Just how insane have we become over the health care “debate?” How much of it is real, and how much has been programmatically developed by the right wing?
BrainDonkey pointed me in the direction of a Washington Post article that I think asks a lot of great questions and points out just how crazy things have gotten. A quote:
In Michigan, meanwhile, the indelible image was of the father who wheeled his handicapped adult son up to Rep. John Dingell and bellowed that “under the Obama health-care plan, which you support, this man would be given no care whatsoever.” He pressed his case further on Fox News.
In New Hampshire, outside a building where Obama spoke, cameras trained on the pistol strapped to the leg of libertarian William Kostric. He then explained on CNN why the “tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of tyrants and patriots.”
It can be found here, and is worth the read: In America, Crazy Is a Preexisting Condition
The point of the article is that people are really, really acting out wildly. IMO, this is because the Republican strategists have gotten a hold of the Third Reich’s propaganda techniques (which we saw also during the Bush presidency, repeatedly): Scare people such that logical thought no longer applies.
I believe that these people are honestly concerned about our country. I believe they have our best interest at heart. I know that they have been lied to, repeatedly, and have been injected with an irrational fear of that which they do not understand, so they act out accordingly. It is from this standpoint that the Republican and right-wing cabals have the most to atone for: blatant lies and misrepresentations, simply for the betterment of their political position – not for the betterment of society or even their constituency.
Knowing that most people will make decisions based on a context built from motivated reasoning, if the right wing can assume that many of their constituents would naturally start from a more angry or self serving or patriotic or righteous standpoint, then simply giving them reasons to validate their baseline feelings is enough to create the illusion of a logical answer. But if that natural path is then enriched with fearsome notions that penetrate below their pre-frontal cortex and get into the most basic of human emotions, you have a wolverine in a corner. Scared, pissed off, willing to jump and strike at anything because they are afraid.
It would be great if we could actually have a debate about health care. But the problem is that the right wing has whipped up so much fear, so many emotions tied to the health of a grandson, the possibility of a dark, menacing “government entity” coming to unplug grannie, that we can’t even have one. What we need to do is start talking more and more about what health care reform DOES, rather than playing D against lies, distortions and what it doesn’t do.
Related, is the backlash that McCain is starting to suffer in AZ.
People have started to realize that the anti-public-healthcare politicians are being hypocrites. Apparent at quite a few town hall meetings he is being asked “why is government healthcare good enough for you, but not good enough for me?”
Its a great point IMO. Any senator or congressman who is against public healthcare, should relinquish their current government plan and go private. Walk the walk, not just the talk.
The loons that think God is going to judge the politicians negatively, because they will vote for a government plan, is just insane. WTF does god care. And incidentally, God probably would rather that you make sure everyone has healthcare, and no one is left out… But the leap to “your gonna burn” for approving the health package is absurdly crazy.
In that very town hall meeting, BD, John McCain answered to a person that asked “why do you deserve health care and I don’t?”, “I’m trying to get it for you.” Ah, how? By voting against it?
I think it’s also amazing the Repubs are absolutely out front about the fact they they will not vote for any bill for health care. Period. And then complain about partisan bickering on health care reform.
your just spueing crap now perk. you sound like an idiot. Give it a rest!
Show me Perk. Show me. Where is this education, that you and fellow ilk Vsloathe, pride yourselves on so much!
You guys are fricken funny.
‘Look how educated we are!’
Show it in your sensibility.
“this is because the Republican strategists have gotten a hold of the Third Reich’s propaganda techniques (which we saw also during the Bush presidency, repeatedly)”
No you fool. It’s because they dont want socialism, and they know that this is the ‘foot in the door’.
You claim to want whats best for the people. Thats not at all the truth. you and your loyal ilk, want what YOU think is best for the country. Your not happy with the people deciding for themselves, like they did in california with the gay marriage ban.
Perk and his ilk beleive they are superior to everyone else because the are ‘educated’. They dont think the ‘uneducated’ could possibly be as smart as they are. This is the premis for this blog. A soap box, if you will.
All your doing is showing everyone that no matter how educated you are, you can still be a raging idiot.
This particular entry you’ve written, could only be informative for debate, if there was someone that was completely ignorant to all the propaganda techniques the democrats have used as well. Both parties are guilty. Stop pointing fingers, you look silly!
:doh:
@ spewing crap: Ah no, Senator John Kyl made quite clear that it doesn’t matter what’s in the bill, he will not vote for it and will make sure that the Dem’s do get get “one single Republican vote.” Since he’s the R whip, that sounds pretty convincing to me.
@ 3rd Reich, propaganda etc: The use of fear as a logic abater is now well known, used extensively by both the Bush administration and now the right-wing to derail health care reform is well known and obvious. “Death panels?” C’mon man, use a brain.
My pointing to the 3rd Reich is not hyperbole, it is fact – Josef Goebbels essentially invented the technique and used it to astonishing success during the rise of the 3rd Reich. Note that this has nothing to do with Nazism or death camps, but it can be used to create a populace that is willing to endure horrible things to avoid their fear.
You’re screaming at the wind, Trent. You are so wildly off the mark about who I am, what progressives want and what the truth is that you only have this sort of angry, knee jerk response to ANYTHING that is written that is in opposition to you.
“@ 3rd Reich, propaganda etc: The use of fear as a logic abater is now well known, used extensively by both the Bush administration and now the right-wing to derail health care reform is well known and obvious. “Death panels?” C’mon man, use a brain.”
yes yes. And Obamas campaign ran on the fears of the country and promised them change as salvation. Moot points perk. As I said. BOTH sides use this technique.
Open your mind Perk. Dont be so obstinate.
(sorry if thats to many syllables for you Vsloathe)
LOL. You can’t have it both ways Trent: hassle him for “hope and change” or hassle him for fear. They don’t both work.
It’s baloney, BTW, that he ran on fear or uses it in any way that resembles the message of the Republicans. Unless you’re listening to his message filtered through a Republican channel, like Rush, Fox or Beck.
Now I’m not one to attack for typing or spelling mistakes, but dude: if you’re going to tackle someone else on the intellect front, you might want to review the usage of apostrophes and homophones before you click “Submit Comment.”
Obama is sinking like a lead balloon. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll
Rasmussen is best by test btw. The results of their polls vs actual data is phenomenal. They were dead nuts on the mark with the election prediction/results.
Now the kids in school are being forced to read the Dear Leader’s book!! WTF??
This guy has to go.
Thankfully, he’ll not be going anywhere soon and have plenty time to sign meaningful legislation and build accomplishments during his tenure.
“Dear leader” roflmao: you crack me up Edgar.
Oh, I get it… you’re referring to parents in Florida being able to have their kids opt out from “having to listen to Obama” at his speech.
Perhaps one of the worst ideas since book burning. The problem today is not “indoctrination” as they so inelegantly say, but the lack of knowledge. I think parents are afraid that kids will come home and ask some very pointed questions of their parents. And that’s a DAMN FINE THING.
More knowledge == better.
Check out this video that is being shown in some schools to the kids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqcPA1ysSbw&feature=player_embedded
“I pledge allegiance to Obama” the guy says near the end.
I’d rather eat a bowl of dog shit (with a hair on it) than pledge allegiance to Obama! WTF??
All the things they say on the video are good things except that little bit about pledging allegiance to Obama our Dear Leader. Remember the song Cult of Personality? This kind of propaganda is kind of slimy.
Now don’t watch the vid and ask me if I have anything against helping handicapped people, freeing slaves, helping the needy etc…
It’s the idea of pseudo-religiously associating Obama with all these noble pledges. This is indoctrination but it’s disguised as a humanitarian message. Using the kiddies as human shields for his policy objectives is not only transparent but offensive to me as an American.
I have no problem with kids watching videos of this president or any other president. It’s history and history in the making. But it’s this insidious idea of equating obama with all this righteousness.
Well, I see how you’d come to that conclusion, being from the side of the fence that you sit. I do not see it that way. I think that the notion of self service, of taking strides forward to making the planet and our country a better place is nothing but good. And when they talk about BEING the change at the end I’m cool with it.
I don’t see it as indoctrination disguised as a humanitarian message, unless you see trees and being greener and being better parents etc etc a policy message/agenda. And if it is, COOL. That’s a way better policy message than, “be afraid, I’ll protect you from the evils of the world.”
I don’t see it as “insidious.” but whatever, man.
“I think that the notion of self service, of taking strides forward to making the planet and our country a better place is nothing but good. And when they talk about BEING the change at the end I’m cool with it.”
I already said that I obviously have no problem with a video that encourages people to be good citizens.
But it has that “Brought to you by our Dear Leader” feel to it. Images of Obama and all that crap. Why not just make a video just like that but without reference to Obama?
Why does the vid have to be tied in with Obama? We can’t have a video full of celebrities or unknowns simply encouraging good deeds?
No, it has to be tied in with Obama and that’s because it’s brainwashing and indoctrination.
“I pledge allegiance to Obama…Kiss, Kiss”
That’s the Dear Leader part. Sieg Heil!
There’s no reason to have a video promoting good works associated with Obama. We can offer advice to your students in regards to becoming better citizens without the Leaders endorsement.
Friggen creepy dude Obama is.
This is indoctrination disguised as a humanitarian message.
@
“I don’t see it as indoctrination disguised as a humanitarian message, unless you see trees and being greener and being better parents etc etc a policy message/agenda.”
No I don’t see it as a policy message. It’s the almost religious solemnity, association of Obama images and blatant adulation of the Leader that I find insidious.
This is nothing short of Obama propaganda. Not even democratic (as opposed to republican) propaganda but singular, Obama propaganda.
The video seeks to brainwash the kids into thinking Obama=All that it Good.
This is turning into an Obama religion and it’s actually kind of unsettling.
Pay attention to this stuff Perk because it’s over the top. Be a skeptical liberal would ya?
See the creepiness here. Not cool at all.
Well that’s your subjective opinion, and that’s fine. I don’t see it that way.
@ be a skeptical liberal: Oh hush. Let’s not throw stones along THAT line because there is exactly ZERO skepticism or critical thinking coming from that side of the fence. Off with the strawman. That’s neither a socialist, or “Dear Leader” video, just stop it. You really don’t like it because you take it that way … fine. No problems at all with that. But your opinion doesn’t make it so, neither does my fineness with it have anything at all to do with my analysis of the world around. You hate Obama, hate Liberalism, hate all that happy-happy-joy-joy. No worries. Unfortunate, but no worries. But of course you’d see the video that way.
I wonder how you would react if it (incredibly) was GWB they were pledging allegiance too.
What do you mean I’m not being skeptical? I’m skeptical of the innocence and totally pedestrian, humanitarian nature will of this video aren’t I? I view this as a microcosm, an example of ideological indoctrination that constantly and systematically occurs in the schools by design.
When asked by trent about who the best candidate would be for the republican party I was skeptical as to if one really even existed.
@My opinion?
“I pledge allegiance to Obama…”
No one says that sort of thing in this country. That’s what they say over in North Dearleader Land.
This is no strawman tactic. A strawman argument is an argument against a silly caricature of the opponents argument. This is but a glimpse at the kind of indoctrination that occurs in our schools nationwide everday. That’s a big topic, not a strawman argument.
What IS my opinion is that Obama is clearly a cult figure. I’m not comfortable with that. Those are my opinions.
Obama’s cult like status is a direct result of his consummate demagoguery. This video is but one example of the sort of gushing adulation cult figures enjoy and make no mistake about it, Obama is a cult figure.
Be suspicious perk, it’s good for you.
“No, it has to be tied in with Obama and that’s because it’s brainwashing and indoctrination”
Just like the nazis!!
“It’s baloney, BTW, that he ran on fear or uses it in any way that resembles the message of the Republicans”
No perk, he ran on fear that resembles nothing like like the republicans. In this we can agree. He ran on fear of not changing. None the less, still a fear campaign.
Edgar:
Brilliant observations. Not a mm short of the bulls eye! Spot on Edgar!
Unrefutable!
Good WSJ article today on the mess. BUT the overview article on BusinessInsider is better.
How Obama Blew Health Care Reform On A Bet The Republicans Were Hollow Men
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-obama-blew-it-on-health-care-2009-9
“Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations”
James Madison 1787
“Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression.”
James Madison 1788
Liberals today have strategiclly used the ‘foot in the door’ policy that congresman foran spoke about years ago. It seems to be there main line strategy.
Trent,
I just think this whole Obama trip is WAY over the top! Liberals actually WORSHIP this guy! It’s incredible to me.
Liberals should think twice before entering into the worship of Obama. This is just insane how GUSHINGLY the media flatters him.
This is a strangeness I’ve not seen before but I still have hope. I hope he (the Leader) is tossed out on his ass in 2012. Almost anyone else would be better, even Hillary.
His failure to acomplish anything, even with the big 60, will assure us of this relief in 2012. He’s a socialist. No REAL american wants that for our beloved country.
We need another Reagan!
Reagan was very controversial even back then. Not everybody loved Reagan, in fact many hated his guts just like Bush. But he has been judged less harshly now that some time has passed.
I think the era has passed though. What era? The era of when a president was actually a president. I am growing more and more cynical I guess. Liberal or conservative it’s all the same now. It’s just folks with big money playing the game. Behind closed doors they are all pals.
But this cult thing with obama is what gets my goat. The way I look at it is fine, Obama won so let him have his liberal way. We go left for 8 years and then right for 8 years. In the end we end up in the same place.
But this cult worship shit is just TOO MUCH for me! I just can’t handle it.
Read this from Yahoo news
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090903/pl_ynews/ynews_pl888_1
AMEN! 8)
He defeated Communism, helped clean up Carter’s mess, and restored this country’s reputation. I miss him.
This country was set up with 50 states, (obviously not all at once) with their own goverment. When we talk about socialism and big goverment, I believe what we are talkling about is the federal goverment over stepping it’s boundries and governmental authorities.
What we are seeing today with Obama, is a MAJOR over stepping of boundries. He doesnt know how to be president. He probably thinks of his position, as more of a monarchy.
He pushes socialist agendas! That is NOT america. If he likes socialism so much, let him move to France. We wont miss him!
We need LESS goverment involvement. PERIOD!
Trent,
you do realize that historically there have been other situations similar to this one ie the debate over a more central gov’t vs less central gov’t.
