" Life was pleasant then"??!!!
Mr. America
to post over >>>
**************************
"So in your mind, it is better to kill 651,000 innocent Iraqis in order to
give them democracy and instead give them chaos and a miserable life,
than to kill 100,000 Iraqis in order to give them a stable country?"
"Children could play on the streets, walk to school, there was gasoline
which there isn't now), there was electricity (which there isn't now),
people were employed (which they aren't now), etc. Life was pleasant then;
it is hell in Iraq now."
"explain to me the difference between killing an innocent person in Iraq
after we invade them, and murder.
******************************
I realize this won't draw a lick of ire over yonder at the loon moon board,
but even as a guy who wouldn't vote GWB's great grand children into the oval
office after the last couple years, I just find the above so preposterous
and offensive I feel compelled to speak. Even leaving aside the issue of
the 655,000 Iraqi civilians who have supposedly died in Iraq to date (taken
from a study so preposterous that even the NY Times debunked it), I believe
(and Laurie certainly can correct me if I'm wrong) that she is actually
stating:
1. that life in Iraq was "pleasant" under Saddam's rule (this to me would
be akin to saying life was more pleasant for black folk until that pesky Abe
Lincoln came along...and no I am not in anyway equating GWB to Abe Lincoln,
just dumbfounded by the suggestion that not only was life arguably better in
pre-war Iraq, but actually quite keen. If life was better for Iraqis under
Saddam in one sense, it certainly was NEVER pleasant);
2. Casualties of war (of if you find that term offensive in this context,
use your own) is the moral equivalent of gassing and torturing your own
people deliberately; and,
3. George Bush is a worse individual than Saddam Hussein.
I just don't see how any rational person can believe #1 or #3 and though
philosophically I can see how someone could argue #2 (particularly if you
find all war to be inherently wrong/evil), I still don't see how you can in
the final analysis equate what Saddam has done with what GWB has done and
state they're the exact same thing on the scale of morality.
Mr. America
barbaric in today's execution. As one who is skeptical about the existence
of any god and realizing it may not mean much in the metaphysical sense,
there was an option of showing Saddam some mercy today and the decency he
was apparently incapable of showing towards others (including his own
country men). While I don't think Saddam would have learned any lesson
from it and may even have gloated in his fortune, I can't help but feel if
you can turn the other cheek you probably should unless in so doing you
increase the danger to others. I will never understand people celebrating
in the street over an execution. At best, the death penalty is a necessary
evil, at worst, it's a primitive response to a primitive action and is
hardly worthy of an exuberant celebration.
musicaner
we GOT the GREAT CLUSTER GOIN on overseas. aint NONE of those FOLK OVER
THERE GIVE 2 CAHOOTS about DEMOCRACY that is ONE OBVIOUS THING!!!!! the
MORE ELECTIONS THEY GET the MORE THEY VOTE for the MULLAS etc etc!!!
they have NO QUALMS about BUTCHERIN each OTHER!!!
its NOW OBVIOUS that KEEPIN that IRAQ together was NOT SOMETHIN you
could have done by BY BLOWIN DAISIIES>
gumboman
"Mr. America" <bornin...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:7Irlh.41182$wc5....@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net...
>I believe Laurie at one time posted here quite frequently and since I
>refuse to post over >>>
>
> **************************
>
> "So in your mind, it is better to kill 651,000 innocent Iraqis in order to
> give them democracy and instead give them chaos and a miserable life,
> than to kill 100,000 Iraqis in order to give them a stable country?"
>
> "Children could play on the streets, walk to school, there was gasoline
> which there isn't now), there was electricity (which there isn't now),
> people were employed (which they aren't now), etc. Life was pleasant
> then; it is hell in Iraq now."
>
> "explain to me the difference between killing an innocent person in Iraq
> after we invade them, and murder.
>
> ******************************
>
> I realize this won't draw a lick of ire over yonder at the loon moon
> board, but even as a guy who wouldn't vote GWB's great grand children into
> the oval office after the last couple years, I just find the above so
> preposterous and offensive I feel compelled to speak. Even leaving aside
> the issue of the 655,000 Iraqi civilians who have supposedly died in Iraq
> to date (taken from a study so preposterous that even the NY Times
> debunked it), I believe (and Laurie certainly can correct me if I'm wrong)
> that she is actually stating:
>
Are we speaking of the same NYTimes that assured us we would be greeted with
candy and flowers and that there were massive amounts of WMD's in Iraq?
Actually, the study seems to be quite accurate and the NYTimes debunked
nothing.
> 1. that life in Iraq was "pleasant" under Saddam's rule (this to me would
> be akin to saying life was more pleasant for black folk until that pesky
> Abe Lincoln came along...and no I am not in anyway equating GWB to Abe
> Lincoln, just dumbfounded by the suggestion that not only was life
> arguably better in pre-war Iraq, but actually quite keen. If life was
> better for Iraqis under Saddam in one sense, it certainly was NEVER
> pleasant);
>
Except that slavery did exist and WMD's didn't. You're going to have to try
a little harder than this.
> 2. Casualties of war (of if you find that term offensive in this context,
> use your own) is the moral equivalent of gassing and torturing your own
> people deliberately; and,
>
The US military gassed and tortured people in Iraq. Or do you not consider
Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Graib, etc. part of the crusade? If a person should be
executed for giving the order to gas his own people what should be done to
someone who gives the order to do the same to whole populations in innocent
cities in other countries that did absolutely nothing to his own country?
> 3. George Bush is a worse individual than Saddam Hussein.
>
> I just don't see how any rational person can believe #1 or #3 and though
> philosophically I can see how someone could argue #2 (particularly if you
> find all war to be inherently wrong/evil), I still don't see how you can
> in the final analysis equate what Saddam has done with what GWB has done
> and state they're the exact same thing on the scale of morality.
>
I consider myself very rational and I consider Bush to be worse than SH. On
a morality scale I would put smirk way, way, way below SH. SH carried out
his supposed crimes within the context of internal politics. I didn't see
you condeming the great Abe or Sherman for that march through Atlanta to the
sea when how many innocents died? Why should SH be condemned for putting
down internal revolts when you fail to condemn someone who committed worse
crimes based on a lie.
I thought lawyers tried to make decisions based on the facts? How are you
being rational when you ignore the facts to make these kinds of statements?
JH
gumboman
"musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1167491940.7...@a3g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
Exactly.
JH
Mr. America
"gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
news:fNudnQB_1ISdPQvY...@giganews.com...
> Are we speaking of the same NYTimes that assured us we would be greeted
> with candy and flowers and that there were massive amounts of WMD's in
> Iraq?
>
> Actually, the study seems to be quite accurate...
Jack, the study itself (if I recall correctly) said it had a potential
error ratio of plus or minus 33%!!! As such, how can you say the above
even if you think the people who I've tried to rebut the study are all off
their rocker?
Mr. America
"musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1167491940.7...@a3g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> we GOT the GREAT CLUSTER GOIN on overseas. aint NONE of those FOLK OVER
> THERE GIVE 2 CAHOOTS about DEMOCRACY that is ONE OBVIOUS THING!!!!! the
> MORE ELECTIONS THEY GET the MORE THEY VOTE for the MULLAS etc etc!!!
> they have NO QUALMS about BUTCHERIN each OTHER!!!
> its NOW OBVIOUS that KEEPIN that IRAQ together was NOT SOMETHIN you
> could have done by BY BLOWIN DAISIIES>
I would certainly agree that we should have minded our own business and
stayed away, very far away.
Mr. America
>> 1. that life in Iraq was "pleasant" under Saddam's rule (this to me
>> would be akin to saying life was more pleasant for black folk until that
>> pesky Abe Lincoln came along...and no I am not in anyway equating GWB to
>> Abe Lincoln, just dumbfounded by the suggestion that not only was life
>> arguably better in pre-war Iraq, but actually quite keen. If life was
>> better for Iraqis under Saddam in one sense, it certainly was NEVER
>> pleasant);
>>
>
> Except that slavery did exist and WMD's didn't. You're going to have to
> try a little harder than this.
Jack, I don't see how the above is a response to my statement above it.
What does one have to do with the other? I was offended Laurie would seem
to have suggested life was actually quite "pleasant" for the Iraqi people
under Saddam's rule. It certainly was not pleasant for anyone, but
particularly for the Kurds. I never argued the war has gone well or even
that the war was a good idea.
Mr. America
> The US military gassed and tortured people in Iraq. Or do you not consider
> Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Graib, etc. part of the crusade? If a person should
> be executed for giving the order to gas his own people what should be done
> to someone who gives the order to do the same to whole populations in
> innocent cities in other countries that did absolutely nothing to his own
> country?
You're conflating a number of different issues running those
sentences/remarks back to back. The issue with torture in Abu Graib had
nothing to do with the city itself, but at the prison. Additionally, though
it appears some less egregious forms of torture may have been used against
some Iraqi prisoners (something I would still strongly disapprove of), I
don't recall reading any article where it was alleged people were being
gassed in there. Moreover, none of the folks housed in Abu Graib would
appear to have been "innocent" folks just minding their own business.
Doesn't give anyone a right to torture anybody, but certainly I think you
have exaggerated what has even been alleged to have occurred there.
In terms of Fallujah, certainly the most egregious of what you cite above
and something that has raised my eyebrows, I think the verdict is still out
on exactly what happened there, under who's orders and why. Certainly if it
was proven that GWB personally signed off on an order to completely and
indiscriminately more or less annailihate a city without any regard to human
life, than GWB would be no better than Saddam, but at least at this moment,
I don't believe that's what happened.
Mr. America
> I consider myself very rational and I consider Bush to be worse than SH.
> On a morality scale I would put smirk way, way, way below SH.
Then, as with most political discussions on these boards, it's likely a
waste of time to even continue when starting with such a diametrically
opposing viewpoints. Which is why these days I prefer to place my emphasis
on writing about other less divisive matters.
musicaner
about ANYWAYS!!!?? to FIND OUT who adn where is the ENEMY? maybe it
woulda have BEEN SIMPLER
to just LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!!! no DOUBT not ONLY THEY AINT KNOWED what
they WERE DOIN TO BEGIN with, they HAVENT HAD A CLUE SINCE!!!
it AINT GONNA HAPPEN, turnin the WORLD into one BIG FATHER KNOWS BEST!!
forgetabout it. and LORD FORBID that MCCAIN TAKE OVER!!
Mr. America
>i dont EVEN KNOW what the PUROPSE of all the SO CALLED 'torturin' was
> about ANYWAYS!!!?? to FIND OUT who adn where is the ENEMY? maybe it
> woulda have BEEN SIMPLER
> to just LOOK OUT THE WINDOW!!! no DOUBT not ONLY THEY AINT KNOWED what
> they WERE DOIN TO BEGIN with, they HAVENT HAD A CLUE SINCE!!!
>
> it AINT GONNA HAPPEN, turnin the WORLD into one BIG FATHER KNOWS BEST!!
> forgetabout it.
Agree with that and it should have been conservatives who railed against the
notion you can or should try to change people (let alone an entire country
so far removed from the Western world with it's own lengthy history and
culture). The problem I guess was we were sold a bill of goods on Iraq
being a threat to the US. Not sure why any real conservative would try to
defend what's going on there now though under a "we're promoting democracy
theory". Change doesn't come about unless people want change.
Mr. America
> even if you think the people who I've tried to rebut the study
or have, ah, my typing
gumboman
If a study doesn't contain an error analysis you should throw it in the
trash. The fact this one does contain these figures gives me less reason to
question it's scientific methods.
IIRC they said about 600,000 dead. What they are saying is within a certain
degree of accuracy there are/were 400,000 to 800,000 dead. No matter how you
slice and dice it that's a lot of people because of someone's lies. That
also doesn't include the maimed, the property destruction, the dislocated,
etc.
Now, which country across an ocean did SH invade based on a lie and do that
much damage?
JH
gumboman
Were the Kurds subjected to anything worse than the great Abe inflicted on
the South? The Kurds revolted based on promises from the first Bush and were
put down. Since when does the leader of a country not have the right to
control internal revolts?
I believe most Iraqis who have answered this question preferred life under
SH compared to what is going on now. Who are we to question their judgment?
I don't understand why you would be offended. Compared to most Muslim
countries Iraq was a Shang-ri-la. Wasn't it the most educated country in the
Middle East? Universal health care? Women could drive, not wear scarfs,
etc.? Was it any less secular than Lebanon? It had electricity, etc, in the
cities that worked 24 hours a day. There was fuel and supplies (or at least
until the US embargoes). How are they better off today?
Like musicaner said, SH was probably a cruel son of a bitch but given the
conditions that may be what that country needed. If you minded your own
business I doubt you were bothered very much by anyone.
JH
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:fNudnQB_1ISdPQvY...@giganews.com...
>
>
>> The US military gassed and tortured people in Iraq. Or do you not
>> consider Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Graib, etc. part of the crusade? If a
>> person should be executed for giving the order to gas his own people what
>> should be done to someone who gives the order to do the same to whole
>> populations in innocent cities in other countries that did absolutely
>> nothing to his own country?
>
> You're conflating a number of different issues running those
> sentences/remarks back to back. The issue with torture in Abu Graib had
> nothing to do with the city itself, but at the prison. Additionally,
> though it appears some less egregious forms of torture may have been used
> against some Iraqi prisoners (something I would still strongly disapprove
> of), I don't recall reading any article where it was alleged people were
> being gassed in there.
They were gassed in Fallujah and Ramadi. By the Israelis in Lebanon. Unless
you don't consider using white phosphorus to burn off their skins gassing.
> Moreover, none of the folks housed in Abu Graib would appear to have been
> "innocent" folks just minding their own business. Doesn't give anyone a
> right to torture anybody, but certainly I think you have exaggerated what
> has even been alleged to have occurred there.
>
I have exaggerated? Come on, the Pentaqgon won't even release the worst of
the pictures. What does that tell you?
As for being guilty when were they tried, allowed and attorney. etc? Is that
now you view of justice? And if they were all so guilty why were the vast
majority of them eventually let go? Get real - we rounded up anyone we could
and tortured them so as to get them to rat out people. We made the mafia
look like altar boys.
> In terms of Fallujah, certainly the most egregious of what you cite above
> and something that has raised my eyebrows, I think the verdict is still
> out on exactly what happened there, under who's orders and why.
I give up. Stay in your cocoon. I'm sure the mayor of Falluhah asked the US
military to burn the skin off the children who lived in the city.
> Certainly if it was proven that GWB personally signed off on an order to
> completely and indiscriminately more or less annailihate a city without
> any regard to human life, than GWB would be no better than Saddam, but at
> least at this moment, I don't believe that's what happened.
>
Do you think SH personally signed any orders for any of the deaths he
caused? You know better than that. You're grasping at straws now.
JH
gumboman
What a crock of shit. Conservatives have always believed in empire and
governmental authority. You were 'sold a bill of goods'? Stop it - my side
is hurting from laughing this hard.
JH
gumboman
Well, if you're going to try to convince me a fact isn't a fact then yes,
you're wasting your time.
JH
Mr. America
> IIRC they said about 600,000 dead. What they are saying is within a
> certain degree of accuracy there are/were 400,000 to 800,000 dead.
How reliable though can a study be (or its methods) if its own authors admit
they could be off by as much as 33%? I can't think of a single other
study I've ever read about any subject where you start out with that type of
+/- ratio.
Now, do I believe a lot of innocent folks have died over in Iraq?
Absolutely. Does it matter to me if it's 600,000 or 25,000? Well, from an
objective standpoint, yes, as in order to justify the loss of human life you
have to be able to establish to me that your saving that many more
(understanding of course that at least for most of us, if it's your own life
at stake or one of your family members no amount of saved lives of strangers
will seem to justify the loss of your own). Once you get to a figure like
600,000 though that becomes nearly impossible to do, particularly given
there appeared to have been no WMD's and there is no reason to believe
200,000 people were dying every year in Iraq thanks to Saddam . As such, I
do think you need a study who's own authors are able to commit to doing a
little better job than +/- 33%.
musicaner
they WANT CHANGE and they GOT IT we GONNA HAVE TO BE GIVIM em HANDOUTS
from here TO ETERNITY NOW!!! no OBJECTION from the "THERE somone LIVIN
OFFA WELFARE SOMEWHERE IN THE USA "crowd. MEANWHILE aint NONE of these
CRONIES here or in THE CLUSTER have a NOTION of doin NOTHIN but LIVIN
OFFA the FAT OF THE LAND!! that they have the NOTION to even SHOW
themselves in PUBLIC
is not to be BELEIVED!! o yes, and they TALK JESUS. i forgot about
that. JESUS
was also SUPPOSED to have TOOK CARE OF BUSINESS!! meanwhile SHOOTIN
and BOMBIN goes ON LIKE SATURDAY at the PARK!!
Mr. America
> I believe most Iraqis who have answered this question preferred life under
> SH compared to what is going on now. Who are we to question their
> judgment?
>
> I don't understand why you would be offended. Compared to most Muslim
> countries Iraq was a Shang-ri-la. Wasn't it the most educated country in
> the Middle East? Universal health care? Women could drive, not wear
> scarfs, etc.? Was it any less secular than Lebanon? It had electricity,
> etc, in the cities that worked 24 hours a day. There was fuel and supplies
> (or at least until the US embargoes). How are they better off today?
I will answer the rest later, but you're changing Laurie's statement. I
have no problem with your saying life was better for many Iraqi's pre-war.
I'll even assume that it was, though I think you have to qualify that
statement with "in a sense" and "depending on who you were". I'd also add
that hopefully in time and under a more democratic rule, life for all
Iraqi's will become better (though at present it looks grim) . Regardless,
what Laurie said over >>> was life in Iraq was actually quite "pleasant"
under Saddam. I think that's a ridiculous statement given what was going
on over there (even though as you point out it may not have much worse and
in some senses better than other countries in the region). I again feel it
is akin to saying life in the Deep South was quite pleasant until Abe
Lincoln came along to muck everything up (or at a later period in US
history, that everything was just grand until those darn civil rights
movements in the 50's/60's albeit black folks had to drink out of different
water fountains). No one in there right mind would voluntarily have moved
to Iraq if they lived in a country like the US when Saddam was in power.
