Or why communism sucks, part MMXXXVII. Posted here for the NK baby-killing bit, which is particulary gruesome.
I survived Soviet health care--barely.
BY JULIA GORIN
I recently came face to face with a level of Western ignorance that I hadn't encountered since the 1980s, when Russian immigrants were still a novelty to Americans. A British-American asked my father a question that could only come from someone who has known freedom his whole life: "Why did you leave Russia? Your family was there, you had a job, you had free health care. Why did you leave?" The questioner, a former editor with the New York Times, then proceeded to assert that today's Britain and U.S. are no longer free.
The exchange reminded me just how out of touch many who live in the free world are with the reality of life under tyranny--and why, therefore, so many Americans and Brits think nothing is scarier than war. On the subject even of that oft-cited "perk" of Soviet life, universal health care, a picture of the system in practice on its happiest occasion would shock Americans and Western Europeans alike.
Since ordinary people in Russia didn't have cars, Dad called a taxi to take Mom to the hospital when her contractions started on Feb. 25, 1970. Some procedural questions were asked, then Mom was sent to a room called the rodilka, or "birther," where there were 10 or so women at various stages of dilation. For the night there were one doctor, one nurse, a female orderly and a lot of screaming. (Epidurals for painless labor were unheard of.) At this stage of pregnancy a woman loses control of some bodily functions even after taking preventive measures, so that one woman would be defecating into a pot by her bed while another would be eating dinner in the next bed. Medical students passed by casually observing.
After my elder sister was born and the nurses took her away, Mom began the two-day fluid-expulsion process, which in civilized countries is managed by a changing of the sheets as often as every two hours. Back in the USSR, the new mother would soak in her puddles on a small linen sheet and oil cloth, since patients weren't entitled to more than one or two changes per day. If she wanted an extra change, she'd have to beg and brown-nose the nannychka, as the orderly was addressed by the screaming women. Someone would always yell back: "I just gave you new sheets, and you soiled yourself again!"
Those who were able to bribe the nurse or orderly would get better service, but Mom didn't know and hadn't brought anything. One woman kept giving the nurse fruit so that she'd yell at her less and give her what she needed. Mom could only beg, the whole time feeling as if she'd done something wrong. Granted, the nurse was under an inordinate amount of stress. She was alone responsible for so many, and was running nonstop throughout the night.
For her second delivery, Mom never went into labor. She was two weeks overdue and the baby had stopped moving. Fearing the worst, she took the metro to the hospital.
"Are you in labor?"
"No."
Again Mom thought she'd done something wrong because people were yelling at her as soon as she walked in: "Then why did you come? You like hanging around hospitals, do you?"
"I don't feel anything moving."
"Oh. OK, wait for the doctor."
Fortunately, a younger nurse overheard the conversation. "What--it's not moving? How long? Since last night? OK, go over there and get undressed."
People stopped yelling at my mother then, and she got more attention.
"I don't hear the baby," said the old doctor who was on duty. "Is this your first child?"
"No."
"Did the first one live?"
"Yes."
"Good. Because the prognosis here isn't good."
Since there was no labor activity, labor was induced. In Russia this was called "stimulating labor," and it required one to drink castor oil. My mother has its taste on her tongue to this day, she told me. Her body contorted inexplicably, and she became catatonic, unable to move her arms or legs.
She could hear the yelling at the others as it continued in the background: "Stop screaming!" "You're not the first to give birth; you won't be the last!" "Shut your mouth!" After some time, Mom's catatonia relaxed and the contractions started. A few hours later the baby was born, and my mother heard the doctor call to an orderly: "Quick! You with the water--the baby is in asphyxia!" My mother lay emotionless, able only to hear spanking for what she believes to be nearly half an hour as the doctor tried to revive me. Finally, she heard crying.
Had my mother been a party boss's relative, her birthing experiences would have looked a lot more like the common woman's in America. But such was delivery for 99% of the Russian female population.
In America, women often remember abortion as traumatic. My mother barely remembers her two abortions (Russian birth control), but she can't forget a single traumatic detail of her children's births.
Today the Soviet Union is gone, but the communist system lives on in a few places. The glimpse we have into North Korea's delivery rooms is into those at detention centers for political prisoners, as described to Marie Claire magazine in 2002 by Lee Young Suk, a 65-year-old grandmother who was deported back to North Korea after she defected to China. At a detention center in South Sinuiju province, Lee Young was assigned to help deliver babies of other prisoners.
When she delivered the baby of the first woman under her care and reached for a blanket, a guard stopped her: "You crazy hag, are you out of your mind? What are you doing with the baby? Just put it in the box!" He grabbed the baby by a leg and dumped him into a wooden box that was sitting on the floor. He hit Lee Young's arm with a leather strap.
"North Korea is short of food already," the chief medical officer explained. "Why do we have to feed the offspring of foreign fathers? Since China is an open country, they could even be babies of American sperm, so then we'd be feeding Americans."
The procedure was as follows: Once the box was filled with infants, it would be taken to the mountains and buried. Most of the babies would die within four days, but Lee Young recalled two particularly healthy ones who took longer, moving their heads left to right, opening and closing their eyes and making froglike croaks. Their skin turned yellow and their lips blue until the medical officer finally stabbed them through the skull. Lee Young was reassigned when her heart weakened from what she was witnessing. She eventually bribed her way out of prison and into South Korea.
We share the planet with North Korea and its ilk. As many intellectuals, academics and literary and Hollywood luminaries commented soon after 9/11--with some vindication in their tone--we do not live in a vacuum. Yet for the most part they, along with the isolationist right, seem indifferent to the suffering of tyranny's victims. They blithely champion the status quo, or in the case of Iraq the status quo ante, repeating only that Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat to us.
Ms. Gorin is a contributing editor of JewishWorldReview.com.
I've never been a "fan" of Robert Novak, but this is a solid piece and he nails his point perfectly. It makes me sorry I sent Martinez's Senate Campaign a sizable political contribution. What a petty self-aggrandizing turd he's turned out to be. Voinovich is just a simpering infantile gutless wimp RINO turd.
Senate confirmation of President Bush's choice to be U.S. ambassador to the European Union has been delayed for several weeks, and the nominee may not take his post until well into November. Bush's choice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations is serving under a recess appointment and may never be confirmed. The reason: the individual whims of two Republican senators.
Freshman Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida last week temporarily blocked the confirmation of longtime Republican stalwart C. Boyden Gray to the EU for petty political reasons. Much more serious because its effect looks permanent, Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio at the same time stiffened his opposition to John Bolton at the United Nations. He apparently swallowed whole the Democratic campaign of personal destruction.
The 17th-century Polish institution of the liberum veto, where objection by one deputy in Poland's Diet could defeat any proposal, lives in spirit in today's U.S. Senate. Under arcane Senate rules, Martinez was able single-handedly to block Gray's confirmation. Because of the polarized party split, Voinovich alone is able to limit Bolton's term to the end of the current Congress. The pity is that both Gray and Bolton are well qualified with long records of government service in Republican administrations.
Gray, a prominent Washington lawyer who has been an aide to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, was expected to sail through an Oct. 5 "business session" of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as one of 20 routine diplomatic nominees. But Martinez objected to Gray, sidetracking his confirmation. Martinez did not have to give a reason, and he did not.
"It was personal," a Martinez aide told me. The senator, normally accessible, declined to talk to me about his reasons. He obviously was reticent because the "personal" reason was political revenge. Gray last year publicly withdrew his support in the Republican primary from Martinez, a former trial lawyer who had resigned as secretary of Housing and Urban Development to run for the Senate. "We simply do not need any more Republicans who oppose tort reform in the Senate," Gray said then.
Martinez won the primary despite Gray, but he obviously has not forgiven or forgotten. According to Martinez's office, he met with Gray after the committee session, and they settled their differences. It was too late for Gray to join the other 19 diplomatic nominees to be confirmed by the full Senate without debate Oct. 6. No new committee "business session" is likely until early in November.
The effect of Martinez's mischief at least is only temporary, in contrast with Voinovich fully joining the Democratic vendetta against Bolton. Voinovich, a two-term senator after serving as mayor of Cleveland and governor of Ohio, let it be known last week that he was changing his vote from "present" to "no" on Bolton. That means the nomination will not even get out of committee to face a filibuster on the Senate floor. That rules out even bringing up Bolton's renomination in committee.
