# Godwin for the gander - Senator Durbin shoots his fucking mouth off... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593 "2005-06-16T18:55:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/341 "2005-06-19T15:15:39Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > So you can call me names but I can’t call you names, that’s what it is? I said exactly the opposite, fool. ---
**Author:** ![holmes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e95f7d/32.png) [@holmes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/holmes)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/342 "2005-06-19T15:16:08Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > I’ve been pretty honest in this thread. > > I’ve not denied abuse at Gitmo and other prisons, and offered a comparison myself of what that abuse resembled to my eyes. And that abuse didn’t resemble Auschwitz or the killing fields, sorry. It resembled the State Correctional Institution in Greene County, Pennsylvania and some other American domestic prisons. What you fail to grasp, is even if there are institutions that do (and I would love to see a cite for those institutions) that do what’s done in Gitmo; the average American, isn’t aware of it. What we are aware of is what we believe the Nazis, or other facist nations with a llack of human rights concerns, would do and that’s the point Dubin was making. If you walked up to a random guy on the street, listed what what’s going on in Gitmo and asked what he thought; he would most likely shout, "those Nazi Bastards’; because that’s what a Nazi bastard would do…chain a prisoner to the floor, in his shit and piss…that’s the opposite that a nation that’s often accused of coddling prisoners would do. Just because the Nazis did much worst, doesn’t invalidate the impression that what’s going on in Gitmo is what a Nazi would do. This isn’t a hard concept…and ADL has their own agenda, same has Sharpton and Jackson, two people who I believe you have opinions on…whoops I compared the ADL ahd Al Sharpton, clearly I mean that the ADL is interchangable with Al Sharpton. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/343 "2005-06-19T15:16:31Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Thit is something I can tell you about on a basis of long years of personal experience. > > Sorry to admit, we Soviet dissidents were only human and thus biased. Like most people, we loved overblown rhetoric only if it suited us. We loved Reagan for talking about ‘Evil Empire’ and ‘bombing in five minutes’, but we had nothing but contempt for his critics calling hime senile criminal etc. And you speak for every single person who lived in the Soviet Bloc? If you had contempt for dissent (and truthful dissent at that…Reagan _was_ a senile criminal) then you are a tool. Has it occurred to you that you might have felt differently if Reagan had invaded your country and killed your children or put you in prison for no reason and tortured you? ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/344 "2005-06-19T16:33:15Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I said exactly the opposite, fool. Beg pardon, my mistake, try again. You can call me names, but if I call you names, you gonna call me even more names, is that it? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/345 "2005-06-19T16:36:10Z")
I, for one, am very sorry that your mother had you suckling lead paint chips while you were a child. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/346 "2005-06-19T16:48:46Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Beg pardon, my mistake, try again. > > You can call me names, but if I call you names, you gonna call me even more names, is that it? The barrel of fish is getting it!! :D, but as I try to do in discussions, one has to have good evidence to tell people to shove it. Right now the right wing is grossly exagerating what Durbin said that it is impossible to say it is just an honest mistake, so much so that they even tripped the ADL; and so much so that just like rightists gave an easy way out to Bush and company for what Durbin said, the right is giving Durbin an easy out for lying on what Durbin said. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/347 "2005-06-19T17:04:08Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Thit is something I can tell you about on a basis of long years of personal experience. > > Sorry to admit, we Soviet dissidents were only human and thus biased. Like most people, we loved overblown rhetoric only if it suited us. We loved Reagan for talking about ‘Evil Empire’ and ‘bombing in five minutes’, but we had nothing but contempt for his critics calling hime senile criminal etc. Which is pretty much irrelevant to my point, since I was speaking of the great masses of people living behind the Iron Curtain and not a handful of self-proclaimed “dissidents.” The issue was not what some handful of people may have felt in their hearts, but whether the great mass of people came to believe about the world. (I am aware, for example, that when the apologists of the Right wish to claim that Star Wars actually frightened the Kremlin, they have a short list of “dissidents” (none of whom were actually in the Kremlin) that they trot out to make their case. This, again, has nothing to do with whether Ukrainian farmers, Georgian fishermen, or Russian factory workers were able to recognize problems in the Soviet Bloc from Western news reports that they would not simply dismiss as Western propaganda.) ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/348 "2005-06-19T21:00:50Z")
Yes, you must know, you weren’t there. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/349 "2005-06-19T21:39:54Z")
