“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."
Sunday, February 06, 2011
The Strange Government Gaming of Unemployment Numbers
We looked at this a year ago. Nothing has changed except the govermnent is getting better at the artful lying.
You really do have to look at the "household" report during inflections. It has its problems, but it will pick up an emerging "trend."
A LOT of people have been replaced by automation this recession. It's going to stay tough for many factory workers.
Ol' Bubba, that used to put that wheel on the SUV as it came rolling down the assembly-line is in a world of trouble. That machine that replaced him is there for good.
My plan would be to put Bubba to work building ethanol refineries.
Every refinery Bubba built (and, we need about 3,000 of them) would represent a significant amount of money that we don't have to send to Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the overseas oil thugocracy.
Rufus, my good friend, I did not wish to have you think me rude and not answer you:
Salaam said... Rufus, my distinguished friend, your ships were off our shores, not our ships off the coast of Virginia. Your ships were being used to plunder the Native American lands. Your ships were bringing black African slaves to do your work. Once again, in your ignorant way, you prove my point.
Sun Feb 06, 08:48:00 AM EST
Salaam said... Rufus, my good ignorant comedian friend, a historic scholar informs us "Warring on your neighbors, and trying to conquer the world for 1400 Long years.
Were the American Indians attacking France, Spain, England and so-called America? Were the French and English fighting the Americans in the lands of the iroquois over stolen treasure in Europe? You Europeans would steal and plunder and then like dogs, fight over the bones. Please enlighten me further and pick the other continents where you did not repeat your worK and piracy.
Warring on your neighbors, and trying to conquer the world for 1400 Long years. How do you explain to me, Jacques Cartier, A French "explorer". The first to establish France's claim to North America, made three voyages to Canada between 1534 and 1541. Explain to me the word "explorer". Could he have been called as Christian terrorist? What precisely Rufus my Friend was the nature of french claims to North America?
Claiming what from whom? Did they arrive in ships, perhaps ships similar to those that arrived off the coasts of Arab lands? Had the Iroquois similar ships, would they have been in their rights to repel the French "foreign terrorists"?
For those of you who didn't get my meaning. Suhl is the word for "true peace." Suhl is the word that the Arabs have never allowed to be used in a treaty with the West, or the Jews.
Salaad, not everyone is a collectivist, in the sense of holding individual Muslims accountable for the actions of a few. Islam is submission to God, and God is a God of peace.
You're a lying piece of shit, asshole; from a tribe of lying, thieving murderers.
The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and even South America,[1] and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing ships, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in Britain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and as far away as Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Islamic market in North Africa and the Middle East.[2]
You're a fool, Teresita. To practice Islam is to follow the teachings of Mohammed, and Mohammed taught his followers to either bring YOU into submission, or KILL you.
This is the first thing you've ever written that I thought was truly stupid.
fuck rufus, give your head a shake. It is you that starting hurling the religious invective as if that were the source of all the troubles.
Salaad(m) makes some good points and the folk of the US and Israel would be wise to take heed of his ideas(and folks like him) because the angry masses are much less articulate. Similarly, rufus, you are now representing the great unwashed masses of middle America.
Israel has occupied a dominant position in the Middle East for quite some time now and have made a hash of it. The US too. We are less exposed to the juices the Israelis are stewing in but exposed we are.
I've been puzzled (sort of) by the administrations attempts at an "orderly transition" and whether the Egyptian street will buy the notion that Mubarak being replaced by Sulieman will affect the change they desire. I doubt it even though the 'people' seem to love their military.
But, that's just it, Ash. I AM the "great unwashed mass."
It's the Rufus Clan that will have to fight these worthless cocksuckers.
Our Daddies were the ones that had to go kill that worthless piece of trash, Hitler, after the elites fucked that deal up.
Then, our Uncles had to go freeze, and get our asses shot off in Korea when the State Dept. screwed those signals up.
Then the politicos sent Us on a little vacation to sunny SE Asia to fight that fucked up war.
Then, the elite cocksuckers all but told Saddam to go ahead and take Kuwait, and it was Our firstborn that had to go put out that fire.
The GHW Bush, and Clinton managed to show so much weakness that our second-born had to spend years fighting over there, again.
Now, we've got rabid, koran-thumping maniacs trying to kill us (and, sometimes succeeding spectacularly 9 - 11,) and you, Whit, and T want to kiss their ass, and embolden them even more,
And Guess Whose Grandkid will pay the price?
I don't want to reason with these murderous scum. I'm just praying that we'll get lucky, and have one strong President when they screw up just a little too much, and he'll Nuke their asses, and possibly save one of my Grandkids' lives.
You can kiss their asses all you want, Bubba. But, they done told me that "I'm their enemy, and they want me dead."
No rufus, it is because stupid fucks like you (and there are a lot of them in leadership positions in the US) that view these foreign adventures as necessary to US well-being. JUST LIKE YOU who maintain that, because of the OIL, it is all fine and dandy. We need the shit and whatever we do to get it is juussst fiiine. That is your oft stated opinion rufus.
I don't want to kiss their asses but I do want to understand how someone thinks and if possible help them to 'think better' especially about choices and consequences.