Mr. America
> What a crock of shit. Conservatives have always believed in empire and
> governmental authority.
ok one last brief response before I go:
they have? I was a political science major as an undergrad at 'SC and must
have missed that lecture. Conservatives (small or big C), I would
certainly agree believe in law and order and maintaining the status quo, so
therefore have an interest in a certain level governmental authority (though
how much authority and from where are issues of contention). I don't know
how you feel that philosophy would go hand in hand with going to war in
distant lands and empire building across the globe. Seems to me a truly
conservative person would never want to go to war unless they felt
personally threatened as it might screw up what they already have. I know
a football analogy seems silly in this context but when I think of a
conservative coach I don't think of someone who might implement the run and
shoot.
Anyway, I don't equate the leaders of today's Republican party with
conservatism. Do you?
William Innes
pre-emptive strike to be "pleasant" or some kind
of paradise (although I certainly don't doubt that there was a
time...centuries prior to our lifetimes...when Baghdad probably
was as close to paradise on Earth as one could get). As much as I agreed
overall with the premise of Michael Moore's
FAHRENHEIT 911 movie, one of the flawed aspects of his film is his trying to
cast Iraq in such a light (children playing on
playgrounds and such). Then again, I'd find it pretty disingenuous if
someone described life in the USA as "pleasant" or
as a "paradise" (all I'd have to do would be to take them to some parts of
Oakland, Detroit or Fresno to show then another
side of the coin).
But, overall, I think the use of the word "pleasant" might be an exercise in
quibbling a bit too much over semantics.'
I don't doubt that there were any tears flowing by the Kurds when the news
came that Saddam Hussein was
doing one last swing.
On the other hand, I think it's safe to say that more Iraqi citizens have
died as a result of our troops (along with any other
troops who are still around as part of the, uh, "coalition") than were
killed by Hussein.
And, yes, that would make Bush just as much...if not more...a war criminal
as Saddam Hussein.
SOB and bastard that Hussein was, he was the fearsome glue that held that
country together.
The smartest thing that could have been done would have been to let him walk
out of his holding cell,
give him back a palace or two, ask him to make life troublesome for Iran,
make him promise to be nice to the Kurds...and let him go back to
presiding over that country. As I noted >>>>> on RMAS, if we'd done this,
then we'd have our sons and daughters back home
by New Year's Day.
Too many of us drink the Kool-Aid that this administration, along with our
newspapers, radio/television news provide us.
Five years ago, most of us really didn't give a rat's ass about how well off
the people of Iraq were or weren't.
And though I wish none of them any harm nor an early life, I really still
don't place them as high on my list of priorities of concerns.
Well, I certainly don't give a rat's ass enough about them to wish either of
my children or the children of my family and friends to
be sent over to Iraq to fight on behalf of the well-being of the Iraqi
people.
But suddenly you've got folks who'd usually/always eyeball a person of
Persian descent with suspicion acting as though
it's imperative to their lives that these people get to live in a
purple-fingered democracy.
Give me a fucking break. I could understand the concern if there'd been
WMDs aimed directly at us (as in the USA).
I'm sure most folks would have gotten behind that mule.
But there weren't any...and most of the folks who had a lick of common sense
knew this even prior to the unjustified invasion.
So, the WMD motive suddenly gets name-changed to "Operation Iraqi
Freedom"...and folks are rooting for the
brown-skinned people whom they'd normally treat as the swarthiest and most
sub-human of species to walk on two legs.
Again, give me a fucking break. I can't believe how gullible folks are that
they can be so easily told to care...and damned if they
don't start caring.
It's sort of akin to the way Americans were suddenly sympathizing with, show
empathy for and caring deeply about the
people of Kuwait back during the first Gulf War. Meanwhile the network news
(way back then) would show the
young men of Kuwait...those who'd be of age to be soldiers... sipping drinks
with umbrellas in them along the French Riviera.
Leave it to ol' Black Joe to fight their war (since there wasn't any cotton
to be picked over there).
And, just as now, the American people actually gave a rat's ass about these
spoiled and pampered little rich pansies.
Again, give me a fucking break.
Sorry, but we are a nation filled with a lot of dumb-asses who'll drink
whatever Kool-Aid we're told to drink.
And we drink it whole-heartedly and blindly, not asking about its
ingredients or its after-effects.
Funny, but one would think that if the well-being of another nation's
people was going to be something that
we really and truly gave a rat's ass about, then we'd be appalled, spurred
into action of some sort and
filled with empathy/sympathy/tears for the people of Darfur. But I guess
we'll have to wait until we're asked
to drink that batch of Kool-Aid. But don't hold your breath. I don't think
that we're in great need of livestock, fruit, veggies, tobacco and cereal
these days. Maybe when we begin to run out of Cap'n Crunch, then we'll give
a rat's ass.
I'm thinking that the Kool-Aid has to have a few drops of oil in it in order
to be deemed drinkable...
So, I guess if a pleasant paradise awaits us in the next world, I feel
compelled to ask: where would you rather live
in Iraq under Saddam Hussein or in Darfur, where 250 million people face
rape, murder, displacement and torture on a daily basis??
I don't necessarily want my children to go there...but Darfur is a glass of
Kool-Aid I'd be more inclined to drink....
William Innes
No kidding. I think there was a time, though, that conservatives were
considered "isolationists" when it came to
international affairs. To the point where they wanted to stay clear of WWI
and WWII.
But we're talking way over half a century ago...
Mr. America
> Now, which country across an ocean did SH invade based on a lie
This charge if oft repeated, but never illustrated. What is the specific
lie this administration told? Certainly, I can go along with the idea that
this administration has been incompentent and relied on faulty intelligence,
possibly to the point of deliberately disregarding intelligence which
pointed a different direction, but that's not a lie in my book. Pig
headedness, sure. Wrong? Well I guess it depends on how strong the counter
intelligence looked at the time. A lie? No. A lie is something you tell
that you don't believe yourself. If there's one thing I believe about GWB
though it's is he believes every word he says.
Mr. America
"William Innes" <billy...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:5sDlh.56601$wP1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...
>> What a crock of shit. Conservatives have always believed in empire and
>> governmental authority. You were 'sold a bill of goods'? Stop it - my
>> side is hurting from laughing this hard.
>
> No kidding. I think there was a time, though, that conservatives were
> considered "isolationists" when it came to
> international affairs. To the point where they wanted to stay clear of
> WWI and WWII.
> But we're talking way over half a century ago...
I know it's a subtle nuisance that only someone with an interest in
political science and philosophy would care about, but conservative does not
and has never equaled American Republican. When I say conservative, I mean
it in a much different sense then what we are conditioned to think here in
the US. Now in upon further reflection, I said perhaps conservatives could
have rallied more against this war and possibly even prevented it if they
had not been sold a bill of goods on WMD's, but in reality I no longer can
be certain whether truly conservative people have any influence in the
Republican party anymore. Imperialism or spreading the gospel of either
your nation's politics or religion, no matter how noble your intentions may
be, is not conservative. In fact, bible thumping religious folks in some
respects are the least conservative folks of all, always on their next
crusade to save you from yourself claiming they willing to sacrifice their
own lives and families for a higher cause. Conservatives tend to like what
they got just fine and aint taking any chances with anything.
Mr. America
> I have exaggerated? Come on, the Pentaqgon won't even release the worst of
> the pictures. What does that tell you?
Not that anyone was gassed there, which you seemed to imply by conflating so
many separate incidents together into one paragraph.
> As for being guilty when were they tried, allowed and attorney. etc? Is
> that now you view of justice?
Of course not, I never said they were definitively guilty of anything in
particular, I just said these were not exactly choir boys either. If you go
back and read what you said:
"The US military gassed and tortured people in Iraq. Or do you not consider
Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Graib, etc. part of the crusade? If a person should
be executed for giving the order to gas his own people what should be done
to someone who gives the order to do the same to whole populations in
innocent cities in other countries that did absolutely nothing to his own
country?"
I think you'll see that you seemingly implied that Abu Graib involved the
gassing and torturing of "whole populations" of "innocent cities". That was
not what Abu Graib was all about and though I would not approve of torturing
anyone, I think you dramatized as to even what has been alleged by the most
liberal of folks to have taken place.
Mr. America
> And if they were all so guilty why were the vast majority of them
> eventually let go?
Most likely the same reason people are eventually let go here: expediency,
as some folks do no present the sort of danger worth the costs of continuing
to try to hold them. While no doubt there may have been a few folks at Abu
Graib were as innocent as the virgin mother Mary, I somehow doubt most of
them were. Again, I'm not saying that given anyone the moral right to
torture them, but it does present a slightly different situation than you
described as whole innocent cities being gassed.
> Get real - we rounded up anyone we could and tortured them so as to get
> them to rat out people.
I honestly don't understand how you can deride me above for being suspicious
about the innocence of the prisoners at Abu Graib (and again I am not saying
they were guilty of anything in particular or that they deserved to be
tortured if they in fact were "tortured" on a large scale basis, just that
these guys weren't in the local glee club either and the allegations against
American soldiers there are a little different than you implied), and then
in the next breath so emphatically accuse our soldiers of "round[ing] up
anyone [they] could and tortur[ing] them so as to get them to rat out
people." What evidence do you have of this? If only some, or not much,
then isn't that an unfair sweeping proclamation to make?
>> In terms of Fallujah, certainly the most egregious of what you cite above
>> and something that has raised my eyebrows, I think the verdict is still
>> out on exactly what happened there, under who's orders and why.
>
> I give up. Stay in your cocoon. I'm sure the mayor of Falluhah asked the
> US military to burn the skin off the children who lived in the city.
Look I'm not saying what happened there was a good thing and it appears many
innocent lives were lost in the process, but you can't equate attacking a
military target and innocent people dying in the process (however
horrifically) with gassing your own fellow country men or having them hanged
just because they disagree with you. Or are you telling me GWB gassing
folks over at the DNC or having Nancy Pelosi hanged tomorrow would seem no
worse for the state of the nation than anything that's happened to date.
You could argue I guess that in a country like Iraq Saddam did what he had
to do to stay in power Mafia style, but that doesn't make him more morally
acceptable than GWB.
> Do you think SH personally signed any orders for any of the deaths he
> caused?
I would think so, or more than likely he just verbally ordered it done after
consulting with his yes men. I don't think anyone said boo in Iraq without
Saddam's approval. On the other hand, I do think a lot of things happen in
our country's military operations without the president's prior-knowledge or
approval.
Mr. America
> Then again, I'd find it pretty disingenuous if someone described life in
> the USA as "pleasant" or
> as a "paradise" (all I'd have to do would be to take them to some parts of
> Oakland, Detroit or Fresno to show then another
> side of the coin).
True, though I certainly think it would be fair to say that in 2006
Americans do not have to worry about their homes being ransacked in the
middle of the night and/or getting killed because they express opposition to
our leader(s) or are of the wrong heritage. I do not know if that makes
life here more pleasant, but I suspect we all have a much better chance of
seeing our golden years than the folks in Iraq.
> On the other hand, I think it's safe to say that more Iraqi citizens have
> died as a result of our troops (along with any other troops who are still
> around as part of the, uh, "coalition") than were killed by Hussein.
> And, yes, that would make Bush just as much...if not more...a war criminal
> as Saddam Hussein.
I think the only way you can make that leap is if you believe that there is
no moral difference between going after military targets knowing innocent
people will die and having no qualms with deliberately targeting innocent
people that have nothing to do with the military for your own political
gain. As a philosophical person, I can certainly see the question, "well
who gets to decide what a military target is", and how much difference is
there really between attacking say the WTC and attacking an Iraqi city
knowing so many innocent people will die, but I'm not going to make that
leap. There's a difference to me.
> Five years ago, most of us really didn't give a rat's ass about how well
> off the people of Iraq were or weren't.
> And though I wish none of them any harm nor an early life, I really still
> don't place them as high on my list of priorities of concerns.
I agree and concur with this. Knowing what I do now, I do not think there
is any justification for having gone to war with Iraq that could justify the
loss of our young men and women. With that said though, we're there now so
I'm afraid we're stuck there until we can come up with a way to insure we do
not throw the region into worse chaos then it was in before we got there.
> But suddenly you've got folks who'd usually/always eyeball a person of
> Persian descent with suspicion acting as though
> it's imperative to their lives that these people get to live in a
> purple-fingered democracy.
In spite of public comments to the contrary, I really don't think most in
the administration really care too much one way or the other about the
people of Iraq, but rather what bringing democracy to countries like Iraq
can do for the stabilization of the region (and if you're more cynical, how
it might make oil a little easier to get access to).
> Give me a fucking break. I could understand the concern if there'd been
> WMDs aimed directly at us (as in the USA).
> I'm sure most folks would have gotten behind that mule.
> But there weren't any...and most of the folks who had a lick of common
> sense knew this even prior to the unjustified invasion.
???? I think most Americans assumed the opposite based on the information
provided. And I don't believe it was against common sense to suspect a
ruthless dictator with supposedly 9 billion dollars in net worth who had
used chemical weapons in the past would have the capability to possess them.
The real issue to me was would he dumb enough to actually use them knowing
it would be certain annihilation for his regime. I personally didn't
believe he would and therefore thought the war was a bad idea from the
start, but as no one's paying any of us for our insider information on
international affairs, I don't think any of us really knew anything.
> So, the WMD motive suddenly gets name-changed to "Operation Iraqi
> Freedom"...and folks are rooting for the
> brown-skinned people whom they'd normally treat as the swarthiest and most
> sub-human of species to walk on two legs.
> Again, give me a fucking break. I can't believe how gullible folks are
> that they can be so easily told to care...and damned if they
> don't start caring.
Do you really think that's what happened? I don't get the impression most
people have been moved to care about Iraquis, rather I think people have
been moved to believe the Middle East is in complete chaos and that said
chaos presents a threat to us and therefore the situation must be
stabilized. GWB has his own vision of what will cause that stabilization
and I think most went along with it to a point until they realized there was
no real threat and worse now are seeing the region looks even more unstable
than before as a result of the Bush plan.
> Sorry, but we are a nation filled with a lot of dumb-asses who'll drink
> whatever Kool-Aid we're told to drink.
> And we drink it whole-heartedly and blindly, not asking about its
> ingredients or its after-effects.
Though partially true, I also think thats a little unfair to people. Most
people are blue collar/middle class folks who have full-time jobs, mortgages
to pay and families to provide for and hardly have enough free time to
become introspective about themselves, let alone global politics. People
aren't dumb so much as practical.
Mr. America
> I know it's a subtle nuisance that only someone with an interest in
> political science and philosophy would care about
that's right a nuisance i tell you, a nuisance!!!
obiously i meant nuance and my typing tonight continues to go downhill
gumboman
You want to compare the Iraqis to blacks in the South. Fine, let's do it.
Wars were supposedly fought to help Iraqis and help southern blacks
(according to your logic). Were blacks in the south better or worse off
after the war? Are Iraqis better or worse off now? The point Laurie is
making is the US fought a war based on a lie to supposedly help a certain
group of people and then made the people's lives they were trying to help
worse.
And your rebuttal is ' yea, but SH was a bad guy'. So fucking what? There
are a lot of bad guys in the world. Do you plan on going to war with all of
them?
JH
"Mr. America" <bornin...@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:OOAlh.4145$x67....@newssvr17.news.prodigy.net...
Mr. America
> Do you really think you've made a point here? Go back and reread this.
>
> You want to compare the Iraqis to blacks in the South. Fine, let's do it.
> Wars were supposedly fought to help Iraqis and help southern blacks
> (according to your logic). Were blacks in the south better or worse off
> after the war? Are Iraqis better or worse off now? The point Laurie is
> making is the US fought a war based on a lie to supposedly help a certain
> group of people and then made the people's lives they were trying to help
> worse.
>
> And your rebuttal is ' yea, but SH was a bad guy'. So fucking what? There
> are a lot of bad guys in the world. Do you plan on going to war with all
> of them?
Jack I like ya, but sometimes I think you would rather make up your own
person to argue with than engage in the conversation with the actual person
at hand. For the 100th, time I was against the war in Iraq from the get go.
Even then, I felt it was probably unnecessary as it didn''t seem to me,
average joe on the street, that Iraq posed a genuine threat US soil.
Moreover, I don't feel we can just force our vision of the world upon
another nation and reasonably anticipate the people of such a country will
welcome it with open arms. Finally, I also don't believe life has gotten
much better in Iraq since Saddam has been ousted and in some respects it has
gotten worse for the Iraqi people. But all of that is besides the point.
Laurie made a claim I disagreed with and found objectionable. And that
claim was that was life was "pleasant" under Saddam Hussein. I have
suggested that is an absurd statement to make particularly for some one who
has presumably never lived or even visited that country and probably never
would. That was my bone of contention. This thread has gone other places
since then, but I really don't see how you can argue with that portion of
what I've said. Maybe it's much to do about nothing in your eyes, but
aren't most threads.
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:9pmdnQKhEISjSQvY...@giganews.com...
>
>> I have exaggerated? Come on, the Pentaqgon won't even release the worst
>> of the pictures. What does that tell you?
>
>
> Not that anyone was gassed there, which you seemed to imply by conflating
> so many separate incidents together into one paragraph.
>
No one said there was any gas at Abu Graib. Why do you keep bringing up this
business about conflating? There was torture at AG and gas at Fallujah. All
you're doing is trying to avoid admitting these events occurred and that
makes smirk as bad as SH. Stop it with the dilly-dallying.
>
>> As for being guilty when were they tried, allowed and attorney. etc? Is
>> that now you view of justice?
>
> Of course not, I never said they were definitively guilty of anything in
> particular, I just said these were not exactly choir boys either. If you
> go back and read what you said:
>
> "The US military gassed and tortured people in Iraq. Or do you not
> consider Fallujah, Ramadi, Abu Graib, etc. part of the crusade? If a
> person should
> be executed for giving the order to gas his own people what should be done
> to someone who gives the order to do the same to whole populations in
> innocent cities in other countries that did absolutely nothing to his own
> country?"
>
> I think you'll see that you seemingly implied that Abu Graib involved the
> gassing and torturing of "whole populations" of "innocent cities". That
> was not what Abu Graib was all about and though I would not approve of
> torturing anyone, I think you dramatized as to even what has been alleged
> by the most liberal of folks to have taken place.
>
>
I assumed you had kept yourself informed enough that you wouldn't need to
have everything spelled out in detail. There was gas here and torture there.
I'm sure you know which is which. I take it if this is the only problem you
have with the statement then you admit the US did these things and the smirk
is no better than SH - since you don't seem to be arguing these events
didn't occur.
