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Posted by brian28 on May 24, 2006 at 10:23 AM
One of the many falsehoods the left spreads about President Bush is that he had no plan for Iraq: too few troops, no plan for government, no plan for confessional conflict, etc. But just because the leftists are not smart enough to recognize a plan if it bit them in the ass, that does not mean that there was no plan. The plan was superb, the results so far have been outstanding, and all the final pieces are just about in place.
Consider first what we have accomplished since 09/11. From a cold start, we convinced Pakistan to support us, went into Afghanistan, routed the Taliban and al-Qa’eda in a matter of weeks, and established a democracy in a very hostile environment, with just a few hundred American and allied casualties, and with minimal damage to the native population and the infrastructure. And we now have American forces on Iran’s eastern border.
(For comparison, the old Soviet Union wasted ten years in Afghanistan, killed maybe two million Afghanis, suffered 15,000 fatalities and one-half million casualties [many of them from illnesses], and bankrupted their union, much to everybody’s benefit.)
Iraq was a harder nut to crack, where Saddam and the Ba’athists were entrenched after several decades in power. But even so, the major combat by the Coalition was completed in three weeks, a democracy has been established, and Iraqi forces are being created who are actively pursuing the Ba’athist die-hards and the pitiful remainder of al-Qa’eda. With the single exception of Gulf I (a much more limited exercise), Afghanistan and Iraq have been the least expensive military endeavors in USA history (by more than an order of magnitude), both in casualties and in dollar costs, and the results have been spectacular, compared to, say, the Democrats’ costly misadventures in Korea and Vietnam. And we now have American forces on Iran’s western border.
Besides the outstanding results in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have enjoyed several beneficial by-products from our efforts: Qaddafi surrendered his nuclear and chemical weapons and gave up terrorism, the Syrians are out of Lebanon, and even Egypt and Sa’udi Arabia are gingerly adopting limited democratic forms. And we now have American forces on Iran’s eastern and western borders.
With all these clues, now do you see the plan? Exiting Iraq will be a piece of cake, even easier than Afghanistan and Iraq. With American forces and their Iraqi allies on the west, and American forces and their Afghani allies on the east, just bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs, and invite the people of Iran to join their neighbors in their own democratic government. Russia, China, Europe, and the UN have long since made themselves irrelevant to this process, or to anything important, so they are not a consideration. Enjoy.
Posted by scorp on May 24, 2006 at 8:00 PM
> the results so far have been outstanding
No doubt about it, scorp,Iraq and Afghanistan are wonderful places to live these days. I suggest you move there immediately.
Posted by marcello09 on May 25, 2006 at 10:21 AM
It will be a blessing for Iraq when the last American soldier, mercenary, and businessman leave Iraq. It will not be a “noble course of action” for after invading a country illegally and killing hundreds of thousands in a textbook case of colonialism, we’ve lost the right to even think the word “noble.” And I agree that it won’t be a “panacea for Iraq’s ills.” But it will be the first step in the right direction. And it is easy. Ask anyone who’s been in Iraq, and I don’t mean the Green Zone.
I visited my family in southern Iraq for 3 months between December 2005 and March 2006. I thought I knew what was going on there, but people who have lived their entire lives there don’t know what’s going on. There are at least 11 militias operating throughout the country. Iranians have flooded into Iraq, home to the 2 holiest Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala, under the banner of Islamic parties (and maybe one saying “Mission Accomplished”). Occupation forces are there. American CIA agents are there. And Israeli Mossad and military are operating from a heavily guarded base in northern Iraq, (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2070420.html). And we are training death squads as we did in Vietnam and El Salvador. Iraqis know that every day may be their last, and while any number of sources may pull the trigger, responsibility lies with the United States.
The concept of civil war and sectarian strife is well-described by Iraqi Sami Ramadani, a political refugee from Saddam Hussein’s regime and senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University:
“It is not withdrawal that threatens Iraq with civil war, but occupation…The occupation’s sectarian discourse has acquired a hold as powerful as the WMD fiction that prepared the public for war. Iraqis are portrayed as a people who can’t wait to kill each other once left to their own devices. In fact, the occupation is the main architect of institutionalised sectarian and ethnic divisions; its removal would act as a catalyst for Iraqis to resolve some of their differences politically.”
Toensing describes the “insurgency” as “roughly 20,000 Sunni Arab[s].” However, no uprising can last without popular support, and three and a half years after Baghdad fell, the legitimate resistance to our illegal occupation is alive and well. Toensing describes that sectarian violence worsened after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, but the reality I saw on the ground didn’t substantiate that.
The destroyed shrine was for Hassan Askari, descendant of the prophet Mohammed. In Islam, there is one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger; and one holy book he scribed, the Quran. It is illogical that Sunni and Shia Muslims will target each other’s mosques, defile the prophet, or destroy passages from the Quran. Yes, hundreds of Iraqis died in the days that followed this particular crime, but who was directly responsible remains a mystery. In both Baghdad and Basrah, Sunni and Shiite clerics prayed in solidarity. And where were the occupation forces, whose job it is to effect security? For two days following the bombing, tanks that rolled by twice a day were absent; military planes came instead, and did nothing to stop the violence. Toensing writes “[t]o be sure, the current conflict is historically rooted in the deposed regime’s repression.” But the Hassan Askari Shrine remained intact for the 30 years of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Many Iraqis want the tanks and planes to leave and electricity and water to stay. They want employment, security, and a decent quality of life. As scores of Iraqis die every day, it does not matter if you call it civil war, sectarian strife, or democracy; it is—by design—an American killing field, a smokescreen for stealing oil, and for establishing permanent military bases to defend American business interests. Bring the troops home, or send your own.
Dahlia Wasfi, M.D.
Denver, Colorado USA
Posted by dahliawasfi on May 25, 2006 at 2:07 PM
Dahlia, thank you for your perspective.
Posted by marcello09 on May 25, 2006 at 2:19 PM
“With all these clues, now do you see the plan? Exiting Iraq will be a piece of cake, even easier than Afghanistan and Iraq. With American forces and their Iraqi allies on the west, and American forces and their Afghani allies on the east, just bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs, and invite the people of Iran to join their neighbors in their own democratic government. Russia, China, Europe, and the UN have long since made themselves irrelevant to this process, or to anything important, so they are not a consideration. Enjoy. “
Yes, scorp, thank you for showing me the light. Why don’t you go yourself to “bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs” . Your arrogance is only equaled by your absolute lack of humanity. If, in the process, you kill some civilians, destroy civilizations and interfere in the lives of other countries, it really doesn’t matter. Everybody knows by now that God is a USA citizen and that earth is yours. Russia, China, Europe, the UN and, of course, Latin America ae irrelevant to anything important, such as the appropriation of oil, so leave us out of consideration and we promise to continue “enjoying” your wars and accept the fact that you are the only ones entitled to have and use chemicals, atomic and other weapons.
The only thing we cannot promise you is admiration or respect. In the last 50 years USA has done its best to lose it and what once was a watchtower for all has become a menace to all, including your own people of good faith. Enjoy while you can.
Posted by Maria on May 25, 2006 at 4:58 PM
I’d love too, but sorry Scorpy and WTH, I’ve just had my lunch and you two together feeding off each other’s delusions and with the combined denial of two cringing cowards, it would be more than I could handle today.
Bye…..........^^...............
Oh a little something to pass the time. One of your great thinkers? Gives the poverty of actual knowledge even at the top away a bit. How embarrassing, this is your foreign secretary.
Oh how embarrassing.
How’s the War on Terror going guys? Feeling less terror now are we?
Posted by Rabbit on May 25, 2006 at 8:52 PM
Maria -
Well, I don’t despise the Mullahs, I am indifferent to them except that they have announced that they want to kill me. It is the Irani people who are rioting against the Mullahs, who oppress and repress the Iran Nation. But you haven’t bothered to read up on that, have you? And you definitely won’t find it in the NYT. And, yes, I think that democracy is a good thing and everybody benefits from democracy and the rule of law, after the lawless totalitarian terrorists are eliminated.
” ... kill some civilians ... “? And who exactly would that be? The coalition has conscientiously avoided targeting civilians and has been highly successful in this. All these car bombs and suicide bombers come from the terrorists and lawless elements, many of the same people who killed hundreds of thousands of civilians before we ended Saddm’s murderous regime. The death toll is down massively since Saddam went to the pokey, and the growing Iraqi democracy will bring the lawless elements under control.
” ... destroy civilizations ... “? You mean like the Bamiyan Buddhas? Maria, I have told you 40,000 times not to exaggerate. We haven’t destroyed any civilizations, though we did mess up some facilities in Germay and Japan in the earlier unpleasantness. Fortunately, this won’t be necessary in the present instance. Saddam’s palaces do not represent “civilization”.
” ... interfere in the lives of other countries ... “? You mean like WTC, the African Embassies, Bali, Madrid, London, and the ongoing warfare between Pakistani Sunni and Shia? You know, of course, that by far the largest number of victims of Islamist terrorism are Muslims. Democracy and the rule of law will substantially end the ancient warfares and murders between Shia and Sunni. Do you have a serious problem with creating democracies, or are you just indulging in a bit of recreational bitching?
” ... Russia, China, Europe, the UN and, of course, Latin America ... “? Where did Latin America come from? The Soviet Union collapsed from communist incompetence and corruption. Europe is collapsing from socialist incompetence and corruption. The UN is propped up despite massive incompetence and corruption (Rwanda genocide, Darfur genocide, Oil-for-Food bribery and scandal, UN Peace-keeping sexual repression and scandals). The only one of the named entities making progress is China, and that is the result of adopting free-market economics. The intent is, of course, is to foster democracy by promoting economic freedom. We have made a lot of progress since President Nixon introduced the concept. Every time I go to China I see additional progress, but China does have some internal problems and contradictions.
” ... the appropriation of oil ... “? I think you mean “expropriation”. This is one of the leftists’ favorite themes and ongoing lies. I defy you to give me a single example of the USA ever expropriating anybody’s oil in any circumstace. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, one of the first intergovernmental actions was to turn the oil portfolio over to the Iraqis in June 2003. But don’t let mere facts get in the way of a good ideological propaganda point. You leftists are too dense or too ill-informed to understand the meaning and importance of facts, anyway.
Continued ...
Posted by scorp on May 25, 2006 at 8:56 PM
Blast ..........the rabbit cannot help itself.
Scorpy Rabbit agrees with you; getting out of Iraq will eventually be quite easy.
After the Shia backlash which will follow the attack on Iran your clever war chiefs are getting ready for, any American troops still alive in Iraq a few weeks later shouldn’t take more than a single ship or two to bring home.
How is that War on Terror going boys?
Oh Scorpy which Mullahs have wanted to kill you? Could you provide links to the actual threats, for our information?
I also agree that the best way to get democracy is to get rid of the “lawless totalitarian terrorists”. When do you propose to start? You have allowed them to rule your country now for two stolen elections.
Posted by Rabbit on May 25, 2006 at 8:56 PM
” ... only ones entitled to have and use chemicals, atomic and other weapons ... “? Ummm, no. The USA has long since eliminated its chemical weapons. The acknowledged nuclear powers are Great Britain, France, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan. Clinton was asleep at the wheel (or diddling Monica, or whomever) when he failed to note that India was preparing for nuclear tests, which was a big mistake, but not a catastrophe. The Mullahs are crazy, and Irani nukes would be a catastrophe, so it won’t happen.
“The only thing we cannot promise you is admiration or respect. ” Yeah, yeah, but can you promise us that Iran won’t use its nukes to destroy, say, Israel? Your admiration and respect and $1.85 will get a latte at Starbuck’s. We have serious business to take care of. You may continue to trivialize yourself if you wish.
Posted by scorp on May 25, 2006 at 8:57 PM
Now Now Scorpy. The USA invaded Iraq partly because they were trying to sell their oil in Euros, every body knows that.
The first thing they did upon entering Iraq, apart from securing the oil fields, (ignoring the security of anything else), was to return the Iraqi Oil back into Dollars. Actually the truly informed also know that it wasn’t so much to get the oil, although controlling it was crucial, but to stop it being produced. The desired result can be seen in the record profits being made by the owners of your excuse for a government.
Obviously if Iraq was actually attacked to ensure you got cheap fuel for your car, little Scorpy, then it would be an even bigger screwup than it already is. You are not paying less for your fuel, quite the contrary. You will never pay less for your fuel. You are being raped blind actually. Say thankyou Mr Cheney and the Neo-con Bushmen.
Now Scorpy dealing only with your main bloopers, ‘cause very little you say is based on anything but your dreams.
The USA has not gotten rid of its chemical weapons, or its biological weapons and it is in fact researching and increasing its stockpiles of these weapons even as the rest of the world is discarding them.
Firstly Depleted Uranium is a Chemical Weapon!.
Once deployed and you guys have deployed enormous quantities lately, it forms Ceramic Uranium Oxide Vapours which makes it a banned chemical weapon under interenational conventions, which the USA has now withdrawn from. In short you have become a rogue nation.
More links on your chemical and biological weapons stockpile will be posted shortly, in the mean time feel free to dribble your particlular dream scape beliefs, as if anything you say becomes fact on account of your huge need to believe it.
I like to see you talk shit first then debunk it, rather than merely give you a chance to avoid the pitfalls. As if you would. Rabbit remembers that Scorpy walks into a lot of walls metaphorically speaking.
Rabbit is happy to see the Scorp again, is Scorpy pleased to see the rabbit too.?
AND Scorpy, we can definately promise you that Iran, which has never threatened to attack anyone without cause, and has not attacked anyone for hundreds of years, would not use the Nuclear Weapons (which they may already have actually) to attack Israel. One of the reasons is that Israel is a heavily armed Nuclear weapon state. You are so full of bull its as pathetic as always.
This shows what a big liar the USA has become. It also shows what a fool Scorpy is for believing Iran ever was a threat.
Posted by Rabbit on May 25, 2006 at 9:06 PM
Italian Film documents use of Chemical Weapons
Hell Scorpy not only do you arseholes have lots of the shit, you also like to use it on civilian populations.
The USA is the cause of much proliferation of such weapons of course, especially Iraq, under Hussein.
More on US complicity in the Iraqi atrocities using Chemical and Biological weapons against the Iranians, who you now propose are somehow deserving of more aggression I might add. Lets be honest Scorpy. You are a cheerleader for montrous acts of International terror and war crimes of the highest order. Nobody is expecting dumbdicks like you to reverse your position on such things. We’ll be needing someone to hang when the International Tribunals are arranged anyway so stay true to your cause, meathead.
The U.S. has its own huge nuclear, biological and chemical stockpiles. The U.S. was the first to develop and use nuclear weapons—blowing away two civilian cities in Japan. U.S. allies (from France to Britain to Israel to Pakistan) and you keep forgetting to mention ISRAEL, have nukes—and use them to threaten opponents. The U.S. has active biowarfare research and stockpiles—which were wrapped in official lies until their own anthrax spores showed up in post offices and Congress and media offices. The U.S. government has still not explained these illegal biowarfare activities or who in their operations used these weapons inside U.S. borders
Posted by Rabbit on May 25, 2006 at 10:03 PM
SCORPY
You missed Israel off your list of “acknowledged nuclear powers”.
Posted by frog on May 26, 2006 at 5:33 AM
Does Scorpy think the Soviet Union collapsed due to communist incompetence and corruption? Scorpy that is a meaningless slogan. Any analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union, begins and ends with the economic collapse. Largely orchestrated by the USA, and which Afganistan was a large part by bleeding the Soviets dry in a long and expensive war of attrition.
This is historically important to recognise, for the USA is now on the verge of a sort of supercharged version of the same thing.
Come on now Scorpy, the rabbit came out from under the hedge. Wiggled his nose and waggled his ears, looked at the Scorpy and hopped for joy. Now that the hopper is ready to play, the scaredy cat Scorpy has run quite away.
Pleasant dreams Scorpy, hope you dream of rabbits, with turbans and rocket launchers, yelling allahuakbar, as they wage war on your freedoms and way of life.
Hi Frog. See the wondrous Scorpy, he is Rabbit’s long lost personal troll. Bit like a runaway cat now he doesn’t want to know me.
Posted by Rabbit on May 26, 2006 at 6:07 AM
Frog -
I defy to show me where the Israeli government has ever acknowledged having nukes.
Yes, they have them, France and Israel cooperated in developing nukes for both countries. Then France in one of it’s perverse changes of philosophe politique decided to help Iraq build nukes, necessitating the famous raid on Osirak.
Posted by scorp on May 26, 2006 at 8:58 AM
Eidolon Lagomorph -
Any analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union, begins and ends with the economic collapse. Largely orchestrated by the USA, and which Afganistan was a large part by bleeding the Soviets dry in a long and expensive war of attrition.
Well, I don’t need to address all your silly points, but the above will serve to illustrate your lack of knowledge and leftist ideological bias.
We are agreed that the SU suffered economic collapse. Duh! When has a communist economy ever succeeded? Never, that’s when. And the socialist economies are only barely staving-off economic collapse, SO FAR.
China took a different road, embracing free-market economics when and where it served their purpose. But China is conflicted and therefore unstable, trying to link a totalitarian political system with a free economy. This is an interesting experiment that has generated a lot of beneficial results (and even more poorly-informed comments), but the corruption and inefficiency of totalitarian systems will limit what China will ever achieve, unless they free up their political systems as well. .
Now, President Reagan was a genius who offered the Soviets the opportunity to act stupidly, and they took it, both economically in pursuing a communist system, and geopolitically in expanding their empire by force (against the Afghanis, for God’s sakes!). But be assured that the Soviets were acting on their own. The USA could hardly “orchestrate” the actions of the “super-power” Soviets. The Soviets chose to act stupdly, just as Old Europe is choosing to act stupidly and bankrupt their economies.
Don’t get me started on your absurd conspiracy theories.
Posted by scorp on May 26, 2006 at 10:07 AM
Scorp, shouldn’t you be busy packing for Afghanistan? Like you said, it’s a wonderful place, and I hear that the surf’s up in Kandahar. Get movin’, my man, you’re missing out!
Posted by marcello09 on May 26, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Scorp, I included Latin America in your list of “incompetent states” because your government is constantly watching over the doings of Chavez, Lula, Evo Morales, Kirchner and they don’t seem to be getting the full approval of the Empire. As for my use of the word “appropriation” of oil, I must insist on it. I didn’t mean “expropriation” because that’s what Evo Morales has recently done. According to the Oxford dictionary, expropriate is “deprive of property for the public use, generally with compensation”. To give something a public use you must first have a legal right on the assset, which the USA never had on oil which happens to be located under the soil of other countries.
As to your boasting about “democracy”, which I heartily think should be the best form of government, I can’t call democracy a system which decides to start wars or put pressure on others without consulting its own people first. After all, the ones that are sent to do the dirty job are not the children of those who profit from such enterprises, but the underprivileged who wrongly think they will be obtaining something from enroling.
The long lists of wars in which USA has taken part (directly or under cover, such as in Nicaragua and Salvador or through CIA’s complicity such as in Argentia and Chile) speaks for itself and is nothing to be proud of. I know, you don’t need our respect but that’s because you wouldn’t know what to do with it. Winning respect is the hardes task in a man’s life, as you must probably have found out by now.
Posted by Maria on May 26, 2006 at 2:20 PM
One of scorp’s most absurd claims is that the Iraq War is a bargain. Both Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the US taxpayer nearly $1 Trillion thus far by some estimates. This at a time of unprecedented deficits and tax cuts. Eager to prompt either the apocolypse or a major depression or both, John Negroponte, of El Salvador death squad fame, has proposed relaxing many of the SEC’s corporate accounting and reporting rules. Presumably, this is in honor and commemoration of the recent Enron Verdicts. How relevant! Is this the most insane Administration in US history or what?!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 26, 2006 at 8:36 PM
Maria -
You shitting me, girl?
Well, yes, we are watching particularly Chavez and Morales. But they are not quite the threat that Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chile were when the KGB was actively engaged in expanding the Soviet Empire. So we won’t soon be taking action against these latest two-bit threats, when four-bit Islamist threats are there for the taking.
Besides, Chavez and Morales are locked in tight to high energy prices . When the price of energy tumbles next year, they will be out of income, out of investors and investment, and out of office. Their people will be out of luck, but maybe the Democrats can blame it on Bush, or Cheney, or Halliburton. Chavez has already contracted with Russia for one million barrels of oil a day to meet his existing contractual obligations, because his political appointments to PDVSA are incompetent to run the company, and the plant base is not being maintained.
Now, Lula is different. Lula is a savvy leftist, which is normally an oxymoron, but Lula is capable of rational thought from deep within his leftist ideology roots. Sort of like Susan Estrich and Peter Bienart in their respective fields.
There will be a struggle for the political and trade direction of South America, as Mercosur is riven by conflict, generated mostly by populist personalities, such as Kirchner and Chavez, versus serious politicians, such as Lula.
<blockquote>As to your boasting about
Posted by scorp on May 27, 2006 at 3:23 AM
CDC -
I could estimate the war cost at two cents, and be much, Much, MUCH closer to the real figure than your “estimate”.
The current cost of Afghanistan-Iraq is $284 billion, which will go to about $350 billion by September of 2006 when it will start to seriously wind down. The figures above are based on Congressional appropriations (or expropriations, according to Maria’s definition).
In contrast, the annualized 2006 1Q GDP is $13037.4 billion ($13 trillion), up almost 30% since the start of 2002. So, the cost of the Wars through September are right at 2.7% of current GDP, or about one-third of this year’s increase in GDP.
Think about it. It took over 200 years to build a $10 trillion dollar economy, and it has taken President Bush and his tax cuts just four and one-half years to increase the economy by an additional $3 trillion. If I was a Democrat, I would be complaining bitterly, too.
” ... unprecedented deficits and tax cuts ... “? Well, no. The deficits are dropping like a rock, and will be below the 40 year average this year.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budgetcharts/2007_budget/deficit.pdf
President Clinton’s economic mismanagement (record tax increases, the Bubba Bubble, and the collapse of NASDAQ in Clinton’s last year in office) goddam near wrecked the American economy, and, as a result, President Bush’s first year in office was marked by a flat GDP. But Bush’s tax cuts revived economic activity, investment, and employment, and the economy and tax receipts are now growing nicely, thank you. And that is why GDP growth went from zero in 2001 to up 30% since the beginning of 2002. The Democrats are lying to you about this, and you believe them, sucker.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, Democrat or Republican. President Kennedy, faced with a stagnant economy, was the first president to embrace his economists’ views that tax cuts and deficit spending could lead to enhanced economic activity and higher tax receipts. Worked like a charm. President Reagan, who studied economics in college, followed the same path and brought the USA out of the Carter Castastrophe. President Reagan’s tax cuts and economic reforms resulted directly in the prosperity of the 1990s, but Clinton’s mistakes damaged the economy severely. We now have three successful applications of the tax-reduction/tax-receipt-increase policy, and Democrats still cannot get it through their heads that it works. On the contrary, the Democrats’ only solution to the problem of good times is to raise taxes, in order to create bad times. Sucker.
<blockquote>Eager to prompt either the apocolypse or a major depression or both, John Negroponte, of El Salvador death squad fame, has proposed relaxing many of the SEC
Posted by scorp on May 27, 2006 at 6:09 AM
Scorp,
Your figures are as usual misleading. The actual dollar figures for both wars may be under $300 billion by most estimates but they fail to include money spent on both reconstructions and other private security contracts not all of which is transparent, veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs to the US economy based on the war’s effect on Gulf production and the price per barrel of high grade crude from the Persian Gulf. By many researchers accounts this will easily top $1 trillion by 2010. This is the real estimate since Bush has already committed our troops until he is out of office. He has publically stated that “it is the task of future administrations to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.” This is already the costliest war in US history in 2005 inflation adjusted dollars after WWII! The deficit is NOT dropping like a stone but moving ever upward at an accelerating rate. The Federal debt is at a record high at over $8 trillion which is an unprecedented two-thirds of the GDP while the current account deficits and the balance of payments deficits are at all time highs. Just the fact the gold is over $700.00/ounce is telling news about our economy. Consumer debt and now unprecedented mortgage failures are about to send interest rates way up and combined with climbing energy prices (and energy profits) should kill the stock market and bring on a depression. The Fed has already raised the Prime Rate to 8% this May and is prepared to raise it even higher over the next few quarters. The NASDEQ is trading at less than half its highs during 2000 before Bush was elected and the DOW JONES Industrials are way off as well. George Bush has the lowest monthly post-recession job growth record in post-WWII history. Clinton’s was very high at about 200,000/month between 1996 and 2000. We also experienced 3.5% annual economic growth rates in that period. Bush created a deficit from a surplus in 2001 and took the economy further into a downslide. Economic growth under Bush has been slower than under Clinton. Bush lost a net 3 million jobs! By the end of Clinton’s term the US economy was already nearing $10 Trillion. When Clinton took office, the US GDP was around $6 trillion and grew to about $9.8 trillion in 2000, an increase of about 64%. Under Bush the GDP went from $9.8 trillion to $11.7 trillion by 2004, an increase of only 20% and with far fewer net jobs or in fact a jobless recovery from the 2000-2001 recession. Further, in the last year of Clinton’s second term, the US GDP was about one-third of the global GDP. After four years of Bush mismanagement and deficit building the US GDP sunk to a little over one-quarter of the global GDP in 2004—ie., slowed to below the previous Clinton-era US average in economic growth. Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating while Bush is now at a 29% rating and dropping. Clinton didn’t raise taxes and in fact gave several hundred billion in tax cuts in his second term of office much of which expanded GDP growth. The tax cuts helped the middle class and not just the upper 1%. The actual cost of the wars in both countries which have accomplished zero and have led to more bloodshed and even greater instability is closer to 8 or 9% of our GDP which is unprecedented! The opportunity and other costs are also to be counted. It will eventually hurt the US economy. Bush is a theif and a criminal and has no respect for the US constitution and is waiving SEC rules at a time when our economy is most vulnerable to abuse from such a stupid move. It is also illegal as it requires approval from congress. Scorp you are more evil than Osama bin Laden because people like you CAN actually ruin our society unlike Osama who your fearless leader has no interest in finding and with whom is most likely conspiring. As far as Negroponte’s waiving of SEC rules for publicly traded defense contractors is concerned we must note that it is the first time since the rule was enacted that the president delegated this authority to someone outside the oval office. He probably wants to protect his crony contracting friends like Halliburton from their responsibilities to their shareholders. Or maybe it is done to hide the direction of the flow of CIA funds. Or maybe it is to protect companies like Verizon (“can you hear me now?”), Bell South, and ATT, all with Federal Government contracts, from revealing that they made big money selling their customers’ private phone records to various US Government spying agencies!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 27, 2006 at 1:15 PM
CDC -
Knowledge is power. Ignorance is bliss. Cabdriver is ecstatically joyful.
Your remarks are utter fiction (entertaining, if you like that type of fiction), down to your last three sentences, when you wander off into conspiracy theory (utterly offensive to anyone with a functioning brain).
This discussion will require that you understand the terms federal surplus, federal deficit, federal debt, GDP, and federal debt as a percentage of GDP. You have not only used the terms incorrectly, the data you have associated with these terms is not correct, either. I am not going to define these terms for you, but you do owe your readers the courtesy of accuracy. Unless you are a Democrat, in which case you are expected to say any damnfool weird thing that suits your immediate purpose.
The Federal deficit is at a record high at over $8 trillion which is an unprecedented two-thirds of the GDP while the current account deficits and the balance of payments deficits are at all time highs.
The Federal deficit is $317 billion in 2005, and falling. The federal debt is $8.4 trillion. The highest federal debt as a percentage of GDP was in 1946, when WWII spending brought the figure to 120%. (In the first six months of 1942, immediately after Pearl Harbor, the USA government wrote war material purchase orders for an amount exceeding the annual GDP.)
<blockquote>The actual dollar figures for both wars may be under $300 billion by most estimates but they fail to include money spent on both reconstructions and other private security contracts not all of which is transparent, veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs to the US economy based on the war
Posted by scorp on May 28, 2006 at 1:16 AM
The deficit is NOT dropping like a stone but moving ever upward at an accelerating rate.
Bullshit. The federal deficits are well documented on numerous sites; look it up. The deficit dropped by $95.5 billion from 2004 to 2005.
During the first four years of the Clinton Administration, there was a cumulative budget deficit of $496 billion. During the last four years, there was a cumulative surplus of $558 billion. The surplus peaked in 1999 at $236 billion, and fell by nearly 50% in 2000, Clinton’s last year.
What was going on that caused the abrupt rise and fall of this surplus, the first surplus in the USA federal budget since 1968 ($3 billion), and before that 1959 ($300 million)? Did Clinton implement any wise economic policies that created the surplus? And if so, why did the surplus head south after just three years?
Clinton implemented no economic policies, wise or otherwise, so that does not solve our problem. The huge tax rise in 1993 served to remove needed investment capital from the economy, so it certainly did not improve the economy. But the markets rose dramatically during the last few years of the Clinton Presidency; the Dow doubled from 1996 to 2000, when it started down in Clinton’s last year. And the NASDAQ went from nowhere to over 5000 in early 2000, and back down to under 2000 at the end of Clinton’s term.
This dotcom bubble, or the Bubba Bubble, caused a huge amount of false and unsustainable (un)economic activity. Yes, we had tax receipts out the wazoo, but it was all foolishness, and a whole lot of people went bust. The American economy was severly damaged. The damage was not just the crash of the markets, but also the distortion of the markets before the crash. And all that happened while Clinton was still in office.
The Bubba Bubble was not significantly different from the Roaring Twenties that preceded the Great Depression, or the Japanese Bubble that crashed in 1991, and Japan has been in recession from that day to this. In 1990, Tokyo real estate was valued at $50,000 per square meter, and the Imperial Palace grounds were valued higher than the entire state of California.
This type foolishness cannot be sustained, but Bubba did nothing to protect the Americn people or the American economy. He was not even aware that there was a problem.
Fortunately, President Bush restored the tax cuts, increased tax receipts, and rebuilt the economy. Aren’t you lucky?
Posted by scorp on May 28, 2006 at 1:20 AM
Ya know scorp guy’s like you really could benefit from a reality check… Sense you seem too believe history is the proof of your pudding…check out a book by author Smedley Darlington Butler , ” War Is A Racket “...General Butler recieved TWO, not one but TWO…congressional Medal of Honors for heroic service under fire in WW 1, WAS A NATIONAL HERO…later he documented the unparalleled war profiteering and riches that war brings too a few shall I say lucky souls…” you gettin any that 10 trillion dept that China & N.Korea finance ” ...he also revealed a coup attempt brought to him by big corporate bankers and business people against FDR…he declined and wrote the book…IN SHORT YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY…I guess you’re like Bush when asked about his legacy he responded :” I’m not worried about that I’ll be died “...now that’s a man of vision for ya….I’m with Maecello09 on this ; ya know the military IS looking for a few good men / women ; maybe you and Tina1 can get lucky and get an all expense payed trip to the promised land , road side bombs and all…FACT ; ONE IN EVERY TWENTY SOILDERS KILLED IN IRAQ IS A SUICIDE…bring some sun screen and your own shades for those wonderful 110 degree summer days….man what and experience that would be ridin along in an unarmoured Humvee , breathin in all that good depleted-uranium dust filled air can you handle all that fun what a bargain… WE ARE SUPPOSE TO LEARN FROM MISTAKES IN THE PAST NOT REPEAT THEM !!...Knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing does not prove anything , except you a fool…WAR IS A COWARDS WAY OF AVOIDING THE HARD WORK THAT IS PEACE….
Posted by Redhorse on May 28, 2006 at 5:57 AM
And by the way Scorp a conspiracy only takes two people too agree on a course of action ; like…ah… let me see Enron…The Gov’t case against Kenny Boy included phone calls from Enron officials to different Power company employees telling them to shut off the juice too places like California…rollin blackouts or maybe I should say whiteouts ; that IS a conspiracy my fiend no mistake I mean fiend…lookout for the boogey-man he’s in your underwear (but hey , that’s your kink ) ..see what ya wanna see…hear what ya wanna hear…you blind and deaf and walkin into walls ; maybe that’s why you not in Iraq…
Posted by Redhorse on May 28, 2006 at 7:16 AM
Scorp, my man, where are you? I took your advice and booked the first flight to Kandahar and it’s the shizzle! I’m writing to you from the beach, I’m tellin’ ya, you conservatives got that wireless internet up pretty damn quick after you liberated the country! The ocean breeze is delicious, and I’ve got dozens of beautiful beach babes serving me cocktails and massages. I’m sure you conservatives must be really tired after all that liberatin’ and democratizin’ and war on terrorizin’. So give yourself a break and get your butt over here, Kandahar has a harem just for you and a wet bar with your name on it! It’s their way of saying “Thank you, conservative America!”
