you should forward that last paragraph
Posted By: dnh on 2009-06-03
In Reply to: It appears that Bin Laden - Trigger Happy
to the White House where they seem to think terrorists can be rational and reasoned with and will play nice with us.
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The last paragraph of
this article is just tooooooo good. I would LOVE to see the Bush supporters actually really "go to Iraq," and for free!!!!
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Sacrifice? Count Me Out
If You Supported the War, Pay For It
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by Ted Rall |
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If America is truly on a war footing," Thom Shanker asks in the New York Times, "why is so little sacrifice asked of the nation at large?" Military recruiters are coming up short of volunteers, yet neither party is pushing for a draft. No one is proposing a tax increase to cover the $60 billion annual cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. There are no World War II-style war bond drives, no victory gardens, not even gas rationing. Back here in the fatherland, only "support our troops" car ribbons indicate that we're at war--and they aren't even bumper stickers, they're magnetic. Apparently Americans aren't even willing to sacrifice the finish on their automobiles to promote the cause.
"Nobody in America is asked to sacrifice, except us," the paper quotes an officer who just returned from a year in rose-petal-paved Iraq. "[Symbolic signs of support are] just not enough," grumbles a brigadier general. "There has to be more," he demands. "The absence of a call for broader national sacrifice in a time of war has become a near constant topic of discussion among officers and enlisted personnel," the general claims.
Northwestern University professor Charles Moskos says: "The political leaders are afraid to ask the public for any real sacrifice, which doesn't speak too highly of the citizenry."
To which I say: Screw that. It's not my duty to suffer for this pointless war. I've been against it all along, and you can stick your victory garden where the desert sun can't penetrate.
I was among hundreds of thousands of Americans who marched against invading Iraq in early 2003. Tens of millions cheered us on. The largest mass protest movement in history (so designated by the Guinness Book of World Records) brought together pacifists, humanists and people like me. We knew Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We didn't believe that the same White House that propped up dictatorships in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia--that had, when it suited them, supported Saddam--could possibly be interested in liberating the people of Iraq. When we scrutinized coverage of the CIA's prewar analyses, we found that there wasn't any. There were only reports dating back to 1998, ancient history in the intelligence business. We absolutely didn't trust Dick "cakewalk" Cheney's breezy predictions.
Bush and Cheney ignored our concerns. Instead of building a solid case and bipartisan political consensus, they bullied and lied to Congress and the UN to scam us into this unwinnable war. Who can blame them? They work for ExxonMobil and Halliburton, not the American people. But they, not us, broke Iraq. It can't be fixed, it's not our fault and it's not our problem. There's no reason to relinquish our creature comforts to back their grubby little oil grab.
The most galling aspect of this fiasco is that it was entirely predictable. I know; I predicted it. Here's my column written back in July 2002:
"Most experts expect Iraq to disintegrate into civil war after an overthrow of Saddam's oppressive Ba'ath Party," I wrote. "Opinion of the United States is now at an all-time low among Muslims around the world. Going after Iraq will make matters worse. Why give radical anti-American Islamists even more political ammunition with which to recruit suicide bombers and attract the financial donations that fund their assaults?"
I'm no genius, but even I could see that this war was doomed eight months before the invasion:
"Do the Kurds deserve a homeland? Sure. Would Iraq be better off without Saddam? Probably. But if we're smart, we won't be the ones to blow over this particular house of cards. We have too much to lose and too little to gain in the mess that would certainly ensue."
Did I call that one or what?
David Hendrickson, a scholar at Colorado College, tells the Times: "Bush understands that the support of the public for war--especially the war in Iraq--is conditioned on demanding little of the public." Of course, Bush himself hasn't given up a second of vacation or a single donated dollar, much less one of his hard-partying daughters, to the "war effort." Sacrifice is a hard sell down here among the citizenry when we don't see it starting where it should start, among our leaders.
I'm already sacrificing too much for a war I always believed was stupid and wrong. I'm paying three dollars a gallon for buck-fifty gas and walking through gauntlets of over-armed National Guardboys at airports and bus stations. I'm in greater danger than ever before of getting blown up by a pissed-off fanatic. And I dread the giant tax hike we'll eventually need to pay off Bush's deficit. But these aren't enough sacrifices for Bush and his vainglorious generals, who are planning "a Civilian Reserve, a sort of Peace Corps for professionals. . . a program to seek commitments from bankers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, electricians, plumbers and solid-waste disposal experts to deploy to conflict zones for months at a time on reconstruction assignments, to relieve pressure on the military."
