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#1 (permalink) | |
Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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Failing to Learn from History; the Neocon's are Back
When we fail to learn from our history, we are doomed to repeat it. I recently had the unpleasant realization that I am a prime example of that warning.
I was very apolitical in the '70's and only had a vague notion that Nixon was a bad guy and Viet Nam was a bad war. Dating and making a living were a great deal more important to me than national or world affairs. Cheney and Rumsfeld were familiar names to me in 2000, when Bush formed his cabinet, but I really couldn't tell you why. If I had made the least bit of effort to follow the Nixon presidency, I never would have voted for a guy with Cheney on the ticket. This is a well written (and very long) article concerning Cheney's political career and the birth of the neocon movement. The discussion point that I would like to engage is whether or not you believe that Cheney has harmed the Bush presidency in perpetuating what he learned in the Nixon presidency? I also see glaring intelligence failures in both administrations that I would like to discuss. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112505N.shtml Quote:
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#2 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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When I first read your headline I had some eminem in my head....'Cheney's back, back again' but that was replaced with the Imperial March from Star Wars when I read the first line of the op-ed. or his entire career, he sought untrammeled power. The Bush presidency and 9/11 finally gave it to him - and he's not about to give it up. So what you need to ask yourself is your core feeling on Cheney. If you view him as this evil powermonger, twisting others to his will, then you can proceed with the question. If not the question is meaningless. From Nixon, they learned the application of ruthlessness and the harsh lesson of failure. The dark side if you will....dun dun dun..dundundun.
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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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#5 (permalink) |
Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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Seaver, I use the TO.org links because you don't have to buy a subscription to get to the original source. I don't often see you buying into the Ustwo non-argument of ridicule the source, then ridicule the poster.
Do you wish to contribute to the discussion, Seaver? ![]() |
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#6 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: midwest
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I'm with Ustwo on this. You simply have assumed, as a given, that Cheney is "perpetuating what he learned in the Nixon presidency." Logic and my own life experience would suggest that Cheney has learned lots of other stuff in the 25 plus intervening years between the Nixon and Bush administrations, and has incorporated it into his conservative belief system. Without something authoritive to confirm that he's been in political stasis for the last quarter century, the issue you raise has a flawed premise, and doesn't make sense.
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#7 (permalink) | ||
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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nice to see conservatives already trying to swat this information away---but so far their arguments have been even more ridiculosu than usual.
the question of continuities between cheney under nixon and his role in bushworld is not uninteresting---it is not uninteresting to think about the neocons in terms of the history of thier engagements, the devolution of their authoritarian "thinking" in response to various---um----problems that this mode of political "thinking" has encountered. it is not uninteresting to attempt to understand how the present sorry state of conservative ideology has developed. it appears that even this--relatively begnin---move is enough to ruffle the feathers of conservatives who seem to enjoy the more authoritarian aspects of cheneythought. perhaps they too share his contempt for democracy, such as it is--perhaps they too see dissent as something necessarily "reprehensable"--perhaps they too dream of a day when dissent can be eliminated and the irrational policies of this administration or any other sufficient rightwing authoritarian administration can unfold without problems raised by or about them. within this, you see one of the most classically authoritarian ticks in conservativeland's collective mindscape: that problems with policies are to be blamed on those who point them out--the principle of the hitlero-trotskyite wrecker from the lovely "short course of the history of the communist party of the soviet union" or the jew in its radical nationalist mirrorspace. the correlate of the above is the focus particular to the conservative set on grouphate of certain information sources as inspiring the activities of the new "wreckers and saboteurs".....within this basically conspiratorial view of "the left" you get further delusions, like the unity of information sources, an imaginary cluster within which, apparently, truthout occupies a central role. it seems disengenuous to pretend, as do the conservatives above, that truthout is the only source for information about this dimension of cheneyism--just as the "readings" of the article above are so amateurish as to almost not repay the effort in dismissing them. that the