Posted by marcello09 on May 28, 2006 at 8:04 AM
There is a report on Opinion Journal from an Iraqi woman who has worked in their government which is somewhat optimstic.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/wsj/?id=110008440
She stated one of the things I have felt for a long time
Posted by whattheheck on May 28, 2006 at 9:20 AM
Scorp,
In my customary rage at all such nonsense I did mispeak confusing federal debt and deficit. I stand corrected. One thing we all can agree on is that the US economy grew much faster and added far more jobs under Clinton than under Bush. Under Clinton productivity, national median income, per capita income, and per capita GDP growth all grew much faster than any of these things under Bush after he took office in 2001. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the post-2001 recovery from the recession that began in the second quarter of 2000 and ran to November of 2001 was the slowest economic recovery on record in post WWII history. Monthly job creation rates according to Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist Stephen Roach were the lowest in post war history and per capita GDP growth was also extremely slow. There was a Jobless Recovery due to outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas. Poverty rates increased under Bush from the Clinton period. Unemployment grew. Wages and Salaries as a proportion of the GDP sank below 50% for the first time in history from highs in the 1960s of around two-thirds. Corporate profits balooned towards 15% from a position always well below 10% in the heyday of middle/working class political influence in the system. There is a disconnect between labor productivity and income growth for those below the median. Most of the income growth has accrued to those above annual incomes of $200,000. Most have agreed that this is correct. Living standards for most of the US population is declining. This is a fact. Most Americans no longer enjoy a 40 hour work week and in fact work close to time and a half. According to Harvard economist Juliette Schor, the average US work week for most Americans is over 55 hours while real income has declined for those at or below the median over the past three decades.
As far as the war on terror is concerned there really isn’t any. Bush has never had any interest in Osama bin Laden. There was never a serious attempt to capture him and Bush has expressed contempt for such efforts to the press, “I don’t know where he is nor do I care. . .I mean I really don’t spend that much time on him!” Quite a remarkable thing for the leader of the “free world” to have such a cavalier attitude toward the world’s number one most wanted terrorist after he killed over 3000 Americans on US soil!!! Perhaps it is because Bush knew some kind of terrorist act in the US was coming as he was warned on August 6th by either the FBI or his own National Security advisor. 9/11 gave him an excuse to attack Iraq for oil which Cheney had been squawking about since his 1992 energy report projecting rising US energy use deficits and the need for new sources of foreign oil. As regards energy and its impact on the US economy, the share of energy costs in the national budget is a meaningless statistic because the budget is an unrelated political variable. What economists tend to examine is the energy expenditure/GDP ratio. This has been declining drastically since the 1979 oil crunch. What is important is the energy intensivity of the US economy. This is the ratio of new energy expenditure to achieve one additional inflation adjusted dollar of GDP growth. This intensivity has grown over the last 6 quarters in the expanding commercial building sector of the US economy. Industry has virtually ceased to exist and what is left is very efficient and often foreign owned. Private transportation use is less energy efficient as Bush encourages SUVs with tax deductions and reduced CAFE standards. We also import far more of our energy now than before and it is more expensive. Also the GDP measure is itself misleading because it reflects US output which is increasingly offshore. This often means a loss of jobs and purchasing power in the US home economy. This is one reason for contracting demand and an increased reliance on cheap foreign imports from China and elsewhere. The consequent reliance on foreign savings to hold up the US dollar has lead to a current account deficit of nearly 7% of GDP according to TD Financial. This is a quite unstable and unpredictable situation. It also means that war is needed to ensure that the majority of the world oil trade continues to be in US dollars. This is the only real source of support for the US dollar which is one reason that the Bush administration has a near treasonous interest in continued oil intensive economics and growth in fossil fuel consumption. It is the only way for the US dollar to remain a key reserve currency. It is wasteful and harms the environment and slows economic growth. In addition, tax cuts have not led to greater federal revenues but in recent years coincided with large lump sum payments of back taxes in by such corporations as Microsoft pursuant to a court order. In fact, the trillions in tax cuts have led to deficits, debt, and foreign borrowing. By the way, most of the US economic growth since the early nineties and up to now is debt financed growth (mostly through asset stripping) as opposed to real economic expansion through real per capita income growth with low debt/equity ratios as in the 1960s.
Scorp, Osama and the Islamists who US imperialists armed to the teeth in Afghanistan twenty years ago cannot take American’s freedoms away but reactionaries like you and those you support can! Why don’t you be a real patriot and support Democracy!?
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 28, 2006 at 11:19 AM
Sorry, Cabdriver:
Posted by whattheheck on May 28, 2006 at 1:21 PM
“...the numbers are distorted…”
That’s cute, Dude.
So, what you and the (Marine) Scorp seem to be saying is that Clinton’s irresponsible runup of the Tao (to around 11,000 by the time the Boy Genius assumed the office in January, 2001) was responsible for the “crash” in September, 2001 when the Tao dropped like a rock to 7,500, and only the valiant, heroic efforts of Republican economic ingenuity saved us from an impending economic catastrophe (tax cuts and all that other good shit) which by December of 2002 was chugging along at around 8,900, until once again Bubba’s speculative bubble burst in March of 2003 (7,700), whereupon heroic economic measures were once more applied, which pulled up the averages to around 11,500 today.
Wow.
Praise the Lord and pass the Military Keynesianism.
Posted by Major Major on May 28, 2006 at 4:20 PM
To Whom It May Concern -
Enron -
CDC and Redhorse both seem to think that the Bush Administration had something to do with the crimes of Enron, but all the things that Enron was accused of took place during the Clinton administration, when Janet Reno was Attorney General. Reno should have been overseeing such things. Unfortunately, Reno was too busy for mere multi-billion dollar scandals, because she had to take care of important things like sending Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, and making sure the Branch Davidians were properly disposed of.
Other business crimes and scandals that took place during the Clinton Administration included WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and Global Crossing.
The Bush Administration’s involvement with these scandals has been limited to prosecuting the perps. The recent rash of major corporate fraud seems to have been limited to the overall scandals and excesses of the Clinton Administration. In fact, such scandals seem to have come to an abrupt, screeching halt since the start of the Bush Administration, aided, no doubt, by Bush’s taking the bastards to court. The Republic has problems, but corporate crime has been much reduced since Bubba left.
For the record, I was not an Enron employee and never owned Enron stock. I was laid-off as a direct result of the Enron collapse, and I am still recovering from the losses that I experienced from that time. I had many friends who were Enron employees, and many of them were financially devastated by Enron. I have no income or interest in any oil company, defense contractor, or scandal-plagued company, contrary to what some have insinuated.
General Butler -
I am well aware of General Butler’s history, internal conflicts (leftist Quaker warrior?), and left-wind political involvement. “WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY” is something the communists said before communism crashed, and the leftists say now, as they crash all around us.
Mistakes in Iraq -
There have been a number of mistakes made in the Iraq campaign. It could hardly be otherwise in a major fast-moving operation. But the costs, casualties (civilian and American), and mistakes have been miniscule compared to previous efforts.
Dealing with looters - There was initially a conflict here. The Coalition Forces were well indoctrinated in the idea of minimizing civilian casualties, and did an outstanding job in this regard. (The UN said there would be one-half million civilian fatalities, but the real figure as a result of Coalition activity [from iraqbodycount] is about 10,000, most of them incurred in the first three weeks.) The looters were civilian, and the troops had been ordered not to shoot civilians. There was a reaction time before the situation was corrected, and civil discipline suffered from the looting. If pamphlets had been widely disseminated saying that looters would be shot, with discreet follow-up as necessary, civilian discipline would have been more readily attained. Lesson learned.
Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was not a mistake, it was a crime. The perps are in jail, and the negligent leadership has been disciplined. But this was a loaded situation, and the negative effects were joyfully maximized by al-Jazeera and NYT propaganda. Now the left-wind media are being disciplined by the American people for their biases and excesses, and are losing audiences, revenues, and profits. Only the more balanced media reps are thriving, such as Fox. And the Internet is serving wonderfully to publicize and expose leftist excesses, deceit, and fraud: TANG forgeries, flushed Korans, Plame name blame game, etc. The decline of the leftist media is a marvelous example of democracy in action, and leftists crashing.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on May 28, 2006 at 5:27 PM
Paul Bremer
Posted by scorp on May 28, 2006 at 5:45 PM
Contrasted with these minor mistakes, there have been a number of brilliant and spectacular victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have two growing democracies in the heart of darkness that is the Middle East and South Asia. Iran is now the only active Islamist terror state, and it is squeezed by Iraq and Afghanistan while it desperately labors to increase its terror potential by building nuclear weapons. Qaddafi saw Saddam having his tonsils examined, and decide terrorism was not the way to go, surrendering his extensive nuclear and chemical stocks to the USA. Lebanon is free of Syrian Ba
Posted by scorp on May 28, 2006 at 5:46 PM
Major Major -
Your ignorance is showing. Speculative bubbles are fairly rare, but when they occur, they are distinctive, spectacular, and exceedingly destructive, and they have enough common traits to be classified quite accurately. Google Dutch Tulip, Mississippi, and South Sea Bubbles, and compare them with the Roaring Twenties, the Japanese Bubble, and the Bubba Bubble. You will learn enough to avoid appearing stupid when the subject comes up again.
The Bubba Bubble placed the USA economy in the most hazardous situation since Black Friday, 1929. We were blessed to have George Bush and Alan Greenspan in the only positions that could have helped or hurt the nation in 2001. Can you imagine how Al Gore would have dealt with Clinton’s stock market crash, or 09/11? The mind boggles, and the heart palpitates.
During the Great Depression, taxes were raised and international trade was restricted, in an attempt to raise government revenues and preserve jobs. Result: disaster. After eight years in office as president, FDR still had fifteen percent unemployment.
There is a certain advantage to haveing trained economists and business managers in positions of authority, such as Ronald Reagan and George Bush, in spite of your idiotic left-wind bias against them.
Posted by scorp on May 28, 2006 at 6:34 PM
Actually, I googled finance.google.com to get an overview of the DJIA over the last six years. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the correlation between massive military spending (Afghanistan, Homeland Security and Iraq) and economic “growth”. I see no reason why the fascists can’t continue to stimulate the economy indefinitely, other than the collateral damage they cause to the rest of the world, and the people they sacrifice to implement the policy. That, by definition, is the meaning of American fascism.
We live in the real world, asshole, not your fantasy of the “free” market and the moral imperatives you believe are justified by unrestricted capital growth. That means that every nation is administered by economic policy wonks who serve the affluent elites who are determined to maintain their affluence at any cost. I can’t do much about any of that, other than register my outrage and ridicule the fools who kiss their well-appointed butts. But the last thing I will ever do is pretend, as you do, that the atrocities you condone and dismiss are necessary to the eventual triumph of good over evil.
There’s always another “final solution” over the next horizon, and the only choice any of us will ever encounter is to either oppose or support it.
Fuck you.
Posted by Major Major on May 28, 2006 at 7:29 PM
Scorp! Mosul is like Las Vegas, I tell ya! Hot babes! And they *love* conservative warmongering right-wing Americans! Why aren’t you over here? Are ya gay or something?
Posted by marcello09 on May 28, 2006 at 9:30 PM
SCORPY
always a delight to read your fantasies,——-such as GWB as a “trained business manager” and Ronald Reagan as a “trained economist”.
Luv it , keeep going.
Iranian-backed militia groups take control of much of southern Iraq:
Southern Iraq, long touted as a peaceful region that’s likely to be among the first areas returned to Iraqi control, is now dominated by Shiite Muslim warlords and militiamen who are laying the groundwork for an Islamic fundamentalist government, say senior British and Iraqi officials in the area.
Knight Ridder ICH today.
( now need REG for this article, well worth reading,.)
It concludes with a British Corporal—-
”” the only things getting better around here are the arms they are using against us.”“
A growing democracy in the Heart of Darkness ?
Posted by frog on May 29, 2006 at 6:50 AM
WTH,
Inflation adjusted median incomes rose under Clinton and declined under Bush. In constant 1996 dollars $39,500 was worth more than $42,000 in 2002. This figure declined in nominal terms over the next two years by nearly $2,000 so there was a real loss of purchasing power for the working class under Bush. These are incontrovertible facts!
To call Iraq a democracy in the heart of darkness is like saying Enron is a model of business ethics. They are absurd. I’ve heard the same old tired arguments about Fallujah over and over again. Bing West wrote a book blaming Bremer for the crimes of Fallujah. The US marines attacked Fallujah to avenge the brutal murder of the four US contractors. They later returned in November 2004 with a veangance. Most of the citiy’s 90,000 civilians remained. The marines killed over 7,000 civilians and injured scores more. The Red Cross and other international medical teams declared that the high casualty rate in Fallujah resulted from the illegal siege of the city which deliberately, and in violation of international law, obstructed civilians from retreating. White Phosphorous has been shown to have been widely used in Fallujah along with thermobarric weapons such as the “daisy cutter” or FAEs which are actually intense firebombs that cause implosion by drawing all the oxygen from a target area with intense heat. Victims are killed by resulting vacuum pressure. I personally viewed independant films of the fighting in Fallujah where US military personell are firing at fleeing civilians and communicating about it with references commonly used by kids playing video games. So much for the high professional moral of the troops.
I do not condone war crimes! I do not believe that the United States went to Iraq to bring democracy. We brought the Ba’athists to power in a bloody coup in 1963. We supported Saddam althroughout the 1980s. We gave him CBWs to fight Iran. The brutal Anfal Campaign against the Kurds spanning 1986-1988 was rewarded with still more economic aid. The gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, with chemical weapons from private sales approved by the US government, was initially blamed on Iran in US DIA and CIA reports despite overwhelming evidence of Iraqi guilt. In fact, the US stood virtually alone in blaming Iran for the attacks until Saddam attacked Kuwait at which point the US suddenly switched it’s stance to blaming Iraq. After the first Gulf War the US helped Saddam crush the Shi’ites in the south but continued to protect the Kurds only to confine the conflict and prevent destabilizing conflagration on Turkey’s borders. The US also wished to control political change in Iraq by propping up Saddam to prevent placing Iraq’s political future squarely in the hands of the insurgent Iraqi people where it belonged in the first place! The Clinton strategy was duel containment of both Iran and Iraq. The hope on both sides of the US congressional aisle was to replace Saddam with another strongman inside the Ba’athist establishment who would be more pro-US and more amenable to the US/UK agenda for the region. Part of that agenda was to turn a renewed Iraq under just such a regime against Iran to contain and eventually overthrow the Mullahs. Saddam’s totalitarian control made this impossible so after a decade and a half of sanctions, war, low level air strikes, and demoralization the US/UK axis “bravely” struck at this “global menace” in a one sided conflict which killed more civilians than soldiers. Now there is a pro-Iranian regime in the south and a civil war throughout. We have killed more people than Saddam Hussein ever did. We have accomplished nothing. Undoing the damage will take years.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 29, 2006 at 8:16 AM
Major Major,
Posted by whattheheck on May 29, 2006 at 8:25 AM
Scope,
The Enron mess hurt an awful lot of innocent people, but it is irrelevant who was in office and who controlled congress
Posted by whattheheck on May 29, 2006 at 8:56 AM
cabdriverinchicago,
???
You wrote…
WTH,
Inflation adjusted median incomes rose under Clinton and declined under Bush. In constant 1996 dollars $39,500 was worth more than $42,000 in 2002.
Posted by whattheheck on May 29, 2006 at 9:14 AM
It’s an ancient Chinese arbitrage trading society - Tai Kwan Do
Posted by Major Major on May 29, 2006 at 9:37 AM
CABBY and WTH
The heart of darkness and democracy now in Iraq are SCORPY phrases !
I’m surprised at both of you .
The thirty year trend on median incomes is probably down (real terms) as the rich get richer ?
and WTH, i know you can’t use the edit function, but a serious attempt at html will be much appreciated.
“nettiquette!”one of the refs you accuse someone of not reading
Posted by frog on May 29, 2006 at 1:53 PM
You know I’m kinda concerned about the rest of you guys… I mean scorp is spazzzed…but the rest of you gentleman seem reasonable ; but you keep harp’in on Big Bubba Clinton and this Demo supply side kinda stuff ...Cabdriver…WTH…please Clinton ain’t nothin’ but a republican wannabe in Demo clothing… I understand practicality… but you gotta think long range at some point ...Republican /Democrat don’t matter… that’s why scorp keeps laughin’ at you guys because this is the right -wings secret weapon….8 years of BIIG BUBBBA BILLY CLINTON….you gotta look at things from a more progressive..3th…4th…maybe even 5th party prospective too see the true light…Ok…ok…I know ; heard it all before ; you gonna lose… but think about how these Facist got into power ; they hacked away at it losing election after election…but stuck too there guns…. next thing you know we got Ronald Reagan….thing about it dude….
Posted by Redhorse on May 29, 2006 at 2:27 PM
REDHORSE
I reckon you do injustice to Cabby and the Major, and also WTH, Bubba ‘largely’ a DINO, and ain’t he just great friends with bush41 ?
According to the deep conspiracists, they have Mena Airport in common.
WTH—- I found this for you, thinking wickedly about your occasional fondness for Foreign Wars, ” getting rid of this and that”, ie—blowing the mothers away +++++ collateral damage Smedley Butler was the GREATEST MARINE—DISCUSS !
He died before WW2, but his words resonate right now….....
Posted by frog on May 29, 2006 at 3:10 PM
Hey frog that clip was excellent…if I have done an injustice to WTH or Cabdriver my objective was to point out that no matter how articulate or factually correct these guys are…..a drooling wannabe downsized facists like scorp ain’t gonna hear you…those long ass responses to his feebled brained masturbations are a waste…the man admits that he and his buckos lost their jobs to Enron thugery , but continues too lick the balls of these Facist gooks ( i would call them pigs but that species of animal is quite
intelligent )...My point is why waste the time…that fool doesn’t have the sense too squat and breath much less clean-up afterwards…you guys could use that knowledge to come up with some possible solutions….Smedley I say…
Posted by Redhorse on May 29, 2006 at 5:46 PM
Heck -
The Enron mess hurt an awful lot of innocent people, but it is irrelevant who was in office and who controlled congress - nobody is watching out for the average person.
And who do you think watches out for the average person, besides himself? If it is irrelevant “who was in office and who controlled congress”, all actions are random, and we can save the cost of government by eliminating it. In fact, the choices the voters make determine the politicians and (more or less) their policies, and affect the course of government and of history.
There were many business scandals in the Clinton Administration, and they stopped rather abruptly when President Bush took office. And you think this is irrelevant, or unrelated? You do not see any cause and effect relationship? Some of the anti-war types on this site do not like Bush and automatically assume Enron was Bush’s fault. Bush was Governor of Texas when the Enron crimes were committed and he had nothing to do with it. Or Tyco. Or WorldCom.
Consider the DOW.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=my&l=off&z=m&q=l&c=
At the top of the chart, set the “Range” to max, “Type” to Line, and “Scale” to Linear.
This is, of course, the linear DJIA from 1930 until current. Notice several things:
1) At the scale of this graph, the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression barely register, but unemployment went to well over 20% during the 1930s, and stayed over 10% for about ten years.
2) During WWII, FDR held interest rates low (~2%) so that war costs would not be driven higher than necessary. Consequently, the economy was distorted. Taxes were high, markets were held low, but business activity was booming and unemployment dropped to under 2% in 1943.
3) After WWII, the economy went into a healthy rise until 1965, when it flat-lined, and stayed flat-lined for seventeen years. What happened in 1965? We were in Vietnam, and President Johnson decided that we could have “guns and butter”, as he put it. He was fighting a much bigger war than Iraq, and packed on the cost of the Great Society (welfare alone cost $6.6 trillion before Clinton ended it in 1995), and Johnson had no plans to pay for all these expenses. President Nixon was not able to repair the damage, and inflation and interest rates went sky-high under President Carter, without any improvement in the markets, and with much damage to the economy and to the people who had to pay the inflated rates.
4) President Reagan was a trained economist, and he had the benefit of President Kennedy’s experience with deficit spending. He raised interest rates to squeeze inflation out of the economy, and lowered taxes to provide investment capital for economic growth. The results were gratifying, as healthy growth resumed.
5) Then unhealthy growth kicked in within the economy in 1995, moving Chairman Greenspan to comment on “irrational exuberance” in 1996. But nothing was done. The economy continued higher and then stagnated at a high and distorted level, and the American economy was literally teetering at the top of a dangerous precipice. The precipice started to crumble as the NASDAQ crashed in Clinton’s last year, and the Dow also peaked and began a slower descent.
6) If you superimpose the Japanese Nikkei Index on the Dow, the curves are remarkably similar, but the Nikkei actually fell into the chasm in 1991, and lost two-thirds of its value with no recovery. The Japanese economy has been in recession ever since, only starting to improve in the last year or two when PM Koizumi introduced economic reforms.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on May 29, 2006 at 6:40 PM
7) If you extend the curve of healthy growth beyond 1965, you see a triangular void above the flat-line area. This area represents lost economic opportunity.
8) If you extend the curve of healthy growth beyond 1995, you see an area between the healthy growth curve and the Clinton curve: this, of course, is the Clinton Bubble. This area represents wasted economic opportunity, and is extremely hazardous. President Bush and Chairman Greenspan pulled us out of this one with minimal damage, but every other bubble in history ended in catastrophe, like the Great Depression.
9) Seventeen years of economic stagnation began with President Johnson, a Democrat. Republican President Reagan got us out of the economic stagnation started under President Johnson. The Bubba Bubble happened entirely within President Clinton’s Administration; Clinton was a Democrat. The recovery from the Clinton crash and bubble was effected by President Bush, a Republican. Leftists on this site regularly demand tax increases, and the Democrats will no doubt implement tax increases if they are elected. That is why the American people don’t elect Democrats. But some day they probably will. God help us all, the Democrats won’t.
The whole process is rather simple if you study it, but leftists would rather complain than take time to understand.
Posted by scorp on May 29, 2006 at 6:42 PM
Scorpy, have you heard the latest from Kabul? They had a parade today, just for you, with floats and balloons and singing and dancing! They were all chanting “We love the neo-cons, long live the Yankee invaders!” Baghdad was throwing a party, too, I heard it was a blast! So get your gay ass over here, you delusional pansy, it’s a beautiful time!
Posted by marcello09 on May 29, 2006 at 7:14 PM
Scorp…all you talk is a lot of rhetorical nonsense…everything is a spin…You leavin’ my man Marcello09 hangin…put your rhetorically repressed behind on a plane too Bagdad…I’m sure Brown & Root or Haliburton is hiring…you could make back some of that money you lost snozzellin on those facist cowsacks…Come on… be a real man , stop all that neo-con babble and stand up , get some of that war profit for yourself…you know what they say… a bird in the hand is worth two in the buckfush…hey I’m just kiddin with ya…...serious discourse saved for the adults…ya know I’m thinkin’ your response to Maria shows a little ethnic flava…YOU————ME GIRL..,don’t sound like some nuckleheaded white guy and it’s not the profanity but that GIRL thing… you not one of them Blackfascist or should I say neegroo…ya know Condi don’t want you with no money….better jump at that Brown & Root idea….............WTH… I believe I shall devote some time too an more skillful analysis of your positions…before discussions can resume….Redhorse can smell what’s cook’in and I DON’T think I like it…
Posted by Redhorse on May 29, 2006 at 8:37 PM
Smedley Darlington Butler was one weird bird. His family was Quaker, but he joined the Marines in 1898 to fight in the Spanish-American War. As he was sixteen years old, he lied about his age to get into the War. His father was not happy to see him go into the military, but the old man’s main concern was that Butler not raise his age any further than he already had, because the elder Butlers’ wedding anniversary was getting too close to young Butler’s fake age, and father wanted no hint of impropriety.
Butler’s military career is spectacular and well-documented, but that is not why Butler’s name came up on this thread. After retiring from the military, Butler became involved in radical left-wind politics. You can get a flavor of it from Redhorse’s cite.
In the 1930s, the Republic was economically and socially stressed from the Great Depression and by rising tensions between the democracies, fascism, communism, and Japanese militarism. A number of Americans took a favorable view of communism (and a few, notably Charles Lindbergh, took a favorable view of fascism) as an answer to America’s problems during the 1930s. Most Americans rejected these extreme philosophies, and have rejected them from that day to this.
General Butler died in 1940. We do not know how he would have reacted to Pearl Harbor, or to the millions killed by the fascists, or to the tens of millions killed by the leftists, who have adopted him as their hero.
We do know that democracy, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism combine to create the greatest economic and social engine ever yet discovered. We know that socialism invariably results in stagnation, death, and decay.
We also know that Germany was not defeated in WWI, but that there was an Armistice, and Germany came roaring back in twenty years. When Germany was totally defeated, fascism was essentially dead, and is no longer a serious problem.
When the Soviet Union collapsed from incompetence and corruption, the assumption was that socialism was defeated, but pockets of socialism are retained in Old Europe and in American academia and media, and in Latin America. The socialists have allied themselves with the Islamic Jihadists, philosophically in Europe and the USA, and strategically in some parts of Latin America. Russia is caught between uncertain objectives and insufficient resources. China is caught between totalitarian impulses and material needs; freeing up their markets has given China’s people material progress and economic hope, and their leaders some breathing room. But will a free economy lead to demands for political freedom as well? That was the bet Richard Nixon placed in the 1970s, and so far, so good.
The funniest thing (well, sort of) about this is that the Jihadists in the Middle East, Chavez in Venezuela, and Putin in Russia all have oil as their only resource of importance. Their objectives are furthered as long as the price of oil holds up. But we have been through this drill many times; the price of oil will plummet, and the socialists and Jihadists and Putin will be left suspended in space, like the Coyote when the Roadrunner makes a U-turn.
Continued ...
Posted by scorp on May 29, 2006 at 10:39 PM
The best opportunity for the socialists to gain meaningful power is in the United States, but they keep blowing it. There are two opposing leftist philosophies in America, graphically demarcated between the heathen Kos and the refined Peter Bienart. Kos and crew want to purge the refined elements, such as Joe Lieberman, while Bienart maintains that Democrats are the only agency that can win against the Jihadists, ala Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey. And they fight each other, while at the same time the heathen demand radical ideological purity, while scaring the beJesus out of everyone. Not a good formula for electoral victory in a free society. Maybe in Russia under Stalin, or Iraq under Saddam.
But suppose the left did seriously come to power in the USA, then what? They would naturally raise taxes, and the economy would promptly develop problems. The Democrats have lied their way out of this problem before (see my post to Heck, above), but could they do it a third time? To retain power they would have to create serious economic emergencies, bigger than Johnson and Clinton ever did, and rule by emergency regulations. But that is a forlorn hope, as the American people have never gone in for radical solutions, despite what Smedley Butler said.
So leftists will continue to bumblefart and stumblefart along, incapable of reason or meaningful electoral power. With luck, after a merciful interval, they will die as they should have done when the Soviet Union collapsed. I can’t see them roaring back as the fascists did, or thriving in the face of repeated failure. Great Marchers, they are not.
Posted by scorp on May 29, 2006 at 10:40 PM
Scorp…YOU ARE ONE SICK LITTLE RODENT…I don’t know were you get your facts but…hay…who cares the results are so twisted….I’m going to follow my own advice ; put down some rat poison…and leave this rat too rot ( that’s to undergo decomposition for the rhetorically overblown )...
Posted by Redhorse on May 30, 2006 at 3:37 AM
SCORPY
“FASCISM is no longer a serious problem” ??
Goebbels would appreciate this
The “9/11 Changes Everything” mantra has been successfully used to justify:
1) an insane invasion and occupation,
2) an Orwellian state of neverending warfare,
3) an all-out assault on our Bill of Rights and our Constitutional separation, balance and oversight of powers,
4) rampant and bald faced war profiteering and a huge increase in dubious mil/intel/security expenditures,
5) an insane doctrine of military pre-emption,
6) torture and rendition,
7) a culture of authoritarian secrecy,
8) the persecution of political dissent,
9) enraging the Muslim world and alienating the rest of the world,
10) etc., etc., etc.
while doing little or nothing to enhance our security or address the root causes or symptoms of Islamic terror.
......
All of this disgusting vileness and much more has gone down in the name of an official conspiracy theory—namely, that 19 Arabs acting alone at Bin Laden’s behest caused 100% of the 9/11 tragedy without any actionable foreknowledge of any government official with the power to stop them—worthy of Doctor Evil and containing quite a few gaping plot holes. Even assuming that the official conspiracy theory is 100% true, the problem of a few thousand hardcore fundamentalist Islamic terrorists would quite obviously be best addressed with a small but expertly trained team of covert infiltrators and special operations forces.
From stickdog
Chickens are a coupla times more resistant to radioactivity than humans, it seems, but SCORPIONS twenty times !
LONELY PLANET for you, old SCORP.
Posted by frog on May 30, 2006 at 4:56 AM
Redhorse -
Well, that’s a heck of a contribution to dialogue.
I’m not given to loose handling of facts, so if you are unclear on anthing, ask. Knowledge never hurt anyone, but ideology has a number of people on this site utterly screwed.
Posted by scorp on May 30, 2006 at 5:03 AM
Froggy -
Conspiracy theory is for fearful people. What are you afraid of?
But keep up the good work, I like to keep track of what the little dumbshits are doing.
Posted by scorp on May 30, 2006 at 6:17 AM
Frog,
Sorry, but I can
Posted by whattheheck on May 30, 2006 at 7:03 AM
Scorp,
On the economy you say:
Posted by whattheheck on May 30, 2006 at 9:10 AM
Heck -
Your poor neighbor. My sympathies.
But our system is far better than most, where only a few are criminals and thieves, and they are usually caught and brought to justice, and we have the means to defend ourselves.
There are too many people who are governed by people like the criminals that assaulted your neighbor, and some of these nations are prominent among the states that propagate terrorism, such as 09/11. Our personal firearms will not protect us from 09/11, or the Madrid or London bombings, much less the much greater acts of terrorism by Muslims against Muslims around the world, that serve to propagate terrorism world-wide.
So we are stuck with a government of some sort, and democracy and the rule of law seem to work better than anything else. Besides, many functions are required that are beyond the capacity of individuals, such as the economy and defense.
Dumb and dumber makes a cute statement, but does not make for good governance. There is considerable evidence that an aroused citizenry can make changes, as when the Democrats were kicked out in 1994, and, if the Republicans don’t pull their heads out, it may happen again this year. George Soros spent tens of millions of dollars of his own and his friends’ money, to no effect.
But the Democrats are dangerous, and foolish besides, and it would be idiotic to allow them the power of taxation, as many times as they have abused and misused it.
Posted by scorp on May 30, 2006 at 10:12 AM
<blockquote>You went to a lot of work to prove numbers
Posted by scorp on May 30, 2006 at 12:42 PM
Scorp…I never said you were loose with facts…I said you twist & spin…spin…spin , WTH seems to enjoy this repartee , I find your preverse manipulations of facts on subject matter so important to the well-being of society disingenuous…That is why I do not care…it is impossible to take anything you say seriously… when you spin the facts it’s no different than a lie…You speak of ideologues on this discussion site…and you of course are not—-you are logical and grounded in reality…it is to laugh if the reality was not so dangerous…All of you neo-cons deny conspiracy theory , blame Bubba for Enron as if Kenny Boy is some nickname bestowed on him by some Leftist…then it’s the…ha ....liberal media…it goes on and on and on…blah…blah..bomb this…bomb that…and worst of all ; you are irresponsible…we all make mistake in judgement and to learn and grow is to take responsibility for these things…it’s very basic stuff…but not you or your fascist flag waving neo-con buds…no ; you call Fox News and get too twurl’in…Like I stated this morning ; I’m gonna take my own advice and let the rodent rot…good day…
Posted by Redhorse on May 30, 2006 at 2:20 PM
Scorp,
You are very poorly informed. What amazes me is that the period of the fastest and most thorough era of economic growth in our history, 1945-73, had the highest annual average rates of per capita GNP growth, the highest rates of labor productivity, the highest growth rates of end-use energy efficiency, and the highest rates of industrial utilization capacity. All this took place during America’s highest rates of union density, income and wealth equality, middle-class growth, and high rates of social spending. This shows that the Keynesian welfare state did not harm economic success but rather promoted it! The Reagan era began with a great recession and high inflation. There was also high unemployment—over 10% officially! The real cause of the recession of the 1970s was global overproduction of consumer durables in the competing economies of the US, Germany, and Japan. The market saturated and industrial overcapacity led to a shakeout of the system leading to new industrial concentration and a contraction of the middle class and the markets for the goods they typically purchased. The recession squeezed the inflation out of the economy but by the 1984 recovery, we began to see radical domestic real wage deceleration and a shift in the economic base from industrial production of consumer durables to finance and services. Already the maldistribution of wealth began to set the tone for a new economic strategy. Foreign savings which were initially attracted in the early 1980s by high interest rates began to invest in some job creating industries like high tech and some consumer durables. As the dollar began to come down US manufactured exports got a boost and the US at a 1985 currency summit negotiated an exchange rate regime that ensured a weak US dollar to continue the trend. The growing deficit and national US debt all throughout the 1980s began to threaten the continued stability of the US economy and in the early 1990s a recession occured. By this time a new globalized division of labor existed. Neo-liberal expansion of direct foreign investment in the third world led to cheap goods production and wealth for capital and an end to middle classes in the first world. Clinton used the Bond market and interest rates to encourage the flow of foreign savings and stimulate the growth of new financial markets which fed much of the debt financed growth and bubbles of the 1990s economic boom. Much of this was predicated on consumer debt but new high tech markets led to some growth and productivivty increases as well. Clinton also cut taxes in the late 1990s but kept much of the social safty net. There was more to Clintonomics than bubbles there was high tech and many new permanent jobs added to the structurally altered economy. Bush and his jobless recovery did away with many of the gains of the 1990s and worsened the negative aspects like reliance on foreign capital and outsourcing of our best jobs, technology, and skills which make for a solid middle class job base.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 30, 2006 at 7:07 PM
Redhorse -
I am not sure of the difference between “loose with facts” and “twist & spin…spin…spin”. I deny doing either, of course, but we seem to be unable to communicate.
