Dog days of summer. Woof woof. See you on Tuesday the 22nd. Talk among yourselves. Don't throw any chairs.
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August 15th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Why don’t we use this open thread as an exercise in something that would improve the discussion?
I suggest: ignoring Woody the Troll. A guy who seems to think that the ability to look up facts means nothing in an argument. A guy who can accuse someone like reg (articulate, open-minded, and, last I checked, citizen of a liberal democracy) of living in a world as insular as the Cuba of Woody’s imagination? A guy who has openly confessed here that any explanation that blows past his 200-word limit is simply over his head? A guy who considers his powers of political analysis to be above and beyond those of any on the left because … yes, because he is a Certified Public Accountant?
Just ignore him. He comes here only to vent, and to get attention.
Just ignore him.
August 15th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
You mean ignore him by devoting a whole thread — from now until Aug 22nd — to what a bonehead he is? Or isn’t?
Okay, I’m in. I say he is.
Let’s discuss.
August 15th, 2006 at 11:52 pm
Marc Cooper is apparently too shy to link to his latest article:
ilw.com/articles/2006,0816-cooper.shtm
As usual, he’s wrong.
The McCain-Kennedy-Bush-Fox massive amnesty will result in 60 million new immigrants over the next 20 years. And, that’s just legal immigrants. There will be untold millions more illegal aliens who’ll come here knowing that we give amnesties every decade or two.
In Coopers’s view their massive amnesty scheme is “reasonable”. This “reasonable” scheme will not reduce illegal immigration. In fact, it will make it far worse by giving in to – and thus giving more power to – those corrupt forces that currently support illegal immigration.
It won’t just give more power to those corrupt corporations that use illegal aliens to drive down wages. It will also give more political power inside the U.S. to the Mexican government. If you do some research, you’ll find countless examples of that government attempting to meddle in our internal politics.
And, it will be an amnesty for all those companies that have been knowingly employing illegal aliens all these years.
Hopefully the reader’s definition of “reasonable” is far different than Cooper’s.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:21 am
If and when a significant percentage of the business owners–say the wealthiest 30 percent–who employ illegal aliens are convicted as felons, we can begin reasonable discussions about deporting illegal aliens and building walls, etc. to prevent more from coming. But not one day before then.
I’m betting my full Iraqi WMD trading card collection that day never comes.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:27 am
It’s so funny that Michael Turner wants people to ignore me, and yet he used his entire comment to discuss me.
Michael, there’s another world out there–the real world–and, you can stay ignorant believing that leftists have all the answers and that they could push them through if only voices from the right were silenced or ignored. Think what this country would actually be like if the proposals of liberals were all implemented. Yikes!
Oh, and yes. If you have trouble summarizing a point in 200 words, then you better be a good and interesting writer (which you’re not). Otherwise, just give me the executive summary or I’ll move along.
Now, for the rest of you. Please ignore me. Please. I really don’t care, because if you’re that type then you wouldn’t understand or listen to reason, anyway.
August 16th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Bunkerbuster, the problem with invoking immigration law is that the Law of Unintended Consequences is likely to be stronger. A draconian crackdown on the largest/richest employers is likely to send the rest of them scurrying for substitute labor. Not to mention that any undocumented worker employed by the more successful of these companies is going to be sent packing more or less immediately.
At best, I think the appropriate punishment is to force the employers to sponsor work visas, pay the payroll taxes going back some number of years, etc., for their current workeers. Even that would have some of the unintended consequences already mentioned.
There’s no use in pretending to ourselves that this is an easy problem to solve. The Amnesty bill at least gives us a reasonable “startover point” that isn’t massively destabilizing.
In the long run, the best solution is simply for Mexico to get richer on its own untapped strengths–to become a more attractive place for Mexicans to work, and for other countries to invest. The “corruption” of employing undocumented workers is really a matter of Mexico’s corruption leaking across our borders. We create better opportunities in large part because we’re generally better governed.