Some eras and administration have veered one way or the other, look at teddy roosevelt for instance and the controversy that surrounded him.
Teddy was a republican who actually was a progressive liberal! If you really look at it, that’s how it was.
He pushed socialist ideas. He thought of the gov’t as an entity which governed another impersonal entity namely humanity. All this while jefferson thought not of humanity (the impersonal entity) but rather the individual.
So republicans and democrats can both be progressive and have socialistic tendencies depending on the events happening on the world stage at the time, and their individual perspective.
The question is: is socialism good and by what standards to we measure this.
This whole notion of the central gov’t overstepping its boundaries is an old one, not a new one. That’s for sure.
One of the main objections to socialism is that it leaves open (actually creates) a path, or rather is inherently bent toward totalitarianism.
Socialism has a different unit of focus than democracy. Democracy focuses on the right, inalienable rights of individuals. Socialism focuses on an abstraction called humanity.
I would say that Teddy Roosevelt was more of a socialist, and did more to advance socialism that Obama has or will. Yet we are still here today in a democratic country.
I guess the real question is whether or not socialism is better than democracy. Can those who believe in socialism give us evidence of how it is better than the system we have in place right now?
I don’t think they can. There is no socialist country that we can look to as a model that is obviously superior to the democratic american model of gov’t we have right now.
History just doesn’t show that socialism is better. America is fine without socialism. Why look to it? I could see if we were a nation that was cooking on camel turds and wiping our asses with leaves then I would ask, “What is wrong with our system? Why is everyone else enjoying the comforts of modern living except us?”
But that’s not how it is. This is the country everyone wants to emigrate to.
I think Stalin, Lenin and Hitler did enough to show the possible downsides to socialism.
Edgar, Nash and ooh, poor, poor Trent:
You sound so young, so unschooled, and so lacking in formalized thought. You throw terms like socialism around as if you had a clue of their meaning. Your world is black and white, lacking any sense of realistic nuance.
First of all, we live in a world where socialistic thinking is imperative for us to survive as a civilization. Want to build your own roads to get where you want to go? Our roads and transit systems are socialist processes paid for by us all in a concept of “the commons.”
Want to pay for your fire department, police department, or court system? More socialism!!!
Obama is going to make medical experiences socialistic. Well, if you were over 65 as I am, you would find that Medicare (a single payer, socialistic program), works wonderfully well and has never impulsed me to read the book of sayings of Chairman Lyndon (Johnson: the founder of Medicare). Ask your poor, uneducated and terrified old folks that you want to end their socialized medicine (Medicare), and see what a bunch of Trotskiites you encounter! It is infuriating and tragic the way you and your right wing lies have intimidated our senior citizens.
You are terrified of Obama speaking to the school kids under the phony theory that he will speak of policy to the kids. What you are truly afraid of is that the kids will like him and see him as a positive force rather than the evil that you and your ilk wish to brand him. By the way, when Ronald Reagan spoke to the kids, he gave a heavy duty diatribe on the values of his tax-cutting policies. Look it up on Fact Check and you will see that he did. None of the brain dead, or should I say Caliche-headed Repubs of that time made any mention of it. Of course the educationally challenged GOP of today are so history deprived that they don’t even know about that experience.
You love to throw around hyperbole and characterizations about liberals, but nowhere (except, of course, Edgar . . . a sadly bitter person who it seems only can say “no,” in all the cement headed right wing statements here do I see any supporting documentation to back up your assertions.
Finally, if you want to see other countries where democracy works better than here in the US and also includes socialist processes for the betterment of the people, I suggest you look into France (the finest health care in the world), Sweden a flourishing economy where the banks didn’t fail, because they are state controlled, and Denmark, to mention a few. Do you even realize that we are listed as number 34 in the world for primary health care? I also suggest, before you simply give that greasy guffaw that emanates from the drugster (Rush Limbaugh), that you actually travel to different countries and find out the actual condition of people there. Since the reign of Ronald Reagan in which he began all the troubles we now face, this country has been engaged in a terrible slide down into the muck of corporatocracy. The foolishness of the myth of a free market has led us into the abyss of financial ruin, political idiocy, religious lunacy, and horrible, anti-intellectual ravings as you demonstrate here.
@Challenge!
First I just want to say FUCK YOU to willy. You attack me personally? You don’t know me. And what’s with you trying to shove YOUR MORALS down my throat? I’ve been trying to have a civil conversation here for the longest time- go read my posts, and you’re going to come along and start with the ad hominem?
See if you can rearrange these words to somehow form a coherent sentence:
“You love to throw around hyperbole and characterizations about liberals, but nowhere (except, of course, Edgar . . . a sadly bitter person who it seems only can say “no,” in all the cement headed right wing statements here do I see any supporting documentation to back up your assertions.” (Where is YOUR supporting documentation in this comment willy?)- hypocrite!
Willy P who judges us to be ignorant and uneducated gives us a disconnected and incoherent paragraph with an open ended parenthesis. A wonderful specimen indeed! If you are going to be an arrogant old geezer and go on about education and whatnot, at least read your own drivel and check to make sure there are no embarrassing grammatical errrorrs.
Let’s look at some of Willy’s idiotic drivel. “Want to pay for your fire department, police department, or court system? More socialism!!!”
Oh JEEZ! I never thought of that. Hmmm, socialism IS good. What a fucking dope.
So let me get this straight. If your gov’t pays for a fire department, police station and schools then you live in a socialist country.
Those are the defining characteristics of socialism? Are you serious? That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Willy, get a clue. Socialism is not characterized by whether or not the gov’t pays to keep the roads up.
You are going to talk about me and my, “anti-intellectual ravings as you demonstrate here” and yet you think that if your gov’t funds libraries that you live in a socialist nation?
@Willy, “First of all, we live in a world where socialistic thinking is imperative for us to survive as a civilization.”
Oh, is that a fact? Is there ANYBODY who disagrees with your assumption oh GREAT OZ? What’s with these empty assumptions? Where is the evidence of your formalized thought here? I see no references to back up your radical claims. Formalized my ass!
Yeah we rank #34 but who ranked us? The WHO? A bunch of turd-world wannabees. Fuck them. They all come HERE for their health care if they can afford it.
Foolishness of a free market? You are a commie, pinko, marxist, ex-hippy, professor fag, if I had to guess. Not that all professors are commie pinko hippy fags. There is a trend running in the opposite direction thank God.
You MUST have a long gray ponytail.
Another thing: What’s with the word “ilk”???? It’s being over used here. “You and your ilk” – find another way to say that once in a while, just to break it up a little.
Willy, even though you are old, it’s still bad to get drunk.
So this blog is a fucking joke after all. I try to get away from the ad hominem and actually engage in civil debate but people like you always have to drag it down to a food fight.
Screw you.
@Edgar – “They all come HERE for their health care if they can afford it.”
Actually, that’s an example of the hyperbole WillyP was referring to. This is a statement widely accepted by the right that simply cannot be backed up. The truth is the U.S. is number 1 in emergency services (absolutely) and plastic surgery (by a long shot! Not a bad thing, especially for war wounded or viciously disfigured), but in terms of specialty care, we are not.
Need a lung transplant? Canada
Dental/maxio-facial? Istanbul, Turkey
Heart transplant? Germany
Abortion? Russia
While personally undesirable, I threw abortion in just to show we’re not the world’s best (or worst?) at it, we’re in fact #2 (followed by India and Japan).
There are many other places you can go for better, more experienced specialized treatment than here in the U.S. But your point is absolutely accurate … “… if you can afford it.”
Oh, and lastly on health care, I guess I’ll begin to be concerned with my government when they take un-Constitutional actions and force a feeding tube into a brain-dead person against the wishes of their caretaker. If that ever happens … then THAT’s a government to fear.
:popcorn:
[quote]
From Edgar:
So let me get this straight. If your gov’t pays for a fire department, police station and schools then you live in a socialist country.
Those are the defining characteristics of socialism? Are you serious? That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Willy, get a clue. Socialism is not characterized by whether or not the gov’t pays to keep the roads up.
[/quote]
So let me make perfectly certain I have this straight. Government created and managed healthcare IS socialism in your world, but public highways, fire dept, police, army, schools,etc etc etc, is NOT?
The vaguary and waffling of position is hard to follow. In one breath you say that a public health plan would be socialism, but yet follow it up with a claim that everything that came from the Public Works program is not, nor are the current public services we have. I really don’t get it.
Aside from that, I am getting more an more tired of the assertion that to embrace socialst ideals is to somehow make us a Socialist Country. Swedes do not consider them selves socialist, they are democratic. Ask any political or social expert if Sweden is Socialist, and they will say no. It is a DEMOCRACY as is AMERICA. Socialism is NOT a political structure, its a socioeconimic philosophy. It also does not require 100% adherence. America has had social systems in place since its inception, and always will, and you would never have called america socialist before this year would you?
Donkey,
Go and read my comment about teddy roosevelt and how I related that period to this one.
So Donkey, you also believe that fire stations, police stations upkeep of the highways is socialism?
As if that is even remotely close to a proper analogy. What a joke. I can’t believe you fools equate public funding of fire stations with socialism!!
Oh yeah, what’s the difference between the gov’t funding libraries and health care? I guess absolutely nothing in your view. How ridiculous.
This country is not a socialist country. Socialism IS a socioeconomic philosophy that is not supported by the constitution. We are supposed to defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. This shoving of socialism down our throats has gone way over board and must be defended against.
I predict this will lead to serious confrontations and maybe even bloodshed. Obama has surrounded himself with communists like Van Jones.
This guy obama is a communist and so are his friends. They need to be gotten rid of.
OK wait for a second braindonkey has a major point there. You think that government run healthcare is socialism, but a government run fire department and police department isn’t?
You’re pretty much saying that the fire department and police department (both payed for by the public and run by the government) is not socialism. But healthcare IS when it too is going to be paid for by the public and run by the government. You’re being completely hypocritical, but since we are completely ridiculous please tell us whats the difference?
from edgar: “So Donkey, you also believe that fire stations, police stations upkeep of the highways is socialism?”
because I am smart enough to see your point, even though you didnt actually make one in this little tidbit, I will instead chose another comparison. Public Schools. You pay for public schools. You may not even have kids, I can’t remember. However, at some point you certainly did not have kids, yet you still had to pay.
Do you feel you should not pay for public schools?
If not, did you go to public school or did/do your kids?
Are you prevented from sending kids to private school, even though you have to pay for public?
Public school is the SAME EXACT scenario as Public Healthplan. Public school is an OPTION. Public Healthplan is and OPTION. Yes public schools are at the state level, but that makes no difference for the socialism being evil conversation.
I understand your view, I really do, just of course disagree. I also don’t think your dumb/simple/closeminded (unlike one on you team lol). Because of that however, I am having a hard time grasping your belief that socialized healthcare, which you object to, is any different than any of the other socialized services that you accept? Dont try to convert me, because you wont, but instead explain it. If you don’t think school is the closest current comparison that we have to the healthplan, then tell me what is. If nothing, then tell me why schools are not comparable.
Interestingly i think we all agree about the confrontation issue. I assume you don’t actually think it should come to bloodshed. I think that the fear and beliefs are so strong on either side, that eventually we as a nation are going to come to blows over it. I fear the backlash that would result from an assassination of any politician over this, but most of all Obama. It would be terrible, and frankly I think would trigger the end of this country. There would be no reconciliation at that point.
Ok not hypocritical but you completely change your facts what’s your truth?
Donkey,
You framed your question quite well actually so I’ll try to respond in kind and answer you as directly as possible.
1. “I am having a hard time grasping your belief that socialized healthcare, which you object to, is any different than any of the other socialized services that you accept?”
I have not committed myself to accepting and approving of any socialized services but even more to the point, I have committed myself against Socialism as it is commonly understood to be a socioeconomic philosophy. So I am not being inconsistent as you have imagined.
I understood your point even though you actually didn’t make that point exactly. Actually you questioned whether or not I think socialized healthcare is different than socialized school. I think socialized systems are socialized systems, so they are not that different.
2. “Dont try to convert me, because you wont, but instead explain it. If you don’t think school is the closest current comparison that we have to the healthplan, then tell me what is”
Again I think that we agree that public school is a form of socialism and that it is somewhat if not quite analogous to socialized healthcare.
3. “If nothing, then tell me why schools are not comparable.”
Once more I agree that the two are apparently comparable.
I think the problem with your argument here is that you presupposed that I considered the public school system to be a success-a socialistic success that I supported but didn’t realize was socialistic in nature.
I think the public school system is a form of socialism and I think we are seeing socialistic results, which are not good.
I’m not the only one who feels this way. According to Gallup (not rasmussen this time) most parents are quite dissatisfied with the public school system in America. I copied from the link below.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/28603/divide-between-public-school-parents-private-school-parents.aspx
“GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ — Parents with children who attend private, parochial, or who are home schooled are much more positive than parents with children in public school about the quality of education their children receive, and are less likely to report concerns for their children’s physical safety. These results are based on an analysis of Gallup Poll data over the past four years.
Overall, Gallup’s latest Work and Education poll, conducted earlier this month, finds little change in the public’s satisfaction with the quality of education in the United States today — more Americans continue to say they are dissatisfied rather than satisfied. But, in sharp contrast, parents of school-aged children (regardless of whether they attend public or private schools) are much more positive about the quality of education that their own children are currently receiving, as has been the case for the past eight years.”
America ranked 25 out of 30 in education among industrialized nations. The Belgians for example made our system look terrible.
Check it out at ABC News:http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338
They have a system that’s like vouchers in belgiam while here it’s more like a monopoly and therefore the creativity is lacking.
Socialized schooling is failing America and socialized healthcare will fail Americans.
Gee whiz Edgar. You’ve got me pegged. I am “a commie, pinko, marxist, ex-hippy, professor fag, if I had to guess. Not that all professors are commie pinko hippy fags. There is a trend running in the opposite direction thank God.” You missed with the “You MUST have a long gray ponytail” suggestion. I am a long way away from the classroom now, but I still can make a student pop! I loved your rant. You Edgar, you are my reference and supporting documentation, and you prove my point nicely.