Can you give me an example of my “preverse manipulations of facts on subject matter so important to the well-being of society”?
Perhaps you were talking about my blaming “Bubba for Enron”. But Cabdriver was the one who cited Enron and suggested this was evidence that the Bush Administration was “insane”. And you brought up Enron in the context ot the energy crunch and California. But all the Enron criminal activity happened during the Clinton Administration. Clinton was the Executive Power, and he had a Cabinet to assist in exercise of that power. The Attorney General is in charge of enforcing federal law under the President. This is well-defined in the Constitution and the laws. I have neither added, nor subtracted, nor spun anything.
Clinton did some good things, and I am getting increasingly irritated with Bush, but philosophically and operationally I am Conservative. I am not fond of leftists (or anybody) spouting nonsense while attacking Conservative positions. There are a number of leftist media types and academics who say outrageous things, for no other purpose that I can see but to generate negative headlines and information, in hopes of damaging Conservatives.
For Example: Timothy Brennan teaches comparative literature and English at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He wrote a book entitled, Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right. Brennan says, “the crimes committed in the name of communism are real,” but they are “certainly no match for the atrocities launched by liberal capitalism, which, far from being officially acknowledged, are completely disavowed or excused.”
O-o-o-okay. So, the documented real crimes committed in the name of communism include one hundred million innocent dead, and Brennan thinks that “liberal capitalism” is worse. Without documentation or evidence. You shitting me, boy? Surely one hundred one million (or more) dead bodies in capitalist countries would have been noticed by someone.
The leftist media regularly accuse President Bush of criminal activity. But if Bush has done anything criminal, the proper thing to do is appoint a prosecutor and bring him up for impeachment, like Clinton when he perjured himself. And the Dims may do this if they win this year’s Congressional elections. But the main thing now is to bring the subject up repeatedly, in order to create negative headlines and doubt in peoples’ minds. Hey, it’s worked for all kinds of leftists on this site.
I think that part of the problem may be that the left-wind media broadcasts leftist propaganda, and when people are told the truth, they become confused. But confusion is the object of the game for the NYT and network TV. The NYT are left-wind ideologues, besides being lying sons-of -bitches.
Unfortunately, the tone of politics has become extremely negative, and two can play that game, and all that jazz. Enjoy.
Posted by scorp on May 30, 2006 at 7:26 PM
SCORPY
Fearful or just plain crazy little dumbshits like GWB , repeating his 911 mantra, got so many Americans scared out of their brains that YOU are now enmired in Iraq, YOU are losing your liberties, and have become the most universally distrusted and often hated state in the World..
According to you, SCORP, this is some Master Plan !
On 9/12, the USA had universal sympathy right round this sorry planet.
Overall the human reaction was horror at the loss of life—the next step being universal anxiety as to what your idiot President would do. .
I know one man who remained silent at the time, at least on 911 when I told him the news, but he had been tortured by YOUR man Pinochet, understandable. Well, he’s undemonstrative at the best of times.
Later when the Invasion of Iraq had taken place, for the first time in history, a member of the brit SAS resigned in disgust
I saw a lot of things in Baghdad that were illegal or just wrong… I did not join the British Army to conduct American foreign policy.
“I knew, so others must have known, that this was not the way to conduct operations if you wanted to win the hearts and minds of the local population.
“And if you can’t win the hearts and minds of the people, you can’t win the war.”
Mr Griffin, who was born in London and raised in Wales, said he told his commanders in Hereford that he could no longer take part in a war that was “illegal”.
Expecting to be reprimanded, court-martialled and branded a coward, he was instead discharged from the army and given a reference describing him as a “balanced, honest, loyal and determined individual who possesses the strength of character to have the courage of his convictions”.
I guess what happened is that his regimental officers filled in the last bit in his little Red discharge Book, so the Ministry could not prosecute/persecute him later.
I looked for mine, but too well filed….RA , SCORPY, what regiment were you in ?
I crossed Central London to work in the Seventies. Fear of the US financed IRA did not stop me going to work, but YES , SCORP, If you say I’m fearful, I must be !
Posted by frog on May 30, 2006 at 8:16 PM
Scorp,
I
Posted by whattheheck on May 31, 2006 at 11:08 AM
(continued)
Unemployment: My younger son followed along in my graphics line of work. As globalization began to siphon off manufacturing jobs my clients evaporated. He left for a larger city at a very good salary. After a year he and two friends opened their own studio. About that time their retail customers started getting pinched by foreign made goods and quit paying their bills on time. My son and partners closed shop and took other jobs.
After a bit the work slowed at the new place and he lost his job. This happened twice more, he used all his unemployment and has only had part time work since. In our state you must work full time for one year to requalify for unemployment.
When my business was totally gone I chose to retire, but not before I had begun to use my retirement investments prior to age 65 and Social Security kicked in.
Now tallying the unemployed… I, having been self employed, would not have been counted. He is no longer considered a part of the workforce and not counted. Neither can he apply for unemployment and not counted there if he loses his part time job. He now earns less per hour worked than I charged for the same kind of work in 1966 and about a third of what he earned ten years ago. None of this shows in any form of government report, city state or national.
Well, that
Posted by whattheheck on May 31, 2006 at 11:09 AM
CDC -
You are weird.
My statement was, “After WWII, the economy went into a healthy rise until 1965, when it flat-lined, and stayed flat-lined for seventeen years.”
You replied with, “What amazes me is that the period of the fastest and most thorough era of economic growth in our history, 1945-73, had the highest annual average rates of per capita GNP growth, the highest rates of labor productivity, the highest growth rates of end-use energy efficiency, and the highest rates of industrial utilization capacity.” And you went on to cite further indicators.
Now, the period 1945-73 (in particular) has been cited by a number of authors as having had much economic growth, but I can’t find an original and originating document to that effect. This is important, because the data does not show improvement out as far as 1973. A lot of the progress you cited did not continue as far as 1973, but ended in 1965. If you have a reference, I would be glad to see it.
Consider (USA Census data unless noted. All figures are based on inflation-adjusted [chained] 1996 dollars.):
1) The DJIA flat-lined from 1965 to 1982. Don’t take my word for it, look at the Yahoo graph reference I gave you. This tells us that both profits and investment stayed within a fairly narrow range for all these years. There was growth from WWII to 1965, and growth after Reagan was elected, but essentially no growth during Vietnam and the Great Society, up to the Carter Catastrophe.
2) Home ownership increased from 55% in 1950 to 63% in 1965, but showed no further increase through 1970. The increase from 1970 to 1982 was less than 2%. The rate of growth of home ownership has been slow since then, but picked up somewhat in the 1990s and 2000s, to a record level now.
3) Per cap GDP almost exactly doubled from 1947 to 1965, an increase of 5.5% per year. This high rate of increase was driven by the rapid recovery after WWII. But from 1965 to 1982 the increase was only 35%, for an average annual increase of just 2%. After Reagan’s reforms, per cap GDP rose 34% during the period of healthy growth from 1982 to 1995, or 2.6% per year. During the unhealthy growth of Clinton’s last years, the per cap GDP rose at a rate of 3% annually, but actually declined slightly in 2001as the Bubba Bubble burst.
4) The 2.0% annual increase in GDP from 1965 to 1982, versus the 2.6% increase after President Reagan’s reforms, is significant. If the higher rate had prevailed from 1965 to 1982, people would have had $2187 more income each year by the end of the period. Nationally, for a population of about 225 million, that would have increased GDP by almost one-half trillion dollars per year by 1982 (actually $492 million).
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on May 31, 2006 at 2:39 PM
I think many of your other comments are out of date. For example, energy consumption as a share of GDP is down by about 44% in the last twenty years, due to conservation and technological efficiency. Therefore, end-use energy efficiency must surely be significantly greater now.
The real cause of the recession of the 1970s was global overproduction of consumer durables in the competing economies of the US, Germany, and Japan.
The real cause of the recession of the 1970s was Democratic politics, when President Johnson tried to fight a war and spent trillions on the Great Society ($6.6 trillion on welfare alone), with no thought given to how these bills were to be paid. This led to a seventeen-year period of stagnation, which included three separate recessions. This was the same period when the DJIA flat-lined.
Neo-liberal expansion of direct foreign investment in the third world led to cheap goods production and wealth for capital and an end to middle classes in the first world.
Individually, the two quotes above are both absurd. Compared with each other, they are contradictory. How does it happen that “global overproduction of consumer durables” led to a “recession” in the 1970s, but led to “cheap goods production and wealth for capital” in the 1990s? The workers who produced the cheap goods were not paid, I take it from what you say. And the American workers who formerly made cheap doo-dads must surely have failed to take advantage of our schools system, and are sitting on their asses (or rioting) like a bunch of Frenchmen. And all these cheap goods undoubtedly held no benefit for consumers; therefore, no one is willing to shop at Wal-Mart, I’m sure. So why do I have so much trouble getting in and out of the Wal-Mart store and parking lot? Where do all these people come from, if there is no economic activity? How fucking absurd can you get?
In fact, the American inflation-adjusted per cap GDP is among the highest in the world, and goes up continuously, except when Democrats get in office and raise taxes. This shit has been going on for fifty years.
The growing deficit and national US debt all throughout the 1980s began to threaten the continued stability of the US economy and in the early 1990s a recession occured.
Bullshit. Chairman Greenspan was afraid that Carter’s inflation was going to reignite, and he raised interest rates to dampen the economy. He overdid it. By the time of the 1992 elections, the mild recession was over, but the econometric data to that effect followed the elections by a couple of months; too late. Clinton piled on with his slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid”, but the economy was in fine shape. Unfortunately, it cost Bush 41 his re-election, and saddled us with the Bubba Bubble and the subsequent recession, ‘cause Clinton was clueless throughout.
Enjoy.
Posted by scorp on May 31, 2006 at 2:43 PM
Heck -
I’m well aware of the stagnant DJIA period you mentioned and I think we are in or entering a similar period.”
Then you obviously think that the Dimocrats will win in 2006, and there will be a Dimocrat President in 2008, and the Dims will raise taxes. This is the only scenario in fifty years that resulted in serious difficulties for the American economy.
When the Dims raise taxes, the economy is deprived of investment capital, factories are not built, workers are not hired, payrolls are not paid, and taxes are not collected. This is not a complicated situation, it happens the same way every time.
I will sympathize with your personal problems if you will sympathize with mine.
Posted by scorp on May 31, 2006 at 5:03 PM
Scorp,
LBJ never spent over $6 trillion on welfare. There wasn’t that kind of money then. Be real! Everyone knows the Vietnam war took precedence over social welfare. Get your facts straight!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 31, 2006 at 6:51 PM
CDC -
LBJ pushed the Great Society programs into law, including the Welfare program, which paid poor women and children if there was no husband or father in the house. Consequently, millions of husbands and fathers became superflous, and boogied.
Between the passage of the Welfare law and its repeal in 1995, the total cost was $6.6 trillion, and the sole (im)practical long-term result was the substantial destruction of poor, mostly black, families.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan did a study on this before the Welfare law was passed, and predicted exactly what would happen. For his efforts, Moynihan was accused of being racist, though he was the least racist person in the party of Senator Robert Byrd, and LBJ went ahead and passed the law regardless.
President Clinton pressed for the elimination of the Welfare law against strong Dimocratic opposition, proving that he was not quite as dumb as commonly believed. Even Clinton was able to recognize a disaster when he saw it, even if most of the Dims did not agree.
I first read this $6.6 trillion figure in one of George Will’s articles, and confirmed it in several sources. You are invited to confirm it as well, but don’t bother to apologize.
Posted by scorp on May 31, 2006 at 7:46 PM
George Will is not a great source since he is a stiff ass right-winger and uses biased sources that distort the reality. I do hate the idea of welfare and think that job training and job creation are the way to uplift people out of poverty. I do have the old work ethic!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 31, 2006 at 8:49 PM
scorp,
Manufacturing in the US is over. China is fast becoming the world’s workshop. Wages in this country have been flat in real terms for decades. We simply cannot race to the bottom any longer. There is such a thing as overproduction. Wages are driven down in capitalist competition until there isn’t sufficient effective demand to absorb all industrial output. Both Keynes and Marx understood this point! In late monopoly capitalism capitalists don’t lower prices in order to clear markets as predicted by Say’s Law. In modern times this would cause deflation and isn’t possible as a matter of course due to high fixed costs in most industries. The solution is a reduction of capacity. As the economy contracts layoffs occur and the economy concentrates but remains stagnant until some exogenous stimulous starts the ball rolling again. With each more intensly deepened crisis of capitalist profitability comes the greater possibility of collapse. Each crisis brings sharper contradictions. Things may look good for US capitalism now but there is increased immiseration all over the US and the entire world. Just wait!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on May 31, 2006 at 9:55 PM
Scorp,
You are ignoring everything I’ve said.
1. It doesn’t matter which party is in the White House or in the congressional majority.
2. The numbers are faked by both.
3. Many people are wosre off now than thirty years ago.
4. Globalization/internationalism is destroying our national economy.
Over 50 people I know by name have had the same problems I listed in our family. This is across th country not just the rust belt. The list includes 2 architects, many from manufacturing, most of my artist friends, one bank officer, several salesmen. What many had in common was they were making top dollar in their field with many years on the job and were dumped in favor of entry level people here or foreign workers in Mexico, Asia and Africa.
You can tell me your problems any time in the next few years if you continue to buy into the bipartisan economic hype.
My wife and I can’t live on my Social Security. If I hadn’t saved 10 percent minimum every time I had a good year and cut expenses in the bad years for fifty years we’d be in deep shit. If I hadn’t been close to 65 when my business really tanked my savings would not have lasted. My stocks (YTD) are up 48.4 percent as of last Friday
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 1, 2006 at 9:42 AM
CDC -
You are really weird.
Facts are where you find them, and are independent of source. That is why I took pains to inform you that I had confirmed what George Will had said about the $6.6 trillion cost of welfare; I thought you might object to what George Will had to say, but I invited you to confirm it for yourself. Now you are taking the position that any fact cited by George Will (George Will is impeccable with facts, what you call “stiff ass”) is contaminated, and has to be rejected.
But that leaves your perception of the world with major gaping holes, which you fill with left-wind ideological fluff. It is like you can see the blue sky, but you cannot see the green grass, because once upon a time George Will made some comment about grass.
Well, you are in a big company, if not in good company. There are many left-wind Dims who selectively choose what they will see, and act in accordance with their deliberately self-distorted vision. We call them losers at election time.
Prime current example: Senator Kennedy.
“We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction. Our intelligence community is also deeply concerned about the acquisition of such weapons by Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and other nations.”
- Senator Edward Kennedy September 2002 Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies [kennedy.senate.gov]
If you need similar statements from Bill, Hill, Kerry, Edwards, Pelosi, Rockefeller, etc., see:
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
But the Kennedy statement above was before we went to war. Now Kennedy says:
The nation is engaged in a major ongoing debate about why America went to war in Iraq, when Iraq was not an imminent threat, had no nuclear weapons, no persuasive links to Al Qaeda, no connection to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, and no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
This quote is taken directly from the same Kennedy website:
http://www.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/04/03/2004305633.html
Now the left is pretending that President Bush lied about WMD, but the left’s perceptions are distorted by the ideological fog in which they stumblefart around: the sky is yellow, the grass is purple, and the WMD the Dims once said were in Iraq are actually the result of President Bush’s dishonesty. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Understand?
Posted by scorp on Jun 1, 2006 at 10:22 AM
Scorp: Hey I am not looking to start another round of arguments but stay with me here.
1. I am a Republican; have a much more conservative twist than anything else.
2. Politics is what it is - you can point out the contradictions of Kennedy, Kerry and many others on the Dem. side but….let’s look at what the Bush admin has said. Hussein was an imminent threat to our nation, Iraq has ties to Al Qada, Iraq had WMDs. Then it became a story of post 9/11 we can’t allow leaders like Hussein to exist, then it became the middle east needs a model democracy and various other reasons they went to war.
The point is, both sides play politics - and you can’t be honest with your self if you believe that Bush and Rumsfeld didn’t have their eye on taking out Hussein from the day of 9/11 forward regardless what the facts were.
note: (CBS) CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq
Posted by csmelnix on Jun 1, 2006 at 11:23 AM
Mel -
All the leftists pretend that history started on 09/11, but why would someone such as yourself join them?
.... let’s look at what the Bush admin has said. Hussein was an imminent threat to our nation, Iraq has ties to Al Qada, Iraq had WMDs.
“Hussein was an imminent threat to our nation ... ” You will have to show me where the Bush Administration said that. Bush said that we needed to do something before Saddam became an imminent threat, and there are some ambiguous threat comments from other Administration personnel, and there are about 10,000 leftists and one Republican screaming about “no imminent threat”. Have I forgotten anyone? So, show me what you are talking about. Besides, Saddam did attempt an assassination against Bush 41; is that a threat? And the Iraq Liberation Act 1998 said that Saddam was a threat to his neighbors and to the USA (see below).
“Iraq has ties to Al Qada ... ” President Clinton bombed the al-Shifa chemical plant in the Sudan because bin Laden and Saddam were cooperating in developing chemical weapons. Does that not demonstrate ties between Iraq and al-Qa’eda? Or perhaps Clinton was lying. He has been known to do that, as you know.
And then on November 4, 1998, in New York, Usama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef were indicted for having ties, among other things, as described thusly, “In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq,” as the indictment said.
And then there were the documented terror planning meetings in Pakistan attended by Iraqi Intelligence officials, and stuff.
So, what is your threshold for determining if Saddam and bin Laden had ties? Are the documented ties sufficient, or would you like one more, or two more, or twice as many, or 10,000?
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
“Iraq had WMDs ... ” I can never tell where the leftists are coming from with this question. Some of them seem to be saying that Saddam never had WMD, but others ambiguously maintain that Saddam no longer had WMD.
But besides the quotes contained in freedomagenda website (above), the Congress overwhelmingly passed the Iraq Liberation Act 1998, and Clinton signed it into law. The vote was so overwhelming that 100% of the Senators and all but 38 Representatives voted for the Act, and one of the propositions therein was that Saddam had, and had used, WMD in war and against civilian Iraqis. Google Halabja, Anfal, and massgraves if you have the stomach for it. But as a result of ILA 1998, regime change in Iraq has been a matter of USA law since long before George Bush became President, and the existence and use of WMD was one of the reasons given for the Act.
So, Kennedy, Kerry, Levin, Reid, Pelosi, Rockefeller, Edwards, and Biden said that Saddam had WMD in 1998, and some of them voted for the Iraq War Resolution 2002 (Kennedy did not), and all of them continued to say that there were WMD until hostilities started in 2003, but now they all maintain that President Bush lied about WMD in order to go to war? I. Don’t. Think. So. But somebody is lying, alright.
President Bush inherited a bad situation. President Clinton left him a well-documented trail of threats, of Iraqi - al-Qa’eda cooperation, and of WMD. Clinton’s philosophy was to contain Saddam and to make idle gestures against al-Qa’eda; bin Laden concluded from Clinton’s non-actions that the USA was weak and irresolute, hence 09/11.
The State Department, the CIA, and the Intelligence Services were no help. All of them were infested with incompetent left-wind ideologues, who were, and are, more interested in disclosing our secrets than in discovering our opponents’ secrets, or they are making up secrets, like Mr. Plame, or they are destroying secrets, like Sandy Burglar.
Posted by scorp on Jun 1, 2006 at 5:46 PM
csmelnix & scorp,
I recently finished a couple of books on the war.
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 3, 2006 at 1:34 PM
WTH…I’M TOTALLY SHOCKED…I knew or rather found out you do not understand ” race politics ” in amerika ...but vote for Bush…I guess the old maxim IS true ” You can fool some of the people some of the time ; and all of the people all of the time….I guess you do not understand politics in general…after what you had to say about your business basically being boxed out and your sons employment problems ...I’m self employeed also… Bush…..Daaammnnn…..Tony Blankley ??? What a HACK and a HAM ; dresses like a PIMP…tony blankley…I know Frog doesn’t want that thugs FOOL back in merry old England..ehh .. ; you need to get out more often WTH…do some bird watching…feel the breeze on your face…watch some small children play….. Calm down…vote progressive next time…............Bush…...for ...Shaaamme…...somebody get me a SWITCH !!!!
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 3, 2006 at 2:38 PM
Redhorse,
There was no choice for me since I believe the war is the single most important issue and I trusted Kerry even less. (The evil of two lessers.) My votes for Anderson in 1980 and Perot (as a protest) were throw-aways.
Neither party differed on economic policy issues
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 4, 2006 at 5:48 AM
The West needs oil. The nations of the Middle East have oil. there is on reason to believe that Iran or any party in Iraq would not want to sell oil to the US.
Oil should dominate our policy. We should have businssmen, a reasonable embassy in Baghdad and in Tehran, and no troops in either nation.
Under Ike, the business of America was business. He got us out of Korea, had a brief and relatively non-violent landing of Marines in Lebanon who promptly left, and all in all was the most peaceful postwar President.
I like Ike.
Posted by knocko on Jun 4, 2006 at 4:23 PM
WTH….I disagree…...you could have held you nose like everybody with half a brain and voted for…...ugh…Kerry…Look the man comes off like a dweeeb granted , but hell ; at least the man attended class at Yale ; had some in country time in Vietnam , hey ; he came across as a milk toast kind a guy….but he could make a statement extemporaneously ...Bush still after all this time in power needs Roves hand up his butt wiggl’in his fingers….guys like yourself got all freaked out behind 9 / 11, you had to know U.S. Policy is to play hard ball against everbody…sooner of later something like this was going to happen…Tim McViegh ??.......Forgot about U.S. responsiblity to the world and working folks at home…Look the world community was on your side after 9 /11, ready to help and listen ; that’s all gone now.!!!.......but with that numb-scull Bush doing the shot calling that’s all you get now SHOTS BEING FIRED…...I hope you don’t have young relatives of military age cause you know the military com’in after them hard…..We could of had a WORLD SUMMIT ON TERROR , sat down talked things out like reasonable adults…..hey a little Showtimey… but it’s better than this NO WIN ,CASH COW ...WAR !........Look , with all due respect to you and your concerns ; I do disagree , politically I am a ’ Horse of a much different color…...
Viable candidates would have to be John Edwards…..Howard Dean , and last but not least Al ” Yes I still want to be Pres…but am not ready to announce, sniff neck ” GORE…I would think the smart money is on ....GORE…....SEN.. Hillary Clinton , is a conservative under cover ....wrong direction ;they try’in to sucker you with Her because of gender issue….way to Trilateral in her policies….
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 5, 2006 at 2:35 AM
WTH
Come off it me old mate, you can’t believe anything written by a hack who works for the Rev Moon ? Can you…....................?
moonie madness
Posted by frog on Jun 5, 2006 at 4:54 AM
Knocko,
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 5, 2006 at 9:25 AM
Redhorse,
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 5, 2006 at 9:29 AM
Frog & Redhorse,
Frog: I don
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 5, 2006 at 11:12 AM
Heck -
Don’t mess around with Red’s thought processes; perfection cannot be improved upon.
Red is pushing two has-beens and a never-was-and-never-will-be as his ideal presidential candidates. How can you beat that?
Look at what Redhorse says:
<blockquote>Look the world community was on your side after 9 /11, ready to help and listen ; that
Posted by scorp on Jun 5, 2006 at 1:03 PM
WTH….Islam has nothing to do with anything…...Christian / Islam extremist are all dangerous….Look I was maybe 4 miles north of the Pentagon when it got hit on 9 /11, I’m not worried , you cannot spend your days paraniod about this terrorism thing….As far as Colin Powell…what can I say…my thinking was that is what he was there for also ; too protect the foot soldiers from that MADMAN ; but reality is he wasn’t able to come close to that task , and then lied for the man…My take on him is he will keep his mouth shut !! Can’t argue with your take on Kerry…...but he did get a hell of a lot closer to the action than the Boy Emperor….where was he hang’in out at ChiChi’s Foot Massage on RT.411 in Arkansas or Texas… ?? Alabama ???....no…..hell nobody could find that ol’ boy Buckfush…........like I said before….take a walk….look at the kids play….and just be cool…..Look I grew up in Washington ,D.C…...never had a Congressman or Senator to vote for ; D.C. NEVER HAS AND STILL DOES NOT HAVE A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS OR THE SENATE…6…700,000 people living in D.C : NO REPRESENTATION…What we had when I was a kid was called Home Rule ; that is when the City got an annual budget from con-gress to run the city…never quite enough money ..in exchange you stop all this talk about representation…statehood…after that came the Control Board….folks still don’t have a representative in the congress or senate ; Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton is not allowed to vote…she can talk tell she’s blue in the face but can’t vote…all she can really do is lobby for the city…does a very good job…but can’t VOTE ???......You got your feelings hurt because you voted for the biggest JACK——SS THIS SIDE OF 3 Continents…but don’t let that stop u from voting….....on Big Tony….a pimps a pimp….........in dress and philosophy…..
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 5, 2006 at 1:33 PM
Well Scorp ....folks still talk too you….dishonest…corrupt…morally bankrupt…..the world’s still turning….day still follows night…....
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 5, 2006 at 1:53 PM
WTH
Surely who pays the salary is not a superficial detail ?
I’m surprised that you complain about lack of objectivity in the Press, and then do not have a look to see why, and how, this happens.
That sort of innocence can leave you easy prey to snake-oil salesmen.
If you think the Moonies are a harmless organisation, up to you, but they smell bad to me .
Any group or person that preaches the Clash of Civilisations, that incites to fearfulness and obscene expenditure on armaments, stinks.
Ever heard the expression BLOWBACK ?
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll, some excerpts here has more detail.
Posted by frog on Jun 6, 2006 at 12:26 AM
WTH
THE WAYS OF OUR MASTERS ARE WONDROUS TO BEHOLD.
You mention bomb-factories in uk and canada, as PROOF.
Maybe….............. maybe….. NOT.
Remember the 2001Anthrax SCARE in the US ? The FBI stopped investigating, and WHY ?
London there were all those headlines about RICIN terrorists arrested , nothing happened.
They were going to bomb Manchester United football ground, guys arrested , nothing happened.
The US arrested thousands on suspicion of terrorism, nothing happened.
The Detroit Sleeper Cell mean anything to you ?
All that shit makes headlines, the denials are in the small print.
Just got to keep the people fearful, subdued, obedient,
get them used to police raids, accidental shootings, at four AM.
i know what that reminds me of.
Posted by frog on Jun 6, 2006 at 2:18 AM
Redhorse,
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 6, 2006 at 7:41 AM
Frog,
Did Blankley choose to work at the Washington Times before or after Moon bought it? \
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 6, 2006 at 7:51 AM
WTH.
MOON established the WT 15yrs before his speech for the 15th birthday, at least that is what he says.
Blankley is one of many seemingly reasonable bloody propagandists.
To varying degrees the media is infested with them, and the most dangerous are the least ‘extreme’.
I believe you have the wrong idea about Islam. No more ‘murderous’ than any other religion, in my opinion !
Could you stop getting hyped up about 911, and start thinking ?
Terrorism is a tactic, and only a way of life, or death, for very few individuals. Some of them work for government agencies, others are more or less independent. The sordid history of the UK government against the IRA shows that it penetrated both the Protestant terrorist cells and the IRA.
We will never know the whole truth, but the brits allowed some bombs to explode, they allowed some murders of catholic civil-rights lawyers to be committed, because it suited them.
FRANKLY, me old WTH, the bush league was NEVER serious about anything !
I REPEAT. I ‘invented’ the container nuke in 1966 or 7. Hollywood has followed, but the thing has not yet happened. GWB has done nothing there, but almost impossible to do anything.
The real threats in this world come more from criminals than from States , or so called al Qaeda.
Unfortunately the USA has become indistinguishable from the criminal world, as any research into Iran/Contra or a quick google of “Posada Carriles” will show.
Another real danger for us, is that first our votes will be stolen by dodgy machines, and second we have no REAL choice for the elections. And there I agree wholeheartedly with you.
PS I think it was Sir William Stephenson who is supposed to have murdered the spy, reported by William Stevenson in the book ” A Man called Intrepid”. That book has been demonstrated to be only half-true, but MAYBE Wild Bill Donovan actually did it !
PPS “careful, restrictive, effective”—-
KILLING PEOPLE IS FINAL ! Wild Bill , IF he did it, could easily have entrapped the guy and sent him down. The publicity would have discouraged others….
In the War Against Terra in the UK, SEVENTEEN “IRA” PEOPLE were sent to prison on long terms for BOMBING, and subsequently CLEARED. ONE of the judges wished he had the Death Penalty to impose ! WHAT a relief he did not .
Maybe that is one reason why the brits are less hysterical about bombs etc than the yanks, WE have actually spent decades being threatened, and bombed.
And subsequently it is now widely known in the UK that POLICE and judicial actions have fallen far short of anything just or civilised, where “terrorism” is concerned..
PPPS anytime anyone gets you needlessly hostile to some religion or group , watch out !
Posted by frog on Jun 6, 2006 at 12:50 PM
Scorp,
You completely distort the entire history of the Gulf Wars and the UN diplomacy surrounding it. First of all the entire first round of UN resolutions between 1990 and 1991 regarded Iraqi withdrawl from Kuwait and only later for sanctions, sanctions committees and the embargo. Later in the 1990s, calls for disarmament and inspection like UNSC 687 in 1995, UNSC1284 in 1999 which established UNMOVIC, and in Nov. 2002 UNSC1441 which posited military force for non-compliance with these resolutions emerged in the UNSC. France and Germany at some point offered proposals to end sanctions and some other UNSC members supported it. ALL were always for continuing inspections. By late 2002, only the US and UK supported war. The 1441 resolution only held that invasion was an option IF inspections failed which only the US/UK axis believed they were. The US eroniously and unilaterally argued that the resolutions collectively implied standing authorization for a full scale invasion if key council members decided that Iraq was in bad faith non-compliance with the UNSC resolutions to disarm and allow inspections. In the end, the UNSC did NOT approve of the invasion by a vote thus making the war an illegal act of aggression as per Kofi Annan’s later statements. Of course NO al Quaeda link or WMDs were discovered. The terrorism you speak of is not an AL Quaeda link but old 1970s/80s era links to the likes of Abu Nidal and others which Saddam relinquished and which never posed a problem for US support in the Iran/Iraq War or immediately afterwards. Of course now everyone condemns the illegal war. The current call is for a complete, unilateral withdrawl!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 6, 2006 at 2:07 PM
Frog,
I think you may be right about it being Stephenson. I read both books (
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 6, 2006 at 2:21 PM
WTH
One of my golden rules is that if EVER I begin to feel hostile to ANY group, or whatever, is to ask the question .
CUI BONO ?
WHO wants me to feel like that ?
I hope you get DSL soon, good videos out there.
Posted by frog on Jun 6, 2006 at 2:37 PM
WTH
If IT happens again, IT can happen anywhere, .I live 80clicks from a nukepower and re-processing station.
I edited my post, so you can do a google on “Posada Carriles”.
That is just a minuscule example of the fact that “OUR” States are just as terroristic as the all-time favourites such as Libya.
Nobody is pretending that the US forces are doing ALL the killing in Iraq. However, they are doing their share, as even the Iraqi Ambassador to the US has pointed out.
I forget if it was a cousin or nephew who was collateral damage, American language for killed in cold blood . A cousin I think.
Posted by frog on Jun 6, 2006 at 2:58 PM
WTH
Often a good idea to read reports from the ground and forget the armchair strategists and pundits.
