Airblairxxx: you need to check this out:
Link here: http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/poflames.adp
Search the page for the above string, and read. Believe me, it’s worth it.
Regarding JFK and Nixon, time to bring this old chestnut:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/09/politics/main248266.shtml
What I see as strange today, is that Republicans never forget about Chicago, but by golly there is nothing wrong on telling Democrats to forget about Florida.
However, Nixon is redeemed a little in the end for taking the will of the majority into account, something the current “butterfly ballot-late votes-voter list purge” president and media have ignored to this day. (And that is even before one gets to the recount can of worms, so for peace sake, I’ll skip that)
Oh, are we playing the “he never said ‘imminent threat’ in those words” game again? Or can I bring up these other quotes from the press conference?
Why is he referring to 9/11 for a question that has nothing to do with 9/11? 
No WMDs, no imminent threat, no support for terrorists… how is Iraq related to the war on terror, George?
Again, WTF does Saddam have anything to do with 9/11?
There are no big secrets here; every one of those reporters in the room knew Bush was trying to infer (again) that Saddam was a terrorist threat to the United States, despite the total lack of evidence to support it. And they were – and still are – willing to give him a free pass on it.
You claimed that in his most recent press conference, President Bush “continued to equate Iraq and al Qaeda, even though it’s long been established that there is no such link.”
You did not say, “continued to equate Iraq and weapons of mass destruction.” You said “equate Iraq and al Qaeda.”
Yet in none of the quotations you provided did Bush make any such link between Iraq and al Qaeda.
To the contrary, the gist of his statement was that on Sept. 11, al Qaeda woke him to the need to nip other potential terrorists (e.g., Iraq) in the bud. You may agree or disagree with that policy. But you are trying to put words in his mouth that he did not say.
This made me smile. Not because there is not truth here. There is. What makes me smile is that if this were written in the late 1960s, it might have gone something like this:
First, maybe it’s just me, but if someone asks George W. Bush a question about Iraq, and he replies with an answer about al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, or the 9/11 attacks (which were carried out by al Qaeda), I think it’s reasonable to believe that he does so because he’s trying to associate the two with each other – it’s an attempt to imply what he cannot claim outright.
Secondly, the claim that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a terrorist threat to the United States (potential or actual) is still unproven. We’ve got no WMDs, no Iraqi agents in the US, no intercontenental remote-controlled anthrax-spraying drones, zilcho. Which pops the whole “invading Iraq is part of the war on terrorism” argument, IMO.
The 60’s were probably the greatest change between generations (in my lifetime) but it produced some of the best cars the world could offer, sigh…
I would say 9/11 is hands down the weirdest thing in my lifetime. I still can’t watch the video’s of aircraft slamming into the WTC and not stare in stark disbelief. I would have bet large sums of money that “first contact” would be made on the Phil Donahue show first.
But you could go back to the mid 1800’s and experience communes of free sex and communes of religious austerity (Oneida Commune of New York vs the Zoarites of Ohio). The 60’s weren’t as rebellious as we would like to remember.
Howyadoin,
I grew up in the 1980s believing that I would most likely die as a result of a nuclear war between the US, the Soviet Union and China. I remember reading sober prognostications of mammoth tank battles in the Fulda Gap. I remember brinksmanship, detente, client wars, move and counter-move with the lives of every person on the planet in play. I remember looking at the GE aircraft engine plant down the road from me in Lynn, MA and seeing it as the bringer of my eventual doom, since it certainly was in the target list of a Soviet warhead or two. There was a sense that nothing long-term was worth worrying about, since eventually some nutjob would start WWIII and that would be that. Add to this energy “crises”, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, the decline of the European economies into stagflation causing a flirtation with Socialism and Communism.
The idea that we were the last generation to see the Earth whole was prevalent.
And then, so suddenly, came 1989. The scales seemed to fall from our eyes as we all saw the world for what it was; not a massive gameboard where two giants grappled for supremacy, but a place where ordinary people could control their destinies. Alas, the hammer fell quickly in places like Tiananmen Square, but it gave a glimpse of what could be.