You see Edgar, what I hear from the right wing today is a series of rants, distortions, and empty hyperbole. And you jumped right in and gave me yours. Why are you so angry? Why do you and your colleagues on this blog have such apparent fear of the country acting in such a way as to attempt the actualization of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? If those words have real meaning, then shouldn’t we consider health to be a primary tenet of their being? How can anyone have those qualities (which we are entitled to by our country’s primary documentation), without a guarantee of physical care?
I’m sorry Edgar, but you sound even more the sadly bitter person who can only say “no.” You have a good mind, but an angry impulse that doesn’t seem open to other people’s needs. What is being taken away from you? Of what are you afraid of losing, and truly, why?
Yes Edgar, I am old, and I miss an occasional parenthesis (thank you for noticing). But I haven’t forgotten the basis on which I went into teaching so many years ago. I committed almost one half a century to that milieu with a strong desire to help young minds develop a greater scope; one that experiences the world on a plain that is broader than their own self oriented desires.
You know Edgar, we could fix this place if we would work together, combining our various talents and capabilities. What we need is a spirit of cooperation and serious commitment to bettering the country and the lives of all of us who live here. What I am looking for is not simply rebuttal, but actual ideas from the other side. A good debate requires that both sides have articulated plans for solving problems. At this point, I haven’t heard anything from the right that seriously addresses the issues we face. Perhaps the violence you so frighteningly suggest in your blog to donkey is the result of that political impotence the Republicans demonstrate. When all else fails, strike out. Come on son. Seriously join the debate.
Willie
“You see Edgar, what I hear from the right wing today is a series of rants, distortions, and empty hyperbole. And you jumped right in and gave me yours. Why are you so angry?”
I was angry because you went out of your way to insult me. See Professor, when you insult people it can make them angry. Was that your way of fostering a spirit of cooperation?
Is that how you teach your students? You try to make them feel that their core beliefs are a product of absurdity, and that NO rational person would agree with them? That’s a fine example of intellectual jiggery-pokery to put it nicely.
“Why do you and your colleagues on this blog have such apparent fear of the country acting in such a way as to attempt the actualization of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”?”
I have no colleagues here and I speak only for myself. Willy, you have presupposed that to oppose the socialized healthcare plan is to oppose “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
You can’t say that Professor unless you can make the case that socialized healthcare follows naturally from “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
Let’s uncover your premise and debate that instead of presupposing it.
“How can anyone have those qualities (which we are entitled to by our country’s primary documentation), without a guarantee of physical care?”
Willy, think about what you are saying here. You just denied the fact that we as Americans have enjoyed “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” from the inception of this country until this very day!
We can boil your reasoning down to this:
1. Socialized healthcare is necessary for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
2. We don’t have socialized healthcare
3. Therefore we have not yet enjoyed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I disagree with your reasoning as you have not shown that socialized healthcare is inherently tied to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
So in the absence of any arguments from you in that regard I see no reason to think that socialized healthcare is necessary and follows naturally from the constitution.
“You have a good mind, but an angry impulse that doesn’t seem open to other people’s needs. What is being taken away from you? Of what are you afraid of losing, and truly, why?”
So because I oppose socialism I am not open to other people’s needs? Nice try. Sorry, but I don’t equate socialism with compassion. I am afraid of America losing it’s greatness by entering into socialism.
The burden of proof is upon you willy to make the case for socialism. You haven’t done that and neither has anyone else on the Left.
On the other hand history can show us no socialist country that has suprassed America in greatness and therefore I stand against it.
@Donkey,
I answered your last post but perk hasn’t moderated my comment yet. There were two links in it so it got filtered.
WOW OH WOW did I miss some shit!
@ Edgar: Just apoproved it, sorry been gone since Wed night.
@ WillyP/Edgar: Wow did WP pick a scab off you or what Edgar? My god he must have, because his well thought out and spot-on points illicited the most incredible and incredibly out-of-proportion response from you I’ve ever seen. Must have hit you right where you know the truths lay. I read and re-read your series of posts a few times and Edgar you are wrong: his “insult” is actually only that you are a “sadly bitter person” – hardly something that should have triggered such a response.
His point about pursuing life, liberty and happiness without physical care is spot on, and you know it. It’s hard to do so if you are infirm, have been financially broken or dead. And made worse if the thorn that accomplished such deeds was the implicit murder or criminal disregard executed by a cabal of corporations that have made it their point in life to insure healthy people, not the sick. Our government, by way of NOT being involved, has created an industry that specifically preys off our well being and profits from our striving for health. It’s sick, disgusting and wrong. Not to mention essentially un-Constitutional. The preamble does not say we need a fire department – yet it is under that very umbrella that we have one.
Your pseudo-logical analysis of WP’s assertions still do nothing for the debate, they just inject intellectual masturbation intended to deflect. You are not opposing socialism, you are opposing a single policy. If you oppose socialism, then let’s abolish public schools, fire department, all forms of infrastructure development etc etc… No? I thought not. There is no case for “socialism” here, just stop it. All of that is simply talking points intended to incite.
To me the argument simply looks like, “I’d rather give my hard earned dollar to a white, white collar-based corporation and let them profit of me than to imagine that a penny might be spent in service of a poor black man that cannot afford anything.” Either that, or you’re simply more comfortable with a fascist, corporate aristocracy than what the framers originally put together for us. Which is it?
@Edgar
Ah ok i c. You agree with me that they are BOTH social systems, but disagree that either of them should be. Fair enough.
I guess I would put it like this. The proverb, “give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime” is relevant I think. I see paying for education for all as teaching kids to fish. With greater education, crime decreases. So it can be a selfish reason to want public education, I don’t want to get robbed. Mind you, plenty of people don’t make use of education, and plenty probably wouldn’t make use of a public health system either.
I agree, as I actually assume most of us do, that the public school system is a failure in much of the country. There are a great many states however where that is not true, of course though, I happen to live in one of the worst. It’s also little coincidence that the worst states for education tend to be more republican than not. Thats not a dig, its a fiscal reason.
But like I feel about schools, which is that educated masses are less likely to commit violent crime, I feel similarly about healthcare. Desperation should never be a valid motivator. We as a people should endeavor to eliminate desperation from our fellow man. We fail constantly, but does that mean we should not try? Healthcare is so retardedly expensive that it causes desperation, when the need is greatest. Although “Breaking Bad” is a fictional show, the point is still valid. People will do insane things to provide care for the ones they love. Why does it need to come to that? Aren’t we better as a people than that?
Perk,
“Wow did WP pick a scab off you or what Edgar? My god he must have, because his well thought out and spot-on points illicited the most incredible and incredibly out-of-proportion response from you I’ve ever seen.”
Perk, you KNOW I’ve been trying to be a voice of reason here esp as of late. I’ve been all but begging for a civilized debate without the ad hominem — and you know that right?
In response to my respectful and measured approach I get this:
“You sound so young, so unschooled, and so lacking in formalized thought. You throw terms like socialism around as if you had a clue of their meaning. Your world is black and white, lacking any sense of realistic nuance.”
That is not “joining in the debate” as he later put it. It’s a nasty meanspirited attack on me personally. So I responded in kind except mine was not an unprovoked response like willy’s.
“His point about pursuing life, liberty and happiness without physical care is spot on, and you know it.”
Listen perk, my argument was laid out clearly. Your generalization here is so weak it’s not even funny.
I was asked to explain my point of view which I did in a very clear manner. Respond to my points. Show me where I’m wrong. Dispute my premises. Besides, that’s for willy to answer since he asked.
You failed to address anything specific in my argument so it still stands unchallenged and correct.
@Donkey
“he proverb, “give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime” is relevant I think. I see paying for education for all as teaching kids to fish.”
We agree again BD. But socialized schooling in this country has given us socialized results. Sure, educating the kids is a good (and perhaps selfish) thing but what system shall we use?
That is the question since we agree on everything else. Let’s teach kids to “fish” but let’s concede that socialized school has been a failure.
The public school system is no feather in the socialist hat. Now I have a question for you:
Show me your argument that socialized schooling is the best model and that non socialized models are not better.
@Edgar
) is not perfect. I do not agree however with the premise that it is a failure. I only would go so far to say that, underfunded, it is a failure, and is to blame in the states that it is a failure. The states where it is a success however, it is well funded. I am a product of public school, in a very well funded (at the time) program.
OK. Good. I agree that Socialized Education (thats what we will call it so we can get Socialism to not be only associated with healthcare
Socialized education is not a failure overall, it is in some places, and a success in others. I wonder how it would fair if it was completely federalized? I think better, since there would be consistency across all states. I could be wrong of course, but thats my feeling on it.
Socialized school must exist. Without it, there would be millions of kids without school. As such, there would be millions of parents who could not have their shitty $6/hour job because the kid is at home or the kid is running wild on the street. Because without socialized education, it would be for profit or at the very least, private sector which must cover costs. How would a person earning $12k/year be able to pay for their 12 year old to go to school? Even at $10/day? They can barely pay for food.
It’s the same with healthcare. I don’t think most people understand what healthcare actually costs since most people only pay a small portion of it. And whats really fucked up, is the uber expensive plan the company offers, because the CEO wants kick ass health insurance, requires that ALL employees on it, pay the same amount. So the $6/hour wageslave is paying $6k/year for the same healthcoverage as his $5m/year CEO, and has to if they want coverage. I also don’t think that most people understand how little $6/hour actually is ($12k/year). Try that in Phoenix, or LA, or anywhere for that matter other than a tent in open land.
The average household income for the U.S. is (last I checked) roughly $48,000 per year. (pre-tax) At 35% tax rate, take home is roughly $31,200.
Rent/mortgage for family of four roughly $1,000 per month ($12K/yr)
We’re now at $19,200 after taxes and rent.
The average health insurance plan for a family of four is approximately $13,000 per year. Let’s imagine that an employer picks up 60% of that, so out of pocket is $5,200 (does NOT include orthodontia or vision – separate plans required for those)
Now we’re at $14,000 to pay for everything else (groceries, clothes, bills, gas, car payment, school supplies, … etc.) FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR!
Dude … that’s brutal! But that’s where we’re at. If someone in THAT family has a heart attack or some unforeseen medical emergency, they will instantly become one of the 50+% who file bankruptcy due to medical bills. All of whom HAVE insurance. And guess what? Yep, you and I will pay for their bankruptcy.
This is a family who works hard, and most often has to shower AFTERWARD, and I say we remove the threat their financial demise by providing them with coverage.
“A necessitous man is not a free man.” – Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt
holy crap!!!
I havnt been gone that long and the ignorance meter PEGS out!!!
You have GOT to be joking me!
Edgar. I dont think these guys are being serious. I think there just messin’ with you. NOBODY could be that silly.
Willyp’s slights of Edgar:
“Edgar, Nash and ooh, poor, poor Trent:
You sound so young, so unschooled, and so lacking in formalized thought. You throw terms like socialism around as if you had a clue of their meaning. Your world is black and white, lacking any sense of realistic nuance.”
“You love to throw around hyperbole and characterizations about liberals, but nowhere (except, of course, Edgar . . . a sadly bitter person who it seems only can say “no,”) in all the cement headed right wing statements here do I see any supporting documentation to back up your assertions.”
(note: I inserted the missing Parenthesis)
**********************************************************
Edgar: “Perk, you KNOW I’ve been trying to be a voice of reason here esp as of late. I’ve been all but begging for a civilized debate without the ad hominem — and you know that right?”
More quotes from Edgar:
“Now the kids in school are being forced to read the Dear Leader’s book!! WTF??”
“I’d rather eat a bowl of dog shit (with a hair on it) than pledge allegiance to Obama! WTF??”
“First I just want to say FUCK YOU to willy.”
“What a fucking dope.”
“Oh, is that a fact? Is there ANYBODY who disagrees with your assumption oh GREAT OZ? What’s with these empty assumptions? Where is the evidence of your formalized thought here? I see no references to back up your radical claims. Formalized my ass!”
“Yeah we rank #34 but who ranked us? The WHO? A bunch of turd-world wannabees. Fuck them. They all come HERE for their health care if they can afford it.”
“Foolishness of a free market? You are a commie, pinko, marxist, ex-hippy, professor fag, if I had to guess. Not that all professors are commie pinko hippy fags.
“”Willy, even though you are old, it’s still bad to get drunk.”
“So this blog is a fucking joke after all. I try to get away from the ad hominem and actually engage in civil debate but people like you always have to drag it down to a food fight.”
Edgar: I rest my case on who is inclined to ad hominem. I am sorry that I was so viscious and nasty towards you. However, I still would like to know why you are so bitter, so angry and so fearful of what you are going to lose. What is your fear about (in specifics, please), and what does the country look like to you if Obama’s agenda is put in place? We saw what it became under Reagan, Bush 1 & 2. What do you realistically see the America of Obama to be?
Jairez
You are so right! That’s a pretty fair way to look at the situation but I ask, what’s the hurry?
It’s always been tough for many people, always. Why do we need to rush to socialism? Why not fix the current system?
I don’t like radical fundamental sweeps. I’m suspicious of such things.
Willy,
you attacked me personally unprovoked. I didn’t pull your tail and call you an idiot until you rattled my cage. What’s wrong with you?
“However, I still would like to know why you are so bitter, so angry and so fearful of what you are going to lose. What is your fear about (in specifics, please), and what does the country look like to you if Obama’s agenda is put in place?”
Read my comment #39
Willy, I gave you my argument. Go pick it apart professor and tell me where I’m wrong and what you disagree with. I was specific. I answered all of your points instead of ducking them. I gave you some respect in trying to submit an intelligent response.
I refuted your points and exposed your argument as presupposing and weak. Go deal with it.
One last thing: don’t quote my response to YOUR ad hominem attack and say that I’m given to ad hominem. Having said that I also apologize for my language and tone. I believe we should be respectful toward elders so, I’m sorry.
Now let’s get on with this debate. Don’t be a question machine. Go and answer my argument comment #39.
I’m in the mood to comment I guess. Sorry for all the quick posts.
I think health care is important but it’s not priority #1. I would like to know obama’s plan to secure the boarders for gods sake!
What is obama’s plan in afghanistan? He has yet to propose a plan and he’s been president for 9 months! Where is wolf blitzer now? How come he is not counting the number of dead soldiers everyday like he used to?
