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intaglio's Journal
Go form a message board called "Progressive Underground" if they cannot stay with the Democratic Party? Though this may sound like snark it is a serious point because of the UK experience.
Back in the bad old days of the 1980s and 1990s the UK was governed by a Conservative Party was able to move further and further to the right because of an ineffectual Labour Party that had surrendered to its extreme left wing at an organising level, and to inept or venal representatives on elected bodies. The reason for this ineffectiveness was that only the extremists were willing to do the hard work of organising because there were never any tangible results in the way of power, the inept representative were in place because they were harmless and the venal ones because they were corrupt and corrupting. Then along came John Smith, who began to change the old party and bring it back into the heart of politics.
John did this by embracing values nearer the centre and shutting down the noisy rhetoric from the far left wing, yet despite this John kept the left with the party and kept the party on the left. Because of John's sterling work Labour again became a competitive political party - but then he died and his place was taken by Anthony Charles Lynton Blair and the "New Labour" project. The Left resigned and moved into a multitude of minuscule campaigns. This moved the party into the centre right ground abdicated by the Conservative party whilst limiting the Labour social agenda.
This relates to the current problems of the Democratic Party because your "John Smith" has been elected President. Please do not think that Dr John Dean was your equivalent, for his British mirror is the much maligned and deeply underestimated Neil Kinnock; you even have a parallel Tony Benn in Dennis Kucinich.
OK, enough with the parallels - how does this relate to the current problems faced by people on this board? It relates because if the left separates itself from the main body of the Democratic Party it will allow centrists and deep right wingers more room to operate, again leaving the left isolated.
Why should the left separate? Is it because, for the first time in US history, there is a Healthcare bill which admits the principle that US citizens should have healthcare as a right? Remember however flawed this bill is it is this principle which is important not the flim-flammery that attracts the left wing ire.
Should the Left separate because the President has failed to initiate all of the policies they prefer instantly? Well, sorry, but in President Obama's view he cannot act in that dictatorial manner. Read "The Audacity of Hope" because in that book President Obama makes it clear that he is a constitutionalist who believes in the 3 arms of government. He may be head of state but his job is not making laws, for that is the role of Congress; nor should he judge the constitutionality of laws, for that is the ambit of the Courts. I believe from reading, that the President sees his job as the governance of the executive, the directing of policy and protecting the Constitution.
What role is left for the Left? Should they pick up their toys and leave, which will just allow right wing Democrats to pull the party to the right? Or should they stay and do what they do best, organising and working for more progressive Congressmen. The left must nurture the roots of the party, ensure that the RW are challenged at the Primary stage and, if necessary, removed. If the left accomplish this then the agenda of the left will, eventually, be fulfilled.
This is a story of heroism, ethics and compassion. In 1938 a Briton called Nicholas Winton heard of the invasion of the Sudetenland by Nazi governed Germany. Instead of going on holiday to Switzerland he went to Czechoslovakia and saw for himself the terrible distress of the refugees. From The Independent newspaper (link below) Winton immediately started raising money and organising trains to save the children, and on his return to Britain began finding homes and organising visas for them, all while holding down his day job in London. Word of Winton's audacious plan quickly spread throughout Prague. When he returned to the Czech capital and set up office in his hotel room on Wenceslas Square, long queues soon formed outside of parents who would plead with him to take their children to Britain.
"Those parents were desperate – it was heartbreaking to listen to their stories," Winton, now Sir Nicholas Winton, recalled in a 2007 interview. "They knew all too well what their fate was likely to be. Their first thought was for the little ones. Never themselves. Practically all those parents perished in the camps."