Voinovich's problems with Bolton began last May when he wandered into a Foreign Relations Committee hearing and swallowed whole Democratic deconstruction of Bolton orchestrated by Sen. Christopher Dodd. The White House had expected any Bush U.N. nominee to face confirmation trouble prior to the 2004 election. But the president named John Danforth, a prestigious former U.S. senator, for a five-month U.N. stint to avoid a campaign deluge. Bolton's long record of criticizing Fidel Castro made him a special target of Dodd, a champion of "normalizing" U.S.-Cuban relations.
But why did Voinovich heighten his opposition? Serving under a recess appointment, Bolton has gotten high marks at the United Nations, as he has in previous government positions. One old hand in the U.S. Mission at Turtle Bay told me that while Bolton can be "blunt," he is smart, very well informed and faithfully follows instructions from Washington.
Voinovich declined to talk to me about why, in the face of that record, he has lowered his opinion of Bolton. Fellow Republican senators who have asked him have received no explanation. Being a U.S. senator means never having to explain yourself. No wonder respectable citizens flinch at accepting a job that subjects them to senatorial mercy.
President George W. Bush, according to Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., doesn't care about the poor.
Rangel recently called the president "our Bull Connor," referring to the racist former Birmingham, Ala., police commissioner who turned fire hoses and attack dogs on civil rights activists in the '60s. "If you're black in this country," said Rangel, "and you're poor in this country, it's not an inconvenience. It's a death sentence."
Once again, Rangel displays the unique ability -- apparently only possessed by Democrats -- to peer inside the president's soul, to conclude he lacks compassion and concern about the poor. For, one certainly cannot accuse the president of indifference to the poor based on his actions.
Since Bush took office, according to the Heritage Foundation, federal anti-poverty spending -- including Medicaid, food and nutrition programs, housing, earned income tax credit and child credits, plus other programs -- increased 42 percent. This is nearly double the rate of increase under President Clinton. Some critics claim increased poverty has driven up poverty costs. But poverty rates have increased less than 1 percent under Bush, and remain lower than the average poverty rates under Clinton.
Bush doesn't care about the poor? Let us count the ways.
Education: Under No Child Left Behind, Bush increased federal spending on education -- in inflation-adjusted dollars -- from 2001 to 2005 by 38 percent. During the same period, Education for the Disadvantaged Grants (this includes Title I) -- the program designed to decrease the performance gap between urban and suburban school districts -- received an inflation-adjusted increase of 58 percent. Bush increased spending on Education for Homeless Children and Youth by an inflation-adjusted 57 percent during those same years. Under Bush, federal spending for bilingual education has increased 44 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars since 2001. Bush has increased by 52 percent (from 2001) funding for Pell Grants used at technical schools and community colleges.
Job Training: President Bush's 2005 budget included 12.5 percent more funding than in 2001 for job training and employment assistance. This comes to a total of $23 billion for 30 programs in nine agencies. The Trade Adjustment Assistance Program pays for job training for those "displaced" as a result of free trade. Bush, in his first four years in office, more than doubled the inflation-adjusted dollars spent on this program.
Community Service: The budget of the Corporation for National and Community Service -- which includes funding for former President Bill Clinton's pet project, AmeriCorps -- grew by an inflation-adjusted 76 percent from 1995 to 2005.
Health Care: The federal share of Medicaid, the joint federal/state program, increased from $129 billion in 2001 to $176 billion in 2004, a 36 percent increase, averaging over 10 percent a year. Health research and regulation funding has gone from $42 billion in 2001 to $63 billion in 2004, a 48 percent increase.
Faith-based Initiatives: Tracking of faith-based spending only began in 2003, and was not broken out separately before then. Under President Bush, 600 religious organizations received federal grants for the first time in 2003 and 2004, and faith-based groups received 8 percent of available social service grants in 2003, and 10 percent in 2004.
SBA Loans: The Small Business Administration provided twice as many loans in 2004 than it did in 2001, providing over $19 billion in loans and venture capital to almost 88,000 small businesses. Over 30 percent of all loans and all loan dollars went to minorities in 2004, a 34 percent increase from 2003. From 2000 to 2004, the SBA backed more than 283,600 loans worth more than $63 billion, almost as much in those five years as the agency totaled in its first 40 years.
Homeownership: Half of all minority households are homeowners, an all-time high. In 2002, Bush vowed to increase minority homeownership by 5.5 million families by 2010. Bush pushed for programs on down payment assistance, and called for increased funding for housing counseling services.
Bottom line, under President Bush, the nation has seen the largest overall increase in inflation-adjusted spending since President Lyndon B. Johnson. Indeed, much to the chagrin of fiscal conservatives, President Bush's budgets -- even excluding defense and homeland security spending -- make him the biggest spending president in 30 years.
But, Bush doesn't care about the poor.
There's a saying: We don't care how much you know, until we know how much you care. If one measures compassion by "outreach," the president placed more minorities and women in his government and with power positions than any president before him. If one measures compassion by spending, the president owes no one an apology.
None of this matters, of course, as long as you're a Republican. If "love means never having to say you're sorry," being a Republican means always having to say it. Duh, asshat, you've been royally blooded. Larry rocks.
#1
And don't forget, Larry also went after Michael Moore and did the surprise whammy interview thing on him for a documentry of how guns save lives. Larry Elder is a dude that I would NOT mess with. But yeah, Larry rocks!
#2
Like it matters that someone fact-checked Rangel. Rangel's party will protect him, the press will protect him -- the fact that he's a lying, dictator-loving piece of shit will never get out to the voters.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 7:30 Comments ||
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#3
RC - Lately it seems like you're just itching for a fight. You dis almost everything - especially the comments of others, instead of the article topic. What's the deal? You given up? You got a beef? Someone dump in your cereal? Why not be a little more specific, if you don't wanna be constructive. I'm perplexed by it.
#4
There's no way we can fight the press. They'll lie, they'll cheat, they'll cover up, and they'll pat each other on the backs, congratulating each other on their "professionalism" while they do it. All the while, they'll be talking about how the "amateurs" are just a bunch of trouble-makers and losers.
Fact-checking their asses means nothing when they've tossed facts overboard.
I guess I've just been hit by a trifecta of the press's corruption, and can't see a way around it:
o Katrina. They lied, they repeated rumors, they made crap up, and then they bragged about how incredibly well they did. How much correcting has been going on? How much time has the press spent trying to repair the damage it did? Little and none. They still act as if it was their finest hour, not a replay of Orson Welle's Mercury Theater "War of the Worlds".
o Schumer's Dirty Tricks vs. DeLay's Indictment. Which gets endless coverage, up until the moment it's shown to be prosecutorial abuse, at which point it disappears? Which gets swept under the rug, with the NYT's "public editor" declaring that it just "fell through the cracks"? A politician connected with real criminal activity -- though clean-handed himself -- can't be held accountable if it's not exposed and reinforced -- but one that's frankly the victim of a nutjob with power is being hounded out of office because he's in the party the press dislikes.
o Hinrichs, et. al. Why so little coverage? Why almost NO coverage of the guy who shot himself when the police showed up to investigate the chemical smells coming from his place? Why does the little coverage these stories actually get start from the assumption there's no story there? Why does the press treat anyone who doesn't buy their storyline as if they're criminals or subhuman?
I can't see a way around the press megaphone. Yeah, we can talk to each other, but what impact will it have?
It doesn't help that by a coincidence of my alarm clock's setting, every damned morning I wake up to a rebroadcast of the latest "top ten" from Letterman's show. An easy 80% of the topics aren't humor in any recognizable way -- they're just personal attacks against the president. They're lies, based on lies, depending on lies to even make sense. We're not even talking about attempts at humor that fall flat -- we're talking about basing an entire skit around malicious crap from the National Enquirer -- it's propaganda intended to punish the president for not being one of the Anointed.
That shit has an audience thousands of times larger than Larry Elder, millions of times larger than Rantburg.
What chance does the truth have?