JH
musicaner
the COUNTRY FORMERLY KNOW as IRAQ is BASICALLY KAPUT!! best option is
TO VAMOOSE asap!!! otherwise all we GONNA DO is PROP up a GOVT of SHIA
AYATOLLAS and MULLAS!!! and THE CRONY that wanna some EASY DOUGH
with their MONEY CRONY OVER there!!! absolutey NO REASON to remain on
over there.
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:9pmdnQKhEISjSQvY...@giganews.com...
>
>> And if they were all so guilty why were the vast majority of them
>> eventually let go?
>
> Most likely the same reason people are eventually let go here: expediency,
> as some folks do no present the sort of danger worth the costs of
> continuing to try to hold them. While no doubt there may have been a few
> folks at Abu Graib were as innocent as the virgin mother Mary, I somehow
> doubt most of them were. Again, I'm not saying that given anyone the
> moral right to torture them, but it does present a slightly different
> situation than you described as whole innocent cities being gassed.
>
>> Get real - we rounded up anyone we could and tortured them so as to get
>> them to rat out people.
>
> I honestly don't understand how you can deride me above for being
> suspicious about the innocence of the prisoners at Abu Graib (and again I
> am not saying they were guilty of anything in particular or that they
> deserved to be tortured if they in fact were "tortured" on a large scale
> basis, just that these guys weren't in the local glee club either and the
> allegations against American soldiers there are a little different than
> you implied), and then in the next breath so emphatically accuse our
> soldiers of "round[ing] up anyone [they] could and tortur[ing] them so as
> to get them to rat out people." What evidence do you have of this? If
> only some, or not much, then isn't that an unfair sweeping proclamation to
> make?
>
OK - I give up. Someone else can take it from here.
What evidence? Oh, I don't know. Maybe because they have admitted as much.
>>> In terms of Fallujah, certainly the most egregious of what you cite
>>> above and something that has raised my eyebrows, I think the verdict is
>>> still out on exactly what happened there, under who's orders and why.
>>
>> I give up. Stay in your cocoon. I'm sure the mayor of Falluhah asked the
>> US military to burn the skin off the children who lived in the city.
>
>
> Look I'm not saying what happened there was a good thing and it appears
> many innocent lives were lost in the process, but you can't equate
> attacking a military target and innocent people dying in the process
> (however horrifically) with gassing your own fellow country men or having
> them hanged just because they disagree with you. Or are you telling me
> GWB gassing folks over at the DNC or having Nancy Pelosi hanged tomorrow
> would seem no worse for the state of the nation than anything that's
> happened to date. You could argue I guess that in a country like Iraq
> Saddam did what he had to do to stay in power Mafia style, but that
> doesn't make him more morally acceptable than GWB.
>
>
>> Do you think SH personally signed any orders for any of the deaths he
>> caused?
>
> I would think so, or more than likely he just verbally ordered it done
> after consulting with his yes men. I don't think anyone said boo in Iraq
> without Saddam's approval. On the other hand, I do think a lot of things
> happen in our country's military operations without the president's
> prior-knowledge or approval.
>
>
OK - I'm convinced. Smirk is a saint and all the Iraqis at Abu Graib were
there because they fucked the Virgin Mary. And the kids who had their skin
burned off at Fallujah deserved it because they didn't have the good sense
to be born Christians.
JH
gumboman
Yes.
JH
gumboman
Yea, they hadn't figured out how to use Keyne's theories yet to run multi
trillion dollar deficits. They thought they might actually have to pay up
instead of sending the bill to their kids and grandkids.
JH
gumboman
>
> "William Innes" <billy...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> news:5sDlh.56601$wP1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...
>
>>> What a crock of shit. Conservatives have always believed in empire and
>>> governmental authority. You were 'sold a bill of goods'? Stop it - my
>>> side is hurting from laughing this hard.
>>
>> No kidding. I think there was a time, though, that conservatives were
>> considered "isolationists" when it came to
>> international affairs. To the point where they wanted to stay clear of
>> WWI and WWII.
>> But we're talking way over half a century ago...
>
> I know it's a subtle nuisance that only someone with an interest in
> political science and philosophy would care about, but conservative does
> not and has never equaled American Republican. When I say conservative,
> I mean it in a much different sense then what we are conditioned to think
> here in the US. Now in upon further reflection, I said perhaps
> conservatives could have rallied more against this war and possibly even
> prevented it if they had not been sold a bill of goods on WMD's, but in
> reality I no longer can be certain whether truly conservative people have
> any influence in the Republican party anymore.
LMAO.
> Imperialism or spreading the gospel of either your nation's politics or
> religion, no matter how noble your intentions may be, is not conservative.
Yea, the kings and their 'liberals' conspirators went out and forcefully
took over all those colonies.
> In fact, bible thumping religious folks in some respects are the least
> conservative folks of all, always on their next crusade to save you from
> yourself claiming they willing to sacrifice their own lives and families
> for a higher cause. Conservatives tend to like what they got just fine
> and aint taking any chances with anything.
>
Poor men want to be rich and rich men want to be king and a king ain't
satisfied until he rules everything.
Lots of liberals supporting those kings wasn't there?
JH
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:KPqdnXs6hfpaTQvY...@giganews.com...
>
>> Now, which country across an ocean did SH invade based on a lie
>
> This charge if oft repeated, but never illustrated. What is the specific
> lie this administration told?
SH had WMD's. It was known and reported by the inspectors previous to the
invasion, despite the inspectors going to the exact locations they were
given by the US (who had been given these so called WMD locations by the
defectors), that there were no weapons. That's a fact. Despite not finding
anything Bush, Cheney, Blair and others repeated these assertions, including
the assertion that somehow SH had a nuclear weapon that could reach London
in 45 minutes. These were lies and those who stated these things knew they
were false at the time.
That's why the inspectors were pulled previous to the invasion. They weren't
finding anything and were mucking up the plans. Simple as that. It was all a
fucking lie.
It was reported a 21 year old boy from my wife's hometown died yesterday in
Iraq. Stop taking up for these lying fucks.
> Certainly, I can go along with the idea that this administration has been
> incompentent and relied on faulty intelligence,
OH bullshit - you're not this fucking stupid.
> possibly to the point of deliberately disregarding intelligence which
> pointed a different direction, but that's not a lie in my book.
Of course not - that's conservative philosophy.
> Pig headedness, sure. Wrong? Well I guess it depends on how strong the
> counter intelligence looked at the time. A lie? No. A lie is something
> you tell that you don't believe yourself. If there's one thing I believe
> about GWB though it's is he believes every word he says.
>
LMAO - OK, whatever you say.
JH
gumboman
>
>
> the COUNTRY FORMERLY KNOW as IRAQ is BASICALLY KAPUT!! best option is
> TO VAMOOSE asap!!! otherwise all we GONNA DO is PROP up a GOVT of SHIA
> AYATOLLAS and MULLAS!!! and THE CRONY that wanna some EASY DOUGH
> with their MONEY CRONY OVER there!!! absolutey NO REASON to remain on
> over there.
>
No, no, no - it's the new south. An enlightened paradise in an oasis of
Muslim terrorists looking to kill innocent Americans who never did a single,
solitary thing to anyone.
Although it does kinda look like the Iraqis aren't taking any more kindly to
the carpetbaggers than did the Mississippians.
JH
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:6qednVgvEoHf3ArY...@giganews.com...
>> Do you really think you've made a point here? Go back and reread this.
>>
>> You want to compare the Iraqis to blacks in the South. Fine, let's do it.
>> Wars were supposedly fought to help Iraqis and help southern blacks
>> (according to your logic). Were blacks in the south better or worse off
>> after the war? Are Iraqis better or worse off now? The point Laurie is
>> making is the US fought a war based on a lie to supposedly help a certain
>> group of people and then made the people's lives they were trying to help
>> worse.
>>
>> And your rebuttal is ' yea, but SH was a bad guy'. So fucking what? There
>> are a lot of bad guys in the world. Do you plan on going to war with all
>> of them?
>
> Jack I like ya, but sometimes I think you would rather make up your own
> person to argue with than engage in the conversation with the actual
> person at hand. For the 100th, time I was against the war in Iraq from
> the get go. Even then, I felt it was probably unnecessary as it didn''t
> seem to me, average joe on the street, that Iraq posed a genuine threat US
> soil. Moreover, I don't feel we can just force our vision of the world
> upon another nation and reasonably anticipate the people of such a country
> will welcome it with open arms. Finally, I also don't believe life has
> gotten much better in Iraq since Saddam has been ousted and in some
> respects it has gotten worse for the Iraqi people. But all of that is
> besides the point.
>
No, it isn't 'besides' the point.
> Laurie made a claim I disagreed with and found objectionable. And that
> claim was that was life was "pleasant" under Saddam Hussein. I have
> suggested that is an absurd statement to make particularly for some one
> who has presumably never lived or even visited that country and probably
> never would. That was my bone of contention. This thread has gone other
> places since then, but I really don't see how you can argue with that
> portion of what I've said. Maybe it's much to do about nothing in your
> eyes, but aren't most threads.
>
Mr. America - you went way beyond Laurie's statement. You delved into moral
equivalency, the destruction of the south, what else - I forget now. Would I
want to live in Baghdad? I doubt it very much. But to try to justify what
the US has done in Baghdad (Iraq) by saying well, it's not as bad as what it
was under SH; well, that simply doesn't seem to be true. It appears from
everything we see in the papers to be much worse. Then to try to absolve the
smirk for his part in this by saying he was acting as a military leader -
that's just more than I can accept from a SC grad and intellect of your
renown. All I'm saying is - you (we) know better so don't try to bullshit
us. SH and the smirk are the same sort of scumbags and you'll do the
conservative movement a great service when you pass the message along. :)
JH
gumboman
Mr. America - I don't even know where to start. I'm finding it hard to
believe I'm even reading this. Ok - whatever you
say...........................
JH
Mr. America
> Yea, the kings and their 'liberals' conspirators went out and forcefully
> took over all those colonies.
Groan. I must have missed where I said the folks who supported colonization
and imperialism were liberals. Jack have you ever taken any classes in
political science or philosophy? Even if you haven't and aren't aware of
just how many different ideologies there are out there, I'm sure you are at
least tacitly aware there have been a number extremely diverse political
ideologies/philosophies historically beyond Conservatism and Liberalism.
Moreover, Conservatism itself (big C) has only been around as a "ideology"
for about 200 years. Liberalism only about 100 years beyond that and you
might be in for a bit of a surprise to find out what classic liberalism is
all about.
> Lots of liberals supporting those kings wasn't there?
Again are you even reading what I write or do you just want to tell me what
to write from here on out so then we can dispense with the formalities and
you can have the sparring partner you apparently want here (i.e. someone
more like Patrick)? If you're going to interject points I never made into
my arguments so you can then turn around and run through your talking points
for the day, I think I'm going to bow out.
Mr. America
> Mr. America - you went way beyond Laurie's statement. You delved into
> moral equivalency, the destruction of the south, what else - I forget now.
> Would I want to live in Baghdad? I doubt it very much. But to try to
> justify what the US has done in Baghdad (Iraq) by saying well, it's not as
> bad as what it was under SH;
ARGH! But I never said that! I never said anything close to that. And
that is what is frustrating about this whole conversation. You are
assigning to me statements and beliefs I don't hold and then chastizing me
for them. Additionally, for some reason you remain hung up on this Deep
South analogy and taking it in a direction I never intended. ALL I
INITIALLY STATED WAS:
1. It is ridiculous and offensive to state pre-war Iraq was a "pleasant"
place to live. NOTE: THIS DOES NOT MEAN I BELIEVE POST-WAR IS "PLEASANT"
NOR DOES IT EVEN MEAN I THINK IT'S MORE PLEASANT NOW THAN IT WAS THEN.
RATHER, IT SIMPLY MEANS IRAQ WAS NEVER A PLEASANT PLACE TO LIVE FOR A LOT OF
PEOPLE UNDER SADDAM'S WATCH AND TO SUGGEST THAT IT WAS IS OFFENSIVE.
2. It is to me nearly as ridiculous (though at least I can follow the steps
in my head), to hear someone argue with a straight face that GWB is more
morally reprehensible and a bigger war criminal than Saddam Hussein.
NOTE: THIS DOES NOT MEAN I SUPPORT THE WAR EFFORT NOR DOES IT MEAN I ENDORSE
GWB AS OUR PRESIDENT. IT JUST MEANS SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS ONE OF THE MOST
BRUTAL DICATATORS OF OUR TIME AND YOU CANNOT TELL ME WITH A STRAIGHT FACE
THAT GWB IS GOING TO BE REMEMBERED IN THE SAME MANNER. FRANKLY, THE GUY
IS ABOUT AS SCARY AND RUTHLESS (AND UNFORTUNATELY AS PRESIDENTIAL) AS GOMER
PYLE.
3. On a related note, I believe one of the reasons Saddam is a much more
morally reprehensible figure is because he deliberately executed seemingly
anyone with an opposing point of view and had no qualms deliberately
attacking innocent civilians (his own countrymen no less) in the most
barbaric of ways for purely personal political gain. He did so without
apology or remorse.
Jack, you apparently disagree with all 3 of the above statements and I'd be
interested to know how and why as I cant fathom how anyone could, but if
you're going to argue those points it has to be point by point and without
off the wall references to how I must think GWB is a really swell guy, or
feel that the war in Iraq has been going great, or that the US Civil War and
the War in Iraq are the exact same things. Why? Because I never said any
of them. Nor do I believe them.
Mr. America
> OK - I give up. Someone else can take it from here.
>
> What evidence? Oh, I don't know. Maybe because they have admitted as much.
Wait, HOLD UP. Are you telling me you have admissions from the United
States Government and/or individual soldiers on the ground that says the US
and/or coalition forces systematically and I quote "rounded up ANYONE [they]
could and TORTURED them so as to get them to rat out people." You have
actual admissions of that. Not admissions of isolated problems here or
there within certain commands, not admissions primarily related to problems
with enemy combatants, but admissions of a systematic plan to and wait let
me repeat this again to: "round up ANYONE [they] could and TORTURE them so
as to get them to rat out people." Our guys said that? They were going
into innocent civilians homes, rounding em up like cattle, bringing back to
the prison and then torturing them into talking.
I tell you what Jack, if you got that, I will fold up my tent right now, get
out my checkbook and write a large check out to the liberal organization of
your choice and then Tuesday morning sign up for my Demcratic Party
membership.
Mr. America
> No one said there was any gas at Abu Graib.
It seemed as though you were implying that the way I read the post.
> Why do you keep bringing up this business about conflating?
Because if you want someone to address a specific charge, it's important to
define what that charge is as well as to be certain the other debater
actually remembers or knows what he or she is talking about. I have no
idea what you know or remember about Abu Graib, but the way you phrased the
paragraph made it seem like you were either asserting that Abu Graib was at
least partially about the gassing of prisoners and/or that Abu Graib was
somehow related to your concurrent assertion that the US had been
systematically and deliberately attacking (and annihilating) wholly innocent
populations throughout Iraq. You made absolutely no distinction between any
of the incidents you cited and seemed to tie them all up in one inseparable
package. Now I know you're a pretty smart guy, but heck, I cite to the
wrong thing all the time or use one word or incident when I mean another.
These sorts of things happen and it's important to clarify them. Frankly, I
have no idea what other people's understanding of Abu Graib is and for all I
know there's some publication out there which presents a completely
different picture than what I recall offhand.
Moreover, since you have just recently followed up those earlier comments
with the emphatic assertion that there have been actual admissions from the
US Government and/or soldiers on the ground that the US had a systematic
policy in place in Iraq to and I quote: "round up ANYONE [they] could and
TORTURE them so as to get them to rat out people" then I don't think it's
unreasonable for me to wonder whether you feel Abu Graib went beyond what I
understand it to have been about.
Mr. America
> Mr. America - I don't even know where to start. I'm finding it hard to
> believe I'm even reading this. Ok - whatever you
> say...........................
If we're going to go down the route of getting a little testy and not
believing what we're reading, how's this:
How can anyone who seriously believes the leaders of this country are lying
mass murders and war criminals (who are so bad they even put Saddam Hussein
to shame) sit around all day and not do anything of substance about it?
Sure maybe such an individual gives some money to an-anti Bush faction, or
is a a part of some protests, votes for the opposition party or posts their
laments on the internet all day, but dang if I truly believed GWB and
company were as bad as some of you all say they are, I would either:
1. Pack up my things and be on the first bus out of here tomorrow and not
return again until the current administration had been outsted and/or locked
away in jail; or,
2. try to organize a group of folks to take the sick SOB's out dead or
alive.
Keep in mind to hear you and Laurie talk, we aren't just talking about some
leaders you vehemently disagree with or think are dishonest crooks, you're
talking about people you apparently actually believe (and insist you are not
just engaging in hyperbole) are so bad, they are worse than one of the most
brutal dictators in recent history. How do you stay under those
circumstances? Go to work and allow your tax dollars to indirectly support
the GWB agenda? Aren't you afraid the CIA is gonna come to your home any
night now and ransack your home, if not off you?
Anyway, as a non-violent person and someone who values his own life, in my
case it could only be option 1 above if I really thought the way you did,
but not one day could I just sit around here, go to work, pay my taxes, and
tacitly allow these guys to continue to stay in power all the while using my
tax dollars to support their agenda.
As such, I can't really believe you guys, deep down, can possibly believe
what you're saying or otherwise you wouldn't be here to discuss it.
gumboman
Google Abu Graib. One of the first things that comes up is Wiki. Here is one
of their sentences:
According to the International Red Cross, close to 90% of the people being
held are not guilty of the allegations and many were picked-up almost at
random by US patrols on sweeps
************
Then they have this to say:
According to the Washington Post, the coalition forces regularly use
"torture-like" methods during the interrogation of suspects. Such methods
were reportedly applied to people to find the hiding place of Saddam Hussein
in Operation Red Dawn. British troops have also tortured Iraqi prisoners of
war. Such treatment violates article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention and
the USA and Britain's official policies on combat and occupation. Despite
numerous complaints by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, it took
a year before the first US soldier was court-martialed for their actions
concerning abuse of Iraqis.