Between March and August 1939, eight Winton trains carried 669 children – most of them Jewish – to safety in Britain. Seventy years on, as the steam train whistled its impending departure, they recalled parents telling them that they were just going on a short holiday, the excitement of the older children and the bewilderment of the younger ones. They remembered their strange first impressions of Britain, spitting out a first sip of milky tea and their wonder at white sliced bread. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/eu... Today many of those children, now elderly, will begin a journey by steam train to the UK where they will be greeted on arrival by Sir Nicholas Winton
Whenever there is another gun outrage in the US I am accustomed to seeing the same arguments being rehashed by the proponents and opponents of gun control. Being British I am generally on the side of those who want stronger gun control, as you might expect, but being reasonable I can see that there are huge obstacles to such control in the US. Given my general equanimity on this matter I find it surprising that my dander can be got up by one particularly meretricious attack used by the pro-gun group against their opponents. This attack always follows the use of the term “automatic” and takes the form that the weapon used was not or could not be automatic but was, rather, semi-automatic. Firstly this is a false distinction but used by the pro-gun group to say the the news organisation, blog or DU poster who uses it knows nothing about guns. The counter argument, rarely deployed, is the the pro-gun supporter using it knows little about English. The true distinction is between semi-automatic and fully automatic weapons; the term automatic on its own means both. Next, the point will be raised that automatic weapons (i.e. fully automatic handguns) cannot be sold to private citizens of the USA and that the conversion of semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic ones is also illegal. Well I am sure that I am missing something when I believe that any extreme right wing, left wing or criminal group will, of course, refuse to honour this law. The final argument deployed is that it is incredibly difficult to modify a legal semi-automatic weapon to an illegal fully automatic one. One person even wrote that he was an armourer and that such conversions would require a fully fitted machine shop with CNC mills and lathes. This is a lie. There are many proofs of this but I will satisfy myself with 3. Firstly let me introduce DU to the craftsmen of Darra Adam Khel. This is a township in the Northwest Frontier of Pakistan and for centuries the gunsmiths of this town have been copying the finest weapons of East and West. This is a tradition they are happy to keep up using little more than old fashioned lathes and mills, good eyesight and engineering files. You can read more about them on the net but the Wikipedia page is pretty good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darra_Adam_Kh... . Secondly, presumably because the US has such poor engineers of the old fashioned variety (this is very heavy sarcasm), you can see that a CNC lathe would cost a huge amount. Well not really, read about home made CNC devices here http://hacknmod.com/hack/build-your-own-di... / as well as many other places on the internet. Lastly a very brief search found several US and Canadian sites that outlined how to convert AK47 and similar weapons to fully automatic fire using little more than a $100 pillar drill, there is even one that advises that you can use a twist tie for the same effect. OK, I have finished my little rant and no doubt I will be roundly attacked for it. Feel free but those of you against gun control please do not use falsehood and condescension against your opponents.
I have just posted a fairly long reply to a Hillary supporter I generally respect. This person wondered why there was so much nastiness posted about Hillary and her supporters here. Well I just started typing and this came all came out. I think that with a little modification it deserves a wider audience. Well, you asked for it why is there so much posted that attacks Hillary? Why are her supporters looked on with so much mistrust and ridicule? If you look at the list below perhaps you may garner a glimmer of the reasons, the biggest of which seems to be duplicity. ==================================================== She did bring up the racial issue. Even if you go along with the contention that the Obama campaign mentioned it first then there was still no reason for first Bill, then Geraldine Ferraro then Hillary herself to actually commit and compound the offense. Her Campaign has cried "sexism" over every minor idiosyncrasy of the English Language - "Periodically" and "Claws" for example -then committed actual acts of sexism in respect of men and women who do not support her. She did sign the agreement over Florida and Michigan, she also went further and stated outright that she did not believe the votes in Michigan would count at the convention. Her campaign has vetoed solutions agreed by the DNC with FL and MI. She did mention that Pledged delegates do not have to stay with their pledge; although, ironically, the only pledged delegate to follow that advice at present has been a Clinton delegate. She has squandered a massive lead in fund raising and her campaign is hugely in debt. She has been abysmal in selecting her senior staff - Patti Solis Doyle and Mark Penn specifically. She did lie, and lie repeatedly, about Bosnia. She has never apologized for her IWR vote; John Edwards did, Hillary Clinton has not. She did favourably compare McCain to Obama. She does do conference calls with the Blogosphere to coordinate attacks on "Obama friendly" sites She has just reminded every goofball and nutcase that candidates have been assassinated