Dan Rather.
How? By circulating tapes that claimed Reagan and Bush Sr. committed murder? by organizing a House committee to harrass both of them from the inception of their terms?
All Rather does is read the news. Get over it.
I doubt that’s true. I just think that you want that to be the case.
Well, you “antagonize” people and it’s pointless. They blow you off, they think you have no credibility, they most likely skim past your posts at this point.
So what? Who cares? They’re all skimming, skimming, skimming . . . (I’m sorry to sound cruel, but I’m just trying to get a point across. When you lose credibility, you lose it.)
Well, yeah it is, when people are ignoring, and skimming, and blowing off anything you say.
And the “truth” you may share will be ignored, because you have no credibility.
Yeah, because you lost your credibility.
They’re not listening because you have no credibility.
No, it really doesn’t. Because people are skimming, skimming, skimming.
Sure you can. You can regain your credibility by NOT DOING SOME OF THE THINGS YOU DID TO LOSE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Look—I know I come off as mean, but I’m trying to tell you, you are not doing your “side” any good. Being heartfelt and sincere isn’t enough. Having “truth” and the “facts” isn’t enough. If you are so sucky at presenting yourself that people label you as a whackjob, you’ve blown your opportunity to share your “facts” and “truth.” So all you’ve got left is “self-expression.” You get to express your feelings, raw as they are. The only problem is, they may actually hurt your cause. What was the point, after all? People who are closer to your side than you care to admit are blowing off your posts, skimming past your possibly very excellent cites, and muttering to themselves, “Oh. Her again.”
If that’s what you want, that’s fine. If it’s not, do something about it. But don’t blame the “other side” for not reacting well to your posts. That is all on your head, not anybody else’s.
Once again, I’m sorry if I sound mean. I actually think you sound like a really cool person for the most part and I wish you well. I’m just getting to the end of my tether with the tone around here and . . . well, I’m sorry if I sound mean.
Uh, gobear? Did you not see the smilie with the big mischeivous grin? It was a JOKE!
I think perhaps you better go back into hibernation. You may not yet be ready to rejoin humanity. :wally
Jon Stewart began The Daily Show last night saying pretty much the same thing the OP did, that he’s sick of this shit and is just waiting for it to be over.
And, actually, gobear Dan Rather, at least as far this Administration goes, has made the news.
Which reminds me, has there ever been an Administration in office where so much of the media time was spent discussing materials about members of the Administration which later turned out to be fabrications? Even a lot of the stuff about Clinton didn’t make the network news. I can’t recall NBC/CBS/ABC/CNN discussing allegations that the Clintons had Vince Foster killed in a similar manner to which the forged National Guard memos about Bush were discussed.
Pert’ much.
I posted a couple of links to very recent mud slung by two GOP House candidates in Pennsylvania. Anybody matched 'em with something from the Dem side that was as bad? Nope. Because other than some random poster at DailyKos, or some fellow who sent in a video to MoveOn on his own, there ain’t nothing like it. Nor like the mailing the RNC sent to voters in Arkansas and West Virginia that said Kerry would ban the Bible if elected.
Meanwhile, Kerry ‘attacks’ Bush for getting us into a war without planning for the peace (true), for digging us into a huge deficit (true), for losing bin Laden at Tora Bora because we outsourced his capture to locals of dubious loyalty (true), for failing to secure 760,000 pounds of the nastiest conventional explosives around (true) which he knew about before the war (true), and stuff like that.
IOW, just pointing out where the buck stops. If Bush can’t stand the heat, it’s time to send him back to Crawford.
Scenario 1: I am a woman seven months preganant. Due to a lack of income and minimal prenatal care, I have just discovered today that my fetus has a condition that allows the brain stem to develop but not the brain. Because of this, the baby will likely die in the womb, causing me considerable danger. But since I cannot abort due to the ban on late-term abortions, I am forced to carry the fetus until it is dead (endangering my life) at which point it can be removed or until birth, which believe it or not is a life-threatening procedure. (I’ll add as an aside that at the baby will die soon, leaving me with the cost of a delivery room and physical and mental trauma that could have been prevented with a late-term abortion.) Thus a successful ban on late-term abortions could result in the death of women.
Scenario 2: I am gay. My long-term partner, whom I have bought a house with, is diagnosed with a terminal disease. Because I can’t be legally married to my partner due to a shiny new amendment to the contitution, I have no rights regarding community property. I have no rights regarding decisions such as when to pull the plug if they end up on life support. I receive no benefits or recognition as a committed member of a loving union. I am not eligible for coverage under their health plan. You get the idea. I am being excluded from things that heterosexual couples can take for granted. This is a life of marginalization.