I can’t believe what I’m reading. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Are you an American citizen? I illegal immigrant (just kidding). First **Apos** calls people anti-American, then you demand to see my papers, what’s next? > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > And you speak for every single person who lived in the Soviet Bloc? You got me there, I certainly don’t speak for Brezhnev, nor can I claim to be speaking for KGB. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > If you had contempt for dissent… Did you read my post backwards? Because I said explicitly, > [@](#): > > Like most people, we loved overblown rhetoric only if it suited us. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Has it occurred to you that you might have felt differently if Reagan had invaded your country and killed your children or put you in prison for no reason and tortured you? Yes, it did occur to me immediately that RR wanted to **incinerate me** in five minutes. I still loved him, because I hated SSSR so much. You really have no idea how people in hellholes around the world really feel about things. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/350 "2005-06-19T22:09:00Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > Yes, it did occur to me immediately that RR wanted to **incinerate me** in five minutes. I still loved him, because I hated SSSR so much. You really have no idea how people in hellholes around the world really feel about things. Neither do you it seems, I came from the hell hole called El Salvador, one of my saddest days was to see a “special report” in the local press showing Solzhenitsyn defending the military thugs in El Salvador. I want to believe always that it was part of the military propaganda that graved Solzhenitsyn to defend their policies withouth him knowing; but ever since, I distrusted even him. Reagan looked the other way when atrocities were commited in Central America. You are free to love Reagan out of ignorance I guess. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/351 "2005-06-20T00:39:21Z")
-Or- \*\*Senator Hagel shoots his fucking mouth off… \*\* [Chuck Hagel in US News and World Report:](http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/050627/27bush.htm) > [@](#): > > “Things aren’t getting better; they’re getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality,” Hagel tells U.S. News. “It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along. **The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.** ” Have the Downing Street Memos, the American Gulag, and the Daily Bad News finally fractured party loyalty, or is Hagel just positioning for 2008? Regardless, what sort of message is this sending to our troops? What message is it sending to our enemies? Is it time to reveal that Hagel is Gay, has a spy for a wife, or should he just be shipped off to a cold cell at Baghram Air base? ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/352 "2005-06-20T00:43:11Z")
Let this whole murderous corrupt house of cards come tumbling down. Seyla. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/353 "2005-06-20T02:10:52Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Neither do you it seems, I came from the hell hole called El Salvador, one of my saddest days was to see a “special report” in the local press showing Solzhenitsyn defending the military thugs in El Salvador. I want to believe always that it was part of the military propaganda that graved Solzhenitsyn to defend their policies withouth him knowing; but ever since, I distrusted even him. Reagan looked the other way when atrocities were commited in Central America. You are free to love Reagan out of ignorance I guess. So atrocities happened in San Salvador, Reagan knew and did nothing at best. And you are feeling perfectly justified to get on a high horse and denounce my ignorance and Reagan’s perfidy. But I am not that ignorant about what was happening in your country: I read about remote canyons filled with unburied corpses. Why I am not on your side? Because what happened in your country was part of Cold War. Cold War was a struggle between Capitalist and Communist camps. Communists murdered around 50,000,000 people in Russia, where I come from. Reagan was against Communists. Is it clear now? I’m glad that the whole nightmare is over. I don’t think that deaths of people close to you are justified in any manner. I am terribly sorry to know that you suffered. Only don’t you try to assume a high moral ground. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/354 "2005-06-20T02:43:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Cold War was a struggle between Capitalist and Communist camps. Communists murdered around 50,000,000 people in Russia, where I come from. Reagan was against Communists. No. The Cold War was a power strruggle between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. in which “communism” was simply an easy battle cry on the part of the West. There was no need for the U.S. to support (and install) dictators in other countries simply to oppose the Soviets. The overwhelming majority of the 50,000,000 people murdered in the Soviet Union died long before the Cold War began. The principal architect of the Cold War spent forty years in direct opposition to the bad policies of the West which he felt both prolonged the Cold War and inflicted death and harm on millions of people who did not need to suffer. Dismissing the deaths in places like El Salvador as war casualties demonstrates a rather horrid ignorance of what actually happened and a truly naive acceptance of the propaganda that emanated as a result of the Cold War. