I am sure this is Bush’s fault somehow:
Members of the commission that uncovered the government’s failures to share intelligence among agencies before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks want to know whether U.S. defense intelligence officials knew for more than a year that four of the hijackers were part of an al-Qaida cell but failed to tell law enforcement.
Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the now-disbanded commission, said Tuesday that members of the Sept. 11 commission could issue a statement by the end of the week after reviewing claims that defense intelligence officials had identified ringleader Mohammed Atta and three other hijackers…
Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican who serves as vice chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said a classified military intelligence unit known as “Able Danger” identified the men in 1999.
That’s an earlier link to al-Qaida than any previously disclosed intelligence about Atta if the information, which Weldon said came from multiple intelligence sources, is true.
A smart-aleck might say- “Why didn’t Bill Clinton do anything to stop 9/11?”
BinkyBoy
Well, I noticed that when they brought this up, they started by saying “the terrorists’ civil rights would have been violated if the “Able Danger” guys had forwarded the information to the FBI.”
Ummmm, yeah, whatever. Those damn liberals and their defense of civil rights are to blame, as always.
ppGaz
Or, the country might be better served by examining the whole process model which governs the gathering, interpretation and use of intelligence.
Between 911 and WMD, two colossal and deadly failures of that model, you’d think that the country would want to inch forward from political snarkery into some useful discussion, with an eye toward improvement. Is it possible that the rank politicization of everything has degraded our ability to get and use critical intelligence?
I’m just saying. I’m just asking.
neil
I never thought I’d see the day when so-called “conservatives” were saying “Hey, why don’t experimental Pentagon intelligence programs have the authority to detain legal, documented immigrants based on circumstancial evidence?”
Vlad
Detention would’ve been out of line, but it’s inexcusable that they didn’t keep a closer eye on these guys or tell other agencies about the need to do so.
neil
Well, that’s not really true. I did get a bit of suspicion when they started saying “Hey, why shouldn’t the President hold American citizens indefinitely in military confinement without charges? And torture them, while he’s at it?”
neil
Vlad, they _did_ tell other agencies and they were ignored. This could be because the FBI doesn’t care about national security, or it could be because Able Danger was asking them to detain and question every immigrant with a name that appears in the Riyadh phone book. We can’t know. But don’t miss the bit in the article about how the 9/11 Commission reacted to the program.
Also, Curt Weldon has already established very poor credibity when it comes to alternate intelligence methods.
John Cole
Neil- I was looking for that link and couldn’t find it.
Geek, Esq.
Is anyone else planning to attend Jingopalooza?
Military parade and country music concert to
celebratecommemorate 911.This may be the single most grotesque idea ever.
ppGaz
Patterned after the wildly popular Pearl Harbor Day Annual Luau and Hula Dance Festival?
Another Jeff
That link doesn’t show Weldon has poor credibility, it shows that a writer for American Prospect and The Nation found two people that question his motives.
Who knows what will come of this, but if nothing else, it shows that Jamie Gorelick had no business whatsoever being on the 9-11 Commission, because, as much as I like to blame things on Clinton, this never got as high as him, and it was Gorelick who screwed the pooch.
neil
His motives are not being questioned, Another Jeff. His sources and their credibility are.
Geek, Esq.
I heard they’re going to have a consultant fly in from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Moe Lane
I think that this Weekly Standard article may prove of interest to the discussion. Fair warning: it does not respect any number of sacred cows, including a couple on my side of the spectrum.
Alternatively, we could all keep sneering at each other.
ppGaz
Karl Rove?
“All hail glorious Leader” seems to be working better over there, than here. For the moment, anyway.
“Remember the political lessons of 9-11. Maybe for once we can fool all of the people all of the time.”
— ppGaz, channeling Karl Rove
Another Jeff
From the article:
“This curious behavior raises questions about Weldon’s motives.”
So, you have a CIA agent pissed that Weldon has attacked the CIA, and someone else pissed that Weldon used his info in a book.