I recommend reading all dahr jamail’s stuff.
Posted by frog on Jun 6, 2006 at 3:12 PM
WTH….On the terrorism issue I believe you are also omitting our good fiend and current residing head potentate the president of these united state Geeooorge Bush !! Look at his KILL record…..roughly 2500 U.S. service people died , another 15000 or more wounded and permanently maimed ; then the poor Iraq civilian population is….just basically being davastated…in more ways than time or space has to document….....As a child…I can remember that when the block bully was not around everyone else played better….Amerikan Imperialist power and policy are the bully and the best and safest security for at home and abroad is too end that bully behavior…terrorism is a no win for us all…even the neo-cons lose…...but for some reason people forget ; must be that liberal media the conservatives keep hacking about…...as ugly as it will be the only solution is too pullout now…yesterday if possible…but now…for sure…....
Hey what does Woody Allen know he sleeps with his ” former ” adopted daughter…..God is not the problem…we are….Gerald Massey’s Lectures is an excellent read on religion and the misrepresentations there of….....or in….also he’s a former hometown , you stated your family ancestry is from England….other books by Massey : A Book of the Beginnings , Natural Genesis and Ancient Egypt the Light of the World are well worth the time to read…...
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 7, 2006 at 3:07 AM
Hello Horse
I found a good piece by gwynne dyer at ICH.
I only opened the one article . The rest, I’m afraid, would have told me nothing really new, just added information overload.
Posted by frog on Jun 7, 2006 at 4:21 AM
Frog,
I
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 7, 2006 at 6:21 AM
WTH
have a look at the thing by gwynne dyer ? link above.
The fact that he taught at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (uk equivalent of West Point) is of course no guarantee that he is RIGHT, but his opinion should be worth a look, and a deep think !
Posted by frog on Jun 7, 2006 at 6:34 AM
Frog,
I read the Gwynne Dyer piece and agree with some disagree with some. As with any individual account we all come at any topic with a lot of our own deductive reasoning
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 7, 2006 at 8:32 AM
Redhorse,
Woody Allen: I was just borrowing his God comment not endorsing his behavior.
My English ancestry predates the American revolution and my Swedish half got here at the end of the 1800s. My religious views developed over a long time, a lot of soul searching, study/reading and even as a teacher for a couple years. My personal beliefs covered the full range of Christian thought
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 7, 2006 at 8:51 AM
Red -
... the poor Iraq civilian population is….just basically being davastated ...
Davastated? Is that the opposite of devastated?
The violent death rate for civilians in Iraq is less than in Washington DC and Detroit, and about half the rate in New Orleans before Katrina.
Now I grant you that a big car bomb is more spectacular than some dickhead offing his girlfriend or whatever, but the violence in Iraq is not quite what the leftist media wants you to believe.
And after we clean up the terrorists in Iraq, we will clean up the terrorists’ allies, the leftist Democrats that control the big cities in the USA. Then the oppressed people of Iraq and the oppressed people of the big American cities can live their own lives, free of politicians and criminals. But I repeat myself.
Posted by scorp on Jun 7, 2006 at 11:57 AM
Scorpy….Scorp…damn…Scorp found a typo….oh my goodness what’s a radical progressive to do…...and…and then….he ....he’s coming after the Leftist Democrats….oh…no…not that…please not that…..Scorp when are you gonna take your sad-sack bee-hind pots to Iraq.??......and see the violence for yourself….I’m sure a mean ol’booger like yourself has driven thru the big bad cities before…...take a drive thru downtown Bagdad…take a deep breath of all that depleted-Uranium filled air….and hey….sense things are so soft over there….prop yourself down at a roadside cafe and have a cup of tea and a falafel sandwich…......I’m sure the locals will find your views real interesting….............Your delusional side is really starting to show ( like it wasn’t already out there like a big ol’ Zit , right in the middle of your forehead ; Cyclops)....did I say something that made you mad…....or is insanity just your normal state of over-repressive narcissistic sociopathic mindset…...Xenophobe .............................................................’ toon
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 7, 2006 at 1:03 PM
Frog,
I read some of Dahr Jamail
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 7, 2006 at 1:06 PM
WTH…....Just pook’in fun at Woody…..My take on Massey is that his writing totally debunks an historical interpretation of the Caconical Gospel…or the bible in general….Giving instead a translation of mythological typology written by ancestor scholars in stone and on papryus paper.so as better to understand the origin of said documents…Quite an indept study….exhaustive in research…....Massey stays with the subject matter , doesn’t tell you how it should or should not be interpretated personally ; just the big picture, sricpturally….......................The thing with folks blowing themselves up is that by invading Iraq the U.S. HAS MADE THEM FREEDOM FIGHTERS….the Iraq people were not roadside bombing folks before the invasion….............Did the prison experiment in school…it was amazing too see friends turn on one another…it didn’t take long either….......................................................scorp was there , got locked in the lab ; they would let him out , but the Prof. are a little concerned , he thinks he’s Dick Cheney…............
P.S…...Democrary Now is a excellent balance between corp. media and nothing at all here in the U.S. a lot of times there info comes from the B.B.C. ,U.S. media just doesn’t cover a lot of stuff…
Stay with the coverage, and check out Ambrose Lane…on WPFW.FM 98.3…Mon & Fri. at 10:00am…I’m sure the station can be listened too over the .net…just type in the call letters…
You should like Amy Goodman , the politicians sure don’t…..Clinton hates her…says she arrogant and rude….....Bush won’t ever talk to her….....thats’s what happens when you’re a real journalist in amerika…..
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 7, 2006 at 2:06 PM
Redhorse,
I had to laugh out loud at this one.
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 7, 2006 at 5:27 PM
WTH…gotcha…....made you laugh….you just added 6 months to your life…instead of worry’in about stuff none of us can do much about….
The interesting thing about that experiment is that all of use have the ablity to be the good guy or the bad guy…the choice is ours…on the oppressed side the passivity developed….. is learned…that is what’s so destructive in that pedagogy…the learning….the shame that it induces…
As far as religion , been through somewhat of a similiar experience not quite the same…basically you get to a point were the stuff makes no sense….I came across Massey in my research on Afrikan history…your angle is probably different , but you should check out the lectures….....A quote ;....Humanity is one. And the power that IS has instituted certain laws—-laws that operate for the species rather than the individual , an important distinction to be made in any interpretation of nature ; laws that deal with the species as one in spite of our manifold diversities and our deified doctrine of every-one-on-his-own-hookism…........Another quote ;.... Pain is necessary , then , to the development of consciousness , and the perfecting of conditions. It is the reminder that there is something wrong ; therefore something to be remedied . It is a part of the process in our education . Also , the lofiest pleasures of our spiritual life continually flower from a rootage in the deepest pain…..Massey
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 7, 2006 at 6:22 PM
Redhorse,
I
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 8, 2006 at 6:29 AM
WTH….You gonna like reading Massey…the man draws all that stuff together…...........I’ve heard of Viktor Frankel…but have not read his work…...
Bush & posse announce.the killing of Al Zarqawi….but caution the violence will continue….when you fight folks that have no fear of death , you have a very , extremely tough enemy…..Vietnam…Korea…this childess display does nothing but show how weak HIS war decision WAS….and continues too be….........
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 8, 2006 at 6:42 PM
Red -
Now come on, Horse. If I worried about all your typos, errors, non-sequiturs, irrational thought processes, and stupid fucking ignorance, I would hardly have time for anything else. So, I don’t worry about you or your mistaken banalities.
But you really should consider what I have said. Is it significant that the rate of civilian violence is greater in New Orleans, Washington DC, and Detroit than it is in Iraq? I suppose that sort of depends on where you fall on the political spectrum. Leftists are determined to focus on and exaggerate violence in Iraq, and ignore greater levels of violence in our Democratic-controlled major cities. That is why the American people do not trust leftist Democrats to run the country. Is that too hard for you to understand?
Posted by scorp on Jun 9, 2006 at 12:20 PM
You know Scorp…......It’s not worth the time , I do have a job…and now comes the weekend…...................toon..!!
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 9, 2006 at 12:46 PM
Scorp,
I don
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 9, 2006 at 1:53 PM
Heck -
Let me tell you about this marvelous Internet service called “Google”. To use Google, you just type in “key words”, such as the ones I gave you: violence, rate, Iraq, Washington, Detroit. In just 0.41 seconds, you are provided with “about 636,000” entries, the first ten of which report on a study of the rate of civilian violence in the USA as compared to Iraq. (I don’t know about the other 635,990.) You may have heard of some of the media outlets in which this study was reported: Newsmax, History Channel, etc. But you did not see it reported in the leftist media.
Now, 2 + 2 is rocket science for Red, but surely you understand the concept of violent incidents per unit population (I hope).
But you do not understand the concept or reality of the military situation in Iraq.
... we started with approximately 25% of what the U.S. military’s (CENTCOM) ten-year study called for ...
There is a standing joke in the Pentagon on any question of troop deployments.
“Deployment? The answer is, ‘We need 1,200,000 troops.’ What was the question?”
You know damn good and well it would have taken several years to raise the forces you are talking about, but I am sure you think that is sufficient reason not to fight the terrorists at all.
You are totally oblivious to the progress we have made in the development of American military excellence and lethality. We could end the conflict in Iraq on any Thursday morning, or in the entire Middle East by Thursday mid-afternoon if we needed to do so. We have deliberately restrained ourselves to limit damage to civilians and infrastructure. We needed more intelligence assets, much more than we needed more troops, but the intelligence capability of the USA has been decrepit for many years; fortunately, Negroponte seems to be getting a better handle on it.
More troops just means more targets. We now have about 2400 fatalities. I defy you to give me any reasonable scenario or troop strength level that would have resulted in fewer fatalities, given the outstanding accomplishments of our effort in Iraq: three elections, a functioning government, and growing Iraqi national security services. The Pentagon’s own estimate was 5000 dead.
The Garner/Bremer cock-up was bad, but that was not Rumsfeld’s doing. That was the State Department, as dysfunctional and decrepit as the intelligence services. Unfortunately, Colin Powell was not the person to get the State Department in line.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 9, 2006 at 8:44 PM
“Loss of international prestige”. Just whom do you think we have lost prestige with? Germany sabotaged a thirteen-year effort to control the terrorist Saddam regime and his WMD; Schroeder did this to assure his re-election, but the German electorate promptly kicked him out regardless, and elected the centrist Merkel to replace him. France and Russia were eager to go along with Germany (my, how times change) and it turns out that both France and Russia were major recipients of Saddam’s graft and corruption. In fact, the USA has “lost prestige” only with Eurosocialists, totalitarians, and the UN. Nothing new there, what did you expect and why should I care?
“Encouraging the enemy to continue there”. Right, like they needed encouragement; Muslims have been attacking infidels on a regular basis for over 1400 years. The spread of the Muslim religion has always been at the point of the sword. But think for a moment. It is a basic military principle to attack an enemy’s weakness. Now you have the Jihadists marching squarely into the strongest, most disciplined, most lethal military force in the world and they are getting slaughtered. This is the ideal place for “the enemy to continue” from our point of view. I have been reluctant to point out just how stupid the Jihadists have been, but this dust-up is about over.
“Anxiety here at home”. You have a non-stop effort by the leftist politicians (some of whom voted for the war) and the leftist media to raise the anxiety level. By killing Jihadists in Iraq and stopping Jihadist plots in the USA and Canada, we have kept the actual level of slaughter in the USA since 09/11 at a very low level, regardless of any
Posted by scorp on Jun 9, 2006 at 8:47 PM
Scorp….I have checked your sources ; all are either the so-called liberal media you neo-cons detest or they are neo-con rags that do nothing but scratch each others buttocks…...either way my question to you is .....do you thing for yourself , or is your fetish for Ann Coulter paint a picture for all your Nazi propaganda….....I say this for all the innocent “so-called collateral ” victims and the service men and women on whatever side of the conflict they serve…..you are a ” COWARD ” because you advocate what you know you have neither the GUTS or COURAGE to go do yourself…..Simple math is not a problem for me ........but a humane response to a humane tragedy seems to be out of your conception…what are your credentials….PUNK…...have you ever been off your mommas porch…............................You are and always will be out of the ” funny papers “..................’ toon !!
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 10, 2006 at 4:44 AM
Frog…what’s go’in on….......Sorry I took so long too reply….sparring with Stup…oh , my bad….I mean Scorp , those damn typos….Anyway googled Gwynne Dyer….man..that’s a lot of info…very interesting…I will have to do what I have been putting off and that is to buy a PRINTER…can’t read all that info off the .net…..thanks though…can I afford the ink costs…
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 10, 2006 at 5:36 AM
Scorp,
Sorry to have wasted your time (and mine)
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 10, 2006 at 7:20 AM
Redhorse,
Good Grief!
On Iraq I disagree with you on the one hand and Scorp on the other
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 10, 2006 at 10:52 AM
Red -
Yes, but have you ever had an original thought? Obviously not. Insults and morally confused rants are not thoughts, much less original thoughts.
Posted by scorp on Jun 10, 2006 at 12:36 PM
WTH…..My sincere regards and respect for your friend who has passed…Now I don’t want you to fall off your seat or anything…....but I believe we have found common ground….Mr. Frankl is a man who got to ” Know Himself ” it is imperative that we do not waste the space that life has awarded too us…...
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 10, 2006 at 12:55 PM
Scorp…..Coming from you ...that does not mean much….you have not answered my statement..” Humane response for a humane tragedy “..........The insults are free , like a gift…................’ toon…
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 10, 2006 at 1:08 PM
Redhorse,
Thank you. I located his book and think I will reread it or at least go through and check my underlines.
As I recall his simple and direct approach is what made his ideas seem so genuine
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 10, 2006 at 2:01 PM
Heck -
Many years ago, I was a 2Lieu in Augsburg. It was the end of the fiscal year, and DivCom discovered he had unspent money in his budget. That was a no-no; if he did not spend all available funds, he was guilty of mismanagement, and next year’s budget would be cut. He ordered his staff to spend the requisite amount of money, and among the things that were purchased were IBM ball typewriters for every clerk in the division, at $600 a pop. So our clerks typed in style, there were a large number of perfectly good surplus typewriters for sale cheap, DivCom’s promotion prospects were maintained, and the tax payer was screwed.
... the data is not the important thing here. I was trying to get you to think rather than collect simply collect info.
Obviously, correct data is an essential starting point for any reasoning process. But the correct data, correctly selected from overwhelming masses of relevant and irrelevant input, is essential to correct reasoning in determining future possibilities and future courses of action. (Leftists are indifferent to facts and incapable of reason , but they can feel your pain, whatever they mean by that. In practical terms, it means that you will suffer more pain.)
So, why, among the infinite number of possibilities, have you uncritically accepted the hoary old Military-Industrial Complex solution to our current problems, as characterized by your acceptance of CENTCOM spin on troop strength?
I accept your Conservative credentials. But, we now have a military that is ten times as fast, and ten times as lethal, as when Eisenhower first warned about MIC. And you have learned nothing in the interim.
The troubles in Iraq are primarily from State Department failures, from Bremer on down. If the military had been allowed to squash the terrorists assembled at Falluja I, both the terrorists and the Iraqi people would have come to a faster and deeper understanding of their situation, and our security would have been enhanced.
There are three contending forces within the American anti-terrorist effort:
1) Our superb military, perfectly suited for military efforts. This in spite of a remnant of MICs and Cold Warriors, who never quite got the message, but whom are, mercifully, dying off (or becoming armchair Generals), and who are being succeeded by more aware, more aggressive, and more disciplined types. The excellence of our military is the direct result of VP Cheney and SecDef Rumsfeld, both of whom served as SecDefs in previous administrations and who have had made long-term committments to necessary change and excellence, with gratifying results. A major contributor to the philosophical base for this change was Colonel John Boyd, who not only developed the theory, but served as Cheney’s confidential advisor during the spectacular effort of Gulf I.
(Schwarzkopf’s initial plan in Gulf I was a head-on assault on the beaches, into the prepared Iraqi defenses. It was Cheney and Boyd that worked with the military to develop the end-around into the Iraqi logistics tail, resulting in the most spectacular military victory ever.)
2) The State Department and Intel Agencies, compromised and inefficient. Rice and Negroponte seem to be making some progress in their respective areas in cleaning out the rot.
3) The leftist politicians and media, compromised, compromising, and oblivious to the values of the American people. What is the matter with Kansas? Absolutely nothing. What is the matter with New York? Now, that is a problem.
“More troops just means more targets.”
Custer would probably disagreed strongly with this comment.
If you can’t distinguish between the Little Big Horn in 1876 and Iraq now, no wonder you are confused.
Posted by scorp on Jun 10, 2006 at 4:26 PM
Scorp,
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 11, 2006 at 6:05 AM
Scorp,
You distort and twist data so as to confuse and the issue at hand. The high rate of urban crime in the USA is such that it rivals over time many places where there are low level civil wars in terms of casualties of violence. The US has twelve times the Iraqi population. Of course the absolute number of Iraqis killed is less than the US casualties in the USA. Per capita comparisons might yield a different statistical result. And so what if it did not. Are these two things worth comparing. How unflattering to the society you idealize and its leadership when a nation at civil war produces far fewer casualties than a nation at peace like the USA. A little hint-Bush & Co. don’t give a rats ass about urban crime in the US or about safe US communites. Unlike Clinton who fought crime in the 1990s and won, the only question Bush & Co. ask about the crime issue is why tax the upper 1% in order to make a basket case like US cities safer. Who cares. How will a safer urban US help the rich globalize their investments to get richer. Besides these big city folks are all Democrats!
No one in the world is more cynical about the future of the US as a viable society than Bush & Co. They only care about the rich, the biggest US corporations, and the US military that supports them both. Katrina, 9/11, and a host of other things which have harmed the US but got no attention from Bush prove this point!
The war on terror is just US imperialism pure and simple. The Iraqi government is a puppet government. Iraqis are worse off than before Saddam and many say so. They have no real future as long as we stay. The war has done more damage to Iraq than did Saddam. Zarquawi was the beneficiary of US air cover in northern Iraq for years. In 2002, CIA and Pentagon officials wanted to get him and knew where he was hiding. Bush refused on the basis of NSA advice that a successful raid on his hidout would destroy our rationale for invasion. The consequences are that over the last four years many have been needlessly killed for US imperial goals and greed. Had we allowed it, Saddam would have killed him and his followers instantly because he hated theocrats and we knew this well. It was one reason for his September 1980 attack on the Ayatollahs of Iran.
Scorp, I do not understand your love affair with US imperialism. Your life as a 2nd Lt. was risked for dubious causes. I’m sure you are not yourself benefiting from imperialism like the Fortune 500 are so why get a purple heart for them!?
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 11, 2006 at 10:12 AM
Heck -
<blockquote>If you can
Posted by scorp on Jun 11, 2006 at 11:29 AM
Red -
... a humane response to a humane tragedy ...
Every humane (or inhumane) tragedy since 1918 has been the result of totalitarian aggression: fascist (Hitler), socialist (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim), freelance (Idi Amin, Mugabe, Saddam), or Islamist (al-Qa’eda).
Every measure of relief from inhumane tragedy has come from the democracies. And it has not come cheaply to the democracies, much less to the victims of totalitarianism.
The fact that you are of the Stalinist persuasion certainly does not negate the truth of the above points.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The democrats are going to straighten you up. And the Democrats can’t help you, since the American voters are going to straighten the Democrats up, also.
Posted by scorp on Jun 11, 2006 at 12:00 PM
Scorp….You continue to try to label folks by the extremely nero confines of your own myopia…..................’ toon
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 11, 2006 at 12:54 PM
Scorp,
You, like so many ideologues you are hopelessly out of touch. You label those like Red horse “Stalinist.” How so? You make blanket generalizations out of context like “all suffering comes from ideologues while all relief comes at a great price from the “democracies.” You never mention that democracies like the US and UK have often supported dictators of the extreme right out of fear and greed. One of those was Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athist Party in 1963. They overthrew a center/left coalition led by General Karim Qassim which included a highly tepid and reformist Iraqi Communist Party. Was the Iraqi CP worse than Saddam who murdered five to eight thousand of the ICP membership in a few months. The ICP were amoung the most educated, peaceful, and politically modern and non-tribal of all Iraqi society. The US/UK axis feared unfriendly policies toward “their” oil. All the Qassim Regime did was abrogate the atavistic and absurd 1928 Achnacary Agreement and open the remaining 95% of untapped reserves to national exploration and new foreign contracts. They also insisted on a 50/50 split on profits rather than per barrel royalties. This was easily circumvented by transfer pricing ie. overcharging corporate affiliated refiners to make in country profits appear smaller. This is a common and age-old trick! Saddam actually nationalized the entire Iraqi Oil industry in 1972. Was this better for US companies who went elsewhere. Even today it is thought that at least half of Iraq’s oil potential is untapped. The Kassim Regime wouldn’t recognize Kuwait and wanted to negotiate its status because it also regarded the principality as the “19th province.” Saddam invaded and brutally killed Kuwaitis. Was this better? The Ba’athists were seen as better than the Communists but our fanatical rigidity in thought wouldn’t let us see the truth which was the opposite case.
In case after case, US/UK imperialism has wrought havoc on the world. Yet Scorp only sees evil elsewhere and not in countless right-wing murderous dictatorships supported by the US/UK axis of ignorance. There are countless cases all over the third world! The US is mostly responsible for most of the post-WWII fascist coups in the third world.
Secondly, by what reasoning do you consider the Democratic Party of the USA the “left.” They are basically Republican-Lite. Bush & Co.‘s appoval rating is still below 30% even after the killing of al Zarqawi. The progressive caucus of the US Democratic Party needs to make its case to the US public now more than ever. It needs to talk to the 90% or so that the Bush Regime (he wasn’t legitimately elected!) ignores as a matter of course.
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 11, 2006 at 4:28 PM
Red -
And the culture of caligula is going to bite you in the ass.
Posted by scorp on Jun 11, 2006 at 4:49 PM
And once again Scorp…......you swing…......and miss….......Cabdriver just struck you out…...
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 11, 2006 at 5:36 PM
Also I’ve noticed you are becoming somewhat….HYPER…..have you been eating too many sugar products.???.......Gett’in off on that Oxy-Contin…that is what your homeboy Rush Limp-baugh…...was steal’in…right ??...Or maybe the Viagras not work’in…??.....
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 11, 2006 at 5:41 PM
CDC -
Don’t be such a Densan.
Can you remember or think of any geopolitical situation in the 1970s and 1980s that might have caused the USA and other democracies to ally with less-than-perfect democrats, or non-democrats?
Hint: In WWII, the USA and Great Britain allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler. It was not because the SU was democratic, humanitarian, or well-intentioned; in fact, the communists were a bunch of murdering bastards. So, why? Because Hitler was a worse threat, of course.
After Hitler was properly disposed of, the murderous socialist thugs took over much of Eastern Europe, China and other areas in Asia, and eventually moved into Africa (Egypt and Angola) and Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile). The communists also killed about ten times the number of innocent civilians than Hitler ever did. Under the circumstance, we took allies where we could find them, without inquiring too closely into their democratic credentials. Great chunks of the world were proxy battlegrounds between the democracies and the totalitarian socialists during this period.
After the Soviets collapsed from corruption and inefficiency (when was a socialist system ever efficient?), we had the luxury of becoming more discriminating in picking our friends. Not so, the left. You socialists went straight from providing KGB support to Allende to providing propaganda support to the totalitarian Jihadists, as at Abu Ghraib. Never have so few panties on some terrorists head raised such a big stink. Mercifully, you have little meaningful military capability to provide to the Jihadists.
The ICP were amoung (sic) the most educated, peaceful, and politically modern and non-tribal of all Iraqi society.
Yeah, so were Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin in Russia. Until they came to power. I accept the fact that you regard me as a Kulak, but you, as an elite leftist, will NEVER have power to act over me, and you ought to accept that, for your own good sake. Or not, it doesn’t make any difference to me.
<blockquote>The US/UK axis feared unfriendly policies toward
Posted by scorp on Jun 11, 2006 at 8:34 PM
In case after case, US/UK imperialism has wrought havoc on the world. Yet Scorp only sees evil elsewhere and not in countless right-wing murderous dictatorships supported by the US/UK axis of ignorance. There are countless cases all over the third world! The US is mostly responsible for most of the post-WWII fascist coups in the third world.
Is this a serious statement, or are you just engaging in a little bit of recreational bitching? If you are serious, please list all the “post-WWII fascist coups” you are aware of. There cannot be “countless” numbers of them, because there are only about one hundred fifty or so recognized national entities, well over one hundred of which are democracies, thanks primarily to what you quaintly refer to as “US/UK imperialism”.
Secondly, by what reasoning do you consider the Democratic Party of the USA the “left.” They are basically Republican-Lite.
Not only is that not true, you immediately contradict yourself with your reference to the “progressive caucus of the US Democratic Party”. The Progressive Party has a long history in the USA. Henry Wallace was FDR’s Vice-President during WWII, until FDR dropped Wallace because of his far left views, his open admiration for Stalin, and his indiscretions that resulted in release of classified diplomatic data to the nazis. Boy, was Harry Truman astonished when he popped up as the new Vice-President, but it was an inspired choice. None of this socialist crap for Truman.
Wallace went on to run for President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, winning a few votes in New York and California (where else?), but no electoral votes. Americans have always rejected radicals and socialists, but there is a measure of truth in your description of the current split within the Democratic Party: your “Republican-Lite” serve as useless idiots for the elite, progressive, socialist dumbshits that are desperately trying to gain power over a polity that is basically uninterested in what you have to offer.
You progressives/ socialists/ communists/ whatever can “make (your) case to the US public” from now to doomsday, and people still know that you are a bunch of elite, lying, murdering, corrupt, inefficient socialists. So, knock yourself out, boy.
Posted by scorp on Jun 11, 2006 at 8:41 PM
Scorp,
The list of coups is very long. I will provide some examples but I suggest you look into a book called Killing Hope by William Blum. It is very comprehensive. US intervention has a long history. There are very few places we didn’t intervene after 1945. We did very little in Africa because The UK and France were active there and had long established colonies. So did Portugal and Belguim. We did have a hand in the coup in the Belgian Congo in 1961 against Lumumba. The CIA was active there. I also believe that the coup in the early 1960s against Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana was CIA assisted. These two were key events and came from a country with very limited historic presence in Africa. In Latin America and Asia, however, the record on coups and interventions are vast. The middle east also. Iran-1953, Guatemala-1953, Egypt-1956, Lebanon-1958, Iraq-1963, Brazil-1964, Dominican Republic-1965, Indonesia 1965, Greece-1967, Vietnam 1964-75, Chile 1973, Thailand 1976, Grenada 1983 and there were many others. A few of these were armed interventions and wars but some were no more than coups against democratically elected governments bringing authoritarian right-wing dictatorships to power. Chile, Guatemala, and Indonesia had the worst consequences in terms of human rights casualties. Thousands were killed in Chile and Indonesia while a protracted counter-insurgency against the indian population of Guatemala for three decades wiped out over 400 villages and killed nearly half a million people. Scorp I don’t mind being a US citizen at this point but I’m sure glad I’m not on the receiving end of our foreign policy. I also don’t think the US population will reject radical domestic reform and many who consider themselves victims of globalization (some who were former upper middle class) are quite ready for it. Scorp I think it would be interesting for you to tell us a little about your background, what Red State you’re from, when you were in the armed services and why you enlisted, and you’re educational background. Were your parents very religious and insist on regular weekly attendance at Church? You seem to have had some formal academic training! Tell us a little about yourself to put things in perspective!
Posted by cabdriverinchicago on Jun 11, 2006 at 10:51 PM
Scorp,
First of all the
Posted by whattheheck on Jun 12, 2006 at 6:43 AM
WTH
Your link to that one article by DAHR JAMAIL did not work, for me.
The man comes from Anchorage, and does not speak arabic, even. He’s a yank with a US passport, with the real US and Universal ideas about what is RIGHT .
I went to his site and found his first posts from Iraq. November 2003
I have not read all his posts, but the many I have read would make me PROUD , if an american, that this guy came from my country !
I recommend you read ALL of what he has written. Decide for yourself, but on Much More than a cursory glance.
You may be 68, with friends dying around you, but you are far from brain-dead. That is why I like you so much. And you are obviously a person who cannot stop thinking.
I DO believe that on SOME things you have been taken for a ride. Well, me too, as a young brit soldier 40yrs ago, and only a fool and coward will NOT admit to having been wrong.
For me the “Islamofascist Blabla Menace is BULLSHIT”.
You believe it, for now, but I have some hope that ONE DAY you will realise that you have been “had”.
No shame in learning .
You tend to dwell too long on “historical parallels” . HISTORY is great, as long as we use it learn , and concentrate on the here and now, with its different complexities.
Those who use History as part of their polemic are mostly CHARLATANS and propagandists.
The PM of Iran is “ANOTHER HITLER”, Americans who oppose these crazy wars are “APPEASERS of HITLERS”.
If you actually, CALMLY, take the time to read what Ahmadinejehad ACTUALLY said, translated by some germans, you will realise that the Great American Public , and the European Public, is being grossly misled.
Refering to your last post.
FUCK all the deets about “security” .
The IMPORTANT THING for Iraqis is WHO OWNS their OIL.???? IF I were one of them, the FACT that GWB has tried to annexe my oil for decades to come would be a very good reason to go on fighting.
“LEGALLY” , GWB & Friends have stolen my OIL. .
In such a situation, as Iraqis, WTH and frog and redhorse will blow up the pipelines. Even Scorp, as an Iraqi with balls, would join us.
.
Posted by frog on Jun 12, 2006 at 12:43 PM
WTH…Frog….OPERATION IRAQ LIBERATION spells….............OIL….
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 12, 2006 at 1:01 PM
CDC -
Long ago and far away, on a different website, I got in a discussion with a leftist, and I was giving him a hard time about the millions of people that Stalin’s communist system had murdered. His take on the situation was that Stalin had subverted pure communism into “state capitalism”, and therefore the forty million innocent dead in the Soviet Union were actually victims of capitalism! Yeah, right!
The list of coups is very long.
Well ... OK. But what you specifically told me was “fascist” coups. Now, surely you are aware that fascism was a political philosophy, subscribed to by certain persons and countries, and incorporating certain “principles”, for lack of a better term. Not a goddam one of the countries you have listed fits the description of fascist. “Fascist’ has become a leftist generic pejorative term of no definite meaning, like little kids calling each other “poo-poo head”. For that matter, the nonsense that passes for leftist thought these days has nothing to do with the socialism that Marx preached, but that is another story.
Before WWII, leftists in America were typically anti-American. But when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, suddenly the political line of the leftists was transformed into the idea that we were all friends and allies. After WWII and the defeat of fascism, it was back to being enemies again. America offered the Soviet Union $15 billion in war material during WWII, which the Soviets accepted, and Marshall Plan aid after the War, which the Soviets refused.
But whence cometh the zombie fascists that the left claim are all around us, such as all the fascist coups you claim to see?
There were three primary political philosophies going into WWII, and only two came out. Democratic capitalism and socialism survived, and fascism fell by the wayside. The only times you see or hear of fascism anymore is the Aryan Nations types, and their ilk, and the fascists invented by the left to meet their internal ideological needs.
The concepts of “class” and “class warfare” are staples of leftist thought, so for ideological reasons, the democratic capitalist system that fought on the winning side in WWII is no more, having morphed into “fascists”, the enemies of socialism; Bushitler, “countless fascist coups”, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The USA as a fascist state is a product of the somewhat demented ideological needs of leftists; if the facts do not agree with the ideology, the facts must be wrong, and must be changed.
But wait! If the USA was a fascist nation, it would be at least as corrupt and inefficient as a socialist nation, so that can’t be right. In fact, the USA has the most dynamic, productive large economy in the world, only running into trouble when a leftist Democrat is elected President. Johnson, Carter, and Clinton each devastated the American economy, and Reagan and Bush 43 had to bail it out after leftist Democratic Party cock-ups.
And you surely know, and surely did not mention, that most of the countries that you listed were under communist subversion and attack when the USA intervened. Therefore, you think the USA is “fascist” and installed “fascist dictators”. I suppose we could have avoided your fascist label by rolling over for the communists, as Marx predicted we would do, but when has a prediction by Marx ever proved out? Never, that’s when.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 12, 2006 at 5:12 PM
Scorp I think it would be interesting for you to tell us a little about your background, what Red State you’re from, when you were in the armed services and why you enlisted, and you’re educational background. Were your parents very religious and insist on regular weekly attendance at Church? You seem to have had some formal academic training! Tell us a little about yourself to put things in perspective!
And I think it would be even more interesting if you would go fuck yourself and send us pictures. I do not do autobiography on demand. If the idea appeals to you so much, write up your story. If you are fool enough to do that, Red is undoubtedly fool enough to read what you have to say.