prior to the convention before. She has raised this ridiculous "popular vote" idea and then manipulated the numbers until (in her mind) she is ahead. and last, but by no means least ... There are the nauseous Hillary booster sites such as Hillary is 44 which do nothing but raise the specious talking points that are currently favoured by her campaign. ==================================================== I agree that there are many petty minded Obama supporters (even myself at times) but even I have tried peacemaking and have been attacked for it by Clinton Boosters. That I could ignore but then I saw how EVERY approach made by Obama supporters was similarly greeted with ridicule, it seems in fact that many Clinton Supporters do not wish for peace to break out here because that would not suit their purpose. I strongly suspect that every other site that does not openly support Hillary is attacked in the same way (look at the sheer vitriol posted here about KOS, Huffpo and TYT). Such attacks here serve 2 purposes; firstly they put out a view that the posters wish to establish as a perceived truth, and secondly they encourage attacks from normally reasonable members who oppose this view. The disruptors then claim victimhood and seek sympathy from less aggressive board members. These tactics are not easily countered on an open board such as this, for banning the offenders (except for the most egregious offenses) allows them to claim "censorship" by the Board Admin. An outbreak of peace would undermine this tactic and allow Admin to be more free in the tombstones it delivers. Given all of this, and I suspect more, do you really wonder why peoples gorge rises with every passing day. Can you not see why Hillary is castigated as much as she is? Could it be that in addition to "not getting Obama" you do not get the small minded viciousness of the Clinton Campaign and the surrogates who post here so often? If you cannot "get" this point then are you a Clinton supporter - or an agent of the Clinton Campaign? /edit for poor souls with tiny monitors 
Again and again I have seen supporters of Sen. Clinton say something on the lines of "Obama would be doomed in the GE - Americans will not vote for him,". Well again I must ask those who support Sen. Clinton to tell me how she can escape the following problems without being annihilated in the GE. I view these problems as being so large they might even affect the Congressional races and forfeit Democratic control of House and Senate.
I post these items in no real hopes that any of Sen. Clinton's supporters posting anything substantive in reply (they never have in the past) but rather to raise in the minds of the uncommitted the idea that Sen. Clinton's campaign would be a disaster of the first water for the US and it's allies.
My first two items are well known
1) Hillary has far bigger negatives attached to her candidacy than Obama. This translates as more people actively dislike Sen. Clinton and would never vote for her.
2) Hillary is the candidate the GOP has planned for for the past two years, they know how to challenge her and what to expect from her campaign.
My next points bring into play the manner of her "victory" at the Democratic Convention. Remember that the only way she can win is if the Superdelegates overturn the popular Democratic vote and Obama's larger number of pledged delegates. This would be seen, rightly or wrongly, as the triumph of the dirty machine politics of the past.
3) She would ensure - no matter what Barrack Obama said - that many non-partisan people of colour would either not vote or vote for the opposition. Note I do not say "Democrats" but "non-partisan"
4) She would alienate the young people who Obama has brought into the political process - and they will likely depart. Note I do not say "Democrats" but again mean the non-partisan young adults who, prior to Obama's candidacy, have viewed the political process as being outside their control.
5) Some, if not many, Obama campaign workers would not work for a Clinton Campaign so she would have to set up her own, new, organisation. I do not say they will not vote just that they will feel unable to work for someone they will feel has won unethically.
6) Her "victory" at the Democratic Convention would also lead to the ousting of the successful 50 state strategists in favour of the failed DLC apparatchiks; ie "Goodbye John Dean"
Now we come to specific campaign problems
7) Hillary cannot play her "Experience" card vs McCain, because he has more experience; nor can she raise problems with McCain's age as that tends to play badly for women vs men (I know it is wrong but the attitude exists)
8) Her known "mis-speaking" regarding Bosnia, Northern Ireland, MLK etc, etc would make Sen. Clinton a laughing stock vs McCain.
9) Sen Clinton cannot attack McCain on the grounds of "unsuitability" as she has already praised McCain as a viable presidential choice.
10) There would be constant airplay of past scandals - with the GOP media claiming that it is not biased it just shows how resiliency of Sen. Clinton
11) All of the new scandals about her donors (Hsu and many others) would be raked over and many of the old donor scandals would again receive airtime.
12) Hillary cannot escape her past support of Nafta and Cafta nor can she deny hat her husband and many other of her advisors are still in favour of these deals. In addition her campaign has shown just as many connections to the Columbian free trade initiative
13) The problems that Sen.Clinton has had within her campaign staff, plus her inability to plan beyond her original strategy will raise massive doubts about her claim to be "ready on day one,"
14) Her campaign finance problems will force her onto the defensive with regard to managing the budget of the USA. All the GOP needs to do is to ask "Can you trust her with your tax dollars?"