*************
On the very next article listed after Wiki we find this:
Meanwhile, Rolling Stone got its hands on the classified annexes to the
prison report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba. The annexes accuse high-ranking
military officials of setting conditions for torture in Abu Ghraib. In
particular, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who currently runs all of the prisons
in Iraq, was sent to Abu Ghraib in order to speed up the
intelligence-gathering process. Miller recommended that the jailers should
become "actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful
exploitation of the internees." The end result was entirely predictable:
A former Army intelligence officer tells Rolling Stone that the intent of
Miller's report was clear to everyone involved: "It means treat the
detainees like shit until they will sell their mother for a blanket, some
food without bugs in it and some sleep."
The Rolling Stone story is deeply disturbing. Worse, perhaps, was the recent
admission by senior Army criminal investigators, that the abused inmates had
"little or no intelligence value to the United States."
***********
Then after this article is a Salon article which contains the following:
Our purpose for presenting this large catalog of images remains much the
same as it was four weeks ago when we first published a much smaller number
of Abu Ghraib photos that had not previously appeared in the media. As
Walter Shapiro wrote, Abu Ghraib symbolizes "the failure of a democratic
society to investigate well-documented abuses by its soldiers." The
documentary record of the abuse has come out in the media in a piecemeal
fashion, often lacking context or description. Meanwhile, our
representatives in Washington have allowed the facts about what occurred to
fester in Pentagon reports without acting on their disturbing conclusions.
We believe this extensive, if deeply disturbing, CID archive of photographic
evidence belongs in the public record as documentation toward further
investigation and accountability.
While we want readers to understand what it is we're presenting, we also
want to make clear its limitations. The 279-photo CID timeline and other
material obtained by Salon do not include the agency's conclusions about the
evidence it gathered. The captions, which Salon has chosen to reproduce
almost verbatim (see methodology), contain a significant number of missing
names of soldiers and detainees, misspellings and other minor discrepancies;
we don't know if the CID addressed these issues in other drafts or
documents. Also, the CID materials contain two different forensic reports.
The first, completed June 6, 2004, in Tikrit, Iraq, analyzed a seized laptop
computer and eight CDs and found 1,325 images and 93 videos of "suspected
detainee abuse." The second report, completed a month later in Fort Belvoir,
Va., analyzed 12 CDs and found "approximately 280 individual digital photos
and 19 digital movies depicting possible detainee abuse." It remains unclear
why and how the CID narrowed its set of forensic evidence to the 279 images
and 19 videos that we reproduce here.
Although the photos are a disturbing visual account of particular incidents
inside Abu Ghraib prison, they should not be viewed as representing the sum
total of what occurred. As the Schlesinger report states in its convoluted
prose: "We do know that some of the egregious abuses at Abu Ghraib which
were not photographed did occur during interrogation sessions and that
abuses during interrogation sessions occurred elsewhere." Also, the
documentation doesn't include many details about the detainees who were
abused and tortured at Abu Ghraib. While the International Committee of the
Red Cross report from February 2004 cited military intelligence officers as
estimating that "between 70 to 90 percent of persons deprived of their
liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake," much remains unknown about
the detainees abused in the "hard site" where the Army housed violent and
dangerous detainees and where much of the abuse took place.
Finally, it's critical to recognize that this set of images from Abu Ghraib
is only one snapshot of systematic tactics the United States has used in
four-plus years of the global war on terror. There have been many
allegations of abuse, torture and other practices that violate international
law, from holding prisoners without charging them at Guantánamo Bay and
other secretive U.S. military bases and prison facilities around the world
to the practice of "rendition," or the transporting of detainees to foreign
countries whose regimes use torture, to ongoing human rights violations
inside detention facilities in Iraq. Abu Ghraib in fall 2003 may have been
its own particular hell, but the variations of individual abuse perpetrated
appear to be exceptional in only one way: They were photographed and filmed.
*********
I suppose if I cared to do your homework I could go past the first half of
the first page and find more (there looks to be 1,940,000 entries) but
frankly I'm already sick to my stomach. But yea, it certainly appears to be
the case that people were rounded up, tortured until they would 'sell their
mothers' and in 90% of the cases appear to be innocent. And yes, this was
approved military policy.
But hey - don't pull your head out of the sand and write that check. I hear
smirk is still a saint down there.
JH
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:se6dnbnjDoSX0grY...@giganews.com...
>
>
>
>> Yea, the kings and their 'liberals' conspirators went out and forcefully
>> took over all those colonies.
>
> Groan. I must have missed where I said the folks who supported
> colonization and imperialism were liberals. Jack have you ever taken any
> classes in political science or philosophy?
Yes.. quite a few actually but I wasn't aware we were writing foot-noted
term papers while posting on the Internet and playing poker on the Internet
at the same time. This Internets is a great thing don't you think? I can
bullshit with someone in Cali while playing poker with someone from Poland
all at the same time.
> Even if you haven't and aren't aware of just how many different ideologies
> there are out there, I'm sure you are at least tacitly aware there have
> been a number extremely diverse political ideologies/philosophies
> historically beyond Conservatism and Liberalism. Moreover, Conservatism
> itself (big C) has only been around as a "ideology" for about 200 years.
> Liberalism only about 100 years beyond that and you might be in for a bit
> of a surprise to find out what classic liberalism is all about.
>
Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all.
>> Lots of liberals supporting those kings wasn't there?
>
> Again are you even reading what I write or do you just want to tell me
> what to write from here on out so then we can dispense with the
> formalities and you can have the sparring partner you apparently want here
> (i.e. someone more like Patrick)? If you're going to interject points I
> never made into my arguments so you can then turn around and run through
> your talking points for the day, I think I'm going to bow out.
>
Yes, I'm reading what you write and you're trying to feed me a line of
bullshit. What some professor told you conservatism was about in the ivory
tower world as opposed to how it has conducted itself in the real world. Are
we interested in theories or facts? Conservatives told me in 1980 supply
side economics would work. They had it all figured out in Laffler's
classroom (at SC no less). It was so simple they wrote it on a napkin if I
remember correctly. It hasn't balanced a budget to this day. Why? They had
the math wrong. People would have to work about 62 hours a day to generate
enough revenue at lower tax rates to balance the budget. Trouble is, there
are only 24 hours in a day and you can't work all of them.
I'm sure the polisci/philosophy departments at SC have individuals that
haven't been as wrong as Laffler so I don't want to sound as if I'm dissing
SC as a whole but if I read you correctly your academic view of the world is
that modern day Republicans don't represent 'real' conservatism. But of
course they do. That's their self described label. Conservatives have also
been the group of people over time that have gravitated to increased
governmental (executive) power as opposed to increased rights for the
individual. Sure, that's boiled down into a simple sentence when I'm sure
some professor at SC discussed the subject for an entire semester but it
isn't self described liberals that are attempting to redefine the Bill of
Rights, increase executive authority, carry out unprovoked wars of
aggression, etc.
No, like Patrick, you want to feed me a line of BS and I'm supposed to
simply believe whatever you say. OK - current Republicans don't represent
true conservatives. Then who are they? The conservative movement certainly
embraced the neocons. Remember, they left the Democratic Party (liberals)
because they could find no followers for their ideas but they are now
implanted in many offices within a self described conservative
administration. If you folks didn't want to be associated with them maybe
you should have jettisoned them long ago as the liberals did. Hell, the same
clowns haven't worked only in this administration. They worked for Reagan
and Bush before this. How many administrations must they work in before I
can make a simple statement that they are part of the modern conservative
movement?
Geesh ............I'm not looking for a sparring partner or anything else.
YOU were the one who attacked Laurie and then made any number of completely
erroneous statements as to the situation in Iraq, etc. When did I say, 'hey,
Mr. America, can you come out and play with me today?"
JH
gumboman
>
> "gumboman" <noe...@noemail.com> wrote in message
> news:4aWdnaC16PASygrY...@giganews.com...
>
>> Mr. America - you went way beyond Laurie's statement. You delved into
>> moral equivalency, the destruction of the south, what else - I forget
>> now. Would I want to live in Baghdad? I doubt it very much. But to try to
>> justify what the US has done in Baghdad (Iraq) by saying well, it's not
>> as bad as what it was under SH;
>
>
> ARGH! But I never said that! I never said anything close to that. And
> that is what is frustrating about this whole conversation. You are
> assigning to me statements and beliefs I don't hold and then chastizing me
> for them. Additionally, for some reason you remain hung up on this Deep
> South analogy and taking it in a direction I never intended. ALL I
> INITIALLY STATED WAS:
>
> 1. It is ridiculous and offensive to state pre-war Iraq was a "pleasant"
> place to live. NOTE: THIS DOES NOT MEAN I BELIEVE POST-WAR IS "PLEASANT"
> NOR DOES IT EVEN MEAN I THINK IT'S MORE PLEASANT NOW THAN IT WAS THEN.
> RATHER, IT SIMPLY MEANS IRAQ WAS NEVER A PLEASANT PLACE TO LIVE FOR A LOT
> OF PEOPLE UNDER SADDAM'S WATCH AND TO SUGGEST THAT IT WAS IS OFFENSIVE.
>
But the statement wasn't meant to convey the meaning you attributed to it.
But I get the rules now. You can misrepresent the statements of others but
no one can do that to you. OK - got it.
> 2. It is to me nearly as ridiculous (though at least I can follow the
> steps in my head), to hear someone argue with a straight face that GWB is
> more morally reprehensible and a bigger war criminal than Saddam Hussein.
> NOTE: THIS DOES NOT MEAN I SUPPORT THE WAR EFFORT NOR DOES IT MEAN I
> ENDORSE GWB AS OUR PRESIDENT. IT JUST MEANS SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS ONE OF THE
> MOST BRUTAL DICATATORS OF OUR TIME AND YOU CANNOT TELL ME WITH A STRAIGHT
> FACE THAT GWB IS GOING TO BE REMEMBERED IN THE SAME MANNER. FRANKLY,
> THE GUY IS ABOUT AS SCARY AND RUTHLESS (AND UNFORTUNATELY AS PRESIDENTIAL)
> AS GOMER PYLE.
>
He is more morally reprehensible, to myself and many others. You make a
statement that someone cannot tell you this with a 'straight face' then when
a person does exactly that you groan and moan. No one said YOU supported the
war but if you want someone to give you their reasonings for making such a
statement then the war would certainly be one of those reasons.
> 3. On a related note, I believe one of the reasons Saddam is a much more
> morally reprehensible figure is because he deliberately executed seemingly
> anyone with an opposing point of view and had no qualms deliberately
> attacking innocent civilians (his own countrymen no less) in the most
> barbaric of ways for purely personal political gain. He did so without
> apology or remorse.
>
See below.
> Jack, you apparently disagree with all 3 of the above statements and I'd
> be interested to know how and why as I cant fathom how anyone could, but
> if you're going to argue those points it has to be point by point and
> without off the wall references to how I must think GWB is a really swell
> guy, or feel that the war in Iraq has been going great, or that the US
> Civil War and the War in Iraq are the exact same things. Why? Because I
> never said any of them. Nor do I believe them.
>
1. YOU made the analogy between the Civil War and Iraq. You did this knowing
full well you were speaking to a southerner. The point that was made in
reply was basically this - Abe was a great guy because he put down a revolt
but Saddam was a brutal dictator when he did the same thing in his own
country. You can't have it both ways. To us southerners Abe wasn't such a
great guy and the occupation of the south went about as well as the
occupation in Iraq. You went on to say something about blacks. The fact is
Abe and the resulting occupation set blacks back many years and the problems
they face today being reintegrated into our society/economy are a direct
result of that occupation. It's a complicated subject and would take many
internet bits to explain which I have neither the time nor the inclination
to discuss but it was YOUR analogy that was flawed.
2. Yes, obviously I disagree with all three.
3. As for number three. In Texas they have this thing called the Hazelwood
Act. Over the years I've taken advantage of it on quite a few occasions.
It's premise is simple - if you are a veteran you can go to any state
supported school in Texas and all you have to pay are the student service
fees. No tuition, etc. That works out to about $100 a semester plus a book.
The University of Houston down here (and to a lower extent Rice) has a long
history of bringing in outside 'experts' to teach both graduate and
non-graduate 'case study' classes for a semester. They do this at both the
main campus and also at the extension campus by the Space Center. Most of
the time I've taken advantage of this has been over by the Space Center when
someone has come in for a semester to teach something about
science/space/physics/etc (those classes are especially interesting because
you have a wide variety of disciplines and outside schools represented since
so many different types work at NASA). Occasionally I've gone up to the main
campus if there was something I found interesting in the polisci/economics
departments. One semester, must have been in 80 or 81 (it was right after
the Iranian revolution) there was a guy who came in for a semester (I can't
remember his name) who had a book that was on the best seller lists that
dealt with Iran. He was an academic from Iran that had left sometime in the
early 70's. I thought it might be topical and interesting so I signed up -
ending up making the highest grade in the class and the guy actually read a
paper I wrote out loud as an example of outstanding work (I can actually
make sense when I take my time and try :) )
His premise of politics in the Middle East was entirely different than what
you suggest. In fact, he would say you were a simple, brainwashed,
uneducated American. You write 'deliberately executed seemingly anyone with
an opposing point of view and had
no qualms deliberately attacking innocent civilians (his own countrymen no
less) in the most barbaric of ways for purely personal political gain. He
did so without apology or remorse'. That not exactly how politics works over
there. There are alliances, etc. just as there are anywhere else. Neither SH
nor anyone else could randomly execute anyone without regard to what that
may or may not mean for both him and his allies. Additionally, the Baathists
had an ideology just as any political party has an ideology. They worried
about the economy, etc. - just as Democrats and Republicans worry about
these things. Now, is politics in that area a little 'dirty' compared to
what we know over here? Of course - it's as dirty as any post colonial
environment. Were people executed? Of course. Were revolts put down?
Absolutely. But to suggest that the guy was moral/immoral/amoral - whatever;
because of how he conducted politics as opposed to how we do such things is
just very, very, very simplistic and it is that simplistic attitude that
brought this country to Iraq.
Now, in an effort to not go 'academic' and bring this to a conclusion I
disagree with all your points precisely because they are so 'simplistic'.
There were many, many people who warned beforehand what would happen in Iraq
and none of you cared to listen. The one who listened least of all was the
smirk. His refusal to listen has now costs the lives of hundreds of
thousands of people, not to mention countless others maimed for life. What
can be more immoral than having the opportunity to avail yourself of so much
information, from so many informed people, and simply refusing to listen to
anything that doesn't fit your particular ideology when that refusal to get
accurate information results in the suffering we've now seen across that
area? If there is a god there must be a special place in hell for people
like that. SH caused his deaths within the context of local politics, brutal
as that may have been. Smirk caused his death out of, shall we say, hubris?
Why do you think these guys have gone along searching for a reason? Here we
are, four years into this crap, and we still don't know what exactly the
smirk hoped to accomplish - the reasons change monthly. How can anything be
more immoral that that? All that suffering for no purpose. At least Saddam
had a purpose - he was going to kill or be killed. That's fucking immoral no
doubt but it's not as immoral in my eyes as killing for no reason other than
you can.
So, to get to the original statement. I don't think Laurie ever meant to
imply that Iraq was a pleasant place for ALL, political enemies included.
I'm quite sure Laurie knows what it was like if you weren't on Saddam's 'A'
list. So yes, I think you took her statement completely out of context. In
terms of comparable situations in the Middle East then her statement has
some validity. It was a secular state, goods were in plentiful supply, it
was pro capitalistic within many sections of the economy, both men and women
were educated, health care was provided - compare that with Saudi Arabia (if
you aren't a member of the royal family) or Iran and her statement is not
that far off the mark in the context of the Middle East.
OK - I have to go. Yes, I can sometimes be a smart ass but some of the
things you said were so completely off the mark that I don't really see how
you could have expected anything except 'smart-ass' in return.
JH
gumboman
I can't believe I'm reading this. Did you miss the results of the last
election? Apparently, it's not just Laurie and I who are somewhat
dissatisfied with the current leadership. I think our message is spreading.
JH
William Innes
>
> "William Innes" <billy...@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> news:VpDlh.56600$wP1....@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net...
>
>> Then again, I'd find it pretty disingenuous if someone described life in
>> the USA as "pleasant" or
>> as a "paradise" (all I'd have to do would be to take them to some parts
>> of Oakland, Detroit or Fresno to show then another
>> side of the coin).
>
> True, though I certainly think it would be fair to say that in 2006
> Americans do not have to worry about their homes being ransacked in the
> middle of the night and/or getting killed because they express opposition
> to our leader(s) or are of the wrong heritage. I do not know if that
> makes life here more pleasant, but I suspect we all have a much better
> chance of seeing our golden years than the folks in Iraq.
Not yet...but we're getting closer and closer to it.
Wiretaps and suspending of due process...it really does bring us a bit
closer to becoming the
very monster we claim to despise and wish to slay.
>
>> On the other hand, I think it's safe to say that more Iraqi citizens have
>> died as a result of our troops (along with any other troops who are still
>> around as part of the, uh, "coalition") than were killed by Hussein.
>> And, yes, that would make Bush just as much...if not more...a war
>> criminal as Saddam Hussein.
>
> I think the only way you can make that leap is if you believe that there
> is no moral difference between going after military targets knowing
> innocent people will die and having no qualms with deliberately targeting
> innocent people that have nothing to do with the military for your own
> political gain. As a philosophical person, I can certainly see the
> question, "well who gets to decide what a military target is", and how
> much difference is there really between attacking say the WTC and
> attacking an Iraqi city knowing so many innocent people will die, but I'm
> not going to make that leap. There's a difference to me.
First off, I'm sure that Bush knew there would be Iraqi casualties that
would surpass the number
of USA/coalition casualties. There's just know way that you can launch a
bomb or watch a
civil war unload upon itself without that happening.
I said it once, and I'll say it again:
1 killing = murder
100,000 killings = foreign policy
Look, I'm not so naive as to believe that civilians aren't going to die in a
war.
But here's why I put Bush (43) in the same category as any other war
criminal.
He attacked a country that posed no tangible threat to our country.
No WMDs, no proof of anything to do with 9/11/01...not a thing that you
could
hang your hat on.
>
>
>> Five years ago, most of us really didn't give a rat's ass about how well
>> off the people of Iraq were or weren't.
>> And though I wish none of them any harm nor an early life, I really still
>> don't place them as high on my list of priorities of concerns.
