The patriotism police at Hugh Hewitt’s site and Red State are all tied up in a knot about these Fox News poll results:
Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?
Overall: 63% Yes 22% No 15% Don’t Know
Democrats: 51% Yes 34% No 15% Don’t Know
Republicans: 79% Yes 11% No 10% Don’t Know
Independents 63% Yes 19% No 17% Don’t Know
Dena Barnett laments:
Friends, I’ll allow you a minute to wrap your minds around this, for we are truly through the looking class. Even though we have some 150,000 troops in harm’s way and we universally profess to “support the troops,” over 1/3 of our society either wants them to fail or doesn’t know if they want them to succeed. Even more chilling are the results regarding our currently dominant political party. 49% of Democrats either want us to lose in Iraq or “don’t know” if they want us to succeed.
I would love to hear why losing in Iraq would be in the national interest. And I would love to hear the humanitarian justification for leaving Baghdad’s civilians to the tender mercies of the murderous militias and terrorists that stalk that city.
And I would also love to hear Democratic leaders respond to these poll numbers. But I won’t hold my breath.
Good. I don’t think you can handle any oxygen deprivation. But why should just Democratic leaders respond? At any rate, Red State sees a silver lining with the results:
I don’t know how much more obvious they can make their desire for America to be defeated in Iraq. Can we question their patriotism yet?
Yet? As if anything has been holding you all back there for the past few years.
My thoughts on the poll? First, I don’t trust anything released by Fox News. Anything. I wouldn’t trust their weather reports. They pay Bill O’Reilly, for chrissakes. Second, I am willing to bet that most people who responded “No,” actually were responding that they hope Bush;s plan is not implemented. I have serious doubts that half the country (including 20% of Republicans) wants us to lose the war or doesn’t know if they want us to win.
Until a more rputable firm with a clearer question releases the poll, I will treat this as silliness.
Otto Man
What a horribly phrased question. “Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?”
So many ways to take that: “Do you favor the president’s plan to escalate the war?” or “Assuming the troops go in, are you rooting for them?”
I eagerly look forward to Fox News’s poll on “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
Bombadil
Your second point was actually my first thought — this is a “do you still beat your wife?” question, and is designed to create results that right-wingers can point to and say, “See? Those dirty fucking hippies want our troops to fail!”
Sadly, too many people (most of whom actually think Fox is a real news source) lack the analytical skills to look beyond the results to see the question for what it is.
Bombadil
Dammit, Otto, you must have a quicker connection than I do!
Keith
They may not want to hear this, but after 4+ years of this, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a lot of people respond with “Better them than us.”
SeesThroughIt
Wait, I thought America already demonstrated its hatred of America by voting for a Democratic Congress back in November.
jg
Divide and conquer.
Blue Neponset
Pretty soon a majority of Americans will hate America and the America lovers will be the unpatriotic ones.
Jake
Maybe people see the disconnect between the president’s plan and the chances that troops will succeed. Maybe people know anything the president wants has nothing to do with supporting the troops. And as Otto Man (heh) says, it is a crap question.
I also have to wonder how many people heard “I’m conducting a survey for FOX news,” and slammed the phone down.
Cyrus
I wish I could have got here before Otto Man and Bombadil, but let me second what they said — with such a leading question, I consider it a good sign that more than 40 percent of people actually read between the lines and were aware of how the answers would be used.
LOL. I’m seriously tempted to start reading sites like RedState for the humor value. 40 percent of the country does not support Bush’s plan. Never mind Bush is now less popular than even Cheney (RedState spin: “Cheney’s popularity goes up!”), or that 90 percent of people not in the direct employ of Bush think it’s a bad idea — to them, that’s a sign of a lack of patriotism. Classic.
Zifnab
Honestly, I think this poll was designed to be “See! America DOES want our President to succeed! Why won’t Democrats in Congress support our troops when popular opinion is so far against them?” But due to the absolutely abysmal polling in the face of such a loaded question, I imagine they had to change their spin.
I really appreciate how the 20% of Republicans and 36% of Independents who don’t support our President’s clear plan for victory are given a free pass. Maybe the Republicans need to start cleaning house before they tackle the opposition.
Mao’s Little Red BookFOX News clearly states that 1 in 5 Republicans is a traitor. You better start dragging out 1 in 5 Republicans and putting bullets in brainpans before they revolt and overthrow the party.ThymeZone
In March 2003, despite my strong opposition to the war, and my conviction that Bush has rushed us into it without justification and with unwarranted risk, I said, “Well, if we are going to have this war, I hope we win it quickly and can get out of there quickly and with a minimum loss of life on both sides.”
And I carried that good will right up to the day when it became clear that there were no WMDs, and that Bush and his people were going to try to keep lying about that, and then trying to move the goalposts from WMDs to “freedom and democracy” for Iraq. That’s when I said, fuck these guys, I can’t believe a word they say. I don’t think they know what they are doing, and I don’t think they can be truthful about for five minutes.
If that shows up on a poll as being “unpatriotic” in the view of the Red Staters, then so be it. I don’t care what their judgement is, because they are supporting the worst government in the history of this country and lying about it on a daily basis. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
Being “patriotic” does not mean supporting the government, it means supporting what you think the country is supposed to be. In this case, the government and the country are working towards two different agendas AFAIC, and I don’t have to give this government one minute of loyalty or approval for anything. Screw them very much with prejudice.
jg
I finally get what the story, ‘The Emperor Has No Clothes’, means.
p.lukasiak
Hey, I want Bush’s plan to fail, because the minute Iraq is stabilized, Bush will attack Iran….and Iran will retaliate with steps that will throw the US into w worldwide depression….
(for instance….Iran could send up “dirty bomb” filled with Yellowcake in its missile warheads and shoot it over over Saudi Arabia’s oil fields— A patriot missile “takes out” that Iranian missile, ensuring the widest possible distribution of yellowcake irradiating Saudi oil…….)
Pb
And now, a Fox News follow-up poll question: “Why do you hate America?”
Anyhow, if they don’t like those poll results, they’d be apoplectic about any real Iraq poll results, which are simultaneously more honest and less favorable…
srv
That’s what we were asking you back in 2003. We’re still waiting for why this war was such a great idea.
dreggas
Everything you just said with the exception that I believed what Powell said at the UN and did support the war.
BadTux
I think you’re correct about how people were responding to this poll. I was a foe of invading Iraq from day one. After Hans Blix’s team had pretty much gone over the place with a fine-tooth comb and filed their first report, it was clear that a) Iraq had no functioning WMD factories (you can’t hide WMD factories from men on the ground, Blix had inspected every possible installation and found nothing that could make WMD), b) Iraq had no large WMD stockpiles that would threaten America and Americans (stockpiles deteriorate with time, no infrastructure since 1992 means no working WMD), and c) Iraq was thus not an immediate threat and handling the issue of Iraq could wait. It was also clear just from looking at the demographics that invading Iraq with the idea of installing a democracy in the place essentially meant Iraq becoming Iran West, due to the Shiite majority — the same reason why Bush Sr. didn’t send his troops to Baghdad. I couldn’t figure out why that would be in the national interests (creation of an Iranian satellite state next door to Saudi Arabia) thus couldn’t support sending troops into the country under the rubric of “spreading democracy” either (the purpose of the American government is to serve America and Americans, not to serve some other folks overseas). I supported sending those troops into Afghanistan and Pakistan instead to find and bring to justice the man who DID attack us on 9/11 (Osama bin Forgotten — remember him?). Osama attacked us. He needed to go *DOWN*, to show the world that you can’t attack America and get away with it.
Instead, Dear Leader decided to give aid and comfort to our nation’s enemies by making it clear that our nation can be attacked with impunity, and attacked Iraq instead of bringing to justice the man who attacked America. It was as if the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, and FDR had declared war on Mexico in response.
That said, when our troops crossed into Iraq, I did not say “I hope we lose!”. I just muttered “Well, I guess the Rubicon has been crossed, we’re officially an empire now, I just hope the Bush administration does a good job of it.” Of course, they didn’t. They believed their own propaganda about how it was a war for democracy rather than a war for oil, elections were held, the Shiites won (shocker! They’re the majority!), and now Iraq might as well be called Iran West because the “Iraqi” government has ties to Iran that go back to before Saddam’s time. Just as was predicted, by Bush Sr. and myself and anybody else who knew anything about Iraq.
The deal with empire is you can’t play around with all this “democracy” if you want to be an empire. And if you don’t want to be an empire, behaving like one by attacking nations that haven’t attacked you never works, because a democracy simply doesn’t have it in its genes to do what it takes to pacify and hold an empire (hint: Stalin knew. As Stalin would put it, “no man, no problem” — i.e., genocide solves all imperial problems, just ask the Ukrainians, or the 1/3rd of them that were left after Stalin finished slaughtering and starving them to death anyhow). While I am glad to find out that we are not the type of nation that can do empire “right” (i.e. via mass slaughter and genocide), the fact that we can’t do empire “right” means the imperial experiment is doomed to failure, and 20,000 more troops aren’t going to make a difference there.
So anyhow, this “poll”, to me, appears just as valid as the following poll:
Fox News Poll: Have you quit beating your wife?
60%: Yes
40%: No
Republicans: 75% Yes
25% No
Democrats: 51% Yes
49% No
Why, this poll proves that 40% of Americans beat their wife! (Or does it prove that 40% of Americans never beat their wife in the first place?). And 49% of Democrats beat their wife! (Or does it prove that 49% of Democrats never beat their wife in the first place?).
Boy, I *LOVE* polls with loaded questions. You can make them say anything you want in order to further your political agenda!
ThymeZone
This is how idiotic your government is.
Any high school student of history can tell you that in a democracy, you need great, wide and deep public support for a war.
Your government takes this to mean, “Okay, do whatever it takes to get great, wide and deep public support.”
If you have to make shit up, skew the facts, demagogue the issues, move the goalposts, browbeat your opponents, try to turn Americans against Americans … do it. DO WHATEVER IT TAKES.
That’s a perversion of the original requirement. Broad, deep and LASTING support comes from proper justification that doesn’t require being puffed up with bullshit like “Saddam is just like Hitler.” Or like “Mushroom cloud!”
Once you resort to bullshit, and the bullshit is exposed, the support is going to go away. That’s where we are now.