writer of the article tries to connect aspects of cheneyism to the experience cheney et al had under nixon does not imply that he was kept cryogenically in the interim--it does not exclude the possibility of learning--it simply points to continuities. with ustwo's post, there is nothing of comparably substance to be dismissed--he seems to have no fear of any degree of authoritarian politics so long as they come wrapped in the flag and with the imprimatur of conservative media. and there is no point even wishing for some criticism of the bush administration from him--it simply will not happen. cheney does appear to have taken on the role of bad cop within the administration---policies connected to his office do have similarities between them, such as the total refusal to submit to anything approaching review, either by the legislative or the judiciary: Quote:
to which one could easily append a long list of such moves, each of which has similar contempt for review processes. it is interesting to note that among the many many problems raised by this type of authoritarian policy is that they do not work. o sure, it is the case that "suspects" are tortured (suspect in quotes because they are not granted the right to defend themselves, not granted the right to trial, not assumed to have any legal rights--therefore the question of guilt is moot--"suspects" are simply hoovered up into the system, maybe sent for a lovely torture-filled vacation in poland or kosovo or egypt or somewhere else and then are abused roundly, under the assumption of guilt--for the right, there is apparently something appealing about the idea that the Law is drawn to the Guilty--which is a fundamentally infantile relationship to the Law--which is like Dad---which perhaps explains something of the right's affection for bad cop cheney, as the severe Dad)--but the policies within which this shameful practices are framed are not functional. here is a good index of how they operate, if the right can fashion adequately obscuranist media coverage and behind that can feel as though it can do as it likes, using the military as an instrument: Quote:
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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#8 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: bedford, tx
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it amazes me that the dems and libs constantly seem to forget that they also were spouting the hussein/WMD connection as far back as 98, before bush was ever in office.
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"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." |
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#9 (permalink) | |
Lennonite Priest
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
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And this has to do with the topic of this thread HOW????? I believe Elphaba is discussing and wants to debate the history of Dick Cheney and his politics. Therefore HOW is your post relevant? Or are you trying to change the subject to fight a battle already waged in so many other threads? Call me the topic police...... ![]() No offense but stay on topic...... you want to battle the WMDs find one of the many other threads...... This thread Elphaba started is a totally different subject.
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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?" Last edited by pan6467; 11-27-2005 at 09:37 AM.. |
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#10 (permalink) | |
Cunning Runt
Location: Taking a mulligan
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If you indeed want a discussion about "learning from history," some of the Democratic party philosophies have been ruining countries since Rome fell. Others were warned against by the founding fathers. More recently, Gore was caught red-handed in a fund-raising crime (with hard evidence of more that were swept under the rug) and nothing happened. So if Cheney is acting improperly, I'd say he DEFINITELY learned from history. The limitation I mentioned is why this thread is a non-starter for me, and as far as I can tell, others feel the same. I'm sure you can get a few others on the board to chime in, but it's not going to resemble a "discussion" very much.
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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher |
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#11 (permalink) | ||
Junkie
Location: Fort Worth, TX
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Abuses as bad? So standing naked while a girl looks at you is as bad as being bathed in acid? As bad as your wife being kidnapped.. raped for 14 days.. then returned in shoeboxes? /ignore Last edited by Seaver; 11-27-2005 at 10:54 AM.. |
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#12 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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![]() Also Seaver damn you for quoting roachy as it makes me wish to respond, but I think you did handle it nicely, roachy missed the point in that the issue is not the poster, but the question itself.
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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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#13 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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the article that gave seaver an excuse to shut off the thread was about a statement made by allawi, folks--you know, the former pm of iraq under the american occupation. i suspect that he might have a better idea of conditions on the ground than you have from watching pooled press reports on television. just saying.