Posted by scorp on Jun 12, 2006 at 5:14 PM
Scorp…..that’s actually ..kinda funny….poo poo head…........Fascism is marked by excessive control of Gov’t agencies by privately owned Corporations , excessive displays of overt patriotism base in propaganda ; and a centrally controlled ( owned ) media…..
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 12, 2006 at 5:38 PM
You read what the man ” Cabdriver “had to say…...so what’s that make you…...for a man that’s backing the power e-lite ....you seem a bit…...SENSITIVE…....the thing with you that’s so STRANGE…scorp…is that you now ” In These Times ” is a progressive rag .....you act like you’re trying too convince folks…what Ann Coulters group not hiring…or is it frustration over Enron…...you see Cabdriver he let out that because of Enron , he got laid off…I jump on it…and ol’ rude-boy hasn’t forgotten…so now he wants everybody to act out like he does…..... and hedonize themselves…...
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 12, 2006 at 6:10 PM
Cabdriver….Hey Scorps a smart ol’cuss…got a lot of fact and figures and so on…..but he’s as evil-minded as god made little green apples…so it’s all a waste…my guess is ; over all his generation is wasted…and these young progressive out here will save the night and the day…....vote prgressive as possibly…like Frog was saying , organize as much as possible…and patience…..................true..
Posted by Redhorse on Jun 12, 2006 at 6:45 PM
Red -
... vote prgressive (sic) as possibly…like Frog was saying , organize as much as possible…and patience ...
Patience is a virtue. Leftists are notably lacking in virtue, but prepare yourselves for the long haul, because you are going to need it.
Progressive is an euphemism for communist. Communists have a bad name, because they are guilty of murder, corruption, and inefficiency. So, in order to avoid the negative connotations of being genocidal, thieving, inept bastards, leftists have adopted various less-polarizing labels for themselves: collectivist, progressive, socialist. But a leftist by any other name is still a genocidal, thieving, inept bastard.
In our present culture, and in the tattered remnants of European culture, socialists can’t get away with outright murder, but it is a matter of mild concern that socialists are trying so hard to change the culture, so that anything is permissible to a socialist, but not to the rest of us (much the way the Soviet Union was). For example, the recent convictions of Democratic partisans in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere for election thuggery (assault, destruction of election signs, slashing tires on Republican election vehicles, etc.). Surely there must have been some Republican mischief in all this great land, but it did not get prominently reported, even in the leftist press. And the gross mismanagement of the American economy by the last three inept leftist Democratic presidents has cost us all. So, the threat is real, if limited at this time.
Fortunately, their own ineptness will do the leftists in.
In the confusion and social disruption of the Great Depression, many people looked for alternative solutions. Some turned to communism and a few turned to fascism, but neither of these foreign ideologies made a great impact among Americans. The American communists had some limited success in the cultural, political, and technological fields, with many writers and film personalities supporting leftist positions, and communist spies infiltrating defense industries in WWII. The Soviets ran an active infiltration of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, but Hubert Humphrey, Orville Freeman, and their allies kicked out the communists. Henry Wallace, FDR’s wartime Vice-President, was an open admirer of Stalin, and had distinctly leftist views. Wallace was replaced in a timely manner by Harry Truman for the 1944 elections, and shortly afterward FDR died. Wallace ran for President on the Progressive ticket in 1948, but didn’t get anywhere.
The leftists got a revival in the aftermath of Vietnam, when Kennedy/ Johnson/ McNamara royally screwed American foreign and domestic policy. Radical leftists from Vietnam went on to college and became leftist professors and media stars. Pinch Sulzburger, now owner-editor of the New York Times, once the most respected newspaper in America, was a radical student in those times. Now Sulzburger just pitches anti-American, pro-Jihadist propaganda, while his newspaper disintegrates, losing readers, revenues, and profits. Fortunately as well, academia is a trailing indicator, and the quaint and crusty leftist professors are beginning to die off, when they are not being fired outright by an enraged citizenry.
Continue ...
Posted by scorp on Jun 13, 2006 at 10:06 AM
The newest twist in the Progressive road to nowhere is George Soros’ money and Kos’ white-hot passion for leftist nonsense and self-aggrandizement. Soros and friends spent increasingly tens of millions of dollars in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 election cycles in an effort to promote their communist ideology, with ever decreasing results. Now they think that they can do better in 2006 and 2008, with no confirming data whatsoever.
Kos has made a very large stir within a very small friendly audience on the Internet, but wait until the American people experience Kos’ hatred- and obscenity-laced rants; talk about a clash of cultures! At my last count, Kos had selected twenty leftist candidates as worthy of his support, and endorsed and helped fund their election campaigns; every single one of Kos’ candidates has lost, as if endorsement by Kos is the kiss of death. Kos has been reduced to claiming dubious moral victories when his candidates are not beaten too badly.
But such real power as the leftists actually possess is within the halls of Congress and in the Democratic Party establishment. Fortunately, the Democratic leadership in Congress exhibits the epitome of political ineptness, just like their communist heroes. Pelosi qualifies as a leftist apparatchik, while Reid is trying to straddle his conservative roots, the fairly broad Democratic base, and the Kos barbarians. Meanwhile, Screaming Howard Dean has seized the DNC and is pursuing his own vision and presidential goals by broadly supporting Democratic Party state organizations, while the Democratic Congressional leadership wants to concentrate on specific competitive local elections; consequently, Democratic resources are being pissed away on conflicting objectives.
Meanwhile, back in the real jungle, we Americans build democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, inspire democracies in Eastern Europe, Lebanon, and elsewhere, and have the finest, most productive, large economy in the world. And somehow the communists think they can improve on what we have achieved, using as resources Soros, Kos, Dean, Pelosi, Reid, Sulzburger, and Ward Churchill. How novel! How quaint! How stupid can you get?
And the Republicans just keep puttering along, getting things right, in the face of domestic leftist negativism, Jihadist headhunting and human sacrifice, European weakness and loss of direction, Chinese and Russian hostility, Irani efforts to build a bomb, UN corruption and incompetence, and other minor problems. Is this a wonderful world, or what?
Posted by scorp on Jun 13, 2006 at 10:10 AM
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One of the many falsehoods the left spreads about President Bush is that he had no plan for Iraq: too few troops, no plan for government, no plan for confessional conflict, etc. But just because the leftists are not smart enough to recognize a plan if it bit them in the ass, that does not mean that there was no plan. The plan was superb, the results so far have been outstanding, and all the final pieces are just about in place.
Consider first what we have accomplished since 09/11. From a cold start, we convinced Pakistan to support us, went into Afghanistan, routed the Taliban and al-Qa’eda in a matter of weeks, and established a democracy in a very hostile environment, with just a few hundred American and allied casualties, and with minimal damage to the native population and the infrastructure. And we now have American forces on Iran’s eastern border.
(For comparison, the old Soviet Union wasted ten years in Afghanistan, killed maybe two million Afghanis, suffered 15,000 fatalities and one-half million casualties [many of them from illnesses], and bankrupted their union, much to everybody’s benefit.)
Iraq was a harder nut to crack, where Saddam and the Ba’athists were entrenched after several decades in power. But even so, the major combat by the Coalition was completed in three weeks, a democracy has been established, and Iraqi forces are being created who are actively pursuing the Ba’athist die-hards and the pitiful remainder of al-Qa’eda. With the single exception of Gulf I (a much more limited exercise), Afghanistan and Iraq have been the least expensive military endeavors in USA history (by more than an order of magnitude), both in casualties and in dollar costs, and the results have been spectacular, compared to, say, the Democrats’ costly misadventures in Korea and Vietnam. And we now have American forces on Iran’s western border.
Besides the outstanding results in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have enjoyed several beneficial by-products from our efforts: Qaddafi surrendered his nuclear and chemical weapons and gave up terrorism, the Syrians are out of Lebanon, and even Egypt and Sa’udi Arabia are gingerly adopting limited democratic forms. And we now have American forces on Iran’s eastern and western borders.
With all these clues, now do you see the plan? Exiting Iraq will be a piece of cake, even easier than Afghanistan and Iraq. With American forces and their Iraqi allies on the west, and American forces and their Afghani allies on the east, just bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs, and invite the people of Iran to join their neighbors in their own democratic government. Russia, China, Europe, and the UN have long since made themselves irrelevant to this process, or to anything important, so they are not a consideration. Enjoy.
> the results so far have been outstanding
No doubt about it, scorp,Iraq and Afghanistan are wonderful places to live these days. I suggest you move there immediately.
It will be a blessing for Iraq when the last American soldier, mercenary, and businessman leave Iraq. It will not be a “noble course of action” for after invading a country illegally and killing hundreds of thousands in a textbook case of colonialism, we’ve lost the right to even think the word “noble.” And I agree that it won’t be a “panacea for Iraq’s ills.” But it will be the first step in the right direction. And it is easy. Ask anyone who’s been in Iraq, and I don’t mean the Green Zone.
I visited my family in southern Iraq for 3 months between December 2005 and March 2006. I thought I knew what was going on there, but people who have lived their entire lives there don’t know what’s going on. There are at least 11 militias operating throughout the country. Iranians have flooded into Iraq, home to the 2 holiest Shiite shrines in Najaf and Karbala, under the banner of Islamic parties (and maybe one saying “Mission Accomplished”). Occupation forces are there. American CIA agents are there. And Israeli Mossad and military are operating from a heavily guarded base in northern Iraq, (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2070420.html). And we are training death squads as we did in Vietnam and El Salvador. Iraqis know that every day may be their last, and while any number of sources may pull the trigger, responsibility lies with the United States.
The concept of civil war and sectarian strife is well-described by Iraqi Sami Ramadani, a political refugee from Saddam Hussein’s regime and senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University:
“It is not withdrawal that threatens Iraq with civil war, but occupation…The occupation’s sectarian discourse has acquired a hold as powerful as the WMD fiction that prepared the public for war. Iraqis are portrayed as a people who can’t wait to kill each other once left to their own devices. In fact, the occupation is the main architect of institutionalised sectarian and ethnic divisions; its removal would act as a catalyst for Iraqis to resolve some of their differences politically.”
Toensing describes the “insurgency” as “roughly 20,000 Sunni Arab[s].” However, no uprising can last without popular support, and three and a half years after Baghdad fell, the legitimate resistance to our illegal occupation is alive and well. Toensing describes that sectarian violence worsened after the bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra in late February, but the reality I saw on the ground didn’t substantiate that.
The destroyed shrine was for Hassan Askari, descendant of the prophet Mohammed. In Islam, there is one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger; and one holy book he scribed, the Quran. It is illogical that Sunni and Shia Muslims will target each other’s mosques, defile the prophet, or destroy passages from the Quran. Yes, hundreds of Iraqis died in the days that followed this particular crime, but who was directly responsible remains a mystery. In both Baghdad and Basrah, Sunni and Shiite clerics prayed in solidarity. And where were the occupation forces, whose job it is to effect security? For two days following the bombing, tanks that rolled by twice a day were absent; military planes came instead, and did nothing to stop the violence. Toensing writes “[t]o be sure, the current conflict is historically rooted in the deposed regime’s repression.” But the Hassan Askari Shrine remained intact for the 30 years of Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Many Iraqis want the tanks and planes to leave and electricity and water to stay. They want employment, security, and a decent quality of life. As scores of Iraqis die every day, it does not matter if you call it civil war, sectarian strife, or democracy; it is—by design—an American killing field, a smokescreen for stealing oil, and for establishing permanent military bases to defend American business interests. Bring the troops home, or send your own.
Dahlia Wasfi, M.D.
Denver, Colorado USA
Dahlia, thank you for your perspective.
“With all these clues, now do you see the plan? Exiting Iraq will be a piece of cake, even easier than Afghanistan and Iraq. With American forces and their Iraqi allies on the west, and American forces and their Afghani allies on the east, just bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs, and invite the people of Iran to join their neighbors in their own democratic government. Russia, China, Europe, and the UN have long since made themselves irrelevant to this process, or to anything important, so they are not a consideration. Enjoy. “
Yes, scorp, thank you for showing me the light. Why don’t you go yourself to “bomb the hell out of the despised Irani mullahs” . Your arrogance is only equaled by your absolute lack of humanity. If, in the process, you kill some civilians, destroy civilizations and interfere in the lives of other countries, it really doesn’t matter. Everybody knows by now that God is a USA citizen and that earth is yours. Russia, China, Europe, the UN and, of course, Latin America ae irrelevant to anything important, such as the appropriation of oil, so leave us out of consideration and we promise to continue “enjoying” your wars and accept the fact that you are the only ones entitled to have and use chemicals, atomic and other weapons.
The only thing we cannot promise you is admiration or respect. In the last 50 years USA has done its best to lose it and what once was a watchtower for all has become a menace to all, including your own people of good faith. Enjoy while you can.
I’d love too, but sorry Scorpy and WTH, I’ve just had my lunch and you two together feeding off each other’s delusions and with the combined denial of two cringing cowards, it would be more than I could handle today.
Bye…..........^^...............
Oh a little something to pass the time. One of your great thinkers? Gives the poverty of actual knowledge even at the top away a bit. How embarrassing, this is your foreign secretary.
Oh how embarrassing.
How’s the War on Terror going guys? Feeling less terror now are we?
Maria -
Well, I don’t despise the Mullahs, I am indifferent to them except that they have announced that they want to kill me. It is the Irani people who are rioting against the Mullahs, who oppress and repress the Iran Nation. But you haven’t bothered to read up on that, have you? And you definitely won’t find it in the NYT. And, yes, I think that democracy is a good thing and everybody benefits from democracy and the rule of law, after the lawless totalitarian terrorists are eliminated.
” ... kill some civilians ... “? And who exactly would that be? The coalition has conscientiously avoided targeting civilians and has been highly successful in this. All these car bombs and suicide bombers come from the terrorists and lawless elements, many of the same people who killed hundreds of thousands of civilians before we ended Saddm’s murderous regime. The death toll is down massively since Saddam went to the pokey, and the growing Iraqi democracy will bring the lawless elements under control.
” ... destroy civilizations ... “? You mean like the Bamiyan Buddhas? Maria, I have told you 40,000 times not to exaggerate. We haven’t destroyed any civilizations, though we did mess up some facilities in Germay and Japan in the earlier unpleasantness. Fortunately, this won’t be necessary in the present instance. Saddam’s palaces do not represent “civilization”.
” ... interfere in the lives of other countries ... “? You mean like WTC, the African Embassies, Bali, Madrid, London, and the ongoing warfare between Pakistani Sunni and Shia? You know, of course, that by far the largest number of victims of Islamist terrorism are Muslims. Democracy and the rule of law will substantially end the ancient warfares and murders between Shia and Sunni. Do you have a serious problem with creating democracies, or are you just indulging in a bit of recreational bitching?
” ... Russia, China, Europe, the UN and, of course, Latin America ... “? Where did Latin America come from? The Soviet Union collapsed from communist incompetence and corruption. Europe is collapsing from socialist incompetence and corruption. The UN is propped up despite massive incompetence and corruption (Rwanda genocide, Darfur genocide, Oil-for-Food bribery and scandal, UN Peace-keeping sexual repression and scandals). The only one of the named entities making progress is China, and that is the result of adopting free-market economics. The intent is, of course, is to foster democracy by promoting economic freedom. We have made a lot of progress since President Nixon introduced the concept. Every time I go to China I see additional progress, but China does have some internal problems and contradictions.
” ... the appropriation of oil ... “? I think you mean “expropriation”. This is one of the leftists’ favorite themes and ongoing lies. I defy you to give me a single example of the USA ever expropriating anybody’s oil in any circumstace. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, one of the first intergovernmental actions was to turn the oil portfolio over to the Iraqis in June 2003. But don’t let mere facts get in the way of a good ideological propaganda point. You leftists are too dense or too ill-informed to understand the meaning and importance of facts, anyway.
Continued ...
Blast ..........the rabbit cannot help itself.
Scorpy Rabbit agrees with you; getting out of Iraq will eventually be quite easy.
After the Shia backlash which will follow the attack on Iran your clever war chiefs are getting ready for, any American troops still alive in Iraq a few weeks later shouldn’t take more than a single ship or two to bring home.
How is that War on Terror going boys?
Oh Scorpy which Mullahs have wanted to kill you? Could you provide links to the actual threats, for our information?
I also agree that the best way to get democracy is to get rid of the “lawless totalitarian terrorists”. When do you propose to start? You have allowed them to rule your country now for two stolen elections.
” ... only ones entitled to have and use chemicals, atomic and other weapons ... “? Ummm, no. The USA has long since eliminated its chemical weapons. The acknowledged nuclear powers are Great Britain, France, Russia, China, India, and Pakistan. Clinton was asleep at the wheel (or diddling Monica, or whomever) when he failed to note that India was preparing for nuclear tests, which was a big mistake, but not a catastrophe. The Mullahs are crazy, and Irani nukes would be a catastrophe, so it won’t happen.
“The only thing we cannot promise you is admiration or respect. ” Yeah, yeah, but can you promise us that Iran won’t use its nukes to destroy, say, Israel? Your admiration and respect and $1.85 will get a latte at Starbuck’s. We have serious business to take care of. You may continue to trivialize yourself if you wish.
Now Now Scorpy. The USA invaded Iraq partly because they were trying to sell their oil in Euros, every body knows that.
The first thing they did upon entering Iraq, apart from securing the oil fields, (ignoring the security of anything else), was to return the Iraqi Oil back into Dollars. Actually the truly informed also know that it wasn’t so much to get the oil, although controlling it was crucial, but to stop it being produced. The desired result can be seen in the record profits being made by the owners of your excuse for a government.
Obviously if Iraq was actually attacked to ensure you got cheap fuel for your car, little Scorpy, then it would be an even bigger screwup than it already is. You are not paying less for your fuel, quite the contrary. You will never pay less for your fuel. You are being raped blind actually. Say thankyou Mr Cheney and the Neo-con Bushmen.
Now Scorpy dealing only with your main bloopers, ‘cause very little you say is based on anything but your dreams.
The USA has not gotten rid of its chemical weapons, or its biological weapons and it is in fact researching and increasing its stockpiles of these weapons even as the rest of the world is discarding them.
Firstly Depleted Uranium is a Chemical Weapon!.
Once deployed and you guys have deployed enormous quantities lately, it forms Ceramic Uranium Oxide Vapours which makes it a banned chemical weapon under interenational conventions, which the USA has now withdrawn from. In short you have become a rogue nation.
More links on your chemical and biological weapons stockpile will be posted shortly, in the mean time feel free to dribble your particlular dream scape beliefs, as if anything you say becomes fact on account of your huge need to believe it.
I like to see you talk shit first then debunk it, rather than merely give you a chance to avoid the pitfalls. As if you would. Rabbit remembers that Scorpy walks into a lot of walls metaphorically speaking.
Rabbit is happy to see the Scorp again, is Scorpy pleased to see the rabbit too.?
AND Scorpy, we can definately promise you that Iran, which has never threatened to attack anyone without cause, and has not attacked anyone for hundreds of years, would not use the Nuclear Weapons (which they may already have actually) to attack Israel. One of the reasons is that Israel is a heavily armed Nuclear weapon state. You are so full of bull its as pathetic as always.
This shows what a big liar the USA has become. It also shows what a fool Scorpy is for believing Iran ever was a threat.
Italian Film documents use of Chemical Weapons
Hell Scorpy not only do you arseholes have lots of the shit, you also like to use it on civilian populations.
The USA is the cause of much proliferation of such weapons of course, especially Iraq, under Hussein.
More on US complicity in the Iraqi atrocities using Chemical and Biological weapons against the Iranians, who you now propose are somehow deserving of more aggression I might add. Lets be honest Scorpy. You are a cheerleader for montrous acts of International terror and war crimes of the highest order. Nobody is expecting dumbdicks like you to reverse your position on such things. We’ll be needing someone to hang when the International Tribunals are arranged anyway so stay true to your cause, meathead.
The U.S. has its own huge nuclear, biological and chemical stockpiles. The U.S. was the first to develop and use nuclear weapons—blowing away two civilian cities in Japan. U.S. allies (from France to Britain to Israel to Pakistan) and you keep forgetting to mention ISRAEL, have nukes—and use them to threaten opponents. The U.S. has active biowarfare research and stockpiles—which were wrapped in official lies until their own anthrax spores showed up in post offices and Congress and media offices. The U.S. government has still not explained these illegal biowarfare activities or who in their operations used these weapons inside U.S. borders
SCORPY
You missed Israel off your list of “acknowledged nuclear powers”.
Does Scorpy think the Soviet Union collapsed due to communist incompetence and corruption? Scorpy that is a meaningless slogan. Any analysis of the collapse of the Soviet Union, begins and ends with the economic collapse. Largely orchestrated by the USA, and which Afganistan was a large part by bleeding the Soviets dry in a long and expensive war of attrition.
This is historically important to recognise, for the USA is now on the verge of a sort of supercharged version of the same thing.
Come on now Scorpy, the rabbit came out from under the hedge. Wiggled his nose and waggled his ears, looked at the Scorpy and hopped for joy. Now that the hopper is ready to play, the scaredy cat Scorpy has run quite away.
Pleasant dreams Scorpy, hope you dream of rabbits, with turbans and rocket launchers, yelling allahuakbar, as they wage war on your freedoms and way of life.
Hi Frog. See the wondrous Scorpy, he is Rabbit’s long lost personal troll. Bit like a runaway cat now he doesn’t want to know me.
Frog -
I defy to show me where the Israeli government has ever acknowledged having nukes.
Yes, they have them, France and Israel cooperated in developing nukes for both countries. Then France in one of it’s perverse changes of philosophe politique decided to help Iraq build nukes, necessitating the famous raid on Osirak.
Eidolon Lagomorph -
Well, I don’t need to address all your silly points, but the above will serve to illustrate your lack of knowledge and leftist ideological bias.
We are agreed that the SU suffered economic collapse. Duh! When has a communist economy ever succeeded? Never, that’s when. And the socialist economies are only barely staving-off economic collapse, SO FAR.
China took a different road, embracing free-market economics when and where it served their purpose. But China is conflicted and therefore unstable, trying to link a totalitarian political system with a free economy. This is an interesting experiment that has generated a lot of beneficial results (and even more poorly-informed comments), but the corruption and inefficiency of totalitarian systems will limit what China will ever achieve, unless they free up their political systems as well. .
Now, President Reagan was a genius who offered the Soviets the opportunity to act stupidly, and they took it, both economically in pursuing a communist system, and geopolitically in expanding their empire by force (against the Afghanis, for God’s sakes!). But be assured that the Soviets were acting on their own. The USA could hardly “orchestrate” the actions of the “super-power” Soviets. The Soviets chose to act stupdly, just as Old Europe is choosing to act stupidly and bankrupt their economies.
Don’t get me started on your absurd conspiracy theories.
Scorp, shouldn’t you be busy packing for Afghanistan? Like you said, it’s a wonderful place, and I hear that the surf’s up in Kandahar. Get movin’, my man, you’re missing out!
Scorp, I included Latin America in your list of “incompetent states” because your government is constantly watching over the doings of Chavez, Lula, Evo Morales, Kirchner and they don’t seem to be getting the full approval of the Empire. As for my use of the word “appropriation” of oil, I must insist on it. I didn’t mean “expropriation” because that’s what Evo Morales has recently done. According to the Oxford dictionary, expropriate is “deprive of property for the public use, generally with compensation”. To give something a public use you must first have a legal right on the assset, which the USA never had on oil which happens to be located under the soil of other countries.
As to your boasting about “democracy”, which I heartily think should be the best form of government, I can’t call democracy a system which decides to start wars or put pressure on others without consulting its own people first. After all, the ones that are sent to do the dirty job are not the children of those who profit from such enterprises, but the underprivileged who wrongly think they will be obtaining something from enroling.
The long lists of wars in which USA has taken part (directly or under cover, such as in Nicaragua and Salvador or through CIA’s complicity such as in Argentia and Chile) speaks for itself and is nothing to be proud of. I know, you don’t need our respect but that’s because you wouldn’t know what to do with it. Winning respect is the hardes task in a man’s life, as you must probably have found out by now.
One of scorp’s most absurd claims is that the Iraq War is a bargain. Both Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the US taxpayer nearly $1 Trillion thus far by some estimates. This at a time of unprecedented deficits and tax cuts. Eager to prompt either the apocolypse or a major depression or both, John Negroponte, of El Salvador death squad fame, has proposed relaxing many of the SEC’s corporate accounting and reporting rules. Presumably, this is in honor and commemoration of the recent Enron Verdicts. How relevant! Is this the most insane Administration in US history or what?!
Maria -
You shitting me, girl?
Well, yes, we are watching particularly Chavez and Morales. But they are not quite the threat that Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Chile were when the KGB was actively engaged in expanding the Soviet Empire. So we won’t soon be taking action against these latest two-bit threats, when four-bit Islamist threats are there for the taking.
Besides, Chavez and Morales are locked in tight to high energy prices . When the price of energy tumbles next year, they will be out of income, out of investors and investment, and out of office. Their people will be out of luck, but maybe the Democrats can blame it on Bush, or Cheney, or Halliburton. Chavez has already contracted with Russia for one million barrels of oil a day to meet his existing contractual obligations, because his political appointments to PDVSA are incompetent to run the company, and the plant base is not being maintained.
Now, Lula is different. Lula is a savvy leftist, which is normally an oxymoron, but Lula is capable of rational thought from deep within his leftist ideology roots. Sort of like Susan Estrich and Peter Bienart in their respective fields.
There will be a struggle for the political and trade direction of South America, as Mercosur is riven by conflict, generated mostly by populist personalities, such as Kirchner and Chavez, versus serious politicians, such as Lula.
<blockquote>As to your boasting about
CDC -
I could estimate the war cost at two cents, and be much, Much, MUCH closer to the real figure than your “estimate”.
The current cost of Afghanistan-Iraq is $284 billion, which will go to about $350 billion by September of 2006 when it will start to seriously wind down. The figures above are based on Congressional appropriations (or expropriations, according to Maria’s definition).
In contrast, the annualized 2006 1Q GDP is $13037.4 billion ($13 trillion), up almost 30% since the start of 2002. So, the cost of the Wars through September are right at 2.7% of current GDP, or about one-third of this year’s increase in GDP.
Think about it. It took over 200 years to build a $10 trillion dollar economy, and it has taken President Bush and his tax cuts just four and one-half years to increase the economy by an additional $3 trillion. If I was a Democrat, I would be complaining bitterly, too.
” ... unprecedented deficits and tax cuts ... “? Well, no. The deficits are dropping like a rock, and will be below the 40 year average this year.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budgetcharts/2007_budget/deficit.pdf
President Clinton’s economic mismanagement (record tax increases, the Bubba Bubble, and the collapse of NASDAQ in Clinton’s last year in office) goddam near wrecked the American economy, and, as a result, President Bush’s first year in office was marked by a flat GDP. But Bush’s tax cuts revived economic activity, investment, and employment, and the economy and tax receipts are now growing nicely, thank you. And that is why GDP growth went from zero in 2001 to up 30% since the beginning of 2002. The Democrats are lying to you about this, and you believe them, sucker.
This should come as no surprise to anyone, Democrat or Republican. President Kennedy, faced with a stagnant economy, was the first president to embrace his economists’ views that tax cuts and deficit spending could lead to enhanced economic activity and higher tax receipts. Worked like a charm. President Reagan, who studied economics in college, followed the same path and brought the USA out of the Carter Castastrophe. President Reagan’s tax cuts and economic reforms resulted directly in the prosperity of the 1990s, but Clinton’s mistakes damaged the economy severely. We now have three successful applications of the tax-reduction/tax-receipt-increase policy, and Democrats still cannot get it through their heads that it works. On the contrary, the Democrats’ only solution to the problem of good times is to raise taxes, in order to create bad times. Sucker.
<blockquote>Eager to prompt either the apocolypse or a major depression or both, John Negroponte, of El Salvador death squad fame, has proposed relaxing many of the SEC
Scorp,
Your figures are as usual misleading. The actual dollar figures for both wars may be under $300 billion by most estimates but they fail to include money spent on both reconstructions and other private security contracts not all of which is transparent, veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs to the US economy based on the war’s effect on Gulf production and the price per barrel of high grade crude from the Persian Gulf. By many researchers accounts this will easily top $1 trillion by 2010. This is the real estimate since Bush has already committed our troops until he is out of office. He has publically stated that “it is the task of future administrations to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan.” This is already the costliest war in US history in 2005 inflation adjusted dollars after WWII! The deficit is NOT dropping like a stone but moving ever upward at an accelerating rate. The Federal debt is at a record high at over $8 trillion which is an unprecedented two-thirds of the GDP while the current account deficits and the balance of payments deficits are at all time highs. Just the fact the gold is over $700.00/ounce is telling news about our economy. Consumer debt and now unprecedented mortgage failures are about to send interest rates way up and combined with climbing energy prices (and energy profits) should kill the stock market and bring on a depression. The Fed has already raised the Prime Rate to 8% this May and is prepared to raise it even higher over the next few quarters. The NASDEQ is trading at less than half its highs during 2000 before Bush was elected and the DOW JONES Industrials are way off as well. George Bush has the lowest monthly post-recession job growth record in post-WWII history. Clinton’s was very high at about 200,000/month between 1996 and 2000. We also experienced 3.5% annual economic growth rates in that period. Bush created a deficit from a surplus in 2001 and took the economy further into a downslide. Economic growth under Bush has been slower than under Clinton. Bush lost a net 3 million jobs! By the end of Clinton’s term the US economy was already nearing $10 Trillion. When Clinton took office, the US GDP was around $6 trillion and grew to about $9.8 trillion in 2000, an increase of about 64%. Under Bush the GDP went from $9.8 trillion to $11.7 trillion by 2004, an increase of only 20% and with far fewer net jobs or in fact a jobless recovery from the 2000-2001 recession. Further, in the last year of Clinton’s second term, the US GDP was about one-third of the global GDP. After four years of Bush mismanagement and deficit building the US GDP sunk to a little over one-quarter of the global GDP in 2004—ie., slowed to below the previous Clinton-era US average in economic growth. Clinton left office with a 65% approval rating while Bush is now at a 29% rating and dropping. Clinton didn’t raise taxes and in fact gave several hundred billion in tax cuts in his second term of office much of which expanded GDP growth. The tax cuts helped the middle class and not just the upper 1%. The actual cost of the wars in both countries which have accomplished zero and have led to more bloodshed and even greater instability is closer to 8 or 9% of our GDP which is unprecedented! The opportunity and other costs are also to be counted. It will eventually hurt the US economy. Bush is a theif and a criminal and has no respect for the US constitution and is waiving SEC rules at a time when our economy is most vulnerable to abuse from such a stupid move. It is also illegal as it requires approval from congress. Scorp you are more evil than Osama bin Laden because people like you CAN actually ruin our society unlike Osama who your fearless leader has no interest in finding and with whom is most likely conspiring. As far as Negroponte’s waiving of SEC rules for publicly traded defense contractors is concerned we must note that it is the first time since the rule was enacted that the president delegated this authority to someone outside the oval office. He probably wants to protect his crony contracting friends like Halliburton from their responsibilities to their shareholders. Or maybe it is done to hide the direction of the flow of CIA funds. Or maybe it is to protect companies like Verizon (“can you hear me now?”), Bell South, and ATT, all with Federal Government contracts, from revealing that they made big money selling their customers’ private phone records to various US Government spying agencies!
CDC -
Knowledge is power. Ignorance is bliss. Cabdriver is ecstatically joyful.
Your remarks are utter fiction (entertaining, if you like that type of fiction), down to your last three sentences, when you wander off into conspiracy theory (utterly offensive to anyone with a functioning brain).
This discussion will require that you understand the terms federal surplus, federal deficit, federal debt, GDP, and federal debt as a percentage of GDP. You have not only used the terms incorrectly, the data you have associated with these terms is not correct, either. I am not going to define these terms for you, but you do owe your readers the courtesy of accuracy. Unless you are a Democrat, in which case you are expected to say any damnfool weird thing that suits your immediate purpose.
The Federal deficit is $317 billion in 2005, and falling. The federal debt is $8.4 trillion. The highest federal debt as a percentage of GDP was in 1946, when WWII spending brought the figure to 120%. (In the first six months of 1942, immediately after Pearl Harbor, the USA government wrote war material purchase orders for an amount exceeding the annual GDP.)
<blockquote>The actual dollar figures for both wars may be under $300 billion by most estimates but they fail to include money spent on both reconstructions and other private security contracts not all of which is transparent, veterans benefits, interest on the federal deficit and national debt we keep accumulating in order to finance the war, plus the increased energy costs to the US economy based on the war
Bullshit. The federal deficits are well documented on numerous sites; look it up. The deficit dropped by $95.5 billion from 2004 to 2005.
