“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
There certainly are some tough issues that need be solved in that neck of the woods. The pertinent question is how to help them solve their problems. Building walls, waging war, driving them further into poverty certainly doesn't seem to be doing the trick
It is also having a detrimental effect upon our boys and girls that we send over there - if they live to come back.
A soldier's blog I've been reading for quite awhile has a great new post. I think he makes his views very clear:
Doug, You asked if I had ever seen the Ford GT-40's run...yes both at the 24 Hours of Daytona and Sebring.
They were up against the Porsche 917 long tails if I remember correctly and the beautiful Ferrari 512's, along with the Matras. Dan Gurney drove one of the GT-40's.
This was really tops...at the US Grand Prix held at Long Beach one year they did a dedication to Mercedes Benz..they had ,yes, Juan Manuel Fangio there and he did about ten laps in a fully restored and race ready W-196. Actually one of his old cars that had been in the MB museum. He was not just "stroking" around by about lap five but he was putt'n the spurs to her..I had my Olypus OM-1 autodrive on full bore.
Who, ever, would have guessed that our very freedoms - our very way of life as Americans - would eventually depend upon the removal of a third-rate Arab tyrant and subsequent nation building?
That's the point of demagoguery. I don't need to explain the ins and outs, just point to someone that's emotionally invested, says the things I want to hear, and let it head off into the sunset.
I've said to a number of people that I worship reason, following the brain instead of the heart.
On the other hand, I also always keep in mind this quote from George Orwell, because many, if not most people are not wired that way:
"What has kept England on its feet during the past year? In part, no doubt, some vague idea about a better future, but chiefly the atavistic emotion of patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are superior to foreigners. For the last twenty years the main object of English left-wing intellectuals has been to break this feeling down, and if they had succeeded, we might be watching the SS men patrolling the London streets at this moment. Similarly, why are the Russians fighting like tigers against the German invasion? In part, perhaps, for some half-remembered ideal of Utopian Socialism, but chiefly in defence of Holy Russia (the “sacred soil of the Fatherland”, etc etc), which Stalin has revived in an only slightly altered form. The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions—national pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war—which many intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves [and their followers] as to have lost all power of action [in the face of those who have not]." - August 1941
Mat, their gonna have to spend a fortune in solar panels I quess.
The Germans and Japs were patriotic too. How about patriotism, with a good dose of reason.
For a guy operating on instinct to try to do the right, see my post on the earlier thread about Pet Husmann. i'm going down to Albertson's now to get this kid a get well card and send it to the hospital. Something about that story brought a tear to my eye.
Habu, The 7 was one of my dream cars, that, the Morgan, Elan, etc. Guess I liked little cars.
Didn't realize the Little Bastard Spyder only weighed 1200 pounds, but should have, since my Bug weighed about 1500 after various parts were lost to "accidents." Had the same headlights as James Deans *$7,000* Porsche! How much did your Europa weigh? Think the Elan was 1,400.
Did the 7 have the Ford Cortina/Tractor Engine?
Old Chapmin wrung a lot of hp out of those w/his heads and the like. I'll read more about the 7 later.
Pretty sure Jimmy and maybe him ALSO died in frigging lightplanes, right? Lost more damn Rock and Rollers and Racers to those than to racing. A little more than a year ago we lost 2 beautiful people in an Air Ambulance crash. Report still not out, I'll have to ask RWE if that model Cessna can maintain altitude with gear and flaps down on one engine. Stalled and augered on approach right downtown Kahului.
Bryson mentions the retreat of Alpine glaciers, common grist for current headlines. “What do they find when the ice sheets retreat, in the Alps?”
We recall the two-year-old report saying a mature forest and agricultural water-management structures had been discovered emerging from the ice, seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. Bryson interrupts excitedly.
“A silver mine! The guys had stacked up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring to mine more silver, only the snow never went,” he says.
“There used to be less ice than now. It’s just getting back to normal.”
What Leads, What Follows?
--- --- Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three years before the Weather Service officially did such things, and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists.
