Willravel

If the South is so patroitic, what's with all the confederate flags? Are you going to tell me that no one knows what they really stand for? The last time I was in Mississippi, I asked someone about it (in a purepy inquisitive tone and mannerment), and they screamed at me for being a yankee. I'm not making this up. I think there is some confusion here. California, actually let's say Berkley specifically, is the most patriotic place I've ever seen. More patriotic than Texas, in fact. How in God's name could I say that? It's simple. Patriotism is subjective. I happen to think that the Bush admin istration is a hinderance to our country, so I feel it's my patriotic duty to call him on it. Those who are complacent in this are not patriots in my eyes. On the other hand, right now in Austin there's a man whos son has joined the army to fight in Iraq and he feels that protesting the war and not voting for the president is unpatriotic. Who's right? Neither...both...whatever. The fact of the matter is the South is NOT more patriotic than any other place in the country, and to say so discounts the reality of differing perceptions.

Oh, and I do not support our troops. I'll support them 110% when they serve in the defense of our country, but not when they are in another country trying to fix a mess made by idiots. I have taken steps to remove military recruiters from the lower income highschools in my area. By your post, I imagine people would hate me and call me traitor from the Southern states. Be that as it may, I know that I very well could have saved lives.

kutulu

There is a fine line between patriotic and nationalistic. The South blurs that line.

xepherys

As a soldier myself, I would NOT recommend to anyone that enlisting right now is a good idea. The regime that controls the military has other agenda than making the USA a safe place to live. I enlisted for what I consider the right reasons. It was not long after 9/11 and I felt that we had been wronged. I believed that going into Afghanistan to remove the Taliban from power was our right and duty as Americans. Now, I am often ashamed of my uniform. While I love my country and would be happy to defend it, I feel sick to know that myself and others like me are sent off to war in another country to save the asses of others that care not at all for us.

But, that's not what this thread is about. I still don't quite get how any theory against a current group is a paranoid conspiracy theory.

However, in response to the "Mods that Be"... it's not a Bush thing. I am not a party-minded person. There have been great Republicans (and still are). There have been great Democrats (and still are). I don't much care for Bush, but if it was Gore or Clinton or Badnarik or anyone else that was in his seat, and the same things were occuring, than I would have the same post (sans the clever title perhaps?).

And yes, all politicians have a claw or tooth stuck in them from somewhere. I don't agree with it, but it DOES seem to be the case. However, letting those interests interfere entirely with the interests of the American people is not acceptable. The presidency should not be a tool for ANYONE to gain wealth, it should be a position of power to help guide the nation to greatness.

Seaver

Willravel, the Confederate flag is something you wont understand until you live in the South. It took me 4 years to get to the point of realizing that to many people it's not about the right to slavery or a revolt against the US. It's about standing up for what you believe no matter what the odds, and fighting long past the point where most would give up. Thus, you can see the point of Pride and Patriotism where they coexist even though the exact definitions dont.

A great example where this applies is the Kurds in Iraq. While they fought a continuous fight for the past 100 years, with almost no hope of winning, enduring massacre after massacre... they still have Iraqi national Pride. During the Iran/Iraq war many people volunteered for the Iraqi army even though Saddam constantly massacred them. They sided with Iraq even though Iran supplied them with arms, protected them during their exodus, and had more Kurds in the country than Iraq. Yet during this they still actively fought for Kurdistan. So you can see how they have great regional pride while having patriotism.

Thus your argument about the Confederate flag flying in the face of Patriotism, and Berkley (home of more socialists and communists than I've seen anywhere else) is in fact the most patriotic place in the US is just... wrong.

Willravel

If the confederate flag stands for the underdog and fighting for what you believe in, then so does the swastika. The roots of the confedarate flag and the confedaracy are obvious, and the connotations are blatent.
But the Kurds aren't sporting a flag that represents slavery, while trying to tell people it's simply about fighting for what you believe in.
I'm a socialist. I am patriotic. I love my country. I love my constitution. I love my Bill fo Rights. I love my deomcracy. My very existence proves my point.