I stated from the get-go that Iraq was all about "protecting" the oil supply from Saddam. I supported that action.
I have stated many times, since, that our technology has improved to the point that we could get out of the "oil supply protection" business. And, That is what I support.
I, also, support "studying" my enemy. I support making my enemy my friend, "if possible."
But, I Do Not support living in a fantasy-land. I do not support irrationally misunderstanding my enemy to the point that it gets me, or mine, Killed.
And, it particularly chaps my ass when someone tries to tell me that the NORTH African Corsairs raided Ireland, and Iceland because a slave trader docked a thousand or so miles South of Gibraltar on the West African Coast.
Or that those Pirates were somehow entitled to attack our ships off the Coast of France because the coast of Tunisia was just a thousand miles away.
I stated from the get-go that Iraq was all about "protecting" the oil supply from Saddam. I supported that action.
I have stated many times, since, that our technology has improved to the point that we could get out of the "oil supply protection" business. And, That is what I support."
Rufus, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You position has not been misrepresented and you are starting, just starting, to see how you are a glaring blatant hypocrite.
I don't think so, Ash. I just think you are taking a superficial view of my position. Let me explain.
I don't like War, and I don't like killing. I think Harry Truman was 1,000% Right in dropping the Atomic Bombs on Japan.
How can I say two, such conflicting, things? Simple; I think he saved hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of lives by killing a couple hundred thousand, and forcing a timely surrender. If you don't understand this statement I suggest you read up on some of the casualty estimates (for American troops, Japanese troops, and Japanese Civilians) that were being floated for an invasion of Japan.
So, how does this apply to my supporting a war to "protect" the INTERNATIONAL oil supply? It was, and still is, my contention that with a Nuclear-Armed Saddam Hussein in control of almost 50% of the World's oil supply, MILLIONS of men, women, and children in ALL the countries of the world would starve.
I foresaw the potential of a world-wide Depression the likes of which we've never even imagined, much less, known.
To me, it was a matter of a million dead American children, or the death of a few tens of thousands of Saddam's soldiers. It wasn't even close.
You foresaw a fantasy based on your erroneous convictions.
And then when the adventure doesn't pan out as you had hoped and it bites US in the ass you bleat about being "anti-war" and how America is great and virtuous and much maligned by horrible goat-fuckers. It is pathetic.
Similarly you moan on and on about the huge and expansive US federal government which reflects, democratically, the position of the US people but when the Egyptians rise up against Authoritarian rule supported tacitly by the US government you get your knickers in a knot worrying about goat fuckers blaming the US and urge the nuking them to teach them their rightful place.
That is just fucking stupid, Ash. I could give a flying flip who "governs" Egypt. I can't think of hardly anything that interests me less.
I defy you to show me a comment where I "got my knickers in a bunch" about what happens there.
Now, as for the goat fucker coming on here yapping about how "ascendant Islam" is going to throw off the oppression of the evil Americans: Hell yeah, I didn't like it.
Victor Davis Hanson: When I do radio talk show interviews, usually the harshest U.S. critics are transplanted Middle Easterners who in their furor at American foreign policy never quite explain why they left and do not go back to places that they now idolize — as if the economic, political, and cultural protocols they enjoy here would appear in Gaza or Yemen like dandelions after a rain if it were not for U.S. imperialism.
So what’s the matter with Egypt? The same thing that is the matter with most of the modern Middle East: in the post-industrial world, its hundreds of millions now are vicariously exposed to the affluence and freedom of the West via satellite television, cell phones, the Internet, DVDs, and social networks.
And they become angry that, in contrast to what they see and hear from abroad, their own lives are unusually miserable in the most elemental sense. Of course, there is no introspective Socrates on hand and walking about to remind the Cairo or Amman Street that their corrupt government is in some part a reification of themselves, who in their daily lives see the world in terms of gender apartheid, tribalism, religious intolerance, conspiracies, fundamentalism, and statism that are incompatible with a modern, successful, capitalist democracy.
That is, a century after the onset of modern waste treatment science, many of the cities in the Middle East smell of raw sewage. A century after we learned about microbes and disease, the water in places like Cairo is undrinkable from the tap. Six decades after the knowledge of treating infectious disease, millions in the Middle East suffer chronic pain and suffer from maladies that are easily addressed in the West. And they have about as much freedom as the Chinese, but without either the affluence or the confidence. That the Gulf and parts of North Africa are awash in oil and gas, at a time of both near record prices and indigenous control of national oil treasures, makes the ensuing poverty all the more insulting.
oh, and rufus, you bitch and moan about what a clusterfuck Vietnam was yet YOU VOLUNTEERED to actually go over there and fight.
You're not at your best, today, Ash. What does the first statement have to do with the second. An', just because I got drunk and enlisted doesn't mean the "war" wasn't a clusterfuck.
And, actually, the "war" went pretty much as I figured it would. We won it in a couple of weeks.
Hanging around, however, trying to turn Iraq into Switzerland, and Afghanistan into Iowa wasn't exactly on the top of my agenda.