None.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 8:07 Comments ||
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If one of us gave as much free propaganda to the Klan, we'd be (rightfully) ostracized. But when the press gets caught fellating the enemies of this country, they act like we're just too stupid to understand the depths of the complexity of their jobs.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 8:14 Comments ||
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#6
RC - Gotcha - and you're absolutely right. It can't be countered directly, at least not yet, and what would once have been serious sedition is mainstream "news" and "comedy" and the vitriol level just keeps rising. I never could've imagined we'd come to this. I don't know, of course, but I guess that there's a split that goes something like:
Of course, 90% of the media (news, entertainment, infotainment, the lot) is going all out to twist and cajole that middle ground group into Kool Aid tools.
I only see 2 ways we can go: give up or civil war. So civil war is coming, because there's a solid core in that 40% group that will refuse the play along when the tipping point comes and the "others" finally generate the numbers, by hook and/or crook, to take over.
I believe we will be watering the Tree of Liberty, someday. I'm guessing 2012-2015 timeframe.
Remember Dan Rather. This is a case where the Media made up and hyped some story in order to influence the election and and were caught red-handed in a boldface cronkite-class lie. Look at what the media did to the SwiftVets - while completely and deliberately ignoring the flagreant conflict between the DNC and organizations like Moveon.org.
Yet John Kerry did not win the election - even after a media full court press. Its because people are starting to realize that they are being handed a plate of excrement and told its prime steak. Part of this is word-of-mouth and part due to real journalists like Michael Yon, and part due to internet, email, and digital cameras - its just too dam easy to hit the 'forward' button in an email client to spread the word of what is really happening in Iraq, or the truth behind Cindi Jihad i and what her son really did (re-sign up to go to Iraq).
Its only a start - and perhaps a small start - but its is a start. The genie is out of the lamp now and the media can't get away with the bullshit they pulled during Vietnam.
Personally I think its up-for-grabs if they will be able get us to 'give up'. But its not a 'slam-dunk' like it was.
Don't lose hope now. If nothing else we are starting to fight back, stand up and point to f-kers like Rather and Rangel and yell 'Liar! Liar!' with the proof to back it up.
Who is still a respected and popular member of the press. If exposing him had any real effect, he'd be out of work and the others in his "profession" would be avoiding him. Instead he's being rehabilitated.
And the SwiftVets, when they are mentioned in the press, are mentioned in the context of having lied about Kerry.
Sorry, I don't buy it. The liars are running the show, and Katrina taught them that lying loud enough and big enough lets them roll over the facts.
Oh, and the Rather example reminded me of Sandy Burglar. Another stellar loss for truth and justice.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 8:48 Comments ||
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#10
Yet John Kerry did not win the election - even after a media full court press.
He lost by a hair. A couple of months ago, a conservative region of Ohio almost elected a Deaniac to Congress.
The scandals involving Ohio's Republicans are (rightfully!) getting massive coverage here, while the involvement of Democrats gets almost none. The result will be Ohio going Donk in the next governor's election, and probably in the next presidential election. Blackwell could reverse that, but he's too conservative for the Cleveland RINOs that run the Ohio GOP, and he's effectively been demonized by the Democrats.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 8:53 Comments ||
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#11
Ah, so you're in Ohio - I didn't know that - but it explains your comment about Cleveland, which left me puzzled. Okay, I'm "getting" it, lol.
I completely agree with you - we're not winning, we're losing ground. With the MSM, they simply redirect attention wherever they want it, facts, reality, us be damned. I want to bring this shit to a head and lance it.
#12
True, but Rather isn't on the evening news anymore and is not as respected outside of the media group-think. Twenty years ago he would be regarded as an journalistic hero. Oh wait... he still is... :( Oh Nevermind!
I see where you are coming from. I live just outside the People Republic of Seattle (where the dead, felons, and imaginary friends are allowed to vote but they hide the polling places from conservatives....)
Some of the crap (like our recent governor election ) I see around here is very disgouraging. The P.I, Times and Local stations are very biased. the recent election 'reforms' practically ensure that every illegal alien and non-resident is allowed to vote. Anyone who can come up with a (fake or real) utility bill can cast their ballot.
I would love to see this brought to a head and lanced. Even Fox News seems to be falling in line recently (distracting us with Natalie Halloway for example).
Unfortunately our 'leaders' in congress (and I see in Ohio now) are too gutless to call them out. Would someone please tell them that we won the last election and are the majority party?
I just dont think its hopeless. And I think we have made some progress -- but now I see (from your comments..) that perhaps we are beginning to fall behind again :((.
#13
And don't forget MSM's pursuit of the frat hazing at Abu Ghrab. 60 plus article in the NYT alone. We have NOPD looting, jacking caddies, and hammer oppressed minorities. Do we get all day, all night coverage? Hell, no. Ain't going to happen. That's why its the internet and the whole five minutes of real local news for me anymore these days for my information fix.
#14
Another point--the Republican's of "caring" is outspending the Democrats. Or we got more minorities than you. R. C. and others you are correct in the ways of the coverup, spin, lack of coverage. This goes for both sides, including: "open borders" Bush. Keeping on finding my own information.
#15
Wouldnt it make sense for all of you Right Wing Conservatives to get together and raise enough money to start your own media network?
Then you could report and spread your propaganda unfiltered and with the exact conservative view point and slant that you want the easily influneced by the msm general voting public to
see and hear.
After all, since the MSM has a agreement with the Democratic Party and the DNC to deliberately slant the news in a negative fashion against President Bush, The Republican Party and its Politicians and the Iraqi war, doesnt that make sense?
#18
No, I'm not stupid. I'm just sick and tired of hearing right wing conservatives & republicans bitching and moaning about how the so-called MSM
deliberatly negatively slants political news and current events against Republicans and President Bush.
Why dont you be REAL MEN and take responsibility for your own self-produced bad press, based off of the results of poor decision making & failed policies by President Bush and the Republican Congress.
Your current poll#s on Job Approval ratings for both are at all time lows and it has nothing to do with the so-called MSM. It comes from the source: President George W, Bush.
#19
Ah, Cassini, you make this too easy - cuz you don't know jack shit. Read. Learn. Fuck off.
But are Bush's numbers really that bad? His current Real Clear Politics average stands at 41.7% approval. That is at or about the low point in nearly five years in office. How does it compare to other presidents' lowest poll ratings? Actually, it's not bad. Here are the low approval ratings for the last seven presidents:
Yes, that's right: Every president since 1963 has had approval ratings, at one time or another during his administration, at least five points lower than Bush's current nadir.
#20
Your current poll#s on Job Approval ratings for both are at all time lows and it has nothing to do with the so-called MSM.
Of course not! The MSM doesn't have any effect on public opinion. And even if they could, they surely don't have an agenda. Now stick stick your head back in the sand, and/or go back to sleep.
#21
Cassini, the president's approval numbers are typical for a president at this point in his second term, in fact, are higher than most. As to the complaining about the MSM, the difference is now that some people know enough to complain. Thirty years ago, what the networks, NYT, and Washington Post said were taken at face value as gospel. Things are changing as newer media allows dissemination of dissenting views. All in all, things are getting progressively better.
#25
Sooner, .com. People like Cassini are a perfect example of the disconnect with reality and low liklihood of finding common ground. Like RC, I don't attempt to discuss most of the time because people either get it, or believe something totally different.
The LLL's believe in power, not compromise. They believe that they know better than everyone else, and they are going to force us to do it their way. However, one doesn't compromise with what one deems evil.
"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." âFrederic Bastiat
#26
I'm sorry but I kind of lost it there for a second.
I'm new to this site and I have recently been in conservative sites such as Red State, Polipundit and Hedgehog and they all have common themes such as yours.
They ALL blame the so-called MSM for President Bush and the Republican Congress's current troubles and low job approval ratings. It's ALWAYS something that is "manufactured" by your enemies. It NEVER has anything to do with your own policies, actions or their results.
#27
Cassini - Lol, thank you for your input. You're still sucking the Kool Aid tit, but we're the ones who're deluded. Right.