Tough shit. We warned them.
pharniel
Ace of Spades commentors are openly talking about starting a cival war here in the ‘killing the 50% of the country that doesn’t get it’ variety.
I want to send each and every one of them a copy of The Art of War and highlight all the releveant passeges that they seem to have not grasped, espcially about ‘winning before you have even entered battle is the highest form of victory, surpased only by winning without going to battle at all’
the problem seems to be what is ‘success’ in Iraq, and the crowing is still on about how ‘well, y’all wanted a million troops in ’03 why not 20k more now?!?!?!? hypocrite, flip floper ad. hominum.’
Worst part is i think these are otherwise pretty rational people who if you laid it out for them they’d get it, but for some reason just use the internet to joust at the windmills of the ‘traitorous’ half of the country so they can feel oppressed, persecuited and ‘special’ for getting it.
It reminds me of the nazi party and the white power movement in a distrubing way. It’s the same tactics that cults use, from scientologists to mormons to Federated Consumer Products.
my own thoughs are – pull to kurdistan (and just start calling it that, let turkey call it an autonomic provice of and work side by side with the US. turkey get’s rights to ‘hot persuit’ into kurdistan, the kurds get thier state and we get oil. notloose-notloose-notloose (not quite a win, but hey, it’s close enough) and let everyone fight over what’s left of iraq.
It’s a horrible solution, but we’re in the devil you know/devil you don’t know because of piss poor planning, performance and adaption for the past 4 years.
Our options are limted and aking away anything at this point would be better than a full pull out, but essentially it’s time to cut bait, ’cause we been fishn’ all day.
ThymeZone
Uh, to quote a great American, “Bring it on.”
According the Lewis Black, the Dumbest Words Ever Uttered By Anyone Anywhere.
Look, these assholes set out to grab all the power in this country by declaring war on half of America. They used code words like “values” and “culture war.”
So, now they have divided the country. Now they want to turn that into a real armed conflict?
I rest my case about these assholes. They’ve come full circle now, their true “values” are exposed.
And if they really want a war, as I keep telling them, I am a dead shot. I am not afraid of them.
The Other Steve
Can you get any stupider.
Do I want a Pony? Yes
Do I expect a Pony? No
Republicans are immature imbeciles incapable of rational thought.
RSA
This is the way I thought of the question, too, and it’s caused me a bit of soul-searching. I’ve been against the Iraq invasion from the start. I’ve also hoped that as few of our soldiers (and Iraqis) get killed or injured as possible. One plausible short-term position might be to hope that such a war is over very quickly and that it’s an unqualified success. But a longer-term view is that such a success would encourage the Bush administration to think that their style of militarism works. That would be disastrous. When someone says, “Hey, I bet the house on Red 24 to come up, and it did!” I don’t say, “Wow, your gambling system really must work–keep going!” So as unintuitive as it might sound, I’m okay with the surge failing, because I think if it succeeds, the next target will be Iran. We’re in a lose-lose situation, and I despise Bush for putting us in it.
ThymeZone
Exactly, precisely.
We can’t empower these meatheads to screw things up any worse than they already have. If that means taking away their toys while they scream “unpatriotic!” then so be it. Take away the toys and let them scream.
Tsulagi
Yep, no bias whatsoever from the champions of Fair and Balanced in this poll. I also liked the complete impartiality of this question…
But you still gotta love the comedy these guys provide…
LOL! Fox News translation: Okay, no way even we can spin that he hasn’t totally fucked up for the past four years on this thing, and it’s likely that record will continue with this new plan. So let’s ask ‘em if this plan fails quickly, would they tolerate yet another renamed Stay the Course.
Tim in SF
But we haven’t lost Iraq. Remember, we won the war. “Major combat operations have ended” said Chimpy McHalliburton on the deck of that aircraft carrier. What we have now is not a war, it’s an occupation. I wish people would keep these terms straight.
As for success or failure (of the occupation), it would help if we had some useful metrics.
Is success where all the Iraqis convert to Christianity?
Is success where they have a western-style election with purple fingers and all and vote for a Christian? Is it still a success if they vote for one of Sadr’s buddies? or for Sadr?
Is it a success when the area quiets down as a result of being annexed by Iran?
Is it a success simply if the violence ends? how about if the violence ends but we have to remove our permanent bases?
Is it a success if all the Sunis are rounded up and exterminated?
What order do these things have to happen in order for it to be a success? (as in, does violence have to end BEFORE we pull our troops out for it to be a success or can it happen right afterwards, in which case we should pull out everything starting today)
I mean, WTF is success in Iraq, anyways?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
There’s your 34%. P Luk and His Addleminded Ilk want America to fail because their crystal balls see a dark force rising, and it is us. Adjust your Reynold’s Wrap accordingly.
The 51% of Democrats who say they want us to succeed (only about half of them are lying, I’m guessing) are like the Democrat leadership — they are really against continuing military presence, they believe it is doomed to failure (however defined), they believe we are asking troops to die for a mistake, they believe every death is blood for nothing…but they won’t propose cutting the funding for it because it might cost them votes from the middle. So they willfully fund what they themselves define as the useless slaughter of our soldiers, all for their own marginal political gain. I hope there’s a special extra-hot, extra-smelly place in some kind of hell for cynical cowards like them.
Steve
It’s obvious why leaving Iraq would be in the national interest. If someone wants to equate leaving and losing, on the other hand, that’s their problem.
If we got our forces out of Iraq, we’d have the manpower available to finish the job in Afghanistan and defeat the resurgent Taliban, we could focus our attention on real threats, and we wouldn’t be bleeding hundreds of billions of dollars a year. Why would anyone be in favor of these things? Gee, I have no idea.
KCinDC
The Foz News pollsters of course designed a question that gives their ideological opponents no possible answer. The way the results were bound to be presented, the question effectively translates to “Do you believe that (A) Bush’s Iraq plan is the best plan ever or (B) American troops should all be slaughtered by Islamic terrorists? Please answer only ‘A’ or ‘B’.” The only appropriate response is to hang up and refuse to play the game — but then that would ensure the results will be 100% A.
Dave
That’s funny considering the lot of ’em wet their pants at the mention of terrorism.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
That’s beyond retarded. So you think the problem is, Democrats are as stupid as you, and can’t understand a simple question. As much as I second that emotion, let me make it so simple that even you can understand.
They never asked anything about what anyone expects about anything. It asks what they WANT. Like someone somewhere said, “Even if I don’t expect I’ll win the lottery, if somebody gives me a lottery ticket, I still WANT to win.”
I don’t think anyone is looking at you to define who’s an “immature imbecile incapable of rational thought,” dude. That’s all I’m saying.
Don
What do you want to bet that the people who said “How do I answer that question? I don’t want us to fail or people to die but I think the plan stinks and shouldn’t be done.” are the “Don’t know” votes?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Link?
pharniel
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop Says:
wow you are a jackass.
if congress ‘defunds’ the troops the president isn’t going to call them home
he’s just going to denounce the traitorus congress and then keep them there w/out ammo or armour.
and then play to the base when the body count rises exponentially and talk about how it’s all congress’ fault.
you sir are an ass, and to suggest that congress ass-rape the troops because otherwise they are cowards only shows exactly what you are after: power and political influence.
there’s a special hell for people like you.
Zifnab
Shorter EEEL: “ALL DEMOCRATS ARE TRAITORS! EVEN THE ONES THAT AREN’T!”
RSA
And if I win, then I’ll live happily ever after!
Zifnab
Because when Congress cuts funding and the President pulls a Stalingrad, it’s the Congress that’s an asshole.
Your logic is super cool, and I would like to vote for you for Supreme Overlord for Life. Where can I send you campaign contributions?
Grrr
The Plan will only work if we all clap louder, in unison.
Then, and *only* then, will terrorist world-wide lay down their arms. Hopeless in the face of the Mighty Surge and deprived of the life-blood of Leftest American Defeatism, their leaders will file meekly into the nearest Bhagdad police station to sign the Instruments of Surrender – promising to take Jesus into their hearts and to never-ever blow stuff up again.
It *will* work because it *has* to work. And there will be rabbits and we’ll live off the fat of land.
SeesThroughIt
Hey, why do you think I read blogsforbush? For the well-reasoned, factually-subtantiated arguments? It’s because Mark Noonan, much like Crazy Eddie, is “In-SANE!” He’ll say the stupidest shit you can conceive of and expect you to believe it. It’s great.
But I should warn that it’s not a good idea to make reading such sites a daily operation–while you’ll get a lot of good laughs, it will also depress you that 1) people are stupid enough to write such crap, and 2) other people actually believe it.
ThymeZone
I am cheered by the idea that in a serious discussion of war and policy, we can be thrown off track by goofball spoofs who have nothing else to do but throw us off track.
Thanks, guys. Very helpful.
Tony J
Interesting.
21% of the Fox News viewers who identify themselves as Republicans are asked a skewed question designed to equate “Supporting the Troops” with “Supporting the President” either say they don’t support or don’t know if they support El Residente’s plans for escalation.
Talk about losing your base.
Cyrus
Let the record show that the best analogy this rabid right-winger can come up with for Bush’s plan is winning the lottery. Someone more uncharitable than me might say that he’s as dismissive of the risks of the war as he is of the risks of the lottery (okay, I would say this as well), but either way, it looks like a pretty accurate summary of the odds of success.
srv
Here’s a question for the redstaters and EEEL:
“Will you personally stake your reputation on the success of the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week?”
Either you want and support it whole-heartedly, or you don’t.
Zifnab
Why is EEEL obsessed with special hell?
Is that, like, hell’s equivalent of the short bus?
pharniel
from the comments here
also confusing a legitimate War with a failed Occupation
and of course, more troops now is the exact same thing as more troops three years ago
oh look, the ‘enemies’ in teh press, mysterious and just happen to co-incde with anyone who says things we don’t like…
essentially these guys keep employing every darrell tacktic over and over while repeating the party lines, when asked what ‘success’ is as a quantifiable goal they go ‘duh you’re an idiot for not knowing what it means’, they dodge, avoid and trott out every tired old line.
it’s pretty disturbing because as i said, they seem like rational people, just that they can’t see the forest for the trees.
and those that can get shouted down.
