it isn't...
Funny, I think its about integrity. An op/ed piece from the WSJ is about as unbiased and authoritative as Fox news. And none of my sources were blogs.
What to discuss it? No? You've got your mind already made up
Yes, I'm afraid I've made up my mind about you. You've hauled the party line this far...i believe you'll haul it the rest of the way.
Actually, don't stop your tirades. You are your own worst enemy, John Kerry.
Oh! A real zinger! Its dean who's gone on tirades, not kerry. But in your crowd, calling someone John Kerry is a real insult, isn't it?
The audience, which is the electorate and those who can read context pretty well, is watching and evaluating. When they hear things from your mouth and the mouths of others that go like they do when you do your "thing" about serious political decisions that affect their futures, they know instantly who you are and where you are coming from. Ecce Homo.
Yes, they may know be by now, just as they know you. Maybe they've noticed THAT YOU'VE NEVER STRAYED FROM THE PARTY LINE. That you're nothing more than a partisan hack...a republican talking point, a physical manifestation of karl roves imagination. 100% Old testament: yet you've never once invoked jesus.
Maybe they noticed that after playing verbal badmitton with an administration apologist, a religious right extremist, a person who can sublimate murder, gloss over evidence of immoral actions performed by their government in their name, a person who shills for pro-wealth domestic policy; a person who spins off every piece of bad news -- but does so politely -- well, maybe they've noticed that I get a bit sickened by your constant stance against the oppressed, poor, down-trodden, or people who don't think like you (read: urbanites, modernists). Maybe they've noticed I called you a weak suck up to the conservative state.
Maybe they think that's a bit harsh. I can live with that assessment. In my defense, I've always said that if I met a nazi I'd wipe the floor with him. Well the nazis have come and gone...now we have new tyrants. These new worshippers of the conservative state: the american taliban. God I hate tyrants...as much as I hate their toadies.
"do when you do your "thing" about serious political decisions". What is my "thing?"
That I finally get exasperated with your goddam lieying, shilling, pro-administration spinning? Listen: if your such a fan of killing innocent people for bullshit reasons, man up and join the military. Otherwise, shut your pansy mouth. Stick to polite conversations where you can whore out the truth to partisan spin, laugh off the voices of the suffering in cynical humor. But if you lie to a man: be ready for consequences. Be thankful your not in...proximity.
Was that my thing? That I think that in reality, even in polite discussion, words eventually require consequence? You shill and shill and lie and spin: and you do it all out of ideology. I call you an ideologically motivated liar. That's the consequence of lying to THIS man. You can call me an over-emotional hot-head but don't forget this: I NEVER ONCE ATTEMPTED TO JUSTIFY THE STATES RIGHT TO SYSTEMATICALLY MURDER PEOPLE --or for the state to stomp down citizen's rights, or for the state to pave the way for corporations to continue to consolidate more power and wealth, or for the state to promote religious intolerance. For you, its habitual. As long as its a conservative, christian state. You've rationalized or sublimated every form of state sponsered human butchery committed in the last 5 years.
Im an impolite, hot headed crank...or much worse than that. But you? I wonder what they think of you...
Stink what up with the bible reference? You're like so stoopid man ROFL.
If you met a Nazi? You start to talk the talk pal. Can't you see that. Really I'm soooo sick of it too.
Do you feel powerful acting that way? If your so boastful about being impolite..take it elsewhere maybe.
Too much defamation on PTT guys.
Stop the flame wars.
IMHO
Peace I'm outta here
Az
Just got back into town and can't sleep. Apparently stinky had some bad sushi and decided to share with JJ.
We all know who is liberal and consrvative here. At the end of the day, none of the bickering is going to resolve the day's issues, although blowing up at each other may help us all mark time until Nov '08...or at least '06.
JJ a Nazi? Nah - I don't think so. Stinky a commie pinko? I doubt that too.
One thing you both share is a love of your country - at least I view it to be - and your frustration at seeing (what you believe to be) it being pissed away.