I think a good step in the right direction might be to make Mexico a good place for Americans to retire. Converting social security payouts and retirement fund dividends to pesos will help make them go a long way. Couples cringing at the prospect of the mother-in-law apartment and canned soup meals in their declining years might be able to go to Mexico and have a ranch-style home, a cook, a maid, and enough left over to fly back to the U.S. 6 times a year for family visits. American retirement income spent in Mexico would be good for Mexico’s economy. Unspent retirement income is likely to find its way back to America in the form of support for grandchildren or other investments, admittedly, but certain of the more enterprising business types who just don’t take well to retirement might find interesting local opportunities.
There will be a lot of Americans retiring over the next 15 years as the boomers punch their tickets. Their retirement kitties could help ease several transitions that would otherwise be more painful–on both sides of the border.
August 16th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Michael, in regards to Woody:
Some months ago a handful of us agreed to do what you suggest, ignore Woody, and in the end we found that it was impossible because like it or not he is part of the life of this blog. My own view is that Woody represents a trend in rightwing thought that is almost willfully ignorant, but unfortunately is adhered to by many millions of Americans. I also assume that there are many, many times as many readers of this blog as there are commentators–when Marc gets back perhaps he could enlighten us on that.
So my own strategy is to take advantage of Woody’s more ridiculous arguments to express my own counter views to a large number of people, which I find useful to do. I pick and choose when I respond to him. For example, in regards to his comments recently that as an accountant he has a more analytical mind than many others here, I find myself wondering aloud what would happen to a government accountant who told the nation that a particular program would cost only a handful of billions of dollars and then be over with and then it turned out that the program cost nearly $300 billion to date with no end in sight? Thus is the case with the war in Iraq, but we don’t see Woody calling for those who make this miscalculation to step down. I find it useful to point such things out, and I think others do too.
So, sorry, can’t agree to snub Woody, he is too good an example of the ignorance and stupidity so widespread in America and which extends to its very highest levels of leadership.
August 16th, 2006 at 7:52 am
In fact, thinking about this further, I think a more interesting discussion would be for those of us who disagree with Woody and his ilk to try to understand why they can continue to hold the views they do in the face of overwhelming evidence that they are full of shit. One thought I have had on this, for example, is that if Woody suddenly went belly up and agreed that Bush was an ignorant clown who was leading America entirely down the wrong path, he might think that he would be forced to buy into all kinds of cultural stuff that he THINKS those who oppose Bush adhere to, like gay marriage, abortion, letting zillions of foreigners into our pure country, liking brie and wine from Burgundy, growing our hair long, getting blowjobs from Monica Lewinsky and lying about it, or swimming from Chappaquidick to shore without your date in tow. Perhaps others have better explanations?
August 16th, 2006 at 8:34 am
Michael Balter, there are plenty of dogmatic right wingers who stop by from time to time. You don’t have to rely on Woody. The problem with Woody is not that I disagree with him, it’s that when Michael Turner has presented him with actual facts that undermine his point, he prevaricates, plays stupid, or rhetorics his way off the subject. Woody’s claim that Democratic politicians in New Jersey were trying to institute a legal ban on Ann Coulter’s book when in fact they were ASKING local bookstores to take a stand against her, and Woody’s refusal to accept those were different marked a low for me. Instead of just accepting he (or his source) was wrong, he insisted those were the same thing. It was just a lie. And he’s shown complete willingness not just to delude himself or keep hoping for WMD’s (hey, Hitchens still throws out a column every now and again with that canard), it’s that even about mundane matters he’s willing to lie. Anyway, in my book he’s a complete troll, just like Publius and Steve and I do my best to ignore them. Treating them as representative of the opposing mindset is actually a little unfair. I wouldn’t want to be judged by Steve so I won’t judge conservatives by Woody.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:00 am
As to the immigration issue, Amnesty is a big buzzword, but no politician is stupid enough to pass a policy that doesn’t include some amnesty. They’re bright enough to imagine nightly news segments on immigration workers barging into homes and ripping families apart. Until the “send ‘em back” plan can deal with the reality that many families are a mixture of illegal and legal, that strategy is dead in the water.
