WAR!

Re: WAR!

ddt — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 18:26:07 -0400

Ten years ago, this is what people were saying about those who didn't buy into pro-war arguments: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/behold-the-hatred-resentment-and-mockery-aimed-at-anti-iraq-war-protesters/274230/

ddt

Re: WAR!

El Jeffe — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:49:21 -0500

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El Jeffe
NYT cyber war against Iran - good sources, info

http://nyti.ms/L8062V

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no country’s infrastructure is more dependent on computer systems, and thus more vulnerable to attack, than that of the United States. It is only a matter of time, most experts believe, before it becomes the target of the same kind of weapon that the Americans have used, secretly, against Iran.

For the record, I have previously stated I don't think we will attack (conventional) nor should attack Iran.
http://bit.ly/L80nmH
http://bit.ly/L80u1k

So far so good. No overt attack so far.

Re: WAR!

Tony Leggett — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 05:32:50 -0400

Um, hello? Rogue state in serious need of some Pax America "liberation" ???

Pity they don't have a buttload of oil and Haliburton Inc wasn't still in Gubmint...

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 01:03:47 -0400

Ten minutes after it happens, the red states conquer the blue states and re-unite the country anyway. An educated, open mind is no match for a good blaster at your side.

Re: WAR!

bahamut — Sat, 02 Jun 2012 22:46:40 -0400

El Jeffe is right. Break the US up. Please. The "liberals" are really the ones standing in the way of this. I hope it happens in the next decade.

Re: WAR!

El Jeffe — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 07:19:49 -0400

NYT cyber war against Iran - good sources, info

http://nyti.ms/L8062V

Quote

no country’s infrastructure is more dependent on computer systems, and thus more vulnerable to attack, than that of the United States. It is only a matter of time, most experts believe, before it becomes the target of the same kind of weapon that the Americans have used, secretly, against Iran.

For the record, I have previously stated I don't think we will attack (conventional) nor should attack Iran.
http://bit.ly/L80nmH
http://bit.ly/L80u1k

Re: WAR!

El Jeffe — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:49:02 -0400

podcast consumption 24 hours a day.

Re: WAR!

morganti — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:10:48 -0400

It's strange. For a long time I've been a very "give me more info" kind of guy. Try to read a lot of articles, even try (though it gets harder these days without getting into some serious muck) to read the other side of the argument. And it's definitely out there. I can certainly track down what's at least "fairly agreed upon by knowledgeable people". The problem is that a)the vast majority of the public (a lot of them not voting, but still) are the 99%'ers that don't have the time/resources/interest/intellect to do that work. If you're a single mom, working 70-80 hour weeks, and coming home and taking care of your kid(s), there's not a lot of "peruse my RSS feeds and see what's going on in Washington today" time. Add the x% of the country that doesn't have fast internet access (STILL!). Add in even a small lack of interest and it's a tough slog.

Don't get me wrong, I think the economists are right, and a lot of people make the value calculation that their vote doesn't matter/make a difference, so why waste the effort. I like the idea out of Arizona where everyone who votes gets entered into a USD $1million lottery. Gets more people to vote. And if "enticed" to vote, many might actually spend the time to educate themselves. And if they don't, well... at least they can't claim it "wasn't their fault" or whatever.

Morg "And maybe I'll win a million dollars!" anti

Re: WAR!

ddt — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:22:37 -0400

The media is all noise now.

Oh, you're better than that... granted, the majority of media are crap -- read Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow" to see why it's easier. But you know that information and education is out there to be had, if you show interest and effort. Granted, there could be more effort to make it less like C-SPAN and more entertaining, but really, all? (And look to history: we've had crap media, especially newspapers, for the entire history of the U.S.; the idea of a non-partisan and fact-checked newspaper is a relatively modern invention; yet, we've had responsible governance, on and off.)

Even in popular dead-tree format: the NYRB, the Economist, the (news section, not the editorial) WSJ... even though these all have entertainment sections and some crappy horse-race-centric political coverage, you don't have to resort to enrolling in a poli-sci grad course to be educated. And you don't have to feel the burden of reading "all of them" (cf. Palin). These are all available to, and the publishers would love to harness, "the average person".

It's a differential equation of why there's so much crap out there: demand and supply are both variables that change with the other.

But again, I'll say that giving up and not a) holding people to account and/or b) implicitly endorsing the unacceptable status quo, is an effective vote for what you decry.

ddt

Re: WAR!

johnny k — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 01:06:50 -0400

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jw
I advocate supporting third parties that will try to correct the system. But on election day, if you KNOW that your party isn't yet capable of winning, vote for a party that has a chance of winning. Then send a check to your third party, and start building for the next election.

I agree. I've had the luxury of not casting a vote that would make a difference. (Wish we had the preferential system.)

dtt, I don't blame us. There's a shitload of money spent to misrepresent the facts, target our fears and distract us. The media is all noise now. Their purpose is to entertain, not to inform. With all that working against the boring truth, what chance does the average person have of educating themselves?