Whit, I think a key element in their dissatisfaction is the lack of accountability of their government. When 'the people' are ruled by 'authoritarians' they feel the government doesn't not reflect their wishes.
As flawed as democracy is there is the very real sense that, through elections, one can give the government folks 'the boot'. You simply can't in Egypt - opposition parties are outlawed and dissent is greeted with abduction and torture by the secret police.
There is much dissatisfaction in the US and I'm struck by the vitriolic spewed from 'fly-over' country but a strong mitigating factor in the US is the belief that the government is freely elected.
It goes to your credibility rufus - you are constantly saying "I was for it before I was agin it" and volunteering for Vietnam is just another potent example of that tendency of yours.
Here's the difference between us, Ash. I fought for America, and I Vote in America. I reserve the right to bitch, moan, and spew venom at overflyers to my heart's content.
You, on the other hand, are just a furriner makin' noise.
Michigan's a fine state, Q. Several members of my family never had two nickels to rub together until they got jobs in the factories up there.
But, alas, every clan has its lesser, shall we say, lights; and, in our family they don't get any lesser than running away to Canada when "duty" calls.
I haven't heard anything about that particular branch since then. Maybe I'll try to check up on them; see if they've reconstituted their honor in any way. :)
I have the distinct impression that Ward Churchill has a sock puppet named Salad.
Taking it from the top, if I wanted an honest assessment, I'd never seek it from a muslim.
Mohammed was essentially a gifted and charismatic conman, as well as a murdering bandit and pedophile. Given the task of selling propaganda rather than the truth, he and his followers invented a totalitarian ideology that masquerades as a religion. Lying is a skill taught to muslims from the day they're born. There's no dishonor among muslims for lying, no embarrassment if they're caught in the lie, and among themselves it's easily dismissed by their ideology if it is targeted at an infidel.
The ugly truth that youngsters like Salad will never believe is that muslim terrorism is caused by fundamental tenets of their ideology. Attempting to blame it on an invented and self-serving "Western terrorism and unquestioning US support for Israel" is just a tired old canard, regardless of how Salad pronounces it.
You want peace, Salad? Go back to the desert and pound sand.
MJ Totten mentions the recent Pew poll of Egyptians,
82 percent want stoning for adultery,
77 percent would like whippings and hands cut off for robbery, and
84 percent favor death for Muslims who change their religion.
59 percent to 27 percent favor Islamists over modernizers….
Spengler:
“Egypt is wallowing in backwardness, not because the Mubarak regime has suppressed the creative energies of the people, but because the people themselves cling to the most oppressive practices of traditional society.”
—
Give them a break, Spengler, they’re just getting started, they’ve only been at this for 5,000 years…
A tough looking biker was riding his Harley when he sees a girl about to jump off a bridge so he stops.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I'm going to commit a suicide," she says.
While he did not want to appear insensitive, he didn't want to miss an opportunity he asked "Well, before you jump, why don't you give me a kiss?"
So, she does.
After she's finished, the biker says, "Wow! That was the best Kiss I have ever had. That's a real talent you are wasting. You could be famous - Why are you committing suicide?"
"My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl......"
Assange has maintained that he has made himself available remotely for questioning by Swedish prosecutors, but was not contacted.
The hearing, scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Monday in Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, could continue to break new ground over the use of Twitter in the courtroom. During Assange's bail hearing on Dec. 14, Westminster Magistrates' Court allowed reporters to use Twitter from the courtroom, where normally bailiffs instruct spectators to turn off their mobile phones.
But two days later during a bail appeals hearing, a London High Court judge did not allow use of the popular microblogging service to trickle out minute-by-minute updates.
Is that a stick-out-your-tongue sad face or an I'm-disappointed sad face?
I understand the impact of the last two weeks. Really I do But there are only so many ways you can say the same thing before your optic nerve becomes numb from scrolling through the echos of the page.
Don't take it personally, I'm sure no one else does.
The US policy makers that were influenced by the "neo-cons" did not do succession well. Mr GW Bush made that abundantly clear, leaving no heir apparent to pick up the torch.
That Mr Obama campaigned against Bush policies and then continued them, regardless, stands as a testament to the lack of other viable, bi-partisan alternatives open for US to pursue across the Islamic Arc.
When the democracy wave hits eastern Saudi Arabia, one wonders if the leadership in the US will have the fortitude and resolve to stay the course.
Personally, I would consul withdrawal from that part of the whirled, especially on a military level. Combine that withdrawal with an increase in production of ag based energies, domestically.
I think we'd be in a better position to advance the inalienable rights of man, in the Americas, if we did. Letting the old whirled stew in their own juices, while we in the Americas advance the ideals that have made US great, in our own hemisphere.
All things considered, the Egyptian situation just further exemplifies how deeply the US is allied with the Islamic community and power structure in the expansion of democratic ideals.
We've seen it in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and, now, Egypt.
“There are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt. A whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that wants to come to the fore as well,” Obama said.
“It’s important for us not the say that our only two options are the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed Egyptian people. I want a representative government in Egypt.
I have confidence that if they move in an orderly path, we can work together.”
Conspiracies are popular in Pakistan, especially those involving America. When an American, Raymond Davis, was arrested for murder after shooting two people on January 27 in traffic in the city of Lahore, many Pakistanis at once suspected the worst.