15) If Healthcare is brought into play then the GOP will just point out the disastrous failure of Hillary's first attempt at such legislation.
16) The GOP will raise questions about (fake) "Constitutional Difficulties" with chance that Bill not Hillary would be the real power in the White House; remember in the last months of the Roosevelt Presidency it has been said that Eleanor was actually in charge.
Although I have said I do not expect any answers to these problems, it would be a pleasant surprise to receive some. There are intelligent Clinton supporters out there and they will need to find answers if the worst comes to the worst and Hillary does receive the nomination.
In the past day I have seen many posts from supporters of the Clinton Campaign that have sought to denigrate and belittle one of the few defenders of Democratic values in the public arena, Keith Olbermann. Accusations of bias, sexism, irrelevance and egoism have all been thrown at this man. There have been requests that the Clinton campaign take him to court - there is probably more but I truly cannot stomach the double standards - the bigotry - of these attacks.
You have ask "is this different from the Olbermann who defended Hillary back in summer last year? Or a different Olbermann to the defender of Bill? To the Olbermann who many here praised for taking an supine congress to task and who was lauded for speaking truth to power (with no dissent on this board) when he criticised Bush or others of the dynastic cabal that has been ruling the US?" and of course it is not.
I am beginning to see the supporters of Clinton as blind, lobotomised fools who cannot accept their heroine has feet of clay and the electoral tactics of a weasel. These automata must truly really believe that this politician they idolise is perfect and without any fault. Can they not see that in their attempts to justify their continued support of this crippled losers campaign they are also justifying the machine politics that has nearly destroyed the Democratic Party.
The political machine can subvert the convention and has given indications of how it will try to do so. The appeal to Superdelegates shows that they will receive bounteous favours similar to those offered by previous presidencies - with the added assurance that having a previous president promising them can give. That is bad enough but I suspect that the observation that committed delegates can "change their minds" means that inducements will be offered to Obama Delegates to change their support. This sort of corruption of the party will lead to it's collapse and, possibly, worse.
Earlier I said that machine politics has nearly destroyed the Democratic Party but left out the other part of my belief, that machine politics will also destroy the USA. I will be accused of hyperbole (and the usual sexism, hatred etc etc ad infinitum) but I think it is truly the case. A Clinton candidacy this autumn will destroy the Democratic party; if she loses the election the Democratic party will be seen as unelectable and will loosed funding and relevance unless they become "leibermen" DINO's; if by some miracle (or fix) she wins, she will ensure the dominance of the DLC and the the "liebermaning" of the party. In either of those events the conservatives will have won the political argument and Corporatism will have supplanted democracy.
/edit spelling
Many people have posed the question "Why the hate?" that has appeared. Well last night, my time I was posting an answer to a post regarding Obama when, out of the blue, a reason for at least part of the hate appeared. That reason, of course is fear. this fear applies to both camps of DU partisans.
And what is that fear? It is the fear of losing the Presidential election.
Obama supporters who hate Hillary see her as meaning more Democratic Leadership Convention, more ignoring states that don't matter, more triangulation, more microtrend analysis, more division. They see her campaign is dull, pedantic, negative and ultimately weak. They do not see someone who has survived smears beforehand but someone who has still accepted support from crooks like Hsu and the whole turkish connection.
Where the Clinton campaigners see their support of Hillary as reasonable, Obama supporters see blind advocacy of a supposedly experienced candidate who has failed to show one ounce of initiative or foresight and whose troubles are of her own making eg not being in charge of her own campaign.
All of this leads Obama supporters to think that Hillary's campaign is fatally flawed and ultimately a losing one.
On the other side Clinton supporters are equally fearful of the loss of the Presidency by a campaign that they characterise as a cult. They know that the only truly successful presidency for the Democratic Party in forty years was the Clinton presidency. Obama is seen by them as flawed, all words and no substance, tainted by his Chicago contacts and above all inexperienced.
Thus the Clinton supporters see Obama's campaign as fatally flawed and ultimately losing.