if this was the only such story, i could maybe even see the conservative dismissal--but it is far from the only such story. i know that conservative folk have more trouble than most addressing information they do not like, and that it is asking alot to request that they try to engage seriously with something they would prefer pretend is not there.... strange what the folk from the right would think this something i would simply put up or say myself--but i suppose it is asking alot to expect conservatives to actually read and not distort what they encounter. the point i was making by posting the allawi material is simply that the cheney-rumsfeld policies, when implemented without the friction of opposition, do not work. they fare little better in the context of a situation with friction. they simply are not functional--this despite their aesthetic appeal for the right, which i assume follows from their authoritarian character. i would hope that something approaching a substantive discussion would be possible with folk from the right on this--but i dont see it happening.... again. and it seems par for the course--and no more--that the rightwingers above would try to blame thier inability to engage in serious conversation on the post that began the thread, and not look to their own limited/limiting ways of coping with dissonance and perhaps see in that a big part of the problem not only with this exchange, but with all debate in this space. edit: btw i dont buy the santayana thing---those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it--but i do think that there is no reason not to look at the history of the necon movement, to understand its origins, its development, its modes of operation, and to use that history to inform how the contemporary follies are unfolding.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 11-27-2005 at 11:53 AM.. |
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#14 (permalink) | |
Lennonite Priest
Location: Mansfield, Ohio USA
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You make good points, but if it is not worthy of the Right's discussion then why post anything? Why not move on if you feel like not discussing this topic? Why were the first replies attacks and then just way out there with WMDs? To me, from experience, that is a defense from the Right because they can not answer the questions put forth. Why not go deeper into your second paragraph I would like to know what Gore did, as I haven't heard. Personally, I think Cheney is a great puppet master that George the 1st could control but George the 2nd either can't or doesn't want to. I can see from Elphaba's OP that there are some warnings from cheney's past that should be explored and talked about. That perhaps, he hungers for the power and control. I also wonder when the time comes in '08 for him to step aside if he tries to stay with Rice or the GOP nominee or if he steps down. I think Rice would be easily manipulated by him, McCain wouldn't and that is one reason the Neocons attack McCain, or anyone in the party that Cheney can not easily manipulate.
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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?" |
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#15 (permalink) |
Born Against
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Thanks for the post, Elphaba. I notice that nobody yet has made any attempt to refute any of the statements of fact in Blumenthal's article
![]() His description drives home the point that the Bush presidency has many points of similarity to a religious cult. We have: --a central authority figure who requires total, unquestioning loyalty; those who publicly question that authority are outed or vilified (e.g. you're either with us or you're with the terrorists); --a set of assertions/beliefs that in turn are presented as absolute truth and are not subject to any debate whatsoever, regardless of the evidence against them and regardless of the possibility that they are empty of meaning (e.g. "we'll stay in Iraq until we get the job done", the two alternative sets of intelligence information maintained by Cheney; the use of intelligence as propaganda in the Iraq war runup, esp. in regard to the Iraq/AQ "connection"); --an attitude of existing and operating above any accountability, the idea that "we have Right on our side" therefore we are to be implicitly trusted in everything we do, we have no need to explain ourselves except in the most general terms; decisions are made largely in secret without essential input (e.g. the Harriet Miers nomination, many other examples). Blumenthal's excellent article points out that the Nixon administration also showed many of these cult-like similarities (he could have included the quote "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal"), and many of these similarities were initiated or furthered by Cheney. I think most Americans would view these attributes as negatives, as essentially un-American, as in conflict with the ideal of a democratic society thriving under free, open debate. I think we're finally reaching the "tipping point" as more folks become aware of these things, as indicated by the recent Republican vote to finally hold bush accountable for what is happening in Iraq. As Winston Churchill said, "America can always be counted on to do the right thing -- after exhausting all the alternatives." Last edited by raveneye; 11-27-2005 at 12:43 PM.. Reason: oops, I had Hersh on the brain! |
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#16 (permalink) |
Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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I remember reading a criticism of the CIA not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The alarming question was how could they have gotten it so wrong on the state of the Soviet economy?
As Blumenthal points out, Cheney had fully circumvented CIA intelligence and produced and promoted his view through the same "group think" methodology that he used in selling the Iraq war. Please think about this. In Cheney's world, his foreign policy goals produce the intelligence necessary to support them. Intelligence needs to inform policy, not the other way around. My personal belief is that Cheney is a dangerous ideologue. |
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#17 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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conservative discourse is built around a kind of statement the features of which raveneye outlines quite well above. i think that the cult analogy is a bit overstated, but i can see where it comes from.