>
> I agree and concur with this. Knowing what I do now, I do not think
> there is any justification for having gone to war with Iraq that could
> justify the loss of our young men and women. With that said though, we're
> there now so I'm afraid we're stuck there until we can come up with a way
> to insure we do not throw the region into worse chaos then it was in
> before we got there.
I understand your point of view. And, yeah, it would be pretty
irresponsible to
go in there and leave them in chaos.
On the other hand, it's also pretty irresponsible to have gone in there and
have
them in chaos.
Here's the rub....if that country had posed a viable threat to us, then we
would have
been justified in attacking it...and equally justified in leaving once the
threat was gone.
I know that it's our tendency to rebuild countries once we've pillaged
them...but I
don't know if we really have a moral obligation to do so....
As is, since we did go in unprovoked, I guess we do have some sort of
ethical or moral
obligation to make sure that all is calm and well with them.
However, do you realize that trying to achieve such a state for that country
could
easily take a decade or more?? I don't like that...not one bit.
>> But suddenly you've got folks who'd usually/always eyeball a person of
>> Persian descent with suspicion acting as though
>> it's imperative to their lives that these people get to live in a
>> purple-fingered democracy.
>
> In spite of public comments to the contrary, I really don't think most in
> the administration really care too much one way or the other about the
> people of Iraq, but rather what bringing democracy to countries like Iraq
> can do for the stabilization of the region (and if you're more cynical,
> how it might make oil a little easier to get access to).
Right, I've heard the democracy argument and the hopes that it would spread
like wildfire
in the MidEast. Fair enough...but why didn't we make that one of the
contingencies for Kuwait
before we attacked Iraq in the 1990s? They aren't a democracy...and we've
never put an iota of
pressure on them to become one.
As for oil, at this point it's not even a cynical argument to bring this up.
Bush himself thought that this war/invasion would pay for itself as a result
of the
revenue that Iraq's oil (both its reserve and the oil stil in the ground)
would bring to the US.
It is every bit as much about oil as it is democracy (probably more so about
the former than the latter).
>> Give me a fucking break. I could understand the concern if there'd been
>> WMDs aimed directly at us (as in the USA).
>> I'm sure most folks would have gotten behind that mule.
>> But there weren't any...and most of the folks who had a lick of common
>> sense knew this even prior to the unjustified invasion.
>
> ???? I think most Americans assumed the opposite based on the
> information provided. And I don't believe it was against common sense to
> suspect a ruthless dictator with supposedly 9 billion dollars in net worth
> who had used chemical weapons in the past would have the capability to
> possess them. The real issue to me was would he dumb enough to actually
> use them knowing it would be certain annihilation for his regime. I
> personally didn't believe he would and therefore thought the war was a bad
> idea from the start, but as no one's paying any of us for our insider
> information on international affairs, I don't think any of us really knew
> anything.
Well, a lot of us suspected...and our hunches were right.
Even more disturbing is the way that Bush plagued his cabinet members and
generals
with the post-9/11/01 question (and we're talking within the first few days
that followed)
asking about how deep Iraq's involvement was on the attack toward us.
When he was told that there was no evidence, he continued to ask.
Such an obsession is downright frightenining in an adult...I mean,
really,it's like
a little kid who keeps asking for something when he/she can't take "no" for
an answer.
As for the intelligence that we had...even prior to having to go in front of
the United Nations,
Colin Powell looked through the documents he was supposed to read....and
responded with
something along the lines of his saying that he couldn't read this bullshit
to such a group.
Scariest of all are the documents that are coming forth that show that this
whole war was
being planned for and on the table during the very first month that Bush was
residing in
the White House.
>> So, the WMD motive suddenly gets name-changed to "Operation Iraqi
>> Freedom"...and folks are rooting for the
>> brown-skinned people whom they'd normally treat as the swarthiest and
>> most sub-human of species to walk on two legs.
>> Again, give me a fucking break. I can't believe how gullible folks are
>> that they can be so easily told to care...and damned if they
>> don't start caring.
>
>
> Do you really think that's what happened? I don't get the impression most
> people have been moved to care about Iraquis, rather I think people have
> been moved to believe the Middle East is in complete chaos and that said
> chaos presents a threat to us and therefore the situation must be
> stabilized. GWB has his own vision of what will cause that stabilization
> and I think most went along with it to a point until they realized there
> was no real threat and worse now are seeing the region looks even more
> unstable than before as a result of the Bush plan.
Okay...and Hitler had his vision of what would set the world right.
And, even if Hitler believed that he was right...well, I think that a great
majority of folks around
the world would tend to think otherwise. I'm not putting Bush on par with
Hitler (nor am I
going to say that one shouldn't put him on par with Hitler either). But
having some
checks and balances...and not being surrounded/isolated by a mind-guard that
insulates
a world leader from EVERY point of view (ala what FDR used to do before
making a major
decision) is what should have been done. Bush doesn't just owe it to
himself and his historical legacy...
given the high stakes with which he's playing, he owes it to the entire
country.
Yes, I do think that a lot of Americans care about the well-being of the
Iraqis (or at least that
they should no the thrill and joy of not having to live under a ruler such
as Saddam Hussein).
And, yes, I think they were spoon-fed by the administration and the equally
to blame pansy-assed
media.
>
>
>> Sorry, but we are a nation filled with a lot of dumb-asses who'll drink
>> whatever Kool-Aid we're told to drink.
>> And we drink it whole-heartedly and blindly, not asking about its
>> ingredients or its after-effects.
>
> Though partially true, I also think thats a little unfair to people. Most
> people are blue collar/middle class folks who have full-time jobs,
> mortgages to pay and families to provide for and hardly have enough free
> time to become introspective about themselves, let alone global politics.
> People aren't dumb so much as practical.
>
Okay, you're probably right about that.
And, yes, I guess when they finally saw the price tag, the loss of lives (of
both US Troops and innocent Iraqi citizens),
then they began to care...and, much to their credit, they did send a pretty
loud and clear message this past November.
Burton Busk
You went on to say something about blacks. The fact is
> Abe and the resulting occupation set blacks back many years and the
> problems they face today being reintegrated into our society/economy are a
> direct result of that occupation. It's a complicated subject and would
> take many internet bits to explain which I have neither the time nor the
> inclination to discuss but it was YOUR analogy that was flawed.
Jack, if you ever do have the time and inclination, I'd like to hear this
explanation. I know nothing about the subject, but I don't think I've ever
heard this theory and would be interested to hear.
gumboman
"Burton Busk" <burt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Yu-dnWkBhc2BkwTY...@comcast.com...
I've heard it over the years, usually from economist types. Previous to the
war you had an economy that was dependent on slave labor to a large extent.
It's hot down here, the land takes a lot of work to make anything grow, etc.
Outside of slaves it would have been difficult to grow anything on a
commercial basis and make much of a profit. So, although the slaves allowed
a certain segment to profit economically, it also prevented the rise of any
type of non-agrarian based economy. There was little to no inclination among
those who profited from slavery to do anything to introduce any part of the
Industrial Revolution to the south; therefore, no large cities grew where
tradesman, merchants, artists, etc would begin to flourish. In this
environment the land (the best lands) tended to be concentrated in few
hands, hence the large plantations. Slavery was expensive to maintain so you
needed large scale enterprises or the whole system fell apart.
Under slavery, blacks were not educated, and more importantly, they were
allowed to own no property. The war comes along, the 'old' south is
destroyed, and now you have thousands and thousands of blacks with no
marketable skills. They had no land to farm on their own, they had no
education and except for a few who worked close to the plantation houses
they had very little training in traditional crafts (tradesmen) and no
experience in being in part of a merchant class. They were free but they had
no way to eat, much less organize in commercially profitable enclaves
(cities of their own) where they could generate a surplus to build their own
infrastructure (roads, schools, etc.).
In competition with the newly freed blacks were also all the various white
'hangers on' who managed to eke out some type of living in a slave based
economy - your traditional 'white trash'. Reconstruction never really got
around to much in the way of land reform (as opposed to say various
communist revolutions and their re-education camps which did exactly that to
their inbred upper classes and associated foreigners) so what generally
happened is post reconstruction politicians (in many cases former plantation
owners who could no longer run a profitable plantation) pitted poor whites
against the newly freed blacks and it's not hard to imagine which side came
out best in that environment. Now you had blacks running around with not
only no education, no internal infrastructure and no land but also now with
no government power. What little help government could provide actually
worked against blacks. The end result was that many, many blacks went back
to work on the former plantations as 'free hired hands' but the owners, like
every other capitalist, did everything they could to keep wages low. Whereas
under slavery, where the owners had an interest in producing slaves that
were marketable (healthy, etc,), the owners now just worked them to death in
the hot fields and there was little for most blacks to do except accept the
conditions so they could eat. The whole idea of generations and generations
of white slaveowners as a whole class mistreating blacks is more movie going
BS than anything close to the truth. Yes, there were some who were like that
but for the most part, disgusting as it may seem today, as marketable
property whites had an interest in making sure their slaves were 'in good
shape'. When you received your first bicycle did you try to take care of it
or did you beat it to a pulp with chains?
In some fairness to the whites, particularly the poorer whites, the south
was devastated after the war and there wasn't much of a surplus for anyone.
That's why when people like Joe bring up Lincoln, etc. I can say I'm not
that big of a fan. Was Sherman's march to the sea really necessary? After
that kind of destruction of the infrastructure what did the northern leaders
think was going to happen to blacks unless they came down here and forcibly
implemented changes (which they tried to do). Much like we see in Iraq today
it's hard to control any indigenous population that wants you out and
ultimately the yanks were sent packing. When that happened how was any black
supposed to be able to make a decent living?
Outside of the 'klan' types I never really believed that blacks were 'hated'
by whites. It was more of a situation that developed where the blacks had
their place in society and the whites had a different place. They were the
Mexican illegals of their day, doing the menial jobs which allowed them to
eat but not create enough of an internal surplus to finance their own
infrastructure improvements. The 'anti-black' laws that were brought onto
the books after reconstruction were difficult to get rid of because any
white politician that attempted to do so would be seen more as a traitor to
his class as opposed to his race - and that was what it ended up being
about. Class and not necessarily race. Substitute black for 'serfs' or any
other form of low class white in other places and you get something closer
to the truth than the plantation owner with the whip or the idea of a whole
population running around at nights with sheets covering their faces. That's
why it was necessary for the federal government (democrats) to bring about
things such as affirmative action, anti-redlining laws, equal educational
opportunities and so on on a nationwide scale. It wasn't enough to just be
'free' - you had to do something to integrate blacks into a larger economic
environment. They had to be given good jobs, you had to force the banks to
lend them money, you had to do away with separate schools and allow them
into the better state supported universities. What the feds really did was
give the white class that had never found a way to do away with the Jim Crow
laws a chance to get rid of those post reconstruction abominations forever.
Contrary to what you might think (or have been led to believe) not every
white in the South was unhappy at what the feds did; in fact, I would say
most thought it a good thing and a chance to start rebuilding what had been
destroyed a century before. Having said that, there was also a percentage of
the white population who had lived better than blacks, not because they were
smarter or more industrious, but because they were white. Jobs went to
whites, etc and now that type would have to compete.
My dad had no college education but was a pretty smart guy. He rose to be an
assistant plant manager at the chemical plant he worked at down here. There
were a number of 'assistants' and when the time came it was between he and
another guy to see who would get promoted to plant manager. This was in the
early 70's and back about 65 or 66 the plant had seen what was coming and
had started to hire blacks as operators and tradesmen. My dad thought one of
these guys was a lot smarter than some of the white guys who had been around
awhile so he made him a 'chief' in one of the units. He took a lot of shit
for it and when the time came for the promotion he was passed over and told
it was because he was a little too 'controversial'. When I got out of the
Air Force I actually went to work for a while in the chemical laboratory of
that plant (that's where I met my wife and she still works there today). The
black guys thought my dad was a hero and a lot of the white guys hated my
ass and wouldn't speak to me. Some of the old timers refused to have
anything to do with the wife after she married me. What was always
interesting to me is those who 'hated;' the most tended to live in the same
communities. Over time, those were the communities that developed a
'reputation' and in the face of incredible economic growth down here since
the 70's those communities have stagnated. People just stayed away and
eventually a lot of those old timers just died off.
Anyway, long story short - they were 'free' but 'dependent more than ever' -
particularly in terms of economic progress.
JH
musicaner
NAME OF THE
MULLAS and GENERALLY CARRYIN ON!!! if that aint a BAD OMEN of things to
come i CAINT SAY what is!!!!
Zeke
deals with some of these issues. Have to admit it's been 30+ years, but
your post brought back some of that book to me.
============================================
Hopefully, Innes will see the error of his ways & make the
appropriate changes
gumboman
> that was some "EXECUCTION' over at the CLUSTER!!! folk HOLLERIN the
> NAME OF THE
> MULLAS and GENERALLY CARRYIN ON!!! if that aint a BAD OMEN of things to
> come i CAINT SAY what is!!!!
Unbelievable. We should vamoose quickly and get our people out of there. Can
you imagine having your son or daughter sacrificed for that crusade while
the high heeled boys sashay over to the bank with the loot?
JH
musicaner
VAMOOSE ASAP!!! all the MULLAS never did TAKE SADAAM down was US HAD TO
GO
DO IT!!!
and NOW the SADR and the MULLAS are GONNA TAKE THE CREDIT and
the ENDLESS flow OF GREENBACKS!!! if that is the FREE DEMOCRATIC GOVT
the one
that CARRIED out that EXECUTION we GOT BIG PROBLEMS!! VAMOOSE and let
em
BE "DEMOCRATIC" on their own.
Burton Busk
Thanks for taking the time to answer that.
It's all fine, but I don't know if it can be said that Abe set blacks back.
Yes, he went about it the wrong way, but the fact is that if he hadn't freed
them, slavery may have continued for a few more decades. At least he got the
ball rolling. And "free but dependent" still beats the hell out of being
enslaved, I'd guess.
gumboman
>
>
> Thanks for taking the time to answer that.
> It's all fine, but I don't know if it can be said that Abe set blacks
> back.
I'm not sure if anyone is implying that if that's the way it read. Abe set
the whole south back and blacks were just part of the whole south.
> Yes, he went about it the wrong way, but the fact is that if he hadn't
> freed them, slavery may have continued for a few more decades.
Now that's another economics lesson. :)
Slavery was already on its way out. It was way too expensive to maintain in
a post industrial economy. I think one of the reasons the south seceded
(that you rarely hear about) is there was an upper class that didn't want to
face the facts regarding slavery and the management of the overall economy
in the south. They blunderbusted about states right, etc. but what they
really wanted was to 'wall' the south off from the industrializing north to
perpetuate their priveledged positions.
It's all part of a 'class' based argument where folks think the southern
leaders were lying about their real motives as much as smirk and his crew
lied about Iraq.
> At least he got the ball rolling. And "free but dependent" still beats the
> hell out of being enslaved, I'd guess.
>
I don't think anyone disagrees with that.
JH
gumboman
I see in the papers this morning that now the Sunnis are agitating across
the country and it looks as if significant numbers of them will now actively
support their side of the insurgency. What a clusterfuck.
JH
gumboman
JH
"Zeke" <yakzo...@boobatch.com> wrote in message
news:5aGdnXqOMcaMEQTY...@comcast.com...
Burton Busk
>
> "Burton Busk" <burt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:tc6dnbO50OwX-wfY...@comcast.com...
>>
>>
>> Thanks for taking the time to answer that.
>> It's all fine, but I don't know if it can be said that Abe set blacks
>> back.
>
> I'm not sure if anyone is implying that if that's the way it read. Abe set
> the whole south back and blacks were just part of the whole south.
But isn't that like saying it was a setback for the Soviet nations' people
for the Communist govt. to end? Sure, it will be fucked up in Russia and the
other former Soviet countries for decades, but in the long run it has to be
a good thing. Freedom is good.
>> Yes, he went about it the wrong way, but the fact is that if he hadn't
>> freed them, slavery may have continued for a few more decades.
>
> Now that's another economics lesson. :)
>
> Slavery was already on its way out. It was way too expensive to maintain
> in a post industrial economy.
Well, it would have come decades later, I think. Lincoln sped the process
up.
gumboman
>
>>
>> I'm not sure if anyone is implying that if that's the way it read. Abe
>> set the whole south back and blacks were just part of the whole south.
>
> But isn't that like saying it was a setback for the Soviet nations' people
> for the Communist govt. to end? Sure, it will be fucked up in Russia and
> the other former Soviet countries for decades, but in the long run it has
> to be a good thing. Freedom is good.
>
There are degrees of freedom. If you own the means to produce your own
living you are a lot 'freer' than someone who owns nothing and is dependent
on others for their livelihood.
In fact, what happened to a large extent in the south is exactly opposite of
what happened in the Soviet Union and other communist/post colonial
countries. In those places the 'existing upper class order' was forcibly
removed in favor of a different system put into place (whether you favor
that outcome is dependent on your place in the old order). In the south, the
existing upper classes were defeated but essentially left in place in the
post reconstruction period. They still 'got theirs' but since overall
production had declined the poor whites and blacks were left to fight over
the crumbs and that led to 'Jim Crow' laws, etc. If you want a real
revolution you have to throw out the old order, I believe the communists
referred to it as 're-education'.
Not all whites supported the Jim Crow type laws. Had they done so how could
a 'liberal' like Johnson get elected? It wasn't until he had the power as
president to implement a strategy for reintegrating blacks into the economy
that he could get something like that accomplished but to think he was a
'Jim Crow' type who underwent a transformation in 1964 would be a serious
misreading of the situation.
In Galveston where I grew up it was a seapoprt and a pretty liberal town.
Democrats still get elected and run the city. We didn't have to be forced to
integrate we did it voluntarily (I think we were the first high school lin
Texas to do so) because it was understood across the city that separate
schools were economically inefficient and there was something 'wrong' about
the existing situation. That wasn't the case across the south where Jim Crow
types held political power. There were always whites who understood the
situation was wrong but they never gained enough political power across
states to do anything about it. Do you seriously think all whites in
Mississippi thought the governor should get out there and confront federal
marshalls because a black kid wanted to go to college. Of course not and
many of them welcomed federal intervention because it allowed them to start
rebuilding economies that had for too long endured unused human capital.
>>> Yes, he went about it the wrong way, but the fact is that if he hadn't
>>> freed them, slavery may have continued for a few more decades.