Probably because he really doesn’t hate the wars – he just hated Bush.
Let’s either win the war or bring the boys back home already. One or the other.
@Edgar – “but I ask, what’s the hurry?”
Great question, and I can only speak from my experience. I work for a Fortune 500 company and my health expenses have gone up an average of about 30% per year, and are covering less and less.
Health care reform has traditionally been a plank of the Democrats. Not exclusively, but generally speaking. Given that Republicans have controlled the Presidency (aka “veto power”) 20 of the past 28 years, the window of opportunity may be small, making time of the essence.
So, not only am I running out of money, but who knows how long this opportunity will be before us.
IMHO.
@Edgar – “Probably because he really doesn’t hate the wars…”
No TV commentator/journalist hates war. Easy headlines, and great for ad sales.
Also re “Let’s either win the war or bring the boys back home already.” … Dude, I completely agree with you! Spot on.
Besides, bin Laden and the boyz have relocated to Pakistan, so we should actually spend our resources trying to ensure the “nuclear powered” Pakistani’s don’t lose their government to a bunch of whack-jobs who can’t wait for us to return to Allah, or the 12th century – whichever comes first.
Man … I must be WAY over-caffeinated this morning!
“I’ll take Edgar for $300, Alex”
Re “I would like to know obama’s plan to secure the boarders for gods sake!”
I agree, but from a different angle. I’d like to know when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is going to quit supporting employers who hire the illegals in the first place. Business in this country is not threatened to the point of changing their ways, and they need to be.
I have proposed to my congressional reps in the past: $1,000 fine for every hour worked by an illegal. 2nd offense and the company’s business license goes before the state Commerce Commission for consideration of revocation. 3rd offense immediate revocation of their business license and the owner/CEO is charged with income tax evasion and will have his day in court to explain himself.
We can’t blame the illegals for working a system that allows them to do what they do. We must make the jobs for them dry up, and then we won’t need a wall.
What about the drug trade? Easy. Legalize marijuana and small amounts of recreational drugs (also throw in prostitution while we’re at it), clean it all up and tax the hell out of it. We’ll reuduce our prison populations, generate additional revenues, dis-incentivise trafficking, and create new green/white jobs in growing and manufacturing.
If that’s what you had in mind, then we’re TOTALLY brothers!
What do you think?
Jairez,
@drying up jobs for illegals
Absolutely. I hate the way big business manipulates the law. Money makes the world go around – around justice that is. We agree, however if illegals can still exploit the system in other ways then that needs to be addressed as well. For instance, don’t come here and have a baby and then get to enjoy a free ride.
“We can’t blame the illegals for working a system that allows them to do what they do. ”
We can blame them. They are breaking our law, but we must also blame businesses as we agreed above.
@legalize drugs to stem drug trade
Possibly. If it would work for sure then yes, I’m with you. I see no problem with prostitution either really. If homosexuals can get married now then why shouldn’t prostitution be legal?
Point is that legalizing drugs may indeed dry up supply from mexico.
So yes Jairez, we agree on quite a few things for sure.
Sorry. I’ve been gone. I had penochle game at my local commie, pinko, hippie faggot professor cell meetng. The glorious revolution will begin in December, 2012.
Ok Edgar, let’s take them apart, one by one.
Willy, you have presupposed that to oppose the socialized healthcare plan is to oppose “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
You can’t say that Professor unless you can make the case that socialized healthcare follows naturally from “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
It is obvious that a system that precludes adequate health care to many people, as our current system does, keeps those people from having the quality of life that insures those tenets. If you are living on the edge all the time and don’t know what pain and anguish lies around the unaffordable corner for you, there is no “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” There is only fear and the need to avoid the other shoe falling on you. Socialized health care, as practiced in a number of incarnations in other countries such as France, Germany, Italy, UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Canada, and all other industrialized nations around the world, that fear is eliminated from cradle to grave. The only people in the US who have such peace of mind are those who, by privilege of birth have been given the where-with-all to cover the costs, or by other’s good fortune to make enough money. I am one of those who are unafraid because I am over 65 and am on Medicare (a socialized system). After 42 years of working and having my medical covered by my employer and having that coverage change pretty regularly over the years because of rising costs, I finally find myself unequivocally covered for the rest of my life. Now, and only now, can I truly say that I have the tenets promised in the constitution.
Let’s uncover your premise and debate that instead of presupposing it.
“How can anyone have those qualities (which we are entitled to by our country’s primary documentation), without a guarantee of physical care?”
Willy, think about what you are saying here. You just denied the fact that we as Americans have enjoyed “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” from the inception of this country until this very day!
I do emphatically deny the “fact” that we have enjoyed these tenets. I believe that to enjoy these tenets, the country must accept the fact that health care and personal being is a right and not a privedge. In this country at this time, health care is looked upon as a privilege for the wealthy and well placed, where it is a perilous proposition for the rest of us. In California for instance, it was announced yesterday that within 10 years, the cost of health care for the average family will reach 41% of that families income. Within that equation, there is no promise of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We are now at a time for a great many of our citizens where the response to a major illness is either bankruptcy or death. And don’t pull out the old Bush canard, “they can always go to the emergency room.” That is not health care, it is only physical disaster response. Edgar, even in such benighted countries as Cuba and Mexico, there are health care systems that are covered in the commons and people are all able to avail themselves of it. The only thing that we have concerning health care in this country that is available in this country that is universal to all people, is the pride that we have the richest CEOs of health insurance companies and the most tenuous system of payment in the world.
We can boil your reasoning down to this:
1. Socialized healthcare is necessary for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
2. We don’t have socialized healthcare
3. Therefore we have not yet enjoyed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Good. You understand.
I disagree with your reasoning as you have not shown that socialized healthcare is inherently tied to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
So in the absence of any arguments from you in that regard I see no reason to think that socialized healthcare is necessary and follows naturally from the constitution.
Spoken by a person who is either very young and feeling that sense of invincibility that is inherent in that class, or by a person who by some form of privilege has had his health care all along. If you are in those groups, you either will learn (as all of us who have aged have learned) the fallacy of youthful invincibility, or you must pray that your good fortune is able to continue so that you will not have to fall into the situation shared by so many of us in the great unwashed. That situation is, I truly believe, unsupported by our founding documents.
“You have a good mind, but an angry impulse that doesn’t seem open to other people’s needs. What is being taken away from you? Of what are you afraid of losing, and truly, why?”
So because I oppose socialism I am not open to other people’s needs? Nice try. Sorry, but I don’t equate socialism with compassion. I am afraid of America losing it’s greatness by entering into socialism.
Edgar: now you enter into the heart of my assertion and questions about your perceived bitterness and anger. You are certainly an intelligent person. Your technical skills in communication are certainly very strong. However, your world view, as you present it here, completely denies the basic impulse of what it is to be an American. America is not just a country of individuals who pursue whatever they personally wish. It is also (and perhaps more importantly) a country that emphasizes “the commons” in which we all must make sacrifices of our treasure and sometimes our personal being so that the country as a whole will be bettered. World War II was a classic example of this concept. If no one believed in each one giving to the common good (a basic tenet of socialism), no one would have stormed Normandy’s beaches. I believe that is the great disease promulgated by “the great communicator,” R. Reagan and carried on by all Republicans right on down to the shrub. While tearfully remembering the war years of John Wayne and Erroll Flynn, he systematically began the disruption and dismemberment of the basic social contract that guaranteed life, liberty, et al. It has become a milieu of “if you can get it, take it, and screw the rest of the people.
You simply glossed over my questions about what you are afraid of losing, perhaps because that is one of the unarticulated fears that simply cause stress but do not bear out in careful consideration. Additionally, I know that you don’t equate socialism with compassion. I don’t know to what you do equate compassion. Enlighten me on that point.
Finally, and this I think is key: what greatness is America losing? How is that happening and who is causing it? That is an old saw that the right regularly throws around and never really articulates.
The burden of proof is upon you willy to make the case for socialism. You haven’t done that and neither has anyone else on the Left.
On the other hand history can show us no socialist country that has suprassed America in greatness and therefore I stand against it.
I think I have made a pretty good case for socialist values being necessary to accomplish certain tenets of our original national values. Socialist processes have been a part of this country since its inception. I suggest you read some Howard Zinn to get some of the corporatist scales off your eyes. Up until about 30 years ago, the commons have been central parts of our national heritage.
Finally (finally!): to suggest that no socialist country has “suprassed” America in greatness is rash at best. First of all, define “greatness” for me. When you have done that to any extent that makes America more admirable and fulfilling of the life of its citizens than of those in many of the countries that have socialist policies, then we can talk. Until then, my characterizations of the right and of yours in this blog still stand.
Good lord, is there any remaining question why I respect the HELL out of WillyP?
Well, well done. Thank you for the gift of all that.
Willy,
Thanks for your interesting and well thought out response! This is something I can get into.
I want to respond to all of your points so forgive me for getting carried away with my response.
“Willy, you have presupposed that to oppose the socialized healthcare plan is to oppose “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
You can’t say that Professor unless you can make the case that socialized healthcare follows naturally from “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
It is obvious that a system that precludes adequate health care to many people, as our current system does, keeps those people from having the quality of life that insures those tenets. If you are living on the edge all the time and don’t know what pain and anguish lies around the unaffordable corner for you, there is no “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
– Willy, saying that it’s obvious doesn’t make it so. A long emotional diatribe simply appeals to emotion. Where is the reasoning that socialized health care follows naturally from the constitution?
I would argue your case like this:
The right to pursue happiness obliges the gov’t to remove obstacles that prevent the citizens from pursuing happiness. Here’s an analogy;
Edgar wants to be a professional musician. The gov’t tells him NO, we want you to be an engineer. Edgar replies, “But I will be unhappy as an engineer. I’m a musician at heart and wish to pursue my happiness as a professional musician.” The gov’t says, “Sorry, we need engineers and your test scores show that you are talented in this area. We don’t need any more musicians.”
That would interfere with Edgars right to pursue happiness. The constitution guarantees that such obstacles will never be in place of Edgars pursuit of happiness in this regard.
So in like fashion is the gov’t obliged to remove the obstacle of excessive health care costs?
In this case Edgar can say to the gov’t, “Hey, I want to go back to college and make a career change thus exercising my right to pursue happines. Problem is health care costs are outrageously high due to greedy fatcats exploiting the system”
The gov’t then needs to address this situation. Is this situation a moral abomination? Are greedy people exploiting the needs of Americans at large to make obscene profits? Are lots of people suddenly finding it difficult to pursue happiness in a normal and not excessive sense? Isn’t the gov’t obliged to remove this contrived obstacle so that americans can pursue happiness?
It’s the gov’t responsibility to make sure egregious moral offenses are not committed en mass in America. Healthcare as we know it is an egregious moral offense so therefore the gov’t should step in.
In short we ask ourselves how the gov’t guarantees our right to pursue happiness. I think the answer is that the gov’t is obliged to recognize and remove obstacles which prevent many americans from living normal lives in relative happiness.
For example, farmers can’t charge $20 per potato and exploit the fact that people need to eat!
Continuing,
This argument and your argument Willy are the same, I think. Here’s my problem:
Your argument addresses the fact that something needs to be done about health care. But you then assume that the answer is socialized health care. How do you make that leap?
I can see how reasonable people can make the case for gov’t intervention in the health care industry for sure. But why jump right into socialized health care? Why not explore progressive regulations? Let’s try limiting malpractice claims and put some regulations in place that keep greedy bastards from exploiting the needs of the people?
I’m arguing for measured regulation. Regulation that would address the problems of rising costs in an effective way but SHORT of socializing the system.
So Willy, I believe we have common ground to argue from ie obscene health care costs are morally unacceptable thus warranting gov’t intervention.
What you have to show is why SOCIALISM is the answer and not progress steps and the careful layering of regulation.
I believe it to be imprudent to make sweeping fundamental changes and advocate a more cautious approach. Why?
Because socializing a big piece of the pie like this sets a dangerous precedent. It’s a major step toward socialism which marx saw as “transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done” (merriam webster)
So we should avoid rushing to socialism because it sets a dangerous precedent but we should insist that the gov’t explore new and more strict regulatory policies.
This is civil discourse. Thank you. Edgar, I think that you make a point worth exploring in the case of graduated regulation as opposed to a clear change to a more socialized form of medical service. First of all, please notice that I say “more socialized form” and not socialized medicine. If we were to truly “socialize” medicine, it would be akin to the British system, in which all areas of medical concern ranging from education, institutions and personnel and all other relationships to the issue would be owned and operated by the government. That is the case in the UK and the apparent majority of the people support that system there. Even the monolithic Margaret Thatcher would not entertain a proposal from her conservative party to undue their national health. That has no relevance to our discussions, as it is clear neither Obama nor I have been speaking for such a program.
Now, back to graduated regulation. I agree that this would seem to be the most logical and least dramatic way to make change. However, as we have seen with the changing of administrations and their approach to regulation (i.e. the environment, energy, food inspection, support for infrastructure issues like our crumbling bridges), it is to me abundantly clear that such an approach would be iffy at best, and fool hearty in reality. Whatever regulations that are put into place by a Democratic administration go under/or unfunded by the Republican who might follow. I grant you that it will work the other way as well. Regulations are only as sound as the people who enforce them. Healthcare changes will take some time to be finally put in place. There are too many “human frailties” in the way of this a process working. Such a system of control requires consensus and consistency of leadership. That the US does not have, especially now.
I am personally for a single payer system of insurance that would be similar but more inclusive than Medicare. A single payer system is simply the replacement of private for-profit insurance companies as the backers to the health of the populace with the government as the “single payer” of all insurance claims. Such systems are in place all over the world in advanced countries and are working more efficiently, more effectively in terms of health results, and with considerably less cost than what we have here. The closest comparison in cost to us I believe, is about 1/2 our cost. Sorry, I don’t have the figures here and my “penochle game with my comrades is calling.” We might ask Perkiset, as he seems to have all the definitive data at his fingertips.