If you voted for Bush, here's your chance to plant your butt where your ridiculous car magnet is, smack dab in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Good luck.
© 2005 Ted Rall
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Might we see the whole paragraph?
context, you know, to make a valid decision?
The last paragraph.
Now I know Emanuel is chief of staff and why obama picked him, makes sense.
I was looking forward
to the foot-long hot dog myself..............
I agree with the last paragraph, as well.
This is definitely a campaign against the First Amendment, and I believe Bush will do whatever he can to silence people who either disagree with him or who catch him in lies (a full-time job in and of itself).
Thanks for the link; I look forward to seeing it.
Bob Geiger - see 2nd paragraph
I am looking forward to reading
Stephen Colbert's book "I am America and so can you." I got a little preview this morning on Tim Russert. It promises to be a delicious, laugh-out-loud satire.
The last paragraph is why I posted it.
I am not at all convinced that the issue of abortion is a liberal or conservative stance. I think it tends to be tied to conservative because of its religious roots, but even that is debatable. Women throughout history regardless of religion have been having abortions. I believe it simply to be your own belief that really should not be attached to a political process.
As war is always a political process, the comparison isn't really fair is it? and I really, really hope that you are not referring to the war on Iraq because there is just too much refuting evidence to continue to believe we were justified in invading Iraq in the guise that we were defending ourselves.
How can you be pro-choice in the voice of war knowing that the very nature of it kills more people than abortion ever could? Just the war in Iraq alone has probably killed more people than the abortions in the United States in the past 100 years.
Makes no sense to me.
Looking backward instead of forward is
nm
Once source we can look forward to where
the war chest. It's time to stop rebuilding Iraq and enricing their surplus coffers, get out of dodge, bring our troops back home and start rebuilding our own country. I would look for that from Obama sooner rather than later and certainly he is not on that 100-year time line of McCain's. The Iraqis gets their country back and get to govern themselves, we get our troops back, the direction of the tax dollars gets reversed and we stop one of the unspoken, yet most significant economic hemorrhages of W's administration.
We then turn our attention toward reversing the power and economic stranglehold the corporations hold over us by instituting taxpayer-friendly policies that put corporate welfare behind the welfare of our citizens. We build an economy from the ground up instead of the top down. Sound familiar? We've done it before and we can do it again. Once we do that, W's legacy of fear and division will takes its rightful place in annals of history and seem like just another bad dream we all had.
Ho hum, lost me after second paragraph
x
Your last sentence of the third paragraph was just as...sm
uncalled for, I believe, and untrue.
Going forward would be a blessing.
Just give the man a chance. He was vetted inside out before he got to the Senate. He was then vetted even more before he was elected by the majority of Americans.
He is NOT a terrorist. His interests lie in helping the middle class, not in continuing the corporate welfare and helping the rich get richer, as has been going on for the last eight years.
We are in a SERIOUS economic crisis right now. That "trickle down" theory simply isn't working because the richest and greediest at the top simply AREN'T allowing anything to trickle down. They outsource our jobs so they can hire cheaper labor to get even richer.
Unlike Bush, Obama wants to give financial incentives to small businesses for keeping our jobs IN America. That just might help many medical transcriptionists in the USA.
The constant jabs and stabs at his character are reflective of the smear tactics employed by the McCain campaign, and most people saw past it and rejected that tactic.
Worse yet, the constant flaming of him and suggesting he's a terrorist is doing nothing but practically insuring that his safety is in jeopardy. If he survives long enough to take the oath of office and begin to do his job, I'll be his toughest critic if he doesn't deliver on the promises he made.
We've had EIGHT LONG YEARS of constant fear mongering, and Americans are tired of it. I realize there is reason to be fearful of terrorists, but Obama is NOT a terrorist, as he's been portrayed on this board. He's a Christian, not a Muslim, as he's been portrayed on this board. He wants CLEAN COAL and wants to find technology to support that so the coal industry can continue to exist, and he is supported by the United Mine Workers of America (contrary to what has been alleged on this board). He is encouraging public service in exchange for help with the costs of college (and will NOT FORCE it on everyone, as has been alleged on this board).
Most of an article was copied and pasted here yesterday about some congressman from Georgia being fearful that Obama is a Marxist because he thought a civilian force to help protect us was a good idea. One small paragraph of that article was DELETED, and that was the fact that BUSH SUPPORTED THIS.