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:29:30 -0400

He was something of an egomaniac, but many at his rank are. (See: Patton) He was also intolerant of authority. Got himself removed from command during the Korean War, if I remember correctly. Still, Inchon was amazing.

Re: WAR!

Tony Leggett — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:06:14 -0400

Not just Australians, he was ordered to Australia by Roosevelt as a demotion for some of his antics in the early part of the war (namely sitting on his arse and doing nothing after being informed of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and thus indirectly enabling Japan to destroy most of the air fleet under his command).

To be fair, he did pick up his game later in the war but I'm not simply being parochial in calling Macarthur pompous (his "I will return" speech was delivered off the back of a train to four people) and upon occasion incompetent.

Re: WAR!

James DeBenedetti — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:08:44 -0400

Australians don't vote for US President, so Truman wouldn't care what they thought.

Re: WAR!

Tony Leggett — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:54:57 -0400

DPBD!

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MacArthur was a highly respected war hero.

Not by all, not by a long shot. Very good at propaganda and tooting his own horn. Good at ordering his soldiers to "fight to the last man" at his Philippines base after he'd safely abandoned it. Detested by most Australian forces as arrogant, out of touch, and barely competent. Even he acknowledged his medal of honor was "intended not so much for me personally as it is a recognition of the indomitable courage of the gallant army which it was my honor to command."

History has been kind to him...

Re: WAR!

Tony Leggett — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:40:12 -0400

Re: Pirate Parties.

I voted for the Sex Party in the Senate at the last federal election. In Australia it's not a wasted vote as we have preferential/quota system voting in the upper house. Their policies were much more than just sex - more an anti-censorship, pro-secular, social-libertarian platform.

Re: WAR!

James DeBenedetti — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:23:39 -0400

MacArthur was a highly respected war hero. Nobody today even remotely compares to him. Defense spending was 15% of GDP during the Korean War. Today it's less than 5%. If today's President does what the military asks, it's because he chooses to do so, not because he has to.

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 22:20:32 -0400

Maybe more Eisenhower.

Re: WAR!

El Jeffe — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:04:40 -0400

MacArthur still relevant in today's corporate war machine?

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:03:00 -0400

But these days corporations are people... and money is free speech. I think that both parties are part of this monolithic corporate/government/military block that fights for more power and more money. Not because it is evil, but because it believes itself to be good, and in need or more power and money to make things better. It perpetuates itself because it sees itself as right/proper/moral/godly. Individuals that try to buck the system are kept in narrow channels that limit their ability to change that which has already been deemed "right."

The average Democratic and Republican senator has more in common with his counterpart across the aisle than he does with any of his constituents.

Re: WAR!

James DeBenedetti — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:54:27 -0400

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El Jeffe
Do any of you think President's are held hostage by the war machine?

No - just ask MacArthur.

Presidents are held hostage by public opinion. The great ones help shape that opinion. The lousy ones (like Obama) do not.

Re: WAR!

El Jeffe — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:03:38 -0400

Do any of you think President's are held hostage by the war machine?

I wonder if this happens...

POTUS: I want to pull out of _______ (<--- sandy country goes here).
DoD/Cabinet: Well, it'd be a real shame if anything would happen on your watch due to us pulling out of _______ (Sandy country). Perhaps instead you should up our budget, praise us publicly, and start more deployments to _______ (other sandy places)? And no one will besmirch or stain your 4 puny years in office. How bout THAT deal, dude?
POTUS: Well, uh, ok.

Re: WAR!

ddt — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:34:12 -0400

Johnny, I think you're taking the wrong message away from what I wrote. Sadly, voting in to high office someone with _no_ power over the entrenched interests plays directly to the entrenched interests'... uh, interests. Look empirically at who has succeeded in pushing through major reforms and who has failed, and why; you'll see that the kind of candidate you dream of has no leverage and no knowledge, no tools.

Also sadly, many of what passes as "major reforms" have been majorly wrong-headed (Bush tax cuts, Medicare "reform") and not in the best interests of the 99percenters (though again, these were passed because of, not due to the lack of, political structure).

Ultimately, it's not just that "those people in Washington" have failed the country. We have. Seriously, look at the local and state levels and see whom we've voted into office (Charlie Pierce's "In the Laboratories of Democracy" is a good place to start). Laws against "UN-takeover green infiltration" or the War on Women -- this is what we are doing now with democracy. These are the people who are the farm team, from which Congress will be made.

To be fair, they're only doing what the voters want! At least, the voters who make their voices heard. You can't blame lobbying for what goes on at the school board level (aside from textbook buying, which is a scam, and often an anti-science scam at that).

Sunlight helps. Offering a counterpart to stupid-head political rhetoric and horse-race coverage helps. Case in point: study after study shows that there are overwhelmingly positive responses to the elements of the ACA/Obamacare. But the same people, when asked if they want the package, call it "socialism". Education can't be forced on people, sadly. Maybe marketing could do some good for a change.