>>
>> Now that's another economics lesson. :)
>>
>> Slavery was already on its way out. It was way too expensive to maintain
>> in a post industrial economy.
>
> Well, it would have come decades later, I think. Lincoln sped the process
> up.
See, this is part of the debate. If you simply say I'm signing this paper
and now all blacks are free then yes, I suppose he sped it up. But if you
say they were still slaves in everything but name then no, he didn't speed
it up; in fact, it could be argued he slowed natural economic progression
down.
Suppose, due to natural economic forces, normal industrialization had been
allowed to occur in the south. Do you not think those factories would have
needed workers (how many immigrants did the north need to man the
factories?) and eventually the new industrialists would have abolished
slavery in an effort to gain access to all that unused black human capital
sitting around that was tied up in an increasingly inefficient economic
system? Industrial workers need to be schooled and the new capitalistic
industrialists certainly wouldn't have introduced an inefficient dual system
(did that occur up north?).
It's all speculation of course but it comes up in my mind some these days
because this view is dependent on the idea that the plantation/slavery types
who led the secession weren't entirely truthful in why they were seceding.
It had a lot more to do with preventing economic progress in an effort to
continue their privileged status than in any esoteric views about noble
things like 'states right's' or whatever other high falluting reasons they
could define. Not so different from Iraq. Suppose we had left SH in place
and Iraq had continued to educate, give medical care, secularize, etc. At
some point those folks would have rid themselves of their own dictators but
now they're fucked for a very long time. Do you really think the common
Iraqi is more 'free' today? How many days of the month can you eat that
purple finger when you walk out of that voting booth?
JH
musicaner
who CAIN BLAME EM!!?? after that SPECTACLE at the so called "EXECUTION"
by
the "NEW" "DEMOCRATIC" usa installed GOVT!!! they
KNOW HARD TIMES COMIN FOR EM!!!
and CRONY INC wanna SYSTEM where all these FOLK HAVE TO COHABITATE!!!
we need to EXIT as soon as POSSIBLE!!
gumboman
>
>
> who CAIN BLAME EM!!?? after that SPECTACLE at the so called "EXECUTION"
> by
> the "NEW" "DEMOCRATIC" usa installed GOVT!!! they
> KNOW HARD TIMES COMIN FOR EM!!!
> and CRONY INC wanna SYSTEM where all these FOLK HAVE TO COHABITATE!!!
> we need to EXIT as soon as POSSIBLE!!
>
You notice Republicans carried out reconstruction (if that's what you want
to call Crony, Inc.) in both the South and Iraq. They seem to have achieved
remarkably similar putrid results.
JH
musicaner
its one thing to TALK LIKE YOU BELEIVE in LALA and quite ANOTHER when
YOU
ACTUALLY BELEIVE all that LALA!!! and WORSE when you ACT LIKE you
KNOW EVERYTHING but F UP everything you do!!!!!!!!! im afraid that now
the CONSERVATIVES say that this BUNCH aint CONSERVATIVES!! 5 years ago
they WERE NOW THEY AINT!! DEMOCRACY in the MIDDLE EAST NO TAXES
for the LIVIN LARGE CROWD, MONTHLY GAY MASSAGES!!! goobay REP PARTY!!
Burton Busk
>
> "Burton Busk" <burt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:t4GdnaBsn-H47gfY...@comcast.com...
>>
>>>
>>> I'm not sure if anyone is implying that if that's the way it read. Abe
>>> set the whole south back and blacks were just part of the whole south.
>>
>> But isn't that like saying it was a setback for the Soviet nations'
>> people for the Communist govt. to end? Sure, it will be fucked up in
>> Russia and the other former Soviet countries for decades, but in the long
>> run it has to be a good thing. Freedom is good.
>>
>
>
> There are degrees of freedom. If you own the means to produce your own
> living you are a lot 'freer' than someone who owns nothing and is
> dependent on others for their livelihood.
>
> In fact, what happened to a large extent in the south is exactly opposite
> of what happened in the Soviet Union and other communist/post colonial
> countries. In those places the 'existing upper class order' was forcibly
> removed in favor of a different system put into place (whether you favor
> that outcome is dependent on your place in the old order). In the south,
> the existing upper classes were defeated but essentially left in place in
> the post reconstruction period. They still 'got theirs' but since overall
> production had declined the poor whites and blacks were left to fight over
> the crumbs and that led to 'Jim Crow' laws, etc. If you want a real
> revolution you have to throw out the old order, I believe the communists
> referred to it as 're-education'.
Not exactly opposite. Many of the Commie bigwigs became Russian mafia
bigwigs. Now they're running things for the most part, while the poor people
(which means most of the citizens) are left to fight over the crumbs. The
people had it rough under the old system, but at least they were taken care
of, however minimally. Now they have to do it all totally on their own,
without being trained.
Who cares? It doesn't matter to a slave. Sure it could have been done
better, but the main thing is it got done.
> Suppose, due to natural economic forces, normal industrialization had been
> allowed to occur in the south. Do you not think those factories would have
> needed workers (how many immigrants did the north need to man the
> factories?) and eventually the new industrialists would have abolished
> slavery in an effort to gain access to all that unused black human capital
> sitting around that was tied up in an increasingly inefficient economic
> system? Industrial workers need to be schooled and the new capitalistic
> industrialists certainly wouldn't have introduced an inefficient dual
> system
No doubt true. But wasn't the slave issue the main reason it didn't get
industrialized?
> (did that occur up north?).
>
> It's all speculation of course but it comes up in my mind some these days
> because this view is dependent on the idea that the plantation/slavery
> types who led the secession weren't entirely truthful in why they were
> seceding. It had a lot more to do with preventing economic progress in an
> effort to continue their privileged status than in any esoteric views
> about noble things like 'states right's' or whatever other high falluting
> reasons they could define. Not so different from Iraq. Suppose we had left
> SH in place and Iraq had continued to educate, give medical care,
> secularize, etc. At some point those folks would have rid themselves of
> their own dictators but now they're fucked for a very long time. Do you
> really think the common Iraqi is more 'free' today? How many days of the
> month can you eat that purple finger when you walk out of that voting
> booth?
I can't answer your questions about Iraq because I don't know enough about
it. But it being a foreign country that was invaded and changed, I think the
situation is totally different than the South.
I'm pretty much on your side on Iraq, based on what I do know about it. I
think the South situation merited Lincoln's intervention. I don't think
anything in Iraq merited Bush's intervention. Not a war lasting years
without an end in sight, especially.
William Innes
> Not exactly opposite. Many of the Commie bigwigs became Russian mafia
> bigwigs. Now they're running things for the most part, while the poor
> people (which means most of the citizens) are left to fight over the
> crumbs. The people had it rough under the old system, but at least they
> were taken care of, however minimally. Now they have to do it all totally
> on their own, without being trained.
>
Don't get me wrong...when I visited the USSR in 1978, I know that we were
pretty much taken only to the spots and places that they wished Americans to
see.
Still, when taking the bus ride from the airport in Moscow to our hotel
(which was
right across the street from Red Square), one couldn't help but notice drab
apartment building
one after another...I mean, there were so many all lined up that it was easy
to lose count.
It looked dismal...and there was no way that they could hide that from us.
It was obvious that life in the USSR was far from perfect...just the way
that the average citizen
on the street seemed to hanker for anything "American" (clothes, magazines,
books, music) was an
indication that they didn't drink the Kool-Aid that was poured to them
nightly on their government controlled
news stations, often bashing life in the USA (I mean, mercy, the amount of
air-time that was given to the
one-year anniversary of the NYC blackout was beyond belief).
Still, one also couldn't help but notice that everyone had jobs.
I mean, even the elderly had a job...at just about every hotel in which we
stayed, there
was usually an elderly guy working as the hotel's doorman. It probably
wasn't a necessary thing
to have...but it was a job. With the USSR they seemed to create jobs that
seem so superfluous or downright
mundane that ya couldn't help but wonder "why bother?". Still, it did keep
folks employed.
Now granted, one of the more striking and disturbing things about being in
the USSR in 1978 was the very
noticeable lack of elderly males, particularly in larger cities such as
Moscow or what was then called Leningrad.
The low number of elderly males could be attributed to the number of deaths
that males endured during WWII.
It was downright eerie.
Still, imperfect as the USSR was, I can't help but wonder how those who are
elderly (and, by now, nearly 30 years later, I'm sure
they would include those who were too young to don a uniform back in WWII)
are managing to get along.
While I doubt that being a doorman paid all that handsome a wage...well, it
was at least something.
Lord only knows what such folks are doing these days in order to survive day
to day life....
One of the more interesting stories that I still carry with me took place in
Red Square, round midnight.
On the Aeroflot flight over, I spent several hours talking to a very nice
gal from Tennessee (she was on her way
to play the tourist game just as my parents and I were). She was a
Born-Again Christian, so we spent a lot of
time on our flight (and it is a long flight) talking about the merits of
being "saved." Essentially she told me that as nice
a guy as she found me, there was no way that she could ever consider having
the likes of me as a boyfriend, since I wasn't
willing to make any proclamations about being "saved." All the same, she
was a very nice woman...and she certainly made the
time more pleasant to pass while in the air.
By chance I ran across her again while in Red Square, after midnight (even
though I was only 15, my folks figured that the USSR
had things so tightly run that I was in little danger). Anyway, when I came
across her again, she was in the midst of having a conversation (not
at unlike the "saved" conversation on the airplane) with a black man from
South Africa. While she was trying to save his soul, he was trying
to win her heart (or something like that....I can't think of a more gingerly
way to describe it). Well, she found my showing up to be her ticket out
of what was turning out to be something of an uncomfortable conversation for
her. So, she introduced me to her new-found friend, George.
As George and I began to talk, she did a disappearing act that could rival
Houdini.
George's story was that he was in Moscow in order to be trained as a
mercenary...and, from what George said, the USSR had one helluva
program for such training. As we were just about the only two folks left in
Red Square at such an hour, George went into some detail about
some of his training that he'd had (including how he'd learned to kill by
just using his bare hands...it kind of made me glad that we were hunky dory
as far as getting along with one another).
But it was from George that I first learned about apartheid...prior to
talking with him, I knew just about nothing about the subject.
Now, George did take the time to explain to me how apartheid worked (or
didn't work)...but there was one particular story that really
drove home my understanding (to the point where I could really internalize
what he was saying).
He told me all about Sun City and how black folks such as himself and his
friends were often banned from going to certain clubs or other places
where one might go for a night out on the town. The really heartbreaking
thing that he told me though....and it was at this point that I could see
how
much it pained him to even talk about this, as he seemed to be almost
fighting back the tears (tears of both sadness and rage).
He told me how much he and his friends and family absolutely adored Diana
Ross...for George and her friends, their enthusiasm for her music
and persona wasn't at all unlike what a lot of us might feel towards
Springsteen or Dylan or The Grateful Dead or Jackson Browne, etc.
So, when George and his family/friends heard that Diana Ross was coming down
to the part of the country where he lived, they were thrilled beyond
words. George recounted to me the day that tickets went on sale for Diana
Ross's show. When they went to buy tickets, they were given the
rude awakening of discovering that the place in Sun City where she'd be
playing was a Whites-Only venue. He told me that, even though he was
accustomed to living for many years under the horrors and degradation of
apartheid, this had to be the most defining moment of just how horrible
a system of living this was. He also went on to tell me that he'd never
felt so betrayed by someone as he did towards Diana Ross...and never dreamed
that she would choose to play a Whites-Only establishment. With money still
in hand, he told me that he just went off to sit on the edge of the sidewalk
while the tears rolled down his face. The thought of seeing Diana Ross was
something of a dream come true for him and his friends/family...and he could
not
even begin to comprehend or fathom that she would have done this to people
whom he thought she would have identified.
Even though he'd lived for years under the oppressive gun of apartheid, he
said, essentially, that being shut out of seeing someone whom he so revered
was the straw that broke the camel's back...and the very thing that
compelled him to leave his home and family and friends to become a mercenary
for the rebellion that was in the making (and which the Soviet Union was
trying to help get established and get the ball of revolt moving).
Just the two of us in that big old square...with St. Basil's and the Kremlin
as a backdrop...it's a memory that will stay with me
until my dying day....On the one hand, it was very moving to be talking with
a man who obviously had more pain/degradation than anyone should
have to endure in a lifetime. On the other hand, it was a bit unnerving
being alone with a man who had been trained in how to rip my heart out of my
chest. The former sentiment, though, seemed to definitely supercede the
latter. It opened my eyes to a horror that, prior to that conversation, I
knew
just about nothing about.
Between that trip...where I was finally cut loose from the parental
leash...and went clubbing, dancing, drinking and exploring at all hours of
the night
and early hours of the morning was pretty much the thing that I would cite
as being my rite or passage.
Dancing the night away with many a Russian woman in
what was (for the USSR) the grandest of grand hotels.
All night train-rides where I shared a berth with Mongolians and folk from
Finland. a whole other story for another
time).
Being exposed to Springsteen's music (beyond the few songs with which I
was already familiar ~ "Blinded by the Light" and
"Rosalita" for instance) thanks to the American liaison that Introurist (the
entity in charge of the USSR's tourism)...and, oddly enough, that Jersey
girl who often invited
me to her room to hear her Springsteen tapes (she had BTR and DARKNESS as I
recall) ...and really really had me listen to it and explained it to me and
made me appreciate it...to the point where the first thing I did when I got
back to the USA was go to the record store and bought (and fell in love
with) THE WILD AND INNOCENT album).
For quite a few years, my love affair with the music of The Beatles and
Billy Joel and Elton John came to an abrupt end as a result (although I'm
back to digging The Beatles and Elton again)
Anyway, that Jersey girl was given the very same name as our oldest
daughter.
Falling in love for the very first time (or what I thought was love) with
our Russian tour guide. She was at least 20 years older than I...and though
I thought she looked much like Greta Garbo, others told me that she really
wasn't all that fetching as far as physical beauty went...so maybe it was
love of some kind. All I know is that we spent hours on end on the bus
talking about movies and books and music...and, both being insomniacs, would
both have our heads leaning against the window of a train car as the train
sped into the cold Russian night. More than anything, though, I still
remember making a date of sorts with a girl may age who was traveling with
another group of tourists (just about all of us from the USA had to travel
as packs of tourists...the USSR pretty much made it more trouble than it was
worth to try to go at it on one's own, demanding constant stops at
checkpoints to make sure that the route they'd laid out was being followed).
Anyway, this girl around my age had said that she'd meet up with me and we'd
take a walk around these ancient grounds and gardens in some ancient city
where our hotel was.
She never showed....and I felt like a fool standing alone, finding out for
the first time what it meant to be stood-up.
With head drooped in self-pity, it was just at that moment that our Russian
tour guide came across me...could see that I looked very sad, to the point
of trying to hold back tears, and asked me what was wrong. After I told
her, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek...and told me that the girl
was not worth a moment of my feeling sad...and that the loss was entirely
that girl's.
I never would have dreamed or could have imagined that a simple kiss on the
cheek could suddenly lift one's soul to the heavens. And I don't think I
ever cried so hard as I did when, after a month, we reached the airport to
return to the USA....to the point where the flight-attendants were worried
for my well-being. It was the very first time that I ever found out that
goodbye could sometimes mean goodbye forever..and that was one of the most
bitter pills that I ever had to swallow.
Then there were the days when we ventured into the Islamic regions of the
Soviet Union...often going places that were a mere few hundred miles from
the border of China.
I got horribly ill from something that I ate in one of those cities (could
have been Tashkent or Samarkand)...so I had to stay a few days holed up in
my hotel room, being able to do little else
than read John Steinbeck's EAST OF EDEN. In one such city our hotel was
directly across the street from a mosque. Each morning...just prior to the
sun rising on the new day...I could hear the lonesome and melodic voice
coming from the tower of the mosque as he called upon the faithful to join
in prayer. It was also in that region where I saw an Islamic funeral...and
saw a body saw a body ablaze in fire as the many mourners gathered around
the burning funeral pyre. It was a whole new world...weird & wonderful and
often mystical & magical.
It was also when I began to distinguish the bullshit from the truth. My
first impression when stepping off of the airplane when first arriving in
Moscow was that I noticed that their sky was every bit as
deep a blue as the one that I'd left behind. And that the people who lived
in those various cities/provinces were amongst the warmest, peace-loving and
large hearted folks I'd ever come across.
Night after night we'd often share dining-room tables with them...and night
after night we would raise our glasses high for peace in our time, asking
that the warmth and camaraderie that prevailed at our table would ride
roughshod over the divisive wedge that our respective country's leaders
tried to drive between us.
Wow, I guess I got a bit off -topic from the original post (and the original
point I was hoping to make). But it opened up a floodgate of memories about
the summer where...while I'm not certain I became a man...I am pretty
certain my childhood and days of being a boy came to an end.
gumboman
>
>
> Not exactly opposite. Many of the Commie bigwigs became Russian mafia
> bigwigs. Now they're running things for the most part, while the poor
> people (which means most of the citizens) are left to fight over the
> crumbs. The people had it rough under the old system, but at least they
> were taken care of, however minimally. Now they have to do it all totally
> on their own, without being trained.
>
Ah - don't get confused. The post Soviet Russia is more like the post Civil
War South than what the Soviet Union was after the Communist revolution.
Remember, in 1917 the old order was thrown out. A whole new order of
'elites' replaced the old elites. In the post communist world it was the
same elites who controlled things but now they called themselves capitalists
as opposed to communists. That's the old 'meet the new boss same as the old
boss' scenario. That's what happened in the South after the Civil War.
Blacks may have been 'freed' but the same crew of psuedo-aristocratic
inbreds still owned and controlled everything.
Also, like in the south the newly freed 'slaves' (whether white or black,
Russian or southern) have to do it on their own as you so correctly state.
So the question that gets raised is how do they do that if you don't
forcibly redistribute the means of production? That's why communist
rrevolutions were always so violent (and what the southern elites fought so
hard to protect) - the transformation of the means of production. It does
little good to give someone political freedom if you leave them gladhandling
on the streetcorner as the only way to get a few bucks to eat every day.
>>
>> See, this is part of the debate. If you simply say I'm signing this paper
>> and now all blacks are free then yes, I suppose he sped it up. But if you
>> say they were still slaves in everything but name then no, he didn't
>> speed it up; in fact, it could be argued he slowed natural economic
>> progression down.