Edgar, I don’t see a “Medicare E” program (Medicare for everyone) as being the radical jump that you suggest. In the United States, the two most effective and inclusive forms of medical support are already in place; they being Medicare and the Veteran’s Administration. As I am sure you will note, in this whole unseemly debate about the subject, the one thing that is constant in all the meetings is the demand of seniors that Medicare stay in tact, and that the VA continue as is. It only took the country, in a time when there were almost no computers, real data banks, or communication systems beyond the card catalog, eleven months to get Medicare running, and that was a whole new, radically different system for this country. I think, if we as a country had the will, we could institute Medicare E in a matter of months as well. Unfortunately at this point, I don’t believe that Obama or a good portion of the Democrats have the will to invoke such a program. For that I am very sad.
Now, to your critique of my statement on “life liberty, etc.”:
You quoted me and responded thus:
“Willy, you have presupposed that to oppose the socialized healthcare plan is to oppose “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
You can’t say that Professor unless you can make the case that socialized healthcare follows naturally from “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
It is obvious that a system that precludes adequate health care to many people, as our current system does, keeps those people from having the quality of life that insures those tenets. If you are living on the edge all the time and don’t know what pain and anguish lies around the unaffordable corner for you, there is no “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
– Willy, saying that it’s obvious doesn’t make it so. A long emotional diatribe simply appeals to emotion. Where is the reasoning that socialized health care follows naturally from the constitution?
Edgar, that was not an appeal to emotion, it was an appeal to equality. Our originating documents do not say that life, liberty and happiness are guaranteed to all, but on a graduated scale. Its language guarantees those tenets in toto to all, no matter what the station in life. I am quite aware that socialized health care doesn’t follow “naturally” from the constitution, but neither does capitalism. Neither is noted by name in the document. Besides, socialism hadn’t been named until the 19th century. But the constitution, bill of rights and the declaration of independence all speak to equality, fairness, and the even handed treatment of all citizens.
I do not think it an emotional argument to speak to the humanly obvious. There are people today who simply cannot level the playing field because they are unable to financially support the medical system we have today. Beyond that, our medical system does not insure that care will be given, even if you do pay for it. You cannot disagree with the fact that the medical insurance industry has as it’s primary goal to make a profit. That absolutely demands that it do everything it possibly can to limit payouts to its customers. Hence, we have a system that we pay with the expectation of covering our asses when we are ill, hurt or humbled, that will (under its mandate of profit) do everything it can figure out to do to limit its support of our difficulties. To support a for profit system of medical care is, in my opinion, immoral. To have to run through such hoops when we are in medical stress has no place in a constitutional republic that promises us our life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Additionally, as I referenced in an earlier entry, the United States has a long history of collective and collaborative action. It has come to be called “the commons.” I mentioned Howard Zinn, a renowned historian. Read his book. Unfortunately, our education has been driven for many decades by the corporatists, who are not interested in including information in our history books or curriculum about such collective traditions. The latest example is the conflict that is ongoing today in Texas, where the huge majority of textbooks are printed and the Texas Board of Education actually controls what will go into national texts. Not only are the religious loons trying to denegrate evolution, but they are also eliminating all reference to our collaborative heritage. I really recommend that you do some research in that area. It might be interesting for you.
Finally (yes I too tend to the long diatribes), I do not agree at all with your suggested argument for my case. The musician argument is a fallacious one. I agree that the government does not have a responsibility to you to insure your right to be a professional musician. However, it does have a responsibility to you to create an environment in which you can pursue those goals. The government should provide instruction to all students in schools in the arts, music, literature, dance and theatre. They should do this not as a vocational program, but as a concentrated comprehensive involvement in the artistic experience. It should guarantee fair trade and competition that allows for you to obtain an instrument of your choice and study to become anything between a person who “plinks and clunks” in personal happiness, to a YoYo Ma, an Eric Clapton, or any other great artist. But that last part is the part that destroys your example. To become a musician is a question of choice, while one’s health largely is not. Where we are at the whim of our medical frailties, the government does have a responsibility to uphold your right to the best possible health care for everyone, regardless of station. I understand your carrying out the example to the levels of a communist China or USSR, but honestly, do you really believe that those are legitimate concepts in this argument?
I would like to see you explore some of the questions I have for you concerning your fears of the loss of “American greatness.” Please, do a treatise on that and include your answer to what you truly see as the United States if Obama has his way with us. I’ve got to go. The black helicopters are circling and I am late for my cell meeting.
Willy,
I appreciate your tone and thoughtful response. I really do enjoy a good civil debate, got my coffee here and everything.
I just want to address one of your last points first. I think you misunderstood my argument for your case. The argument from the pursuit of happiness.
Yes I agree that ones health is much more important than choosing a career but that was not the comparison I was making. My point was to answer the question of how does the gov’t ensure your right to pursue happiness. I concluded that removing unjust obstacles which impede our pursuit of happiness is a way for the gov’t to ensure our right to pursue happiness.
This is not to compare the plight of a career seeker and a person in need of health care. This is about removing unjust obstacles (regardless of what lies behind them ie healthcare, racism, gov’t oppression)and the gov’t obligation to do so. In some countries the gov’t has authority over where you can work. That is an unjust obstacle which prevents its citizens from pursuing happiness.
Apply that to the health care situation. Millions of people in the richest country the world over, are unable to pursue happiness because of an unjust obstacle, namely gouged health care costs. So I concluded that the gov’t is obliged to remove this obstacle as well.
I don’t see the right to pursue happiness as the right to demand that the gov’t make me happy ie “I want a beach house…where’s my beach house. I can’t be happy without a beach house” etc… and on that we agree.
The gov’t should ensure that we can pursue happiness by making sure there are no oppressive obstacles in our way. That’s a sound way to argue this issue from the pursuit of happiness.
In my “musician” example the obstacle was unjust gov’t oppression which compares fairly with what I see as unjust health care oppression. Can we agree on that?
@Regulations
“I think that you make a point worth exploring in the case of graduated regulation as opposed to a clear change to a more socialized form of medical service.”
Really this is all I’m after. My argument is a modest one in that I want you, other people on the left and the gov’t to resist rushing to (as you put it) a more socialized system and first consider exploring graduated regulations within a capitalist framework.
“Now, back to graduated regulation. I agree that this would seem to be the most logical and least dramatic way to make change.”
Willy, it’s quite refreshing to have a dialogue with someone who is willing to entertain another point of view. Thank you. I will now address your criticism on this point.
“However, as we have seen with the changing of administrations and their approach to regulation (i.e. the environment, energy, food inspection, support for infrastructure issues like our crumbling bridges), it is to me abundantly clear that such an approach would be iffy at best, and fool hearty in reality.”
Your objections concerning honest enforcement are reasonable to me. I agree that it could be an issue. However I will refrain from again rushing to judgment here. We haven’t *really* given health care the old “college try” yet so I’m hesitant to jump to conclusions. Let’s take things a step at a time and avoid hastiness.
Willy, I am not ducking your questions about losing American greatness etc… This post is already long enough. I will address them in my next comment, in a little while.
@Black helicopters
Just tell me the truth. How many of your professor friends have a long gray ponytail?
Edgar, all my old professor friends are dead. Don’t get old. It isn’t pretty!
And on that I will wholeheartedly take your advice!
Willy,
“I would like to see you explore some of the questions I have for you concerning your fears of the loss of “American greatness.” Please, do a treatise on that and include your answer to what you truly see as the United States if Obama has his way with us. I’ve got to go. The black helicopters are circling and I am late for my cell meeting.”
I have been very busy as of late so I haven’t had time to respond to this. Sorry about that. I’ll try to keep this short since I’m in between clients.
Basically my fears have nothing to do with what’s “being taken away from ME” personally. Although I would be effected personally I don’t normally consider this from such a selfish perspective, therefore my thoughts from that context are not well formed.
However, the way I do look at it is in the style of The Big Picture. I simply see the socializing of healthcare as a catalyst to an eventual socialization of the country. Since I’m not a fan of socialism I am suspicious of fundamental sweeping changes in the direction of socialism.
Indeed Marx saw socialism as merely an imperfect implementation of communism. He saw socialism as an unstable system. A system in transition from capitalism to socialism. Socialized healthcare feels like a trojan horse to me. It will set a precedent that is dangerous in my opinion. But when socialized healthcare is cloaked as a humanitarian issue people hesitate to criticize it. After all, who wants to seem like they don’t care about the needs of needy people?
I just don’t buy that though as it is a narrow perspective, a rose colored perspective. If one day the US has become a socialist country this healthcare bill will be the turning point.
That’s how I see it and that’s why I don’t support socialized healthcare. I feel it’s unfair to present this false dichotomy where you are either for socialized health care or you are apathetic toward the needy. It’s not a completely honest portrayal of the situation.
Solve the problem of healthcare reform by systematically applying graduated regulations one at a time until we find the right mix. Let’s not make hasty judgments about the “hopelessness” of the situation and explore options that lie firmly in a capitalist framework.
That hasn’t been adequately explored yet and I’m confident that the solution can be found short of socialism, notwithstanding your illustration of what REAL socialism is ie england.
Edgar,
My response will have to be short today, as I to am on the run. I am moving from safe house to safe house. We have a progressive borsht tournament going on and I am judging. It’s a lot of fun, but way too much cabbage and beets for my taste.
Now don’t take this badly when I speak of the right and at times lump you into it. It’s a perspective and it assists me in making my point.
First of all, thank you for beginning this dialog. It is a necessary one that should be going on across the country instead of the explosive and ugly “tea bagger” gatherings. If we don’t clearly articulate our differences, there can be no solution.
I agree with you about Marx’s attitudes toward socialism. I think that in this case they really don’t apply to this issue as the level of socialist processes that would be included if my solution to the health care problem would be put in place are really minimal. Marx would scoff at the use of the term “socialist” if he were to encounter Medicare, the VA or in this case Medicare part E (Medicare for everyone). There would be no government ownership, the most important tenet of a truly socialized system. The only change in the system would be the elimination of the unnecessary middleman, the leeching insurance companies, who perform no function that couldn’t be done better by the government. As the right has often said, the government if fond of writing checks. This is a time when that function would work better for us all.
As a capitalist, I am sure you take pride in a system that is able to refine itself and trim away unnecessary costs and inefficiencies. With a single payer system, those processes could be put in place. An expanded Medicare system could negotiate with the drug companies and other parts of the health care system to establish lower cost points; a process that cannot (or on the part of the insurance companies, will not be done under the present system).
Concerning the left’s “rose colored perspective,” how is it unreal to want the simple expansion of a program that has been successful without taking us to the gulags for the past 40 years? That to me is illogical. Seeing such a system as a “trojan horse” is, to me as silly as saying that social security has taken us into socialist state. That is exactly the same argument that was delivered by conservative senators Martin, Barten and Fish, FDR’s primary foes against the new deal. It just doesn’t logically follow that these small but extremely effective collective actions have or will make us into the new Soviet Union.
Finally, as I have to go (the borsht is getting warm), there is great urgency in getting this system in place. Just using Perk’s next blog as an example, there are many people, thousands actually, who are in desperate straits because of this issue. We know that Medicare and the VA work. We also know that the insurance companies have been leeches. We know that within ten years (according to the announcement yesterday) that the cost of insurance will rise to 160% within the next ten years, that the current system has run amok. My solution may not be the ideal one (a debatable point), but we know that it will work. Yours is dubious in its ability to fix the problem, and definitely leaves a trail of pain, because of the lack of expediency in its implementation.
I’m off to the borsht belt. Of course you know, Pepto Bismol, a favorite of good borsht eaters, is Pink.
Das Vedanya!
Oh Eeeeeeeeeedddddddggggggaaaaaarrrrrr. Where are you?
Hi Willy,
I’ve been busy like crazy with new clients etc…
I haven’t checked the blog here in a few days but where is everybody? No vsloathe either.
VSLOATHE where are you?
Anyway, I hope your borsht was good Willy Putin (that’s what the P stands for right)
roflmao: roflmao: roflmao:
Shit! You caught me.
I hate to go off topic but I just read this AP story http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090926/ap_on_go_pr_wh/g20_summit_obama_iran
Looks like Obama must have found one of George Bush’s old cowboy hats in a closet in the White House. A few highlights:
Obama said, “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow. The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program.”
“”This was the work product of three intelligence agencies, not just one,” Obama said. “They checked over this work in a painstaking fashion.”"-Obama
Sounds kind of like Bush on Iraq circa 2003.
“Asked about the prospect of using military force to stop Iran from getting the bomb, Obama said, “With respect to the military, I’ve always said that we do not rule out any options when it comes to U.S. security interests, but I will also re-emphasize that my preferred course of action is to resolve this in a diplomatic fashion. It’s up to the Iranians to respond.”
Right out of the Bush playbook.
“”Iran is on notice that when we meet with them on Oct. 1 they are going to have to come clean and they are going to have to make a choice” between international isolation and giving up any aspirations to becoming a nuclear power, he said. If they refuse to give ground, they will stay on “a path that is going to lead to confrontation.”
Why is Obama so anti peace? This is strong language (a la bush) for the new era of diplomacy that Obama sold his electorate and the rest of the world.
So obama is talking war (it’s not off the table, headed toward confrontation etc…) because he believes that iran is building weapons of mass destruction. He trusts his intelligence because it comes not from one but THREE sources (unlike bush who had intelligence from all over the world!) and is now DEMANDING in no uncertain terms that iran “Make a choice.”
Why is he so…so…Bush-like?
Now Edgar, you must take greater care in mixing combustibles than you have here. I don’t blame you for trying to push the comparison, the Repubs are dying for some kind of moral or spiritual victory, but it just doesn’t wash.
1. First of all, Iran has come clean and admitted that they are building a nuclear (read: nuculur for Bush) facility. The argument is whether or not they are within the IAEA rules for such construction. The US, Britain, France, Russia and China all say that they are outside the rules.
2. Obama has not threatened force, although any serious leader never forcloses the possibility. Bush never attempted to negotiate. He and Cheney were determined to make a war of it. If it hadn’t been for the Dems in the congress not going along with the plan, we would probably be in an even bigger mess than we already are.
3. Obama dealt with the Iranians, and the interested parties (GB, R, C, & F) with incredible skill. He put the biggest load of egg on the Iranian’s face and moved the other four into a position in which they have to take our side. No more swaggering, cow chips, or “What me worry?” imagery.
4. There are many methods of “confronotation.” Bush/Darth Vader only had one choice: war. Obama is a master chess player.