Hope that helps.
Yeah, whatever. Believing it’s the right thing to do isn’t enough; Bush has demonstrated that his powers of belief are independent of the facts. You can’t base an invasion on belief. As Bush said just today: “For a political candidate to jump to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your commander in chief.”
Truth is, we still don’t know why Bush got us into this mess. We’ve been given dozens of reasons, and Wolfowitz told us long ago that the party line - Saddam had WMDs which he was going to hand over to terrorists - was simply the one they could all agree on. It sounds as if Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfie, etc. all wanted to be big stars, but they had different reasons for that.
But you need clear, agreed-upon reasons, otherwise you have competing goals which wind up undoing each other. They may have all felt that invading Iraq was right, but if each of them had personal agendas that they were trying to shove to the fore - even with the best of motives, like believing their agenda was the real reason why we needed to invade Iraq - what you get is a clusterfuck. You don’t have enough troops, because to Rumsfeld, it’s important to demonstrate a theory of warfare. Iraqis can’t get spare parts for their factories, because the parts come from Russia and Germany, and we need to teach those guys a lesson because you’re either on the bus, or you’re off the bus. And so forth.
Intentions just aren’t enough sometimes. Not that I think they really had good intentions; everyone just figured things in Iraq would work out by themselves while they each pushed their stupid agendas. None of them seemed to realize the aftermath of the invasion was the real game, and that toppling the statue was just the end of the preliminary round. Which made them freakin’ idiots, a bunch of dilettantes and theoreticians playing war, only with a real country. And so we are where we are - in clusterfuck city.
I agree in principle, but how would those two things be different under Kerry? He’s not taken a strong stance for the right to choose, and he’s stated he’s opposed to gay marriage (and hasn’t come up with a strong argument for civil unions, either.)
I have some lingering worries over the draft, but really, it’s hard to imagine that Americans who aren’t in the armed forces are really at risk of life or limb here (though I must point out that our troops and various cappuccino-colored foreigners are very much at risk.)
So when you said “they weren’t lying” what you meant was “I support the war”?
Scenario 1: I am a fetus. If John Kerry is elected, I am more likely to be aborted.
Question 1 for you: Does this mean I am just as justified going around stating that John Kerry’s election is going to lead to my death? If it doesn’t, why not?
Question 2 for you- do you understand exactly how little you accomplish by stating another Bush term might lead to your death? You do not come across as someone who is concerned about the issues and feels that a certain issue is paramount. You come across as hysterical. And rather than engaging me on the issues, and rather than communicating your point of view, what you communicate is, “You, as someone planning to vote for Bush, wish to kill me.” That does not lead to discussion with an open mind where you can convince someone of something; that leads to immediate defensiveness and writing you off completely as someone so hysterical that rational discourse is not possible.
Except that Bush has already stated that he has no problems with civil unions, which would give homosexuals all of those rights and benefits they are currently denied. And John Kerry is advertising himself as just as against gay marriage as Bush is; he just doesn’t want the charade of a Constitutional Amendment that will never pass.
Question 3 for you: Convince me that Kerry won’t marginalize gays in some way other than, “He’s a Democrat, which means he has to support gay rights, because that’s what Democrats do.”
It depends.
Question 4 for you: Do you understand what my points are? I understand yours, and I sympathize with them. But I think you present yourself in such a hysterical, outre way that you alienate the very people you’re trying to convince. And my anger and frustration is not with people who disagree with me; it is with people who alienate themselves from others because of disagreements.
I meant both. I support the war, and do not feel that Bush was lying.
RT- If you’re trying to convince me that the Bush administration has fucked up handling the war, then you’re too late. I’m already convinced of that. Yelling at me and insulting me is not going to further convince me.
But I am still voting for Bush. Because my choice isn’t between two candidates who support the war and the principles behind it, one who is competent and one who isn’t; the choice is between one candidate who supports the war and the principles behind it but is incompetent in running it, and another who may well be competent but who is against the reasons we got into the war.
Let me ask you- who did you vote for in 1980?
Granted that there was a strong note of hysteria in that post, but John, do oyu really beleive that after Bush’s conduct over the poast four years, his campaign for the FMA and his incendiary rhetoric at the convention, than any halfway intelligent gay person really believes Bush would not object to a state making civil unions legal?
C’mon, do we look that gullible? If Bush wins, I don’t expect an apocalypse for gay foilk, but I think life would be easier in a Kerry administration.