Of course, Michael Turner is correct that the only long term solution is the improvement of the economies to the south. Imagine what we could have done if we had, say, $300 billion to chuck at the problem.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:08 am
“Treating them as representative of the opposing mindset is actually a little unfair.”
You’re missing my point, Mavis. Woody argues for the same positions that all rightwingers do, even if somewhat more stupidly and dishonestly than the average. The antidote is the same: A persistent and patient demonstration that they are in error. How else do you expect to change peoples’ minds? We are not talking about Woody’s mind here, but millions of minds. When, for example, Woody continues to insist that there were WMD in Iraq, he is not alone. Sharpen your weapons, Mavis!
August 16th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Let me put this another way: How confident are you that the Democrats are going to take over either house of Congress this November, or that they will win the White House in 2008? If you’re smart, and I am sure you are, you are not confident at all. So what are you going to do about it? Ignore all the Republicans and the rightwing ideology that keeps them in power? You might not be able to change Woody’s mind, but if your arguments have no influence with others who think more or less like him, you might as well give up now.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:04 am
I see your point that there is value in debunking the Republican talking points and media myths that Woody provides. But there is zero point in a getting in a discussion with him. Those lead nowhere. And the downside of any interaction is that it encourages him to keep it up. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, but everytime anyone starts getting even a little involved, they tumble down the slippy slope and into a midless conversation.
Just FYI, I’m more than happy to debate with GM, Liberty Dad, and our other right wingers.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Despite many incorrect observations about myself from you on the left, I’m not a very interesting subject to discuss–especially, when you can sit around in your mutual admiration society trying to out-impess everyone and getting confirmation of your beliefs despite being wrong and despite all reason to the contrary.
What I think is significant about our differences is how we arrive at conclusions, which I’ve covered before. People on the left will say that Bush was the brilliant and sinister mind behind the 9-11 attack on the WTC, and turn around and say how stupid he was as he continued reading to a classroom of kids after being told of those attacks. Smart and stupid? Your minds work in wondrous ways.
We can argue about “facts”–but I mean real facts, not a lot of make-believe that comes from tainted and misleading liberal sources. If given the exact same information and if that information is correct, a conservative would come away with a more logical analysis than would a liberal. You can take that to the bank.
With this sentence, my comment comes to 191 words, so I’ll stop now.
August 16th, 2006 at 11:38 am
Your assertions about our “beliefs” or what we “say” just prove what a clueless, one-note bleater you are. And, frankly, I’d prefer to be part of a mutual admiration society than a one-man project of towering self-satisfaction – particularly when it’s totally baseless.
August 16th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
“If given the exact same information and if that information is correct, a conservative would come away with a more logical analysis than would a liberal”
Yeah, this is why we were told that the Iraq war would be a “cakewalk”, why Condi Rice and Rumsfeld told us not to worry about a handful of “deadender” insurgents back in 2003, why we were told that there would be no ethnic strife in Iraq or civil war by everyone from Wolfowitz to William Kristol, why we were told by Big Dick that the insurgency was in its “last throes” a year ago, why all of you “purple finger” triumphalists told us that the Iraq elections were sure sign that a democracy was imminent, why nutcases like Rick Santorum argue that rusting, fifteen-year old chemical shells were evidence of Saddam’s “WMDs”, why Roper taunted me as some kind of moron for asserting well over a year ago (I’ve been saying it loudly for at least two) that Iran would end up the biggest external beneficiary of the Iraq war, why the cost estimates of the war have been consistently wrong. It’s why we get “video diagnosis” from Dr. Frist, arguments over evolution and stem cell research from wingnut Congressmen, and the lowest investments in education in some of the reddest states. We have the most conservative goverment in my memory right now. It is also the most incompetent, the least trustworthy in their policies/predictions related to anything and it’s headed by a man who even Joe Scarborough considers remarkably “uncurious” and intellectually/analytically challenged for a man in the most powerful position on the planet. Yet Woody tells us how smart and analytical conservatives are. Which is further evidence of just how credulous and brainwashed the base of this ignominious, would-be “conservative” movement actually is. There are some conservatives in politics who’s views I respect, like Chuck Hagel and Dick Lugar – along with some icons of an earlier conservatism like Barry Goldwater and Bill Buckley who’s independence of mind and spirit make the current crop seem like an army of midgets in comparison. There is also a clownish, Barnum-like streak among many right-wing commentators – like Coulter, Limbaugh and that bloated fraud, Bill Bennet (not to mentioin the Big Hair Preacher faction) – that devalues the “conservative” currency enormously. Woody is part of that patent-medicine wing of “conservatism”, although I’m not at all sure that he understands that, for all of his efforts as a salesman, he’s just one of the suckers.