The two groups of the terrified fall into insults and counter insults. Those favouring Hillary charge sexism (which has been in a few posts), blind faith, foolishness, lying and gloating. Obama's supporters counter with racism, assumed superiority, self deception and lying. In this battle of fear and insult there is little that can reconcile the groups. Fear driven hate consumes them to the extent that neither side can rationally examine their own beliefs or the true strengths of the candidates campaigns and the true weaknesses
Faced with this it is essential to choose honest brokers who can break the deadlock. I do not pretend to be such a broker as I have posted far too often in defense of Obama and while I might believe I am "honest" in this sense I doubt that I could be seen as such by the Clinton supporters. I can and will post my views in future and will end this little journal entry by writing some comparisons.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Corruption
Rezko and others vs Hsu and others - advantage to no-one. Shouldn't some DUer check out McCain's sleazy connections? On the other hand because Obama has published his tax returns early and because Hillary is sticking to precedent she has left the impression that she is having to "clean up" her accounts - advantage Obama
Experience
Hillary is older and has been around politics for longer but her actual record is very weak; Obama has had less interaction with politics in the "big league" but his achievements in that time are at least as great as Hillary's. The problem is that because Hillary has been round longer there is more folklore about her and a lot of this is denigrating - advantage Obama
War
A real problem. Hillary cannot escape the fact that she did vote for the IWR and she did not vote for Leahy's amendment. Obama was not in the Senate at this time but his objections to the IWR are on record. On the other hand both Hillary and Obama voted for funding for the troops; a decision that has all the marks of being politically convenient, for both can say they support the troops even though they are against the war. This issue is a marginal advantage to Obama
The Campaigns
Obama's really big advantage because of what he has done to what was believed to be the "top predator" in the Democratic Party. However it happened, Obama is front runner and Hillary is left playing catch-up. Hillary has a campaign team that failed her and left her short of money. She has had to "go negative" early - Advantage Obama
The Policies
From what I can make out there is actually very little difference between the two - no advantage to either.
Some of you may realise that I am a Brit and may wonder why I have been inserting myself into this debate. The truth is, as always, a mixture. some of it is because politics is the best blood sport there is BUT most is because I see a party in turmoil because of two excellent candidates. To explain this I will have to offer some biography, please read the whole thing.
I have been a left winger for nearly all my life and voted either Liberal or Labour with one exception (which I regretted, 1982). For most of that time I watched as the Labour movement destroyed itself with internecine struggles whilst the Conservative Party gained more and more power. Then, in the early 1990's, a new Labour leader was elected; not Tony Blair but John Smith. It was he who pulled the unraveling threads together, he who defused the old, unrepentant communists and he who prepared the ground for further reforms that would see the Labour Party again electable. Then on 12th May 1994 I turned on the radio and heard of his death.
The shock was total. Here was a man who had lead me to hope that we might, again, have a government that did more than pay lip service to the idea of community, caring and equality, and he had died two or three years before he could achieve the prize. In addition to the sorrow was anger and fear; always closely linked; that the party he lead would again dissolve into factionalism. Instead Tony Blair came along.
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was in many ways the complete antithesis of John Smith; cosmopolitan, debonair, charming and facile as opposed to beguiling, traditional, direct and hardnosed. Blair maneuvered himself into leadership with diplomacy and a barely hidden assassins knife. He was not my choice, Gordon Brown was my favourite, but when they formed an alliance I began to see the advantages.
It will not be apparent to most Americans how effective the years before 9/11 the Blair/Brown partnership was:
1) they saved the National Health Service, not in a way I thought ideal but tolerable;
2) they brought the UK budget under control;
3) they gave us strength within Europe
and most importantly
4) began the Northern Ireland peace process and made it successful by enlisting Bill Clinton and the US Congressional help.
Things seemed great; yes, there were a few scandals a few million going this way and that a few dubious lords, but nothing compared to historical levels. Then there was Bush and 9/11 and that changed everything.
Suddenly Blair became a war maker not a peacemaker. I firmly believe that part of it was quid pro quo for the US help with Northern Ireland but there are persistent voices in my head saying that Blair's urgency to support the US invasion of Afghanistan was because someone whispered how easy it would be to start supporting the Provisional IRA again. Afghanistan was fine but then the drumbeat for war in Iraq began with Tony Blair not reluctant but positively urging this ridiculous adventure. It is at this point that I think I begin to feel the pain of the Hillary Clinton supporters.