Opting out? Dude. You're not going to have anyone else to blame, and that's something we all enjoy.

ddt

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:57:04 -0400

Yeah, I voted Libertarian for years. Then I watched Bush use his mandate to burn the Bill of Rights. Yeah, the Dems are pissing on the ashes, but I see more hope there than in continuing to effectively opt out of the process.

More and more I'm seeing this as a class struggle. Am I becoming Marxist in my old age? I doubt it; I want to keep my stuff and the communists are ludicrous in their naivete about human nature. I'm just tired of seeing government used as a mechanism to funnel the wealth of the many to the few at the top. And of the ceaseless lamentation of those who rose to success using public resources and who now resent having to fund them for the next generation.

I can see hating the Dems. I advocate supporting third parties that will try to correct the system. But on election day, if you KNOW that your party isn't yet capable of winning, vote for a party that has a chance of winning. Then send a check to your third party, and start building for the next election.

Re: WAR!

johnny k — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:32:50 -0400

ddt comes close to describing why I can't accept the "two choices on the table." They are the same main dish with different garnishes. No, I don't think Obama has been ineffective at protecting civil liberties - I think he has actively damaged them. And while we fight for wedge issue scraps, we have little control over the critical issues - there's too much money invested in them and both parties.

So I will not sit at that table. I won't bow to the induced panic of this news cycle. I vote for someone who I may not actually want to win, but who will bring civil liberties into the public discussion. If enough people do that, then the "real" parties will have to take it seriously. Then I can have my liberties and my progressive reforms, too.

How Pirate Parties Are Changing the World. Note to the next Ron Paul: develop a full platform, not a simple philosophy.

Re: WAR!

ddt — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:11:25 -0400

Does nothing make you ask yourself why Obama made an about-face on a lot of security issues when he became president?

You could always look at the primary sources (p.s. This also puts the lie to the "radical Obama" fallacy -- these are contemporaneous documents showing how he was trying to Get Along with Everyone) . Anyone with any experience watching policy and governance (and not just horse-race politics) has known for ages that politics (in the academic definition of "power structures") have great momentum over time. There are people and policies that don't change just because a few people change elected or appointed office and anyone entering into the structure has to negotiate to get anything done. It's often said it's like turning a supertanker, but this is a large part of why.

Add to that the entrenched interests that do billions of dollars of business with the government -- especially when talking about things like wars and national security (which I do not conflate). A recent study talked about on Planet Money showed an over 2000% (IIRC) return for corporations investing lobbying money just on affecting small tax laws. Imagine what's at stake for the company formerly known as Blackwater.

Now, this isn't a "vast conspiracy/shadow government" statement. There is no direct control; we aren't in the United States of Haliburton. But the way things have been going, certain people have a huge voice when it comes to affecting arcane but critical changes in the complex structure of laws and policies, and it's very, very difficult for anyone to get anything done without the resources these certain people provide. Whether that person is a FREEEEDOMlibertarian, extinct/moderate Republican, effectively Republican Democrat, or [insert name of your Mystery Date here].

ddt

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:47:36 -0400

Does nothing make you ask yourself why Obama made an about-face on a lot of security issues when he became president? Sure, it might just be hypocrisy, but sometimes I wonder what secret briefings preceded the turn-around. Doesn't make me any happier, though.

I think Guantanamo was just typical a Democrat clusterfuck. Nobody wanted the prisoners in their state, nobody wanted public testimony from al-Qaeda folks seeking a pulpit, or innocent civilians wrongly detained for years, and the GOP considered letting anybody out of Guantanamo equivalent to treason. The drive to close the detention area was weak and conflicted, and easily defeated.

Re: WAR!

Tony Leggett — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:12:20 -0400

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JK
with less crazy and more medals.

Gold.

And yes, it's disappointing that Obama has made civil liberties even worse than Bush. If you'd told me that back in 2008, I wouldn't have believed you but here we are.

And I don't buy the "he has to or the GOP will say he's SOFT ON TERROR!" -- he can say "Blow me, who killed OBL, bitches?"

To use a yes minister term he's gone native and now actually believes in the need for all these police state measures...

So don't vote for him in the forlorn hope he'll appoint a liberal's wet dream to the SC. Vote for him because Romney/Santorum/Gingrich are worse.

What is Romney's foreign policy stance like, btw?

Re: WAR!

John Willoughby — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:43:35 -0400

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johnny k
ddt, I did say it would take a special Republican. As in, the extinct kind.

So, rather than vote Democrat, wait for an extinct Republican? I think I'll take my chances and vote for the people who are ineffective at protecting my rights rather than those who are actively trying to eliminate them. Not the best of choices, I will admit, but those are the choices on the table.

Re: WAR!

johnny k — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 01:36:38 -0400

ddt, I did say it would take a special Republican. As in, the extinct kind.

Re: WAR!

tliet — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:47:16 -0400

Hm, wouldn't a lot of the problems be solved if the First past the post system would be changed. I've noticed that in non partisan systems the crazy is a lot less. Still crazy, sure enough, but less.