5. You have the comparison all wrong. Actually, if the shrub had been a bit more like what we see in Obama, we wouldn’t have had such a mess for eight years.
Gotta go. I have an appointment to meet Che Jr. to help Cubana comrades roll cigars on their thighs! Venceremos!
What “mess”?
Iraq is now having free elections!
PrezBO a “master chess player”??
roflmao:
Why do you think that Mamoud Ahmadoucebag waited until NOW to show his butt?
Because he knows that PrezBO is a pussy.
Nash, if you don’t understand what a total cluster the Iraq war has been, I don’t know what to do with you. If you think that the American people signed on to that war so that, eight years later, a trillion dollars, over four thousand dead American soldiers, and countless thousands of Iraqui dead Iraq would have a “free election” (even though parties still are illegal there), you are far more dense than your earlier writing suggests. Don’t deny history son. As far as “PrezBO” as a master chess player, he has certainly outsmarted all the opposition in both his party and the poor, poor repubs.
1. US trounces iraqi army in weeks.
2. Al queda seizes the opportunity to sow discord in iraq.
3. Enter left wing media and political propaganda. “The war is unwinnable”
4. David Petreus says, “Are you kidding me? We can win this. Just give me some more troops.
5. We won the peace.
6. Middle Eastern “jessie james” types are still blowing things up once in a while.
The war is over and the surge restored relative calm and peace.
Simple.
The actual war didn’t live up to the media hype. Where is Wolf Blitzer now?
Obama was against the surge and still doesn’t admit that it worked.
:doh: roflmao: roflmao:
Other countries don’t fight wars like we do. They bomb the shit out of everything in sight. We fight an antiseptic war. A war of precision with unheardof precautions taken to prevent civilian casualties. We even avoid blowing up mosques.
NOBODY else fights war in such a morally and professionally superior manner. Well done!
PrezBO is about to find out how tough this was business can be. His “Afghan War” is going to be a HUGE cluster-hump.
People are starting to find out that PrezBO is in way over his head. Anyone with half a brain has no respect for him.
His intentions are good, I’ll give him that. However, he has no idea how to go about them.
Aaaah Edgar, you’re back. Please, after all we’ve been through together, let’s not start the revisionist/selective history, ok? Your six points do prove something: mainly that we are the biggest dick in the house. Unfortunately, big dicks are only as valuable as they are intelligently utilized. It was a wrong war in the first place. You can’t simply look at the military results and speak of success. Of course we beat the Iraqui army. It only took us seven years (three years longer than WWII), to defeat an at best, third rate army of insurgents.
“We won the peace.” What have we won? Iraq is a country that hates us now. We have created a Shiite country that is more akin to Iran than any other country in the middle east. Instead of the Sunni buffer that we had under Saadam Hussein, a buffer that Iran feared above all else, we have given the Iranis a partner who has some of the richest resources in the region. We have made the Iranians the biggest thing in the area, next to Israel. Some peace!!
Your relative calm and peace is a myth. The relationship between Iraq and Iran is the creation of a now sleeping giant. We have Bush and Cheney to thank for setting up this tinder box.
Rofimao . . . I agree with you that other countries do not fight wars like we do. In short, they don’t get into them in the first place!!! The idea, in conflicts, is to have a plan first and then commit your strength. We jumped in feet first and had no plan whatsoever!
Your assertion that we fight an antiseptic war is so silly and unrealistic, it belongs on the lips of other such “brain trusts” as, let’s say, Michele Bachman! You cannot say that this was antiseptic. The death rate of Iraquis is estimated by non partisan, independent assessors as being somewhere between 300,000 and a million over the course of the war. Their infrastructure (one of the best in the area prior to the war) is now close to stone age.
Your idea of “morally and professionally superior manner” is an insult to me as an American. Where are your values, man?
Nash: I agree with you that “anyone with half a brain has no respect” for Obama. I think you have hit on the major problem for the right. You work on half a brain. And what do you mean “is going to be” a cluster F? This war was mismanaged by your guys for over seven years and then handed off to Obama to clean up. Thanks a ton! Your thinking is third rate at best. Let’s get beyond the repub talking points and deal with some critical considerations. Otherwise, quiet down and let the adults talk.
Boy, Willy –
You are either in denial, or you really fell for the hype!
This is not partisan and you know it.
Take this “ObamaCare” bill. Even some dems think he’s an idiot for trying to pass it.
Shouldn’t you be in your remedial English class right now instead of playing on your parents’ computer?
Nash, you are reading us wrong. We are pushing Obama hard to go all the way and give the country single payer. We “dems” never considered him an idiot. That was Bush, Cheney, Michelle Bachman, the Mittster, Slanthead Hannity and the “Drugster” Rush Limbaugh. We are simply pushing him to deliver on what the party platform promises. I know that is strange for you, as the repubs, except for the rich people’s tax cuts, didn’t make it happen on any of their party’s platform (ie: no ban on gay marriage, no elimination of entitlements, and no smaller government). I think that we will be pleased with what Obama has accomplished when it is all said and done.
@Nash: Anyone with half a brain has no respect for him: well, that may be correct. You and the rest of the right wing idiots that have only half a brain may well not respect him. We that maintain a full compliment of gray matter think he’s working his ass off, trying to get something going. Welcome back, BTW – I was beginning to think that there was order, peace and a semblance of intellect in the world. Great to have you here to remind me of the realities of just how dumbed-down our country has become.
@Nash re. remedial English, parents computer and “Obama Care” – man, you are so in over your head you don’t even know it. I’ll bet you haven’t really even taken a moment to reflect on WP’s statements, only looked for keywords that the O’Reillyesque cabal has told you to scream against. And then, just on cue, you scream.
Did you even read my previous post about health care, or were there just too many syllables for you? Oh, wait – I remember now. You don’t really read or debate, you simply wait for other people to stop talking so that you can blather your right wing, horseshit, talking-points tripe. I’ve no time for people that simply want to give their money and lives over to the insurance industry so that they can continue to get ass fucked and forced to say thank you by Wall Street. When you actually want to talk, c’mon back. But if all you want to do is flame retarded, then go do it somewhere else.
Willy,
“Of course we beat the Iraqui army. It only took us seven years (three years longer than WWII), to defeat an at best, third rate army of insurgents.”
You are reciting revisionist history Willy. We beat the Iraqi’s in weeks. The rest the struggle was not against Iraq. We fought ALONG SIDE of Iraqi soldiers to defeat the insurgents.
Do you read that WIlly? We fought ALONG SIDE of the Iraqi’s to defeat insurgents. We were not fighting Iraq for seven years Willy. We fought together against a common enemy.
Now that that is straightened out…
How did we crush germany in ww2? Hmm…Did we avoid bombing their churches? No. We CARPET BOMBED THE WHOLE COUNTRY! We killed and broke everybody and everything. Period.
We took a sledge hammer to Germany and a scalple to Iraq. That’s why it took so long to subdue the insurgents. We COULD have carpet bombed them like we did in Germany but instead we fought a politically correct war.
Bottom line is they were NO MATCH at all for us. Zip. Zero. No contest at all. No fight. No Nothin!
There were more people killed in domestic violence right here at home than there were in the war (on our side of course). Historically speaking, 4000 soldiers lost is on the WAAAAAY down on the low end. How many died on dday?
How many died at the battle of somme? In just one day?
We rolled them right over no problem. Wolf Blitzer was the problem. Left wing propaganda was the problem.
Obama’s judgement was the problem, “The surege wont work” and later, “The surge didn’t work – we lost the war in Iraq”
But who cares about all this anyway? There are more important things on the table – like chicago hosting the olympics. :doh:
The truth is that PrezBO is over his head. How childishly predictable of you people to assume that only the repubs are “half brained”. You are all prejudiced and can’t see it.
PrezBO’s approval ratings have been slipping, and yes, EVEN DEMS criticize him, and there is a LOT of buyer’s remorse out there.
Live in your dream world and worship your Master if you like. Pretty soon, we that ACTUALLY HAVE the grey matter will be able to put the blame for this country going doen the tubes squarely on you.
Edgar, I was gone for the weekend and will catch up with you shortly. Nash . . . “we that ACTUALLY HAVE the grey matter” . . . (oops! I split an elipse). ‘Didn’t “assume that only the repubs are ‘half brained,” I just said that I’m just glad that you acknowledged that you do fall into that category. Read your drivel man. I rest my case with you.
Willy, YOU are not qualified to make that assessment in anyone, just as an alcoholic does not recognize that he has a problem.
I understand and acknowledge that you have a duty to spread propoganda, and it frustrates you when someone like me comes along and shoots holes through your curtain.
Saturday Night Live finally did something funny. LMAO!!!!
Now, I know that’s where you guys get your info (LMAO!!) so I KNOW you saw the “I’ve done nothing” skit.
Obama is all done now. What else? Oh yes, General McChrystal (sp?) the great American that he is, has totally pissed off Obama because he called him out on the world stage.
I guess Obama is so used to voting “Present” that he just doesn’t know how to make a decision. When Palin is president in 2012 you can thank Obama for providing the impetus.
Hey perk, have you heard from Vsloathe? Is he OK? He hasn’t been here to bash me in a long time.
@Willy,
Did the surge work in Iraq and would you have preferred that we bombed the whole country so as to avoid the protracted war we had to endure, like germany in ww2?
See Willy, Bush was compassionate. He could have order the destruction of Iraq from top to bottom but no. Instead he chose to fight a politically correct war. Remember the mosque in Falluja? We couldn’t take falluja because every time the enemy ran into a mosque we refused to bomb them.
Bush the compassionate. Maybe you are right willy. Maybe we should have just bombed the hell out of the enemy wherever they were and ended the war in a month or so. Indeed, maybe you are right.
Well, got to go. I just spilled beer all over my ‘wife beater’ t-shirt here in the trailer. I guess I’ve got the Lynard Skynard up a bit too loud, even for me.
Nash, ooooooooh, oooooooooooh, ooooooooooh! You are just a big pooh pooh head! There. I got down to your level of critical thinking. Now go play on the swings while the adults talk.
Edgar, obviously you haven’t spoken to many Iraqui vets, or haven’t listened if you did. See what kind of guffaw you elicit when you speak of our soldiers fighting side by side with the Iraquis. It just didn’t happen that way. Go back to 2002 – ’07 news on the status of the new Iraqui army.
Your words: How did we crush germany in ww2? Hmm…Did we avoid bombing their churches? No. We CARPET BOMBED THE WHOLE COUNTRY! We killed and broke everybody and everything. Period.
We took a sledge hammer to Germany and a scalple to Iraq. That’s why it took so long to subdue the insurgents. We COULD have carpet bombed them like we did in Germany but instead we fought a politically correct war.
Bottom line is they were NO MATCH at all for us. Zip. Zero. No contest at all. No fight. No Nothin!
Edgar, remember it was Bush and Cheney who were pumping up Iraq as the great danger to us. I agree with you. They never were a threat, and never deserved for us to invade them. Remember about wwII (and I was around during that conflict), Germany DECLARED WAR ON US, When we have a country declare war upon us, then we must act. Iraq was a war of Bush/Cheney choice, totally immoral and unnecessary.
Again, your words: There were more people killed in domestic violence right here at home than there were in the war (on our side of course). Historically speaking, 4000 soldiers lost is on the WAAAAAY down on the low end. How many died on dday?
How many died at the battle of somme? In just one day?
We rolled them right over no problem. Wolf Blitzer was the problem. Left wing propaganda was the problem.
Obama’s judgement was the problem, “The surege wont work” and later, “The surge didn’t work – we lost the war in Iraq”
Edgar, I thought more of you than these words reflect. Of course 4,000 troops does not equal the Somme, but to each family member related to those troops it does. Moreover, when the country begins looking at such losses as “WAAAAAAY down at the low end,” is below you. Any life is precious and should be lost only for meaningful and legitimate reasons.
No, I wouldn’t prefer that we carpet bomb Iraq. I prefer that we give them back their country. We never should have gone in, we screwed up their country royally, and we have created a Shiite partner for Iran. As bad as Saddam was, he was Iran’s greatest worry. Now it’s simply Israel against the whole Middle East. Stupid, stupid, stupid policy.
Bush was compassionate???!!! Again, your German comparison doesn’t play well. Do you remember Monte Casino, for example, at which thousands of Americans died because we (the brass) refused to bomb the abbey even though the Germans were using it as a sighting source for their artillery.
Now, Edgar, I would like you to go back over my points, and actually address them. You avoid any depth in addressing them. Developing comparisons only works in debate if you preface them with a statement of clear fact.
I have to go now. Mao, Joe Stalin, Marshall Tito and I have a foursome in Canasta.
WIlly,
“Of course 4,000 troops does not equal the Somme, but to each family member related to those troops it does.”
We are not talking about the tragedy of loss of life. We are talking about war. In war, specifically in American history, 4000 soldiers is factually on the very, very, very low end.
Don’t give me any of that sensitivity speak. What, am I an evil person who doesn’t care about people just because I say ONLY 4000 died in 7 years of war?
So what. Call me an asshole. Call me insensitive, I don’t care. I’m not debating my sensitivity here. Of course we ALL grieve with our fellow Americans over their losses but again, that’s neither here nor there. I’m singing the praises of our guys over there. 7 years in the deadliest spot on the planet and only 4000 killed. Our guys kick ass and I’m proud of them.
Yes we DID fight an antiseptic war. We had all these softball rules and whatnot. Don’t bomb this, don’t bomb that, “But Captain, the enemy is gathered together in the mosque! Permission to fire?” (Brass) “Hold your fire. We don’t want to be unkind and blow up their mosque. Mosques are sacred to the Islamic…”
Are you kidding me? Any other country would have bombed the shit out of that mosque but not us. No way! We even respect the rights of our enemy at war!
Now you mentioned that other countries don’t get into wars in the first place. Do you want to retract that statement now or shall we get into that one too?
Fact is we could have cleaned up the whole lot of them in record time. But because we as Americans actually care about civilians we sacrificed our boys’ blood for their civilians. It could all have been done from air and sea.
Obviously Bush had compassion for the people of Iraq otherwise he would have flattened the whole place.
This isn’t about if we should have been there so try to stay focused Willy.
