You’re expecting something better from the genius who said this:
Nothing convinced me of the intellectual bankruptcy of those slamming Spain as this line: “prove to me that, in the future, there will be an absence of the increase I’m asserting on purely speculative grounds.”
Starving, if you’re pissed off about it, go away for a day or two until you calm down and look at things a little more rationally, because right now, you’re leading the side of the blithering.
You just can’t see where your logic flawed, can you? So I’ll help… at least 3 separate URL’s have been provided in this thread to news articles in media outlets OUTSIDE of the USA in the weeks PRIOR to the Spanish Elections which stated unequivocally that the election was going to be close - real close.
Now, contrast that to the news feed that you’ve been getting WITHIN the United States AFTER the election. I’ll bet you a million bucks that you didn’t even know there was an upcoming Spanish election until your US Media outlets decided it was a story worth beating up because it sold easy copy.
My point here is this… a shitload of us posters on the SDMB have access to news and comment from outside of the USA and it constantly marvels all of us how different the media spin is - depending on where you are.
In short sir, you’ve been fooled into believing a certain position. All of the historical evidence indicates that the election actually went the way the polls were TRULY predicting - that is, totally line ball.
So to repeat - here are the results once more… with virtually all the votes in Sunday’s poll counted, the Socialists took 34.7% of the vote, about 200,000 votes ahead of Mr Aznar’s party which finished on 33.8%.
Well, you can’t prove a negative.
Luckily, we don’t have to. Your argument rests on the premise that Spanish voters had al Qaeda’s interests in mind when they went to the polls, rather than their own. That is what has been refuted again and again. It has been shown that the Popular Party has been losing ground to the PSOE for over a year, and no-one who has been paying attention is terribly shocked by the election results.
If you get hysterical and give al Qaeda credit for the election results, then you’re encouraging exactly that.
The elections worked exactly the way democratic elections are supposed to work. The Spanish people turfed their government because they were fed up. Yes, part of it was a reaction to the events leading up and immediately following the attacks. The government’s actions in both cases were deeply offensive to voters.
It wasn’t just al Qaeda who was against Spanish soldiers in Iraq, remember-- it was 90% of Spaniards. Worse, the government gave voters ample reason to resent them days before the election
If you’re going to make policy choices that are nearly universaly unpopular, and then throw transparent bullshit at your citizens, then do not send to ask for whom the bell tolls, right?
You can take comfort in the knowledge that terrorist attacks that are designed to demand change in policies that actually have popular support historically strengthen political will.
Argh, I had to take a longish phone call and on preview I see this has been adequately dealt with. Of course, it had been adequately dealt with before, but who knows, maybe this time it will get through.
Except it’s not appeasment. I don’t see the ruling Spanish party saying they’re going to run away and hide, or to invite Al Queda to draw up a new constitution – they’re going to end their commitment to Iraq at a later date as they originally would have anyway unless, and this is key, their troops would be under UN and not US administration. So it’s not the pull away and hide under a rock strategy you seem to think it is. The new ruling party wants to focus their efforts on terrorism in a different direction than Iraq, which is their right, and quite frankly, I agree with this strategy.
As to whether AQ views this as in their favor or not, I say, Fuck. Them. They can view it as a sign that Kool-Aid’s about to fall from the sky and I couldn’t give two shits. They will bomb whether they get encouragement or not. There is one tried and tested way to get terrorists to stop bombing – get terrorists. Not make the appearance of getting terrorists.
I believe they should do what they would have done had not AQ blown up their trains. I’m stupid?
Damn right!!! I am major pissed!
Yes, because you are seeing a simple causal relationship between the attacks and the way people voted that simply does not exist.
If you’d bother to try to understand the politics of the situation beyond the artificial and superficial concept that you have of it, you’d realize that what you’re asking is absurd. It not like the voting public is a discrete entity that was going to vote for the PP, but changed its mind because of the attacks and instead voted in the PSOE.
First, the election was really too close to call, before the attacks. Second, the attacks did happen. and A) the PP handling of them was spectacularly offensive to many people, and B) they galvanized a lot of dissatisfied people who might otherwise have been more apathetic about actually voting. You can’t ask rightly pissed-off people to either vote against their own interests or abstain because of some misguided abstraction of your own. It’s stupid.
Good point, Larry… people like Starving Artist tend to make very broad assumptions based on little or no evidence for whatever it is they’re claiming. Like drawing an imaginary parallel between Iraq and the September 11th attacks, for instance.