Try taking responsibility for being so happily misled. Educate yourself - this will require an open mind and forswearing the Kool Aid for awhile. You're preaching to people who do their own research and reach their own conclusions - the hard way - and then defend them. You are no challenge, son. Take your half-baked warmed-over pre-digested DU / Deaniac / whatever gruel and go. If you ever find enough honesty within to think for yourself and stop cheating at solitaire (and you do, no doubt), then come back and see us. We'll talk. Today you're just a troll.
#28
.com/RC, Fear not. This struggle is far from over. This post from another blog is a good case in point. Read through to, or start at, the middle where he talks about the attitudes of law school students.
It has always been the case that the young see the faults of the old much more clearly than they themselves do. The young are seeing through all this PC crap. The boomers are starting to lose power and as they do they will be replaced by 13ths and Millenials who see what a mess their messianic crusades for egocentrism, equal outcomes and environmentalism have wrought. And they'll fix it and in the process make their own mistakes for thier children to find fault with.
The beauty of America is that to see any social malady redressed requires only longevity.
And youre just a brain-washed RNC robot spouting pre-approved canned talking points. I dont consider you to be any type of challenge either.
I just enjoy coming into right wing conservative
websites like this and shaking my head in disbelief at some of the utter nonsense you people post. It's like you live in some alternate universe that has absolutely no reference point in
reality..
#30
One would think, at some point, the Democratic leadership would figure out that their strategies are just good enough to effectively lose. Unfortunately, for them, their addiction to money and headlines clouds their visions for any substantial victory. The perpetual implosion of the Democratic Party is guaranteed by their dependence on bumper sticker logic. They can no longer sit silent when one within their own ranks makes outrageous comments and tells outright lies. Even in the age of Reality Show Journalism the political pendulum continues to swing to the right. Until they lop off the extreme head of the Democrat Hydra they are destined for more predictable failures.
#32
(giggles uncontrollably at thought of .com's comments being pre-approved by anyone)
Posted by: Matt ||
10/13/2005 11:54 Comments ||
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#33
as a REAL MAN, Cassini, I can also smell and call bullshit, and on you, I do. Enjoy arguing nonsense with yourself
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/13/2005 11:58 Comments ||
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#34
Lol, wotta wanker. So you've redefined your motives a coupla times, now, Cassini. Troll it is. You're very deep, everyone can see that. I should've known better than to be straight with you. Waste of bandwidth.
#35
casinni, .com is right. We here actually look further then the Network News to get the real story. We acually get information from people who are actually there - in the fighting - and not at the hotel bar in Bagdad listening to some jahadi minder or out searching for a 'story' (i.e. anyone who says something bad about how the U.S. is doing).
For example take the takeover of that Russian school last year. The MSM fell all over themselves to call the bad-guys 'hostage-takers' or 'gangsters' or anything but terrorists. The MSM buried the fact that they were -to-a-person- islamic extreamists. The MSM covered up the gang-rapes of children and bayonetting of babies. All these things happened yet the MSM deliberately ignored them.
We found out about it from non-MSM controlled sources - including non-US media. Just as we fined out about Yassar's billions, the deliberate murder of women and children by the so-called 'freedom fighers' of Palistine.
We dont want a Republician / Conservative media. We want a Balanced media. One which would report the school busses which were left (to flood) in New orleanes. One which would report who is responsible for the initial relief after a disaster (hint: its not Bush or the Feds). One which would report that the Gov. of LA refused to allow Bush to act. One which would report the real stories of progress in Iraq (see Michael Yon) and not just the body-bag count (which the MSM seems to report with such glee!).
I'm sorry but I too used to be a died-in-the-wool democrat (Damn republicans are ruining everything!) who swallowed Cronkite's reporing on Vietnam without question. However I started looking beyond the MSM - to real websites and non-US sources and found the real stories and hearing from people (like Old Spook ) who actually know something about what they are talking about. I discovered that - wait a miniute - I am being LIED TOO!
I am not saying that republicans don't lie. They do - but they often get called on it by the media unlike the democrats who the Media often blindly parrot.
For example during the Clinton years he called the Republician plan for social security a 'slash-cut' and that millions of seniors would starve. Yet the fact was that the plan was an increase (just not as much as Clinton wanted - wish I could get a 10% raise!). Yet the MSM parrotted Clintons line even when they knew it was bullshit. (I call Clinton's claim a mild form of terrorism myself...).
And if a republican had made a claim like the 'Vast Right Wing Conspiracy' which Hillary Clinton made they would have been laughed at and ridiculed for years -- yet the MSM repeated her claim almost as if it fact.
That was very eloquently put. I believe you are completely correct, and I have voted on both tickets in my time.
The corruptness of the beltway K street sytem has eroded morality and care for the citizenry beyond any reclamation as far as our federal system is concerned.
The right and left wings are undiscernable in their right to hold the blame for the sad state of our nation. I blame both, and like many others here seek change and can point to no clear path to a brighter future where normal people and not lunatic zealots are pushed into power.
Like I said before, I have been in such Conservative sites as Red States, Polipundit and
Hedgehog recently and a pattern persist in each and everyone of them.
In each and everyone of them ,practically EVERY NEGATAIVE problem/criticism that has led to the current quandry of Republicans/Bush poor poll numbers on: job approval ratings, loss of public confidence in the Iraq War, disatisfaction with the direction of the country is headed in, the handling of the economy, Criminal Indicments/Investigations of Republican Congressional leaders/Top Bush staffers:
THEY ARE MANUFACTURED BY LEFTIST POLITICAL ENEMIES. THEN REINFORCED BY A BLATANTLY LIBERAL BIASED MSM, WHO DELIBERATELY SLANT THE NEWS AND CURRENT EVENTS NEGATIVELY AGAINST BUSH AND THE REPUBLICANS.
In other words Bush and the Republicans have absolulety NO CULPABILITY with the RESULTS of THEIR actions, rhetoric and policies, especially when they blow up in their faces negatively.
It's always somebody elses fault. Republicans take responsibilty for nothing that goes wrong on their watch.
#38
It's always somebody elses fault. Republicans take responsibilty for nothing that goes wrong on their watch.
Bullshit, asshole.
It's the blatantly false stories (Katrina "failures", Iraq "failures"), the covering-up of Democrat problems (Schumer's dirty tricks squad, Sandy Burglar), and the consistency of the slant that ticks people off.
Many of the things you cite as "going wrong" aren't:
job approval ratings
Meaningless. Bush is ahead of past presidents at this point in his presidency. You can't/won't get that context from the press, though.
loss of public confidence in the Iraq War
Driven by a drumbeat of lies from the press. The reality on the ground is infinitely better, but positive news is smothered or ignored, while the most senseless violence from the jihadis is treated as a strategic defeat for the US and Iraq.
disatisfaction with the direction of the country is headed in
Here's a hint: many of those "dissatisfied" are critical from the right. We're sick and tired of seeing Democrats trash the country, commit treason, and be treated like their saints.
the handling of the economy
Again, positive news is never reported, or is spun to the negative: "Decreased unemployment is driving fears of inflation..."
Criminal Indicments/Investigations of Republican Congressional leaders/Top Bush staffers
Again, all the while equivalent or more serious charges against Democrats are ignored. How much coverage has the MSM given the oddities around the DeLay indictment? How would you feel if you were charged with a crime over something that wasn't illegal? Or if you were indicted and it turned out the prosecutor had to try multiple juries before getting the indictment? Or if it turned out a film crew had been following the prosecutor around while he tried to build a case against you?
Tell me -- did you support the impeachment of Bill Clinton? If not, then you have no fucking room to talk about anything related to breaking the law. The man committed perjury; he lied in front of a jury. He suborned perjury; he tried to get others to lie, too.
If you don't think he deserved to be hounded from office for that, then STFU and admit you're nothing but a whore for your party. You no doubt bought the "it's all about sex" crap fed to you by the press, and bought it because, bluntly, Democrats cannot admit ever being wrong or in the wrong.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 14:00 Comments ||
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#39
And let me point out that the "loss of public confidence in the war" is the expressed strategy of the Democrats and the jihadists, both. The press goes along with it, to the point of paying for propaganda from the jihadists. The wire services and the networks have been caught using staged photos and video.
If you think pointing that out means Republicans are avoiding responsibility, I respectfully suggest you pull your head out of your ass and start breathing something other than your own methane.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 14:06 Comments ||
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#40
I'm not saying Bush and Co are entirely blameless. I personally think Bush and company are doing a number of things wrong. (Immigration and failure to secure our borders being one).