ThymeZone
That’s what happens when you lie to people for six years. When you tell them one thing and mean another. When you say one thing will happen and the opposite happens. When you go on tv and talk about a war with a fucked up smirk on your face.
People eventually say “fuck it.” Why should I support this joker?
Who’s left now? The really stupid people, the pathological liars, the paid liars, the people who will continue to cling to the coattails for their own purposes.
ThymeZone
Just the idea that these motherfuckers would try to equate the brain farts of George Bush with the invasion of France in WWII is just breathtaking. D-Day was the most planned, most trained-for and most orchestrated large military operation in history. Bush’s surge is a pencil-and-paper slight of hand trick that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
Your grandfathers have just been thrown into the trash heap of history by these stupid assholes. Enough of them is enough. Why are we even discussing their stupid brayings any more?
pharniel
Zifnab Says:
ok. given the track record of the current president, and the ‘we must win this vaugly defined war against…those guys..’ attitude of the president’s remaining supporters that if congress cut funding to the Iraq expaditionary force the president would recall the troops?
Or do you think instead he would trade the lives of the service men there for the political capitol to make gains in the 2008 elections and make himself look like a myrtyr wo desperatly tried to ‘do the right thing’ but was underut by those terrorist loving dirtbags the opposition party.
ThymeZone
That’s a Hardball transcript pasted from DKos.
The GOP is going to melt down over this war fuckup. The nattering bloggers and the liars at FauxNews are not going to prevent that. This game is over.
pharniel
Zifnab,
Essentially what i was trying to say was that i think that congress defunding the army would basically be used as a tool for political gain and fuck all the soldiers in Iraq because, well, dead bodies that are easy to frame as ‘the opposition’s’ fault makes for good base riling.
I honestly think we’re to the point where impeachment and trial for treason are the only options.
ThymeZone
I haven’t been in favor of it, but if the little prick keeps pushing the envelope, I could be persuaded.
While conviction may not be a reasonable expectation, basically bringing the government to a stop for a year would be worthwhile if he leaves us no other choice.
jenniebee
EEEL: the meaning of the original question, “Do you personally want the Iraq plan President Bush announced last week to succeed?” depends not on the verb (“want”) but on what the reader fills in as the implied prepositional phrase. “Succeed” where? It is reasonable to finish that sentence with “in its initial implementation,” i.e., that the President should successfully send 20,000 New Originals to Iraq, instead of with “in its final objectives” i.e., wherever the goalpost for victory over Saddam and the terrists is now. I lose track of where that is.
For those of us who are exposed regularly to blogs and Fox, the second meaning is the one that we understand Fox to have meant becuase it’s part of Fox’s meme that Libruls, Democrats and other gay athiest types are secretly in their heart of hearts vicariously murdering real Americans through the terrorists.
Jake
Someone misunderstood the phrase “Roll the bones.”
I wonder if the komrades at RedState have anything to say about some of the other poll results.
pharniel
ThymeZone Says:
My basic premise is that he and his crew wanted to go off on a little jingoist military adventure.
WHich I was ok with, honestly, as in the past this has turned out well for the US (See – mexican american war, spanish american war).
I figure correctly persicuted(sp) this coudl net us a nice bit of ‘friendly’ real estate that we’d slowly use as carrots for Iran and Jordan and Turkey to get behind us and start to loosen the Saudi’s grip on our energy reserves, allowing us to eventually say ‘fuck you’ and start basically bullying them around till we found bin laden and krew.
and hey, cheap oil.
then we had the run up. it was botched.
we had the actual invasion, it was ok ’till clean up time when it became obvious that no thought to ‘we’ve won, now what?’ happened at all. it was like my old nutered cat who’d jump on the female cat, mount her and then look at us with the ‘i’m supposed to do something important now…what was it?’ look.
then we didn’t jsut setup a puppet rejime and bail, we stuck around attracting snipers etc.
in short our president and his advisors attempted to exert imperial influence and fialed miserably. If they were honerable and this was rome they’d fall on thier swords.
since neither is the case we have to help them along.
the crimes: they ahve given material and substantive aid and comfort to our enimies by
1) destabilizing our econimic base
2) gross and ineffective war profitering that did not provide actual goods and services for the war.
3) indebting us to our biggest competitor (china) and substantually weakening our position by incuring huge debts to them.
in short, they buggered us and kept hte moeny for themselves.
war profitering hasn’t really ever been illegal here, it’s when you make phat stacks of cash and then fail to deliver that you get whacked.
Grrr
Funny thing…leading up to the mid-terms Redstate dismissed all the professional scientific polls (which turned out to be eerily correct) as part of the VLWC.
Any statistically meaningless straw-poll favorable to their desired outcome was embraced unquestionably.
This is nothing new.
Nor is Fox “News” desire to find/manufacture things that make Democrats look really, really bad.
TenguPhule
Shorter Lambchop: I hate Democrats. I hate them with Green Eggs and Ham. I hate them hate them, Sam I am. It does not matter if they tell the truth, it does not matter if they try to save some troops. I simply hate them like a goof.
TenguPhule
Shorter Lamb II: Yes means no. Stop means go. Rape is sex that hasn’t been agreed to yet.
Bruce Moomaw
I’ll say again what I told a Bush defender on Greg Djerejian’s site: If we “hope for failure of the current effort in Iraq”, it’s only in the sense that we want this damned administration to come to its senses, pull out of Iraq, and start using America’s military strength instead in the places and in the ways that it SHOULD be used to maximize our chances of winning the obviously crucial worldwide struggle against both Islamic Fascism and Megaterrorism. Exactly how many of us opposed retaliation of any sort after 9-11? How many opposed the Afghan War? How many think we should take no action to minimize the chances of GENUINE nuclear terrorism? Goddamn few.
In short, I agree with Cole on this. Very few Democrats want “America to fail”. What they want is for this administration not to even START to do yet another idiotic thing that will weaken us in the worldwide struggle.
TenguPhule
First two thoughts when I read this.
What plan?
What reputation?
Bruce Moomaw
Let me put it another way: I’m tired of being told that if you oppose Cornelius Fudge, you must support Voldemort. (I don’t know whether Rowling intended it or not, but her description of Fudge’s combination of strategic ineptitude and dirty political tricks in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is downright eerie in its appropriateness as an allegory of our times. Unfortunately, Dumbledore hasn’t yet taken over our own war yet.)
grumpy realist
1. Would I like Bush’s plan to succeed? Duh, of course.
2. Do I think it will? No. I think it’s a case of “too little, too late.” It’s going to be a total SNAFU that will simply result in a lot more dead people on both sides. And 6 months down the road we’re going to be in the exact same situation and Bush will be desparately casting around for another way to run the clock out.
Teak111
Well, liberals want Amer to succeed in Iraq, we are just dubious that Bush can deliver and as a result are skeptical of his latest plan because we see clearly were his other plans have gotten us. Is that unpatriotic? GOP is so obsessed with “winning,” as if this a WWII battle of the Bulge. Iraq requires a much more complex solution then winning and, frankly, more troops idsn’t gonna do it. GOP types, knuckledraggers I think they are called, don’t want to hear. Sounds like they are saying authoritainism equals a patriotism, but smarts equal a terrorist lover. But my real question is why these types of commentators even have a voice.
RSA
Bush is making progress, at least when it comes to literary allusions; it’s a step upward from being the villain of My Pet Goat.
Faux News
Sadly Mr. Zone it makes sense. The NeoCon Cheerleaders have compared Bush to Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, and Lincoln. The latest comparisons have been to Churchill! Which has caused quite the outrage on the other side of the pond.
Bruce Moomaw
Bravo, John! If that wasn’t a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question on the part of the Fox pollsters, I’ve never seen one.
dreggas
Fixed.
Krista
Do we even HAVE a Dumbledore? Or has everybody with brains, courage and integrity been long since discredited and their influence weakened?
dreggas
Oh christ,
man listening to CSpan now the house republicans are sounding oh so shrill over the fact that the democrats got their hundred hours agenda passed with large majorities in the house. They are nitpicking to the point of pure stupidity.
This is funny as hell.
ThymeZone
Exactly.
Dems to Bush: I’m gonna need ya to step away from the red phone …..
The Other Steve
As I said… imbeciles incapable of rational thought.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
There’s still no call for civil war or any of the garbage the first poster was trying to peddle. He made that up, and you guys bought it. Suckers!
Jimmy Mack
That’s really pretty sad that most Democrats want the plan to fail. I would have expected more. When the shoe was on the other foot, in Bosnia, I doubt you would have seen many Republicans saying they hope that failed. We’re all Americans here and we should all hope for the best in any war, even one we don’t support.
Dave
…says a person who’s supporting a war started on false pretenses.
Zifnab
That’s one reason the Dems won’t do it. They’re not ready to let the troops pay the price of Bush’s petty political games.
On the flip side, if the Senate Armed Services Committee wanted to sit down with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and politely tell the President to go fuck himself, I wouldn’t mind seeing Congress and the Generals pull a “signing statement” of its own, recall the troops, and tell Bush to go pound sand.
pharniel
ZifNab
A bloke can dream can’t ‘e?
pharniel
e^3&l
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop Says:
#26
That quote, specifically, references attacking ‘progressives’ for ‘free speech’ because if you don’t they’ll get your kids killed.
Seriously, i’ll do a simple find and replace and we’ll see if this is familier:
“How soon before you have to grab your shotguns and rope and lynch a few niggers? WIll it before or after they’ve stolen away your daughters or before?”
or the timeless
“Will you do your patriotic duty only after The Jew and the Global Zionest Cospiracy finsish destroying the fatherland or before?”
It’s the same speech, differnt boogyman and differnt style.
It’s especially loathesome because it’s an American urging violence and repression against other americans for exorcising one of the core tenets and precepts of the country. In short, because people I don’t like are saying and doing things I don’t like I need to get my buddies to beat the shit out of them because My leaders are perfect. They’re plans are not to blame, the enemy is. ANd oh look, the enemy expands every. single. day.
Because the leaders couldn’t be corrupt and incompetent and the plan couldn’t be foolhardy and inefective.
Zifnab
I’ll say, Jimmy. What the hell is the country coming to? When we were down half a trillian dollars in Bosnia with no end in sight, and President Clinton sent in 20k more American troops into the mouths of Serbian guerrilla terrorists right after botching Milosevic’s televised execution, I don’t think the Republicans so much as pepped a word of complaint.
