What PatriotX saidz; good PR. The GOP is able to make people think they’re safer, even as they make a mess of things. Just as for years they were able to make people think they were still the more fiscally responsible party, long after they’d become the Party of Mindboggling Deficits.
“Wingnut” = someone who faces up to reality, admits that things are royally screwed up, and we need to either get out or try genuinely new things to make it better.
“Non-wingnut” = someone who blithely ignores reality, ‘stays the course’ when the only ‘course’ is winging it as Iraq lurches from one crisis to the next, and denies, stonewalls, and minimizes evidence of just how bad things really are going.
If your idea of ‘fiscally conservative’ is the Governator, could I have a hit of what you’re smoking? The guy’s ‘solved’ CA’s fiscal problems by borrowing. And socially, he’s been carrying the corporations’ water out there. The only Dems who are going to follow him are the sorts of Dems who thought the bankruptcy bill was great. I’m sure there’s politicians in that demographic, but there ain’t too many actual people there.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
“Wingnut” = someone who faces up to reality, admits that things are royally screwed up, and we need to either get out or try genuinely new things to make it better.
So what ‘reality’ was Ted Kennedy facing when he claimed, a week before the election, that Iraq was a failure and it was time to cut and run?
What ‘reality’ was it that caused John Kerry to claim that the solution to the war was to replace U.S. soldiers with Arabs from the very countries that were trying to destabilize Iraq?
You realize of course that you just described half of WWII? Lucky for the U.S. that there was a president who just winged it from one crisis to the next, eh?
Or were you of the opinion that wars can be fought perfectly, that all battles are won, and there are never strategic setbacks?
Frankly, attitudes like yours are exactly why people do not trust Democrats with national security.
But I’m not going to debate the Iraq war in this thread because A) we’ve all said everything we have to say, and no minds are going to be changed, and B) it’s a hijack of my own thread.
He borrowed because he had to. And now that he’s actually trying to cut spending, people like you claim he’s just ‘carrying water for corporations’. Of course you’re not going to concede that the last Democratic administration gave the unions insane sweetheart deals, and that Arnie is making a good-faith effort to restore some fiscal balance.
They now have the cooperation of the Baathists who weren’t willing to cooperate before.
They’ve were clamoring for it before GWB’s first term. So what?
AQ came out hard against USA and many Muslims said, "Well the US are really assholes, but they’re not that bad and they’re NIMBY."But now they’re saying, “Well, I guess UbL was right, they are that bad and they are IMBY.”
Look at our friend Turkey: Extreme Anti-Americanism in Turkey
"It is difficult to detect the difference between what Osama bin Laden said in his 19 audio and videotapes since September 11, 2001, and what some Turkish journalists write. If anything, the Turks outvenom bin Laden.
This would be hilarious if not for the incontrovertible fact that it is believed not only by Islamist extremists but by countless millions of Muslim fundamentalists … Anti-Americanism is a relatively new phenomenon in Turkey. Throughout the 1990s in Turkey, 60 percent of the people had favorable views about the U.S. and its policies. The 2003 Iraq war closed many minds.
When all he was before was a mid-level thug who Team Bush kept alive to foster their case for war.
Furthermore, there’s a recent report out from the DOD that makes much the same case that the invasion of Iraq has hardened the hearts of ME Muslims against the Us and increased sympathies for AQ. I’m still looking for it again. (Just that when I search my desktop for AQ, Iraq, and DOD there’re so many hits) I’ll post a link to it as soon as I find it again.
Politicians’re actively trying to deceive you. Remember that. They have a ginormous team of PR experts influencing public opinion.
It wasn’t exactly a stock so much as it was an indexed fund of global equities. The forecasted drop of the dollar let me “make money” by moving my cash into things that weren’t valued in the $. Really, I just didn’t lose money when the dollar declined.
For example look at this: http://personal.fidelity.com/products/funds/mfl_frame.shtml?315910802
Quarter-End Average Annual Total Returns (%) as of 12/31/2004
1 Year 19.66
The MSCI EAFE® Index saw 20.11% increase last year
I’m sure Buffet started with substantially more than my modest means.
• Anti-globalization and opposition to
US policies could cement a greater
body of terrorist sympathizers,
financiers, and collaborators.
societies.
• Iraq and other possible conflicts in
the future could provide recruitment,
training grounds, technical skills and
language proficiency for a new class
of terrorists who are “professionalized”
and for whom political
violence becomes an end in itself.
• Foreign jihadists—individuals ready
to fight anywhere they believe
Muslim lands are under attack by
what they see as “infidel invaders”—
enjoy a growing sense of support
from Muslims who are not
necessarily supporters of terrorism.
Again, this information pre-dates the Iraq election and the rapid sea-change in the Middle East. For example, there are now reports that there is a schism in Iraq between the Baathist insurgents and al-Qaida, and there have been cases of Baathist insurgents turning on the al-Qaida guys and killing them. In addition, the citizenry has started shooting at insurgents. The Baathists are reportedly seeking an ‘exit strategy’ of their own, so they can re-join the political process without prosecution, leaving the foreign Jihadists to twist in the wind.