As it is now, under Bush, we have the military in place in America, ready for ???? in case we the people become uncivilized. We have Bush and Paulson buying banks. We've had a "redistribution" of wealth for the last eight years that has benefited the richest of the rich. We, the people, are paying trillions of dollars to bail out institutions that continue to party on our dime, institutions that continue to give multi-million dollar bonuses to crooked executives, while more and more Americans become jobless. It's been reported that 47 million people don't have health insurance. Just keep in mind that with each job lost, there is a high probability that health insurance is lost, as well, since many people can't afford exorbitant COBRA payments.
Obama wants to help every American afford healthcare. This is especially relevant for me, as someone with an incurable disease and no health insurance, which I had to voluntarily terminate when my monthly premiums rose to 50% of my gross annual income.
These are the issues that are important to people. Either way, Barack Obama was duly elected by the majority of Americans, and he will be our President -- unless the hostility towards him grows so hateful that any chance he may have had will simply be extinguished, and if that happens, it will be because of some of the rhetoric going on in this country that is reflected on this board.
I don't see him as some sort of "Messiah." I see him as a biracial man who is the product of a union that wasn't even legal in some states just a few years before he was born. He has a perspective that is unique in that he has lived both a white and a black life.
In my opinion, he represents a little bit of the very best in most of us. It would be hard to see that, though, after reading the hostile comments on this board, some of them inflammatory opinions, and some of them copied and pasted articles (with portions of content removed that might be viewed as favorable to him, as in the case of the Georgia congressman yesterday).
If you're better off than you were eight years ago, then you're an anomaly because the country as a whole is in much worse shape. I trust Barack Obama. I don't trust hateful rhetoric -- rhetoric that is reckless and result in devastation for this country. We've been divided, by design, for the last eight years. It's time for us to come together.
Can we just give him a chance -- PLEASE -- for the sake of our country and for the sake of our children and their future? You just might be pleasantly surprised at the sunshine that might peek through all those dark clouds that reside in your hearts and minds, if you allow yourself to see it.
Forward her emails to me, please.
Thanks.
Moderator
I like this paragraph in your post....
'For the most part I will find people who live in other countries and are observing what is going on here to be a lot more credible because they do not have an agenda.'
Right, and they are more objective as they are far away from it all.
Thanks. Very much looking forward to reading more of your views.
In one paragraph you have not only told me more than I ever wanted to know.
You have outlined and described in perfect detail the problem with why your arguments can never be recognized as anything but dividing. Gt, believe me, this is not all about you, which it always seems to end up being about in your posts. The fact that you refuse, not fail, but refuse to accept anything, any explanation, any single example of the image you project as well as your close-minedness, is illustrated in every post that you make.
I agree with the assessment in the last paragraph.sm
They will use kiddie porn and so-called domestic terrorism to limit our use of the Internet. Everything is greatly exaggerated to induce fear, and then you will allow them to slice up more of your liberties.
Yes, and regarding that final paragraph re: Iran
Seymour Hersh has yet to get it wrong, no matter how much the King George and his men attack.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060821fa_fact
So, you look forward to paying for more social
xx
Me too, MS....I look forward to all who are speaking tonight.
Guiliani is speaking, Huckabee....though I am not a Republican, I have to admire them. When one of theirs has some issues that they disagree on (like Guiliani being pro choice), they don't excommunicate and demonize them. MUCH more democratic party than the Democratic party.
That is good. I look forward to seeing how she speaks and...sm
how knowledgable she is when answering unscripted questions or delivering a speech.
looking forward to Friday's debate
can hardly wait.
Funny. Not ONE pub has stepped forward
x
I'll step forward.......
I have two choices here, more taxes or no more taxes. Now, in light of the current situation that will now tax us more, before all this, Obama has not been shy about taxing, taxing, taxing, to pay for all his little social programs, which for the most part are jokes. And for those that don't believe this is a racial issue, think again. He came out punching at first, spouting all his plans for more social programs, more this, more that, bigger government, and that means higher taxes for all...all except those that don't pay taxes in the first place and live off the government, which he is well aware of and aware that these same people usually don't vote but he is going after them with everything he's got, including ACORN, because he doesn't care how he gets their vote, just that he gets it.
McCain has directly said he will not add more taxes, he wants smaller government, less government interference in our lives. As it should be. The government's main role is to basically run a military to protect this country, not to tax its citizens.