~Tom Delay [Congressional Record, “Removal of United States Armed Forces from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,” 4/28/99]
Duke Cunningham [Washington Times, 4/29/99]
~Richard Lugar [New York Times, 5/4/99]
[CQ House Committee Coverage, 5/20/99]
Link
Republicans are hypocrites. Never Forget.
TenguPhule
And you would be wrong as always. A whiner bunch of nambie pambies you never heard then the GOP protesting ‘no exit strategy!’
I *know* Bush’s ‘plan’ is going to be yet another in a long unbroken string of Fuckups. I merely hope it fails with the least amount of American casualties possible.
This administration is the very definition of ‘Catastrophic Success’.
Jimmy Mack
Actually, I just noticed that the “no” figures are somewhat high for Republicans and Indies too. I have to question the validity of this poll at this point
Jimmy Mack
What’s wrong with that quote? I agree that the Dukestir’s is pretty bad.
Rome Again
TZ, that would be my father. I’m under the impression that you’re older than I am (just turned 45 on Sunday) am I living in the wrong generation? My parents were a little older when they did the deed that ultimately resulted in my birth, but I don’t think all others who have fathers in that war have expired yet.
My grandfather was lucky, too young for WWI, too old for WWII.
TenguPhule
We had one, Kerry in 2004.
And that goof never saw it coming for him either.
ThymeZone
Rome, my father was a Navy pilot in WWII, Pacific theater. He died in 2001 at the age of about 87. So he would have been late 20’s early 30’s during the war.
My workmate over here is 23 and his father went to Vietnam and his grandfather fought in WWII so he says. So I went with grandfather because I figured we had more 20-30 types than oldsters like me here at The Juice(I am younger than Bill Clinton …. but not much).
But anyway, I really meant fathers and grandfathers but I was just too lazy to write it that way because this whole thread had me a little riled up. The idea of these righties attacking their fellow Americans over this “surge” thing is just too much to take.
TenguPhule
Besides the fact it proves you spout off ignorant shit that is easily disproven?
Rome Again
EEEL said:
Let’s face it EEEL, this IS hell, and isn’t that the reason why you oppose Global Warming? NewsFlash: Jesus got diverted on his trip to pick you up in his invisible elevator, he’s been detained and will not be showing for your appointment. Perhaps you’d like to lower your carbon footprint now?
Jake
Nice collection of quotes. Nice collection of criminals.
ThymeZone
No, if you were older you’d be a boomer. We’re the ones that are going to be put on ice floes and pushed out to sea in the coming years. We are going to get too expensive to take care of. We are starting to leak.
You are MUCH better off where you are, my dear ….
Rome Again
TZ said:
I realize how aggravating it is, but please don’t be so dismayed that you are about to blow a gasket, as the tricks they still have up their sleeves are only more incredible from here on in. Yes, I agree it’s outrageous, but we haven’t even begun to reach the level of insanity that they will eventually obtain to, yet.
Rome Again
Interesting, as I was just thinking to myself recently that my parents were lucky that they didn’t live long enough to see all this insanity.
Zifnab
If you’d scrubbed out the word “Kosavo” and replaced it with “Iraq” you would have the verbatim exact same arguement that Democrats were using against our current wartime debacle. However, I don’t remember any Democrats calling Tom DeLay a traitor and a terrorist lover while he was giving his speech. Whatever you may think of the US intervention in Kosavo, it is blatantly obvious that the Republican Congress has a sickeningly obtuse double standard.
In the end, Republicans did cut funding for Kosavo and they never suffered like the Democrats are suffering politically because they might cut funding. There’s no logic here, no sanity whatsoever. It’s pure, raw, undiluted, senseless political talk with no regard to national security, humanitarian needs, military well-being, or financial interest. Crass manipulation based on factual and emotional lies. It’s the absolute worst form of politics and it is the reason why I spit venom when I hear Hot Tub Tom’s name.
That’s what’s wrong with that quote.
RSA
. . .because while I understand that Democrats are traitors by nature, it’s inconceivable that Republicans and Independents might share the same views.
Tim in SF
I’m disturbed the the use of the word “hope” and it’s sister, “support” on this site and elsewhere. Who gives a shit who anyone “hopes” wins, loses, dies, pulls out, or anything else. Who cares who you “support” symbolically if you aren’t going to do anything real. Unless you have some sort of magical powers that bring about an actual result, then all this hoping and supporting is nothing more than intellectual masturbation.
It’s not “sad,” Jimmy, it’s simply irrelevant.
ThymeZone
Ditto, ditto, and more ditto.
And Tom knows all that, and he knows that he is just fucking with us, and that he can get away with it, and he loves it.
Zifnab
It’s all Tinkerbell all the time, baby.
If you’re not clapping for the US, you’re clapping for the terrorists. And then the terrorists win.
Tim in SF
Hey EEEL, there still has been no definition of “success” or listing of victory conditions by you or any of the other warmongers on this list. I’ve asked the question, please answer it.
ThymeZone
I was just thinking the other day, how lucky it is to live in these times. Seriously. I got to hear Martin Luther King in person. And Louis Armstrong. And hear Duke Ellington.
And hear Sarah Vaughan. And Hank Williams Sr. And Patsy Cline. And Billie Holiday. And Elvis. And Ray Charles. And Steve Earle.
Life is good!
Rome Again
Funny, you don’t mention anyone of any real recent works. My parents, now deceased, got to witness all those greats too (not that they were the kind of people to appreciate any of them, with the possible exception of Duke Ellington). They however didn’t have to deal with the insanity that we’re dealing with these days. I still think they were luckier, personally.
Life WAS good, now however, I believe it is rapidly declining. I remember that saying (I think it was a movie) back in the 60’s called “Stop the world, I want to get off”. I thought the title was funny then, I think it’s a less than hopeful consideration (aka prayer) now.
Jimmy Mack
And I don’t criticize that either. They have a right to criticize the president’s conductment of the war. But they really ought to offer their own solutions rather than just attacking the president. Failure to do so isn’t treason, but it hardly speaks well of them.
dreggas
If I recall the Republicans solution to both Kosovo and Somalia (after blackhawk down) was “BRING THEM HOME” and that we should stay out of interference not only in civil wars but involvement in any form of policing the world and/or nation building.
In fact W ran on that in 2000 saying we need to have a “humble foreign policy” and avoid nation building. But I guess 9/11 changed everything huh?
Jimmy Mack
It’s a false comparison for two reasons: (1) that all happened before 911, which surely had a profound impact on our government’s psyche and (2) neither area had anything like the strategic importance of Iraq. Both could be seen as meddling, though I supported involvement in Kosovo and think I was right to do so. We’re already in Iraq, so I don’t see how actually trying to win the darn thing could possibly be described as meddling. But then again I’m not “reality-based”, right?
Tim F.
So you were ready to accept that America is half full of drooling crazy people until you realized that the poll also reflected poorly on your own tribe. It’s even more depressing to think that most rightwingers will not even take that second step.
The Other Steve
Other than bashing on Clinton, what solutions did the Republicans offer for Kosovo?
It is interesting that Kosovo was fairly successful by comparison, and yet here we had Republicans calling it the worst foreign policy blunder ever.
Given today the Republicans champion the invasion of Iraq as a good thing.
You really do have to wonder about their ability to make good judgements.
The Other Steve
Not really. The Republicans had just as bad of judgement before 911 as they had afterwards.
The Other Steve
Oh yeah, one more question.
Explain how do we win in a country fighting a Civil War.
That I would really love to hear. How did the French and Germans win in the American Civil War?
It doesn’t appear so, no.
Jimmy Mack
Fair enough point. And I told you I disagreed with them, didn’t I? Let me clear: I now think that poll is bogus so you can disregard what I said about the shoe on the other foot and all that.
The Democrats in Congress now have not been that much worse than the Republicans were about Kosovo. A little worse — a little more shrill and vitriolic — but basically the same.
Rome Again
1. 9/11 only changed something in your feeble little mind. What your belief that “9/11 changed everything” will lead to in the future will be the rest of the world actually doing whatever it takes to stop the US from completely annihilating the world.
2. If a nation decided to invade and occupy our nation would you say that because they were already here, we shouldn’t interfere in their meddling? I’m sure you would, since you believe it’s okay for us to continue to occupy Iraq.
Jimmy Mack, you’re completely nuts. Seek help.
dreggas
A “pre 9/11” mentality then? Well let me see Iraq is exactly the same type of situation now that we were in when we were in Bosnia, further we made it that way and invaded a sovereign nation and overthrew it’s leaders. Now I am willing to agree after 9/11 we needed to change our thinking but the end result has been:
1) Iraq as Bosnia writ large with regard to ethnic and sectarian violence which we started.
2) Iran on the verge of Nuclear weapons with no more threat from Saddam to the west and a friendly government in Iraq.
3) a Nuclear North Korea which was not nuclear prior to this administration.
Iraq had little strategic importance before 9/11 or after. Only now that we’ve completely made a mess of it does it have any strategic importance whatsoever. In fact I’d argue that Iraq kept Iran in check because Saddam was nuts enough to replay the Iran Iraq war if the Iranians attempted anything.
See here’s the problem we wouldn’t even have this comparison had it not been for the fact that we made it this way. As for winning, uh we won our objectives have been achieved in so much as Saddam is gone and there are no WMD’s. At this point this administration is doing nothing more than grasping at straws because they refuse to acknowledge what a collosal fuck up the entire venture was. We had a choice in going into this war, it was not somehow forced upon us and the idiots in charge chose the black and white cowboy bullshit route instead of acting like responsible adults.
Further more any chance we had at really truly stabilizing Iraq went out the door as soon as Bremer disbanded the Iraqi military and proceeded with de-Baathification. Lawlessness was allowed to spread, our military fighting force was turned into an occupation force and due to little to no real support from anyone outside of Great Britain we did not have the manpower to rebuild anything.
Further the cronyism in rebuilding contracts given to American companies vs Iraqis themselves only further screwed us in the long run. We sent in Carpet Baggers instead of the locals.
Jimmy Mack
I think a lot of people in Israel who were hit with scuds in Gulf War I woudl beg to differ.
