Open War by dreamtrove

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Open War

POSTED BY: DREAMTROVE
UPDATED: Thursday, March 2, 2006 02:09
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 9:58 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/27/AR2006
022701128.html

All I can think is the YEAs 77, NAYs 23, the vote tally on the Iraq War resolution. And the Admin who pushed for this war, and all the people who thumped, and some are still thumping, the war drum. What a bunch of arrogant schmucks. Self righteous arrogant schmucks.

What did you think was going to happen?

"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." —President Bush, discussing the Iraq war with Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, after Robertson told him he should prepare the American people for casualties
"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries." –Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying about Iraq's chemical, biological, and nuclear

weapons capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003
"It's hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine." –Deputy Defense Secretary Paul

Wolfowitz, testifying before the House Budget Committee prior to the Iraq war, Feb. 27, 2003
"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." –Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press," March 16, 2003
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." –Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, when asked about weapons of mass destruction in an ABC News interview, March 30, 2003
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." –President Bush, standing under a "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, May 2, 2003
"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." --Vice President Dick Cheney, on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005
"My answer is bring 'em on." —President George W. Bush, challenging militants attacking U.S. forces in Iraq, July 2, 2003

And there are a lot more that I couldn't find. One was I think Perle telling us that the actual cost of the war was going to be around one billion dollars. There was one of Rumfeld telling us that the Iraqis were going to be ready to take over in... and then some estimate that has long since passed. And the schmuckisms just go on and on. We live in a schmuckocracy.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 10:06 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
We live in a schmuckocracy.

Yeah, but it's our schmuckocracy.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.net

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 11:52 AM

GAMMARAYGIRL

It's a bit of a cluster

.

Sorry for the language.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 2:16 PM

CITIZEN

But DT, as we all know Bush and his administration nor the "Coalition" that backed him up didn't start the war. Uhuh, oh no.

It was the pixies.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
You should never give powers to a leader you like that you’d hate to have given to a leader you fear

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 2:23 PM

SEVENPERCENT

Quote:
Originally posted by gammaraygirl:
Sorry for the language.

Didn't see you use any. Have to actually cuss, I think, to apologize.

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

Anyone wanting to continue a discussion off board is welcome to email me - check bio for details.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:12 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

Not much different from any US admin going back to...

well a hell of a long way anyway

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:32 PM

DREAMTROVE

Back to Eisenhower, that would be, the last president to not attack anyone, if you don't count Ford who didn't really have a chance. Clinton attacked the most, followed by Kennedy, probably Reagan, in terms of different targets, in a post-Truman world.

Bush may not have started it, but he's f^&ked it up nicely.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 3:47 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

Eisenhower destroyed the last chance of democracy for Iran when he reinstalled the Shah....

Truman.... hard to say where the Marshall plan was defensive or offensive, because it was both in many cases

FDR really pushed many imperialistic themes, but without the economic clout

Hoover I would say was the last good man to hold that office....

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 4:16 PM

DREAMTROVE

Hoovers American Socialism caused an economic disaster worldwide which lead to WWII. I'm going back to Coolidge.

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 4:21 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

I'm going from a foreign policy standpoint...

I figure internal policys and politics you yanks can
do whatever you like

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 4:44 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Hoovers American Socialism caused an economic disaster worldwide which lead to WWII. I'm going back to Coolidge.

I would also say Versaille caused the conditions which generated WW2, and that the blame for that would lie on there.... as well as for much of the political situation today.

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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Tuesday, February 28, 2006 5:40 PM

DREAMTROVE

Well, I wouldn't disagree with that. But specifically, Hoover's reinstitution of Wilson's War Debt helped institute the German economic decay, which fed the push for change, which in a way is a foreign policy decision.

I think there are essentially three types of big govt.: Tax and Spend, Borrow and Spend, and Loot and Spend. Most socialism is Loot and Spend. Hoover made the mistake of looking at european socialism and thinking that it was a success because of the short term lift that Loot and Spend gives. Hoover own was a combination, increasing any revenue source to help pay for his social programs. FDR gets credit for the idea, but really the New Deal is just Hooverism after the shock has worn off. But economically, Hooverism was a mistake, and is partly responsible for America's bad foreign policy. Too much money in govt. makes for a large ancy military.

Overall, I think we could have skipped the democrats altogether and just kept the republicans. Before this one of course. This Bush guy, who is IMHO an unmitigated disaster, well, enough said. But, assuming the GOP can lose Bush/Cheney and return to sanity, I think it would behoove us to have a different opposition. I mean, if Republicans ran against Libertarians, the political spectrum would become a lot more interesting. Lose the whole core democrat ideas, big govt. and the nanny state, lose the social militarist world cop idea, and create a new opposition.

I think it's interesting how the Democratic Party has demonized the idea of libertarianism among its members. Just the other day I heard a democrat say 'Libertarians are all about guns and shooting people' another typical one is 'it's a philosophy of sleeping with your daughter.' They may have done so to the point where democrats would never vote to protect their own rights under the name libertarian, so we/they might have to create something new with a new name.

I know this is a radical suggestion, and I'm just sort of shooting off the cuff here, but maybe the Democratic party should fold.

1. They have no power. I just saw an interview with John Stewart on Larry King, went something like this: King asked what he thought the democrats would do, and his resonse was basically, why should I care? this is a group with 49% of the vote and 3% of the power.

2. Their own people are less than enthusiastic about the democrats. You talk to democrats and their feeling about democrats is usually 'bah' They tend not to be fans of big govt. or world cop, or even unions, police, and often many of the other minor platform points, and they tend to see the democrats as largely ignoring issues they care about, poverty, aids and war in africa, homelessness, peace, animal rights, whatever stuff democratic voters care about, which I get from talking to them, and yet, it's generally a list of issues elected democrats never bring up. And they know it.