Has Bush ever spoken out against Civil Unions? From everything I’ve heard from him, he narrowly defines the issue as being about what ‘marriage’ is. Every time I’ve seen him quoted on Civil Unions, he states he is willing to go with what states decide.
If he were really going to object to it, wouldn’t he already have started speaking out on that issue, about corporations and locales that allow such benefits? It would only help him with the people he was trying to whip into a frenzy against gay marriage.
My opinion is that you’ll have an equally easy time under either; acheiving gay civil rights is going to be about getting social acceptance and support more than government acceptance and support, and society is going to move in the direction it does no matter what the President says. But that’s my opinion, and being a straight male, should carry less weight than yours.
I’ve never been one to watch much television, but thanks to this election, I’ve stopped watching at all. I’ve quit listening to NPR, or any other talk radio altogether. I’ve even pretty much given up ‘debate’ message boards - all of this because of the exact shit-flinging being talked about and displayed here. If I don’t HAVE to listen to it (and I can, thank god, turn off the tv and the radio) then I’m not going to subject myself to it.
I don’t think that anyone’s convincing anyone else of anything by now. it’s like the abortion ‘debate’ - both sides screaming at each other while simultaniously plugging their ears and thinking ‘lalalalalalalala, I can’t hear you!’ Are you voting for Bush? Fine, do it, but shut UP about Kerry. Are you going to vote for Kerry? Fine, do it, but shut UP about Bush. You’re not changing anyone’s mind at this point.
Oh, and I’ve got no illusions that this is all going to be over on Nov. 2nd. I fully expect to not be able to listen to NPR well into December, what with both sides ‘lawyering up’ to wrangle their boy into the White House via our judicial system. And people say politics is supposed to be enjoyable??
Pardon me while I go quietly despair in a corner over here …
I pointed this out in an earlier thread to you, and in another pit thread about this very subject. Bush has, up until his most recent flip-flop to garner votes, stated that civil unions should be left up to the states, but that he would not support it if it were up to him. Here Do you honestly believe Bush would support civil unions if he were still the governor of Texas? Honestly?
Bush is running for president. He has alienated the Log Cabin Republicans who refused to endorse him. Now, the week before the election, he decides he may support civil unions. Personally, I don’t buy it for a second. What I do buy is that he is attempting to court the “gay vote” in a close election.
I don’t judge the weight of your opinion based on who you find sexually attractive. What I do judge it on is how informed about the issue you are. Kerry sponsored a bill to make it federal crime to commit hate crimes against homosexuals. Bush was against it. Kerry supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would add sexual orientation to the list of impermissible discriminations. Bush Opposes it. Kerry voted against the DOMA, Bush is for it. Hell, Bush won’t even sign a proclamation that June is Gay Pride Month. Now, if your opinion took into account these factors and you still believe that it doesn’t make a difference to the gay community who gets elected… well, there isn’t much I can do about that, except tell you I think you are horribly mistaken.
No, I don’t believe he would support civil unions if he were the governor of Texas. But that’s not the office he’s running for.
I concede the point. I did not know that Kerry supported the ENDA, nor that he sponsored such a federal bill. Kerry would likely make life easier for homosexuals.
So his policy proposals are defined only by electoral politics, not any higher principle? Not that that’s a revelation, but it’s refreshing to hear that admission from one of his supporters, even indirectly.
John - I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything. I responded to a post of Weirddave’s. I attacked his particular premise - successfully, I think, but it’s hard to tell without a rebuttal.
It’s a free country; vote for Bush if you must. But sometime you’ll have to explain to me “the principles behind the war.” One of the points I touched on in my post was the failure of the Bush Administration to settle on a particular reason we got into the war; those reasons have changed with the season and the speaker. How any candidate could “support” that perpetually shifting kaleidoscope of reasons is beyond me. Please illuminate.
At any rate, I’m willing to take your terms for the choice at face value, on the Iraq war at least. Kerry was against the war, but recognizes that we’re in a mess now, and we’ll have to find a way to make the best of it. Bush initiated the war, is responsible for the mess, but doesn’t seem to have a clue that it is a mess. (We’re talking about a guy who apparently can’t bear the sight of a Kerry button. How do you think he deals with genuinely bad news?) Lacking the necessary precondition for fixing it, he won’t make it better.
It’s no secret, so I’ll tell you; but first, why do you ask? (It’s not like it’ll change my answer.)
Er, unless John Kerry is planning after the election to grab your birth-mother and force her to undergo an abortion, this makes no sense whatsoever. Isn’t the decision of whether to abort or not left up to the woman, not the candidate?
Eh, why let reason get in the way?