ThymeZone
I don’t know, honestly. Like a lot of Americans, I’m afraid I live in a bubble of my own making. My bubble is pretty cushy at the moment and I am beyond lucky. But I know that it isn’t, for many people, and I know that bad luck could burst my bubble and leave me screwed.
Yes, I know people make a lot of their own luck, but I also know that I am standing on the shoulders of many people who have gone before me to make this possible. I didn’t choose to be born an American in the 20th century, I just won that lottery entirely by accident.
dreggas
By picking a side.
That’s another homerun we aren’t hitting is in a civil war you either get the fuck outta the way or take a side. And of course because we are truly led by morons at this point we’ll take the side of The Shi’a and in effect the Sadr’s of Iraq who tend to be the ones currently attacking our troops and running the death squads. Of course this also means we’ll be fighting for Iran who, besides loving that we got rid of their arch nemesis must be loving the fact that we are tacitly supporting their position by supporting the current Iraqi Regime we helped elect. Now if that doesn’t make your head spin I don’t know what will.
dreggas
Hmmmmm so post 9/11 we had to be Israel’s big brother and go beat up Iraq. The whole point of going to war with Iraq was the fact that Israel was around. It wasn’t WMD, it wasn’t the happy horseshit of democracy, it wasn’t even the oil. Nah it was because of Israel.
Tell me just how many Scuds Iraq launched into Israel after the gulf war?
Jimmy Mack
Four of five as I recall. But don’t forget, they were just convetional weapons. A “dirty scud” or a scud equipped with bioweapons could have literally emptied out a city like Tel Aviv. Is that something we should let happen on our watch?
Rome Again
I guess the difference between us is that I don’t see being born an American in the 20th century as a win. I would much rather be born into a nation in this century that I didn’t have to be ashamed of, and watch as they ruined the lives of people all over the world for OIL. More appropriately for me, I would have rathered be born into the caveman era. I bet I would have made a great caveman’s mate. While I would have missed out on the culture and works of the greats you mentioned above, I could go to sleep each night believing that the world would go on forever just as it was; where the only real threats were the animals my mate would go out and hunt for dinner and the cold that could be kept at bay by bonfire and animal skins. Instead, I go to sleep each night viewing the human race as termites eating away at the only piece of wood that exists in a huge field.
dreggas
4 or 5 scuds were launched into Israel during the Gulf war, afterwards and concurrent with the terms of surrender ending the war the iraqi’s were prevented from having any missiles with a range greater than 90 miles which would prevent them from hitting Israel (they also were not allowed to have parts for missiles under sanctions).
It was also all but proved that there were no WMD prior to the invasion and Iraq may have had all the ambition to restart its nuke program but none of the ability, thanks again to sanctions.
The whole “dirty scud” or one with “bioweapons” scenario was a canard.
dreggas
I’m probably considered just a baby (agewise) compared to everyone around here LOL.
TenguPhule
Shorter Jimmy: Jackalope!
TenguPhule
Shorter Jimmy: I don’t think at all.
Israel was *against* a US attack on Iraq in 2003 because they were were worried Iraq would try shooting at them to draw them into the fighting.
Thank you for playing.
TenguPhule
Shorter Jimmy: Democrats are Worse for they are Shrill!
Bush keeps dropping the soap and Jimmy keeps bending over to pick it up.
uptown
I would like us to get Osama bin Laden and succeed in Afghanistan, but with BushCo in charge – it ain’t going to happen.
TenguPhule
Shorter Jimmy: I have the worst case of doublespeaking bullshit you have ever seen.
The Democratic Party offered their own plans, which were rejected. Claiming they are ‘only attacking the president’ is pure GOP bullshit warm from the tap. You have only two choices in Iraq.
1. Leave now.
2. Leave later.
Pick one and stop pretending that there’s a pony to be found in Iraq.
TenguPhule
At this point, I would settle for Osama’s head. Just his head. And I don’t think we’re going to get it until Bush is evicted from the Whitehouse.
Afghanistan is already on the road to defeat. Years of neglect by the Bush team have ensured the rise of the Taliban once more as they are now going on the *offensive* against NATO forces. A few more years of Heroin money to grease the wheels and they’ll be right back where they were before the US invaded.
dreggas
I’ve long been in favor of redeploying our troops from Iraq straight to Afghanistan, it’s over the horizon from Iraq and it’s the general area where that douchebag bin laden is.
TenguPhule
Too late for that. We’ve worn out the welcome in Afghanistan just like we blew it in Iraq.
The human intelligence we need to get him just isn’t there.
dreggas
You mean in the whitehouse? /snark
ThymeZone
I think this where I make grunting noises and try to drag you back to my cave?
ThymeZone
Did I mention, I look great in a bearskin?
Of course, it’s hard to find good bearskin these days.
Rome Again
Sorry, my caveman already did. By the way, my cave exists on 4 wheels, but with all the curtains closed, it’s about as isolated as rock would be. He goes out everyday to find meat (only difference is a middleman called a boss) and he brings it home, meanwhile I keep the bonfire lit.
I’ve done what I could to emulate that era, actually. Kind of funny. The only thing I haven’t done is get rid of electricity, television or internet. Did I mention our refrigerator is a box filled with ice?
ThymeZone
Why do suddenly feel like I am chatting with Betty Flintstone?
Sorry, you know me, I had to make the joke. Anyway … in this bucolic world, you apparently have an Internet connection …..
Oh well, as usual, all the good cave girls are taken ….
ThymeZone
Sorry, I meant Wilma. Betty was Barney Rubble’s cavewoman.
carpeicthus
Of course I don’t want the plan to succeed. If the plan succeeds, though, and gets implemented, I hope the troops succeed.
Of course, the scat-munchers didn’t care about the dreadful wording.
Rome Again
I’m more like Barney’s cavewoman than Freddy’s gal ;)
Jimmy Mack
I thought you guys did nuance.
I don’t know if the surge will work or not — I have my doubts — but what do you recommend, oh wise one? Just turning the place over to Al Qaeda?
That’s what I thought.
ThymeZone
I recommend that you cut the crap. If you don’t think it will work, then don’t support it. Otherwise all you are doing is sending 20k people to be targets in a crap shoot.
Is there a clear, reasonable plan that this surge will enable, which has goals and measurables that the military can describe, and expectations it can meet? Then it’s immoral and dishonest to send those people in there.
To you they are apparently nothing but extras in a blog verbal play-battle.
Unless there’s a reasonable expectation of success, the only responsible thing to do is start planning and carrying out a redeployment out of Iraq today. Not six months from now, today.
ThymeZone
Betty Rubble is cute.
Where’s my club …..
RSA
This is the equivalent of saying that if the U.S. government resigned en masse, it would be turning the U.S. over to the Crips.
ThymeZone
Not really, the Crips would be an improvement over what we have now in the White House.
Rome Again
Ain’t that the truth!
ConservativelyLiberal
You know, a little mentioned fact is that Saddam invaded Kuwait thinking he would have no problem with us because of what our Ambassador said to him. Saddam was talking about the problems (as he saw them) with Kuwait, and the Ambassador said something to the effect ‘we do not get involved in border disputes’. Five days later, Saddam invaded Kuwait. It was a blurb in the press at the time, but I took that to mean that it was possible that the whole thing could have been averted. I say possible as Saddam did not indicate that he was going to invade Kuwait based on the answer he got, but there was a chance for us to negotiate a settlement of sorts between Kuwait and Iraq and instead we got the mess that resulted.
Now we have this president who was warned ‘Bin Laden determined to strike the US’, and three weeks later he is reading My Pet Goat while planes are crashing into buildings and the ground, and people are injured and dying. What does he do? He keeps reading. Must have been deep reading material for him.
Now we have these murderous apologist assholes like EEEL, Darrel, Erick, Moe, Gamecock and their ilk who not only want to kill anyone who they view as terrorists, but they also want to kill fellow Americans because they disagree.
As far as I am concerned, being online does not grant you a licence to post anything about killing people. If you do so, you should be found out and reported to the local authorities. If anything, get it on a report that they were talking of killing others. Even talking like this can incite someone to go kill someone else, with their hoping that they will be the revolutionary spark that starts the war to purify their Amerika. Reporting them to the police may help to later solve a crime.
Remember the targeting of doctors over the abortion issue? Bombs, guns, intimidation and killing? This is what extremists do. What is really twisted is they view themselves as patriots who are trying to save the country. What I think happened is that this war on terror preyed on the racism in some people, and this brought the KKK, neo-nazis and so on out of the woodwork. They have joined the republican party, joined the military, become hired guns in Iraq or remain here at home to incite the population and talk down anyone who says that they are wrong. If you don’t think these people are willing to kill, you are not paying attention to past history.
Anything that is posted about killing anyone should be turned over to the local authorities. I own/operate a game forum/game server (and I have a free speech area in the forum), and if any of my members ever said something like this, I would immediately run a trace and find out where they live. Then I would send a copy of the post/message to the police in their area, demanding action. That is the only proper response to these sick assholes. they are thriving now because they are parroting the phrases that give put fear into good republicans, and these sickos are blending in with the rest of the repubs.
I hope that one day the real republicans come to their senses and recognize these fear mongering racists for what they really are. RACIST COMMIES.
Yes, though they despise commies, they are exactly that. They are their own worst fear (and ours). They want an authoritarian government that pervades every level of society. They want every aspect of society monitored and examined, all on the whim of whoever is running the show. Real conservatives would never agree to this, they are against invasive government. See what fear can do? And these idiots talk about the dems and the nanny state! They say that they know who the real traitors are? Sure they do. All they have to do is look in a mirror. It is they who hate America, it is they who associate with the scum who would kill a fellow American.
Traitors, every single one of them. Including the narcissistic ass who is running the show, with
Cheney’sSatan’s hand up his ass.Impeachment is too kind.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Thanks for letting everyone know straight away that you’re a lying loon. As if they couldn’t tell from your frothing, mouthbreathing rant.
ThymeZone
Shorter Leg-O-Lamb:
Oh yeah?
Rome Again
EEEL says:
and then has the audacity to say…
Hmmmm, I dunno EEEL, seems pretty accurate to me.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
No, it’s not. For anyone who can read, it’s someone wondering only half-seriously (the Johnny Walker comment) if it was time to curtail “those progressives’ holy right to their free speech.” There’s no reference to any “attack” or American Civil War Part Deux or (your most obnoxious lie) “killing the 50% of the country that doesn’t get it”.