During the first four years of the Clinton Administration, there was a cumulative budget deficit of $496 billion. During the last four years, there was a cumulative surplus of $558 billion. The surplus peaked in 1999 at $236 billion, and fell by nearly 50% in 2000, Clinton’s last year.
What was going on that caused the abrupt rise and fall of this surplus, the first surplus in the USA federal budget since 1968 ($3 billion), and before that 1959 ($300 million)? Did Clinton implement any wise economic policies that created the surplus? And if so, why did the surplus head south after just three years?
Clinton implemented no economic policies, wise or otherwise, so that does not solve our problem. The huge tax rise in 1993 served to remove needed investment capital from the economy, so it certainly did not improve the economy. But the markets rose dramatically during the last few years of the Clinton Presidency; the Dow doubled from 1996 to 2000, when it started down in Clinton’s last year. And the NASDAQ went from nowhere to over 5000 in early 2000, and back down to under 2000 at the end of Clinton’s term.
This dotcom bubble, or the Bubba Bubble, caused a huge amount of false and unsustainable (un)economic activity. Yes, we had tax receipts out the wazoo, but it was all foolishness, and a whole lot of people went bust. The American economy was severly damaged. The damage was not just the crash of the markets, but also the distortion of the markets before the crash. And all that happened while Clinton was still in office.
The Bubba Bubble was not significantly different from the Roaring Twenties that preceded the Great Depression, or the Japanese Bubble that crashed in 1991, and Japan has been in recession from that day to this. In 1990, Tokyo real estate was valued at $50,000 per square meter, and the Imperial Palace grounds were valued higher than the entire state of California.
This type foolishness cannot be sustained, but Bubba did nothing to protect the Americn people or the American economy. He was not even aware that there was a problem.
Fortunately, President Bush restored the tax cuts, increased tax receipts, and rebuilt the economy. Aren’t you lucky?
Ya know scorp guy’s like you really could benefit from a reality check… Sense you seem too believe history is the proof of your pudding…check out a book by author Smedley Darlington Butler , ” War Is A Racket “...General Butler recieved TWO, not one but TWO…congressional Medal of Honors for heroic service under fire in WW 1, WAS A NATIONAL HERO…later he documented the unparalleled war profiteering and riches that war brings too a few shall I say lucky souls…” you gettin any that 10 trillion dept that China & N.Korea finance ” ...he also revealed a coup attempt brought to him by big corporate bankers and business people against FDR…he declined and wrote the book…IN SHORT YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY…I guess you’re like Bush when asked about his legacy he responded :” I’m not worried about that I’ll be died “...now that’s a man of vision for ya….I’m with Maecello09 on this ; ya know the military IS looking for a few good men / women ; maybe you and Tina1 can get lucky and get an all expense payed trip to the promised land , road side bombs and all…FACT ; ONE IN EVERY TWENTY SOILDERS KILLED IN IRAQ IS A SUICIDE…bring some sun screen and your own shades for those wonderful 110 degree summer days….man what and experience that would be ridin along in an unarmoured Humvee , breathin in all that good depleted-uranium dust filled air can you handle all that fun what a bargain… WE ARE SUPPOSE TO LEARN FROM MISTAKES IN THE PAST NOT REPEAT THEM !!...Knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing does not prove anything , except you a fool…WAR IS A COWARDS WAY OF AVOIDING THE HARD WORK THAT IS PEACE….
And by the way Scorp a conspiracy only takes two people too agree on a course of action ; like…ah… let me see Enron…The Gov’t case against Kenny Boy included phone calls from Enron officials to different Power company employees telling them to shut off the juice too places like California…rollin blackouts or maybe I should say whiteouts ; that IS a conspiracy my fiend no mistake I mean fiend…lookout for the boogey-man he’s in your underwear (but hey , that’s your kink ) ..see what ya wanna see…hear what ya wanna hear…you blind and deaf and walkin into walls ; maybe that’s why you not in Iraq…
Scorp, my man, where are you? I took your advice and booked the first flight to Kandahar and it’s the shizzle! I’m writing to you from the beach, I’m tellin’ ya, you conservatives got that wireless internet up pretty damn quick after you liberated the country! The ocean breeze is delicious, and I’ve got dozens of beautiful beach babes serving me cocktails and massages. I’m sure you conservatives must be really tired after all that liberatin’ and democratizin’ and war on terrorizin’. So give yourself a break and get your butt over here, Kandahar has a harem just for you and a wet bar with your name on it! It’s their way of saying “Thank you, conservative America!”
There is a report on Opinion Journal from an Iraqi woman who has worked in their government which is somewhat optimstic.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/wsj/?id=110008440
She stated one of the things I have felt for a long time
Scorp,
In my customary rage at all such nonsense I did mispeak confusing federal debt and deficit. I stand corrected. One thing we all can agree on is that the US economy grew much faster and added far more jobs under Clinton than under Bush. Under Clinton productivity, national median income, per capita income, and per capita GDP growth all grew much faster than any of these things under Bush after he took office in 2001. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the post-2001 recovery from the recession that began in the second quarter of 2000 and ran to November of 2001 was the slowest economic recovery on record in post WWII history. Monthly job creation rates according to Morgan Stanley’s Chief Economist Stephen Roach were the lowest in post war history and per capita GDP growth was also extremely slow. There was a Jobless Recovery due to outsourcing and shipping jobs overseas. Poverty rates increased under Bush from the Clinton period. Unemployment grew. Wages and Salaries as a proportion of the GDP sank below 50% for the first time in history from highs in the 1960s of around two-thirds. Corporate profits balooned towards 15% from a position always well below 10% in the heyday of middle/working class political influence in the system. There is a disconnect between labor productivity and income growth for those below the median. Most of the income growth has accrued to those above annual incomes of $200,000. Most have agreed that this is correct. Living standards for most of the US population is declining. This is a fact. Most Americans no longer enjoy a 40 hour work week and in fact work close to time and a half. According to Harvard economist Juliette Schor, the average US work week for most Americans is over 55 hours while real income has declined for those at or below the median over the past three decades.
As far as the war on terror is concerned there really isn’t any. Bush has never had any interest in Osama bin Laden. There was never a serious attempt to capture him and Bush has expressed contempt for such efforts to the press, “I don’t know where he is nor do I care. . .I mean I really don’t spend that much time on him!” Quite a remarkable thing for the leader of the “free world” to have such a cavalier attitude toward the world’s number one most wanted terrorist after he killed over 3000 Americans on US soil!!! Perhaps it is because Bush knew some kind of terrorist act in the US was coming as he was warned on August 6th by either the FBI or his own National Security advisor. 9/11 gave him an excuse to attack Iraq for oil which Cheney had been squawking about since his 1992 energy report projecting rising US energy use deficits and the need for new sources of foreign oil. As regards energy and its impact on the US economy, the share of energy costs in the national budget is a meaningless statistic because the budget is an unrelated political variable. What economists tend to examine is the energy expenditure/GDP ratio. This has been declining drastically since the 1979 oil crunch. What is important is the energy intensivity of the US economy. This is the ratio of new energy expenditure to achieve one additional inflation adjusted dollar of GDP growth. This intensivity has grown over the last 6 quarters in the expanding commercial building sector of the US economy. Industry has virtually ceased to exist and what is left is very efficient and often foreign owned. Private transportation use is less energy efficient as Bush encourages SUVs with tax deductions and reduced CAFE standards. We also import far more of our energy now than before and it is more expensive. Also the GDP measure is itself misleading because it reflects US output which is increasingly offshore. This often means a loss of jobs and purchasing power in the US home economy. This is one reason for contracting demand and an increased reliance on cheap foreign imports from China and elsewhere. The consequent reliance on foreign savings to hold up the US dollar has lead to a current account deficit of nearly 7% of GDP according to TD Financial. This is a quite unstable and unpredictable situation. It also means that war is needed to ensure that the majority of the world oil trade continues to be in US dollars. This is the only real source of support for the US dollar which is one reason that the Bush administration has a near treasonous interest in continued oil intensive economics and growth in fossil fuel consumption. It is the only way for the US dollar to remain a key reserve currency. It is wasteful and harms the environment and slows economic growth. In addition, tax cuts have not led to greater federal revenues but in recent years coincided with large lump sum payments of back taxes in by such corporations as Microsoft pursuant to a court order. In fact, the trillions in tax cuts have led to deficits, debt, and foreign borrowing. By the way, most of the US economic growth since the early nineties and up to now is debt financed growth (mostly through asset stripping) as opposed to real economic expansion through real per capita income growth with low debt/equity ratios as in the 1960s.
Scorp, Osama and the Islamists who US imperialists armed to the teeth in Afghanistan twenty years ago cannot take American’s freedoms away but reactionaries like you and those you support can! Why don’t you be a real patriot and support Democracy!?
Sorry, Cabdriver:
“...the numbers are distorted…”
That’s cute, Dude.
So, what you and the (Marine) Scorp seem to be saying is that Clinton’s irresponsible runup of the Tao (to around 11,000 by the time the Boy Genius assumed the office in January, 2001) was responsible for the “crash” in September, 2001 when the Tao dropped like a rock to 7,500, and only the valiant, heroic efforts of Republican economic ingenuity saved us from an impending economic catastrophe (tax cuts and all that other good shit) which by December of 2002 was chugging along at around 8,900, until once again Bubba’s speculative bubble burst in March of 2003 (7,700), whereupon heroic economic measures were once more applied, which pulled up the averages to around 11,500 today.
Wow.
Praise the Lord and pass the Military Keynesianism.
To Whom It May Concern -
Enron -
CDC and Redhorse both seem to think that the Bush Administration had something to do with the crimes of Enron, but all the things that Enron was accused of took place during the Clinton administration, when Janet Reno was Attorney General. Reno should have been overseeing such things. Unfortunately, Reno was too busy for mere multi-billion dollar scandals, because she had to take care of important things like sending Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba, and making sure the Branch Davidians were properly disposed of.
Other business crimes and scandals that took place during the Clinton Administration included WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia, and Global Crossing.
The Bush Administration’s involvement with these scandals has been limited to prosecuting the perps. The recent rash of major corporate fraud seems to have been limited to the overall scandals and excesses of the Clinton Administration. In fact, such scandals seem to have come to an abrupt, screeching halt since the start of the Bush Administration, aided, no doubt, by Bush’s taking the bastards to court. The Republic has problems, but corporate crime has been much reduced since Bubba left.
For the record, I was not an Enron employee and never owned Enron stock. I was laid-off as a direct result of the Enron collapse, and I am still recovering from the losses that I experienced from that time. I had many friends who were Enron employees, and many of them were financially devastated by Enron. I have no income or interest in any oil company, defense contractor, or scandal-plagued company, contrary to what some have insinuated.
General Butler -
I am well aware of General Butler’s history, internal conflicts (leftist Quaker warrior?), and left-wind political involvement. “WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY” is something the communists said before communism crashed, and the leftists say now, as they crash all around us.
Mistakes in Iraq -
There have been a number of mistakes made in the Iraq campaign. It could hardly be otherwise in a major fast-moving operation. But the costs, casualties (civilian and American), and mistakes have been miniscule compared to previous efforts.
Dealing with looters - There was initially a conflict here. The Coalition Forces were well indoctrinated in the idea of minimizing civilian casualties, and did an outstanding job in this regard. (The UN said there would be one-half million civilian fatalities, but the real figure as a result of Coalition activity [from iraqbodycount] is about 10,000, most of them incurred in the first three weeks.) The looters were civilian, and the troops had been ordered not to shoot civilians. There was a reaction time before the situation was corrected, and civil discipline suffered from the looting. If pamphlets had been widely disseminated saying that looters would be shot, with discreet follow-up as necessary, civilian discipline would have been more readily attained. Lesson learned.
Abu Ghraib - Abu Ghraib was not a mistake, it was a crime. The perps are in jail, and the negligent leadership has been disciplined. But this was a loaded situation, and the negative effects were joyfully maximized by al-Jazeera and NYT propaganda. Now the left-wind media are being disciplined by the American people for their biases and excesses, and are losing audiences, revenues, and profits. Only the more balanced media reps are thriving, such as Fox. And the Internet is serving wonderfully to publicize and expose leftist excesses, deceit, and fraud: TANG forgeries, flushed Korans, Plame name blame game, etc. The decline of the leftist media is a marvelous example of democracy in action, and leftists crashing.
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Paul Bremer
Contrasted with these minor mistakes, there have been a number of brilliant and spectacular victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. We have two growing democracies in the heart of darkness that is the Middle East and South Asia. Iran is now the only active Islamist terror state, and it is squeezed by Iraq and Afghanistan while it desperately labors to increase its terror potential by building nuclear weapons. Qaddafi saw Saddam having his tonsils examined, and decide terrorism was not the way to go, surrendering his extensive nuclear and chemical stocks to the USA. Lebanon is free of Syrian Ba
Major Major -
Your ignorance is showing. Speculative bubbles are fairly rare, but when they occur, they are distinctive, spectacular, and exceedingly destructive, and they have enough common traits to be classified quite accurately. Google Dutch Tulip, Mississippi, and South Sea Bubbles, and compare them with the Roaring Twenties, the Japanese Bubble, and the Bubba Bubble. You will learn enough to avoid appearing stupid when the subject comes up again.
The Bubba Bubble placed the USA economy in the most hazardous situation since Black Friday, 1929. We were blessed to have George Bush and Alan Greenspan in the only positions that could have helped or hurt the nation in 2001. Can you imagine how Al Gore would have dealt with Clinton’s stock market crash, or 09/11? The mind boggles, and the heart palpitates.
During the Great Depression, taxes were raised and international trade was restricted, in an attempt to raise government revenues and preserve jobs. Result: disaster. After eight years in office as president, FDR still had fifteen percent unemployment.
There is a certain advantage to haveing trained economists and business managers in positions of authority, such as Ronald Reagan and George Bush, in spite of your idiotic left-wind bias against them.
Actually, I googled finance.google.com to get an overview of the DJIA over the last six years. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see the correlation between massive military spending (Afghanistan, Homeland Security and Iraq) and economic “growth”. I see no reason why the fascists can’t continue to stimulate the economy indefinitely, other than the collateral damage they cause to the rest of the world, and the people they sacrifice to implement the policy. That, by definition, is the meaning of American fascism.
We live in the real world, asshole, not your fantasy of the “free” market and the moral imperatives you believe are justified by unrestricted capital growth. That means that every nation is administered by economic policy wonks who serve the affluent elites who are determined to maintain their affluence at any cost. I can’t do much about any of that, other than register my outrage and ridicule the fools who kiss their well-appointed butts. But the last thing I will ever do is pretend, as you do, that the atrocities you condone and dismiss are necessary to the eventual triumph of good over evil.
There’s always another “final solution” over the next horizon, and the only choice any of us will ever encounter is to either oppose or support it.
Fuck you.
Scorp! Mosul is like Las Vegas, I tell ya! Hot babes! And they *love* conservative warmongering right-wing Americans! Why aren’t you over here? Are ya gay or something?
SCORPY
always a delight to read your fantasies,——-such as GWB as a “trained business manager” and Ronald Reagan as a “trained economist”.
Luv it , keeep going.
Knight Ridder ICH today.
( now need REG for this article, well worth reading,.)
It concludes with a British Corporal—-
”” the only things getting better around here are the arms they are using against us.”“
A growing democracy in the Heart of Darkness ?
WTH,
Inflation adjusted median incomes rose under Clinton and declined under Bush. In constant 1996 dollars $39,500 was worth more than $42,000 in 2002. This figure declined in nominal terms over the next two years by nearly $2,000 so there was a real loss of purchasing power for the working class under Bush. These are incontrovertible facts!
To call Iraq a democracy in the heart of darkness is like saying Enron is a model of business ethics. They are absurd. I’ve heard the same old tired arguments about Fallujah over and over again. Bing West wrote a book blaming Bremer for the crimes of Fallujah. The US marines attacked Fallujah to avenge the brutal murder of the four US contractors. They later returned in November 2004 with a veangance. Most of the citiy’s 90,000 civilians remained. The marines killed over 7,000 civilians and injured scores more. The Red Cross and other international medical teams declared that the high casualty rate in Fallujah resulted from the illegal siege of the city which deliberately, and in violation of international law, obstructed civilians from retreating. White Phosphorous has been shown to have been widely used in Fallujah along with thermobarric weapons such as the “daisy cutter” or FAEs which are actually intense firebombs that cause implosion by drawing all the oxygen from a target area with intense heat. Victims are killed by resulting vacuum pressure. I personally viewed independant films of the fighting in Fallujah where US military personell are firing at fleeing civilians and communicating about it with references commonly used by kids playing video games. So much for the high professional moral of the troops.
I do not condone war crimes! I do not believe that the United States went to Iraq to bring democracy. We brought the Ba’athists to power in a bloody coup in 1963. We supported Saddam althroughout the 1980s. We gave him CBWs to fight Iran. The brutal Anfal Campaign against the Kurds spanning 1986-1988 was rewarded with still more economic aid. The gassing of the Kurdish town of Halabja, with chemical weapons from private sales approved by the US government, was initially blamed on Iran in US DIA and CIA reports despite overwhelming evidence of Iraqi guilt. In fact, the US stood virtually alone in blaming Iran for the attacks until Saddam attacked Kuwait at which point the US suddenly switched it’s stance to blaming Iraq. After the first Gulf War the US helped Saddam crush the Shi’ites in the south but continued to protect the Kurds only to confine the conflict and prevent destabilizing conflagration on Turkey’s borders. The US also wished to control political change in Iraq by propping up Saddam to prevent placing Iraq’s political future squarely in the hands of the insurgent Iraqi people where it belonged in the first place! The Clinton strategy was duel containment of both Iran and Iraq. The hope on both sides of the US congressional aisle was to replace Saddam with another strongman inside the Ba’athist establishment who would be more pro-US and more amenable to the US/UK agenda for the region. Part of that agenda was to turn a renewed Iraq under just such a regime against Iran to contain and eventually overthrow the Mullahs. Saddam’s totalitarian control made this impossible so after a decade and a half of sanctions, war, low level air strikes, and demoralization the US/UK axis “bravely” struck at this “global menace” in a one sided conflict which killed more civilians than soldiers. Now there is a pro-Iranian regime in the south and a civil war throughout. We have killed more people than Saddam Hussein ever did. We have accomplished nothing. Undoing the damage will take years.
Major Major,
Scope,
The Enron mess hurt an awful lot of innocent people, but it is irrelevant who was in office and who controlled congress
cabdriverinchicago,
???
You wrote…
WTH,
Inflation adjusted median incomes rose under Clinton and declined under Bush. In constant 1996 dollars $39,500 was worth more than $42,000 in 2002.
It’s an ancient Chinese arbitrage trading society - Tai Kwan Do
CABBY and WTH
The heart of darkness and democracy now in Iraq are SCORPY phrases !
I’m surprised at both of you .
The thirty year trend on median incomes is probably down (real terms) as the rich get richer ?
and WTH, i know you can’t use the edit function, but a serious attempt at html will be much appreciated.
“nettiquette!”one of the refs you accuse someone of not reading
You know I’m kinda concerned about the rest of you guys… I mean scorp is spazzzed…but the rest of you gentleman seem reasonable ; but you keep harp’in on Big Bubba Clinton and this Demo supply side kinda stuff ...Cabdriver…WTH…please Clinton ain’t nothin’ but a republican wannabe in Demo clothing… I understand practicality… but you gotta think long range at some point ...Republican /Democrat don’t matter… that’s why scorp keeps laughin’ at you guys because this is the right -wings secret weapon….8 years of BIIG BUBBBA BILLY CLINTON….you gotta look at things from a more progressive..3th…4th…maybe even 5th party prospective too see the true light…Ok…ok…I know ; heard it all before ; you gonna lose… but think about how these Facist got into power ; they hacked away at it losing election after election…but stuck too there guns…. next thing you know we got Ronald Reagan….thing about it dude….
REDHORSE
I reckon you do injustice to Cabby and the Major, and also WTH, Bubba ‘largely’ a DINO, and ain’t he just great friends with bush41 ?
According to the deep conspiracists, they have Mena Airport in common.
WTH—- I found this for you, thinking wickedly about your occasional fondness for Foreign Wars, ” getting rid of this and that”, ie—blowing the mothers away +++++ collateral damage Smedley Butler was the GREATEST MARINE—DISCUSS !
He died before WW2, but his words resonate right now….....
Hey frog that clip was excellent…if I have done an injustice to WTH or Cabdriver my objective was to point out that no matter how articulate or factually correct these guys are…..a drooling wannabe downsized facists like scorp ain’t gonna hear you…those long ass responses to his feebled brained masturbations are a waste…the man admits that he and his buckos lost their jobs to Enron thugery , but continues too lick the balls of these Facist gooks ( i would call them pigs but that species of animal is quite
intelligent )...My point is why waste the time…that fool doesn’t have the sense too squat and breath much less clean-up afterwards…you guys could use that knowledge to come up with some possible solutions….Smedley I say…
Heck -
And who do you think watches out for the average person, besides himself? If it is irrelevant “who was in office and who controlled congress”, all actions are random, and we can save the cost of government by eliminating it. In fact, the choices the voters make determine the politicians and (more or less) their policies, and affect the course of government and of history.
There were many business scandals in the Clinton Administration, and they stopped rather abruptly when President Bush took office. And you think this is irrelevant, or unrelated? You do not see any cause and effect relationship? Some of the anti-war types on this site do not like Bush and automatically assume Enron was Bush’s fault. Bush was Governor of Texas when the Enron crimes were committed and he had nothing to do with it. Or Tyco. Or WorldCom.
Consider the DOW.
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=^DJI&t=my&l=off&z=m&q=l&c=
At the top of the chart, set the “Range” to max, “Type” to Line, and “Scale” to Linear.
This is, of course, the linear DJIA from 1930 until current. Notice several things:
1) At the scale of this graph, the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression barely register, but unemployment went to well over 20% during the 1930s, and stayed over 10% for about ten years.
2) During WWII, FDR held interest rates low (~2%) so that war costs would not be driven higher than necessary. Consequently, the economy was distorted. Taxes were high, markets were held low, but business activity was booming and unemployment dropped to under 2% in 1943.
3) After WWII, the economy went into a healthy rise until 1965, when it flat-lined, and stayed flat-lined for seventeen years. What happened in 1965? We were in Vietnam, and President Johnson decided that we could have “guns and butter”, as he put it. He was fighting a much bigger war than Iraq, and packed on the cost of the Great Society (welfare alone cost $6.6 trillion before Clinton ended it in 1995), and Johnson had no plans to pay for all these expenses. President Nixon was not able to repair the damage, and inflation and interest rates went sky-high under President Carter, without any improvement in the markets, and with much damage to the economy and to the people who had to pay the inflated rates.
4) President Reagan was a trained economist, and he had the benefit of President Kennedy’s experience with deficit spending. He raised interest rates to squeeze inflation out of the economy, and lowered taxes to provide investment capital for economic growth. The results were gratifying, as healthy growth resumed.
5) Then unhealthy growth kicked in within the economy in 1995, moving Chairman Greenspan to comment on “irrational exuberance” in 1996. But nothing was done. The economy continued higher and then stagnated at a high and distorted level, and the American economy was literally teetering at the top of a dangerous precipice. The precipice started to crumble as the NASDAQ crashed in Clinton’s last year, and the Dow also peaked and began a slower descent.
6) If you superimpose the Japanese Nikkei Index on the Dow, the curves are remarkably similar, but the Nikkei actually fell into the chasm in 1991, and lost two-thirds of its value with no recovery. The Japanese economy has been in recession ever since, only starting to improve in the last year or two when PM Koizumi introduced economic reforms.
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7) If you extend the curve of healthy growth beyond 1965, you see a triangular void above the flat-line area. This area represents lost economic opportunity.
8) If you extend the curve of healthy growth beyond 1995, you see an area between the healthy growth curve and the Clinton curve: this, of course, is the Clinton Bubble. This area represents wasted economic opportunity, and is extremely hazardous. President Bush and Chairman Greenspan pulled us out of this one with minimal damage, but every other bubble in history ended in catastrophe, like the Great Depression.
9) Seventeen years of economic stagnation began with President Johnson, a Democrat. Republican President Reagan got us out of the economic stagnation started under President Johnson. The Bubba Bubble happened entirely within President Clinton’s Administration; Clinton was a Democrat. The recovery from the Clinton crash and bubble was effected by President Bush, a Republican. Leftists on this site regularly demand tax increases, and the Democrats will no doubt implement tax increases if they are elected. That is why the American people don’t elect Democrats. But some day they probably will. God help us all, the Democrats won’t.
The whole process is rather simple if you study it, but leftists would rather complain than take time to understand.
Scorpy, have you heard the latest from Kabul? They had a parade today, just for you, with floats and balloons and singing and dancing! They were all chanting “We love the neo-cons, long live the Yankee invaders!” Baghdad was throwing a party, too, I heard it was a blast! So get your gay ass over here, you delusional pansy, it’s a beautiful time!
Scorp…all you talk is a lot of rhetorical nonsense…everything is a spin…You leavin’ my man Marcello09 hangin…put your rhetorically repressed behind on a plane too Bagdad…I’m sure Brown & Root or Haliburton is hiring…you could make back some of that money you lost snozzellin on those facist cowsacks…Come on… be a real man , stop all that neo-con babble and stand up , get some of that war profit for yourself…you know what they say… a bird in the hand is worth two in the buckfush…hey I’m just kiddin with ya…...serious discourse saved for the adults…ya know I’m thinkin’ your response to Maria shows a little ethnic flava…YOU————ME GIRL..,don’t sound like some nuckleheaded white guy and it’s not the profanity but that GIRL thing… you not one of them Blackfascist or should I say neegroo…ya know Condi don’t want you with no money….better jump at that Brown & Root idea….............WTH… I believe I shall devote some time too an more skillful analysis of your positions…before discussions can resume….Redhorse can smell what’s cook’in and I DON’T think I like it…
Smedley Darlington Butler was one weird bird. His family was Quaker, but he joined the Marines in 1898 to fight in the Spanish-American War. As he was sixteen years old, he lied about his age to get into the War. His father was not happy to see him go into the military, but the old man’s main concern was that Butler not raise his age any further than he already had, because the elder Butlers’ wedding anniversary was getting too close to young Butler’s fake age, and father wanted no hint of impropriety.
Butler’s military career is spectacular and well-documented, but that is not why Butler’s name came up on this thread. After retiring from the military, Butler became involved in radical left-wind politics. You can get a flavor of it from Redhorse’s cite.
In the 1930s, the Republic was economically and socially stressed from the Great Depression and by rising tensions between the democracies, fascism, communism, and Japanese militarism. A number of Americans took a favorable view of communism (and a few, notably Charles Lindbergh, took a favorable view of fascism) as an answer to America’s problems during the 1930s. Most Americans rejected these extreme philosophies, and have rejected them from that day to this.
General Butler died in 1940. We do not know how he would have reacted to Pearl Harbor, or to the millions killed by the fascists, or to the tens of millions killed by the leftists, who have adopted him as their hero.
We do know that democracy, the rule of law, and free-market capitalism combine to create the greatest economic and social engine ever yet discovered. We know that socialism invariably results in stagnation, death, and decay.
We also know that Germany was not defeated in WWI, but that there was an Armistice, and Germany came roaring back in twenty years. When Germany was totally defeated, fascism was essentially dead, and is no longer a serious problem.
When the Soviet Union collapsed from incompetence and corruption, the assumption was that socialism was defeated, but pockets of socialism are retained in Old Europe and in American academia and media, and in Latin America. The socialists have allied themselves with the Islamic Jihadists, philosophically in Europe and the USA, and strategically in some parts of Latin America. Russia is caught between uncertain objectives and insufficient resources. China is caught between totalitarian impulses and material needs; freeing up their markets has given China’s people material progress and economic hope, and their leaders some breathing room. But will a free economy lead to demands for political freedom as well? That was the bet Richard Nixon placed in the 1970s, and so far, so good.
The funniest thing (well, sort of) about this is that the Jihadists in the Middle East, Chavez in Venezuela, and Putin in Russia all have oil as their only resource of importance. Their objectives are furthered as long as the price of oil holds up. But we have been through this drill many times; the price of oil will plummet, and the socialists and Jihadists and Putin will be left suspended in space, like the Coyote when the Roadrunner makes a U-turn.
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The best opportunity for the socialists to gain meaningful power is in the United States, but they keep blowing it. There are two opposing leftist philosophies in America, graphically demarcated between the heathen Kos and the refined Peter Bienart. Kos and crew want to purge the refined elements, such as Joe Lieberman, while Bienart maintains that Democrats are the only agency that can win against the Jihadists, ala Scoop Jackson and Hubert Humphrey. And they fight each other, while at the same time the heathen demand radical ideological purity, while scaring the beJesus out of everyone. Not a good formula for electoral victory in a free society. Maybe in Russia under Stalin, or Iraq under Saddam.
But suppose the left did seriously come to power in the USA, then what? They would naturally raise taxes, and the economy would promptly develop problems. The Democrats have lied their way out of this problem before (see my post to Heck, above), but could they do it a third time? To retain power they would have to create serious economic emergencies, bigger than Johnson and Clinton ever did, and rule by emergency regulations. But that is a forlorn hope, as the American people have never gone in for radical solutions, despite what Smedley Butler said.
So leftists will continue to bumblefart and stumblefart along, incapable of reason or meaningful electoral power. With luck, after a merciful interval, they will die as they should have done when the Soviet Union collapsed. I can’t see them roaring back as the fascists did, or thriving in the face of repeated failure. Great Marchers, they are not.
Scorp…YOU ARE ONE SICK LITTLE RODENT…I don’t know were you get your facts but…hay…who cares the results are so twisted….I’m going to follow my own advice ; put down some rat poison…and leave this rat too rot ( that’s to undergo decomposition for the rhetorically overblown )...
SCORPY
“FASCISM is no longer a serious problem” ??
Goebbels would appreciate this
From stickdog
Chickens are a coupla times more resistant to radioactivity than humans, it seems, but SCORPIONS twenty times !
LONELY PLANET for you, old SCORP.
Redhorse -
Well, that’s a heck of a contribution to dialogue.
I’m not given to loose handling of facts, so if you are unclear on anthing, ask. Knowledge never hurt anyone, but ideology has a number of people on this site utterly screwed.
Froggy -
Conspiracy theory is for fearful people. What are you afraid of?
But keep up the good work, I like to keep track of what the little dumbshits are doing.
Frog,
Sorry, but I can
Scorp,
On the economy you say:
Heck -
Your poor neighbor. My sympathies.
But our system is far better than most, where only a few are criminals and thieves, and they are usually caught and brought to justice, and we have the means to defend ourselves.
There are too many people who are governed by people like the criminals that assaulted your neighbor, and some of these nations are prominent among the states that propagate terrorism, such as 09/11. Our personal firearms will not protect us from 09/11, or the Madrid or London bombings, much less the much greater acts of terrorism by Muslims against Muslims around the world, that serve to propagate terrorism world-wide.
So we are stuck with a government of some sort, and democracy and the rule of law seem to work better than anything else. Besides, many functions are required that are beyond the capacity of individuals, such as the economy and defense.
Dumb and dumber makes a cute statement, but does not make for good governance. There is considerable evidence that an aroused citizenry can make changes, as when the Democrats were kicked out in 1994, and, if the Republicans don’t pull their heads out, it may happen again this year. George Soros spent tens of millions of dollars of his own and his friends’ money, to no effect.
But the Democrats are dangerous, and foolish besides, and it would be idiotic to allow them the power of taxation, as many times as they have abused and misused it.