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/355 "2005-06-20T03:42:08Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > So atrocities happened in San Salvador, El Salvador. > [@](#): > > Reagan knew and did nothing at best. And you are feeling perfectly justified to get on a high horse and denounce my ignorance and Reagan’s perfidy. \*\*tomndebb \*\* explained why I could. > [@](#): > > But I am not that ignorant about what was happening in your country: I read about remote canyons filled with unburied corpses. > > Why I am not on your side? Because what happened in your country was part of Cold War. Cold War was a struggle between Capitalist and Communist camps. Communists murdered around 50,000,000 people in Russia, where I come from. And that is why I am against communists, and (getting in my horse brought once again because your fine ignorance) I am already on the record in previous discussions as denouncing what Stalin did in the USSR! So shove it **Isk**! > [@](#): > > Reagan was against Communists. Is it clear now? The reality was that while there were communists in the revel forces in El Salvador, the fact was the extreme right and military forced many that were not communist into taking arms, propaganda then twisted the truly evil regime in El Salvador into “forces of good” even to this day a moderate like monsignor Romero that was murdered is remembered as “Red Romero” by the right wing even in the USA. > [@](#): > > I’m glad that the whole nightmare is over. Apropos to this: The current administration made the point that the model for Iraq is El Salvador. Right now, as my family has told me, extreme poverty and lack of work (amazing considering the boatloads of money Salvadorans overseas send to the old Country) points to the right not doing anything to solve the problems that caused the war in the first place. Some model. Expect more unrest in less than a generation, and Iraq is also toast. > [@](#): > > I don’t think that deaths of people close to you are justified in any manner. I am terribly sorry to know that you suffered. Only don’t you try to assume a high moral ground. Sorry can’t help you there, when an ignoramus like you appears, the high moral ground is an anthill! ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/356 "2005-06-20T03:47:34Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > But I am not that ignorant about what was happening in your country: I read about remote canyons filled with unburied corpses. Can I get a cite for this by the way? We are talking about America, right? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/357 "2005-06-20T03:55:17Z")
> [@](#): > > We are talking about America, right? No. They are discussing El Salvador. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/358 "2005-06-20T03:58:48Z")
Ahhh, thanks. **GIGO** has his location listed as Arizona. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/359 "2005-06-20T04:02:45Z")
As an addendum: I realize that they were discussing El Salvador, but I figured that the refrence to ‘your country’ was about his listed location. Yeepers. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/360 "2005-06-20T04:17:09Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > Can I get a cite for this by the way? We are talking about America, right? [http://www.nosafehaven.org/news\_generals.html](http://www.nosafehaven.org/news_generals.html) > [@](#): > > Then he’s asked about U.S. State Department cables describing massive human rights violations during his command. He’s asked about documented massacres committed by National Guardsmen. He’s asked about paramilitary death squads and the notorious body dump at El Playon, just 20 minutes from his office. That article is interesting also for this: > [@](#): > > . By the time El Salvador’s civil war finally ended in 1992, many members of the military elite – the people who presided over the torture and murder of thousands of guerrillas and suspected leftist sympathizers – had chosen the same haven he had: the United States. Two of the military officers who ruled El Salvador during Romagoza’s ordeal – Gen. Jose Guillermo Garcia and future general Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova – had retired to Florida, joining their children who were already living there. That made sense, Romagoza says, given their close ties to U.S. officials throughout the 1980s. > > “Where else are they supposed to live?” asks Romagoza, who turns 52 this week and is now a U.S. citizen. “In El Salvador? No. In another Central America country? No. They had an open door to come here.” > > In fact, Florida, California and a handful of other states are home to hundreds of accused war criminals and torturers from all over Latin America, according to Amnesty International, a human rights group. Other suspected human rights abusers have made their way to the United States from Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Vietnam, Somalia, Eastern Europe and Afghanistan, sometimes settling in the same communities as their victims. (Torture treatment centers and refugee groups claim there are roughly 500,000 torture survivors nationwide, with an estimated 40,000 in the Washington area.) Vides Casanova and Garcia received U.S. visas in 1989 after retiring from the military; Garcia was granted political asylum on the grounds that he and his children had been threatened during the war. Vides Casanova was allowed to enter the country despite a 1983 report to the State Department that he was likely “aware of, and for a time acquiesced in, the coverup” of the murders of four American churchwomen. > [@FinnAgain](#): > > As an addendum: I realize that they were discussing El Salvador, but I figured that the refrence to ‘your country’ was about his listed location. Yeepers. No problem **FinnAgain** this is after all the Arizona Republic 🙂 , I came to america in the 80’s and became a citizen in the 90’s :sigh: I was looking to retire some day back to the old country but when even the parental units and other relatives that were well to do are suffering economically in El Salvador (and there is no war now, go figure), one has to change plans. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=19)