Tony Blair stopped being a hero. He stopped doing things for the country, more and more he seemed to be tied into a corrupt and stifling system. His ability to seem a modernist Labour leader reacting positively to events transmuted into defensiveness, panicked reaction and smear. More and more he relied on advisors and less and less upon his party and now you begin to see why I might feel some of the pain of Hillary's supporters.
Now let me offer some hope.
I began this, my 1000th post by referring to John Smith. When he challenged for the Labour leadership the party was barely holding together under Neil Kinnock, a much maligned man but he had stopped the fragmentation - in the same way glue repairs a broken plate, the cracks were still there and one day they would open again. John Smith came along and the old guard hated him; newer members were worried that the fragile old party would fall apart without the old glue meister. John had one huge advantage Neil had repeatedly shown himself to be unelectable, he had even lost an election to that joke Conservative John Major. It is true that Neil was tried and tempered against the terrible Conservative attack machine but he remained vulnerable to it and without broad support. Luckily enough people saw this and defied fear to appoint John as party leader and that broken old plate, the Labour Party began to heal.
Then on the 12th of May 1994 the UK lost the best leader it never had and eventually we ended up with Tone the Poodle. Hillary is your Neil, competent effective but not inspiring, Barrack is your John. Your John Smith is still alive, please do not take your party down the path of destruction for, if you loose him now, you will open yourselves to a more destructive politics.
When the people of the United Kingdom remember the fallen in wars. Originally it was meant to remind us, after the Great War, never again to indulge in the terrible slaughter that science, industry and unthinking patriotism can unleash. Because of this original intent Remembrance day is not marked by huge parades with carnival floats, fireworks and self congratulation; but rather with a somber march past of the military, from past and present; the laying of funeral wreaths of poppies at the Cenotaph in London and at the small, local war memorials you find throughout this United Kingdom. Because humans find it so hard to learn that pious intent to avoid further war fell by the wayside and more names have been added due to the wars that followed. The small, wayside memorials tell more about the effect of the first and second world wars on the communities who had them erected than any histories. In tiny hamlets sometimes only two or three names are recorded of common soldiers who became uncommon heroes; in villages perhaps a dozen. Many times you will see the same family name repeated and you wonder at the fortitude of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives and children who lost so many of their kin. Then you remember, these memorians were your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. Because of this I wear a poppy, not because of pride, but to remember. I remember the purpose of the memorials and the ceremonies, I almost hear their silent warnings against aggression and pride and false patriotism. I remember but it seems our leaders have forgotten ... WWI started as a mobilisation when a fading empire wanted to look tough and no one had the will, the time or the communications to stop it. WWII, ultimately because a demagogue gained power in Germany and nobody was willing to risk another war to stop him. It may be that WWIII will be (has been?) started by a demagogue in control of a failing empire, if it does begin all of those bloody red poppies will have been wasted. The following verse by Lawrence Binyon is often quoted in full or in part on war memorials They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them. I do, But I also remember the dark old lie Wilfred Owen destroyed in the light of his poetry Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.
GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
A friend on another board just gave me a link http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/lastcomments.... This is mainly full of Christian extremist quotes but does have others. For example "I'm probably going to sound like a fundy, but it just dawned on me that Satan may be actively working to make Christianity look stupid in my eyes. I can't put my finger on it, but I seem to be bombarded with the impression that the faith is moronic and ill-founded, and that Christians are misguided in their thinking. I must steel myself and be more aware of this growing impression in my mind, which is from the devil. " and "LA is burning confinscated firearms to make concrete. I heard this on Jon Caldera, and I called in. Even though the firearms were illegal, and needed a lisence to get them, they could've still been used to sell to legal gun owners. I thought that this was a pure waste of firearms, when I heard the story, I almost cried , firearms are God's gift to the planet.