I don’t doubt that Weldon needs to explain this a lot further, but the usual knee-jerk reaction from liberal trolls here to anything that would imply there were failures in Gov’t before January of 2001 that may have contributed to 9-11 is mind-boggling.
Your head isn’t gonna explode and your dicks not gonna fall off if you would ever say “maybe there were some thing that the Clinton Administration could’ve done different”.
BinkyBoy
Another Jeff,
right back at you. What did Condi, Cheney, Rummy and Bush do pre-9/11? Why is there such a vehemence refusal to acknowledge that their concentration on terrorism was somewhat lacking, even after the memos and papers released from the transistion show that the retiring Clinton administration stressed the importance of global terrorism?
So maybe until you’re willing to even start to admit that 9/11 might not have happened if the Bush administration had been more alert, there really isn’t much point in reviewing what the Clinton administration might or might not have done.
Besides, if Bush isn’t going to hold anyone responsible, instead promoting them, why should the Clinton administration be held any more responsible?
ppGaz
Bush is the anti-Pogo.
“The buck never stops here” is the watchword of this gang.
Another Jeff
BinkyBoy,
Thanks for proving my point. You’re too stupid for words.
Now, go back to Fat Ollie Willis’ site where you’re considered clever.
ppGaz
The IKYABWAI strategy. Well played!
Zach
Another Jeff,
Clinton could have done more.
Bush couldn’t have done less.
Moe Lane
Sneering it is, then.
merlallen
It is chickenshit georgie’s fault. And every time Clinton tried to take action against Al Quaida the Republicans were screaming “wag the dog” and frothing at the mouth.
BinkyBoy
Its more fun to irritate you, Jeff. Once again you show that you are more than ready to ignore the failures of a republican when there might be some liberal or democrat to blame in their place.
I notice you don’t explain the lack of responsibility within this administration from your own standpoint, instead reverting to name calling attacks that do nothing to prove a damn thing.
Who in this administration has been held responsible for the multitude of mistakes made prior and post 9/11? Instead most have been promoted and outragiously defended. Any attempt to trace back failures to a responsible party is met with attacks such as “you just hate Bush/Cheney/Rummy” or “you hate Condi because she’s black”.
Oh, and nice attack on Oliver, what did he do to you, prove you wrong?
linda
another jeff:
just out of curiousity, how many times did you repeat the phrase ‘wag the dog’ circa late 90s.
i think there’s more than enough evidence that all the institutions — congress, media, security/intelligence agencies — failed us on september 11, 2001.
db
The NY Times has a similar piece on this that includes information from an interview with an official on the Able Danger team. Unfortunately, both articles raise more questions than they answer – understanable at this early stage.
What is clear is that Able Danger was a data mining team set up to identify Al Qaeda operatives/cells in 1999. It was disbanded. Well, if it worked in identifying some of the 9/11 murderers before the attacks, do we not have any similar program in operation? Why was it disbanded? Was it completely ineffective? Hmmmm….
We don’t know anything about the effectiveness of Able Danger and the list that it had compiled. I could have done just as good a job at creating an Al Qaeda watch list by writing down the name of every person in the country on a visa from the Middle East and throwing this at my superiors… “Here’s a million people we should check out.” I would ask the people on this team whether they identified Atta and his accomplices apart from the many other individuals legitimately here on visas. How big was the list? Did they simply narrow in on Atta’s name on the list after 9/11 and say, “Oh look, Oh look! We had his name on written down here!” [neglecting the fact that there were also 100,000 other names on that list].
Weldon is a big supporter of data mining operations. Able Danger was a data mining team. It was disbanded. Does that make Weldon unhappy? Hmmm….
Speaking of Weldon, why come out now with this information? Did it just only recently fall in his lap? He ought to explain.