Obama has said nothing about smaller government, less government interference in our lives but instead has said just the opposite. Now, I understand with so many voting for him that already need someone to tell them what to do, how to feel, how to think, etc., that won't be a far stretch to believe that the government is their friend and ally, but sadly enough he likes it that way.
I don't particularly care for either one of them. Ron Paul would have done it for me, but with what I am left with, I choose between less government or more government. More government = more taxes !!!!! You can't argue that point.
Where is he planning to get this money. Well, he has spouted the fact that bringing our troops home will free up that money to be put here......I'll believe it when I see it. If he ever gets his hands on that kind of money, he will have blown it on more social programs and babysitting programs for lazy parents, who suck the blood out of my paycheck in the first place, all for the sake of making their children smarter. Pleeeeeze.....the only thing that will make anyone's child smarter is having a parent that gives a d*mn in the first place, not more taxes thrown at the problem. You don't need more taxes to read to your child, put a book in the home (hey, the library is free), talk to your child instead of the ususal phrases of condemnation I hear around here, make sure they do their homework, basically just be involved. No one needs to pay more taxes to get that.
More social programs = socialization of a country. But, for those that believe he will save them from themselves, Obama is loving it. Because these are the same people that freak out at the thought of thinking for themselves, not being dependent on the government for their lives.
Thanks for the head's up. Look forward to watching
bury this one in the trash right where it belongs...under the rotting fish.
If you are all about moving forward, why dont you
nm
Here's your answer, 1st paragraph, 2nd line.
...Parade Magazine ASKED the President-elect, who is also a devoted family man, to get personal and tell us what he wants for his children.
He didn't take out an ad in the newspaper. He simply answered a simple question posed to him by a reporter on assignment. If you had taken the time to read more carefully and weren't in such a hurry to slam the man, you might have noticed that.
There was nothing superficial about his response. In fact, the only superficial thing around here is your post.
That would be great but one paragraph has me a bit leary.
"The announcement comes less than a month after the world's largest maker of microprocessors used in personal computers said it would close plants in Southeast Asia and scale back U.S. operations under a restructuring that affects as many as 6,000 employees."
What do they know? Are they afraid O is going to put extra taxes on businesses that do business overseas (which I hope), or are they being smart? Sorry if my sarcasm shows, but this will still affect 6,000 jobs in the U.S.? Why? Need to do some digging here.
The paragraph about early retirement
That's where DH is. Forced to retire because of no work (road construction). The stimulus money went to 2 cities in my state. The rest of the state got nothing towards road construction or very little.
We didn't get last year's stimulus check because we owed taxes and they put the money towards that. Now he's getting screwed out of the $250 because he wasn't retired when this happened. Never fails.
Remember that cartoon of the guy always under the grey cloud? That's us. 
Your last paragraph is absolutely correct.
The UN is definitely weak. It could be because of some of the countries that belong to it have the same ideas as Iran and NK.
I wonder when the UN is going to pay up on their lease for the NY building they occupy. Probably never because they think they are above reproach.
Once again you wasted a whole paragraph telling me how stupid I am SM
without a SINGLE FACT! I give up with you. You are just too much (or too little). Whateva!
Then why don't we make a pact from this moment forward?
We will stay off your board if you stay off ours. Do you agree or not?
Your 2nd paragraph is complete and utter nonsense. sm
You wrote: 'Besides, a lot of atheists who try to disprove that God ever existed will usually come to the conclusion that there is too much evidence to prove that He does exist. It usually scares the you know what out of them and they become converts.'
And you know this how? I would say show me the evidence to back up this ridiculous claim, but I already know you have none. It's your opinion/religious propaganda, and it's blantantly false. You also have it backwards. You're implying people start out being athiest, then convert to religion. It's the other way around, when religious or secular people start questioning all the improbable/impossible things the bible is overflowing with, in addition to all of its inconsistenties and outright contradictions.
Forgive me if I doubt that you're an expert on athiests, and forgive me if I doubt your critical thinking skills, because religion frowns upon that - you're not supposed to question god or think for yourself, just obey his commands, or should I say, various human interpretations of his commands...
If there was indeed
'too much evidence to prove that He does exist' then everyone would believe in him. How could anyone deny it? They couldn't. But that's just it, there is no evidence to prove it, whereas there actually IS scientific evidence to the contrary, that you apparently are unaware of or haven't investigated.