a different spin on parallel considerations: for the faithful, there must be something reassuring about a politics made up almost entirely of transcendent propositions, particularly that type of transcendent statement which purports to describe the world but never in any particularity--you can see it everywhere in conservative politics, from the assumptions about markets through their kind of flinstone realpolitik---for example, the various policies/problems associated with cheney. the reassuring character follows from the non-falsifability of the statements. it is also the feature that enables you to see conservative politics in general as a kind of neurotic flight from contemporary reality, from globalization for example....cheney is in this regard but an extreme example of what can happen if folk in a position to generate actual policy elaborate their sense of the world, and themselves in the world, across this discourse. conservative discourse in its contemporary american form is primarily an oppostional frame of reference that does not translate well at all into power--partly because the discourse itself is an incoherent hodge-podge of often conflicting assumptions/images---partly because it tends to reproduce the worst features of the conservative obsession with its own victimization (the history of the united states since vietnam is the sourceof this----and so in this as in so many regards, conservativeland is not understandable without recourse to the contexts that it responded to/came out of)---the sense of being victimized translates into an absolute opposition to every and all critics of the ideology, who are crushed into a fantasy of the left and understood as a bloc as enemies whose main function is to repeat the process of being-victimized itself (that is to threaten conservatives with a repetition of the history of the states since the vietnam era, a history that much conservative "thinking" is set up to erase)---you can see this playing out in cheneythought at almost every turn---removed from its oppositional situation, conservative discourse almost immediately become authoritarian--but it is a kind of accidental authoritarianism in that i doubt that even dick cheney fully recognizes the extent to which his positions fall squarely into the old radical nationalist political tradition....and i also wonder if these tendencies that you see growing out of applied conservative discourse would be as they are if the folk who espouse them were capable of seeing their politics in a longer-term historical framework. it is this ignorance of history that in a sense makes conservative ideology as dangerous as it is in the hands of someone like cheney. the sense of being-victimized certainly resonates with the history of the nixon administration, like it or not. at the same time, it is clear that cheney is playing the administration's bad cop. i do not believe that george w bush is so wholly out of it that the kind of policies now associated with cheney and rumsfeld could be developed and implemented without his knowledge. bush is presented as the affable dunce--cheney/rumsfeld as the darkside--but i think that is mostly rovespin geared toward preventing the president from being held politically to account for the debacles his administration has foisted on the rest of us.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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#18 (permalink) | ||
Cunning Runt
Location: Taking a mulligan
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I'm trying not to be rude when I say this, so please don't interpret it that way, but when I see people ignore all of the above and then call Cheney a "puppet master" like that was a crime, I lose interest. Quote:
McCain will have MASSIVE Republican support in that scenario.
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"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Margaret Thatcher |
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#19 (permalink) | |
Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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Another prospect may face him now that his daily intelligence briefs are being leaked. |
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#20 (permalink) |
Tilted
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McCain is a very personable man. It's very painful to see him stand behind the Bushies party line.
But if it's Clinton versus anybody, then it's clearly Clinton. Just look at the differences between 8 years of record growth versus 8 years of record deficits. (Wait for it... wait for it...) |
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#23 (permalink) | |
Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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#25 (permalink) | |
Pissing in the cornflakes
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__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. |
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#26 (permalink) |
Tilted
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He's not a media whore... I really respect him as a person. He's funny, articulate, willing to poke fun at himself... Just an all around good guy. Too bad he's a Republican. Maybe we can get him to switch sides like they were talking about in 2004 and 2000.
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#28 (permalink) | |
Junkie
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#29 (permalink) | |
Junkie
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#30 (permalink) | ||
Pissing in the cornflakes
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If you start 'on Rumsfeld' with the same type of opening the result will be the same. In the future I'd not recomend anything from truthout as starting material. P.S. Laura Ingram is a hottie. Quote:
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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps. Last edited by Ustwo; 11-27-2005 at 10:54 PM.. |
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#31 (permalink) |
Banned
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Zzzzzzzz......roachboy, yer posts are toooo long....