How Little We Know
Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else... HT - Limbaugh
Check this out folks, it's just like they do in China, but it's over at Flares into the Darkness run by Rick Ballard.this is the actual last thread he's just put up
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Policy Notice
Thanks for visiting Flares Into Darkness.
The content of Flares Into Darkness is subject solely to the personal whim of its contributors. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to remove any and all posts or comments, at any time, for any reason which takes our entirely capricious fancy, or for no particular reason whatsoever, without restriction.
Just a reminder for those incapable of the effort required to scroll down and read.
A "White Russian" is a favorite of "The Dude" character in "The Big Lebowski", where it is often referred to as a "Caucasian". I don't know about youz, but nobody ever called me a Caucasian and meant it as a compliment!
The Dude's magic carpet ride used to be one of my recurrent nightmares in college as I put off stuff ever longer. Haven't checked out all the extras on the CD cause I have yet to master my new Vista Player, but there are some pictures taken by the Dude himself, and lots of other good stuff. New intro by some guy who is just perfect, and as always with the Coen Bros. Perfectly done.
Let's see if I can get this awesome PowerPoint on Dubai running
ReplyDeleteDubai Awesome
Ok it works..click in the lower left to scroll through Dubailand..it's worth it
ReplyDeleteCosta Rica ..naw, I'm chang'n my name to Habu el Jabbar and mv'n to Dubai.
There certainly are some tough issues that need be solved in that neck of the woods. The pertinent question is how to help them solve their problems. Building walls, waging war, driving them further into poverty certainly doesn't seem to be doing the trick
ReplyDeleteIt is also having a detrimental effect upon our boys and girls that we send over there - if they live to come back.
A soldier's blog I've been reading for quite awhile has a great new post. I think he makes his views very clear:
Fun with hand grenades
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDoug,
ReplyDeleteYou asked if I had ever seen the Ford GT-40's run...yes both at the 24 Hours of Daytona and Sebring.
They were up against the Porsche 917 long tails if I remember correctly and the beautiful Ferrari 512's, along with the Matras. Dan Gurney drove one of the GT-40's.
This was really tops...at the US Grand Prix held at Long Beach one year they did a dedication to Mercedes Benz..they had ,yes, Juan Manuel Fangio there and he did about ten laps in a fully restored and race ready W-196. Actually one of his old cars that had been in the MB museum. He was not just "stroking" around by about lap five but he was putt'n the spurs to her..I had my Olypus OM-1 autodrive on full bore.
Fangio & W-196
Here's another soldier:
ReplyDelete"While yall talk shit
Im too busy to listen
I don’t crack under pressure
I deal with the friction
Here its more than opinions
And though entitled to em
I don’t think yall
Understand what yall doin
Or what yall sayin
Yall got to be kiddin me
What did yall think it cost
To be livin free
So for our country
We will bleed
While you run your mouth
You say in defense of me
But mofucker please
You’ve made your millions
You could never
Feel me
And while yall talk shit
Understand how that’s possible
We made you rich
Cause we are willing to die for you
But yall take that for granted
So heres a one way ticket
Anywhere on this planet
I will not have you talk shit
While I die for your family
Protectin our interests
But you don’t understand em
Built on murder
Our country’s exapanded
And so far our troubles
Have rewarded you handsome
But now you critisize
The hand that fed you
And though you try to forget
No, I wont let you
And you coulda always of left
So now im here in iraq
Wondering whats kept you
Thinking we’d all be better of here
Less you
Opening your mouth
Against the country that’s blessed you
And we shouldn’t be here
Says you
But we are
And you still continue
To sit
While we swap spit with these fuckers
No you don’t have to agree
But you could at least support us
Stand behind us
If not for us
But your too busy
Runnin your mouth for reporters
While we here
Sweatin it out the entire fourth quarter
And you wont fight
So we fight for you
And freedom has a price
We payin it for you
The game of your life
We’re playin it for you
While you shit on everything
This country’s done for you
Keep runnin your mouth
Hope the world ignores you
No you don’t speak on our behalf
We speak for you
And it’s a shame
You even think you can speak for me
No I don’t see you in the streets
Bleedin for me
And until you’ve walked it
You cant talk it for me
We bought your careers
Fuck have you bought me
We pay the bills for those
Opinions you offering
And we do more than kill in your name
We slaughter them
So everyday you can hug
Your son and daughter again
But how easily
You forget what we’ve done
And how easily
When we stand you run
Fuck is really goin on
And please when you talk war
Hold your tongue
Cause for you to have lived this long
We have died so young
Look at yourself in the mirror
What have you become
Other than spoiled
By all the sacrifices we made
Enjoying life huh
After the ones we gave
Where would you be without war
Yall are so naïve
Only fuckers in the world
Complaining yall free."
