Letters to the Editor
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Historical video reminder from one of the neocon thugs mentors/heroes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XWZcL7ZyY
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Bunny Watson: Because you're wearing one brown sock and one black sock.
Nope, don't work..
I don't live alone and sometimes wear mismatched socks.
Maybe it's because I agree with bucky more than most of you do, I don't find him all that objectionable and have a hard time seeing why he gets piled on as much as he does here.
I'm pretty quick on the scroll button but it's still a bit wearying to wade through all this crap. The blog would be the better without it.
And LWM, the bit about chimps having war parties was very interesting, I think much of our propensity for violence is innate and your post definitely supports that.
That being said though, it's government which allows our innately violent selves their fullest expression. The fact that many of our governments get packed full of "doublehighs" only makes it even more likely that violence will reign supreme.
It became apparent to the military while analyzing WWII that a great many combat troops never fired their weapon and that quite a large number of those who did never aimed at anything, choosing to release rounds at more or less random into the air. It's actually kind of difficult to get well adjusted, civilized humans to want to kill other people for what boils down to no real reason.
The military went about fixing that problem essentially by dehumanizing the enemy, there was a fair bit of that done in WWII but by the time of Vietnam the process of dehumanization was in full swing.
Now in Iraq we are seeing the harvest of that which we have sown. The comment about "no language, no culture, no civilization" was a telling one.. It obviously came from a troop who had been through the military dehumanization of the enemy process.
I'm reminded of a comment I read once about the Battle of Britain.. The pilots of both sides really had more in common with each other than they did with the civilian populations they were charged with "defending".
I think that is true for a lot of warriors today..
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RMP
you really need to give fair warning on those links. To unsuspectingly click on it and be faced with that visage and voice is a cruel thing to do to a man on the sunday evening before workday monday morning. I think I will go look at Pastor Wright's sermon again to make me feel better.
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To be fair
you did say theocon mentor/hero, but I did not expect it to be the anti-christ himself.
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Apparently, Bucky has had enough women's lip today...
Notice that he responded to William again, but did not acknowledge my comment responding to his request for an example of "working politics and government," even though I posted my comment first.
And then... he announced he had to leave.
Or... perhaps he didn't really want a substantive answer, but just the opportunity to continue haranguing everyone with a question he didn't expect to be answered. Not the first time...
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@ ondelette
The omelette is China today. Not the China of the Dowager Empress at all, is it? For better, for worse; what did the Chinese who were the actors in this great transformation think they were up to? (Never mind asking the millions who perished; no one ever asks them.)
You are arguing -- to quote our old devil, Stalin -- that quantity has a quality of its own, are you not? My point is that it does so only after the fact. In the act itself, eight or nine people falling to their deaths off the ironwork of a bridge isn't morally different from the millions who perish in an ill-conceived war. Someone is trying to do something which they believe is important, and hang the casualties.
The time for cost-benefit analyses is before we embark on these crusades, not after. Otherwise, human nature works against us.
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rodeored
They would have to have to tell the public "your children died for nothing and its my fault"
Good point..
And good on you for continuing to ask "why".
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You're the lucky one!
Apparently, Bucky has had enough women's lip today...
Notice that he responded to William again, but did not acknowledge my comment responding to his request for an example of "working politics and government," even though I posted my comment first.
And then... he announced he had to leave.
-- Anonymust
WT and I wish we could get him to ignore us!
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WT
"Never mind asking the millions who perished; no one ever asks them."
But we can answer for them, or put ourselves (through moral imagination) in their place? So as better to analyze now, before it happens again?
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some ways back...
Jim White
Thanks for the pre-war ad
I would happily contribute to a fund to re-run it in every major newspaper in the country on its sixth anniversary this September. The timing would be outstanding. What would be the best group to organize that?
Sounds like MoveOn to me.
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"I'm pretty quick on the scroll button but it's still a bit wearying to wade through all this crap. The blog would be the better without it."
I agree, but some of us have a longer history than you do of putting up with Bucky. My complaints are his careless disregard for simple things like quoting people correctly, not conflating something someone said with something they didn't, appearing to purposefully misunderstand or take offense, even when none is intended, though I'm now beginning to believe that he has a reading comprehension issue.
Mostly, I have ignored him, while others have encouraged him by engaging him. Today, I singled him out because he decided to be snide with someone who does not deserve it, but would never push back.
Notice that he has left now?
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Anonymust
The earlier posted comment is the later one to be seen when working backward through the thread, which is the way I always do it.
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@Pedinska
it's not pretty when women fight over lingerie at a sale
Speak for yourself.
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@Derbig Mooser, Winter Soldier clearly met my standards, unfortunately not the M$M
“The "Winter Soldier" hearings we just heard and saw in Washington, (and I think it was the IWVAW what done it, too) didn't meet your standards? I thought they were pretty dramatic, and they went as far as naming names.”
Sorry I am late in answering your question, but I had to pickup my son and his wife at the airport. I was saddened, but not surprised, at how the MSM virtually ignored Winter Soldier. Here’s a good rundown on another travesty of fairness and faulty judgment by the MSM on Alternet.org:
Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland last weekend for the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings (3/13/08-3/16/08), where they offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly. The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, "could be dominating the headlines around the world this week" (3/7/08). The hearings were covered as far afield as the U.K. (Guardian, 3/17/08), Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3/14/08), Croatia (Javno, 3/16/08), and Iran (Press TV, 3/14/08). Yet there has been an almost complete media blackout on this historic news event in the U.S. corporate media.
Despite being noted in the New York Times' Paris-based International Herald Tribune (3/13/08), Winter Soldier has yet to be mentioned in the New York Times itself. No major U.S. newspaper has covered the hearings except as a story of local interest; the few stories major U.S. newspapers have published on the event have focused on the participation of local vets (Boston Globe, 3/16/08; Boston Herald, 3/16/08; Newsday, 3/16/08, Buffalo News, 3/16/08).
The Washington Post, too, published their account in the metro section (3/15/08). In contrast, the paper published an article about pro-war demonstrators protesting the Winter Soldier hearings in the A section (3/16/08), despite the fact that they were, according to the Post, "small in number."
None of the major broadcast TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) have mentioned the hearings in their newscasts. PBS has been silent as well.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/80410/