The NY Times article indicates that one of Able Danger’s members told the 9/11 commission members directly about Atta’s name. The 9/11 commissioners who were asked about this say they never remember this. My gut tells me I got to believe the commissioners. C’mon. Everyone was well aware of Atta’s name at the time. So you’re telling me that a 9/11 commissioner is told by an intelligence official the word “Atta” and they are not going to remember that or make note of it?
neil
Sorry, Moe, but I read the article, and it doesn’t seem to have much of a relationship to Able Danger, which supposedly identified the cell after it entered the U.S., whereas that article seems to be all about Special Forces units. I can say without knowing how well Able Danger worked that I am glad that it was not used to deploy Special Forces units on American soil.
I agree with db. The article seemed very much like the “anonymous Pentagon official lighting fires under people’s asses to get more funding for his program” thing I have seen a few times before. Painfully little verifiability, and no proof that the FBI, which is bound by U.S. law, would have even been able to do anything if they had tried.
Another Jeff
You don’t irritate me, Binky, I just kind of feel sorry for you. I mean, i’m sure you’re at least 18, so it’s kind of sad that you’re ability to debate has never gone past the second-grade level of “oh yeah, how ’bout you”?
But, I’ll humor you. Show me where i’ve ever said that Bush doesn’t share any blame for 9-11 and I’ll give you $1000. Search John’s archives, search anywhere. I’ll wait.
And it wasn’t an attack on Oliver. Let’s face it, he’s fat. I was merely pointing out that responding “What about Bush” to every single thing might work over there, but it doesn’t in the real world where you’re asked to back up what you say.
Another Jeff
“Another Jeff:
Just out curiousity, how many times did you repeat the phrase ‘wag the dog’ circa late 90’s”
Never, but thanks for asking.
ppGaz
Show me where Bush himself has taken any responsibility for anything, 9-11-01 to 8-10-05.
“It’s hard work.” — GW Bush
Yeah, no shit.
Another Jeff
ppGaz,
Go have another Manhattan you dumb, old fuck. You don’t even make sense.
Moe Lane
I was originally mostly referring to John’s final question, neil; the article is one of the few that I’ve seen that has actually tried to answer “What the hell went wrong?” without treating one President or another as a convenient devil figure. That probably should have been made clearer; my bad.
Note, though, that I did say that said WS article might prove ‘of interest’ to the discussion instead of that it was directly relevant. When it comes to the Middle East there have been massive intelligence failures for the last… hell, where do we start? Post-World War I? What I’m failing to see is any sort of group consensus we’ve simply accepted that it happened – and that people we respect were involved – and move on from there. I see instead widespread demands that somebody else admit to their side’s wrongdoing first before they’ll think about doing likewise.
Which is, frankly, unhelpful.
Moe
gratefulcub
Bush wasn’t interested in terrorism befor 9/11, and in retrospect he obviously should have been. Terrorism was no where on his priority list, even though people around him were screaming at him that it should be.
I hold Clinton responsible too. He understood the threat. Yes, repubs attacked him every time he did anything about it, so what? If it was as big of a threat as he thought it was, he should have told us all why he thought it was such a threat and that he wasn’t going to back down just because the repubs were screaming ‘wag the dog.’
This wasn’t a failing of a president, or of two presidents. It was a failing of a large system, a beauracracy filled with turf wars. We really can use this experience to improve the system. And all the liberal haters, YES, we can even do it in a way that protects civil liberties. If one more person utters a phrase like ‘terrorists’ civil liberties’ my head might explode. There aren’t two identifiable sets of people in the world, terrorists and non-terrorists. Civil liberties have to be protected for everyone, and each person has to be treated equally under the system. Every time you say something like that, you make it sound as if the whole idea of civil liberties is some terrorist sympathizing commie plot to destroy the world through mushiness. What makes this country great? Civil liberties, not your undying allegiance to W.
ppGaz
Show me where Bush himself has taken any responsibility for anything, 9-11-01 to 8-10-05.
Tim F
Weldon is full of shit and a complete nutter to boot.
You could say that 9/11 is Clinton’s fault, in which case you’d also be full of shit.