See posting #4 and #5. These were instances where the media (deliberately IMHO) misled the public. They outright LIED. These are not instances where the republicans did something wrong. The whole Dan Rather episode - where is (again deliberately IMHO) failed to fact-check.
#41
Bush is spending too fucking much on the poor. Get them off their asses and have them work for a living. Rangel wouldn't know what work is.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/13/2005 14:31 Comments ||
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#42
Robert Crawford:
IF you can sit there and say with a STRAIGHT face and say that for President Bush and the Republican led Congress, that things are going just "GREAT" on all the fronts listed in my post, the the methane from your OWN HEAD IN THE ASS Syndrome is effectively causing you BRAIN DAMAGE..LMAO
Besides your SPPPIIINNNN ON THE ISSUESS IS MAKING MEEEE DIZZZZYYYY....!!!
And what's so amazing about your post is that you are even in total disagreement with your own right wing conservative pundits:
Here's a sample from the Washington Times a conservative gladrag if i ever read one:
"THE GOP'S IMAGE PROBLEM"
by Douglas MacKinnon
"The Republican Party is in trouble at the moment
and, if ignored we face the prospect of devastating losses across the board. With regard to the White House, no matter the approval ratings of Mr. Bush-and I believe history will regard him as on of our greatest presidents-The American people are suffering from "party in power
fatigue." Eight years of any party in power in the White House is more than enough for most americans. That is more the reason NOT TO DENY THE OBVIOUS."
If you want more quotes from repub pundits acknowleging that bush/republicans are in
"DEEP SHIT" let me know, I'd be glad to provide
to you. just trying to help shatter your delusions of granduer. lol
#43
frankly, dipshit, you'll never join the "dark side" and we don't want you either. You source "pundits" for your reality? Pundits, by definition, use exaggeration and hyperbole to advance arguments. I'll take my news straight, thankyouverymuch. Keep drinking the koolaid....consider it chlorine in the gene pool
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/13/2005 14:50 Comments ||
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#44
Lol. It's still here, trying so desperately to pee on something. Yap! Yap! Yap, yap, yap!
#45
Um, "Cassini", you proved my point. The lies the press has been telling have created political problems for the president and the Republican party.
I bet you believe Bush served soldiers a plastic turkey for breakfast. If you personally don't, I bet a lot of your friends do. I know it's a widespread belief in the press -- at least, it's repeated often enough.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 14:54 Comments ||
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#46
o.k. frank. bob &.com:
if you disagree with conservative & liberal pundits, newsmedia, polls that the Bush admnin/
Repub Congress ISNT in political trouble,
Whats's YOUR assessment of the situation/political scene for Bush/repubs currently?
btw:
Mr. Crawford I didnt prove your point at all.
The Washington Times wouldnt be considered MSM
by anyone. They are dogmatically right wing conservative..they absolutely never criticize republicans...what i'm reading in there recently
is highly abnormal.
#47
the methane from your OWN HEAD IN THE ASS Syndrome
See guys? It's just like I was saying yesterday : you know a liberal is getting serious when they start talking about things going up people's asses. Until then it's all foreplay.
#48
Mr. Crawford I didnt prove your point at all.
The Washington Times wouldnt be considered MSM
by anyone.
OK, let's follow this through. I'm holding out the possibility you *MIGHT* be able to comprehend cause and effect:
Step 1) The press lies. It lies about Iraq, about the economy, about Katrina, about anything that it can use to make Bush look bad.
Step 2) Slowly, those lies start to be believed. The complete lack of context, the press's refusal to admit when it was caught lying, and the repetition of those lies convinces people they're the truth.
Step 3) Polls show people believing the lies.
Step 4) Pundit reads polls and extrapolates them into a doomsday scenario.
That's my point -- the lies the press tells get believed, and harm not only the president, but also the country and western civilization.
They are dogmatically right wing conservative..they absolutely never criticize republicans...what i'm reading in there recently
is highly abnormal.
"They never criticize Republicans, until they do."
How many years have you been reading the Washington Times on a daily basis?
So, was I right that you believe the president served a plastic turkey to soldiers for breakfast? Or that he told the Palestinians that God told him to liberate Iraq? Or that the Rather memos were real? Or that FEMA failed in Louisiana?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 15:34 Comments ||
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#49
Secret Master -- to be fair, I was the one that said he had his head up his ass first.
I stand by that assessment, BTW.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 15:34 Comments ||
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#50
Oh, MAN!
All this back and forth is HIlarious. Are you sure you didn't script this out beforehand? It's almost as good as "Who's On Second"!
What the hell does 'Party in Power Fatigue' have to do with republician failure? This just proves the point that - at this time of the administration - its normal for a presidents approval ratings to be at this level.
Just because the press claims Iraq is a QUAGMIRE and the economy is down, and that (as RC said) the President served a PLASTIC TURKEY doesn't make it true -- no matter how many times the media repeats the lie.
1. President Bush & the Republican Party
take out a policy position.
2. They proudly trumpet it to the American Public
thru Grand Speeches such as State Of the
Union addresses and interrupting normal
MSM programming for Bush's "important"
policy announcements. Thus they have used the
MSM to their advantage.
3. The policies are thus implemented thru
the system by popular demand and in many
cases become law or political action
authorized by Congress thru President
Bush's blessing and Karl "the genius"
Roves profound strategizing.
4. The Bush/Republican Congress policies
& rhetoric start to negatively
falter and take on a sense of failure.
5. Panic set in the Bush admin. & Repub
Congress.
6. Public Polls show negative numbers for
Bush as criticism rises to a hilt.
7. Bush calls in the RNC "Slime Machine"
to ridicule and character assasinate
its critics. Never attacking the substance
of their criticism. This is mostly how bush
got re-elected.
8. The so-called MSM gets the brunt of the blame
for Bush's failed policies for "liberally
biased reporting that was done deliberately
in agreement with the DNC to slant it against
Bush.
9. Finally a fall guy is found within the Bush
admin or the repub congress..this
person/persons take the "fall" for Bush's
failure by bravely falling on their sword
for the good of the Republican Party.
10. The Republican echo chamber issues standard
canned-assed talking points to rebutt any
futher criticism and repeated ad infinitum
until everyone screams for them to shut up.
Oh yeah thats the real "cause & effect"..
Now who has their head up their ass? It damn sure
isnt me or fellow democrats..we see EXACTLY what happening..lmao
#54
This may go nowhere, but here is an email I sent to some friends about the political process and what we can do about it. I do not know if it will ever get off the ground, but what the hell, FWIW, maybe a start for discussion:
-----------------------
With respect to the MSM, the tide is slowly turning. It will take time. The problem is that we as a nation are running out of time, with serious issues not being attended to, illegals and runaway spending, to mention for starters. We are in a race with time.
I have no faith in the two parties any more. Both have sold their souls out to one thing or another years ago. So I have been thinking about what to do. Reforming them from within is hopeless. Those at the top have too tight a grip. It is like trying to reform the teamsters or the AFL-CIO. Good luck with that method, heh. So I started thinking about what to do, and I came back to the bypassing strategy in the Pacific in WW2. Truck and Rabaul were heavily fortified bases of the Japanese. Assaults would be extremely costly, so the idea came that the allies starve them out and bypass them to whither on the vine.
So I started thinking about what that would mean in the American political process. That would mean having independent candidates run in key places where they could win. Get a foothold, so to speak. Now in congress they would be worthless, but we need press for them so people about the country could see their platforms, and see how mainstream congress treats them like lepers. They need some key issues that hit home so that Americans can identify with them. They are the underdogs. Americans like underdogs with character. Not fringe loons but people like mainstream America, with their interests in mind. We want to capture the mainstream. Then we will work on the edges of the left and the right to make a solid base. The independents are a coalition of the willing. We could call for reigning in Congress, in terms of spending and privelage. This is just the beginnings of my thought process. The guiding principle is to bring people together, celebrate American Values, promote individual freedom AND responsibility, accountability. Build on a few successes and bring real fear into the mainstream parties. I intellectually retch when I even think of the two parties and how they sold out this country. We must bring them to justice, but our main goal is to make positive things happen. We do not need a revolution, French style. Jâaccuse! We all know how that turned out.