Edit: the reason I pointed out Berkley is that it is extreemly liberal. WHave you ever wondered why you hear about so many protests in Berkley? Because we are fighting for the benifit of the US. It's not to undermine democracy or because we hate America.

Seaver

Actually you just proved MY point.

Ideologically, a socialist in no way shape or form should love our constitution or democracy. They blend together ideologically as well as oil and water. Your point about the South can not be patriotic was just proven false.

You're right. It's the VERY flag that Millions of Kurds were killed under by the government. Yet they're rising to defend said flag with their lives. Point proven.

Willravel

Are you ready to admit you don't know what socialism is yet?
Who defends a flag? They're defending their country.

Seaver

so·cial·ism Audio pronunciation of "socialism" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ssh-lzm)
n.

1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

So, our government is built around Capitalism. Socialism is owned collectively between the people and the government. How does that work with the basis of our constitution of limited government powers?

You dont understand. I'm not talking about the litteral flag. I'm talking about what it means to the people. So while the Confederate flag means slavery to you, it doesnt mean that's what it means to everyone else. The Iraqi flag means their country to the Kurds, not the country that has been mass-killing them for a hundred years.

roachboy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism

i looked at the wikipedia definition of socialism, from which you bit the one sentence definition of it--that definition focusses on the usage of the term in the writings of marx and represents but one strand of current usage. more often, when folk use the term these days in anything like a meaningful sense, the reference is to democratic socialism. the split in ways of understanding the term "socialism" came about in the context of the 2nd international across the debate within the german communist party over whether to support war credits in parliament. behind this was the question of whether revolution was a short or long term horizon for political action. democratic socialists hold to the latter position, and so see intervening in the organization of capitalism with the aim of bettering the living conditions of working people in real time as a desirable goal.

democratic socialism is an alternative conception of how capitalism could work.
it is coherent and in general far more functional that neoliberal style regimes.
no wonder, then, that so often you see in spaces like this folk from the right who feign ignorance of the matter.

anyway, this usage is not new.
it has been around since world war 1, seaver.


as for the subject of this thread, i only looked in on it to see if there really was a debate about whether george w. bush at some point was an actual plant...you know, like an azelia or something...once i saw that it was a conspiracy theory thread, i lost interest. but i scrolled through, just to see if someone would float the theory that george w bush was, in fact, a potted plant. not that i had anything to say about it. i was just curious. it is like another thread title from a while ago, "nochld left behind my ass" which i took to be a debate about whether there were children left behind someone's ass or not. there too, things did not pan out as hoped.

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

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Willravel

Why does everyone think that democracy and socialism are mutually exclusive? Anyway.....as a socialist, I can appreciate the governmentally enforced rights, self regulating 3 branch government, and representation of the people and their interests. Those are three really big parts of America. ALSO, socialism does not necessarily need centralized government. In fact, in my perfect world, we there would be community states that are each under socialist rule, and each of those communities would meet in a parliment and discuss the various needs and abilities of each community state. Trade, relations, and treaties would be handled by elected officials. The thing is that while wikipedia and dictionary.com are great places for information, they are really vague when it comes to something like socialism. Socialism is a blanket term that covers so many diverse governmental, economic, and social systems that it requires volumes of information...not a few sentences.

Back to the reason we are discussing socialsim.....Texans don't think people from Berkley are patriotic. This goes along with "liberals hate America", "lefties are sissies" and "Kerry is a flip flopper". It really doesn't mean anything. I've never met you and you've never met me...and yet you have assumed that I am not patriotic. The problem, as I have stated several times, is that the term patriotic is subjective. I think it's extremly patriotic that I've been arrested for being in over 12 protests since the beginning of the Iraqi war. I think it's damned patriotic that I'm doing everything I can to expose the current administration as a group of traitors. If you don't think so, that's great for you, but don't go calling me unpatriotic. Everyone who thinks they are patrioitc is patriotic. It's really that simple. To say that the south is more patriotic than somewhere else is niave and disrespectful to everywhere else.
The comparison doesn't hold up. Maybe if, hundreds of years from now, the families of the parties responsible for the chemical attacks on the Kurds are the only ones to sport the current Iraqi flag, and the country has long since united and managed to almost forget the atrocity...then maybe the comparison would be correct. Until then, it's apples and oranges for this coversation.