BinkyBoy
AnotherJeff,
I’m saying that trying to blame Clinton for 9/11 is akin to pissing in the wind. Sure it empties your bladder but damn if you arn’t just soaked in piss afterwards. There isn’t a thing you can do to anyone from the previous administration, short of finding them criminally negligent, which is about as likely to happen as an impeachment of Bush. What would be the point of trying to take it back to Clinton? Why not concentrate on those things that can be changed right now, like finding those that were sleeping on their jobs in 2001 and making them take at least a smidgeon of responsibility for their inaction and inattention?
or is it too hard to admit to their inaction and inattention, instead trying to deflect attention from the possible colossal failures of your Republican administration and place them on an opposing group?
And your single post in this thread basically shows that you place none of the responsibility on the Bush Administration, instead seeking to focus on Clinton when, as I said, there is nothing to be gained by shifting any focus to them.
Of course, you can disagree, thinking that imprisoning a Democrat will solve all of the terrorism problems of the future, or you can choose to move on and make changes to the things that are happening now, such as demanding that responsibility fall on the shoulders of those that are making changes to our world in the here and now.
gratefulcub
Another Jeff,
You know what else doesn’t work very well in the real world when you can’t hide behind the anonymity of the internet.
‘You’re so stupid’
‘He’s fat’
‘You dumb old fuck’
And you have the audacity to pick on someone else for not getting past 2nd grade debating tactics. Politness isn’t that hard, even when we disagree.
ppGaz
Yeah, I’m not that old, after all.
Another Jeff
Hey grateful cub,
I’ll show respect and politeness to people that deserve it. Most of the left-wing trolls here (most but not all), don’t deserve it.
Most of them came here when John was being linked to as a “Good Republican” because of his stance on Schiavo (a stance i agreed with 100%, btw).
Unfortunately, most of these trolls are used to being in the echo chambers of Kos and Atrios where nobody ever disagrees with them and all they know how to do is spew talking points.
I’ll say for the 850th time that i’ve never said Bush doesn’t share any blame for 9-11. But it’s completely fair to ask, when one administration had 8 1/2 months and another one had eight years, whether or not the other one shares any blame. That’s not absolving Bush of anything and if people are too stupid to make that distinction, I’m gonna say they’re stupid. I don’t wanna be your friend and I don’t care if you like me or not.
Just read the comments on various posts. John slams the Bush Administration more than any right-leaning blogger out there, and when he does, the left-wing trolls all say “i agree, John” or “why can’t more Republicans be like you John”. But when he calls Democrats on something, or, God forbid, suggests that Bush might’ve done something right, he’s automatically called a kool-aid drinker or accused of spitting out Uncle Karl’s talking points.
It’s real simple to say all that, and I’m sure it makes you guys feel real good and real smart, but to anyone with a fucntioning brain, it just makes you look shallow, ignorant, and lazy. The problem is, you don’t even realize it.
Slartibartfast
Looks like sneering rules the day, Moe. Did you really expect anything else?
Blue Neponset
I think Moe brings up a good point about “sneering at each other” over this.
One of the things I like about Balloon Juice is that people from the left and right can, at times, actually have a serious discussion about policy. That is a rare thing on the political blogsphere these days.
ppGaz
The right wing trolls, of course, do?
You mean, to anyone who agrees with you. The truth is that the rightwing comments are totally doctrinaire, gratuitous, party-line smack-talking. If you are rightwing, why don’t you work on improving the behavior of your side, and see what happens?
And before you pull out the expected “your side is worse”, or its equivalent, as if that obviates the need for my comment above, this: I am not complaining about politeness. I don’t favor unilateral politeness. I don’t happen to think that politeness is a virtue in this context. I think that your side hides behind a phony desire for politeness the same way it hides behind phony patriotism, and phony sanctimony, and phony “christian” victimhood, and all of it. I don’t believe a damned thing you say about politeness. If you don’t like that, that’s too bad.
Moe Lane
“Did you really expect anything else?”
(Shrug) Maybe the damn horse will sing.
ppGaz
To say the least. But what the right doesn’t seem to get is that it’s purely academic to sit around and compare administrations’ shortcomings. The ones that matter today are the ones that pull down the government today.