Why hasn’t Obama pulled the troops out of Iraq like he said he would? Why is Obama so ANTI PEACE?
Willy,
“Edgar, remember it was Bush and Cheney who were pumping up Iraq as the great danger to us.”
Do I really need to post the clips of bill clinton, hillary clinton and a slew of other democrats that were absolutely convinced that saddam had wmds?
Do I really need to post the links where they are saying that such a situation can not be tolerated?
How many democrats do I need to quote or leave video links to, that were “talking up” the war in Iraq?
Truth is that the dems were all for it until public opinion swayed, due to liberal media bias. When it was politically convenient to do so, the dems turned a 180 on the issue. Politics at its worst.
OK, Edgar. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Please tell me, as clearly as you can, what has been gained by our 9 year escapade in Iraq. In what way has the US bettered itself and its position in the world by this war? I really want to hear your answer on this one, because I see it as a total waste of troops, material, international prestige, and national purpose.
Please don’t try to link Iraq to 9/11. Don’t say that Sadaam was an evil leader. He was, but not a real threat to us.
What, in your opinion, is the big prize that we have won because of our efforts in Iraq?
roflmao:
Willy, you really are delusional!
But then, I didn’t expect you to recognize that I am several steps above your level.
Connections between Iraq and Al-Qaeda
On August 20, 1998, President Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack against a chemical weapons factory in Sudan. The cruise missle strike was in retaliation for the August 7, 1998 truck bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya which killed more than 200 people and wounded more than 5,000 others. The chemical weapons factory in Sudan was funded, in part, by Osama bin Laden who the U.S. believed responsible for the embassy bombings. Richard Clarke, a national security advisor to President Clinton, told the Washington Post in a January 23, 1999 article that the U.S. government was “sure” that Iraqi nerve gas experts had produced a powdered substance at that plant for use in making VX nerve gas.
On August 25, 1998 the Fort Worth Star-telegram reported a link between Iraq and the Sudanese chemical weapons factory destroyed by the United States in a cruise missile attack. The chemical weapons factory was hit because of links to Osama bin Laden who the U.S. believed responsible for the recent embassy bombings. A senior intelligence official said one of the leaders of Iraq’s chemical weapons program, Emad al-Ani, had close ties with senior Sudanese officials at the factory. The intelligence official also said a number of Iraqi scientists working with al-Ani attended the grand opening of the factory two years earlier. Emad Husayn Abdullah al-Ani surrendered to U.S. military forces on April 18, 2003.
On November 5, 1998 a Federal grand jury in Manhattan returned a 238-count indictment charging Osama bin Laden in the bombings of two United States Embassies in Africa and with conspiring to commit other acts of terrorism against Americans abroad. The grand jury indictment also charged that Al-Qaeda had reached an arrangement with President Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq whereby the group said that it would not work against Iraq, and that the two parties agreed to cooperate in the development of weapons.
On January 11, 1999, Newsweek magazine ran the headline “Saddam + Bin Laden?” The subheadline declared, “It would be a marriage made in hell. And America’s two enemies are courting.” The article points out that Saddam has a long history of supporting terrorism. The article also mentions that, in the prior week, several surface-to-air missiles were fired at U.S. and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones and that Saddam is now fighting for his life now that the United States has made his removal from office a national objective.
On January 14, 1999, ABC News reported, “Saddam Hussein has a long history of harboring terrorists. Carlos the Jackal, Abu Nidal, Abu Abbas, the most notorious terrorists of their era, all found shelter and support at one time in Baghdad. Intelligence sources say bin Laden’s long relationship with the Iraqis began as he helped Sudan’s fundamentalist government in their efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”
On February 13, 1999, CNN reported, “Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire accused by the United States of plotting bomb attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa, has left Afghanistan, Afghan sources said Saturday. Bin Laden’s whereabouts were not known…..” The article reports, “Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden…..”
On February 18, 1999, National Public Radio (NPR) reported, “There have also been reports in recent months that bin Laden might have been considering moving his operations to Iraq. Intelligence agencies in several nations are looking into that. According to Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of CIA counterterrorism operations, a senior Iraqi intelligence official, Farouk Hijazi, sought out bin Laden in December and invited him to come to Iraq.” NPR reported that Iraq’s contacts with bin Laden go back some years, to at least 1994, when Farouk Hijazi met with bin Laden when he lived in Sudan.
On February 14, 1999, an article appeared in the San Jose Mercury News claiming that U.S. intelligence officials are worried about an alliance between Osama bin Laden and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The article states that bin Laden had met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official near Qandahar, Afghanistan in late December 1998 and that “there has been increasing evidence that bin Laden and Iraq may have begun cooperating in planning attacks against American and British targets around the world.” According to this article, Saddam has offered asylum to bin Laden in Iraq. The article said that in addition to Abu Nidal, another Palestinian terrorist by the name of Mohammed Amri (a.k.a. Abu Ibrahim) is also believed to be in Iraq.
On February 28, 1999, an article was written in The Kansas City Star which said, “He [bin Laden] has a private fortune ranging from $250 million to $500 million and is said to be cultivating a new alliance with Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who has biological and chemical weapons bin Laden would not hesitate to use. An alliance between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein could be deadly. Both men are united in their hatred for the United States…..”
On December 28, 1999, an article appeared in The Herald (Glasgow, Scotland) titled, “Iraq tempts bin Laden to attack West.” The article starts, “The world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has been offered sanctuary in Iraq…..” The article quotes a U.S. counter-terrorism source who said, “Now we are also facing the prospect of an unholy alliance between bin Laden and Saddam. The implications are terrifying.”
On April 8, 2001, an informant for Czech counter-intelligence observed an Iraqi intelligence official named al-Ani meeting with an Arab man in his 20s at a restaurant outside Prague. Following the 9/11 attacks, the Czech informant who observed the meeting saw Mohammed Atta’s picture in the papers and identified Mohammed Atta as the man who met with the Iraqi intelligence official.
On July 21, 2001 [less than two months prior to 911] the Iraqi state-controlled newspaper “Al-Nasiriya” predicted that bin Laden would attack the U.S. “with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.” The same state-approved column also insisted that bin Laden “will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,” and that the U.S. “will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs” – an apparent reference to the Sinatra classic, “New York, New York.”
After the 9/11 attacks, Saddam became the only world leader to offer praise for bin Laden, even as other terrorist leaders, like Yassir Arafat, went out of their way to make a show of sympathy to the U.S. by donating blood to 9/11 victims on camera. Saddam later pays tribute to 9/11 by having a mural painted depicting the World Trade Center attack at an Iraqi military base in Nasariyah.
On December 3, 2001 USA Today reported that the CIA had convincing evidence from the mid-1990s Saddam Hussein’s regime was funneling money through Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network to the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in Algeria and other terrorist organizations. Stanley Bedlington, a senior analyst in the CIA’s counterterrorism center until his retirement in 1994, said “We were convinced that money from Iraq was going to bin Laden, who was then sending it to places that Iraq wanted it to go.”
On March 15, 2002 the Christian Science Monitor reported that a Taliban-style group known as Ansar al-Islam was threatening stability in the Kurdish northern region of Iraq. Prior to the start of the Iraq War in 2003, Colin Powell addressed the United Nations and pointed out that both Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida had links with the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group. Saddam had provided arms and funding for this terrorist group waging a jihadist war against the Kurds. One month prior to the formation of Ansar al-Islam, leaders from several Kurdish Islamist factions had visited the al-Qaida leadership in Afghanistan. Ansar al-Islam announced their formation on September 1, 2001 just days prior to the September 11 attacks in the United States.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a director of an al Qaeda training base in Afghanistan, fled to Iraq after being injured as the Taliban fell (prior to the U.S./Iraq war). He received medical care and convalesced for two months in Baghdad. He then opened a terrorist training camp in northern Iraq and arranged the October 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Amman, Jordan.
CIA director George Tenet (appointed by President Bill Clinton July 11, 1997) wrote in a letter to Senator Bob Graham dated October 7, 2002. “We have solid reporting of senior level contact between Iraq and al Qaeda going back a decade. Credible information exists that Iraq and al Qaeda have discussed safe haven and reciprocal nonaggression. . . . We have credible reporting that al Qaeda leaders sought contacts in Iraq who could help them acquire WMD capabilities.”
On October 16, 2002, the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was signed into law. The authorization (Public law 107-243) had passed the House by a vote of 296-133, and the Senate by a vote of 77-23. This resolution stated, “Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;” and “Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens.”
Babil, an official newspaper of Saddam Hussein’s government, run by his oldest son Uday, published information that appeared to confirm U.S. allegations of the links between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. In its November 16, 2002 edition, Babil identified one Abd-al-Karim Muhammad Aswad as an “intelligence officer,” describing him as the “official in charge of regime’s contacts with Osama bin Laden’s group and currently the regime’s representative in Pakistan.”
In December 2002 the House and Senate intelligence committees issued a report on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. CIA director George Tenet testified (page 137) that, “Atta may also have traveled outside of the U.S. in early April 2001 to meet an Iraqi intelligence officer, although we are still working to corroborate this.” This report also noted (page 211) that, “In February 1999, the Intelligence Community obtained information that Iraq had formed a suicide pilot unit that it planned to use against British and U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf. The CIA commented that this was highly unlikely and probably disinformation.”
On April 25, 2003 CNN reported that Farouk Hijazi had been captured by U.S. forces. Farouk Hijazi was a former intelligence official who may have plotted the attempted assassination of George H.W. Bush in 1993. He was also a contact between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Osama bin Laden. Farouk met with bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 and is also believed to have met with bin Laden in Sudan in the early 1990′s.
While sifting through the Iraqi Intelligence Service’s [Mukhabarat] bombed ruins on April 26, 2003 the Toronto Star’s Mitch Potter, the London Daily Telegraph’s Inigo Gilmore and their translator discovered a memo in the intelligence service’s accounting department. Dated February 19, 1998 and marked “Top Secret and Urgent,” it said the agency would pay “all the travel and hotel expenses inside Iraq to gain the knowledge of the message from bin Laden and to convey to his envoy an oral message from us to bin Laden, the Saudi opposition leader, about the future of our relationship with him, and to achieve a direct meeting with him.”
On May 7, 2003, a federal judge in New York awarded damages against the government of Iraq after ruling that the families of two victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings had shown that Iraq had provided material support to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. Judge Harold Baer ruled that the two families were entitled to $104 million compensation from Iraq, bin Laden, al-Qaida, the Taliban movement and their government of Afghanistan. “Plaintiffs have shown, albeit barely, ‘by evidence satisfactory to the court’ that Iraq provided material support to bin Laden and al-Qaida.”
The 9/11 Commission Report (pages 228 – 229) provides details of what is known about Mohamed Atta’s alleged April 9, 2001 11:00 A.M. meeting with an Iraqi Intelligence agent in Prague. According to the FBI, Mohamed Atta was in Virginia Beach on April 4 and in Florida on April 11. Atta’s cell phone records indicate calls were made from Florida during this period but they cannot confirm whether he placed those calls. The report mentions, however, that Czech intelligence has stated publicly they believe there was a 70 percent probability that the meeting took place. The Czech Interior Minister made several statements to the press about his belief that the meeting had occurred. Atta is known to have been in Prague on at least two occasions: once in December 1994 and again in June 2000.
On September 13, 2006, a deputy prime minister of Iraq by the name of Barham Salih gave a speech in which he said, “The alliance between the Baathists and jihadists which sustains Al Qaeda in Iraq is not new, contrary to what you may have been told.” He went on to say, “I know this at first hand. Some of my friends were murdered by jihadists, by Al Qaeda-affiliated operatives who had been sheltered and assisted by Saddam’s regime.”
In March 2008 the Pentagon declassified results of their investigation into captured Iraqi documents. The report stated, “While these documents do not reveal direct coordination and assistance between the Saddam regime and the al Qaeda network, they do indicate that Saddam was willing to use, albeit cautiously, operatives affiliated with al Qaeda as long as Saddam could have these terrorist–operatives monitored closely. Because Saddam’s security organizations and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network operated with similar aims (at least in the short term), considerable overlap was inevitable when monitoring, contacting, financing, and training the same outside groups. This created both the appearance of and, in some ways, a “de facto” link between the organizations. At times, these organizations would work together in pursuit of shared goals but still maintain their autonomy and independence because of innate caution and mutual distrust.”
In June 2008 the Senate released their report “Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq By U.S. Government Officials Were Substantiated By Intelligence Information.” Among the conclusions (page 71), it reported that public statements by government officials that Iraq (prior to the war) provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other al-Qaida related terrorist members was substantiated by intelligence assessments.
On June 18, 2008 the Iraqi newspaper Kurdistani Nwe published a 2002 letter from the Iraqi presidency that it said proved there was cooperation between Saddam Hussein’s regime and Al-Qaeda. The letter, which appeared on the paper’s front page, was written by Iraqi intelligence and discussed an intention to meet with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in order to examine a plan drawn up by the Iraqi presidency to carry out a “revenge operation” in Saudi Arabia.
I DON’T EVER WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE BULLSHIT ABOUT IRAQ NOT BEING INVOLVED IN 9/11.
THE ADULT HAS SPOKEN.
Wow! What an incredible response Nash!
Willy, time for operation Change The Subject roflmao:
Nash, all this bulsh you took the time to scan from some right wing blog, and not a word about 9/11. Son, this would give you maybe a “D” in any class in which you were trying to prove your point. Much of what you quote has been clearly discredited (especially the references to meetings with Atta in the Czech Republic), and much of the rest is simply unsubstantiated news reports. Most important, not one word in this compilation speaks to 9/11. In the future, attempt to create some logical thought and share that. These long quotations that go nowhere are useless without some thought on your part. Sorry, you still haven’t broken puberty!!
Yeah, riiiiight.
Doesn’t fit your opinion, so it MUST be a “right-wing blog”.
Okay, whatever.
There are none so blind as those that will not see.
Even though those are NON-PARTISAN records that can be researched anywhere.
There is clear, irrefutable evidence that Al-Qaeda was set up in Iraq and that Saddam was a part of it.
Case Closed.
No, the war has not gone perfectly.
No war has. Mistakes were made, but they were acting on the best info they had at the time.
However, Saddam is out of power, and the whole world benefits.