Anyway, those are my thoughts, half baked as they are. And if we fail, we can always fall back to civil war, heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/13/2005 16:34 Comments ||
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#55
This guy makes me pine for Aris. At least he could make an argument, even if he was wrong.
#61
Anyone else notice that "Cassini" never bothered to confront the lies I pointed out?
7. Bush calls in the RNC "Slime Machine"
to ridicule and character assasinate
its critics. Never attacking the substance
of their criticism. This is mostly how bush
got re-elected.
How deeply in a fantasy land do you have to be to believe this? Anyone else remember what happened to the Swift Vets? They're still accused of lying, despite no one being able to identify anything they said that wasn't true -- the most they could do is say Kerry disagreed. And talk about never addressing the substance of the critics; Kerry's service records would settle the record once and for all, but he's only released them to friendly journalists.
Or what about an example I pointed out above, the Rather story? The "slime machine" was Mapes and Kerry's campaign, who coordinated the story to come out in sync with Kerry's "fortunate son" theme.
Oh, and let's not forget the "missing munitions" story, another example of the press coordinating a non-story with the Kerry campaign.
Then there were the literal attacks on Republicans. Campaign offices stormed and people assaulted; vandalism of campaign vehicles; record levels of registration fraud.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 19:37 Comments ||
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#62
In fact you have not quoted one single example outside of 'pundits'.... while we have given example after example of the MSM misleading and lying.
Now if you replace #4 and #5 with :
4-5) The MSM deliberatly misleads and lies about the policies and project with the express purpose of harming the republicans and BUSHITLER no matter what the price people have to pay (see Newsweek's Koran-in-the-toilet story - how many lives were sacrificed on the hate-Bushitler alter for that one?).
and replace 7 with:
7) Bloggers find that the MSM is lying, stand up point to them and yell "LIAR!" AND THEN PROVIDE PROOF!!! (See Rather, Newsweek, etc..). (Hows that for speaking truth to power?).
8-10 and just your koolaid-enhanced imagination. Stop drinking that stuff before you go blind.
Bush staged a press conference. This one gets an extra score because the reporter called the head of a left-wing activist group for comment.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 20:51 Comments ||
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#64
Just finished reading "Flags of Our Fathers" about the flag raisers at Iwo Jima. Good read, our 1944 Pacific enemy has parallels with the 21st century one.
But I digress. I was saddened, but not surprised, that the MSM made up stuff to sell newspapers in 1944. They may have held off on certain things to save lives, but some writers embellished - nah - fabricated - parts of stories. Just to make it more interesting, ya know?
The difference was, they were on the side of 'truth, justice, and the American way', instead of whatever-it-is-they're-in-favor-of-today.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/13/2005 21:47 Comments ||
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#65
R.C.: I don't know if it was posted here already, but if not, have a look at this.
Imagine a man with a bomb strapped to his body making his way into a packed football stadium, reaching his seat and blowing himself up.
There would be a heavy death toll in what would be the first successful terrorist act on U.S. soil since 9-11.
Jolting us back to memories of the Oklahoma City bombing, this would obviously be a massive headline in our ongoing war on terror. One would think attention would be heightened even further if such a story were to occur again in Oklahoma.
Well, there's reason to believe it nearly happened, and it was indeed in Oklahoma, making the paltry coverage of the story unfathomable.
On Oct. 1, as the Oklahoma Sooners hosted Kansas State in front of 84,000 fans, University of Oklahoma student Joel Hinrichs III blew himself up outside the stadium.
There is evidence that he sought to enter the game and was turned away by security after refusing to allow his backpack to be searched. Some minutes later, that backpack, containing the chosen explosive of shoe bomber Richard Reid and the London subway bombers, exploded, killing Mr. Hinrichs as he sat on a bench.
There have been some dutiful print and broadcast accounts of this event, all leaning heavily on the favored establishment take â that this was a troubled young man who sought only to kill himself, simply doing so in an offbeat way.
Oh, really?
Well, what if the young man had a Pakistani roommate? What if he had been spending time at the Islamic Center of Norman, Okla., once frequented by "20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui? What if the warrant used in the search of the bomber's apartment had been sealed by federal authorities?
What if explosives had been found in that apartment? What if the young man had tried to purchase ammonium nitrate, the chosen explosive of Tim McVeigh, at a Norman feed store days earlier?
That's a lot of what ifs, and they range from the confirmed to the unconfirmed. But the parts we do know â the Pakistani roommate, the attempted fertilizer purchase, the veil of secrecy around the investigation â should be enough to cast doubt on the simplistic "troubled young man" theory favored by, among others, OU's nervous president, David Boren.
Mr. Hinrichs' father told me his son was not the type to join radical causes and would not want to hurt anyone. But his son's chosen method â blowing himself up in a public place â would seem to cast doubt on his concern for his fellow man.
As for the terrorist angle, Mr. Hinrichs is now the subject of understandably intense scrutiny, virtually none of it from the mainstream media. You might think the story fizzled because there was, in fact, no death beyond the bomber. True enough, but I'd suggest that if a raid revealed some radical plan to bomb an abortion clinic anywhere in America, the suspects would be household names by nightfall without a single fuse lit.
Something about the nature of this event has swallowed almost whole the normal curiosity one would expect from the usual sources.
Is it political, because acknowledging a terror threat on our soil might bolster President Bush's war logic? Is it economic, out of fear of scaring people away from football games? Is it geographic snobbery because it didn't happen on either coast? Or is it a PC fear of seeming to lunge toward a jihadist angle?
Whatever the reason, hunting for details of this shocking story puts you in some offbeat company.
Jayna Davis is a writer who has spent years documenting what she asserts is an Islamic connection to the Oklahoma City bombing. She has a fan in Douglas Hagmann, director of an outfit called the Northeastern Intelligence Network, whose Web site (homelandsecurityus.com) has a conspiracy geek vibe that might spark scoffing.
But the fact of the matter is that these people are breaking fresh news on this story that only later winds up in more conventional news outlets.
I'm not calling for a leap to the conclusion that Mr. Hinrichs was another in a series of Caucasians pressed into service by terror cells for their undercover value. But it seems equally unwise to shrug dismissively at the possibility.
Mark Davis is a columnist for the Dallas Morning News. The Mark Davis Show is heard weekdays nationwide on the ABC Radio Network. His e-mail address is mdavis@wbap.com.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/13/2005 14:44 Comments ||
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#2
And, again, no mention of Hinrich's location when the went off. Shortly after the game, the spot he was sitting in would have been mobbed with people trying to get on buses.
He didn't need to get into the stadium; the crowd would have come to him. Thank God he had a premature detonation problem.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/13/2005 14:48 Comments ||
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#3
"Imagine a man with a bomb strapped to his body making his way into a packed football stadium, reaching his seat and blowing himself up. There would be a heavy death toll in what would be the first successful terrorist act on U.S. soil since 9-11."
Now imagine the same scenerio but the fellow waits until the game is over and everyone is flowing out of the exits at once. In his chair he'd kill a handful, in the crowd he'd do some real damage. If the fellow intended more than a high profile suicide in the parking lot that is. He seemed to be too good an engineer to blow himself up early.
Perhaps senior Bush administration officials thought establishing a democratic Iraq would be quick work. In an essay I wrote for the Dec. 9, 2002, issue of The Weekly Standard, I described what I thought a very difficult path to peace:
"Pity Gen. Tommy Franks or, for that matter, any American military commander tasked with overseeing a post-Saddam Baghdad. For in that amorphous, dicey phase the Pentagon calls 'war termination' ... U.S. and allied forces liberating Iraq will attempt -- more or less simultaneously -- to end combat operations, cork public passions, disarm Iraqi battalions, bury the dead, generate electricity, pump potable water, bring law out of embittering lawlessness, empty jails of political prisoners, pack jails with criminals, turn armed partisans into peaceful citizens, re-arm local cops who were once enemy infantry, shoot terrorists, thwart chiselers, carpetbaggers and black-marketeers, fix sewers, feed refugees, patch potholes and get trash trucks rolling, and accomplish all this under the lidless gaze of Peter Jennings and Al Jazeera."