...
The belief that America is callous about Pakistani lives and hostile towards Islam is the result of five decades of resentment. Pakistan has felt let down by America's failure to back it in its wars against India, and abandoned when, after helping Pakistan fuel the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s, America turned its attention elsewhere.
...
And the worst fear haunting the West in Afghanistan is that the war will end not just in defeat in that benighted land of 30 million people, but also in the radicalisation of Pakistan, with 190 million and a nuclear arsenal said to be approaching 100 warheads. Much as they dislike it, America and Pakistan are stuck with each other.
If everyone stays home and plays their Wii, then no one files for unemployment claims and the unemployment rate is zero.
ReplyDelete35,000 new jobs.
100,000 new Undocumented Democrats.
You really do have to look at the "household" report during inflections. It has its problems, but it will pick up an emerging "trend."
ReplyDeleteA LOT of people have been replaced by automation this recession. It's going to stay tough for many factory workers.
Ol' Bubba, that used to put that wheel on the SUV as it came rolling down the assembly-line is in a world of trouble. That machine that replaced him is there for good.
It's good for me, and you. Cars are an incredible bargain compared to thirty, or forty years, ago; but it's real bad for Bubba.
ReplyDeleteMy plan would be to put Bubba to work building ethanol refineries.
ReplyDeleteEvery refinery Bubba built (and, we need about 3,000 of them) would represent a significant amount of money that we don't have to send to Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the overseas oil thugocracy.
All the sooner that we could bring our troops home (saving Trillions,) and allow Salad's tribe to starve in peace.
ReplyDeleteRufus, my good friend, I did not wish to have you think me rude and not answer you:
ReplyDeleteSalaam said...
Rufus, my distinguished friend, your ships were off our shores, not our ships off the coast of Virginia. Your ships were being used to plunder the Native American lands. Your ships were bringing black African slaves to do your work. Once again, in your ignorant way, you prove my point.
Sun Feb 06, 08:48:00 AM EST
Salaam said...
Rufus, my good ignorant comedian friend, a historic scholar informs us "Warring on your neighbors, and trying to conquer the world for 1400 Long years.
Were the American Indians attacking France, Spain, England and so-called America? Were the French and English fighting the Americans in the lands of the iroquois over stolen treasure in Europe? You Europeans would steal and plunder and then like dogs, fight over the bones. Please enlighten me further and pick the other continents where you did not repeat your worK and piracy.
Warring on your neighbors, and trying to conquer the world for 1400 Long years. How do you explain to me, Jacques Cartier, A French "explorer". The first to establish France's claim to North America, made three voyages to Canada between 1534 and 1541. Explain to me the word "explorer". Could he have been called as Christian terrorist? What precisely Rufus my Friend was the nature of french claims to North America?
Claiming what from whom? Did they arrive in ships, perhaps ships similar to those that arrived off the coasts of Arab lands? Had the Iroquois similar ships, would they have been in their rights to repel the French "foreign terrorists"?
You are a child my friend, an uneducated child.
Sun Feb 06, 09:10:00 AM EST
I wonder, on whom do we blame the "loss" of Salaad?
ReplyDeleteGW Bush or BH Obama?
Some how, neither seems appropriate.
As with Egypt, Lebanon, Jordon, Yemen or any of the host of others listed, a couple of threads back.
While Lineman tells us they were "lost" 1,600 years ago.
Hardly the fault of the US, that.
Gotta ride, have a great day.
ReplyDeleteMiss Teresita, please accept my thanks for your welcome. In your presence I will indeed be Salaam!!!!
ReplyDeleteYeah, you murdering asshole, it wasn't Suhl, was it? It was Salaam.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be a pleasure watching your camel-fucking asses starving.
For those of you who didn't get my meaning. Suhl is the word for "true peace." Suhl is the word that the Arabs have never allowed to be used in a treaty with the West, or the Jews.
ReplyDeleteSalaam is the peace of submission.
Salaad, not everyone is a collectivist, in the sense of holding individual Muslims accountable for the actions of a few. Islam is submission to God, and God is a God of peace.
ReplyDeleteYou're a lying piece of shit, asshole; from a tribe of lying, thieving murderers.
ReplyDeleteThe Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and even South America,[1] and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing ships, they engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in Britain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and as far away as Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Islamic market in North Africa and the Middle East.[2]
Barbary Pirates
You're a fool, Teresita. To practice Islam is to follow the teachings of Mohammed, and Mohammed taught his followers to either bring YOU into submission, or KILL you.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first thing you've ever written that I thought was truly stupid.
Rufus, they can wish all they want, I have the US Military and the 2nd Amendment says they can't.
ReplyDeleteI'm a rational person, and blind hatred does not compute.
T, if you can't hate the one that wants you dead, or enslaved . . . . . . . . . .?
ReplyDeleteYou feed this fucking troll, and he'll be with us forever.
Lincoln said if he made his enemy into his friend, he destroyed his enemy.
ReplyDeleteThat may be what he said, but he beat the pulp out of the South.