That was all your invention, and it was shameful and dishonest. You should apologize.
Of course, everyone on this board bought it, because they are largely deranged, gullible suckers for this sort of thing. Sad.
Rome Again
Well EEEL, we’re not the ones hoping you will end up in some “special extra-hot, extra-smelly place in some kind of hell”, we’re just hoping you’ll wake up to the fact that you have been and still are being deceived, and you’re selling out your own countrymen/women and the entire human race by doing so. Wake up, please.
ConservativelyLiberal
Yep, just what I would expect from EEEL. Dismissive, it is the favorite tactic of the ones who (think they) know all. As if in dismissing it makes it false. That or toss in something else to send the dscussion in another direction to distract from the main issue. I have read more than enough posts of yours here to know where you stand. If you are not one, you do associate with and support them with your words (or lack of them).
To put it even better, you repubs like to try to get someone to agree to something that is worded in a way to make it look like the person hates America if they give the wrong answer (or supports/harbors terrorists). How about this, will you confront those who call their fellow Americans traitors and/or call for violence or death to those same fellow Americans? If so, please point me in a direction that shows me that you are doing your part to keep America clean. Any post where you repudiate these fellow republicans.
Hell, even our fearful leader was as much as calling us traitors just a few months ago. Well?
ThymeZone
Ignore the brayings of these asses.
The GOP is in meltdown. Support for the war among Republican senators is past the point of embarassment to Bush, it’s reaching the level of making Bush completely irrelevant on Capitol Hill.
The fact that the Limblog Traveling Circus continues to hee-haw doesn’t meant that these mules can actually pull a wagon any more.
Rome Again
Perhaps not, but it appears Lieberman is going to help them try. Take a look at the Front Page of Kos.
Independent-Democrat MY ASS!
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
You clearly suffer from the same inability to read English as most of the droolers here. The only way you could’ve sounded like more of a retard is if you would’ve started with “Shorter whatever:”.
ConservativelyLiberal
How about the latest of what is supposed to pass for snark at RedState. They are talking about the VLWC: Barack Obama: A Sleeper Cell of One?! With the subtitle of: Has Anyone Seen The Jew Amy Leibowitz Since She Took Those Pictures of Him?
What it really is supposed to be snark is racisim wrapped up in a way that is supposed to make it more palatable for the masses. Seasoned to hide its ugly flavor.
They try to use Hillary and her run for the presidency, and fellow black americans as cover for what is absolutely the poster child of what is wrong with the republican party. This kind of stuff never used to be said, and hearing it shows me the depths that our leader, his fellow politicians and their supporters have helped to plunge us.
What is even more repulsive are some of the comments that are made, and when objected to one person is banned and a second asks for the same as he clearly thinks they are nuts over there.
Like I said, racists. Out of the woodwork and leeching on the republican party. About a month ago a woman called into C-SPAN, and she was absolutely livid. She said something like ‘This party (republican) is not the one that my parents supported and I have for 69 years. It has been invaded and taken over by the neo-cons because they needed an existing party to do their dirty work.’. Not an exact quote, but pretty damn close.
Even she can see what has happened. As I am sure there are others out there. I do not hate republicans (hell, about half of my friends are REAL republicans), I hate intolerant, hatemongering extremists. They have lowered the level of public discourse and helped to divide this nation. It is not too short of a step between a neo-con and a neo-nazi, IMO. Maybe that is why they ban anyone who tries to make that point. It is they who not only hate America, they are spreading that hate across America. It is they who seek to destroy America, just to save it.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
In this case, it does. I immediately dismiss insane rants like “murderous apologist assholes like EEEL, Darrel, Erick, Moe, Gamecock and their ilk who not only want to kill anyone who they view as terrorists, but they also want to kill fellow Americans because they disagree.” I dismiss them because they are unproved, I dismiss them because they are false, I dismiss them because they are dishonest, I dismiss them because they are simpleminded, I dismiss them because they are the mark of an inferior human being.
Since you’ve not shown that such people exist (and you’ve lied about me and others by grouping them in that category…asshole), who would I confront? Your deranged imagination? Up your meds, loser.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
You obviously don’t know the first thing about what I think, but don’t let that stop you pretending to know. That kind of arrogance is just precious.
Rome Again
Not exactly. It appears that you want others to think you don’t advocate violence and killing while you push the viewpoints of those who do advocate violence and killing, and you yourself even wish that those who think like me are accomodated with a special hell… and I’m the one who can’t read. Nice try. Back to the corner with a dunce hat for you.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Yes, that would make me different from these imaginary righties who want to (according to pharneil’s bongwater dreams) “kill the 50% who don’t get it.” Different.
And that’s where your education lets you down. I never said that at all. I only wished a hot hot heat for those in power who really believe that we’re wasting soldiers’ lives in Iraq for no purpose, and yet they are too cowardly to propose cutting off the funding for Iraq. Those who willfully fund what they themselves believe is slaughter deserve the worst you can imagine. What “those who think like you” do is irrelevant to me — you don’t have any power.
How ironic is that now, eh?
ThymeZone
Yes, Rome, Lieberman is dead to me. I have cursed him and he will soon be forced to retire due to an infestation of flesh-eating mites living in his nether regions.
He will apply a cream, but to no avail.
ConservativelyLiberal
Spot on Rome Again. I stand by what I said. Dismiss me all you want because that is not going to change the facts. You may not like what I said, and that is what I would expect from someone like you. I said what I did to those out there who need to see people like you (and others who are even more twisted) for what you really are. I would never entertain the idea of ever convincing you of anything.
What a laugh. EEEL, they do exist. You call them fellow republicans. But you would never see a republican ally as an enemy, right? Read the thread again bozo. Use Google, expand your horizon. Those who preach intolerance are hatemongers, and you are one.
Bullseye.
Rome Again
Really? With Google I can see very well what you think. You must be an idiot if you think I can’t read the things you’ve written. Moreover, I’ve been witness to some of your recent blatherings. I know very well you don’t stand for the things I do.
Bruce Moomaw
FauxNews: “The NeoCon Cheerleaders have compared Bush to Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, and Lincoln. The latest comparisons have been to Churchill! Which has caused quite the outrage on the other side of the pond.”
I’ll bet. Churchill himself would probably have said about Bush what he actually did say about John Foster Dulles: “The only bull I know who carries his own china shop around with him.”
ConservativelyLiberal
Spot on Rome and that is where my message to you ended! On target, nothing more to say to that.
From that point on it was aimed at EEEL (just a clarification!).
:)
Bruce Moomaw
Pharniel: “That quote, specifically, references attacking ‘progressives’ for ‘free speech’ because if you don’t they’ll get your kids killed.”
EEEL: “No, it’s not. For anyone who can read, it’s someone wondering only half-seriously (the Johnny Walker comment) if it was time to curtail ‘those progressives’ holy right to their free speech.’ There’s no reference to any ‘attack’ or American Civil War Part Deux or (your most obnoxious lie) ‘killing the 50% of the country that doesn’t get it’.”
Oh, OK. So it was only a reference to the desirability of shutting down the First Amendment and turning America into a dictatorship. MUCH better.
Rome Again
Well EEEL, perhaps you could be a little more specific when you say you only mean the leadership, since I read:
You link the 51% of Democrats with the legislators, and then you say “I hope there’s a special extra-hot, extra-smelly place in some kind of hell for cynical cowards like them.” which in fact DOES include 51% of Democrats. You are not very clear, put the dunce cap back on.
[had trouble posting this, and I edited for clarity, so if it double posted, I apologize]
Rome Again
Well EEEL, perhaps you could be a little more specific when you say you only mean the leadership, since I read:
You link the 51% of Democrats with the legislators, and then you say “I hope there’s a special extra-hot, extra-smelly place in some kind of hell for cynical cowards like them.” which in fact DOES include 51% of Democrats. You are not very clear, put the dunce cap back on.
[had trouble posting this, and I edited for clarity, so if it double posted, I apologize]
ConservativelyLiberal
Correction.
There is nothing in history to compare Bush to. Anywhere. He has created a whole new lower level to the history of our presidency.
He is the sole occupant.
CheneySatan comes up from the undisclosed bunker in the basement and visits him once in a while.Rome Again
S’okay, I may not be Einstein, but even I figured it out. If you were telling me “Spot On” considering I don’t advocate hate, I knew the rest of the message wasn’t meant for me.
Thanks for clarifying though, so EEEL didn’t get the idea you meant me, since I have a feeling EEEL might have attempted to run with that.
ThymeZone
Rome, you are doing good work, I have to retire and leave you with the graveyard shift.
Don’t let Lambchop give you any crap.
I’ll be back on duty tomorrow.
TenguPhule
So you agree that the Republicans in power deserve a special place in Hell all to themselves then.
Thanks for clearing that up.
So when are you calling for Bush’s impeachment?
Rome Again
Exactly Bruce.
To EEEL:
Of course you know Ace of Spades advocates killing people, because right on the top if their website is a quote from H. L. Mencken stating “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”… but you already knew that, since you post over there, right? Funny that you should ask for a link to a website you already frequent, very disingenuous.
TenguPhule
Shorter Jimmy: I don’t think at all.
For the Nth time, Dunce. Al Queda in Iraq are dead men walking the moment the last US troop is over the Iraq border. The local Sunni and Shia are going to have their guts for garters for all the shit they’ve been pulling on both sides.
Neither side likes them and the only reason they tolerate them now is because they’re too busy attacking us.
The enemy of my enemy is only my friend as long as the mutual enemy (US troops in this case) are there to unite us.
Take that unifier away and it breaks up into a multifront battle as all of the different militas fight it out amongst themselves until they either wipe each other out until only one is left or they come to a mutual agreement.
Either way, outsiders like Al Queda aren’t going to be welcome to the party.
Rome Again
GN TZ, see ya in the morrow.