<blockquote>You went to a lot of work to prove numbers
Scorp…I never said you were loose with facts…I said you twist & spin…spin…spin , WTH seems to enjoy this repartee , I find your preverse manipulations of facts on subject matter so important to the well-being of society disingenuous…That is why I do not care…it is impossible to take anything you say seriously… when you spin the facts it’s no different than a lie…You speak of ideologues on this discussion site…and you of course are not—-you are logical and grounded in reality…it is to laugh if the reality was not so dangerous…All of you neo-cons deny conspiracy theory , blame Bubba for Enron as if Kenny Boy is some nickname bestowed on him by some Leftist…then it’s the…ha ....liberal media…it goes on and on and on…blah…blah..bomb this…bomb that…and worst of all ; you are irresponsible…we all make mistake in judgement and to learn and grow is to take responsibility for these things…it’s very basic stuff…but not you or your fascist flag waving neo-con buds…no ; you call Fox News and get too twurl’in…Like I stated this morning ; I’m gonna take my own advice and let the rodent rot…good day…
Scorp,
You are very poorly informed. What amazes me is that the period of the fastest and most thorough era of economic growth in our history, 1945-73, had the highest annual average rates of per capita GNP growth, the highest rates of labor productivity, the highest growth rates of end-use energy efficiency, and the highest rates of industrial utilization capacity. All this took place during America’s highest rates of union density, income and wealth equality, middle-class growth, and high rates of social spending. This shows that the Keynesian welfare state did not harm economic success but rather promoted it! The Reagan era began with a great recession and high inflation. There was also high unemployment—over 10% officially! The real cause of the recession of the 1970s was global overproduction of consumer durables in the competing economies of the US, Germany, and Japan. The market saturated and industrial overcapacity led to a shakeout of the system leading to new industrial concentration and a contraction of the middle class and the markets for the goods they typically purchased. The recession squeezed the inflation out of the economy but by the 1984 recovery, we began to see radical domestic real wage deceleration and a shift in the economic base from industrial production of consumer durables to finance and services. Already the maldistribution of wealth began to set the tone for a new economic strategy. Foreign savings which were initially attracted in the early 1980s by high interest rates began to invest in some job creating industries like high tech and some consumer durables. As the dollar began to come down US manufactured exports got a boost and the US at a 1985 currency summit negotiated an exchange rate regime that ensured a weak US dollar to continue the trend. The growing deficit and national US debt all throughout the 1980s began to threaten the continued stability of the US economy and in the early 1990s a recession occured. By this time a new globalized division of labor existed. Neo-liberal expansion of direct foreign investment in the third world led to cheap goods production and wealth for capital and an end to middle classes in the first world. Clinton used the Bond market and interest rates to encourage the flow of foreign savings and stimulate the growth of new financial markets which fed much of the debt financed growth and bubbles of the 1990s economic boom. Much of this was predicated on consumer debt but new high tech markets led to some growth and productivivty increases as well. Clinton also cut taxes in the late 1990s but kept much of the social safty net. There was more to Clintonomics than bubbles there was high tech and many new permanent jobs added to the structurally altered economy. Bush and his jobless recovery did away with many of the gains of the 1990s and worsened the negative aspects like reliance on foreign capital and outsourcing of our best jobs, technology, and skills which make for a solid middle class job base.
Redhorse -
I am not sure of the difference between “loose with facts” and “twist & spin…spin…spin”. I deny doing either, of course, but we seem to be unable to communicate.
Can you give me an example of my “preverse manipulations of facts on subject matter so important to the well-being of society”?
Perhaps you were talking about my blaming “Bubba for Enron”. But Cabdriver was the one who cited Enron and suggested this was evidence that the Bush Administration was “insane”. And you brought up Enron in the context ot the energy crunch and California. But all the Enron criminal activity happened during the Clinton Administration. Clinton was the Executive Power, and he had a Cabinet to assist in exercise of that power. The Attorney General is in charge of enforcing federal law under the President. This is well-defined in the Constitution and the laws. I have neither added, nor subtracted, nor spun anything.
Clinton did some good things, and I am getting increasingly irritated with Bush, but philosophically and operationally I am Conservative. I am not fond of leftists (or anybody) spouting nonsense while attacking Conservative positions. There are a number of leftist media types and academics who say outrageous things, for no other purpose that I can see but to generate negative headlines and information, in hopes of damaging Conservatives.
For Example: Timothy Brennan teaches comparative literature and English at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He wrote a book entitled, Wars of Position: The Cultural Politics of Left and Right. Brennan says, “the crimes committed in the name of communism are real,” but they are “certainly no match for the atrocities launched by liberal capitalism, which, far from being officially acknowledged, are completely disavowed or excused.”
O-o-o-okay. So, the documented real crimes committed in the name of communism include one hundred million innocent dead, and Brennan thinks that “liberal capitalism” is worse. Without documentation or evidence. You shitting me, boy? Surely one hundred one million (or more) dead bodies in capitalist countries would have been noticed by someone.
The leftist media regularly accuse President Bush of criminal activity. But if Bush has done anything criminal, the proper thing to do is appoint a prosecutor and bring him up for impeachment, like Clinton when he perjured himself. And the Dims may do this if they win this year’s Congressional elections. But the main thing now is to bring the subject up repeatedly, in order to create negative headlines and doubt in peoples’ minds. Hey, it’s worked for all kinds of leftists on this site.
I think that part of the problem may be that the left-wind media broadcasts leftist propaganda, and when people are told the truth, they become confused. But confusion is the object of the game for the NYT and network TV. The NYT are left-wind ideologues, besides being lying sons-of -bitches.
Unfortunately, the tone of politics has become extremely negative, and two can play that game, and all that jazz. Enjoy.
SCORPY
Fearful or just plain crazy little dumbshits like GWB , repeating his 911 mantra, got so many Americans scared out of their brains that YOU are now enmired in Iraq, YOU are losing your liberties, and have become the most universally distrusted and often hated state in the World..
According to you, SCORP, this is some Master Plan !
On 9/12, the USA had universal sympathy right round this sorry planet.
Overall the human reaction was horror at the loss of life—the next step being universal anxiety as to what your idiot President would do. .
I know one man who remained silent at the time, at least on 911 when I told him the news, but he had been tortured by YOUR man Pinochet, understandable. Well, he’s undemonstrative at the best of times.
Later when the Invasion of Iraq had taken place, for the first time in history, a member of the brit SAS resigned in disgust
I guess what happened is that his regimental officers filled in the last bit in his little Red discharge Book, so the Ministry could not prosecute/persecute him later.
I looked for mine, but too well filed….RA , SCORPY, what regiment were you in ?
I crossed Central London to work in the Seventies. Fear of the US financed IRA did not stop me going to work, but YES , SCORP, If you say I’m fearful, I must be !
Scorp,
I
(continued)
Unemployment: My younger son followed along in my graphics line of work. As globalization began to siphon off manufacturing jobs my clients evaporated. He left for a larger city at a very good salary. After a year he and two friends opened their own studio. About that time their retail customers started getting pinched by foreign made goods and quit paying their bills on time. My son and partners closed shop and took other jobs.
After a bit the work slowed at the new place and he lost his job. This happened twice more, he used all his unemployment and has only had part time work since. In our state you must work full time for one year to requalify for unemployment.
When my business was totally gone I chose to retire, but not before I had begun to use my retirement investments prior to age 65 and Social Security kicked in.
Now tallying the unemployed… I, having been self employed, would not have been counted. He is no longer considered a part of the workforce and not counted. Neither can he apply for unemployment and not counted there if he loses his part time job. He now earns less per hour worked than I charged for the same kind of work in 1966 and about a third of what he earned ten years ago. None of this shows in any form of government report, city state or national.
Well, that
CDC -
You are weird.
My statement was, “After WWII, the economy went into a healthy rise until 1965, when it flat-lined, and stayed flat-lined for seventeen years.”
You replied with, “What amazes me is that the period of the fastest and most thorough era of economic growth in our history, 1945-73, had the highest annual average rates of per capita GNP growth, the highest rates of labor productivity, the highest growth rates of end-use energy efficiency, and the highest rates of industrial utilization capacity.” And you went on to cite further indicators.
Now, the period 1945-73 (in particular) has been cited by a number of authors as having had much economic growth, but I can’t find an original and originating document to that effect. This is important, because the data does not show improvement out as far as 1973. A lot of the progress you cited did not continue as far as 1973, but ended in 1965. If you have a reference, I would be glad to see it.
Consider (USA Census data unless noted. All figures are based on inflation-adjusted [chained] 1996 dollars.):
1) The DJIA flat-lined from 1965 to 1982. Don’t take my word for it, look at the Yahoo graph reference I gave you. This tells us that both profits and investment stayed within a fairly narrow range for all these years. There was growth from WWII to 1965, and growth after Reagan was elected, but essentially no growth during Vietnam and the Great Society, up to the Carter Catastrophe.
2) Home ownership increased from 55% in 1950 to 63% in 1965, but showed no further increase through 1970. The increase from 1970 to 1982 was less than 2%. The rate of growth of home ownership has been slow since then, but picked up somewhat in the 1990s and 2000s, to a record level now.
3) Per cap GDP almost exactly doubled from 1947 to 1965, an increase of 5.5% per year. This high rate of increase was driven by the rapid recovery after WWII. But from 1965 to 1982 the increase was only 35%, for an average annual increase of just 2%. After Reagan’s reforms, per cap GDP rose 34% during the period of healthy growth from 1982 to 1995, or 2.6% per year. During the unhealthy growth of Clinton’s last years, the per cap GDP rose at a rate of 3% annually, but actually declined slightly in 2001as the Bubba Bubble burst.
4) The 2.0% annual increase in GDP from 1965 to 1982, versus the 2.6% increase after President Reagan’s reforms, is significant. If the higher rate had prevailed from 1965 to 1982, people would have had $2187 more income each year by the end of the period. Nationally, for a population of about 225 million, that would have increased GDP by almost one-half trillion dollars per year by 1982 (actually $492 million).
Continue ...
I think many of your other comments are out of date. For example, energy consumption as a share of GDP is down by about 44% in the last twenty years, due to conservation and technological efficiency. Therefore, end-use energy efficiency must surely be significantly greater now.
The real cause of the recession of the 1970s was Democratic politics, when President Johnson tried to fight a war and spent trillions on the Great Society ($6.6 trillion on welfare alone), with no thought given to how these bills were to be paid. This led to a seventeen-year period of stagnation, which included three separate recessions. This was the same period when the DJIA flat-lined.
Individually, the two quotes above are both absurd. Compared with each other, they are contradictory. How does it happen that “global overproduction of consumer durables” led to a “recession” in the 1970s, but led to “cheap goods production and wealth for capital” in the 1990s? The workers who produced the cheap goods were not paid, I take it from what you say. And the American workers who formerly made cheap doo-dads must surely have failed to take advantage of our schools system, and are sitting on their asses (or rioting) like a bunch of Frenchmen. And all these cheap goods undoubtedly held no benefit for consumers; therefore, no one is willing to shop at Wal-Mart, I’m sure. So why do I have so much trouble getting in and out of the Wal-Mart store and parking lot? Where do all these people come from, if there is no economic activity? How fucking absurd can you get?
In fact, the American inflation-adjusted per cap GDP is among the highest in the world, and goes up continuously, except when Democrats get in office and raise taxes. This shit has been going on for fifty years.
Bullshit. Chairman Greenspan was afraid that Carter’s inflation was going to reignite, and he raised interest rates to dampen the economy. He overdid it. By the time of the 1992 elections, the mild recession was over, but the econometric data to that effect followed the elections by a couple of months; too late. Clinton piled on with his slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid”, but the economy was in fine shape. Unfortunately, it cost Bush 41 his re-election, and saddled us with the Bubba Bubble and the subsequent recession, ‘cause Clinton was clueless throughout.
Enjoy.
Heck -
Then you obviously think that the Dimocrats will win in 2006, and there will be a Dimocrat President in 2008, and the Dims will raise taxes. This is the only scenario in fifty years that resulted in serious difficulties for the American economy.
When the Dims raise taxes, the economy is deprived of investment capital, factories are not built, workers are not hired, payrolls are not paid, and taxes are not collected. This is not a complicated situation, it happens the same way every time.
I will sympathize with your personal problems if you will sympathize with mine.
Scorp,
LBJ never spent over $6 trillion on welfare. There wasn’t that kind of money then. Be real! Everyone knows the Vietnam war took precedence over social welfare. Get your facts straight!
CDC -
LBJ pushed the Great Society programs into law, including the Welfare program, which paid poor women and children if there was no husband or father in the house. Consequently, millions of husbands and fathers became superflous, and boogied.
Between the passage of the Welfare law and its repeal in 1995, the total cost was $6.6 trillion, and the sole (im)practical long-term result was the substantial destruction of poor, mostly black, families.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan did a study on this before the Welfare law was passed, and predicted exactly what would happen. For his efforts, Moynihan was accused of being racist, though he was the least racist person in the party of Senator Robert Byrd, and LBJ went ahead and passed the law regardless.
President Clinton pressed for the elimination of the Welfare law against strong Dimocratic opposition, proving that he was not quite as dumb as commonly believed. Even Clinton was able to recognize a disaster when he saw it, even if most of the Dims did not agree.
I first read this $6.6 trillion figure in one of George Will’s articles, and confirmed it in several sources. You are invited to confirm it as well, but don’t bother to apologize.
George Will is not a great source since he is a stiff ass right-winger and uses biased sources that distort the reality. I do hate the idea of welfare and think that job training and job creation are the way to uplift people out of poverty. I do have the old work ethic!
scorp,
Manufacturing in the US is over. China is fast becoming the world’s workshop. Wages in this country have been flat in real terms for decades. We simply cannot race to the bottom any longer. There is such a thing as overproduction. Wages are driven down in capitalist competition until there isn’t sufficient effective demand to absorb all industrial output. Both Keynes and Marx understood this point! In late monopoly capitalism capitalists don’t lower prices in order to clear markets as predicted by Say’s Law. In modern times this would cause deflation and isn’t possible as a matter of course due to high fixed costs in most industries. The solution is a reduction of capacity. As the economy contracts layoffs occur and the economy concentrates but remains stagnant until some exogenous stimulous starts the ball rolling again. With each more intensly deepened crisis of capitalist profitability comes the greater possibility of collapse. Each crisis brings sharper contradictions. Things may look good for US capitalism now but there is increased immiseration all over the US and the entire world. Just wait!
Scorp,
You are ignoring everything I’ve said.
1. It doesn’t matter which party is in the White House or in the congressional majority.
2. The numbers are faked by both.
3. Many people are wosre off now than thirty years ago.
4. Globalization/internationalism is destroying our national economy.
Over 50 people I know by name have had the same problems I listed in our family. This is across th country not just the rust belt. The list includes 2 architects, many from manufacturing, most of my artist friends, one bank officer, several salesmen. What many had in common was they were making top dollar in their field with many years on the job and were dumped in favor of entry level people here or foreign workers in Mexico, Asia and Africa.
You can tell me your problems any time in the next few years if you continue to buy into the bipartisan economic hype.
My wife and I can’t live on my Social Security. If I hadn’t saved 10 percent minimum every time I had a good year and cut expenses in the bad years for fifty years we’d be in deep shit. If I hadn’t been close to 65 when my business really tanked my savings would not have lasted. My stocks (YTD) are up 48.4 percent as of last Friday
CDC -
You are really weird.
Facts are where you find them, and are independent of source. That is why I took pains to inform you that I had confirmed what George Will had said about the $6.6 trillion cost of welfare; I thought you might object to what George Will had to say, but I invited you to confirm it for yourself. Now you are taking the position that any fact cited by George Will (George Will is impeccable with facts, what you call “stiff ass”) is contaminated, and has to be rejected.
But that leaves your perception of the world with major gaping holes, which you fill with left-wind ideological fluff. It is like you can see the blue sky, but you cannot see the green grass, because once upon a time George Will made some comment about grass.
Well, you are in a big company, if not in good company. There are many left-wind Dims who selectively choose what they will see, and act in accordance with their deliberately self-distorted vision. We call them losers at election time.
Prime current example: Senator Kennedy.
If you need similar statements from Bill, Hill, Kerry, Edwards, Pelosi, Rockefeller, etc., see:
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
But the Kennedy statement above was before we went to war. Now Kennedy says:
This quote is taken directly from the same Kennedy website:
http://www.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/04/03/2004305633.html
Now the left is pretending that President Bush lied about WMD, but the left’s perceptions are distorted by the ideological fog in which they stumblefart around: the sky is yellow, the grass is purple, and the WMD the Dims once said were in Iraq are actually the result of President Bush’s dishonesty. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Understand?
Scorp: Hey I am not looking to start another round of arguments but stay with me here.
1. I am a Republican; have a much more conservative twist than anything else.
2. Politics is what it is - you can point out the contradictions of Kennedy, Kerry and many others on the Dem. side but….let’s look at what the Bush admin has said. Hussein was an imminent threat to our nation, Iraq has ties to Al Qada, Iraq had WMDs. Then it became a story of post 9/11 we can’t allow leaders like Hussein to exist, then it became the middle east needs a model democracy and various other reasons they went to war.
The point is, both sides play politics - and you can’t be honest with your self if you believe that Bush and Rumsfeld didn’t have their eye on taking out Hussein from the day of 9/11 forward regardless what the facts were.
note: (CBS) CBS News has learned that barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was telling his aides to come up with plans for striking Iraq
Mel -
All the leftists pretend that history started on 09/11, but why would someone such as yourself join them?
“Hussein was an imminent threat to our nation ... ” You will have to show me where the Bush Administration said that. Bush said that we needed to do something before Saddam became an imminent threat, and there are some ambiguous threat comments from other Administration personnel, and there are about 10,000 leftists and one Republican screaming about “no imminent threat”. Have I forgotten anyone? So, show me what you are talking about. Besides, Saddam did attempt an assassination against Bush 41; is that a threat? And the Iraq Liberation Act 1998 said that Saddam was a threat to his neighbors and to the USA (see below).
“Iraq has ties to Al Qada ... ” President Clinton bombed the al-Shifa chemical plant in the Sudan because bin Laden and Saddam were cooperating in developing chemical weapons. Does that not demonstrate ties between Iraq and al-Qa’eda? Or perhaps Clinton was lying. He has been known to do that, as you know.
And then on November 4, 1998, in New York, Usama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef were indicted for having ties, among other things, as described thusly, “In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq,” as the indictment said.
And then there were the documented terror planning meetings in Pakistan attended by Iraqi Intelligence officials, and stuff.
So, what is your threshold for determining if Saddam and bin Laden had ties? Are the documented ties sufficient, or would you like one more, or two more, or twice as many, or 10,000?
http://www.freedomagenda.com/iraq/wmd_quotes.html
“Iraq had WMDs ... ” I can never tell where the leftists are coming from with this question. Some of them seem to be saying that Saddam never had WMD, but others ambiguously maintain that Saddam no longer had WMD.
But besides the quotes contained in freedomagenda website (above), the Congress overwhelmingly passed the Iraq Liberation Act 1998, and Clinton signed it into law. The vote was so overwhelming that 100% of the Senators and all but 38 Representatives voted for the Act, and one of the propositions therein was that Saddam had, and had used, WMD in war and against civilian Iraqis. Google Halabja, Anfal, and massgraves if you have the stomach for it. But as a result of ILA 1998, regime change in Iraq has been a matter of USA law since long before George Bush became President, and the existence and use of WMD was one of the reasons given for the Act.
So, Kennedy, Kerry, Levin, Reid, Pelosi, Rockefeller, Edwards, and Biden said that Saddam had WMD in 1998, and some of them voted for the Iraq War Resolution 2002 (Kennedy did not), and all of them continued to say that there were WMD until hostilities started in 2003, but now they all maintain that President Bush lied about WMD in order to go to war? I. Don’t. Think. So. But somebody is lying, alright.
President Bush inherited a bad situation. President Clinton left him a well-documented trail of threats, of Iraqi - al-Qa’eda cooperation, and of WMD. Clinton’s philosophy was to contain Saddam and to make idle gestures against al-Qa’eda; bin Laden concluded from Clinton’s non-actions that the USA was weak and irresolute, hence 09/11.
The State Department, the CIA, and the Intelligence Services were no help. All of them were infested with incompetent left-wind ideologues, who were, and are, more interested in disclosing our secrets than in discovering our opponents’ secrets, or they are making up secrets, like Mr. Plame, or they are destroying secrets, like Sandy Burglar.
csmelnix & scorp,
I recently finished a couple of books on the war.
WTH…I’M TOTALLY SHOCKED…I knew or rather found out you do not understand ” race politics ” in amerika ...but vote for Bush…I guess the old maxim IS true ” You can fool some of the people some of the time ; and all of the people all of the time….I guess you do not understand politics in general…after what you had to say about your business basically being boxed out and your sons employment problems ...I’m self employeed also… Bush…..Daaammnnn…..Tony Blankley ??? What a HACK and a HAM ; dresses like a PIMP…tony blankley…I know Frog doesn’t want that thugs FOOL back in merry old England..ehh .. ; you need to get out more often WTH…do some bird watching…feel the breeze on your face…watch some small children play….. Calm down…vote progressive next time…............Bush…...for ...Shaaamme…...somebody get me a SWITCH !!!!
Redhorse,
There was no choice for me since I believe the war is the single most important issue and I trusted Kerry even less. (The evil of two lessers.) My votes for Anderson in 1980 and Perot (as a protest) were throw-aways.
Neither party differed on economic policy issues
The West needs oil. The nations of the Middle East have oil. there is on reason to believe that Iran or any party in Iraq would not want to sell oil to the US.
Oil should dominate our policy. We should have businssmen, a reasonable embassy in Baghdad and in Tehran, and no troops in either nation.
Under Ike, the business of America was business. He got us out of Korea, had a brief and relatively non-violent landing of Marines in Lebanon who promptly left, and all in all was the most peaceful postwar President.
I like Ike.
WTH….I disagree…...you could have held you nose like everybody with half a brain and voted for…...ugh…Kerry…Look the man comes off like a dweeeb granted , but hell ; at least the man attended class at Yale ; had some in country time in Vietnam , hey ; he came across as a milk toast kind a guy….but he could make a statement extemporaneously ...Bush still after all this time in power needs Roves hand up his butt wiggl’in his fingers….guys like yourself got all freaked out behind 9 / 11, you had to know U.S. Policy is to play hard ball against everbody…sooner of later something like this was going to happen…Tim McViegh ??.......Forgot about U.S. responsiblity to the world and working folks at home…Look the world community was on your side after 9 /11, ready to help and listen ; that’s all gone now.!!!.......but with that numb-scull Bush doing the shot calling that’s all you get now SHOTS BEING FIRED…...I hope you don’t have young relatives of military age cause you know the military com’in after them hard…..We could of had a WORLD SUMMIT ON TERROR , sat down talked things out like reasonable adults…..hey a little Showtimey… but it’s better than this NO WIN ,CASH COW ...WAR !........Look , with all due respect to you and your concerns ; I do disagree , politically I am a ’ Horse of a much different color…...
Viable candidates would have to be John Edwards…..Howard Dean , and last but not least Al ” Yes I still want to be Pres…but am not ready to announce, sniff neck ” GORE…I would think the smart money is on ....GORE…....SEN.. Hillary Clinton , is a conservative under cover ....wrong direction ;they try’in to sucker you with Her because of gender issue….way to Trilateral in her policies….
WTH
Come off it me old mate, you can’t believe anything written by a hack who works for the Rev Moon ? Can you…....................?
moonie madness
Knocko,
Redhorse,
Frog & Redhorse,
Frog: I don
Heck -
Don’t mess around with Red’s thought processes; perfection cannot be improved upon.
Red is pushing two has-beens and a never-was-and-never-will-be as his ideal presidential candidates. How can you beat that?
Look at what Redhorse says:
<blockquote>Look the world community was on your side after 9 /11, ready to help and listen ; that
WTH….Islam has nothing to do with anything…...Christian / Islam extremist are all dangerous….Look I was maybe 4 miles north of the Pentagon when it got hit on 9 /11, I’m not worried , you cannot spend your days paraniod about this terrorism thing….As far as Colin Powell…what can I say…my thinking was that is what he was there for also ; too protect the foot soldiers from that MADMAN ; but reality is he wasn’t able to come close to that task , and then lied for the man…My take on him is he will keep his mouth shut !! Can’t argue with your take on Kerry…...but he did get a hell of a lot closer to the action than the Boy Emperor….where was he hang’in out at ChiChi’s Foot Massage on RT.411 in Arkansas or Texas… ?? Alabama ???....no…..hell nobody could find that ol’ boy Buckfush…........like I said before….take a walk….look at the kids play….and just be cool…..Look I grew up in Washington ,D.C…...never had a Congressman or Senator to vote for ; D.C. NEVER HAS AND STILL DOES NOT HAVE A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS OR THE SENATE…6…700,000 people living in D.C : NO REPRESENTATION…What we had when I was a kid was called Home Rule ; that is when the City got an annual budget from con-gress to run the city…never quite enough money ..in exchange you stop all this talk about representation…statehood…after that came the Control Board….folks still don’t have a representative in the congress or senate ; Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton is not allowed to vote…she can talk tell she’s blue in the face but can’t vote…all she can really do is lobby for the city…does a very good job…but can’t VOTE ???......You got your feelings hurt because you voted for the biggest JACK——SS THIS SIDE OF 3 Continents…but don’t let that stop u from voting….....on Big Tony….a pimps a pimp….........in dress and philosophy…..
Well Scorp ....folks still talk too you….dishonest…corrupt…morally bankrupt…..the world’s still turning….day still follows night…....
WTH
Surely who pays the salary is not a superficial detail ?
I’m surprised that you complain about lack of objectivity in the Press, and then do not have a look to see why, and how, this happens.
That sort of innocence can leave you easy prey to snake-oil salesmen.
If you think the Moonies are a harmless organisation, up to you, but they smell bad to me .
Any group or person that preaches the Clash of Civilisations, that incites to fearfulness and obscene expenditure on armaments, stinks.
Ever heard the expression BLOWBACK ?
Ghost Wars by Steve Coll, some excerpts here has more detail.
WTH
THE WAYS OF OUR MASTERS ARE WONDROUS TO BEHOLD.
You mention bomb-factories in uk and canada, as PROOF.
Maybe….............. maybe….. NOT.
Remember the 2001Anthrax SCARE in the US ? The FBI stopped investigating, and WHY ?
London there were all those headlines about RICIN terrorists arrested , nothing happened.
They were going to bomb Manchester United football ground, guys arrested , nothing happened.
The US arrested thousands on suspicion of terrorism, nothing happened.
The Detroit Sleeper Cell mean anything to you ?
All that shit makes headlines, the denials are in the small print.
Just got to keep the people fearful, subdued, obedient,
get them used to police raids, accidental shootings, at four AM.
i know what that reminds me of.
Redhorse,
Frog,
Did Blankley choose to work at the Washington Times before or after Moon bought it? \
WTH.
MOON established the WT 15yrs before his speech for the 15th birthday, at least that is what he says.
Blankley is one of many seemingly reasonable bloody propagandists.
To varying degrees the media is infested with them, and the most dangerous are the least ‘extreme’.
I believe you have the wrong idea about Islam. No more ‘murderous’ than any other religion, in my opinion !
Could you stop getting hyped up about 911, and start thinking ?
Terrorism is a tactic, and only a way of life, or death, for very few individuals. Some of them work for government agencies, others are more or less independent. The sordid history of the UK government against the IRA shows that it penetrated both the Protestant terrorist cells and the IRA.
We will never know the whole truth, but the brits allowed some bombs to explode, they allowed some murders of catholic civil-rights lawyers to be committed, because it suited them.
FRANKLY, me old WTH, the bush league was NEVER serious about anything !
I REPEAT. I ‘invented’ the container nuke in 1966 or 7. Hollywood has followed, but the thing has not yet happened. GWB has done nothing there, but almost impossible to do anything.
The real threats in this world come more from criminals than from States , or so called al Qaeda.
Unfortunately the USA has become indistinguishable from the criminal world, as any research into Iran/Contra or a quick google of “Posada Carriles” will show.
Another real danger for us, is that first our votes will be stolen by dodgy machines, and second we have no REAL choice for the elections. And there I agree wholeheartedly with you.
PS I think it was Sir William Stephenson who is supposed to have murdered the spy, reported by William Stevenson in the book ” A Man called Intrepid”. That book has been demonstrated to be only half-true, but MAYBE Wild Bill Donovan actually did it !
PPS “careful, restrictive, effective”—-
KILLING PEOPLE IS FINAL ! Wild Bill , IF he did it, could easily have entrapped the guy and sent him down. The publicity would have discouraged others….
In the War Against Terra in the UK, SEVENTEEN “IRA” PEOPLE were sent to prison on long terms for BOMBING, and subsequently CLEARED. ONE of the judges wished he had the Death Penalty to impose ! WHAT a relief he did not .
Maybe that is one reason why the brits are less hysterical about bombs etc than the yanks, WE have actually spent decades being threatened, and bombed.
And subsequently it is now widely known in the UK that POLICE and judicial actions have fallen far short of anything just or civilised, where “terrorism” is concerned..
PPPS anytime anyone gets you needlessly hostile to some religion or group , watch out !
Scorp,
You completely distort the entire history of the Gulf Wars and the UN diplomacy surrounding it. First of all the entire first round of UN resolutions between 1990 and 1991 regarded Iraqi withdrawl from Kuwait and only later for sanctions, sanctions committees and the embargo. Later in the 1990s, calls for disarmament and inspection like UNSC 687 in 1995, UNSC1284 in 1999 which established UNMOVIC, and in Nov. 2002 UNSC1441 which posited military force for non-compliance with these resolutions emerged in the UNSC. France and Germany at some point offered proposals to end sanctions and some other UNSC members supported it. ALL were always for continuing inspections. By late 2002, only the US and UK supported war. The 1441 resolution only held that invasion was an option IF inspections failed which only the US/UK axis believed they were. The US eroniously and unilaterally argued that the resolutions collectively implied standing authorization for a full scale invasion if key council members decided that Iraq was in bad faith non-compliance with the UNSC resolutions to disarm and allow inspections. In the end, the UNSC did NOT approve of the invasion by a vote thus making the war an illegal act of aggression as per Kofi Annan’s later statements. Of course NO al Quaeda link or WMDs were discovered. The terrorism you speak of is not an AL Quaeda link but old 1970s/80s era links to the likes of Abu Nidal and others which Saddam relinquished and which never posed a problem for US support in the Iran/Iraq War or immediately afterwards. Of course now everyone condemns the illegal war. The current call is for a complete, unilateral withdrawl!
Frog,
I think you may be right about it being Stephenson. I read both books (
WTH
One of my golden rules is that if EVER I begin to feel hostile to ANY group, or whatever, is to ask the question .
CUI BONO ?
WHO wants me to feel like that ?
I hope you get DSL soon, good videos out there.
WTH
If IT happens again, IT can happen anywhere, .I live 80clicks from a nukepower and re-processing station.
I edited my post, so you can do a google on “Posada Carriles”.
That is just a minuscule example of the fact that “OUR” States are just as terroristic as the all-time favourites such as Libya.
Nobody is pretending that the US forces are doing ALL the killing in Iraq. However, they are doing their share, as even the Iraqi Ambassador to the US has pointed out.
I forget if it was a cousin or nephew who was collateral damage, American language for killed in cold blood . A cousin I think.
WTH
Often a good idea to read reports from the ground and forget the armchair strategists and pundits.
I recommend reading all dahr jamail’s stuff.
WTH….On the terrorism issue I believe you are also omitting our good fiend and current residing head potentate the president of these united state Geeooorge Bush !! Look at his KILL record…..roughly 2500 U.S. service people died , another 15000 or more wounded and permanently maimed ; then the poor Iraq civilian population is….just basically being davastated…in more ways than time or space has to document….....As a child…I can remember that when the block bully was not around everyone else played better….Amerikan Imperialist power and policy are the bully and the best and safest security for at home and abroad is too end that bully behavior…terrorism is a no win for us all…even the neo-cons lose…...but for some reason people forget ; must be that liberal media the conservatives keep hacking about…...as ugly as it will be the only solution is too pullout now…yesterday if possible…but now…for sure…....
Hey what does Woody Allen know he sleeps with his ” former ” adopted daughter…..God is not the problem…we are….Gerald Massey’s Lectures is an excellent read on religion and the misrepresentations there of….....or in….also he’s a former hometown , you stated your family ancestry is from England….other books by Massey : A Book of the Beginnings , Natural Genesis and Ancient Egypt the Light of the World are well worth the time to read…...
Hello Horse
I found a good piece by gwynne dyer at ICH.
I only opened the one article . The rest, I’m afraid, would have told me nothing really new, just added information overload.
Frog,
I
WTH
have a look at the thing by gwynne dyer ? link above.
The fact that he taught at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (uk equivalent of West Point) is of course no guarantee that he is RIGHT, but his opinion should be worth a look, and a deep think !
Frog,
I read the Gwynne Dyer piece and agree with some disagree with some. As with any individual account we all come at any topic with a lot of our own deductive reasoning
Redhorse,
Woody Allen: I was just borrowing his God comment not endorsing his behavior.
My English ancestry predates the American revolution and my Swedish half got here at the end of the 1800s. My religious views developed over a long time, a lot of soul searching, study/reading and even as a teacher for a couple years. My personal beliefs covered the full range of Christian thought
Red -
Davastated? Is that the opposite of devastated?
The violent death rate for civilians in Iraq is less than in Washington DC and Detroit, and about half the rate in New Orleans before Katrina.
Now I grant you that a big car bomb is more spectacular than some dickhead offing his girlfriend or whatever, but the violence in Iraq is not quite what the leftist media wants you to believe.