I've never posted it before because I'm generally uninterested in isolated emotional demagoguery, as opposed to reason.
Doug,
ReplyDeleteI've narrowed my Montana crusing car down to one of these two.
The wife wants the Pontiac Solstice w/turbocharger but my fancy is in this direction.
KoKopelli Lotus XI Replica
I'll have the Ecotec twincam in her.
or
Lotus 7 replica
not for the faint of heart 0-60 in about 4 sec. 150-160 top.
Those buildings will cost a fortune to cool. And when the fortune runs out, so will the tenants.
ReplyDeleteCutler,
ReplyDeleteEmotional demagogery has a place...
Henry V St Crispin's day speech
"Win one for the Gipper speech"
"Any of Winston Churchills wartime speeches"
You gave us a great one there ..thanks
Who, ever, would have guessed that our very freedoms - our very way of life as Americans - would eventually depend upon the removal of a third-rate Arab tyrant and subsequent nation building?
ReplyDeleteThat's the point of demagoguery. I don't need to explain the ins and outs, just point to someone that's emotionally invested, says the things I want to hear, and let it head off into the sunset.
ReplyDeleteHabu:
ReplyDeleteI've said to a number of people that I worship reason, following the brain instead of the heart.
On the other hand, I also always keep in mind this quote from George Orwell, because many, if not most people are not wired that way:
"What has kept England on its feet during the past year? In part, no doubt, some vague idea about a better future, but chiefly the atavistic emotion of patriotism, the ingrained feeling of the English-speaking peoples that they are superior to foreigners. For the last twenty years the main object of English left-wing intellectuals has been to break this feeling down, and if they had succeeded, we might be watching the SS men patrolling the London streets at this moment. Similarly, why are the Russians fighting like tigers against the German invasion? In part, perhaps, for some half-remembered ideal of Utopian Socialism, but chiefly in defence of Holy Russia (the “sacred soil of the Fatherland”, etc etc), which Stalin has revived in an only slightly altered form. The energy that actually shapes the world springs from emotions—national pride, leader-worship, religious belief, love of war—which many intellectuals mechanically write off as anachronisms, and which they have usually destroyed so completely in themselves [and their followers] as to have lost all power of action [in the face of those who have not]." - August 1941
"I've said to a number of people that I worship reason, following the brain instead of the heart.
ReplyDelete"On the other hand..."
Cutler, if patriotism is on the other hand of reason, we are all lost.
Mat, their gonna have to spend a fortune in solar panels I quess.
ReplyDeleteThe Germans and Japs were patriotic too. How about patriotism, with a good dose of reason.
For a guy operating on instinct to try to do the right, see my post on the earlier thread about Pet Husmann. i'm going down to Albertson's now to get this kid a get well card and send it to the hospital. Something about that story brought a tear to my eye.
I worship you, Trish!
ReplyDeleteHabu,
ReplyDeleteThe 7 was one of my dream cars, that, the Morgan, Elan, etc.
Guess I liked little cars.
Didn't realize the Little Bastard Spyder only weighed 1200 pounds, but should have, since my Bug weighed about 1500 after various parts were lost to "accidents."
Had the same headlights as James Deans *$7,000* Porsche!
How much did your Europa weigh?
Think the Elan was 1,400.
Did the 7 have the Ford Cortina/Tractor Engine?
Old Chapmin wrung a lot of hp out of those w/his heads and the like.
I'll read more about the 7 later.
Pretty sure Jimmy and maybe him ALSO died in frigging lightplanes, right?
Lost more damn Rock and Rollers and Racers to those than to racing.