Rome Again
As a matter of fact EEEL, I used to frequent AOL political forums a couple of years ago, and I happened to come across someone once who told me 50 ways to the moon that I didn’t deserve to live, and that if I were sitting in front of him he would have killed me simply because I didn’t agree with his point of view (I remind you, this was a couple of years ago, before the true divisiveness of this presidency began to establish itself). I’ve referenced this situation in other places here on BJ (check the search term “kill me”) and he kept calling me a certain word over and over and over again. Do you know what that word was? You used it here in this thread too:
I don’t see that word very often, interesting that I see you spouting it.
Rome Again
And just to prove to you that I’m not making this up EEEL, here’s a link from August 1, 2005 where I mentioned this incident:
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=5116#comment-53704
And here’s another one from August 4, 2005:
https://balloon-juice.com/?p=5150#comment-55330
This is just to show you this is not a game. I was experiencing this type of thing a couple of years ago. I didn’t just make this up now. Maybe you (the user of the word LOON) don’t know anyone who does this, but it DOES happen.
Rome Again
By the way, I realize I referenced one person. While I was dealing with that person, I was involved in a forum where a whole lot of other people were posting, they agreed with him. It wasn’t just one person. He was the attacker, they were his echo chamber.
ConservativelyLiberal
Sorry to hear about your experience there, Rome. That is just wrong in so many ways I can’t even begin to count them. I have had some similar brushes, but nothing like that. Still, you have to wonder what comprises the soul of a person who would talk like that. Not a whole lot, I would say.
I am new to the blogs. I joined my first blog last summer, and this is the second one that I have posted at. I have vultured them for years though, but I just never wanted to jump into the fray.
What changed that? This president and the destruction being wrought on our country, and the world, in the name of it and the people in it. Well, at least the worthy ones.
My name is deliberate as I am neither conservative or liberal. I am both. I have stances on issues that both parties love and others that they hate. Neither party is what I am, so I am a registered (small ‘i’) independent, as is my wife. No party affiliation. I support America, that is my party. That is enough for me.
My crime (as I see it) is I have sat on the sidelines while things have only become worse. No more. I thought that there were more people like me, and that sooner or later things would swing back into balance without my voice. I finally joined in when it was clear to me that more voices are needed.
We have to stand up to these bullies and call them what they are. I am sick of being called a traitor, or it even being insinuated. I am tired of seeing our soldiers dying in a war of our choosing, one that we never should have been in. I have watched the democrats let themselves get bullied all over the place while the bats invaded the belfry. Now is the time to point at these hatemongers and racists and make sure that others see them for what they really are.
Oh, and for you talking heads who live on talking points, even I have a better plan than the president has. Sure, it has been derided by the hatemongers as unacceptable, but it sure got us to where we were until Bush blew it up in our faces.
1: Get out of Iraq. Stand back and let Maliki deal with it. Whatever evolves, if they come after us we will deal with it then. You cross your bridges once you get to them, no sooner. If it settles down, establish relations with them and work to improve them. What is going on over there has always been brewing under the surface. Bush wanted Saddam out, he is out. Lets leave. We won. It is their country, and their oil. That is the real reason we went over there, and anyone with half a brain knows it. This war saved Haliburton, and re-energized the defense industry. It made a bunch of rich people richer, and it killed a lot of innocents to do so. Blood money, the worst there is. Beware the military industrial complex, as Eisenhower said, and now you know why.
2: Get back into Afghanistan and get the war there done and over with. Bush is letting our guys be killed there just to keep his dream of Iraq alive. I was for this in the first place. See, I want Osama. He is who we are after. If we nail every terrorist who attacks us, they will stop. Sure we may lose some of our people, but every single response will be justified and we would have the backing of the world in doing so. Bush had it all after 9-11, and he blew it off for his pipe dream.
To do this requires real dedication to do, and it will not be easy. I do not go and punch my neighbor because I think he will hit me some day. Pre-emptive war is just that. I am a man, I am not afraid. So until I am attacked, I have no reason to do anything. Once I am, I do. Iraq did not attack us, we attacked them.
3: Every single time a terrorist camp is found to have been involved in a crime against us or our allies, wipe it out. No matter where it is. Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, wherever. Do it. Until then, watch them and gather intelligence, you learn things that way. If you have evidence (REAL evidence) of an immenent attack, take them out and be prepared to show the world your proof. If you can not show it, or if you do not have the proof, then stay home and keep watching them until you have something you can act on.
4: Enlist the help of every American. From taxes to pay for this war on credit, to supporting the soldiers in every single way we can. Do not dishonor our soldiers by putting them in situations where they are nothing more than political pawns. If we need, to, reinstitute the draft (fairly this time, no loopholes for rich brats) until it is no longer needed.
5: Do this within the existing framework of the Constitution that you say you want to be strictly interpreted. If you have to shred the Constitution to save it (and us), then it is (and we are) not worth saving. Hardliners sneer at the term ‘police action’ in describing how to deal with a stateless enemy. Well, you can’t go to war against an idea, and that is what we have done. That is a war that will never end as it will be self-sustaining. A never ending cycle that will inevitable spiral down into a worldwide slugfest. Nail these terrorists, dead or alive. But nail them, do not take your eye off the ball.
6: Make sure our government leaders use our resources responsibly, ask tough questions, provide oversight and leadership for all of the country. Not just those who are on the ‘right’ side. We are all Americans, this is our country. Not yours.
I could go on and on, but you will find that what I say is what most Americans have been saying. We are against terrorism, and we will agree that something has to be done. But it has to be done the way America should. You do not win people over to your point of view by beating them into submission. You do so with leadership.
There is a reason our nation used to be universally admired all around the world. We stood for something that everyone could agree with. Now we have lost that, but it is not too late to repair the damage and rebuild our image. The first thing is to clean up this mess in our country, and I do not know if the democrats have it in them but I know the republicans did not. I will give them a chance, and I will support them. But if they blow it, then we are in a world of hurt people.
Sorry so long, boy can I rattle on. Now I know why I have avoided blog posting in the past. Thanks for the place to rant John and Tim, you are both very fair minded people, and I feel right at home here.
Pb
To quote a bit more:
Rome Again
Pb,
Thanks for that link. I just read the first chapter, including all the notes, it’s fascinating. I especially was shocked at the Global Change Game samples, WOW. Imagine what it would be like if we had low RWA leaders all over the world. How much do you think the high RWA game night emulates our current circumstances? Has me scared. It is unfortunate that the people who really need to read and understand this won’t.
Appreciate your sharing that with me. Thank you so much.
lard lad
This is a subject that warrants much wider discussion than it has received thus far.
Ambassador Glaspie all but gave Saddam a bright green light to invade Kuwait, after Saddam did everything but flat-out announce his intention to do so. (For the record, Glaspie’s money quote was “…we have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait.”) This was not some example of a diplomat overextending herself… the hands-off-Saddam stance was official U.S. policy, straight from James Baker himself.
Incidentally, a mere six months earlier, Saddam met with five U.S. senators, the most enthusiastic by far of the lot being GOP lifers Bob Dole and Alan Simpson, both of whom nearly bruise their mouths in the frantic rush to kiss the Butcher of Baghdad’s ass. (Dole was trying to unload some of the Kansas corn crop on Iraq):
So why did the U.S. reverse their position on Iraq’s move on Kuwait, hard and fast enough to sustain a governmental whiplash?
The only plausible explanation I’ve encountered is this (and forgive me if this is all old hat to any of you good folks): everyone thought Saddam’s army would simply seize the oil fields near the Iraq/Saudi border and be done with the invasion. Instead, they pushed on to take Kuwait City and beyond, right up to the Saudi border… and at that point, the Saudis grew a wee bit panicky. One can only imagine what the subsequent phone chat between Bush 41 and King Fahd must have sounded like. (I suspect that the sound of cracking whips was invoked a few times for the President’s benefit.) And those with any knowledge of the Bush family history know just how much drag the House of Saud has with them… so, the question becomes: did the U.S. really end up at war to placate the President’s business associates?
Any other possible scenarios out there? Conspiracy theorists, to your drawing boards…
ThymeZone
And it wasn’t just a reversal, it was a hysterical reversal that pulled all the rhetorical stops. Saddam was suddenly “the reincarnation of Hitler.”
I think your guess is pretty good, it’s basically the same one I made sixteen years ago at the time. I figured the whole Gulf War ginup was a scam from the get-go. It made no sense. “Liberate” Kuwait, a nasty oligarchy whose intent was essentially the same as Husseins — grab the oil money of your country and put it in your pockets and the pockets of your family and friends. Why would the United States of America bend its shovels to “liberate” those assholes?
Jonathan
Here’s a quote from none other than Rush Limbaugh about killing liberals:
And here is Bush calling Limbaugh a “national treasure”:
It would appear that the Decider agrees with Mr Limbaugh that liberals should be killed.
Jonathan
The US Ambassador to Kuwait was April Glaspie and she told Saddam:
ThymeZone
Justin Raimondo commenting on (a) his opinion that war with Iran is Bush’s next move, and (b) a House Resolution that forbids him from starting a war with Iran absent a clear and immediate military threat. You can support HJ Resolution 14 by contacting your congressman, or the office of the Speaker at the number shown above.
Jonathan
TZ:
Kuwait is not an oligarchy, its an oiligarchy.
ThymeZone
Jonathan, quite right.
And ….
Please note when you contact the Speaker or your congressman regarding the joint resolution against war with Iran that it is the Jones bill, advanced by a Republican from North Carolina.
Jonathan
Here’s a list of the fourteen signs of fascism.
See how many of them you think represent today’s Republican party. Keep in mind while reading that America today has the highest incarceration rate in the world and also keep in mind the strange behavior of the US Supreme Court during the 2000 Florida recount.
Dreggas
Saddam was our BFF at the time, we let him invade but as soon as Bush the elders buddied in Saudi Arabia got ticked about the invasion of Kuwait we hurried in to fix it.
Jonathan
Pastafarianism under attack by “creation scientists”.
ThymeZone
Okay, let’s see … check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.
Fuck.
Now what do we do?
ConservativelyLiberal
For all of the US being the beacon of freedom to the world, the fact that we imprison more people than anywhere in the world has always bugged me. It just does nto compute.
Thanks for the info lard lad, ThymeZone and Johnathan! I knew that what happened prior to the first gulf war was fact, but I did not have the info laying around (and am too much of a slacker to look it up…lol).