>
> Who cares? It doesn't matter to a slave. Sure it could have been done
> better, but the main thing is it got done.
>
Who cares? Over a century of slave descendants and over a century of white
descendants for sure.
>> Suppose, due to natural economic forces, normal industrialization had
>> been allowed to occur in the south. Do you not think those factories
>> would have needed workers (how many immigrants did the north need to man
>> the factories?) and eventually the new industrialists would have
>> abolished slavery in an effort to gain access to all that unused black
>> human capital sitting around that was tied up in an increasingly
>> inefficient economic system? Industrial workers need to be schooled and
>> the new capitalistic industrialists certainly wouldn't have introduced an
>> inefficient dual system
>
> No doubt true. But wasn't the slave issue the main reason it didn't get
> industrialized?
>
Of course not. First of all the great industrial expansion in the north
which had started before the civil war heated up during and after the war.
Like in WWII and its aftermath war production is a great way to stimulate an
economy. The south couldn't industrialize after the war because the
investments had all been made up north and the human capital didn't exist.
It was still an agrarian economy because the same inbreds who owned
everything before the war owned the same shit after the war. That's sort of
the point. Like in the collapse of the Soviet Union no one took the southern
leaders (landowners) and re-educated them like the communists did in 1917
Russia, post WWII China or post war Vietnam.
Focusing on slavery as a reason for the war just entirely misses the point.
Whether one person should own another or not is a 'politcal type' issue. It
sounds great in history books but the people who live history rarely think
that way (or so it seems to me). War is about economics - who owns what,
whther you call it ownership or not. There were certainly Crony, Incs. up
north who didn't give a flying fuck whether the slaves were freed or not.
All they wanted were the government armament contracts to continue.
>
> I can't answer your questions about Iraq because I don't know enough about
> it. But it being a foreign country that was invaded and changed, I think
> the situation is totally different than the South.
> I'm pretty much on your side on Iraq, based on what I do know about it. I
> think the South situation merited Lincoln's intervention. I don't think
> anything in Iraq merited Bush's intervention. Not a war lasting years
> without an end in sight, especially.
>
Had you lived at the time would you have supported Lincoln invading the
South to abolish slavery had the South not seceded (or, should I ask if you
would have joined up to fight that war)? Remember, even with Lincoln the
original move to war had nothing to do with slaves. That was written in the
Constitution. Lincoln was against the idea that any state, once a member of
the Union, could at any time thereafter remove itself from the Union. All
that slavery shit came later.
It's an interesting subject, particularly if you lived through some of the
aftermath - even the long aftermath.
JH
gumboman
>
> goobay REP PARTY!!
>
Let's hope ..............
JH
musicaner
whenever they F UP which seems is ALL THE TIME, they blame the so
called "LIBERALS" when the LIBERALS couldnt even get on the LUNCH LINE
much less do anythin!!! they GIVEN a NEW MEANIN to that PERSONAL
RESPONSIBILITY line!! big EYEBALL to anyone who TALK that PERSONAL
RESPONSIBILITY talk!!! BIG BIG EYEBALL!!! 'i take PERSONAL
RESPONSIBILITY for NEVER HAVIN said "STAY the COURSE"!! and if i did
say I MEANT EVERYTHING BUT what i said!!! and if anyone ACTUALLY
BELEIVED it was
the LIBERAL FAULT!!!!(how well figure out later dont think too much
about it!!).
Burton Busk
Hey, those are some cool stories, thanks for sharing them. That sort of
thing is the best thing about newsgroups. Debating and discussing is fine,
but what I really enjoy is hearing people's experiences.
I won't go into my Russia experiences right now, other than to say that I
too fell in love with the Russian people. They have heart like no other
group I've come across. They've had to, to survive all the crap they've been
through.
I was there 13 years ago, and there were still no old men --- I think maybe
the cheap vodka kills many of them. Seriously. I can't tell you how many
Russian women I met who were divorced because their husbands had become
hopeless alcoholics.
There were old women, though. They were the only overweight Russians I saw,
which I thought was marvelous --- it was like they were rewarded for
surviving a very difficult life, with food! There was a very obese American
man in our tour group, and the local people would just look at him in awe
and disbelief (and some in disgust), knowing this dude had obviously spent
many years eating 4 times as much as they had each day.
Anyway, thanks again sharing your experiences.
Burton Busk
>
> "Burton Busk" <burt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:NPudnT16HZB3mQbY...@comcast.com...
>>
>>
>> Not exactly opposite. Many of the Commie bigwigs became Russian mafia
>> bigwigs. Now they're running things for the most part, while the poor
>> people (which means most of the citizens) are left to fight over the
>> crumbs. The people had it rough under the old system, but at least they
>> were taken care of, however minimally. Now they have to do it all totally
>> on their own, without being trained.
>>
>
> Ah - don't get confused. The post Soviet Russia is more like the post
> Civil War South than what the Soviet Union was after the Communist
> revolution.
That's what I'm saying. And I'm saying that even though their new found
freedom is difficult, they still prefer it to the old system.
>>> See, this is part of the debate. If you simply say I'm signing this
>>> paper and now all blacks are free then yes, I suppose he sped it up. But
>>> if you say they were still slaves in everything but name then no, he
>>> didn't speed it up; in fact, it could be argued he slowed natural
>>> economic progression down.
>>
>> Who cares? It doesn't matter to a slave. Sure it could have been done
>> better, but the main thing is it got done.
>>
>
> Who cares? Over a century of slave descendants and over a century of white
> descendants for sure.
Certainly. But the people who were freed initially couldn't have cared much.
All they knew is that they were no longer slaves. Freedom isn't always easy,
but it's freedom. (It's also just another word for nothing left to do, but
that's another story!).
>>> Suppose, due to natural economic forces, normal industrialization had
>>> been allowed to occur in the south. Do you not think those factories
>>> would have needed workers (how many immigrants did the north need to man
>>> the factories?) and eventually the new industrialists would have
>>> abolished slavery in an effort to gain access to all that unused black
>>> human capital sitting around that was tied up in an increasingly
>>> inefficient economic system? Industrial workers need to be schooled and
>>> the new capitalistic industrialists certainly wouldn't have introduced
>>> an inefficient dual system
>>
>> No doubt true. But wasn't the slave issue the main reason it didn't get
>> industrialized?
>>
>
>
> Of course not. First of all the great industrial expansion in the north
> which had started before the civil war heated up during and after the war.
> Like in WWII and its aftermath war production is a great way to stimulate
> an economy. The south couldn't industrialize after the war because the
> investments had all been made up north and the human capital didn't exist.
> It was still an agrarian economy because the same inbreds who owned
> everything before the war owned the same shit after the war.
No, I didn't mean after the war, I meant before it.
That's sort of
> the point. Like in the collapse of the Soviet Union no one took the
> southern leaders (landowners) and re-educated them like the communists did
> in 1917 Russia, post WWII China or post war Vietnam.
>
> Focusing on slavery as a reason for the war just entirely misses the
> point. Whether one person should own another or not is a 'politcal type'
> issue. It sounds great in history books but the people who live history
> rarely think that way (or so it seems to me). War is about economics - who
> owns what, whther you call it ownership or not. There were certainly
> Crony, Incs. up north who didn't give a flying fuck whether the slaves
> were freed or not. All they wanted were the government armament contracts
> to continue.
I know it wasn't the reason for the war, but it did become an issue, at
least to Lincoln.
>> I can't answer your questions about Iraq because I don't know enough
>> about it. But it being a foreign country that was invaded and changed, I
>> think the situation is totally different than the South.
>> I'm pretty much on your side on Iraq, based on what I do know about it. I
>> think the South situation merited Lincoln's intervention. I don't think
>> anything in Iraq merited Bush's intervention. Not a war lasting years
>> without an end in sight, especially.
>>
>
> Had you lived at the time would you have supported Lincoln invading the
> South to abolish slavery had the South not seceded (or, should I ask if
> you would have joined up to fight that war)?
I'm assuming you mean if I was a Northerner? Hopefully I would have, it
still would have been something terrible going on in my own country, but
there's no way I can really know how I would have reacted. There had been
anti-slavery sentiment going on in this country for 80-100 years by that
time, Washington and Adams freed their slaves I think by the end of the 18th
century, for example; and "All men are created equal" is the cornerstone of
the Declaration Of Independence from 1776; so hopefully I'd have been
enlightened enough to take a stand against it. But who knows?
Remember, even with Lincoln the
> original move to war had nothing to do with slaves. That was written in
> the Constitution. Lincoln was against the idea that any state, once a
> member of the Union, could at any time thereafter remove itself from the
> Union.
As he should have been. Kind of a no-brainer there.
gumboman
JH
"musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1167829464.3...@48g2000cwx.googlegroups.com...
musicaner
gumboman wrote:
> So, are you ready for surge and escalation?
>
>
> JH
its LIKE ONE BIG BLACK HOLE!!! once IN no OUT!! UNBELEIVABLE!!! doin
the BIDDIN
of the SHIA MULLAS!!! we GETTIN PLAYED like NEVER BEFORE!!
of course NO MATTER what HAPPENS the "PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" is
gonna be BLAMED on the DEMOCRATS and/or anyone but the FOLK who THOUGHT
IT UP!!
William Innes
(WROTE A LONG POST ABOUT HIS VISIT TO THE USSR)
>
> Hey, those are some cool stories, thanks for sharing them. That sort of
> thing is the best thing about newsgroups. Debating and discussing is fine,
> but what I really enjoy is hearing people's experiences.
> I won't go into my Russia experiences right now, other than to say that I
> too fell in love with the Russian people. They have heart like no other
> group I've come across. They've had to, to survive all the crap they've
> been through.
> I was there 13 years ago, and there were still no old men --- I think
> maybe the cheap vodka kills many of them. Seriously. I can't tell you how
> many Russian women I met who were divorced because their husbands had
> become hopeless alcoholics.
> There were old women, though. They were the only overweight Russians I
> saw, which I thought was marvelous --- it was like they were rewarded for
> surviving a very difficult life, with food! There was a very obese
> American man in our tour group, and the local people would just look at
> him in awe and disbelief (and some in disgust), knowing this dude had
> obviously spent many years eating 4 times as much as they had each day.
>
> Anyway, thanks again sharing your experiences.
Thanks for the kind feedback, mr. Burt.
I'll very much look forward to swapping stories about Russia when we get the
chance.
Still no old men around??
Damn.
As I understand it, alcoholism runs amok in that country.
Between the cold winters, the drab life and overall sense of
hopelessness...well, I can't say that it's the poison I'd
want to choose...but I can't say that I blame them either.
musicaner
William Innes
> there a NICE DVD ITEM on the WATERBOYS on that DIME COMPUTER BOARD!!
I've got DSL for a connection...I'm betting that, if downloading a show is
any indication, then downloading an DVD would
take me at least a week (but I'm game to give it a try).
What era was it from ("Big Music" or "Celtic" or the stuff that came
afterwards)?
gumboman
>
>
> Certainly. But the people who were freed initially couldn't have cared
> much. All they knew is that they were no longer slaves. Freedom isn't
> always easy, but it's freedom. (It's also just another word for nothing
> left to do, but that's another story!).
>
I love that song. Do you ever listen to the Kristofferson 'Austin Sessions'
cd? Classic.
>>
>> Of course not. First of all the great industrial expansion in the north
>> which had started before the civil war heated up during and after the
>> war. Like in WWII and its aftermath war production is a great way to
>> stimulate an economy. The south couldn't industrialize after the war
>> because the investments had all been made up north and the human capital
>> didn't exist. It was still an agrarian economy because the same inbreds
>> who owned everything before the war owned the same shit after the war.
>
> No, I didn't mean after the war, I meant before it.
>
I'm sure it didn't help but as long as the plantation owners were in control
there wasn't going to be industrialization. They controlled the banks, the
land, the money, etc.
>
> I know it wasn't the reason for the war, but it did become an issue, at
> least to Lincoln.
>
After the secession. No one is trying to argue FOR slavery or AGAINST
freedom. The argument is that by not removing the landed gentry you acheived
neither in anything but name only. Don't kid yourself that by 1870 there
weren't a bunch of freed slaves running around going 'what the fuck?'
>>
>> Had you lived at the time would you have supported Lincoln invading the
>> South to abolish slavery had the South not seceded (or, should I ask if
>> you would have joined up to fight that war)?
>
> I'm assuming you mean if I was a Northerner? Hopefully I would have, it
> still would have been something terrible going on in my own country, but
> there's no way I can really know how I would have reacted. There had been
> anti-slavery sentiment going on in this country for 80-100 years by that
> time, Washington and Adams freed their slaves I think by the end of the
> 18th century, for example; and "All men are created equal" is the
> cornerstone of the Declaration Of Independence from 1776; so hopefully I'd
> have been enlightened enough to take a stand against it. But who knows?
>
But the Constitution didn't take a stand against it. What was it, the 3/5's
rule or something like that. In any case, there was no invasion of the South
previous to secession so the anti-slavery sentiment couldn't have been that
profound.
> Remember, even with Lincoln the
>> original move to war had nothing to do with slaves. That was written in
>> the Constitution. Lincoln was against the idea that any state, once a
>> member of the Union, could at any time thereafter remove itself from the
>> Union.
>
> As he should have been. Kind of a no-brainer there.
>
Really? Is that what you truly believe today? You think Californians in
perpetuity are bound by decisions made in 1850 (or whatever year California
joined the Union)? What gives you or anyone the right to make decisions for
future generations like that? I don't believe that at all.
JH
musicaner
Burton Busk
>
> "Burton Busk" <burt...@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:adednQ6dxL47LAbY...@comcast.com...
>>
>>
>> Certainly. But the people who were freed initially couldn't have cared
>> much. All they knew is that they were no longer slaves. Freedom isn't
>> always easy, but it's freedom. (It's also just another word for nothing
>> left to do, but that's another story!).
>>
>
>
> I love that song. Do you ever listen to the Kristofferson 'Austin
> Sessions' cd? Classic.
Ya know, I don't think I've ever heard Kris' version of the song, even tho I
know he wrote it.
>>> Of course not. First of all the great industrial expansion in the north
>>> which had started before the civil war heated up during and after the
>>> war. Like in WWII and its aftermath war production is a great way to
>>> stimulate an economy. The south couldn't industrialize after the war
>>> because the investments had all been made up north and the human capital
>>> didn't exist. It was still an agrarian economy because the same inbreds
>>> who owned everything before the war owned the same shit after the war.
>>
>> No, I didn't mean after the war, I meant before it.
>>
>
> I'm sure it didn't help but as long as the plantation owners were in
> control there wasn't going to be industrialization. They controlled the
> banks, the land, the money, etc.
>
>>
>> I know it wasn't the reason for the war, but it did become an issue, at
>> least to Lincoln.
>> Remember, even with Lincoln the
>>> original move to war had nothing to do with slaves. That was written in
>>> the Constitution. Lincoln was against the idea that any state, once a
>>> member of the Union, could at any time thereafter remove itself from the
>>> Union.
>>
>> As he should have been. Kind of a no-brainer there.
>>
>
>
> Really? Is that what you truly believe today? You think Californians in
> perpetuity are bound by decisions made in 1850 (or whatever year
> California joined the Union)? What gives you or anyone the right to make
> decisions for future generations like that? I don't believe that at all.
I have no idea whether or not Lincoln and/or Congress had that right, but I
think if the South had been allowed to seceed, then any state would have
been allowed to do the same in the future. Which would have been a huge
mess. We might be 50 (or maybe even more) little countries by now.
I think Lincoln made the right decision. And if freedom for the slaves came
out of that decision as well, then it was an even better decision.
Do you think the South, and blacks, would be better off today if Lincoln had
said, "Fuck it, let em do what they want down there."?
musicaner
the SOUTH wasnt the ENLIGHTENED CHRISTIAN ENCLAVE it is today!!!!
LINCOLN i beleive did the right thing, IF NOT we would have had
ENLIGHTENED APARTHEID in
the SOUTH!!! VERY CHRISTIAN and VERY PLEASANT with NICE VIBRANT MANNERS
but if you the WRONG SHADE then GET TO before it GETS DARK if you know
WHAT I MEAN!!!! its TODAY and they got these HUGE CHURCHES everyone
GLOMMIN FOR DOUGH and PREACHERS talkin MORALITY, that COME ACROSS very
MUCH like they
BEEN LOOSE in the CABOOSE for MANY YEARS!!
gumboman
>
> gumboman wrote:
>> So, are you ready for surge and escalation?
>>
>>
>> JH
>
> its LIKE ONE BIG BLACK HOLE!!! once IN no OUT!! UNBELEIVABLE!!! doin
> the BIDDIN
> of the SHIA MULLAS!!! we GETTIN PLAYED like NEVER BEFORE!!
> of course NO MATTER what HAPPENS the "PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" is
> gonna be BLAMED on the DEMOCRATS and/or anyone but the FOLK who THOUGHT
> IT UP!!
>
>
Did you see that thread over ->>>> on Carter's book? I think I'm going to
print it out and everytime someone asks why I'm opposed to the US being
involved in the Middle East I'm going to have them read some of that crap.
Is it any surprise to anyone that as the US gets more and more involved in
the Middle East that our politics becomes more and more partisan? By
allowing ourselves to get involved in that mess we're turning ourselves into
the same kind of lunatics as occupy the Middle East. God help this country
and our children if this Congress doesn't bite the bullet and begin
disassociating this country from that turmoil.
The so called 'liberal lawyer' wants to go Libertarian. I haven't laughed so
hard in ages. I know some Libertarians and although I've never been to a
Libertarian meeting I certainly want to be there when he starts going
through his bullshit in front of that crowd. That's going to be some funny
shit.
It's a strange world once you get involved with those people over there. A
graduate of a public US military academy, a nuclear engineer and veteran who
served on a nuclear submarine and was subsequently elected President of the
US, where he became the only US President to broker a peace between any of
those crazies over there, is now an object of derision because he builds
home for the poor in his old age. I suppose if he flew up in his Black Hawk
helicopter and rocketed a few homes of the poor he would then become a
national hero. Unbelievable.
Which way is it to Belize again? :)
JH
gumboman
>
>>
>> I love that song. Do you ever listen to the Kristofferson 'Austin
>> Sessions' cd? Classic.
>
> Ya know, I don't think I've ever heard Kris' version of the song, even tho
> I know he wrote it.