Charlatan

I really feel this thread is not going in the direction I would like to see it go.

As it was my call to keep it out of Paranoia... I suppose it should fall to me, to move it there now.

That said, I am quite happy that you didn't throw any uneccessary mud.

__________________
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Elphaba

I did my best not to bring up the obvious "shrub" connotation. Until now.

Channeling Monte Python and the importance of shrubbery

xepherys

*sigh* I guess it was bound to happen...

Willravel

Sorry. Take solice in the fact that the thread survived in politics for quite a while. Also, it's not impossible to get a thread moved back.

xepherys

Hmmm, fair enough.

I suppose, if nothing else, it'd be nice to hear the more "over the edge" theories people may have in relation to this thread. I mean, let's try to keep ourselves planted at least somewhere in reality, but I'm interested in other points of view.

Willravel

Bush went to Harvard, Yale, and he married a teacher....despite all of this he cannot pronounce "nuclear" or "terror". At first I just explained it away by saying "well, it's his accent". That's not really true, though. The man has trouble thinking. We can all see that. He can't even read a speech written for him. People with a low IQ are more susceptable to influence and control. It's not solid proof, but it does support your theory.

Ustwo

"Harved" - Check.
Yale - Check.
Married a teacher - Check.
Governor - Check.
Two term President of the United States - Check.
Does not prounce "nuclear" or "terror" right - Must have a low IQ and trouble thinking.

Jesus, I just realized, the TV announcer types must be like da Vinci geniuses's with their teleprompter and pronunciation skills!

You know when I talk to Liberals the only Republican president they give any credit for brains is G.H.B, the one term who fell for their 'no new taxes' trap.

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Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

i am not sure of the utility of conspiracy theories in general---they seem geared toward simplifying the world, running along a kind of royalist logic that assumes, somewhere behind the surface of diverse folk acting with various motives for divergent ends, there lay a single explanation for what happens---an explanation that is condensed aroudn a discrete group of folks.

for example, i do not buy into the mythologies that have surfaced about skull and bones. mostly because i have spent almost all of my academic life at ivy league schools---so they hold no mystery for me, so the basis for much of the speculation isnt compelling.

as for the assocations of the bush family with arabs: so what? i found nothing interesting or explanatory about the segments of moore's "farenheit 911" that tried to work this association, nor have i found any other arguments rooted in the same basically racist view of arabs compelling from other political sectors.

i see the appeal of these theories as largely aesthetic--they function as conditions of possibility for very simple explanations for complex phenomena.

on the other hand, maybe i'm wrong about all the above: but given that i am hostile to the reversion to conspiracy, the arguments would have to be very strong. so far, i havent seen any.

besides, if there was a conspiracy behind the present political order, you'd think that they would have chosen someone less---um---inept to front for them. if the conspiracy is that incompetent, then i dont see why we should worry about it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

Ustwo - I will repeat for clarity. "despite all of this he cannot pronounce "nuclear" or "terror". At first I just explained it away by saying "well, it's his accent"." This is probably true.