A little more than a year ago we lost 2 beautiful people in an Air Ambulance crash.
Report still not out, I'll have to ask RWE if that model Cessna can maintain altitude with gear and flaps down on one engine.
Stalled and augered on approach right downtown Kahului.
"Chapman"
ReplyDeleteFormula Ford Engine, right?
ReplyDeleteThat 7k was Deans entire earning from "Giant!"
ReplyDeleteThe Faithful Heretic
ReplyDeleteBryson mentions the retreat of Alpine glaciers, common grist for current headlines. “What do they find when the ice sheets retreat, in the Alps?”
We recall the two-year-old report saying a mature forest and agricultural water-management structures had been discovered emerging from the ice, seeing sunlight for the first time in thousands of years. Bryson interrupts excitedly.
“A silver mine!
The guys had stacked up their tools because they were going to be back the next spring to mine more silver, only the snow never went,” he says.
“There used to be less ice than now.
It’s just getting back to normal.”
What Leads, What Follows?
---
---
Long ago in the Army Air Corps, Bryson and a colleague prepared the aviation weather forecast that predicted discovery of the jet stream by a group of B-29s flying to and from Tokyo. Their warning to expect westerly winds at 168 knots earned Bryson and his friend a chewing out from a general—and the general’s apology the next day when he learned they were right. Bryson flew into a couple of typhoons in 1944, three years before the Weather Service officially did such things, and he prepared the forecast for the homeward flight of the Enola Gay. Back in Wisconsin, he built a program at the UW that’s trained some of the nation’s leading climatologists.
How Little We Know
Bryson is a believer in climate change, in that he’s as quick as anyone to acknowledge that Earth’s climate has done nothing but change throughout the planet’s existence. In fact, he took that knowledge a big step further, earlier than probably anyone else...
HT - Limbaugh
Check this out folks, it's just like they do in China, but it's over at Flares into the Darkness run by Rick Ballard.this is the actual last thread he's just put up
ReplyDeleteTuesday, May 22, 2007
Policy Notice
Thanks for visiting Flares Into Darkness.
The content of Flares Into Darkness is subject solely to the personal whim of its contributors. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to remove any and all posts or comments, at any time, for any reason which takes our entirely capricious fancy, or for no particular reason whatsoever, without restriction.
Just a reminder for those incapable of the effort required to scroll down and read.
If you want a playpen - build your own.
Well well,
ReplyDeleteI avoided going to the Flaring Fascists last nite, cause I did not want to upset my equanimity before bedtime.
I'll have to check out your little surprise now!
;-)
Ok Habu, I have the evidence you need on Doug:
ReplyDeleteA "White Russian" is a favorite of "The Dude" character in "The Big Lebowski", where it is often referred to as a "Caucasian". I don't know about youz, but nobody ever called me a Caucasian and meant it as a compliment!
Silly Monkey!
ReplyDeleteThe Flares Immigration Thread.
ReplyDeleteIs Heysous the Pervert Bowler not just too much?
ReplyDeleteThe Dude's magic carpet ride used to be one of my recurrent nightmares in college as I put off stuff ever longer.
Haven't checked out all the extras on the CD cause I have yet to master my new Vista Player, but there are some pictures taken by the Dude himself, and lots of other good stuff.
New intro by some guy who is just perfect, and as always with the Coen Bros. Perfectly done.
Julieanne Moore on the Ropes!
ReplyDeleteThe "Dieter" like character.
On, and on!
Hope you enjoyed it half as much as I do.
Vee belief in nossing, Lebowski!
ReplyDeleteNOSSING!!
One of them Jooish Nihilists eh?
ReplyDelete---
2 States, 1, State, No State, what's the Big Dif?
The Peace Process resulted in a State of No State.
ReplyDeleteA Stateless State, of Sort.
Wal, a wiser fella than m'self once said, sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar, wal, he eats you.
ReplyDeleteBetter watch out. Out here my way, the grizzly bar only eats you once.
ReplyDeleteBob,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry but my Caucasian schnautzer is off limits to El Dougringo. This isn't Nam. There are rules here!
To answer your question: "They certainly have the money for it"
ReplyDelete