I absolutely DEFY you to show where I ever did any such thing.
Get it right, asshole!
(Hmm…on the other hand, I must be making headway. This dipshit seems to have a real hard-on for me. Yea, me!)
Just like I bailed from Gaspode’s ridiculously self-congratulatory and ultimately dishonest thread (for painting all of us with whom he or she doesn’t agree with the same brush, although some of us used more insulting and derogatory terms in regard to Spain and Spaniards than others), I’ve had it here, too. There’s no point continuing to bang my head against the wall.
I haven’t had a genuine, honest discourse with anyone here since last night, and there weren’t many then. Instead, I’m having to spend all my time defending myself for things I never said, or thoughts I never had, and explaining my genuine position over and over again. I find it very interesting that not once during this entire thread has anyone addressed the many salient points of my argument. I have scored many excellent points and arguments on this and some of the other threads. They have been ignored without exception. Instead, mostly inconsequential little snippets are drug out here and there, false meanings are attributed to them, and then the false meanings are attacked.
Just remember your sanctimoniousness as you watch time after time while innocent people are killed and maimed by the ever-increasing terrorist activity that that election is going to engender. On second thought, never mind…you can’t see it now, and you’ll be just as delusional then, without a doubt.
Yeah, it must be really tiring, having to completly ignore every argument that runs counter to your self-righteous little blame game, huh?
Good. Fucking idiot.
You must have missed the 2000 Presidential election, because polls can say all sorts of things.
They didn’t capitulate, are you fucking blind? The move is twofold, and the move is good strategy. Get the fuck out of Iraq, which is a waste, and concentrate on getting AQ. The hope that getting out of Iraq saves them from nuts using the excuse that they’re in Iraq is an added bonus. The people realized that following this course of action will most likely yield better results, so they voted for the people that will point them in that direction. In no way does stepping back to think about a better path equal caving in to the terrorists. This could be the very change that leads to their downfall, and you think it’s a bad thing, because for a few months it’ll look like “they won”.
Even if this reaction was not best for the country?
Even if his opponent had better ideas?
So here it is, you would blindly choose the opposite of who you think they wanted , because this would stick it to AQ. :rolleyes:
Your wrongful belief that terrorism is going to sky rocket has been debunked, debunked and debunked. You look like an ass to keep repeating this.
Sure. We’re dealing with a bunch of brainwashed uneducated fools here, they’ll believe anything they’re told.
Same bullshit again.
Well, I don’t know. Maybe if you bang your head against the wall long enough, your brain might actually awake from its obviously dormant state.
I’d like to say, however (even though it’s been done before) that this thread at least confirms to me that for every stereotypically “stupid ugly American”, there are more than a handful of well-informed, nuanced Americans. Which goes to show the stereotype is just that - it doesn’t represent the nation as a whole. I know the US is not a well-liked country right now, from an international perspective, and I imagine that has to be very frustrating if you’re an American whose thought processes are a tad more complex than the usual GWB simplistic oneliners aimed at braindead “USA #1”-chanting potential voters. The US is a country I love dearly, despite the current political climate. I hope for America, and its citizens, that the country will soon rise from the diplomatic vaccuum it seems to have thrown itself in over the last four years. It used to be a nation to regard with respect - and I for one hope it will return to that status.
Thank you, Coldfire.
In the same spirit, it is nice to know that many Europeans (and others around the world) do not hate Americans (the people), but may hate the direction our country has headed.
If only more folks could make the important distinction between a nation of people and the policies and politics of its government, our world would indeed be a safer and better place.
ewww…
Before you two start french kissing let me just say I still hate Americans. Fucking stupid bastards!
I dunno 'bout that… they gave us the internet… and teflon… and The Doors… and Shelby Mustangs… and Marilyn Monroe.
Well, I love Denmark. Especially Danish girls…
Starving Artist: It’s hopeless. Most of your “opponents” are far too wrapped up in railing against the long abandoned contention of cowardice than they are in rationally discussing the possiblility that the attack could have effected the elections. That many arent even willing to entertain such a possiblity is quite telling, as is the difference in civility with which you/they approach the argument. They are still fighting the OP with you as proxy. If you strip the debate of it’s content and simply look at the structure you’ll see that the “opposition” isn’t remotely interested in the crux of your argument but in merely saving face, dodging logic, or sublimating their anger at the OP. Your best bet is to go and find a thread in GD where “fucking moron” isn’t used as a premise.
Because in GD the Spanish are merely “pussies”, not “cowards”.