ustwo.....nice lookin' babe....who is she ??? Elphaba...truthout = guerilla op-ed...so... everything from that site.....(did I mention "toooo long?) from Maureen Dowd to Ray McGovern is not worthy of even a fact check. Maybe...if an article that you post is still linked to the premium site where it first appeared, and where only subscribers can see it.... instead of being linked to truthout, where you get it.....it might be worth reading.....but then I couldn't read it....cuz I don't subscribe.....but once it's linked from truthout....it's lost all credibility....so we'll never seriously consider it...once it comes from truthout...it's ruined <b>!</b> roachboy.....'member you posted something about "tiny"??? That was a good one...and it was short, too! In edit.....Laura Ingram, huh ? She's hot <b>!</b> ustwo...whaddya think a recap of yer last dozen posts in these threads would look like? Same as always......<b>?</b> Last edited by host; 11-27-2005 at 11:10 PM.. |
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#33 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Right here
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and fuckall it made a lot of sense, but I can't respond right now because I'm preoccupied with this blonde from the titty board... /off to the shower
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman |
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#34 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Fort Worth, TX
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Roachboy. You think we dont read the articles. We do... we also READ PAST them.
This was Allawi simply attempting to distance himself from the stigma of being a puppet. Just like when the Egyptian Government denounces us left and right about how evil we are, yet turn around and buy as much stuff from us as they can. Just like when the Jordanian King denounced Israel for their prosecution of the Palestinians, yet pleaded them to come into his borders to get rid of the PLO. Just like when the Marionite Christians pleaded for US intervention in the Lebanese Civil War... yet the one who funded the Barracks bombing turned out to be a Marionite. These things are NOT uncommon in this area. For him to have any future power he needs to denounce us. This doesnt mean he believes what he says. Only a retarded monkey would truly think we're as bad as Hussain (we got a lot of those in the world apparently). |
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#35 (permalink) | ||
Junkie
Location: Right here
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Did you claim you stopped reading at the first line of the article?
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So it would appear that, by your own statement, you didn't read the article. Why are you now arguing against roachboy for thinking you didn't read the article?
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"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann "You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman |
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#36 (permalink) | |
Born Against
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1. a blind faith in trickle-down Reaganomics, tax reductions for the upper income brackets, corporate tax rate reductions, government subsidies, deregulation; what Bush's dad referred to as "voodoo economics" and which no respected economist has ever advocated, including conservative economists; 2. a blind faith in the power of the U.S. military to force the will of the U.S. on other nations, through threat of war or outright invasion, war, and nation-building if necessary. And "will" is usually defined in terms of (1) above, namely in terms of U.S. corporate interests, whose well-being is equated to the well-being of the U.S. as a whole (and Bush probably needed to be re-educated in this area, reluctant as he has been in the past to endorse the value of nation-building); 3. this foreign policy ideology is accompanied by the unquestioned view that 2005 = 1939, i.e. the threats of islamofascism, China, and Iran are equated with the threats of Hitler and Japan pre WWII, and anybody who disagrees and advocates diplomacy is an "appeaser" (again Bush himself in the past has had trouble getting the message -- during the China spy plane incident he was respectful and apologetic, which probably infuriated Cheney); 4. complete intellectual inflexibility, to the point that all of these beliefs have become matters of unfalsifiable faith, leading to an "ends justify the means" ethic that has resulted in an attitude of civil war between the Administration and the CIA, when the CIA has often refused to provide Cheney with the propaganda necessary to rationalize an aggressive foreign policy stance. I think that about covers it. And it's worth pointing out that Nixon was not anywhere near as extreme as Cheney when it came to foreign policy; Nixon in fact tended to prefer diplomacy and containment; if Nixon were president in 2000 he probably would have continued to contain Saddam. |
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#37 (permalink) | |
Born Against
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![]() One thing you forgot to mention, host, is the inevitable "well Clinton did it too!" post that always eventually comes up in these threads. I think we need a new law to cover this, analogous to Godwin's Law. We can call it Godwin's Corollary, and here it is: If an internet discussion of conservative shortcomings continues sufficiently long, there inevitably will pop up the "Well, Clinton did it too!" rationalization. In this thread it took 8 posts, with a nice followup in post 28. Just one of the warm comforts of the familiar in the post-Clinton U.S.A. ![]() |
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#38 (permalink) | |
Junkie
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And as for "these threads", "these threads" are little more than thinly veiled attacks based on personal opinion. Liberals are just as blinded by ideology and irrationality as the bible-thumpinest, tax-cuttinest, flag-wavinest conservative. Nothing new or important ever is found in threads like this, it's merely another excuse for liberals to trot out the reasons they think "rEpUbLiKKKaNs aRe TeH sUxX0RZ!!1!!!!". That's why there's so much disdain from opposing viewpoints-there's no notable content to discuss here. Anyone thinking rationally and with even the smallest hint of objectivity would see that these attacks deserve no more respect or logical rebuttal than a homeless guy on a corner who ran out of schizophenia medicine. Last edited by alansmithee; 11-28-2005 at 08:33 AM.. |
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#39 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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on what possible basis do you say that, alansmithee?