The right is in power. The right is accountable, right now. Bill Clinton isn’t responsible for the failures of the Bush administration, any more than Bush is responsible for Clinton’s.
But Bush is the president we have now. His ineptitude is the thing that might get somebody killed, now. His pandering and manipulation are the things that drag the country into more and more divisiveness, now.
That’s why we need to talk about him, now.
We can all talk about Clinton, and Carter, and Johnson, and Fillmore, when we write our history books.
Kimmitt
I don’t think that’s at all fair — it seems like President Clinton did a lot of work in the area which was discarded by the incoming Administration.
gratefulcub
hey another jeff,
I don’t care what your policy positions are. Wasn’t even part of the point.
Problem is, I have read other threads. It all seems to be the same: you disagree with someone, you call them stupid, or dumb fuck. it invalidates the rest of your post. First time you ever spoke to me, while I was discussing something with someone else was something like: GC you are stupid. you are so stupid. Stupidhead.
I really don’t care what you do, I was just sayin’: politeness isn’t that hard.
Jill
Clinton did do something. Clinton and his staff told Bush and his staff that they would be spending all their time on Al Quaeda. But Bush and Ashcroft decided that pot and porno was what was really threatening our safety and our liberty.
ppGaz
And the Gay Agenda. And the “worthless paper in file boxes” represented by the Social Security trust fund. Had to postpone that one for Term 2 on account of the war, and all.
Luckily, Ashcroft got those statues covered up there in the Justice Dept building. Was that before, or after, 9-11? I don’t remember. I do know that I felt more virtuous on the day that those bare breasts were covered up though. Now we have some real values in Washington, I remember thinking.
Moe Lane
“But what the right doesn’t seem to get is that it’s purely academic to sit around and compare administrations’ shortcomings.”
In my experience, each side of an argument needs to display a honest willingness to criticize – or even admit to – the policy flaws and mistakes made by their own agents before any real dialogue on how to fix an existing problem can start. You may find this odious and unfair. You may even choose not to participate in debate under these conditions, which is of course your right.
But until you do, your opponents are not under any obligation to treat you as acting in good faith – because, honestly, you would not be.
And I’m sorry, but I really can’t do anything about that.
Another Jeff
Actually, cubbie, you left out something very important. I called you stupid because you said Democrats have never used race-baiting in an election. Sorry, but there’s no other word to describe someone who would make such a statement.
And hey, if you don’t believe what I say when it comes to pointing out that most of the lefty-trolls arguments revolve around “oh yeah, what about you guys”, go up to John’s post about the NARAL ad. It’s choc-full of “oh yeah, what about THIS ad from Republicans” or “Factcheck.org isn’t a fair organization” or whatever.
Nobody actually refutes John’s point.
ppGaz
Hardly. I criticize Dems and “the left” on a not-infrequent basis.
Opponents should not base their actions on whether I am acting in good faith. They should base them on demonstrating what they think is the proper thing to do. The fact that they don’t is enough for me to dismiss their whines as …. whines.
Examine my first post to this thread. Is it partisan? Is it doctrinaire “lefty”? Is it rude? No, no, and no.
Did it generate any discussion at all? No.
The subject of the thread is something akin to “Intelligence and 9-11.” I responded to what I thought was the subject of the thread. Instead we are here talking about “politness”. Why is that?
When I see rightists leading their flock toward honest and calm discussion of issues, I will be glad to join them in the crusade. If you doubt it, then prove me wrong. Lead.
gratefulcub
AJ,
First: not exactly what i said
Second: even after your attack, I still responded to your points and clarified my position, admitting that i had been quite clumsy with my speech, and i had not even given thought to race baiting in reverse, basically saying “you are right on many points.”
Finally: i never said that no one, as you like to call them lefties, makes absurd statements. I just said, why do you have to call everyone stupid dumb fucks?