And after we clean up the terrorists in Iraq, we will clean up the terrorists’ allies, the leftist Democrats that control the big cities in the USA. Then the oppressed people of Iraq and the oppressed people of the big American cities can live their own lives, free of politicians and criminals. But I repeat myself.
Scorpy….Scorp…damn…Scorp found a typo….oh my goodness what’s a radical progressive to do…...and…and then….he ....he’s coming after the Leftist Democrats….oh…no…not that…please not that…..Scorp when are you gonna take your sad-sack bee-hind pots to Iraq.??......and see the violence for yourself….I’m sure a mean ol’booger like yourself has driven thru the big bad cities before…...take a drive thru downtown Bagdad…take a deep breath of all that depleted-Uranium filled air….and hey….sense things are so soft over there….prop yourself down at a roadside cafe and have a cup of tea and a falafel sandwich…......I’m sure the locals will find your views real interesting….............Your delusional side is really starting to show ( like it wasn’t already out there like a big ol’ Zit , right in the middle of your forehead ; Cyclops)....did I say something that made you mad…....or is insanity just your normal state of over-repressive narcissistic sociopathic mindset…...Xenophobe .............................................................’ toon
Frog,
I read some of Dahr Jamail
WTH…....Just pook’in fun at Woody…..My take on Massey is that his writing totally debunks an historical interpretation of the Caconical Gospel…or the bible in general….Giving instead a translation of mythological typology written by ancestor scholars in stone and on papryus paper.so as better to understand the origin of said documents…Quite an indept study….exhaustive in research…....Massey stays with the subject matter , doesn’t tell you how it should or should not be interpretated personally ; just the big picture, sricpturally….......................The thing with folks blowing themselves up is that by invading Iraq the U.S. HAS MADE THEM FREEDOM FIGHTERS….the Iraq people were not roadside bombing folks before the invasion….............Did the prison experiment in school…it was amazing too see friends turn on one another…it didn’t take long either….......................................................scorp was there , got locked in the lab ; they would let him out , but the Prof. are a little concerned , he thinks he’s Dick Cheney…............
P.S…...Democrary Now is a excellent balance between corp. media and nothing at all here in the U.S. a lot of times there info comes from the B.B.C. ,U.S. media just doesn’t cover a lot of stuff…
Stay with the coverage, and check out Ambrose Lane…on WPFW.FM 98.3…Mon & Fri. at 10:00am…I’m sure the station can be listened too over the .net…just type in the call letters…
You should like Amy Goodman , the politicians sure don’t…..Clinton hates her…says she arrogant and rude….....Bush won’t ever talk to her….....thats’s what happens when you’re a real journalist in amerika…..
Redhorse,
I had to laugh out loud at this one.
WTH…gotcha…....made you laugh….you just added 6 months to your life…instead of worry’in about stuff none of us can do much about….
The interesting thing about that experiment is that all of use have the ablity to be the good guy or the bad guy…the choice is ours…on the oppressed side the passivity developed….. is learned…that is what’s so destructive in that pedagogy…the learning….the shame that it induces…
As far as religion , been through somewhat of a similiar experience not quite the same…basically you get to a point were the stuff makes no sense….I came across Massey in my research on Afrikan history…your angle is probably different , but you should check out the lectures….....A quote ;....Humanity is one. And the power that IS has instituted certain laws—-laws that operate for the species rather than the individual , an important distinction to be made in any interpretation of nature ; laws that deal with the species as one in spite of our manifold diversities and our deified doctrine of every-one-on-his-own-hookism…........Another quote ;.... Pain is necessary , then , to the development of consciousness , and the perfecting of conditions. It is the reminder that there is something wrong ; therefore something to be remedied . It is a part of the process in our education . Also , the lofiest pleasures of our spiritual life continually flower from a rootage in the deepest pain…..Massey
Redhorse,
I
WTH….You gonna like reading Massey…the man draws all that stuff together…...........I’ve heard of Viktor Frankel…but have not read his work…...
Bush & posse announce.the killing of Al Zarqawi….but caution the violence will continue….when you fight folks that have no fear of death , you have a very , extremely tough enemy…..Vietnam…Korea…this childess display does nothing but show how weak HIS war decision WAS….and continues too be….........
Red -
Now come on, Horse. If I worried about all your typos, errors, non-sequiturs, irrational thought processes, and stupid fucking ignorance, I would hardly have time for anything else. So, I don’t worry about you or your mistaken banalities.
But you really should consider what I have said. Is it significant that the rate of civilian violence is greater in New Orleans, Washington DC, and Detroit than it is in Iraq? I suppose that sort of depends on where you fall on the political spectrum. Leftists are determined to focus on and exaggerate violence in Iraq, and ignore greater levels of violence in our Democratic-controlled major cities. That is why the American people do not trust leftist Democrats to run the country. Is that too hard for you to understand?
You know Scorp…......It’s not worth the time , I do have a job…and now comes the weekend…...................toon..!!
Scorp,
I don
Heck -
Let me tell you about this marvelous Internet service called “Google”. To use Google, you just type in “key words”, such as the ones I gave you: violence, rate, Iraq, Washington, Detroit. In just 0.41 seconds, you are provided with “about 636,000” entries, the first ten of which report on a study of the rate of civilian violence in the USA as compared to Iraq. (I don’t know about the other 635,990.) You may have heard of some of the media outlets in which this study was reported: Newsmax, History Channel, etc. But you did not see it reported in the leftist media.
Now, 2 + 2 is rocket science for Red, but surely you understand the concept of violent incidents per unit population (I hope).
But you do not understand the concept or reality of the military situation in Iraq.
There is a standing joke in the Pentagon on any question of troop deployments.
“Deployment? The answer is, ‘We need 1,200,000 troops.’ What was the question?”
You know damn good and well it would have taken several years to raise the forces you are talking about, but I am sure you think that is sufficient reason not to fight the terrorists at all.
You are totally oblivious to the progress we have made in the development of American military excellence and lethality. We could end the conflict in Iraq on any Thursday morning, or in the entire Middle East by Thursday mid-afternoon if we needed to do so. We have deliberately restrained ourselves to limit damage to civilians and infrastructure. We needed more intelligence assets, much more than we needed more troops, but the intelligence capability of the USA has been decrepit for many years; fortunately, Negroponte seems to be getting a better handle on it.
More troops just means more targets. We now have about 2400 fatalities. I defy you to give me any reasonable scenario or troop strength level that would have resulted in fewer fatalities, given the outstanding accomplishments of our effort in Iraq: three elections, a functioning government, and growing Iraqi national security services. The Pentagon’s own estimate was 5000 dead.
The Garner/Bremer cock-up was bad, but that was not Rumsfeld’s doing. That was the State Department, as dysfunctional and decrepit as the intelligence services. Unfortunately, Colin Powell was not the person to get the State Department in line.
Continue ...
“Loss of international prestige”. Just whom do you think we have lost prestige with? Germany sabotaged a thirteen-year effort to control the terrorist Saddam regime and his WMD; Schroeder did this to assure his re-election, but the German electorate promptly kicked him out regardless, and elected the centrist Merkel to replace him. France and Russia were eager to go along with Germany (my, how times change) and it turns out that both France and Russia were major recipients of Saddam’s graft and corruption. In fact, the USA has “lost prestige” only with Eurosocialists, totalitarians, and the UN. Nothing new there, what did you expect and why should I care?
“Encouraging the enemy to continue there”. Right, like they needed encouragement; Muslims have been attacking infidels on a regular basis for over 1400 years. The spread of the Muslim religion has always been at the point of the sword. But think for a moment. It is a basic military principle to attack an enemy’s weakness. Now you have the Jihadists marching squarely into the strongest, most disciplined, most lethal military force in the world and they are getting slaughtered. This is the ideal place for “the enemy to continue” from our point of view. I have been reluctant to point out just how stupid the Jihadists have been, but this dust-up is about over.
“Anxiety here at home”. You have a non-stop effort by the leftist politicians (some of whom voted for the war) and the leftist media to raise the anxiety level. By killing Jihadists in Iraq and stopping Jihadist plots in the USA and Canada, we have kept the actual level of slaughter in the USA since 09/11 at a very low level, regardless of any
Scorp….I have checked your sources ; all are either the so-called liberal media you neo-cons detest or they are neo-con rags that do nothing but scratch each others buttocks…...either way my question to you is .....do you thing for yourself , or is your fetish for Ann Coulter paint a picture for all your Nazi propaganda….....I say this for all the innocent “so-called collateral ” victims and the service men and women on whatever side of the conflict they serve…..you are a ” COWARD ” because you advocate what you know you have neither the GUTS or COURAGE to go do yourself…..Simple math is not a problem for me ........but a humane response to a humane tragedy seems to be out of your conception…what are your credentials….PUNK…...have you ever been off your mommas porch…............................You are and always will be out of the ” funny papers “..................’ toon !!
Frog…what’s go’in on….......Sorry I took so long too reply….sparring with Stup…oh , my bad….I mean Scorp , those damn typos….Anyway googled Gwynne Dyer….man..that’s a lot of info…very interesting…I will have to do what I have been putting off and that is to buy a PRINTER…can’t read all that info off the .net…..thanks though…can I afford the ink costs…
Scorp,
Sorry to have wasted your time (and mine)
Redhorse,
Good Grief!
On Iraq I disagree with you on the one hand and Scorp on the other
Red -
Yes, but have you ever had an original thought? Obviously not. Insults and morally confused rants are not thoughts, much less original thoughts.
WTH…..My sincere regards and respect for your friend who has passed…Now I don’t want you to fall off your seat or anything…....but I believe we have found common ground….Mr. Frankl is a man who got to ” Know Himself ” it is imperative that we do not waste the space that life has awarded too us…...
Scorp…..Coming from you ...that does not mean much….you have not answered my statement..” Humane response for a humane tragedy “..........The insults are free , like a gift…................’ toon…
Redhorse,
Thank you. I located his book and think I will reread it or at least go through and check my underlines.
As I recall his simple and direct approach is what made his ideas seem so genuine
Heck -
Many years ago, I was a 2Lieu in Augsburg. It was the end of the fiscal year, and DivCom discovered he had unspent money in his budget. That was a no-no; if he did not spend all available funds, he was guilty of mismanagement, and next year’s budget would be cut. He ordered his staff to spend the requisite amount of money, and among the things that were purchased were IBM ball typewriters for every clerk in the division, at $600 a pop. So our clerks typed in style, there were a large number of perfectly good surplus typewriters for sale cheap, DivCom’s promotion prospects were maintained, and the tax payer was screwed.
Obviously, correct data is an essential starting point for any reasoning process. But the correct data, correctly selected from overwhelming masses of relevant and irrelevant input, is essential to correct reasoning in determining future possibilities and future courses of action. (Leftists are indifferent to facts and incapable of reason , but they can feel your pain, whatever they mean by that. In practical terms, it means that you will suffer more pain.)
So, why, among the infinite number of possibilities, have you uncritically accepted the hoary old Military-Industrial Complex solution to our current problems, as characterized by your acceptance of CENTCOM spin on troop strength?
I accept your Conservative credentials. But, we now have a military that is ten times as fast, and ten times as lethal, as when Eisenhower first warned about MIC. And you have learned nothing in the interim.
The troubles in Iraq are primarily from State Department failures, from Bremer on down. If the military had been allowed to squash the terrorists assembled at Falluja I, both the terrorists and the Iraqi people would have come to a faster and deeper understanding of their situation, and our security would have been enhanced.
There are three contending forces within the American anti-terrorist effort:
1) Our superb military, perfectly suited for military efforts. This in spite of a remnant of MICs and Cold Warriors, who never quite got the message, but whom are, mercifully, dying off (or becoming armchair Generals), and who are being succeeded by more aware, more aggressive, and more disciplined types. The excellence of our military is the direct result of VP Cheney and SecDef Rumsfeld, both of whom served as SecDefs in previous administrations and who have had made long-term committments to necessary change and excellence, with gratifying results. A major contributor to the philosophical base for this change was Colonel John Boyd, who not only developed the theory, but served as Cheney’s confidential advisor during the spectacular effort of Gulf I.
(Schwarzkopf’s initial plan in Gulf I was a head-on assault on the beaches, into the prepared Iraqi defenses. It was Cheney and Boyd that worked with the military to develop the end-around into the Iraqi logistics tail, resulting in the most spectacular military victory ever.)
2) The State Department and Intel Agencies, compromised and inefficient. Rice and Negroponte seem to be making some progress in their respective areas in cleaning out the rot.
3) The leftist politicians and media, compromised, compromising, and oblivious to the values of the American people. What is the matter with Kansas? Absolutely nothing. What is the matter with New York? Now, that is a problem.
If you can’t distinguish between the Little Big Horn in 1876 and Iraq now, no wonder you are confused.
Scorp,
Scorp,
You distort and twist data so as to confuse and the issue at hand. The high rate of urban crime in the USA is such that it rivals over time many places where there are low level civil wars in terms of casualties of violence. The US has twelve times the Iraqi population. Of course the absolute number of Iraqis killed is less than the US casualties in the USA. Per capita comparisons might yield a different statistical result. And so what if it did not. Are these two things worth comparing. How unflattering to the society you idealize and its leadership when a nation at civil war produces far fewer casualties than a nation at peace like the USA. A little hint-Bush & Co. don’t give a rats ass about urban crime in the US or about safe US communites. Unlike Clinton who fought crime in the 1990s and won, the only question Bush & Co. ask about the crime issue is why tax the upper 1% in order to make a basket case like US cities safer. Who cares. How will a safer urban US help the rich globalize their investments to get richer. Besides these big city folks are all Democrats!
No one in the world is more cynical about the future of the US as a viable society than Bush & Co. They only care about the rich, the biggest US corporations, and the US military that supports them both. Katrina, 9/11, and a host of other things which have harmed the US but got no attention from Bush prove this point!
The war on terror is just US imperialism pure and simple. The Iraqi government is a puppet government. Iraqis are worse off than before Saddam and many say so. They have no real future as long as we stay. The war has done more damage to Iraq than did Saddam. Zarquawi was the beneficiary of US air cover in northern Iraq for years. In 2002, CIA and Pentagon officials wanted to get him and knew where he was hiding. Bush refused on the basis of NSA advice that a successful raid on his hidout would destroy our rationale for invasion. The consequences are that over the last four years many have been needlessly killed for US imperial goals and greed. Had we allowed it, Saddam would have killed him and his followers instantly because he hated theocrats and we knew this well. It was one reason for his September 1980 attack on the Ayatollahs of Iran.
Scorp, I do not understand your love affair with US imperialism. Your life as a 2nd Lt. was risked for dubious causes. I’m sure you are not yourself benefiting from imperialism like the Fortune 500 are so why get a purple heart for them!?
Heck -
<blockquote>If you can
Red -
Every humane (or inhumane) tragedy since 1918 has been the result of totalitarian aggression: fascist (Hitler), socialist (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim), freelance (Idi Amin, Mugabe, Saddam), or Islamist (al-Qa’eda).
Every measure of relief from inhumane tragedy has come from the democracies. And it has not come cheaply to the democracies, much less to the victims of totalitarianism.
The fact that you are of the Stalinist persuasion certainly does not negate the truth of the above points.
Be afraid. Be very afraid. The democrats are going to straighten you up. And the Democrats can’t help you, since the American voters are going to straighten the Democrats up, also.
Scorp….You continue to try to label folks by the extremely nero confines of your own myopia…..................’ toon
Scorp,
You, like so many ideologues you are hopelessly out of touch. You label those like Red horse “Stalinist.” How so? You make blanket generalizations out of context like “all suffering comes from ideologues while all relief comes at a great price from the “democracies.” You never mention that democracies like the US and UK have often supported dictators of the extreme right out of fear and greed. One of those was Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athist Party in 1963. They overthrew a center/left coalition led by General Karim Qassim which included a highly tepid and reformist Iraqi Communist Party. Was the Iraqi CP worse than Saddam who murdered five to eight thousand of the ICP membership in a few months. The ICP were amoung the most educated, peaceful, and politically modern and non-tribal of all Iraqi society. The US/UK axis feared unfriendly policies toward “their” oil. All the Qassim Regime did was abrogate the atavistic and absurd 1928 Achnacary Agreement and open the remaining 95% of untapped reserves to national exploration and new foreign contracts. They also insisted on a 50/50 split on profits rather than per barrel royalties. This was easily circumvented by transfer pricing ie. overcharging corporate affiliated refiners to make in country profits appear smaller. This is a common and age-old trick! Saddam actually nationalized the entire Iraqi Oil industry in 1972. Was this better for US companies who went elsewhere. Even today it is thought that at least half of Iraq’s oil potential is untapped. The Kassim Regime wouldn’t recognize Kuwait and wanted to negotiate its status because it also regarded the principality as the “19th province.” Saddam invaded and brutally killed Kuwaitis. Was this better? The Ba’athists were seen as better than the Communists but our fanatical rigidity in thought wouldn’t let us see the truth which was the opposite case.
In case after case, US/UK imperialism has wrought havoc on the world. Yet Scorp only sees evil elsewhere and not in countless right-wing murderous dictatorships supported by the US/UK axis of ignorance. There are countless cases all over the third world! The US is mostly responsible for most of the post-WWII fascist coups in the third world.
Secondly, by what reasoning do you consider the Democratic Party of the USA the “left.” They are basically Republican-Lite. Bush & Co.‘s appoval rating is still below 30% even after the killing of al Zarqawi. The progressive caucus of the US Democratic Party needs to make its case to the US public now more than ever. It needs to talk to the 90% or so that the Bush Regime (he wasn’t legitimately elected!) ignores as a matter of course.
Red -
And the culture of caligula is going to bite you in the ass.
And once again Scorp…......you swing…......and miss….......Cabdriver just struck you out…...
Also I’ve noticed you are becoming somewhat….HYPER…..have you been eating too many sugar products.???.......Gett’in off on that Oxy-Contin…that is what your homeboy Rush Limp-baugh…...was steal’in…right ??...Or maybe the Viagras not work’in…??.....
CDC -
Don’t be such a Densan.
Can you remember or think of any geopolitical situation in the 1970s and 1980s that might have caused the USA and other democracies to ally with less-than-perfect democrats, or non-democrats?
Hint: In WWII, the USA and Great Britain allied with the Soviet Union against Hitler. It was not because the SU was democratic, humanitarian, or well-intentioned; in fact, the communists were a bunch of murdering bastards. So, why? Because Hitler was a worse threat, of course.
After Hitler was properly disposed of, the murderous socialist thugs took over much of Eastern Europe, China and other areas in Asia, and eventually moved into Africa (Egypt and Angola) and Latin America (Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile). The communists also killed about ten times the number of innocent civilians than Hitler ever did. Under the circumstance, we took allies where we could find them, without inquiring too closely into their democratic credentials. Great chunks of the world were proxy battlegrounds between the democracies and the totalitarian socialists during this period.
After the Soviets collapsed from corruption and inefficiency (when was a socialist system ever efficient?), we had the luxury of becoming more discriminating in picking our friends. Not so, the left. You socialists went straight from providing KGB support to Allende to providing propaganda support to the totalitarian Jihadists, as at Abu Ghraib. Never have so few panties on some terrorists head raised such a big stink. Mercifully, you have little meaningful military capability to provide to the Jihadists.
Yeah, so were Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin in Russia. Until they came to power. I accept the fact that you regard me as a Kulak, but you, as an elite leftist, will NEVER have power to act over me, and you ought to accept that, for your own good sake. Or not, it doesn’t make any difference to me.
<blockquote>The US/UK axis feared unfriendly policies toward
Is this a serious statement, or are you just engaging in a little bit of recreational bitching? If you are serious, please list all the “post-WWII fascist coups” you are aware of. There cannot be “countless” numbers of them, because there are only about one hundred fifty or so recognized national entities, well over one hundred of which are democracies, thanks primarily to what you quaintly refer to as “US/UK imperialism”.
Not only is that not true, you immediately contradict yourself with your reference to the “progressive caucus of the US Democratic Party”. The Progressive Party has a long history in the USA. Henry Wallace was FDR’s Vice-President during WWII, until FDR dropped Wallace because of his far left views, his open admiration for Stalin, and his indiscretions that resulted in release of classified diplomatic data to the nazis. Boy, was Harry Truman astonished when he popped up as the new Vice-President, but it was an inspired choice. None of this socialist crap for Truman.
Wallace went on to run for President on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, winning a few votes in New York and California (where else?), but no electoral votes. Americans have always rejected radicals and socialists, but there is a measure of truth in your description of the current split within the Democratic Party: your “Republican-Lite” serve as useless idiots for the elite, progressive, socialist dumbshits that are desperately trying to gain power over a polity that is basically uninterested in what you have to offer.
You progressives/ socialists/ communists/ whatever can “make (your) case to the US public” from now to doomsday, and people still know that you are a bunch of elite, lying, murdering, corrupt, inefficient socialists. So, knock yourself out, boy.
Scorp,
The list of coups is very long. I will provide some examples but I suggest you look into a book called Killing Hope by William Blum. It is very comprehensive. US intervention has a long history. There are very few places we didn’t intervene after 1945. We did very little in Africa because The UK and France were active there and had long established colonies. So did Portugal and Belguim. We did have a hand in the coup in the Belgian Congo in 1961 against Lumumba. The CIA was active there. I also believe that the coup in the early 1960s against Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana was CIA assisted. These two were key events and came from a country with very limited historic presence in Africa. In Latin America and Asia, however, the record on coups and interventions are vast. The middle east also. Iran-1953, Guatemala-1953, Egypt-1956, Lebanon-1958, Iraq-1963, Brazil-1964, Dominican Republic-1965, Indonesia 1965, Greece-1967, Vietnam 1964-75, Chile 1973, Thailand 1976, Grenada 1983 and there were many others. A few of these were armed interventions and wars but some were no more than coups against democratically elected governments bringing authoritarian right-wing dictatorships to power. Chile, Guatemala, and Indonesia had the worst consequences in terms of human rights casualties. Thousands were killed in Chile and Indonesia while a protracted counter-insurgency against the indian population of Guatemala for three decades wiped out over 400 villages and killed nearly half a million people. Scorp I don’t mind being a US citizen at this point but I’m sure glad I’m not on the receiving end of our foreign policy. I also don’t think the US population will reject radical domestic reform and many who consider themselves victims of globalization (some who were former upper middle class) are quite ready for it. Scorp I think it would be interesting for you to tell us a little about your background, what Red State you’re from, when you were in the armed services and why you enlisted, and you’re educational background. Were your parents very religious and insist on regular weekly attendance at Church? You seem to have had some formal academic training! Tell us a little about yourself to put things in perspective!
Scorp,
First of all the
WTH
Your link to that one article by DAHR JAMAIL did not work, for me.
The man comes from Anchorage, and does not speak arabic, even. He’s a yank with a US passport, with the real US and Universal ideas about what is RIGHT .
I went to his site and found his first posts from Iraq. November 2003
I have not read all his posts, but the many I have read would make me PROUD , if an american, that this guy came from my country !
I recommend you read ALL of what he has written. Decide for yourself, but on Much More than a cursory glance.
You may be 68, with friends dying around you, but you are far from brain-dead. That is why I like you so much. And you are obviously a person who cannot stop thinking.
I DO believe that on SOME things you have been taken for a ride. Well, me too, as a young brit soldier 40yrs ago, and only a fool and coward will NOT admit to having been wrong.
For me the “Islamofascist Blabla Menace is BULLSHIT”.
You believe it, for now, but I have some hope that ONE DAY you will realise that you have been “had”.
No shame in learning .
You tend to dwell too long on “historical parallels” . HISTORY is great, as long as we use it learn , and concentrate on the here and now, with its different complexities.
Those who use History as part of their polemic are mostly CHARLATANS and propagandists.
The PM of Iran is “ANOTHER HITLER”, Americans who oppose these crazy wars are “APPEASERS of HITLERS”.
If you actually, CALMLY, take the time to read what Ahmadinejehad ACTUALLY said, translated by some germans, you will realise that the Great American Public , and the European Public, is being grossly misled.
Refering to your last post.
FUCK all the deets about “security” .
The IMPORTANT THING for Iraqis is WHO OWNS their OIL.???? IF I were one of them, the FACT that GWB has tried to annexe my oil for decades to come would be a very good reason to go on fighting.
“LEGALLY” , GWB & Friends have stolen my OIL. .
In such a situation, as Iraqis, WTH and frog and redhorse will blow up the pipelines. Even Scorp, as an Iraqi with balls, would join us.
.
WTH…Frog….OPERATION IRAQ LIBERATION spells….............OIL….
CDC -
Long ago and far away, on a different website, I got in a discussion with a leftist, and I was giving him a hard time about the millions of people that Stalin’s communist system had murdered. His take on the situation was that Stalin had subverted pure communism into “state capitalism”, and therefore the forty million innocent dead in the Soviet Union were actually victims of capitalism! Yeah, right!
Well ... OK. But what you specifically told me was “fascist” coups. Now, surely you are aware that fascism was a political philosophy, subscribed to by certain persons and countries, and incorporating certain “principles”, for lack of a better term. Not a goddam one of the countries you have listed fits the description of fascist. “Fascist’ has become a leftist generic pejorative term of no definite meaning, like little kids calling each other “poo-poo head”. For that matter, the nonsense that passes for leftist thought these days has nothing to do with the socialism that Marx preached, but that is another story.
Before WWII, leftists in America were typically anti-American. But when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, suddenly the political line of the leftists was transformed into the idea that we were all friends and allies. After WWII and the defeat of fascism, it was back to being enemies again. America offered the Soviet Union $15 billion in war material during WWII, which the Soviets accepted, and Marshall Plan aid after the War, which the Soviets refused.
But whence cometh the zombie fascists that the left claim are all around us, such as all the fascist coups you claim to see?
There were three primary political philosophies going into WWII, and only two came out. Democratic capitalism and socialism survived, and fascism fell by the wayside. The only times you see or hear of fascism anymore is the Aryan Nations types, and their ilk, and the fascists invented by the left to meet their internal ideological needs.
The concepts of “class” and “class warfare” are staples of leftist thought, so for ideological reasons, the democratic capitalist system that fought on the winning side in WWII is no more, having morphed into “fascists”, the enemies of socialism; Bushitler, “countless fascist coups”, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. The USA as a fascist state is a product of the somewhat demented ideological needs of leftists; if the facts do not agree with the ideology, the facts must be wrong, and must be changed.
But wait! If the USA was a fascist nation, it would be at least as corrupt and inefficient as a socialist nation, so that can’t be right. In fact, the USA has the most dynamic, productive large economy in the world, only running into trouble when a leftist Democrat is elected President. Johnson, Carter, and Clinton each devastated the American economy, and Reagan and Bush 43 had to bail it out after leftist Democratic Party cock-ups.
And you surely know, and surely did not mention, that most of the countries that you listed were under communist subversion and attack when the USA intervened. Therefore, you think the USA is “fascist” and installed “fascist dictators”. I suppose we could have avoided your fascist label by rolling over for the communists, as Marx predicted we would do, but when has a prediction by Marx ever proved out? Never, that’s when.
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And I think it would be even more interesting if you would go fuck yourself and send us pictures. I do not do autobiography on demand. If the idea appeals to you so much, write up your story. If you are fool enough to do that, Red is undoubtedly fool enough to read what you have to say.
Scorp…..that’s actually ..kinda funny….poo poo head…........Fascism is marked by excessive control of Gov’t agencies by privately owned Corporations , excessive displays of overt patriotism base in propaganda ; and a centrally controlled ( owned ) media…..
You read what the man ” Cabdriver “had to say…...so what’s that make you…...for a man that’s backing the power e-lite ....you seem a bit…...SENSITIVE…....the thing with you that’s so STRANGE…scorp…is that you now ” In These Times ” is a progressive rag .....you act like you’re trying too convince folks…what Ann Coulters group not hiring…or is it frustration over Enron…...you see Cabdriver he let out that because of Enron , he got laid off…I jump on it…and ol’ rude-boy hasn’t forgotten…so now he wants everybody to act out like he does…..... and hedonize themselves…...
Cabdriver….Hey Scorps a smart ol’cuss…got a lot of fact and figures and so on…..but he’s as evil-minded as god made little green apples…so it’s all a waste…my guess is ; over all his generation is wasted…and these young progressive out here will save the night and the day…....vote prgressive as possibly…like Frog was saying , organize as much as possible…and patience…..................true..
Red -
Patience is a virtue. Leftists are notably lacking in virtue, but prepare yourselves for the long haul, because you are going to need it.
Progressive is an euphemism for communist. Communists have a bad name, because they are guilty of murder, corruption, and inefficiency. So, in order to avoid the negative connotations of being genocidal, thieving, inept bastards, leftists have adopted various less-polarizing labels for themselves: collectivist, progressive, socialist. But a leftist by any other name is still a genocidal, thieving, inept bastard.
In our present culture, and in the tattered remnants of European culture, socialists can’t get away with outright murder, but it is a matter of mild concern that socialists are trying so hard to change the culture, so that anything is permissible to a socialist, but not to the rest of us (much the way the Soviet Union was). For example, the recent convictions of Democratic partisans in Ohio, Florida, and elsewhere for election thuggery (assault, destruction of election signs, slashing tires on Republican election vehicles, etc.). Surely there must have been some Republican mischief in all this great land, but it did not get prominently reported, even in the leftist press. And the gross mismanagement of the American economy by the last three inept leftist Democratic presidents has cost us all. So, the threat is real, if limited at this time.
Fortunately, their own ineptness will do the leftists in.
In the confusion and social disruption of the Great Depression, many people looked for alternative solutions. Some turned to communism and a few turned to fascism, but neither of these foreign ideologies made a great impact among Americans. The American communists had some limited success in the cultural, political, and technological fields, with many writers and film personalities supporting leftist positions, and communist spies infiltrating defense industries in WWII. The Soviets ran an active infiltration of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, but Hubert Humphrey, Orville Freeman, and their allies kicked out the communists. Henry Wallace, FDR’s wartime Vice-President, was an open admirer of Stalin, and had distinctly leftist views. Wallace was replaced in a timely manner by Harry Truman for the 1944 elections, and shortly afterward FDR died. Wallace ran for President on the Progressive ticket in 1948, but didn’t get anywhere.
The leftists got a revival in the aftermath of Vietnam, when Kennedy/ Johnson/ McNamara royally screwed American foreign and domestic policy. Radical leftists from Vietnam went on to college and became leftist professors and media stars. Pinch Sulzburger, now owner-editor of the New York Times, once the most respected newspaper in America, was a radical student in those times. Now Sulzburger just pitches anti-American, pro-Jihadist propaganda, while his newspaper disintegrates, losing readers, revenues, and profits. Fortunately as well, academia is a trailing indicator, and the quaint and crusty leftist professors are beginning to die off, when they are not being fired outright by an enraged citizenry.
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The newest twist in the Progressive road to nowhere is George Soros’ money and Kos’ white-hot passion for leftist nonsense and self-aggrandizement. Soros and friends spent increasingly tens of millions of dollars in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 election cycles in an effort to promote their communist ideology, with ever decreasing results. Now they think that they can do better in 2006 and 2008, with no confirming data whatsoever.
Kos has made a very large stir within a very small friendly audience on the Internet, but wait until the American people experience Kos’ hatred- and obscenity-laced rants; talk about a clash of cultures! At my last count, Kos had selected twenty leftist candidates as worthy of his support, and endorsed and helped fund their election campaigns; every single one of Kos’ candidates has lost, as if endorsement by Kos is the kiss of death. Kos has been reduced to claiming dubious moral victories when his candidates are not beaten too badly.
But such real power as the leftists actually possess is within the halls of Congress and in the Democratic Party establishment. Fortunately, the Democratic leadership in Congress exhibits the epitome of political ineptness, just like their communist heroes. Pelosi qualifies as a leftist apparatchik, while Reid is trying to straddle his conservative roots, the fairly broad Democratic base, and the Kos barbarians. Meanwhile, Screaming Howard Dean has seized the DNC and is pursuing his own vision and presidential goals by broadly supporting Democratic Party state organizations, while the Democratic Congressional leadership wants to concentrate on specific competitive local elections; consequently, Democratic resources are being pissed away on conflicting objectives.
Meanwhile, back in the real jungle, we Americans build democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, inspire democracies in Eastern Europe, Lebanon, and elsewhere, and have the finest, most productive, large economy in the world. And somehow the communists think they can improve on what we have achieved, using as resources Soros, Kos, Dean, Pelosi, Reid, Sulzburger, and Ward Churchill. How novel! How quaint! How stupid can you get?
And the Republicans just keep puttering along, getting things right, in the face of domestic leftist negativism, Jihadist headhunting and human sacrifice, European weakness and loss of direction, Chinese and Russian hostility, Irani efforts to build a bomb, UN corruption and incompetence, and other minor problems. Is this a wonderful world, or what?
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