Seperately, (and in addition to mispronunciation) he has said....
"Wow! Brazil is big." —George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005

"I mean, there was a serious international effort to say to Saddam Hussein, you're a threat. And the 9/11 attacks extenuated that threat, as far as I-concerned." —George W. Bush, Philadelphia, Dec. 12, 2005

"I think we are welcomed. But it was not a peaceful welcome." —George W. Bush, defending Vice President Dick Cheney's pre-war assertion that the United States would be welcomed in Iraq as liberators, NBC Nightly News interview, Dec. 12, 2005

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." —George W. Bush, to FEMA director Michael Brown, who resigned 10 days later amid criticism over his job performance, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

"It's totally wiped out. ... It's devastating, it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground." —George W. Bush, turning to his aides while surveying Hurricane Katrina flood damage from Air Force One , Aug. 31, 2005

"The best place for the facts to be done is by somebody who's spending time investigating it." —George W. Bush, on the probe into how CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity was leaked, Washington D.C., July 18, 2005

"You see, not only did the attacks help accelerate a recession, the attacks reminded us that we are at war." —George W. Bush, on the Sept. 11 attacks, Washington, D.C., June 8, 2005

"We discussed the way forward in Iraq, discussed the importance of a democracy in the greater Middle East in order to leave behind a peaceful tomorrow." —George W. Bush, Tbilisi, Georgia, May 10, 2005

"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me." —George W. Bush, Washington D.C., April 14, 2005

"I want to thank you for the importance that you've shown for education and literacy." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., April 13, 2005

"In terms of timetables, as quickly as possible — whatever that means." —George W. Bush, on his time frame for shoring up Social Security, Washington D.C., March 16, 2005


He's not distracted or befuddled. He doesn't just have trouble with pronunciation. He is stupid.

xepherys

willravel - You're right, IMHO. I mean, a bad quote or two is something that anyone in the spotlight is bound to have. But regular and constant quotes that show ignorance of your native tongue is generally considered to be due to lack of intelligence.

roachboy - I'm not sure I follow your thought line. First of all, by saying that you've been around ivy league schools just makes you a non-candidate for that argument to those that believe something there IS amiss. Also, how do you draw the conclusion that the assertion of political sway between the Saudi Royal Family and the Bush Family are somehow racist? It's nothing against the Saudis, or Arabs or any other group... it's a family with a lot of wealth and power (and interest in the US) that seems to hold a larger share of the political pie, behind the scenes, than most people would like to see or believe. I grew up in Detroit... Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit (and not far from where I lived) has the highest Arab population outside of the Middle East. I've been around Arabs as much as Blacks, Asians, Brits and pretty much any other group of people. I don't have any racist inclination toward any of them. *shrug* It seems to me that the racism card is a smoke screen of sorts, or that you don't really understand the argument being made. Is this a valid assessment?

roachboy

i guess i had in mind the moore film, which stopped short of making an actual argument, assuming instead that the association between bush family types and saudis was on its own enough to render them suspect.

as for the ivy league thing, i dont think skull and bones more than just another semi-secret society of wealthy young fuck-ups. these schools are full of them. trust me on that one.

mostly, i was saying that i dont find anything interesting about conspiracy theory explanations in general. but that's just a personal aesthetic thing.

sorry for being opaque: sometimes i think i am much lcearer than what i write turns out to be. it has a life of its own, the writing. it goes around, does things, gets tangled up. you know how it is too, i expect.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Astrocloud

This is the History of Bush's Family. Apparently it's a family tradition to work for foreign dictators.

http://nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstor...Bush_Nazi_Link

paulskinback

Its all about the illuminati. All of the US Presidents throughout history were masons who are linked to the illuminati. Its the new world order and its also the reason that Tony Blair is his lapdog. They are all told what to do from a higher source, a huge group of people who I believe invented the various religions, currencies, governments and world organisations.

People nowadays are forced into thinking that the world is a bad place, using scare tactics and a blanket of fear ("war on terror?"). People are generally less religious so I truly belive that the leaders of various countries are trying to make it all seem about religious beliefs.

Having said that, Bush does come across as an idiotic puppet and I think they could have found someone better. But he has the character (or fake character) of being very homely and a generally nice bloke so people listen to him.

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cellophanedeity

I have no idea if your president was put there by someone else...

But I find the title of this thread to be the most distracting thing on the main page.

Could we not have used different terms for this? *sigh*

Back to paranoizing...

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xepherys

Awww, Cello... you didn't like my title? *pout*