Crammed with the nitty-gritty of governance and economics, the sentence ends with a caustic reminder of the importance of media interpretation.
October 2005: Peter Jennings has passed away, Al Jazeera is still with us -- though arguably less antagonistic since the Iraqi presidential election of January 2005. The terror war within Iraq continues to pit terrorist hell against democratic hope. A multitude of economic and governmental challenges linger.
But current combat in Iraq is not simply the result of slapdash postwar planning. The United States has two strategic goals that have taken years to mesh in terms of political, economic and military operations.
Goal One: engage Al-Qaida on military and political battlefields in order to destroy its claim to "divine sanction" and to "speak on behalf of Islam."
Goal Two: seed development of modern, democratic states in the politically dysfunctional Arab Muslim Middle East.
Achieving both goals defeats Al-Qaida. Goal Two is a multi-decade project. Reaching it requires sustained, courageous effort, but Iraq's January election and its constitutional process are signs of progress. Sensational carnage and "expert pessimism" dominated the international media's January election coverage. Despite the dour predictions, Iraqi voters responded, waving ink-stained fingers -- a terror-defying demonstration of political change. Al Jazeera didn't miss it.
Military defeat in Afghanistan dealt Al-Qaida's claim of "divine sanction" a hard blow.
However, smashing Al-Qaida's claim to act on behalf of "all Muslims" is far more complicated than killing or arresting terrorists. Undermining its megalomaniacal appeal meant exposing it as the inhuman, ungodly Mass Murder Inc. it is. The optimal outcome would be to expose Al-Qaida as a threat to Muslims and detrimental to the best ideals of Islam.
When Al-Qaida's zealots blow up trains in Spain or subways in London, those are attacks of their choosing conducted on "infidel terrain." The genius of the war in Iraq is a brutal but necessary form of strategic judo: It brought the War on Terror into the heart of the Middle East and onto Arab Muslim turf. In Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's theo-fascists have been spilling Arab blood, and Al Jazeera has noticed that, too.
Arabs have also seen the Iraqi people's struggle and their emerging political alternative to despotism and feudal autocracy.
Zarqawi's murder spree has revealed fissures among Al-Qaida fanatics. Last week, the United States released a letter coalition intelligence believes Al-Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, sent to Zarqawi. Zawahiri describes Iraq as "the greatest battle for Islam in our era." But Iraq has become a political and information battle that Zawahiri realizes Al-Qaida may be losing. According to The New York Times, Zawahiri told Zarqawi to attack Americans rather than Iraqi civilians and to "refrain from the kind of gruesome beheadings and other executions that have been posted on Al-Qaida websites. Those executions have been condemned in parts of the Muslim world as violating tenets of the faith."
In February 2004, Zarqawi acknowledged a democratic Iraqi state would mean defeat for Al-Qaida in Iraq. To defeat democracy, he has pursued a strategy of relentless, nihilistic bloodbath. It's a brutal irony of war: In doing so, he is losing the war for the hearts and minds.
#2
Add to the list of amazing things the Americans did all at once, those done under the amazing J. Paul Bremer.
As MacArthur did to Japan, Bremer did to Iraq, but one better. Mac set up Japan to become an economic powerhouse by adding sections to their constitution that would eventually result in success. It still took many years of hard work.
Bremer, however, designed their entire economy from pieces of the best economic systems in the world. It is an almost textbook example of the best of everything in economics. On top of that, being pristine, without the political baggage that those systems evolved in developing those systems from scratch, these subsystems will run at peak efficiency.
This being said, I project a time perhaps twenty years in the future, when Iraq will become one of the top ten economies in the world.
If you think about it, what is happening in Iraq right now, the "insurgency", is nothing. It is a violent sideshow to the big picture, a petty distraction compared to the immensity of what Iraq is being and becoming.
It is a nation nearing 30 Million people. A few thousand violent criminals against 200,000 police and soldiers. A death cult whose days are numbered.
A Faith Freedom piece.
By: Vernon Richards, author of: âIslam Undressedâ
Following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Islamist sites all over the world praised it as a divine act by Allah. In their minds, it became proof manifest that Allah is on their side and wants to help them destroy the infidels. Googling reveals 126,000 hits on the subject of Allah punishing the US through Katrina.
The Islamic scholars all seemed quite certain it was evidence God was really cheesed at us...
Such logic claiming Allah caused 1000 American causalities is difficult to reconcile with the much larger losses in the Bam, Iran earthquake, the 125,000 causalities (plus 110,000 missing) suffered in the Muslim world by virtue of the Dec tsunami, or the 30,000 or so causalities suffered from the most recent earthquake in Pakistan / Kashmir.
Centered, we might add, on Muzaffarabad, a hotbed of terrorism...
Devout Muslims in the past attempt to get around this quandary by claiming the tsunami was aimed at bad Muslims in South Asia involved in homosexuality and fornication, or part of an Indian/Israeli/American conspiracy.
That'd be the Halliburton Quake and Natural Disaster Division, of course...
I would guess that a high percentage of the dead would take issue with the claims they were bad Muslims.
No doubt they would, if they weren't dead...
It would appear that if Allah punishes through nature, he is currently much more intent on killing Muslims than infidels. When one tries to find google hits of articles relating to Allah punishing Muslims by earthquake in Pakistan one finds only about 9,000 hits, and most of those are âshoe on the other footâ pieces mocking the earlier Muslim claims regarding Katrina. Interesting though, there are a few Muslim pundits claiming Allah is punishing the ultra-fundamentalist region because of Pakistani alliances with the US . Islamists can always find a way out of their own arguments, apparently.
Sophistry, apparently, isn't confined to the West...
Should we conclude that the people hurt and killed in this latest natural catastrophe are all evil apostates?
Probably not. Some of the teevee images are heart wrenching...
Or can we infer that Allah has changed his mind (again) and now favors another religion over Islam?
That's an idea we should be pushing, but Christian theologians appear to lack testicles and most other religions don't care.
If God changed his mind once, then what is to keep the all powerful one from switching his alliances again? According to the Muslim Qurâan, Allah suddenly decided one day while speaking to Muhammad that he only loves people who believe in his designated psychopath, and no longer had any feelings whatsoever for all other creations. He further revealed that the proper path in dealing with unbelievers was through the sword, slavery, and death. Quite a switch, really, from everything he had previously communicated to his designated representatives. So perhaps now He has tired of all the murderers arriving in heaven to claim their mansions, 72 wide-eyed virgins, and dozens of boys like pearls. Perhaps he took a new decision to find a better class of neighbors to rub shoulders with. All those mujahedeen miscreants have undoubtedly proven to be a total bore to socialize with, since all they want to talk about is sex and violence. So Allah might well have changed his mind again deciding to only accept as neighbors men and women who care for and help their fellows.
Or here is a radical thought, as long as we are drawing reasonable inferences from empirical data, âŠperhaps God never changed after all! In fact, wasnât He already supposed to be omnipotent and omniscience prior to Muhammad? And since already fully formed and perfect, isnât it reasonable to assume such a mature being is not likely to exhibit adolescent tantrums nor wild personality swings? Maybe, âŠjust maybe, this Muhammad guy is a total farce who never had an inkling what God was like, let alone communicated with Him. Maybe God never changed, and all Muhammadâs claims otherwise are self-serving lies designed to assist in his version of Arab Imperialism. Mmmmm⊠The reasoning here seems sound, and leaves one to feel sorry for Muslims worldwide deceived by such a ridiculous and transparent notion that God switched his personality, likes and dislikes, and his modus operandi in dealing with His creations.
The rest of the world can breath a sigh of relief, âŠthe Muslim God Allah is not affiliated with the actual Creator, and its only mortal men who want to kill us. Whew âŠthat was a close one! For Muslims the problem is much bigger. You see, their usual method of interpreting the data on natural-disasters supports the certainty that Allah has switched sides, which canât be good news for them. A few more tsunamis and earthquakes, plus perhaps a plague or two, and Allah might just solve the mistake he started with Muhammad. Good luck with that!