Things have changed since, and not always for the better. The frivolous but productive 1990s have given way to the partisanship and rancor of this decade. There has been a radical decentralization of, and a exponential increase in volume of, information sources. This has given rise to “narrowcasting”, causing people to focus more tightly on their belief set. This is at least partially due to the inability to separate the wheat from the chaff due to the sheer volume of voices screaming from the rooftops. A side effect of this is to lump the great mass of opposing opinions, given the difficulty of assessing validity, as propaganda of the other side. This increases one’s sense of paranoia and unease, being always watchful for the latest perceived slander, spin or conspiracy.
Perhaps some people want things to feel strange and out-of-control so they may propose their own solutions, gift-wrapped in a velvet glove.
-Rav
"We’ve had strange times before, caused by transient political conditions (Viet Nam, Watergate, the Cold War). I submit that these times are different; they’ve been caused by a permanent change in our society–the overabundance of information, if you will. "
that’s a good point-the political conditions of the past were strange, but they were transient; -Today we face a permanent change . And that’s what is really scary. Americans have never worried about their personal safety or military attack.(other than the 3 weeks of the Cuban missile crisis.) We always knew that the Russians were cruel, but they were smart enough to confine their cruelty to Poland,Vietnam, and Afghanistan–enough friction to irritate the USA, but not enough to start a nuke war. International politics was based on cold logic .
Now , we have an new problem(not “overabundance of information” )–it’s terrorism. There is no good way to fight it, and that’s why people either love or hate Bush with so much passion–they realize that whatever happens, and whatever Bush does, events are running out of control. During the cold war, we believed that careful leaders could control events, and our fear was that maybe a leader (ours or theirs) might miscalculate. Now, we have this gut level feeling that no amount of calculation will save us–there are too many fanatics out there.
The anti-Bush crowd fear that things are out of control, and scream for using reason, logic and careful consideration to re-establish a sense of order. The pro-Bush crowd fear that things are out of control, and hope that Bush’s strong intervention will somehow re-establish order and calm
But both sides are afraid that it may be impossible. And that is something new to the American psyche. Up till now, every problem had a solution. Now, we arent so sure. Airblair holds his 20 month old son, and doesnt know what future he will have. That’s scary.
Howyadoin,
So tell me, who’s got their contractor lined up to build their fallout shelter?
Just asking, is all…
-Rav
Wow. Y’know, makes me think of Galbraith’s description of the behind-the-scenes propagandizing that occurred just before the stock market crash of 1929.
The overall population wasn’t exactly getting jittery then, but apparently the powers-that-be were getting jittery – bad jittery. And they kept saying things would be okay, just keep right on investing, etc.
Now, I think, we all have many things to be jittery about: a changing economy, a changing climate, new and scary diseases, planes crashing into buildings, population continuing to boom, etc.
But the wierdest thing is, the powers-that-be are pretty much sticking with the line: “don’t worry, keep spending, be happy, things are getting better, we’ll take care of it”.
To me, this is wierder than the 1920’s (that was just about the market) and wierder than the 1960’s (when, at least, there was a spirited debate going on). Now, there seems to be a lot less real debate and a lot more just blowing with the political winds.
It’s the disconnect between the real issues and the rhetoric…
Much as I hate to say it (and I’m not acting on it, either), I think we’re more likely to need self-sufficiency – as in, a piece of arable high ground, lots of supplies, and defensive weapons – than a fallout shelter.
There’s an important difference in the 60s. A lot of what was going around in the 60s, esp the hippie flower power psychedelic stuff, was not a defensive response to threats, but an attempt to remake the world in a better way, to take advantage of the material prosperity and social freedom of America and create an entirely new way of life that was a more direct, more responsive life than the old way.
Sometimes I think the problem with the modern world isnt’ that the 60s happened, as conservatives believe, but that the social revolution that began then never really came to fruition. The government pulled out of Vietnam, sexual mores caught up with scientific advances, causes like feminism advanced, but there was never any radical restructuring of American society.
Maybe if we’d actually entered the Age of Aquarius, instead of just celebrating it, we wouldn’t now be trying to patch over the effects of 40 years of treating Third World countries like shit. I guess we’ll never know.
The present strangeness is almsot all bad stuff – Islamic fundie terrorists, neocons and Pubbies running Congress AND the White House, American Fundies in power … it feels a lot more like I imagine the period prior to WWII must have felt, with fascists in Germany and Italy, commies in Russia and total pigs in Japan plotting to overtake the world. That was a much more dangerous period for America and the world in general than the present one …
I think.