Now- all of that being said - I have an entirely different opinion on the Newsweek brouhaha (please keep in mind I have only read the last 4-5 posts). The "Arab World" is demanding accountability....above and beyond a simple retraction....from the guys at Newsweek. And, before I go on - I actually agree with them to a certain extent, although I don't think they should be extradited to Kabul so they can have their arms or legs torn off.
My point: the media from "that portion" of the world has been "dissing" the US, etc. For a helluva lot longer than 1 week and done a helluva lot more than pitch a Bible or Torah into the shitter.
Why no apology from these gentlemen / women?????
(Apologies in advance for any typos - am working on a spare machine as my Dell went MIA in the Atl airport).
Actually, I find it amusing. Vintage Stink Bomb. :) Not to worry, Az or Chief.
I don't mind the name calling. I don't believe I did much of that -- but I honestly don't care. I still respect Stinker. I wouldn't have started reading Nietzsche if not for him.
As the Professor sagely noted on that other thread, the one with those BIG SIGS, you put people on "ignore" when you have had enough. You fuss when want credible change.
That Stink wants credible change is his expressed opinion.
At any rate, I post here mainly because I have enjoyed the variety of opinion. It gets a little bumpy, but then everything is a little bumpy too sometimes. Sooooo what.
It takes someone who keeps a positive 'tude to keep things from deteriorating while everyone else is trying to destroy things around them. That is what I have always respected about Az and RX in games... Stink still has some faith down in there also...but whoooo cares ;).
That was a good take on the Koran story, Chief. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
There is more to say but forget it for now............
Last edited: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 7:32:57 AM
Ah man JJ the contradiction here is too weird.
An opinion about the Koran possibly getting flushed ceremoniously at Gitmo? Yeah, I would get kinda hot about that. No matter of my political party affiliation. It sounds very un - American. Ugly really.
Here's my point.
How many times do some people at PTT take the beliefs and articles of faith of others and do exactly the same?
How many times has it been done in a intentionally insulting & ceremonious way to the objection of others that have asked nicely (for over a year) that it stop?
So if that did indeed happen at Gitmo, is not the same or very similar to the ideology found in some community members here even? That's not right.
Heh heh The left has an ugly American too apparently. He sent me an email to F-off. Lol
Chief, why use this board for blowing up at each other? Not that you're advocating it. I just think the "in your face" insult part of the pro or con rhetorical wars here gets the community off axis a bit. Aren't there more appropriate boards for anti-social mud slinging?
.
Last edited: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 1:36:17 AM
Wow JJ!
If I don't respect anything else you've posted in the past couple of weeks, I can respect that turning the other cheekiness. Listen, I hope you turn it on one of these days, I really do. You've got the proper gear...i hope you put it to good use. The rich and the powerful don't need your help. I'm sure someone out there does though...
I can't be a part of this stuff anymore -- all this bullshitting -- for obvious reasons. I'm far too sick of the paper-assed philosophy, all this circular chitter-chatter. I think some of you like the sport of debate...not me...i'm too combative. To me talk should be a corollary to action...otherwise, what the hell are we talking about?
And I got my eye on other, less virual targets...cya around.
Frankly, I sort of don't understand the surprise Stinker. Or the appall at the weirdness, Az.
Does my attitude, which I state above, seem new to you? It's been there a long time. Doing the rope-a-dope.
My modus operandi is this: Ideas are the forerunners of actions. People who blurt their opinions in an unintelligent, curmudgeonly (like the word) way usually act that way also.
So the refiners fire of debate is a better way to find intelligent ways to act than not to think and to act unintelligently. Crude acts that people do are like unintelligent blurting, IMO. Want to see where this really goes on? Look around right now at the world of politics. Some of it is scary. From Al Franken to Rush Limbaugh to Hillary to Jerry Falwell to Michael Moore to Keith Obermann to Bill Frist.
They can go from intelligent point-making to hotheaded stupidity in a finger snap. I just try to keep the talk going...