We had a brief flurry of emails yesterday on the subject "My God can beat up Your God." Being a devout agnostic, I'm guessing that maybe he could, but that, if he exists, He's above such behavior. I'm also guessing He doesn't mind seeing proponents of such views heartily mocked.
Without going too deeply into my views on the Nature of God™, I can say what I don't think He is, and that's so insecure that He can't exist without millions or even billions of people bowing down in the direction of His rock collection five times a day and telling Him how wonderful he is. By the same token, I'm not at all sure He requires people to handle snakes or to run up and down church aisles speaking in tongues. I don't believe that God requires human sacrifice, whether it's tossing your first-born into the fiery furnace in tribute to Moloch or on an Aztec altar or on a bus in Jerusalem. Assuming the existence of God, He probably did create us with a purpose, but I don't think that purpose includes wearing turbans, waving scimitars or AKs, jumping up and down, hollering "Allahu Akbar" and killing infidels.
On the other hand, still assuming he exists, God may well have a sense of humor. If Mecca suddenly sprouts a volcano where the rock collection used to be, then we know he does. Demolishing Muzaffarabad only suggests he does.
#1
Mr. Vernon Richards is at his brilliant best when he says "...this Muhammad guy is a total farce who never had an inkling what God was like, let alone communicated with Him. Maybe God never changed, and all Muhammadâs claims otherwise are self-serving lies designed to assist in his version of Arab Imperialism...."
I would like to add here that Mohammad, a pervert from his childhood, contrived this belief called Islam purely in order to satiate his basest desires of rape, loot, and murder. When religions throughout the world says it is a sin to kill, a sin to covet, a sin to commit adultery, a sin to give false-evidence, a sin to steal, it is only Islam which says all these are fine so long as you rape, loot or kill non-moslems, and that god [allah] would reward them with 72 virgins and 20 young boys in an islamic paradise where they can indulge in a never ending sexual orgy.
Mohammad was very clever in telling the equally perverted, degraded followers of his that he has the God's Word on this. Naturally the Arabs who were leading a miserable existence then [oil was yet to be found] were ready to do anything to enjoy riches and forbidden pleasures. They thought if we follow this man and indulge in loot and murder we can enjoy the belongings of others. If in the process we die, we would get transproted to Jannath (islamic heaven) where rivers of wine, honey and milk would flow and where we will have the service of 72+20!
Mohammad, as befitting any sexual pervert, was a pedophile too. Or else how would this old man of 50+ years fantasize about having sex with a girl child of 6 years and below! {When he `married' the 6 year old Ayesha, this retard Mohammad `confided' in her that he used to have wet dreams of making love to her even as she was a 2 year old! Only Allah knows as to what Ayesha understood of this senseless rubbish.
If we go by the parable "Just as you sow, so shall you reap", the Moslems ever since the time of their prophet mohammad have sown seeds of sin throughout the world. It is now time for their harvest. It is their over grown sin in the form of Osama Bin Laden, Pevez Musharaff, A.Q. Khan, etc which is starring them in their face! Moslems who were once rulers in many parts of the world, today are leading a miserable existence as labourers, rickshaw pullers and criminals in spite of petro-dollar wealth! Their end is nearer than most of us imagined. The Lord Almighty has answered our Prayers. Soon enough this sinful religion called islam would be no more. Until then let us continue to offer our Prayers to the Almighty and remain vigil against Islamic terrorism. Let us also lend unstinted support to our respective governments in the War against Terror! For a while let us pack away luxuries such as human rights etc. to a unknown destination.
Posted by: Prof. Alex Wordsmith ||
10/13/2005 10:34 Comments ||
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#2
The faith based way to look at is is this. God doesn't micromanage, he tests. Earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes are just part of his ammo list. If you pass the tests you go to Heaven/Paradise for eternity. If you fail you go to hell.
Pain and suffering and anguish and all of that for our insignificant life spans is nothing when compared to eternal life in heaven or hell.
Personally I beleave living in Las Vegas with Sin on demand is a far greater test of the faithful than living in taliban controlled Afghanistan where one must actively hunt out an exposed ankle. Clearly the jihadists do not trust themselves to pass God's tests.
#3
Thor Odin and the rest of us AEsir are getting mighty upset with this little southern godling.
We need a few more mead based group discussions before we take action but the trending is there.
Thor has not swung his hammer hard in a long while (although he did rent it out the the Halliburton Earthquake Division)
Odin is waiting until his ravens recover from west Nile virus.
Loki is having fun playing with some minds. He really liked working with the Halliburton Tsunami division and got a lot of good ideas that he's been discussing with the Midgard Snake and Fenrir (Fenris Wolf). Bet on lots of new and innovative developments from this enlightened cabal.
#4
The epicentre of the quake was the location of Jihad central: the region of Pakistani Kashmir where the majority of terrorist camps were, where even OBL was rumored to have relocated.
Allah has quite a sense of humor. Even the most rabid of jihadists: the ones who cut the throat of old hindu women in their own homes, are not islamic enough to escape divine punishment.
Posted by: john ||
10/13/2005 14:42 Comments ||
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What caused the Pakistan earthquakes? If you trust Venezuelaâs Castro-wannabe Hugo Chavez, it was the free market. Adam Smithâs invisible hand, flipping mankind the bird. The "world global capitalist model,â Chavez insisted, â⊠is destroying the world. The world is in danger. Never has there been such disasters, hurricanes, droughts, torrential rains. Incredible! The world is dangerously off balance."
By this theory, Gaia is mad at us because we cut down trees and buy sneakers. Gaia is peeved because people want to drive to work in offices heated by nuclear power. We should all push a donkey cart up a rutted road and sit in the market all day waiting for someone to buy our withered tubers, so we can buy a small piece of burlap soaked in sugar to feed our nine children. Gaia hates capitalism.
Chavez, of course, believes none of this; if he opposed this âunbalancedâ world heâd cap the oil wells and command his people to burn dung. itâs just the latest stick with which the internationalist left can thwap the piñata of the rich free West. It gets Chavez closer to the day when college students, yearning to poke a thumb in dadâs eye, will dump the Che T-shirt for one with Hugoâs mug. But ask Chavez: which killed more people in the Pakistan earthquake â the shrug of the earth, or oligarchy? Kickbacks and corruption are so endemic to unfree societies like Pakistan that government projects might as well be made of saltine crackers and Scotch tape. This isnât blaming the victim. Itâs blaming the victimizers.
The only bright spot: if Pakistan builds its nuclear weapons as good as its poor-people hospitals, theyâll fall apart in a shower of bolts and sparkly isotopes ten yards off the pad. But probably not. Priorities, you know.
If Chavezâ opportunistic eco-twaddle smacks of the sort of religious eschatology you get from Pat Robertson, it should. The pious leftism of the international nomenklatura is a religion. The United States may not be their Great Satan, but itâs the devil they know. The bureaucrats and the EU anointed are the priesthood - and the Nobel peace prize is the means of bestowing sainthood. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
10/13/2005 06:04 ||
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Oxblog points to a Washington Post article by Peter Baker, who has been covering Afghanistan since the US ousted the Taliban. Sometime back he met a Hakim Taniwal, an Afghan who had formerly been a sociology professor in Australia, seemingly bent on a suicide mission. Taniwal had a commission in his pocket from President Karzai appointing him governor of a province. Unfortunately the governor's mansion was occupied by a warlord whose retainers were armed to the teeth. Taniwal was nevertheless determined to take possession and Baker never expected to see him alive again. "Dead man walking". It didn't quite turn out that way.
When I saw him again here two weeks ago, he was sitting in the provincial governor's office and the warlord was somewhere in the countryside, out of power, his militia largely disbanded. I reminded Taniwal of our first meeting, when he could not even get into the governor's house because it was occupied by the warlord's family and dozens of his thuggish guerrillas, bristling with Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers. Taniwal looked at me and smiled. "Things have changed," he said with satisfaction.
In Indian Country, the smaller the tactical unit, the more forward deployed it is, and the more autonomy it enjoys from the chain of command, the more that can be accomplished. It simply isn't enough for units to be out all day in Iraqi towns and villages engaged in presence patrols and civil-affairs projects: A successful forward operating base is a nearly empty one, in which most units are living beyond the base perimeters among the indigenous population for days or weeks at a time.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