I’m done. should have never started. some people are just not nice to be around
Quite a vocabulary then
Moe Lane
“Opponents should not base their actions on whether I am acting in good faith.”
I’m glad that you agree with me.
ppGaz
Well, not sure if you are serious,but chances are, we agree. I’ve observed that most adversarial traffic around here is between people who actually agree but either don’t know it or don’t want to admit it :-)
So in conclusion, I just have a few thousand carefully chosen words to say further on this subject …..
If any rightie leader wants to designate a thread as a “polite zone” and take on the challenge of herding his brethren, I will volunteer to do the same on my side. Or if I am not acceptable as a herder, someone else can have the chore. Be forewarned, however, that you are almost certain to see arguments break out within the herds as to what is polite, what is “politer than they are” … etc.
I’m not saying it won’t be effective. I’m just sayin’ …. aw, shucks, it’s Hard Work.
Slartibartfast
How many “rightists” do you need? Does John count? See, I think by definition when this sort of thing happens, the “rightists” turned into “centrists” by definition, and so you get to keep on doing your thing.
Slartibartfast
Ah, I see what you’re saying now. Well, it’s happened in other places, and typically when it does there are cries of censorship.
Sweet.
ppGaz
Ooops. Sensitivity violation!
Okay, let’s not call them “rightists.” Let’s call them “politists.” Generic, non-threatening label.
Second, you have no idea what “my thing” is. If you want to be polite, you can start by asking me what it is. Once you know, then you can throw tomatoes at it as desired. Or am I presuming too much to guess that “politeness” might include refraining from putting words in other peoples’ mouths, presuming to know facts not in evidence, hypersensitive quibbling over style and language while the real topic is ignored …… who will be the arbiter of these things, sir? A committee? Like I said, it’s going to be hard work.
Last, I do not know what you mean when you say “when this sort of thing happens.” What sort of thing are you referring to? Seriously, I have no idea where you are going with this.
Moe Lane
“I’ve observed that most adversarial traffic around here is between people who actually agree but either don’t know it or don’t want to admit it”
Never analyzed the traffic here in that regard, but I have seen it in other places.
ppGaz
Interesting question.
I see John as an old-fashioned conservative. I don’t think he fits into the bipolar model of today (“You’re either with us, or your against us.” Let’s say.)
I’m more of a social liberal than John is, but possibly more of a fiscal conservative than he is, not sure. But John is not a Dobsonite, one of those mealy-mouthed whiners who tries to frame everything in terms of being nice to “christians” or any of that grotesque crap.
I disagree entirely, completely and retroactively, on the subject of the Iraq war and why we are there, or whether we should be. However, I agree with him that we have to stay there and make every effort to get a good outcome because it’s essential to our interests, and to the good people of Iraq and to our troops’ long term interests.
So it’s hard to categorize what I think about John. Don’t know if I answered your question.
John touts politeness, but that’s just the behavior of a good blogmaster. John can be impolite when it suits him.
As can most people.
Slartibartfast
It actually doesn’t matter. You’ve stated upthread that you’ll do X if some, unspecified “righty leader” does it first, otherwise you’ll keep on doing what you’re doing.
In hindsight, I’m not really sure, either. I thought you were looking for someone on the right to foster civility, and that’s been done elsewhere. Maybe that’s not what you meant. Incidentally, if you think of Moe as a “righty”, he was the founder of one such place. In other words, Moe has paid his dues, and continues to (everywhere I’ve seen, anyway) behave civilly to others in comments. Even when others aren’t returning the favor; Moe is a much better man than I in that respect.
ppGaz
I tend to respond in kind. I am not the one asking for more politeness. However, that fact does not translate into an assertion that I am against politeness. Quite the contrary. But this theater is not a polite place, and I won’t sit still for being made a scapegoat over it, or for giving a whiner an opportunity to cry “politeness foul” when the truth is, he’s just getting his ass kicked, or when he’s just looking for yet another way to try to paint the pig of today’s right-wing politics with the lipstick of faux civility. I said it earler: I am more than a little distrustful of cries for “politeness.” What’s more, I know for a fact that the easiest and best and fastest way to get politness in a conversation is to be polite. People generally respond in kind, as I do.