ReplyDeleteYou gotta have more "street smarts" than that, T. You can't "befriend" a crazed, religious zealot that wants you dead. You'll just get daid.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOil Shippers are refusing to load in the Red Sea, and transit the Suez Canal.
ReplyDeleteThis adds about 20 days time from the Red Sea to Rotterdam, I believe. Also, raises tanker rates.
fuck rufus, give your head a shake. It is you that starting hurling the religious invective as if that were the source of all the troubles.
ReplyDeleteSalaad(m) makes some good points and the folk of the US and Israel would be wise to take heed of his ideas(and folks like him) because the angry masses are much less articulate. Similarly, rufus, you are now representing the great unwashed masses of middle America.
Israel has occupied a dominant position in the Middle East for quite some time now and have made a hash of it. The US too. We are less exposed to the juices the Israelis are stewing in but exposed we are.
I've been puzzled (sort of) by the administrations attempts at an "orderly transition" and whether the Egyptian street will buy the notion that Mubarak being replaced by Sulieman will affect the change they desire. I doubt it even though the 'people' seem to love their military.
“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” ~Reagan while introducing Mujahadeen leaders to media.
ReplyDeleteReagan may have been "taken in" by that one, T.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't be the first time, a CiC had been ill-informed.
ReplyDeleteTribalism, empires, conquest, colonialism, post-modern society, anarchists, socialism, Communism, world wars, cold war, globalism.
ReplyDeleteI've said it before; history is a continuum of sequential and consequential events.
What's done is done. Our role is to try to understand how we got here and make the best decisions going forward.
But, that's just it, Ash. I AM the "great unwashed mass."
ReplyDeleteIt's the Rufus Clan that will have to fight these worthless cocksuckers.
Our Daddies were the ones that had to go kill that worthless piece of trash, Hitler, after the elites fucked that deal up.
Then, our Uncles had to go freeze, and get our asses shot off in Korea when the State Dept. screwed those signals up.
Then the politicos sent Us on a little vacation to sunny SE Asia to fight that fucked up war.
Then, the elite cocksuckers all but told Saddam to go ahead and take Kuwait, and it was Our firstborn that had to go put out that fire.
The GHW Bush, and Clinton managed to show so much weakness that our second-born had to spend years fighting over there, again.
Now, we've got rabid, koran-thumping maniacs trying to kill us (and, sometimes succeeding spectacularly 9 - 11,) and you, Whit, and T want to kiss their ass, and embolden them even more,
And Guess Whose Grandkid will pay the price?
I don't want to reason with these murderous scum. I'm just praying that we'll get lucky, and have one strong President when they screw up just a little too much, and he'll Nuke their asses, and possibly save one of my Grandkids' lives.
You can kiss their asses all you want, Bubba. But, they done told me that "I'm their enemy, and they want me dead."
There's only One Answer I know to that.
No rufus, it is because stupid fucks like you (and there are a lot of them in leadership positions in the US) that view these foreign adventures as necessary to US well-being. JUST LIKE YOU who maintain that, because of the OIL, it is all fine and dandy. We need the shit and whatever we do to get it is juussst fiiine. That is your oft stated opinion rufus.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to kiss their asses but I do want to understand how someone thinks and if possible help them to 'think better' especially about choices and consequences.
ReplyDeleteYou misrepresent my position, Ash.
ReplyDeleteI stated from the get-go that Iraq was all about "protecting" the oil supply from Saddam. I supported that action.
I have stated many times, since, that our technology has improved to the point that we could get out of the "oil supply protection" business. And, That is what I support.
I, also, support "studying" my enemy. I support making my enemy my friend, "if possible."
But, I Do Not support living in a fantasy-land. I do not support irrationally misunderstanding my enemy to the point that it gets me, or mine, Killed.
How does that old saying go, Whit?
ReplyDeleteYou can't rationalize a man out of a position that wasn't attained by rational means?
All a gang of rationalization, ala Hillary, and Condi, will get you with a Religious Fanatic is Dead.
Goddamn, Whit; all you have to do is read their book. They pray five, fucking times a day to that book. Just Read it.
And, it particularly chaps my ass when someone tries to tell me that the NORTH African Corsairs raided Ireland, and Iceland because a slave trader docked a thousand or so miles South of Gibraltar on the West African Coast.
ReplyDeleteOr that those Pirates were somehow entitled to attack our ships off the Coast of France because the coast of Tunisia was just a thousand miles away.
Blogger Rufus II said...
ReplyDelete" You misrepresent my position, Ash.
I stated from the get-go that Iraq was all about "protecting" the oil supply from Saddam. I supported that action.
I have stated many times, since, that our technology has improved to the point that we could get out of the "oil supply protection" business. And, That is what I support."
Rufus, you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. You position has not been misrepresented and you are starting, just starting, to see how you are a glaring blatant hypocrite.
NY Times Compares Muslim Brotherhood Terror Group to Catholic Church
ReplyDeleteWhat a shocker, eh? Liberal fishwrap like that.
I don't think so, Ash. I just think you are taking a superficial view of my position. Let me explain.
ReplyDeleteI don't like War, and I don't like killing. I think Harry Truman was 1,000% Right in dropping the Atomic Bombs on Japan.