It's like riding a bike. You fall off, you get better, someday you possibly may be good at it. But you keep trying.
...and I'll make no secret of the fact that I have enjoyed this forum for the "sport of debate." I feel like I am reliving my English degree. (Mom, Dad, all the money you spent on my liberal arts education is finally getting some use on this Think Tanks forum! ARRRRRGGHHHH go the parental units.)
Please note one real distinction here, on real limits: The netherworld of bad behavior is down a notch lower where Anony and Chong have been. No reflection, no consideration, just hubris-driven, highly charged ranting. Obscenity, spam, and name-calling for no reason. There's the edge, in my estimation. That's what the sheepdogs of the forum are for.
You're right, Az, it goes on here. In some respects, it's the price of admission to an open forum like this. Iron sharpens iron, though. (I'd like to see us Christians bang away at each other a bit...like on Rabban's thread some more.)
Didn't you mean flushed "unceremoniously" or am I reading it wrong? Yes, that would aggravate me also. But even more aggravating is the thought of exaggerated gossip getting elevated into a news story which in turn caused riots and death. Can we agree that gossip shouldn't do that? Newsweek has admitted that the story was "unsubstantiated." Their own admission.
If it becomes substantiated that this is not gossip, then was it an isolated incident by one quick-tempered individual or a pattern of behavior that the powers-that-be allow unchecked? If the latter, then let the wrath loose.
As I recall, Chief had a similar experience with email, but that's water over the dam.
So let the reasoning continue or not. If you act and think in tandem, that's no problem and a good thing to recognize.
...but I ain't giving up my POVs, homeboy. ;)
Last edited: Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 9:13:25 AM
JJ, I'm not sure if you got me there. I wasn't alluding to your previous post or you at all for that matter.
Yeah I meant ceremonious. Take off your talk radio noggin JJ and think about it :). I was alluding to my observation of a possibly proactive zeal for desecration. After the incidents at Abu Ghirab nothing seems beyond the scope of what's possible. I agree with you about media btw. What happened to fact checking?
Hey Chong's only 14 give him a break maybe.
Stink's right on about the tone here IMO. Look at the topic. Kinda silly if you ask me. Why here? I mean that.
For the record - this thread is one of the few...I'm thinking 2 or 3 max....conservative threads that are in response to such "Golden Oldies" as "Thanks Reublicans", "Social Security" and "Swift Boat Veterans for Bush". These are all some of the longest threads on the board....as a matter of fact, the "SwiftVets" thread is probably the longest true discussion thread on here.
I just figured it was time to stir it up. Spirited debate is one of the biggest reasons I stay tuned to PTT. The majority of the other stuff is quite honestly for the younger crowd...which is cool with me, as I see this site as open to all ages. It's just that the content doesn't interest me.
There are a large number of very intelligent people on here - adults and minors - that have at different times taken part in the various debates on the threads I describe above. Of these threads and the thousands of posts on them, things have only gotten out of hand a couple of times; each one involved a "hot button" issue.
Don't get me wrong....I am just as convinced I am right as Sir Stinky is. JJ, Rab, OM, Flea, 44...I could go on and on. We're not crazy enough to believe we are actually convincing the other that they are wrong and we are right, nor are we stupid enough to believe that our chosen ideology is the only one and is berift of imperfection.
We just have fun shooting holes in each other's hats. Some people have fun blowing up cartoon tanks and describing the person above them. To each his own.
(Take care Stink - see you next time old friend.)
@ Az
Ah, I see somewhat better...
You were referring to intentional ceremonious “trashing “of another point of view…
If so, then your follow-up is accurate:
How many times has it been done in a intentionally insulting & ceremonious way to the objection of others that have asked nicely (for over a year) that it stop?
One person’s idea of what is trashing is another’s idea of a calm comeback, however. Sorting that out is tough one. Wanna try it? :)
I think political hotheadedness, in particular, is like a steamroller that doesn't stop, no matter who's in the road.