Obviously, the situation in the middle east is still developing, and no one knows exactly how it will turn out. But current signs are encouraging, and empowering the people through a political process beats the hell out of them trying to empower themselves through jihad.
How 'bout some well rooted goal posts here?
Next time, could you please provide an exact range of dates that you consider acceptable before one goes off googling?
I’ve been waiting for the damn Democrats to run an emphatic campaign specifying economic conservatism and social liberalism… actually Kerry didn’t do too bad at talking the talk.
I’d be equally happy for some breakaway Republicans to run a campaign along the same lines, either attempting to strip the nomination out of the hands of the current bunch of clowns or starting a viable 3rd party. Shoot for a balanced budget, have some social programs but only those you can pay for, embrace free trade, do things to encourage an international labor movement as a counterweight to jobs being outsourced to cheaper labor pools overseas (and as a counterargument to both labor voters and Buchananites who advocate tariffs and domestic subsidies), give lots of lip service to the rule of international law via UN while sticking some serious energy and investment into getting some principled idealists with palatable worldviews into positions of power within the UN, keep the military sharp, well-paid, and well-equipped, overhaul environmental legislation to target major pollution and resource-depletion practices while streamlining paperwork and slicing out restrictive land-use policies that damage businesses more effectively than they protect nature. And come out as prochoice on damned near anything and everything pertaining to private life and lifestyles, opposing the prohibition of any behavior that does not have a solidly discernable victim.
Testimony of Director of Central Intelligence
Porter J. Goss
Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 16 February 2005
Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-US jihadists.
These jihadists who survive will leave Iraq experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism. They represent a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups, and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries.
First of all, please define “cut and run”. It’s lately gotten to the point where any suggestion that we set any benchmarks for being able to leave within any timespan of less than a generation has that epithet applied to it.
(Which brings up the question of cost-benefit analysis: for what X and Y do we say, “It isn’t worth it,” when told, “The U.S. will have to keep X troops in Iraq for Y years in order to prevent a bloody civil war.” For rightwingers, does such a pair of values even exist?)
And second, I’d need to see what Kennedy said before defending it specifically - as opposed to defending the more general proposition that we need to consider actualy having a plan?
First, since you’re citing this, how many soldiers was Kerry talking about replacing? Your question isn’t sufficiently precise to distinguish between ‘some’ and ‘all’.
Second, your question assumes that certain Arab countries are trying to destabilize Iraq. Which ones, and what is your evidence? (You may want to consider a separate thread for this; it’s a nontrivial subject, and we’re already a long way from Danforth.)
But the reality Kerry was quite in touch with here was that (1) some Arab nations have a stake in Iraq’s not degenerating into chaos, for fear that the chaos might spread to their countries; and (2) they speaka the language and know the culture, which gives them a decided advantage in terms of distinguishing friend from foe, civilian from insurgent, and fighting this kind of struggle with less disruption than our essentially blind troops create. And (3) it’s been noted in plenty of places lately that our in-country intel continues to suck; Arabs just might do a better job with that.
After reading the article and a few of the commenst (certainly not the entire thread) I come to the following conclusion.
The 60s brought about a liberal revolution in our country. Jack Kennedy would have found himself a centerist if he had survived to 1970. The free love and socialist movements in the US during the 60s swung the entire political spectrum to the left.
The far right movement we see today is a result of the far left ceding its power as its policies are shown to fail and its rhetoric finally echose hollow. The left has to move back into the position the abdicated in their leftward move in the 60s. This will give the Reagan Democrats a home to return to, and force the Pubs to compete for and court the center once again, sending the Religious Right far out to the right again,
That’s ass-backwards. The only way the Dems can win back the red states is to jettison liberal social issues like gay marriage (or, at least, relegate them to clearly secondary priority) and run on a platform of economic populism.
Actually, the “socialist” element in '60s politics was mostly rhetoric. The young radicals defined their “New Left” as something entirely different from socialism as previous generations had understood it, something that could be pursued on a personal level and did not require socializing the means of production or breaking the power of the ruling class. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Left#The_American_New_Left. The most “socialist” legacies we got out of the '60s were Johnson’s War on Poverty (ultimately ended the same way the Vietnam War was ended – by declaring victory and pulling out) and Medicare (which we got from a Republican).
Not really, crash. The policies of the far left never “failed” in America because they have never even been tried, not even during the New Deal. And the far right movement we see today is not a result of the swinging of some public-opinion pendulum, it is the result of a conscious, concerted action by hard-core ideologues and their wealthy backers such as Richard Mellon Scaife, action that started with the Goldwater campaign in 1964. You can read the whole sordid story in Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge (Penguin Books 2004) – http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1594200203/qid=1112469369/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-7580303-7618254?v=glance&s=books&n=507846.