The Pastafarianism leader is a fellow Oregonian, and he is right on target with his satire. Leave it to the fundies to froth at the mouth when someone spoofs them (and but good), but everyone who has ever used their brain knows that the whole deal is satire. And damn good satire at that!
Boo hoo…
ThymeZone
Note: The CRS link is actually a product of Cornell Law School.
This blurb is here because it appears that a correct reading of the law indicates that Attorney General Gonzales was correct when he stated before Congress recently that Habeus Corpus is not guaranteed.
IANAL, but the matter at least deserves a fair reading and discussion of the legal arcana. Therefore I withdraw my particular blast at Gonzales on this point.
ThymeZone
This is the relevant CRS annotation regarding the Writ of Habeas Corpus and the Constitution.
Now the Juice Legal Division can
mire us in legaleseenlighten us as to the meaning of these writings.Doug H.
Unsourced, but I heard somewhere that the real reason wasn’t the Sauds but Maggie Thatcher. Saddam didn’t have the logistics to overrun Arabia, but Kuwait and Britain were long time buds. Iron Maggie saw a Middle Eastern Falklands dancing in her head and kicked Poppy’s butt into starting up Desert Shield.
Jonathan
TZ:
Jonathan
Even after the Kuwait invasion, President Bush I himself wasn’t sure we’d go to war with Iraq over it until Mrs. Thatcher gave him a bucking up in Aspen.
Posted by: Steve Sailer on January 5, 2007 12:25 AM
Jonathan
jake
Bush’s solution to health insurance costs? Promote the most expensive type of health insurance! And by most expensive I mean most expensive for the consumer.
Ewww! Oh, sorry, that’s BUCKING. Phew.
ConservativelyLiberal
One thing that really bothers me about some conservatives is that they are dead set against taxes or putting any restrictions on capitalism. Unbridled capitalism is their mantra, and anything less is socialism. Anyone who suggests otherwise is shouted down as a bleeding heart liberal who wants to give people free money. They earned their wad, now leave them alone.
I have a slightly different take on this. Anyone who has studied their history quickly learned (if they have a whit of intelligence) that in most cases of the government intruding into the business arena, they did so due to the severe abuses that were being perpetrated on the public in the name of profit. People were getting raked over the coals with low pay, poor working conditions and the exploitation of child labor. All in the name of the mighty capitalist.
Regualtion came from the abuses, not just out of thin air. Any way that could be found was used to pay the workers the lowest amount possible. When workers joined together and fought back, unions came into being. Yes, you rich stupid assholes, YOU helped to drive the creation of unions, the very thing you despise. And while I am a union supporter, I will be the first to admit that unions do not have a sterling record either. They were used to abuse employers, in some cases, and exploit workers in others.
I am proud to be an American, but I am not proud of the track record that American capitalism has compiled over the years. Subverting or overthrowing governments of other nations just to install and support a tin pot dictator (reference the Shah of Iran and Saddam for more info if you think otherwise, and that is just a starter) so American business could pump all of the assets and goods out of them. Bleed them until they are indebted to us for years to come. Get sweet contracts for extraction of resources (bananas, oil and so on), and enslave the population at slave wages that no decent person should have to work for.
All in the name of the almighty dollar.
I am all for progressively taxing the excessively rich, because I have learned that these bastards got where they are on the backs of the public that they disdain. To each, according to their means. And just shut up about the flat tax. Look up the definition of regressive. We were not born yesterday. I learned long ago that if rich people are for something, hang on to your wallet because theirs is about to get fatter at your expense.
I think taxes can be simplified and restructured to be far more fair than they are now. Raise the social security max, and set it to unlimited. Every person will pay the tax, on every dollar they earn. No cutoff point. Social security would be solvent. Problem solved. If they can tax every dollar I am paid, why should someone who is rich be exempted? Maybe one day they will lost their wad, and end up surviving on social security. I has happened, so pay your dues. Oh, and lawmakers, leave the damn social security money alone. Quit spending it. That is what federal taxes are for. If you do not have enough, you might look to those who have the money to pay (and are using every loophole you gave them to avoid paying).
All I want in life is to live comfortably, do moderately well and maybe leave a bit of something to the kids when I pass. I do lots of free computer work for people who live check to check, and I will never get rich this way. But that is not what I want, and the smiles I get are more than enough of a reward for me. I have given three computer systems to local school kids, no strings attached, free service included. Two of them are out of school now, and they are loyal customers.
America gave me the place to live safely, get married, raise my family and ply a trade. I appreciate that, and I am more than willing to pay a fair tax rate. If I was rich and had money coming out of my ass, I would still gladly pay it. This country gives people the chance to do well and make lots of money. Please do not think it is too much to put a bit back into it.
As much as I support reasonable taxation, I do not support government waste. And this government wrote the book on waste. Both sides are guilty of it, no exceptions. No pointing at ‘their’ guy and saying that they are/were the exception to the rule. That is not going to cut it anymore. You are still supporting the other lawmakers in your party, providing cover for them to operate from under.
Wake up people! We have to take back what is ours, and put the country back on the right track. These rich assholes and lawmakers are lying to you. Regulations, taxes and fair wages are what built this nation. Once it was doing well, the next generation of financial crooks came along siphoned off their cut. They insisted that rules and regulations stifled business, that free trade would make everyone richer.
Free trade, don’t even get me started on that one.
Zifnab
There’s the Levin-Reed Amendment, the Iraq Study Group strategies, the John Murtha Iraq Resolution, the Howard Dean plan (I can only link to two so you’ll have to forgive me), and a host of other plans and suggestions relating to when and how to continue giving aid to Iraq without fueling more insurgency and religio-cide.
The Democrats are moving on one of the hearts of the failed Iraq strategy – the rampant government/contractor corruption issues – with Reid leading the charge. Halliburton, Blackwater, and other no-bid contractors will be investigated for their roles in everything from abysmally shoddy school construction to their poor roll in military support.
Bottom line, there are a great number of plans for success in Iraq. Most of them involve cleaning up the mess Bush has made. But when a drunk crashes your car, and then assures you he’ll drive it off to be fixed… you’d have to be an idiot to take his word for it. Bush’s credibility is shot in Iraq, so saying “I’ve got a plan for victory” sounds more like “I’ve got a plan to waste more money and get more soldiers killed to pro-long and extend the confrontation”. Of the alternative plans for victory, absolutely zero involve extending tours of duty and escalating combat operations. They involve decreased troop levels and increased regional diplomacy. They involve securing the Kurds against any problems with Turkey in the north. They involves cooperating more actively with pacifist religious leaders on the Shia and Sunni sides of the conflict. They involve seeing money spent on reconstruction used more effectively and efficently than Bush’s corporate cronies have been spending it.
Bush’s war plan involves picking a fight with Iran and Syria against the wishes of nearly every country in the region and increasing the number of people US soldiers are allowed to shoot in Bagdad city.
Bush’s plan is a bad plan. That’s why so many people oppose it. And, frankly, I can’t blame any American who wants to see Bush’s “Shot more brown people for victory” plan fail.
Jonathan
CL:
Good rant, man. I mostly agree with you.
I tend to get carried away when writing too, it just rolls out of my fingertips sometimes without much conscious effort on my part.
Pb
Rome Again,
I agree–and I assume that we must be the (dorky) target audience in question.
Yeah, I thought that was really amazing, and telling.
Well, there’s Bush (and Cheney), Kim Jong-Il, Ahmadinejad… and I guess it really only takes two of them in opposing countries, when it comes down to it…
Rome Again
That’s scary as hell. I was awake all night reading (I have some latitude about when I sleep), then spent some time reading Kos (which is turning into religious pie fights) and went to sleep feeling fearfully assured of near-future nuclear annihilation. (after being awake for so many hours I drifted off, even with such thoughts in my head).
Usually I know it’s okay when if I go to sleep with such scary thoughts I don’t wake up with them. Lately I’m beginning to wake up with them too.
ThymeZone
Rome, after spending my childhood doing Duck and Cover drills in school, I decided that when I grew up, kids would not have to live under the threat of annihilation any more.
So as long as I am not dead yet (despite the reports of a few ill informed people) I am god damned if I am going to let you live under that threat.
If Bush gets out of line, I promise you I will march on Washington and raise holy hell.
Rome Again
Nice animal skin there TZ, looks quite attractive on you ::wink::
Uh… “if Bush gets out of line…”? Don’t you think we’ve sort of reached that point long ago? How quickly can you be there? You’re in AZ right? I’m much closer than that and I can’t make it in time, what should make me think YOU will? Go out and slay that mammoth TZ so I am in awe of your manly prowess (she says flirtatiously).
I have to say, I think Bush sleeps so well at night because he goes to sleep dreaming of his hand on the button.
ThymeZone
Heh. I’m willing to wager that I am the only person on the blog who has actually marched in front of the White House.
Not very heroic, though. First of all, I wasn’t completely sober at the time. I had been out with a friend there in DC and we decided to walk over to the White House. When we got there, there was a protest thing going on right in front of the portico.
We just joined in. We didn’t know what the protest was for. It turned out to be Hatians, protesting Bush the Elder’s policy toward Haiti. They were singing these beautiful songs in French, which we could not understand, but it was just a great feeling to join in with them and sing along as best we could. A bunch of District cops were being nasty to the protesters and we enjoyed giving them a hard time.
The year was 1991, I think. Or maybe 1990. Gotta tell ya, it was a huge thrill being a protestor out there in front of the White House. I thought, what a great country!
Guy from Arizona marching at the White House!
ThymeZone
Well, honestly, I will go and do it. I have tons of time off from work which I don’t often use, and all I need is a plane ticket. I’m there in half a day.
Rome Again
Thank you TZ, I got some great gruel waiting for you at the end of my rescue (Mammoth stew, mmmmmmmmmmmm yummy). ::wink::
ThymeZone
Yum! I can’t get good mammoth out here any more ….
Rome Again
I got a whole tusk of it here piping hot and ready to go, with some sloth steaks on the side.
ThymeZone
I’m on the way. If I only knew where the hell I was going ….
Somewhere in Alligatorland …..
Rome Again
Old mile marker 1, take a left, and down about three miles on the east side. ;)
ThymeZone
East of the sun, west of the moon ….
Bombadil
Not the only one.
And I have you beat by about 20 years — 1970 Moratorium.
ThymeZone
Kudos! I tip my cap.