How can I say two, such conflicting, things? Simple; I think he saved hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of lives by killing a couple hundred thousand, and forcing a timely surrender. If you don't understand this statement I suggest you read up on some of the casualty estimates (for American troops, Japanese troops, and Japanese Civilians) that were being floated for an invasion of Japan.
So, how does this apply to my supporting a war to "protect" the INTERNATIONAL oil supply? It was, and still is, my contention that with a Nuclear-Armed Saddam Hussein in control of almost 50% of the World's oil supply, MILLIONS of men, women, and children in ALL the countries of the world would starve.
I foresaw the potential of a world-wide Depression the likes of which we've never even imagined, much less, known.
To me, it was a matter of a million dead American children, or the death of a few tens of thousands of Saddam's soldiers. It wasn't even close.
Marines Headed to Egypt
ReplyDeleterufus wrote:
ReplyDelete"I foresaw..."
You foresaw a fantasy based on your erroneous convictions.
And then when the adventure doesn't pan out as you had hoped and it bites US in the ass you bleat about being "anti-war" and how America is great and virtuous and much maligned by horrible goat-fuckers. It is pathetic.
Similarly you moan on and on about the huge and expansive US federal government which reflects, democratically, the position of the US people but when the Egyptians rise up against Authoritarian rule supported tacitly by the US government you get your knickers in a knot worrying about goat fuckers blaming the US and urge the nuking them to teach them their rightful place.
oh, and rufus, you bitch and moan about what a clusterfuck Vietnam was yet YOU VOLUNTEERED to actually go over there and fight.
ReplyDeleteThat is just fucking stupid, Ash. I could give a flying flip who "governs" Egypt. I can't think of hardly anything that interests me less.
ReplyDeleteI defy you to show me a comment where I "got my knickers in a bunch" about what happens there.
Now, as for the goat fucker coming on here yapping about how "ascendant Islam" is going to throw off the oppression of the evil Americans: Hell yeah, I didn't like it.
Victor Davis Hanson:
ReplyDeleteWhen I do radio talk show interviews, usually the harshest U.S. critics are transplanted Middle Easterners who in their furor at American foreign policy never quite explain why they left and do not go back to places that they now idolize — as if the economic, political, and cultural protocols they enjoy here would appear in Gaza or Yemen like dandelions after a rain if it were not for U.S. imperialism.
The Middle East and the Multicultural Nightmare
Blogger Rufus II said...
ReplyDeleteThat is just fucking stupid, Ash. I could give a flying flip who "governs" Egypt. I can't think of hardly anything that interests me less.
riiight, unless, of course, it affects the price of gas in the US.
More VDH:
ReplyDeleteWhat’s the Matter with Egypt?
In the Stars or in Them?
So what’s the matter with Egypt? The same thing that is the matter with most of the modern Middle East: in the post-industrial world, its hundreds of millions now are vicariously exposed to the affluence and freedom of the West via satellite television, cell phones, the Internet, DVDs, and social networks.
And they become angry that, in contrast to what they see and hear from abroad, their own lives are unusually miserable in the most elemental sense. Of course, there is no introspective Socrates on hand and walking about to remind the Cairo or Amman Street that their corrupt government is in some part a reification of themselves, who in their daily lives see the world in terms of gender apartheid, tribalism, religious intolerance, conspiracies, fundamentalism, and statism that are incompatible with a modern, successful, capitalist democracy.
That is, a century after the onset of modern waste treatment science, many of the cities in the Middle East smell of raw sewage. A century after we learned about microbes and disease, the water in places like Cairo is undrinkable from the tap. Six decades after the knowledge of treating infectious disease, millions in the Middle East suffer chronic pain and suffer from maladies that are easily addressed in the West. And they have about as much freedom as the Chinese, but without either the affluence or the confidence. That the Gulf and parts of North Africa are awash in oil and gas, at a time of both near record prices and indigenous control of national oil treasures, makes the ensuing poverty all the more insulting.
oh, and rufus, you bitch and moan about what a clusterfuck Vietnam was yet YOU VOLUNTEERED to actually go over there and fight.
ReplyDeleteYou're not at your best, today, Ash. What does the first statement have to do with the second. An', just because I got drunk and enlisted doesn't mean the "war" wasn't a clusterfuck.
And, actually, the "war" went pretty much as I figured it would. We won it in a couple of weeks.
Hanging around, however, trying to turn Iraq into Switzerland, and Afghanistan into Iowa wasn't exactly on the top of my agenda.
Whit, I think a key element in their dissatisfaction is the lack of accountability of their government. When 'the people' are ruled by 'authoritarians' they feel the government doesn't not reflect their wishes.
ReplyDeleteAs flawed as democracy is there is the very real sense that, through elections, one can give the government folks 'the boot'. You simply can't in Egypt - opposition parties are outlawed and dissent is greeted with abduction and torture by the secret police.
There is much dissatisfaction in the US and I'm struck by the vitriolic spewed from 'fly-over' country but a strong mitigating factor in the US is the belief that the government is freely elected.