The bottom line for me is that I’m not whining for more politeness and it is not my job to figure out for someone else how to get, although I just did them a big favor and TOLD them how to do it. At the same time, I am not opposed to more politeness, but I ain’t takin’ responsibility for it at anyone’s suggestion until I see them doing it.
Last, do not confuse “politeness” with “soft-spokenness.” They are not the same thing.
ppGaz
With the exception of a few people I know from having had a lengthy back-and-forth with, I really don’t recognize many people around here by name. I tend to ignore handles and look at blurbs. Post content. So no offense to anyone, but I make no assumptions about Moe or most other people. I just look at their posts and respond to the posts.
One of the things I like about blogs as opposed, say, to Usenet, is the relative lack of personality threads and personality posting. In Usenet, every argument begins with a backstory of whatever arguments those two people have already had for the last nine years. In the blog world, I tend to have about a 24-hour attention span when it comes to posters, unless they are Stormy, Darrel, Birkel or the always-interesting DougJ, who is actually Jon Stewart having a little fun with us.
ppGaz
Glad to see that that experiment ended!
;-)
Anyway, no, I was saying to someone who was, by outward appearance, asking for more politness, let’s start with our own “sides.” You herd your side, and I (or somoeone) can try to herd mine, and let’s see what happens.
The conventionl “cry for politeness” is more aimed at herding the opposition, if you get my drift, which I am sure that you do! Bzzt. Game over. No opposition worth its salt is going to unilaterally disarm (verbally). There’s seeking peace, and then there’s appeasement.
Slartibartfast
It’s sort of on life support.
Nah, I can never tell who’s on my side. I tend to (with limited success) herd myself, and let others herd themselves.
On the other hand, invective is hardly ever conducive to getting anyone to agree with you outside of those who already do. If you’re seeking to affect the opinion of others, it’s effective to use a little respect. This rhetorical arms-race thing is really nothing more than performance art.
Not that I’m an authority, mind you.
ppGaz
Yes, interesting subject. I spent many years being a Usenet poster, and if you are familiar with that environment, you know that it’s a rather rowdy world.
Everyone does this sort of thing (posting) for his or her own reasons and with his or her own expectations. And I have run into enough different ones not to assume much of anything about what other people are doing. I myself have drastically changed both my goals and my expectations over the years, and they are still changing as we speak.
But basically, I don’t see this activity as having anything to do with “affecting the opinions of others”, ever. In that context I mean, changing the opinion of someone who is at variance with my own views. I am not out to convince anyone of anything, ever. I see it more as an exposure of views, complete with the theatrics that go with that (employed by almost everyone, in their own way), and representing a viewpoint (that is, mine, which is not necessarily anyone else’s, but not necessarily not someone else’s, either — just mine). My imagined outcome is that people are seeing these various blurbs float by and comparing and contrasting and deciding for themselves what if anything it all means. That’s about it.
Now, the heated and adversarial stuff is going to happen, and does happen, and my hunch is that it doesn’t affect the impressions people are getting about the “real” subject, whatever that is at the moment, one way or the other, very much. For example, I can assert that left and right views are expressed out there (on the Internets) in all sorts of styles, from A to Z, and with plenty of hardballs being thrown in both directions. The hardballs have no effect on me, I am persuaded by the factual and the intellectual content, and pretty much filter out the noise and the shrieking, until it gets personal, which it does once in a while. I tend to respond in kind, and I can dish it out as well as take it, be it unpleasant, or pleasant. I prefer pleasant, but politics and pleasantry are oil and water these days. I take an almost-daily shot at calm and rational statement, but about 93% of the time that sort of thing is drowned out by noise, sarcasm, flames, attack politics, etc. Doesn’t bother me much, compared to Usenet, this place is a tea party.
Bob
If McKinley had put his foot down none of this would have happened.