By the way -
Your juvenile attempts at put-down are obviously only masks for your own shortcomings.
Psychology 101.
Not only are they pathetic, they’re not even clever. So, not only are you ill-informed, you don’t even have a sense of humor to fall back on.
lol nash. CopyPaste from here: http://forum.yestalk.org/showthread.php?p=106272
Would have been easier to do that…
None of that stuff ties to 9/11 except in maybe the most tenuous way. WillyPs assertion was to stop trying to tie Iraq to 9/11, not terrorism in general. Duh, Iraq is a terrorist haven. No shit sherlock.
1) 9/11 was the work of Al-Qaeda.
2) Al-Qaeda was in Iraq.
Duh.
Therefore, Iraq is tied to 9/11.
Nash, I’m glad you are not a doctor or a detective. Really silly assertions dude. I took Psych 101, but you obviously didn’t take basic logic.
Willy,
how about addressing something specific in Nash’s post? Unsubstantiated news reports from cnn and the like? Could you please list the news sources you consider legit?
Legit news sources Willy?
Here’s my take on why we went to war with Iraq:
At the time it was all unfolding, I guess during most of 2002, it seemed to me that the main reason for going to war was the fact that Iraq had violated the peace treaty from the 91 gulf war.
A big piece of the puzzle was that iraq was defying UN resolutions, 16 of them if I remember correctly. Excuse me for my sloppy piecing together of this info, it’s late and I’m lazy tonight.
It’s true that other nations violated UN resolutions and we didn’t go to war with them. However, the fact that Iraq was a haven for and supported terrorism made it so much easier to condemn them for their flagrant violations of the will of the internation community via the UN.
Don’t get distracted Willy, turn off Wheel of Fortune and try to pay attention my pony-tailed professor friend.
The UN was created to help prevent wars like ww1 and ww2 from happening again. The idea is that the UN is supposed to represent the will of the international community. In theory if the UN says, “You are in the wrong” it means that the world at large is condemning you.
The country being condemned by the UN is supposed to realize that basically the whole world is against them, and resistance is futile.
But if the UN only hands out sanctions and never bites then the evil dictators around the world will lose respect for the will of the international community.
Therefore in order to protect the integrity of the UN we had to strike against Iraq otherwise the UN would cease to be useful.
Terrorism, WMD’s and all that never really seemed like a top priority to me at the time. I thought we went to war in Iraq on the basis of Iraq defying UN resolutions. I was kind of surprised when the emphasis switched to finding WMD’s to tell you the truth.
The UN has to have some teeth in order to be effective. No one respects empty threats.
Once again, proving how ignorant you are.
I took Psychology, Philosophy and American Politics.
I have degrees in Management and Information Technology.
Nash: I am impressed. However, in the future, take the time to think through your point so that a form of coherent thought takes shape. You probably are a pretty bright guy, but your blogs don’t reflect it well. You might try, as Edgar does, to speak with me and not just throw invective at liberal voices. We did win the election and we are determined to govern under that mandate. If you want a voice, it must be tempered with critical thought. Give it a try. You might find it stimulating.
Comrade Edgar: Now we’re talking! I didn’t take on any of the items that Nash listed with any specificity, except for the now fully discredited rumor about Atta in the Czech Republic, because none of the items lent themselves to 9/11. It was like the students I used to have who would, instead of dazzling me with their brilliance, baffle me with their bullshit. It’s the old idea that a ton of quotes, regardless of their relevance would get them through the term paper, or essay exam. It doesn’t cut it.
Of course I respect news sources. I don’t respect those that say “it is thought that,” “it seems that,” or (BIll O’Reilly’s favorite) “some might say.” I read both right and left publications and look for connections of thought. I don’t, however, spend much time with Fox Noise. In my opinion they have lost all credibility as a legitimate news source.
Now to your thoughts on the U.N. and our misguided adventures. I do agree with you about the mission of the U.N., and need for the organization to display spine when it comes to violators of its charter. However, I strongly disagree with you about the specific circumstances of the decision for us to invade Iraq. First of all, I think you are a bit selective in your memory about our presentation to the U.N. concerning the need for intervention. Remember Colin Powell’s “artist’s rendition” of the WMD trailers, the wooden drones that could bomb the U.S., and the statement by Bush that our first warning could be “a mushroom cloud?” The question of Iraq’s failure to live up to the ’91 accords was really just a tool to do what Bush was determined to do anyway. They may have been Jonesing for the oil, a neo-con haven of democracy in the middle east, or Shrub might just have wanted to get the guy that his daddy failed to get. I don’t know for sure, but the sanctity of the U.N. charter didn’t seem too high on the agenda.
Secondly, I think you are a bit derisive of the U.N.’s willingness to address such problems. If you will remember, Daddy Bush got a tremendous coalition together to throw Saddaam out of Kuwait ten years before. It was a massive war machine of international nature and with an overwhelming moral, political, economic, and legal mandate. When you compare that shining example of the international community coming together to expel an invader of a member nation to the flaccid group of nations included in the Shrub “coalition,” you have to concede that this was a set up deal. For example, “Tonga!” Come on now.
I think, and the literature confirms it, that it is clear the Bush II presidency went in for its own personal and economic reasons with little or no real support from the body. What we did in invading Iraq was to upset a very delicate balance that was established between Sunni and Shiite forces in the region, giving Iran (Shiite central) the freedom to become the center of anti-Israel and anti-American impulse. As I said before, Saddaam was a very bad man, but he was “our” bad man in keeping Iran at bay. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld blew that whole sense of balance and opened a whole new can of worms for us, and at the cost of thousands of lives and over a trillion dollars of our treasure. Seems like a pretty poor deal if you ask me.
Now, to what I actually asked you to address. Please focus on the question. As I asked in my earlier posting:
“Please tell me, as clearly as you can, what has been gained by our 9 year escapade in Iraq. In what way has the US bettered itself and its position in the world by this war? I really want to hear your answer on this one, because I see it as a total waste of troops, material, international prestige, and national purpose.
Please don’t try to link Iraq to 9/11. Don’t say that Sadaam was an evil leader. He was, but not a real threat to us.
What, in your opinion, is the big prize that we have won because of our efforts in Iraq?”
Don’t answer when it is late and you are tired, or feeling lazy. I promise to put Wheel of Fortune on mute so that I won’t be distracted, and I will refrain from great intakes of Vodka, Anise, or Cerveza while I read your thoughts.
Willy,
“he question of Iraq’s failure to live up to the ‘91 accords was really just a tool to do what Bush was determined to do anyway.”
Your bias and prejudice is showing here Willy. You were doing really well for a while but now you are starting to get a little sloppy professor. Specifically, HOW do you KNOW that Bush was determined to go to war with Iraq anyway?
Sources please (I’m asking nicely)
I think this statement of yours (What Bush wanted to do anyway) highlights your inability to think critically about this issue. I think you find it difficult to examine issues from different perspectives once you’ve got your mind made up.
When thinking critically one must determine whether or not ones assumptions are justifiable. You are taking for granted that Bush wanted to go to war anyway and you are basing your entire argument off of that assumption.
Willy, I ask you: which emotions prevent you from thinking critically about the war in Iraq?
I would like you to address that question with honesty and humility.
Willy,
““Please tell me, as clearly as you can, what has been gained by our 9 year escapade in Iraq. In what way has the US bettered itself and its position in the world by this war? I really want to hear your answer on this one, because I see it as a total waste of troops, material, international prestige, and national purpose.
Please don’t try to link Iraq to 9/11. Don’t say that Sadaam was an evil leader. He was, but not a real threat to us.
What, in your opinion, is the big prize that we have won because of our efforts in Iraq?”
First of all the war wasn’t 9 years long. The war started in 2003 and it’s only 2009. That’s 6.5 years.
Secondly, I’m under no obligation to defend Bush’s (and the dems/repubs in congress) decision to go to war. Why? Because I am not privy to ALL of the information. There are TOP SECRET documents and information that the general public is ignorant of. So to cast total judgment without viewing all of the evidence is pointless.
There must have been some pretty convincing evidence if the dems went along with Bush – on anything.
I’ll take a stab at it though, just to make you happy Willy. First of all we helped preserve the integrity of the UN. Don’t get me wrong, I am not really a fan of the UN as I think it is a corrupt organization. But if we want the UN to function as it’s supposed to it must have some teeth. We can’t allow dictators to lose respect for UN otherwise there will be MORE war in the long run.
Saddam WAS a supporter of terrorism and he WAS an evil dictator. Now he is gone and if the rest of them were gone too the world would be a better place, I think.
Saddam was shooting at our planes in the no fly zone. That’s war worthy in itself. He was like a man who after getting drunk on whiskey, decided to go for a walk down town with his shotgun.
In short he was dangeroud and now he is not.
Could it be that the entire middle east is a “brush fire” waiting to turn into ww3? There are certainly some very intelligent, tolerant and decent people living in the middle east but they are apparently far and few between.
The middle east is the only REALLY backward part of the world. 7th century world view with 21st century weapons. Not a good thing. Perhaps if Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia and the of them were engaged and defeated the world would be a better place.
It’s the bad neighborhood in the city. Perhaps if we kick everybody out and board up the windows we can clean up that part of the city.
If Iraq, Iran and Syria (to name a few) could end up like Japan and Germany (after we defeat them) we could set the stage for long term world peace.
In closing I just want to restate that I’m not confident in my assumptions here. I don’t have access to all of the information and so my conclusion is maybe not so strong. I admit that. I have to, but so do you.
Lastly, let’s see what happens in Iraq. The war is just barely finishing and the future hasn’t had time to play out yet. What will the scenario be in Iraq in 25 years? Who knows. You can’t just take a snapshot of the situation and say, “This is the final result”
Not yet.
Edgar: I’m crushed. Humility??? I’m the most humble person I’ve ever met! I’m perfectly humble. I’m so much more humble than anyone else, I leave them back in the dust. . . . let’s move on . . . Yeah, you’re right, I got the dates wrong, we invaded Iraq in 2003. But . . . read on good Horatio, read on.
1. The shrub’s reasons for going to war in Iraq. Of course we cannot definitively state what his reasons were, because he never told us. His reasons ranged from WMDs, to avenging his daddy, to the UN mandates, to bringing democracy to Iraq. He got us going with the WMD argument. See my last post on Colin Powell. What we do know from reading the likes of Richard Clark’s book for example, is that the administration was focused on Iraq and militarily engaging them from the very start. The neo cons, including the likes of Bill Crystal were ginning up the war as far back as Clinton’s administration. I think I am thinking critically about the war Edgar. What has limited your research on it?
2. OK, Saddaam was a bad guy. I have granted this point from the start. However, his shooting at our planes really was meaningless compared to his providing a buffer state to Iran. You never address the Shiite/Sunni issue. He wasn’t our buddy, although both Rumsfeld and Cheney were very close when it came to providing his original arms and lethal gasses for the Iran/Iraq war of the late 80s. If you think that his shooting at our planes is more “war worthy” than the fact that 18 of the 19 guys who flew the 9/11 planes were Saudis, Saudis who received support from within Saudi Arabia, then I am at a loss. Why didn’t we go to war with Saudi Arabia? In the same vein, why aren’t we at war with Pakistan, the country that now harbors Alquada (sp)? Your logic is selective and inconsistant.
3. As for the ultimate goal and profit from this war, there are a number of flaws in your assertions. Respectfully:
A. As to the “brush fire” comment: if the Muslim culture of the Middle East is prepping for WW3, then it would seem that we could find a better choice for staving off such a conflict than having America killing them everyday on the media in the region. I suggest you go to resources like the international edition of Newsweek. Check out the Arabic media and much of the European and Asian media. The war is seen in a very different light than we see it here with our corporate controlled media. That trillion dollars that we spent in Iraq doing our mischief could have, if spent differently, raised the standard of living across the area. People with full stomachs, good jobs, and no one that they see as an invader in their country are much less willing to support a war/Jihad than are people who have lost family, have little or no sense of a future, and see our soldiers as interlopers.
B. Your words:
“The middle east is the only REALLY backward part of the world. 7th century world view with 21st century weapons. Not a good thing. Perhaps if Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia and the of them were engaged and defeated the world would be a better place.
It’s the bad neighborhood in the city. Perhaps if we kick everybody out and board up the windows we can clean up that part of the city.”
By your surgically chosen word “engaged” I assume you mean militarily defeated. I don’t know if you ever had any fights when you were a kid, but I did. I took my lickings from some pretty big guys. I never got mad, I got even. When a culture has such a diametrically different set of values than our two do, militarily defeating them is meaningless. Ask the Russians how this worked out for them in Afganistan? Tell me, if Mexico decided to occupy the US because they considered us to be backwards (considering we are so undereducated today and have the most destructive weapons in the world, it is not a difficult leap of consciousness to do so). Would you simply take the defeat and become a good Mexican loving subordinate, or would you take up arms and get them back in any way you could? You and I know the answer to that. Finally, as to the Middle East and its backwardness, I suggest Africa, parts of Micronesia compete, not in exactly the same manner, but compete for backwardness. The problem with the mid east is, to be honest, the radical Islamist philosophy that anyone who is not Muslim is an infidel and, as stated in more than one place in the Quoran, should be killed. Unfortunately, we as a country, are also caught up in a radical religious philosophy namely fundamentalist Christianity. There are just as many admonitions in the Bible to kill the infidel as in the Muslim faith. I think that this problem is larger than Bush or Obama, but it can be (and in my opinion has been) aggravated by them. This issue requires a delicate touch, not a sledge hammer.
C. Again, your words:
“If Iraq, Iran and Syria (to name a few) could end up like Japan and Germany (after we defeat them) we could set the stage for long term world peace.”
First of all, the comparison does not compute. Japan attacked us in a clear, aggressive manner at Pearl Harbor, and Germany declared war on us. Secondly, our three cultures, the US, Germany and Japan are far closer in nature than we are with the Muslim nations. All three are capitalist nations with common roots in initiative and profit motives. Second, when we occupied them, we quickly followed up with financial support that put them rapidly back on course. And third, after WWII, there was a clear choice that these countries had to face. It was either us or the Soviet Union. Today, we are the only big guy on the block. The choice is very different now and our appearance to them is as well.
Ciao Bello amigo.