Instead, you're willing to believe something based only on 'faith.' In every other area of your life where you'd want or even *demand* facts, proof, or concrete evidence before believing something so important, with religion (some) people are all too willing to blindly accept it on faith.
BTW, an athiest doesn't have to DISprove god (you can't prove a negative, anyway), you have to prove that he *does* exist, and you can't. And wouldn't you think if he really existed, he would prove it to the entire world's satisfaction anyway and put an end to the debate and all the relious wars, conflict, genocide, misery, suffering, etc? He'd rather we kill each over it? I think not. It makes no sense.
You also wrote: 'You can say all you want, but you just can't argue with a completely changed life'
Yes, I can argue it. You changed your life because *you* wanted to change it. You! Not some mystical, magical, invisible being in the sky who cares about your every thought and action. People change their lives for the better every day, without religion. IMO, if you hadn't found religion, you would've kept looking until you found something else that worked for you, and it probably would've been a lot healthier than the brainwashing, closed-minded, divisive phenomenon that is religion.
Fantastic speech -looking forward for the debate
nm
a spokesman for M/P issued the last paragraph so not sure how reliable
that would be. Odd how they added it at the end but did not say if it was a fact. It was supposed to be an investigative article. There is no way of knowing if that is fact, it is only what the McCain people say is true.
Cannot trust anyone it seems.
Anytime he's on-camera and turns forward
very often)... and anyone can see it. His left jaw/cheek or whatever sticks out like a chipmunk with an acorn in his cheek. I was just wondering if that's where his cancer was.
Thanks Nanaw. Guess the poster looks forward to
nm
Only the open minded and forward thinking
There isn't anything he can do about narrow-minded, self-righteous divisionists. Obama has won over the educated majority of the entire world.
You can't make this stuff up...Looking forward to a *whiter* NO???see article
HUD chief foresees a 'whiter' Big Easy
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 30, 2005
A Bush Cabinet officer predicted this week that New Orleans likely will never again be a majority black city, and several black officials are outraged.
Alphonso R. Jackson, secretary of housing and urban development, during a visit with hurricane victims in Houston, said New Orleans would not reach its pre-Katrina population of 500,000 people for a long time, and it's not going to be as black as it was for a long time, if ever again.
Rep. Danny K. Davis, Illinois Democrat and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, quickly took issue.
Anybody who can make that kind of projection with some degree of certainty or accuracy must have a crystal ball that I can't see or maybe they are more prophetic than any of us can imagine, he said.
Other members of the caucus said the comments by Mr. Jackson, who is black, could be misconstrued as a goal, particularly considering his position of responsibility in the administration.
I would beg and hope that the secretary, if that is what he is saying, would re-evaluate the situation, said Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Democrat.
Mr. Jackson, whose remarks were reported by the Houston Chronicle, said New Orleans might reach a population of 375,000 people sometime late next year with a black population of about 40 percent at the highest, down from 67 percent before Hurricane Katrina sent a storm surge that overwhelmed New Orleans levees and flooded 80 percent of the city.
The population of New Orleans before Katrina was a little less than 500,000, surrounded by large, predominantly white suburbs. The largely black Ninth Ward and the predominantly white middle-class Lakeview section near Lake Pontchartrain were overwhelmed by floodwaters.
Mr. Jackson, a former developer and longtime government housing official, said the history of urban reconstruction projects shows that most blacks will not return and others who want to might not have the means or opportunity. His agency will play a critical role in the city's redevelopment through various grant programs, including those for damaged or destroyed properties.
In the storm's aftermath, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rep. Maxine Waters, California Democrat, charged that relocating evacuees across the country was racist and designed to move black people, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic, out of Louisiana. The state elected its first Republican senator, David Vitter, in nearly a century in 2004.
Both the preacher and the congresswoman suggested that the residents be housed at the closed England Air Force Base at Alexandria, La., to keep them closer to home.
Rep. Bobby L. Rush, Illinois Democrat, said Alphonso Jackson's remarks and the prospects of real-estate speculators and developers in New Orleans are foreboding.
oops - one paragraph made NO sense of mine..sm
That's not to say that they are not entitled to feel what they feel and they are entitled to their opinions/voice..even though I just reread my post and it could be interpreted that way (and sorry for that) -
(above is the corrected paragraph - sorry *lol*)
This paragraph is in my post...I guess you forgot to read it...nm
Actualy, my cut-and-past job didn't miss the first paragraph
but appreciate your selective reading. Nice name, BTW.
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