So, what do you think? Do you think LA should burn those guns to recycle for concrete? and "I'm tired of hearing all of this debate of homosexuality. Why is it even debateable? These people are abominations in the eyes of the Lord; they could change their ways but choose not to. There's no arguement, that's just how it is. We should burn the gays at the stake, it worked in the Inquisition...I don't see any witches around anymore (real witches, not those hippy wiccan imitation witches)." The main page for the site - Fundies Say the Darndest Things - is here http://www.fstdt.com / Enjoy - so to speak
As noted in History News Network http://hnn.us / An article from The Guardian http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/new... I had not noticed this little snippet of news before - and it deserves much wider attention. snip/ Thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Iraq's national library and archive, one of the country's most important cultural institutions, are in peril after the occupation of the building by Iraqi security forces, the library's director said yesterday. snip/ The national library and archive stands on the east bank of the Tigris, close to the old defence ministry, now a military outpost for Iraqi and US troops. The area is a hotbed of insurgent activity. "The reckless actions of the Iraqi forces and the US military, who appear to condone the operation, will put the staff and library and archival collections in real danger," said Mr Eskander (kurdish Historian and Chief of the Library) snip/ No one from the (Iraqi) defence ministry or US military could be reached for comment. National Libraries are a Nations memory and in the case of Baghdad so much more
Anger that a country I admire almost as much as my own has been so degraded by the baleful influence of the Neocons;
Anger that that degradation has so much influence in my own country;
Anger that people I count my friends are so harmed by such a maladministration as rules them now.
Hate? I cannot maintain hate or hating. If I saw Bush drowning I would try to rescue him in spite of the fact I despise him; if Cheney dropped with a heart attack I would administer CPR although I believe him to be a cruel, calculating monster - and in that is the difference between my ideals and theirs
They hate, and feel able to justify any number of deaths because of that hate. I am angry, angry enough to try and fight these selfish apes, angry enough to support others who oppose this heartless regime. Their hatred of the "common man" (an evil term because no human is "common") is such that they wish to rule without check. I like people - though I may not like what they believe - and am angry enough to try and help them against the haters.
Hate is counterproductive, because hate is met by hate and is undirected. Yes, you will hate the regime but you will also hate those you see as supporting the regime in any way. People who hate are also free to fear and fear is what those who would rule you would love you to feel. Hatred and fear allow people to be controlled. Hate and fear have always been the tools of the tyrant. In the case of DU people who maintain their hate also fear; they fear, above all, the continuation of the regime.
I see fear in the attacks by partisans of one or other of the Democratic candidates against the others. These flame fests errupt between people who all want to see an end to the corrupt manipulators currently rulling the USA but are blinded to that simple truth by fear. What is the fear? It goes by many names "DINO", "Corporatist", "Unelectable" any one of the hundreds of insults that fly about; but all it is, is fear. That fear that the people who wish to destroy the America you (and I) love will be able to continue their work.
My antidote to hatred and fear is anger. Anger trumps fear and can be sparked from hate. Anger motivates as much as hatred but is not aimless. A good analogy might be that hate is the wildfire, anger is the fire of the forge; they burn as hot as each other but one destroys the other provides weapons.
Please folks, drop the hating. Hating will destroy you.
From the Register http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/16/an... / It appears that the ban on internet gambling instituted by the US government has been ruled as in breach of the WTO rules and treaties. /snip Antigua brought this case in 2003, primarily as a result of increasing efforts of the United States Department of Justice to prevent Antiguan companies from providing remote gambling and betting and services to consumers in the United States. We had evaluated the legal issues and determined that under the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services (the "GATS"), the United States had made an unrestricted commitment to allow the cross-border trade in gambling and betting services from other WTO members, such as Antigua. Thus, the actions by the DOJ to stop the industry amounted to a violation of an international treaty. and surprise! /snip Unfortunately, from the beginning of the case to the current date, the United States has shown no willingness to compromise at all. So, we have tested them at the WTO through its dispute resolution process and have won at every stage. There is enormous and very complicated history here, but basically as the United States would not compromise we had to prosecute our case, which we had assessed as very sound. Through the smoke and chaff, the WTO has consistently said the United States had agreed to allow these services and by prohibiting them, the United States was in violation of the GATS. The US tried using a defense that said that remote gambling was so evil, bad and immoral that it had to be banned anywhere in the US there was a problem with this /snip Further, something that so many people have not realised but this last panel (edit - of panel of the WTO) finally got right, and that is that federal law doesn't prohibit remote gambling at all - just remote gambling that crosses a state or international border. By leaving states free to have as much intrastate remote gambling as they want, but prohibiting services that cross a border, the federal government cannot possibly say that it prohibits all remote gambling. And, of course, the crossing of a border is, by itself, not a logical basis for discriminating against services. At least not under international law. I wonder what the "New World Order" conspiricy theorists will say about this? |
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