3. The Democratic Party as a group is not a grass roots movement like it pretends to be, but a preset platform made by thinktanks. Which is not to say that the GOP is a grass roots movement, it isn't, but it doesn't pretend to be. It's the party of the status quo. But the Democrats purport to be the party of the common man, but the common man has no influence at all in the party.

I know my local republicans and democrats, it's a small town, and there are about 100 of each, a few more republicans than democrats. My local republican leaders go to fancy dinners where they sit down with underlings, a couple of them have had dinner with Bush, but usually they would meet with staffers for Rove, Cheney, Libby or someone, and do golf, all what you would expect. The democrats meet through official channels, they have groups that elect leaders who go to represent the group at larger groups in town hall style meetings in basements of city office buildings, the way you would expect.

Neither one has any real influence, why would they? It's a town of 200. But the democrat structure is so far removed that they have no channel of communication. One of the democrats told me that they thought Kerry was making a strategic error in letting Bush set the topics of debate, and had some ideas of topics that Kerry could bring up to move the debate, and found she was without a channel of communication. There was no way to reach Kerry from within the democratic party. It was like a monster bureaucracy. Maybe someone else's experience is different I don't know.

But that's my thought of the moment. The left should make a new opposition. Democrats not only lose, but if they win, if my local democrats are any indication, what would win isn't what you would really want anyway. Invent a progressive party or something. Sure, it might cause an election loss the first time around, but don't worry about democrats losing, they'll lose anyway. They'll lose without a splitter. They're used to losing. In point of fact, without a right-wing splitter in the race with a significant splinter portion of the republican vote, democrats *can't* win. Only FDR and LBJ have ever gotten a majority of the vote on the democratic side. And LBJ's was just a Kennedy assassination sympathy, later on he couldn't even win his own primary. So really they've had one popular vote winner in 200 years, and that was FDR. Afterwords you could create an opposition which actually might not perpetually lose. It's not impossible. If Perot had actually wanted the job, he could have won. between two and three times as many registered voters don't vote at all as vote for the democrat. There's a lot of wide open space there. Anyway, just a thought.

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Wednesday, March 1, 2006 3:17 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

I would tend to agree with you on nearly everything....

except maybe the solution

displacing one party to replace it with another, which would likely be corrupted by the same people back to what it is today is not a entirely good answer.

While I am not an American, and only have limited knowledge of the way you government functions ( or not ) from what you said it your posts, I think you feel that you need more individual repersentation, a way to recall and fire elected officials who lose their way, and a direct say...

Might I suggest you have a look at this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy

I prefer this to the Libertarian approach, while they are similar in many respects.

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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Wednesday, March 1, 2006 6:39 PM

DREAMTROVE

I don't really have a problem with the way the GOP operates. I think that democrats would, which is fine. Whether I have a problem with their party is not the issue. I think they would have a problem with it. There's simply no channel of communication. A democrat who volunteers for Kerry is basically a slave to a preset agena. Sure, I get the counter, but a republican who voluteers for Bush is an idiot. A republican campaign contributer though goes to a barbeque, plays some golf and ends up with a govt. contract. Or something dinkier, like free trips to Korea, which seems to be what's in the offering for people down at this level. But it's better than a f^&k you, which is what I get that the democrats are handing out.

The other possibility is they could take their party over, but what it looks like form over here is that the party was corrupt in 1824 when it was founded, and hasn't really had a good day since. It's certainly not at the moment trending towards 'less corrupt.' It's about to nominate someone that a decent portion of the American population think is already guilty of murder, in an OJ way, myself included.

I used to think these european models would work for America, but I don't think they would. The problem is, we need direct access to change people, not just policies, because competition is an american value, which I strongly support, but it breeds some serious powermongers. If you were to let the party leaderships pick officials, the US would become the Empire of of Saturn. We have to make do with Harrison Bergeron.

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Wednesday, March 1, 2006 6:56 PM

GINOBIFFARONI

That is part of what works with the Swiss model...

You elect a rep into government, and he goes off on a tangent...

you can :

A) get a petition to remove him and cause a by-election

B) get a petition to over-ride his vote in a specific issue

C) get a petition to directly introduce bills without even going through this rep

You figure that these powers would hamstring government, but I read the remove your rep thing has only been used something like 15 times since the 1700's.

In addition, wide ranging legistration, like say your Patriot Act, would have to go to a referedum before it could be passed, in which case you can vote yea, nea, or for a counter proposal fielded by either another party or even a group of private citizens.

The thing is voting actually matters, so people tend to pay alot more attention to issues, and make more informed decisions.

So you could change the people... or the policy if your beef is only one call the rep makes...

there is more power sharing between partys because instead of two big partys ( and several smaller ones ) the popular vote is split as is the control.

Now I'm rambling.....

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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Wednesday, March 1, 2006 7:17 PM

DREAMTROVE

But what about getting a candidate into office. Let's say I want Hagel or Feingold instead of Bush or Kerry, how do I make that so?

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Thursday, March 2, 2006 2:09 AM

GINOBIFFARONI

Like any democracy, you'd still need to get a bunch of people to agree with you... mind you with with limiting the direct power to the executive, spreading the political influence among several partys, and having things decided on a issue to issue basis rather than say I always vote Dem, or Republican.... the odds improve that someone outspoken with different ideas could A) Get in, and B) have any influence at all in the machine.

The idea of an executive council they have would allow all four to be elected, but then they would have to sell policy on a case by case basis not only to their parliment, but also to the public in general, and thats where the power really should be anyway.

" Over and in, last call for sin
While everyone's lost, the battle is won
With all these things that I've done "

The Killers

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/killers/allthesethingsthativedone.html

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