Still, the point of debate is to shoot down the fallacy. When things are blown out of proportion, smoke screens are used, things are put out of context, etc.
People like Stinker not only like to shoot it down but to explode it. He is Teddy Roosevelt charging the hill. However, as you remarked in another thread, he does have a concern for others that offsets his “energy.”
Without that he would be just a malicious, sniping jerk who ceremoniously trashes opposing beliefs and faiths for no particular reason.
Lord, man, don’t confuse me with talk radio…
Last edited: Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 9:45:36 AM
@ Chief
We just have fun shooting holes in each other's hats.
^ hehe! However, I would add that in addition to aired-out hatware, I have done double-takes on issues thanks to discussions. Not only here but elsewhere.
And if Stinker wants closure, then sorry to see him closedown. I would prefer it be called "drydock" or something by him, with the option to occasionally be back for short runs.
As a tribute to Stinker, I offer this hilarious Senate Committee hearing. Believe me, this is worth the wait to get there...
It is a meeting of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security held Tuesday. Go to 5/17/05 "Oil for Influence..." on this page: Oil for Influence Hearing
Click the link and then scroll down to "Webcast" (needs Real Player) and listen to George Galloway, a British member of Parliament that the Senators have accused of wrongdoing. He is a Stinkfingers if ever I heard one. (I saw him on MSNBC's Countdown and chased the hearing's webcast down...)
Galloway does not appear until the 1:58 minute mark of the hearing, so, of course, you have to move forward to that point.
Go George, go George, it's your birthday, it's your birthday, like Stinker. %)
Last edited: Thursday, May 19, 2005 at 10:22:28 AM
Better link:
JJ I was talking about something more than just a POV. You understand me there? I thought I got my point across very well thank you as it stands in my previous post. Hey I get hot I know, sorry.
Chief I'm not talking conservative or liberal or saying anything about topical issues of the day. My point is more about the rules of engagement. And yeah I'm just IMHO here. No offense meant.
When you say "wanting to stir things up", Whaddya mean? Wind people up? Geez. It's too easy these days. Don'tcha think? I don't think it's funny, although some do.
Rabby posts a religion thread and ends it with something like "now let it fly". Arrrrrrrgh. No offense Rabby, but to some here it's like saying come with a saw buzzing.
Hey it's your community do what you will guys.
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Yeeeeeeeep, that's right. It ain't over 'til the fat lady has sung...and waffles are served for all.
First up - Social Security.
I bring you the following from an email I rec'd earlier today. Slightly partisan, but I though "What the hey...what's not lately?"
SO:
Subject: Social Security
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like
a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the
handle.--Winston Churchill
SOCIAL SECURITY:
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the
Social Security (FICA) Program. He promised:
1.) That participation in the Program would be
completely voluntary,
2.) That the participants would only have to pay
1% of the first $1,400 of their annual incomes into
the Program,
3.) That the money the participants elected to
put into the Program would be deductible from their
income for tax purposes each year,
4.) That the money the participants put into the
independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the
General operating fund, and therefore, would only be
used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program,
and no other Government program, and,
5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees
would never be taxed as income.
Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and
are now receiving a Social Security check every
month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed
on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal
government to "put away," you may be interested in
the following:
Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from
the independent "Trust" fund and put it into the
General fund so that Congress could spend it?
A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the
Democratically-controlled House and Senate.
Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax
deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?
A: The Democratic Party.
Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social
Security annuities?
A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the
"tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the
Senate, while he was Vice President of the U.S.
Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving
annuity payments to immigrants?
MY FAVORITE :
A: That's right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic
Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at
age 65, began to receive SSI Social Security
payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments
to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
Then, after doing all this lying and thieving and
violation of the original contract (FICA), the
Democrats turn around and tell you that the
Republicans want to take your Social Security away!
And the worst part about it is, uninformed citizens
believe it!
I haven't had a chance to fact check yet - I'm sure someone will. I deleted the "pass this on" part of the email.
Well? Agree? Disagree?