I think he is an alarmist. The things mentioned are not political issues, the Republicans acted as most Americans wanted them too. They did those things simply because they were the right things to do.
Why, exactly, should any conservative Repuiblican care what John Danforth thinks?
What makes Mr. Danforth think people like him COULD retake the Republican PArty if they wanted to?
Look, if Danforth hates what the Republican Party has become, he has a right and a moral obligation to speak out against it. If he wants the old, Sixties-era Rockefeller Republicans back in charge, he has every right to try to make that happen.
But why would ANY conservative Republican want to return to those days? Lest we forget, the Rockefeller Republicans were perennial doormats and losers. Under the leadership of men like Gerald Ford, Jacob Javits, Clifford Case and Hugh Scott, the Republicans were doomed to permanent minority status.
Not that they seemed to mind. The Republicans of the Sixites seemed to cherish their minority status. They had no ideas, no principles, no ideology except “We want everything the Democrats want… just not QUITE as much of it.”
To Danforth and to like-minded old schoolers, the Republican Party is supposed to be run by wealthy liberals who toss an occasional bone to big business.
If that’s what he believes in, swell- let him campaign for that kind of party. But does he think for a moment that such a party could possibly garner any votes?
Now, what makes you think any of this was stuff the American people wanted Congressional Republicans to do? Most Americans oppose gay marriage, but not to the point of wanted the Constitution amended to stop it; and public opinion favors stem cell research and opposed keeping Terri Schiavo alive. At least, I’ve that’s what I’ve heard in practically every news story on these topics. Have you got any cite to the contrary?
And how are these “not political issues”? Gay marriage was one of the most important political issues of 2004.
I have been a Democrat most all my life, I voted democrat in the last two presidential elections even though I was not pleased with the demo candidate.
The public are 70% against gay marriage, after the “rest of the story” about Terri Schiavo’s death by starvation, and family feud, came out in the news, every one I talked to thought it was barbaric and unfair to Terri’s family, but there was no later polling, and as for stem cell research, I don’t know, but I doubt it will amount to anything. There has been so much misinformation about Scientific research I don’t know who or what to believe. They said cloning was successful, but it never produced a clone like the original. The clones were sickly, overweight and died or had to be put down.
If the Liberals want to get back into the main stream thought of America they will have to come up with a candidate the people can trust.
I think that’s quite a libel on Roosevelt. You think more than a small fraction of the execution of the war, on the Allied side, was ‘winging it’? The level of planning and detail in Overlord alone is astonishing.
No, I am of the school - as is any competent planner - that “hope is not a plan.” (Eventually conservatives will catch on to this idea.) Part of planning is the anticipation of what can go wrong, and having a clue in advance of what you’re going to do if it does.
This is to be contrasted with the Administration’s planning for Iraq. I hope I don’t need to go into details on this yet one more time, because I’d rather spend 20 minutes doing something besides pulling up, quoting, and linking to the appropriate cites yet one more time. Hopefully the phrase “welcomed as liberators” will suffice.
Oh, good.
Which attitudes? Do you think it’s a bad attitude when citizens demand a factual basis for their reasons for invading another country? Do you think it’s a bad attitude to demand that our leaders look at the world and prioritize the extant threats before choosing which ones to deal with most aggressively? Do you think it’s a bad attitude for citizens to expect leaders to consider the effects an approach to Threat A will have on Threat B? Do you think it’s a bad attitude to expect leaders to consider the opportunity costs of an action? Do you think it’s a bad attitude to expect our leaders to develop a war plan that gives a high priority to dealing with the threat that justified the war? Do you think it’s a bad attitude to expect our leaders to have a postwar transition/exit plan that actually deals with at least the well-known obstacles to a peaceful transition, like the ethnic strife that Wolfowitz said Iraq had no history of?
Yeah, you bet I’ve got a sucky attitude. And it’s exactly this sort of attitude that anyone in power ought to have if they’re making big plans, be it for a war, or a major change in a major government program, or anything else of significance.
Why on earth anyone would trust someone who didn’t have an attitude like this to run their foreign policy, I’m sure I don’t know. In addition to an underlying attitude of skepticism and questioning, my attitude is informed by my awareness that there are basic planning techniques out there that can help you prioritize, anticipate, and avoid a lot of obvious pitfalls. And I’d like to see the people running the country have a clue. Bad, bad attitude.
So what you’re really saying is that you don’t really know whether the people support the Republican leaders’ actions in these matters, and you doubt anyone does know.
Like who? Somebody more socially conservative than Clinton, Gore or Kerry? Or just somebody more honest? (Gore’s and Kerry’s honesty was very unfairly disparaged in their respective presidential bids. For instance, Gore never claimed to have “invented the Internet.” He did, as a senator, sponsor “legislation which called for the creation of a new federal research center for educational computing to support an “information systems highway”.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#Vice_Presidency)
Whoever gets the Dem nomination in 2008, I guarantee you it’s not going to be a Joe Lieberman or a Zell Miller, nor should it be.