It goes to your credibility rufus - you are constantly saying "I was for it before I was agin it" and volunteering for Vietnam is just another potent example of that tendency of yours.
ReplyDeleteHere's the difference between us, Ash. I fought for America, and I Vote in America. I reserve the right to bitch, moan, and spew venom at overflyers to my heart's content.
ReplyDeleteYou, on the other hand, are just a furriner makin' noise.
...vitriolic spewed from 'fly-over' country...
ReplyDeleteYeah? Well, I was struck by the vitrole spewed by the left during the Bush years and even today.
I am also 'struck' by the left's recent meme about democracy being overrated for the Middle East.
I had a third cousin, I think it was, run off to Canada about the time you did. He was dodgin' the draft.
ReplyDeleteHe was from the Michigan clan of Ruffians; they was always trash.
.
ReplyDeleteHe was from the Michigan clan of Ruffians; they was always trash.
We're not getting personal now are we Ruf?
.
Michigan's a fine state, Q. Several members of my family never had two nickels to rub together until they got jobs in the factories up there.
ReplyDeleteBut, alas, every clan has its lesser, shall we say, lights; and, in our family they don't get any lesser than running away to Canada when "duty" calls.
I haven't heard anything about that particular branch since then. Maybe I'll try to check up on them; see if they've reconstituted their honor in any way. :)
BTW, it wasn't those that went to work in the auto/steel factories that cut and ran. Those guys were mostly Veterans of WWII, and Korea.
ReplyDeleteIt was their lesser kinfolks, college professors, doctors, and such that spawned the little coward that caused their honor to be besmirched.
Bringing a note forward from last thread...
ReplyDeleteI have the distinct impression that Ward Churchill has a sock puppet named Salad.
Taking it from the top, if I wanted an honest assessment, I'd never seek it from a muslim.
Mohammed was essentially a gifted and charismatic conman, as well as a murdering bandit and pedophile. Given the task of selling propaganda rather than the truth, he and his followers invented a totalitarian ideology that masquerades as a religion. Lying is a skill taught to muslims from the day they're born. There's no dishonor among muslims for lying, no embarrassment if they're caught in the lie, and among themselves it's easily dismissed by their ideology if it is targeted at an infidel.
The ugly truth that youngsters like Salad will never believe is that muslim terrorism is caused by fundamental tenets of their ideology. Attempting to blame it on an invented and self-serving "Western terrorism and unquestioning US support for Israel" is just a tired old canard, regardless of how Salad pronounces it.
You want peace, Salad? Go back to the desert and pound sand.
Penguin Goes Shopping
ReplyDeleteSam, you always bring a smile to my face.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to show my daughter. She loves, loves, loves penguins.
"Israel has occupied a dominant position in the Middle East for quite some time now and have made a hash of it."
ReplyDelete---
But it is the backwards, tribal, largely Muslim Arabs that have run the Jews out of every country over there other than Israel.
...and now they're finishing up the remnants of Christiandom thanks to our help via bringing "Democracy" to the Barbarians.
MJ Totten mentions the recent Pew poll of Egyptians,
ReplyDelete82 percent want stoning for adultery,
77 percent would like whippings and hands cut off for robbery, and
84 percent favor death for Muslims who change their religion.
59 percent to 27 percent favor Islamists over modernizers….
Spengler:
“Egypt is wallowing in backwardness, not because the Mubarak regime has suppressed the creative energies of the people, but because the people themselves cling to the most oppressive practices of traditional society.”
—
Give them a break, Spengler, they’re just getting started,
they’ve only been at this for 5,000 years…
Nothing like a good stoning to effect a permanent attitude adjustment for gays and "adulterous" women.
ReplyDeleteGoat Fuckers and Child Rapists not included.
ROP
A tough looking biker was riding his Harley when he sees a girl about to jump off a bridge so he stops.
ReplyDelete"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I'm going to commit a suicide," she says.
While he did not want to appear insensitive, he didn't want to miss an
opportunity he asked "Well, before you jump, why don't you give me a kiss?"
So, she does.
After she's finished, the biker says, "Wow! That was the best Kiss I have ever had. That's a
real talent you are wasting. You could be famous - Why are you committing suicide?"
"My parents don't like me dressing up like a girl......"
Assange has maintained that he has made himself available remotely for questioning by Swedish prosecutors, but was not contacted.
ReplyDeleteThe hearing, scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Monday in Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, could continue to break new ground over the use of Twitter in the courtroom. During Assange's bail hearing on Dec. 14, Westminster Magistrates' Court allowed reporters to use Twitter from the courtroom, where normally bailiffs instruct spectators to turn off their mobile phones.
But two days later during a bail appeals hearing, a London High Court judge did not allow use of the popular microblogging service to trickle out minute-by-minute updates.
Could End Up In Guantanamo
Do Muslims watch the SB, I mean with the pigskin ball and all?
ReplyDeleteWatching it here at work, T.
ReplyDeleteJust got a score update from the tv in the kitchen.
I think as long as they don't 'eat' the football, they're probably o.k.
ReplyDeleteWas that Michael Vick scouting players at the Puppy Bowl?
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm watching the local news. Same shit different day.