>
You HAVE to get that CD. Great from beginning to end.
> Do you think the South, and blacks, would be better off today if Lincoln
> had said, "Fuck it, let em do what they want down there."?
>
But that's exactly what Lincoln did in the end. Sure, he invaded, laid waste
to the countryside, killed a bunch of people, starved some more, issued a
couple of political proclamations, etc. - but at the end of the day the same
people who were in charge in the South when the war began were basically
left in charge when reconstruction and the war were over. That's the whole
point. It took the next 100 years to get anything halfway straightened out
and look at the situation blacks were in by the 1960's.
I think the South is immeasurably better off today due to the Civil Rights
movement and the subsequent Federal intervention. I thought I made that
pretty clear up front. However, I also think it's going to take decades to
reintegrate blacks into the economic mainstream. Instead of marching his
armies through Georgia and laying waste to the countryside with the
resulting derogatory affects, Lincoln should have marched that army up to
the front door of every plantation owner and taken the owner, his wife and
all mistresses out for re-education. Then he should have broken up the
plantation and redistributed the land to the slaves and non landholding
whites. Instead, he destroyed the food supply for everyone then let the
plantation owner run the show again. If you want heroes in the South don't
look to the likes of Lincoln - look at all the thousands and thousands of
volunteers, along with leaders like Kennedy and Johnson, who actually did
something to help blacks and whites opposed to Jim Crow. What Lincoln left
us was the fucking pits - what the modern day guys left us is something we
can work with to make things a lot better in the future for everyone, not
just plantation owners.
Am I being clear?
JH
musicaner
gumboman wrote:
> "musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1167851645.4...@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > gumboman wrote:
> >> So, are you ready for surge and escalation?
> >>
> >>
> >> JH
> >
> > its LIKE ONE BIG BLACK HOLE!!! once IN no OUT!! UNBELEIVABLE!!! doin
> > the BIDDIN
> > of the SHIA MULLAS!!! we GETTIN PLAYED like NEVER BEFORE!!
> > of course NO MATTER what HAPPENS the "PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY" is
> > gonna be BLAMED on the DEMOCRATS and/or anyone but the FOLK who THOUGHT
> > IT UP!!
> >
> >
>
>
> Did you see that thread over ->>>> on Carter's book? I think I'm going to
> print it out and everytime someone asks why I'm opposed to the US being
> involved in the Middle East I'm going to have them read some of that crap.
> Is it any surprise to anyone that as the US gets more and more involved in
> the Middle East that our politics becomes more and more partisan? By
> allowing ourselves to get involved in that mess we're turning ourselves into
> the same kind of lunatics as occupy the Middle East. God help this country
> and our children if this Congress doesn't bite the bullet and begin
> disassociating this country from that turmoil.
>
i AINT READ the book but THAT DERSHOWITZ fellow got 00000
CREDEBILITY!!!(sp) ZERO NONE ZIP!! he aint NOTHIN BUT A PUBLICITY
HOUND(sp)!!!
i beleive that this MIDDLE EAST nonsense IS GETTTIN OLD and that the
PARTICIPANTS
should EITHER SINK OR SWIM!! and we NEED TO GET UNINVOLVED as all we
are
GOOD FOR is for bein SCAMMED FOR DOUGH!!
> The so called 'liberal lawyer' wants to go Libertarian. I haven't laughed so
> hard in ages. I know some Libertarians and although I've never been to a
> Libertarian meeting I certainly want to be there when he starts going
> through his bullshit in front of that crowd. That's going to be some funny
> shit.
i always have HEARD folk CALL THEMSELVES 'LIBERTARIAN" but aint CERTAIN
what it mean!! i think it means that NOBODY in the GOVT is good ENOUGH
on
account they 'dont think exactly like me' eveyone of em LIBERTARIANS on
TV
they got hair that looks been thru a CAR WASH!!
>
> It's a strange world once you get involved with those people over there. A
> graduate of a public US military academy, a nuclear engineer and veteran who
> served on a nuclear submarine and was subsequently elected President of the
> US, where he became the only US President to broker a peace between any of
> those crazies over there, is now an object of derision because he builds
> home for the poor in his old age. I suppose if he flew up in his Black Hawk
> helicopter and rocketed a few homes of the poor he would then become a
> national hero. Unbelievable.
>
> Which way is it to Belize again? :)
>
>
> JH
they SHOULD START a BRIGADE like they had back in the DAY, the LINCOLN
BRIGAGDE
and then if you wanna go over there JOIN UP and get SHOT and thats
that!! but folk in general have had just ABOUT ENOUGH!!! they wanna
FULFILL the "BOOK OF REVELATIONS" or some such well SO LONG GOOD LUCK
AND GOOBAY!!! drop us a POSTCARD!
gumboman
>
>
>
> the SOUTH wasnt the ENLIGHTENED CHRISTIAN ENCLAVE it is today!!!!
LMAO - ain't that the truth.
> LINCOLN i beleive did the right thing, IF NOT we would have had
> ENLIGHTENED APARTHEID in
> the SOUTH!!! VERY CHRISTIAN and VERY PLEASANT with NICE VIBRANT MANNERS
> but if you the WRONG SHADE then GET TO before it GETS DARK if you know
> WHAT I MEAN!!!! its TODAY and they got these HUGE CHURCHES everyone
> GLOMMIN FOR DOUGH and PREACHERS talkin MORALITY, that COME ACROSS very
> MUCH like they
> BEEN LOOSE in the CABOOSE for MANY YEARS!!
>
That certainly seems to be the prevalent view of Lincoln. I don't want to
sound as though I don't think he shouldn't have freed the slaves or that it
wasn't an important historic document, I just think, for whatever reasons,
he shouldn't have left the same crew in charge after the war as was in
charge before the war. Then again, maybe things would have been different
had he not been shot so maybe it's unfair to criticize him too much for post
war happenings.
You have to admit, Jim Crow wasn't a pleasant time to be black.
JH
musicaner
NO it wasnt but it WAS BETTER than SLAVERY!! there was NO WAY it was
GONNA
get ENGLIGHENTEND OVERNIGHT!!! that it did in the 1960s is A TRULY
UNEXPLAINED MIRACLE!!! they NOW VOTE the same way they ALWAYS VOTED
(irrigardless or party)but now for ALL THE GOOD CHRISTIANS REASONS!!!(
bible says EVERYONE SHOULD HELP the POOR and EVERYONE MEANS EVERYONE
including the GOVT!!!! you caint GO ROUND
WRITIN A NEW BIBLE it ll getya INTO PROBLEMS!!)
Burton Busk
>> had said, "Fuck it, let em do what they want down there."?
>>
>
>
> But that's exactly what Lincoln did in the end. Sure, he invaded, laid
> waste to the countryside, killed a bunch of people, starved some more,
> issued a couple of political proclamations, etc. - but at the end of the
> day the same people who were in charge in the South when the war began
> were basically left in charge when reconstruction and the war were over.
> That's the whole point. It took the next 100 years to get anything halfway
> straightened out and look at the situation blacks were in by the 1960's.
It took that long because nobody AFTER Lincoln did squat about it.
> I think the South is immeasurably better off today due to the Civil Rights
> movement and the subsequent Federal intervention. I thought I made that
> pretty clear up front. However, I also think it's going to take decades to
> reintegrate blacks into the economic mainstream. Instead of marching his
> armies through Georgia and laying waste to the countryside with the
> resulting derogatory affects, Lincoln should have marched that army up to
> the front door of every plantation owner and taken the owner, his wife and
> all mistresses out for re-education. Then he should have broken up the
> plantation and redistributed the land to the slaves and non landholding
> whites. Instead, he destroyed the food supply for everyone then let the
> plantation owner run the show again.
War isn't pretty, for sure. There were questionable decisions from both
sides.
If you want heroes in the South don't
> look to the likes of Lincoln - look at all the thousands and thousands of
> volunteers, along with leaders like Kennedy and Johnson, who actually did
> something to help blacks and whites opposed to Jim Crow. What Lincoln left
> us was the fucking pits - what the modern day guys left us is something we
> can work with to make things a lot better in the future for everyone, not
> just plantation owners.
What I don't understand is why people like Jefferson Davis are saints, but
Lincoln is the devil. Shouldn't the people who perpetuated the mentality of
the Old South in the first place be more villified than the guy who stepped
in and did something about it, however sloppily and cruelly it was done? Is
Lincoln the devil to Southern blacks?
> Am I being clear?
Yes, on the fact that it was handled poorly. Nobody's arguing that.
But no, if you're still saying that Lincoln set back blacks many years.
Burton Busk
playing with the Novato Frank Band (I never heard of Novato Frank). Barry
Melton is on them too, and Kimock is on one of them.
More good stuff --- those Folkscene 25th anniversary shows.
"musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1167881178.1...@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
gumboman
>
>
> It took that long because nobody AFTER Lincoln did squat about it.
>
LMAO - ain't it the truth.
>
> What I don't understand is why people like Jefferson Davis are saints, but
> Lincoln is the devil.
He may be with the Dukes of Hazzard crowd but he isn't in my book.
> Shouldn't the people who perpetuated the mentality of the Old South in the
> first place be more villified than the guy who stepped in and did
> something about it, however sloppily and cruelly it was done? Is Lincoln
> the devil to Southern blacks?
>
No, I wouldn't say he's the devil. Remember, this is an argument that you
hear a lot in the economics community which is where I first heard it and I
suppose why I find a lot of truth in it. I'm not one who is of the opinion
that wars are fought for lofty ideals - that usually comes afterwards. Wars
are fought over money. If you can make some money and free the blacks from
slavery then great, but first things first.
>> Am I being clear?
>
> Yes, on the fact that it was handled poorly. Nobody's arguing that.
> But no, if you're still saying that Lincoln set back blacks many years.
>
Set back economic progress.
JH
gumboman
>
>
> NO it wasnt but it WAS BETTER than SLAVERY!! there was NO WAY it was
> GONNA
> get ENGLIGHENTEND OVERNIGHT!!! that it did in the 1960s is A TRULY
> UNEXPLAINED MIRACLE!!!
That may be true.
> they NOW VOTE the same way they ALWAYS VOTED
> (irrigardless or party)but now for ALL THE GOOD CHRISTIANS REASONS!!!(
> bible says EVERYONE SHOULD HELP the POOR and EVERYONE MEANS EVERYONE
> including the GOVT!!!! you caint GO ROUND
> WRITIN A NEW BIBLE it ll getya INTO PROBLEMS!!)
>
Will the circle be unbroken hey?
JH
gumboman
>
>>
>
> i AINT READ the book but THAT DERSHOWITZ fellow got 00000
> CREDEBILITY!!!(sp) ZERO NONE ZIP!! he aint NOTHIN BUT A PUBLICITY
> HOUND(sp)!!!
>
He's the head cheerleader for a different variant of Crony, Inc. It seems as
over there someone always has his hand in your pocket.
> i beleive that this MIDDLE EAST nonsense IS GETTTIN OLD and that the
> PARTICIPANTS
> should EITHER SINK OR SWIM!! and we NEED TO GET UNINVOLVED as all we
> are
> GOOD FOR is for bein SCAMMED FOR DOUGH!!
>
LMAO
>>
>> It's a strange world once you get involved with those people over there.
>> A
>> graduate of a public US military academy, a nuclear engineer and veteran
>> who
>> served on a nuclear submarine and was subsequently elected President of
>> the
>> US, where he became the only US President to broker a peace between any
>> of
>> those crazies over there, is now an object of derision because he builds
>> home for the poor in his old age. I suppose if he flew up in his Black
>> Hawk
>> helicopter and rocketed a few homes of the poor he would then become a
>> national hero. Unbelievable.
>>
>> Which way is it to Belize again? :)
>>
>>
>> JH
>
> they SHOULD START a BRIGADE like they had back in the DAY, the LINCOLN
> BRIGAGDE
> and then if you wanna go over there JOIN UP and get SHOT and thats
> that!! but folk in general have had just ABOUT ENOUGH!!! they wanna
> FULFILL the "BOOK OF REVELATIONS" or some such well SO LONG GOOD LUCK
> AND GOOBAY!!! drop us a POSTCARD!
>
AIN'T NONE OF EM FIGHT. If we could bring that about the whole thing would
be over in about 2 hours. It's always someone else that's supposed to die
and pay for their belief systems. Damnedest thing I ever saw or heard of if
you ask me.
JH
musicaner
gumboman wrote:
> "musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1167930561.5...@51g2000cwl.googlegroups.com...
> >
> >>
> >
> > i AINT READ the book but THAT DERSHOWITZ fellow got 00000
> > CREDEBILITY!!!(sp) ZERO NONE ZIP!! he aint NOTHIN BUT A PUBLICITY
> > HOUND(sp)!!!
> >
>
>
> He's the head cheerleader for a different variant of Crony, Inc. It seems as
> over there someone always has his hand in your pocket.
>
>
get INVOLVED with OJ to MAKE DOUGH so he they CAIN DO PRO BONO
WORK!!!????
is the CONCEPT TO DO A WHOLE LOTTA BAD to do a whole LITTLE OF GOOD?? i
wish we KNEW what PRO BONO CASE that DOUGH WENT TO!!! aint GOT NO
CREDEBILITY in
my BOOK< every time his MUG come ON TV I SWITCH OFF!!!!
theyd GO to give ORDERS to other FOLK!! 100000000000 GENERALS and 12
SOLDIERS!!!!
musicaner
GENERALS!!! if YOU GET DRUNK anywhere around one of em SIGN UP CENTERS
with
the UNCLE SAM SIGN ON IT you may wake up as the "SURGE"!!!
gumboman
> 10 PLATOONS of 2 SOLDIERS APIECE and a COMMAND CENTER of 20,0000000
> GENERALS!!! if YOU GET DRUNK anywhere around one of em SIGN UP CENTERS
> with
> the UNCLE SAM SIGN ON IT you may wake up as the "SURGE"!!!
>
Yes, it seems to be true. The reports are we be surgin soon.
I think I'm going to surge my wallet into a nice secure place where it be
hard to find.
JH
gumboman
>
>
> get INVOLVED with OJ to MAKE DOUGH so he they CAIN DO PRO BONO
> WORK!!!????
> is the CONCEPT TO DO A WHOLE LOTTA BAD to do a whole LITTLE OF GOOD?? i
> wish we KNEW what PRO BONO CASE that DOUGH WENT TO!!! aint GOT NO
> CREDEBILITY in
> my BOOK< every time his MUG come ON TV I SWITCH OFF!!!!
>
The resident intellectual over ->>>>> would refer to you as 'sick' for
adopting that attitude.
>
> theyd GO to give ORDERS to other FOLK!! 100000000000 GENERALS and 12
> SOLDIERS!!!!
>
It's the new world order. I was thinking that if the crema-de-la-crema ->>>>
had expended as much energy supporting his own country by signing up to go
look for those WMD's he assured us all were there as he does defending other
countries then maybe, just maybe, someone would take him seriously. How can
you be that wrong about anything and then refer to someone else as 'sick'?
LMAO.
JH
musicaner
gumboman wrote:
> "musicaner" <musi...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1167958661....@11g2000cwr.googlegroups.com...
> >
> >
> > get INVOLVED with OJ to MAKE DOUGH so he they CAIN DO PRO BONO
> > WORK!!!????
> > is the CONCEPT TO DO A WHOLE LOTTA BAD to do a whole LITTLE OF GOOD?? i
> > wish we KNEW what PRO BONO CASE that DOUGH WENT TO!!! aint GOT NO
> > CREDEBILITY in
> > my BOOK< every time his MUG come ON TV I SWITCH OFF!!!!
> >
>
>
> The resident intellectual over ->>>>> would refer to you as 'sick' for
> adopting that attitude.
>
>
you NEED one of FOOTBALL scorecards to KEEP up with THE RESIDENT
INTELLECTUALS over there!!! on top of that they NOT SUCCINT about it,
they
tend to carry on a bit.
> >
> > theyd GO to give ORDERS to other FOLK!! 100000000000 GENERALS and 12
> > SOLDIERS!!!!
> >
>
> It's the new world order. I was thinking that if the crema-de-la-crema ->>>>
> had expended as much energy supporting his own country by signing up to go
> look for those WMD's he assured us all were there as he does defending other
> countries then maybe, just maybe, someone would take him seriously. How can
> you be that wrong about anything and then refer to someone else as 'sick'?
>
> LMAO.
>
>
> JH
in my book i rather be sick FROM a HEAD COLD than sick from SHOT in the
HEAD!! but thats me, i dont read TOO MANY of them INTELLECTUALIZATION
BOOKS!!! makes me nervous to even LOOK at the COVER!!! liable to read
that the best thing for you to do
is to JUMP offa CLIFF!!! they aint never FOLLOW their own advice ON
ACCOUNT they make sure everyone jump off first before they MAKE ANY
CONTEMPLATION about it!!
they SHOULD OPEN up a few SURGE PLATOONS for em to VOLUNTEER and tell
em all
the GENERAL SPOTS are taken only the GETTING SHOT SLOTS are open!!! let
see how
much of a SURGE we get on their SIGNIN UP!!!!
musicaner
some MOST DEFENITELY are MORE EQUAL than OTHERS!!! they BERATE FOLK
that PROBABLY have
the same NOTIONS BRUCE HIMSELF GOT but they GO ATTEND EVERY BRUCE
SHOW and CLAPACLAP all night LONG!!!! aint they LISTENED to RISIN
ALBUM???
gumboman
>
>
> in my book i rather be sick FROM a HEAD COLD than sick from SHOT in the
> HEAD!! but thats me, i dont read TOO MANY of them INTELLECTUALIZATION
> BOOKS!!! makes me nervous to even LOOK at the COVER!!! liable to read
> that the best thing for you to do
> is to JUMP offa CLIFF!!! they aint never FOLLOW their own advice ON
> ACCOUNT they make sure everyone jump off first before they MAKE ANY
> CONTEMPLATION about it!!
Truth number one for 2007.
> they SHOULD OPEN up a few SURGE PLATOONS for em to VOLUNTEER and tell
> em all
> the GENERAL SPOTS are taken only the GETTING SHOT SLOTS are open!!! let
> see how
> much of a SURGE we get on their SIGNIN UP!!!!
>
That would be a surge going backwards would it not? What's that called - a
slog? No wait - that's 'cut and run'.
JH