because you do not like the article? because you object for some reason to truthout as a source for anything? because you object to its content? because you object a priori to sydney blumenthal? where is the problem with linking cheney in bushworld to cheney under nixon? what is the problem with looking at the history of the neoconservative movement in general? on what possible basis could you object to viewing contemporary tendencies in neocon politics/ideology in a historical context? if there is an analytic argument to be made about cheney's particular views within the neocon movement in general that links them to potentially authoritarian outcomes, on what basis could you possible object to the fact of that argument? if you disagree, then fire away--but you are not simply disagreeing--you, like ustwo and the other sorry examples of conservative denial you see on this sad sad thread--are trying to make the argument go away as such. what are your motives? i do not see anything coherent in your accusation about ad hominem...i do not see anything considered in your attempts to dismiss concerns that folk who disagree with you politically might have about cheney or any other far right ideologue....all i see is yet another attempt to deal with dissonance by looking to erase it. and if there is something pathological in this thread, it can be found in this refusal to engage on the part of conservatives, this refusal to think about dissonant information, this refusal to even consider that the right might not have a monopoly on framing legitimate questions, legitimate ways of interpreting information, legitimate politics in general. this is a recurrent feature of "interactions" with conservatives on topics they do not like and/or cannot control across this forum. once again, for folk who talk about personal responsibility, it seems that most conservatives have a really hard time with applying the idea to themselves, not to mention actually taking personal responsibility, even discursively---in this case,it is pretty bloody obvious that the problem with this thread lay in the right's reaction to it, which is simply a part of the general pattern of conservative refusal of serious discussion except in those situation where the frame of reference matches with thier own. this pattern reeks of narcissism, frankly---which follows from its basically infantile motivations. a closed world in which only conservatives get to talk. anything that strays too far gets shouted down--a tactic that assume the cumulative weight of many flinstone voices outweighs the total lack of content of each individual voice.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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#40 (permalink) | |||||
Banned
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The man who the president picked to be his running mate, twice....and who has been given more power and responsibility than any prior vice-president, seems to answer to the VP, and cedes authority to make and carry out foreign and military policy, to him. I'm not saying this...the assistant to former secretary of state Colin Powell, Larry Wilkerson, after serving Powell for 16 years, is the one saying it. And....are you saying that Cheney is not a liar? The big lie....the one that was the basis of a propaganda campaign designed to convince us to support an invasion of Iraq...can be found displayed right on the white house website. Isn't that a sign that something is very wrong? Shouldn't you be disturbed about these things? I'm disturbed that you don't want to talk about it. Shooting the messenger ain't gonna get you by, this time..... The lie that exposes the big lie is found in an obscure place....Drudge's news archive. Why are you all trying to stifle discussion. Are these not essential issues to soldiers and their families who may still have to face risks of physical harm in Iraq? Are you writing to your federal representatives to urge them to hold open investigations of Cheney and Bush?...or are you working to discourage discussion, while attempting to make those who want to discuss these disturbing matters, look foolish? Is that how you support the troops? Is that how you want to treat fellow Americans who cherish and honest and open government as much as you say you do? If he's not a liar....did Drudge alter the item in his archive, did I? please explain: Quote:
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Last edited by host; 11-28-2005 at 10:26 AM.. |
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Tags |
back, failing, history, learn, neocon |
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