ReplyDeleteAnd small businesses like Mohammed Ahmad's fish shop are struggling to survive.
ReplyDelete...
And many Egyptians, as much as they want political change, are more concerned about daily life.
For them the protests cannot end soon enough.
Protest Impasse
So, it is official, then, BH Obama has not Lost the Middle East, Mohamed stole it, back in the day.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad we've clarified that point.
Back to the Super Bowl, then.
Is that a stick-out-your-tongue sad face or an I'm-disappointed sad face?
ReplyDeleteI understand the impact of the last two weeks. Really I do But there are only so many ways you can say the same thing before your optic nerve becomes numb from scrolling through the echos of the page.
Don't take it personally, I'm sure no one else does.
Should I sing you a tune? ( :
Assange said that the people who gathered to support his stepson at Sunday's rally were proof that the government would not desert him.
ReplyDelete"The government will not desert him if the people don't desert him," he said.
Assange said that people could show their support for Julian by getting in contact with their local member of parliament.
Support at Rally
Well, so much for 'Renegade'.
ReplyDeleteBlogger whit said...
ReplyDelete"I am also 'struck' by the left's recent meme about democracy being overrated for the Middle East."
The left's meme? The radical right maybe - for confirmation see Doug's comment above.
Oh no, it quite the thing over the Huffington Post.
ReplyDeleteGeo W. Bush said more about freedom for everyone than Obama ever thought of doing.
Heck of a game, it was.
ReplyDeleteAs I have often said, ash, we are seeing the results of the Bush Doctrine of expanding democracy in the Islamic Arc.
ReplyDeleteThat Mr Obama has held steadfast to it, during his tenure, is a reality of US foreign policy.
That Iran's influence would expand, a given which was often discussed back at the BC and which has proved to be the case, in both Lebanon and Iraq.
The US policy makers that were influenced by the "neo-cons" did not do succession well. Mr GW Bush made that abundantly clear, leaving no heir apparent to pick up the torch.
ReplyDeleteThat Mr Obama campaigned against Bush policies and then continued them, regardless, stands as a testament to the lack of other viable, bi-partisan alternatives open for US to pursue across the Islamic Arc.
When the democracy wave hits eastern Saudi Arabia, one wonders if the leadership in the US will have the fortitude and resolve to stay the course.
Personally, I would consul withdrawal from that part of the whirled, especially on a military level. Combine that withdrawal with an increase in production of ag based energies, domestically.
I think we'd be in a better position to advance the inalienable rights of man, in the Americas, if we did. Letting the old whirled stew in their own juices, while we in the Americas advance the ideals that have made US great, in our own hemisphere.
What did the "DC elites" think was going to happen, when Mubarak tenure ran out?
ReplyDeleteEspecially when the US had been giving such great lip service to the democratic ideal in that region of the whirled?
Who were they expecting to step into the gap other than the Muslim Brotherhood?
Who else was there for the common folk to turn to, when all other political opposition had been violently repressed for almost 20 years.
Pocketbook issues drive US elections, why would anyone think things would be different, for the people in the Islamic Arc?
ReplyDeleteIt's the economy, stupid.
It always is, in elections.
Was for Clinton, Bush and as is often mentioned here at the Elephant Bar, will be for Obama, too.
All things considered, the Egyptian situation just further exemplifies how deeply the US is allied with the Islamic community and power structure in the expansion of democratic ideals.
ReplyDeleteWe've seen it in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and, now, Egypt.
“There are a whole bunch of secular folks in Egypt. A whole bunch of educators and civil society in Egypt that wants to come to the fore as well,” Obama said.
ReplyDelete“It’s important for us not the say that our only two options are the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed Egyptian people. I want a representative government in Egypt.
I have confidence that if they move in an orderly path, we can work together.”
Forever Changed
The US has founded two Islamic Republics, in Afghanistan and Iraq, what could possibly be the complaint if Egypt followed the course we have set?
ReplyDeleteThe lack of a US Army of Occupation in Egypt?
As that would be the only radical difference between the three case studies.
Pakistan is an Islamic Republic, and said to be the premier foreign ally, of the US, in the War on Terror.
ReplyDeleteWhat does the US have to fear, if Islam is in political ascendancy, in Egypt?
The short answer, is nothing.
Any increase in the cost of imported oil, a good thing.
It will motivate US to further develop ag based energy sources, domestically.
Conspiracies are popular in Pakistan, especially those involving America. When an American, Raymond Davis, was arrested for murder after shooting two people on January 27 in traffic in the city of Lahore, many Pakistanis at once suspected the worst.
ReplyDelete...
The belief that America is callous about Pakistani lives and hostile towards Islam is the result of five decades of resentment. Pakistan has felt let down by America's failure to back it in its wars against India, and abandoned when, after helping Pakistan fuel the anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s, America turned its attention elsewhere.
...
And the worst fear haunting the West in Afghanistan is that the war will end not just in defeat in that benighted land of 30 million people, but also in the radicalisation of Pakistan, with 190 million and a nuclear arsenal said to be approaching 100 warheads. Much as they dislike it, America and Pakistan are stuck with each other.
Alliance In Trouble