August 16th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
Conservatives are one thing but it is really past time to start labeling the current Washington crowd for what it is – dangerous radical ideologues with no respect for any institution that might impede their pursuit of a short term aim. What, after all, do these people conserve? They have totally screwed up the so-called “War on Terror” and Iraq is surely lost – we are just groping for a decent exit strategy.
I really don’t want to discuss Woody. He has as much right to his opinions as the next guy but I will remind you of what the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan said. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions they are not entitled to their own facts. And today too much of our national debate goes nowhere because the sides cannot even agree on what those facts are. Our system is based on Mill’s “Marketplace of Ideas” and the belief in an informed electorate. How many here think the electorate is informed? I think we are treated as stupid kids. I don’t think Americans are stupid but I do believe they are, by and large, ignorant. Now whether or not they are willfully ignorant and blissfully dwell in their unknowing is another question for another day. But ignorance in this case is not bliss and I really don’t see how popular democracy can survive, let alone prosper, in such a state.
I now return you to your Woody (or Cooper) bashing.
August 16th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
reg, your post was 395 words not including the repeated quote. I wish that it had been within the 200 word restriction so that I would have read the last of your comment.
Regarding war costs, the cost of any war cannot be predicted realistically. Take, for example, the Democrats’ war on poverty that has run into the trillions and is still not conquered. As far as ideas go, maybe you like liberal ideas from the past–like we have to bus school kids across the county because black kids cannot learn unless they are in a class with white kids.
—–
rlc, facts are one thing. Having ALL the facts are another. My experiences have been that liberals are very selective in the facts that they pick. Worse, they are ABSOLUTELY terrible at the analyses and interpretations of them. Even worse, they won’t sit calmly and listen to other views. I would prefer for calm discussions, but emotions from one side–guess which one–run too high.
P.S. I’m not happy with the costs of the war in Iraq–in human and dollar terms.
Word Count–188
August 16th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
A word of advice for this Woody chap: any time you enter a discussion forum with high-school level statements of how “liberals” and “conservatives” think, you shoot yourself in the foot, and make it impossible for others to take your words seriously. Sorry, but that’s the sad truth of the matter. No one I’ve observed here (besides yourself, it appears) seems to care as much about these silly and vacuous generalizations as they do about the content of actual arguments. Deciding between reading 400 words of relevant, fact-based arguments vs. 200 words of banal, rhetorical talking points is, quite frankly, a no-brainer.
August 16th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
I was thinking that this isn’t very interesting and that we should address important issues rather than each other’s mindsets.
Let me start by offering this critical item: Should there be a Pimp Tax?
August 16th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Since this thread now seems a bit ‘open mike’ I’d like to ask if anyone has any thoughts on Gunter Grass coming out and admitting that he was actually Waffen SS during the war. (If this was covered by this cite previously, sorry I missed it.) I loved that guy’s writing. The Tin Drum was and remains one of the most wonderful and funny novels I have ever read. Somehow, the fact that this world reknowned moralist had kept this dark truth submerged… I really don’t know what to make of it.
August 16th, 2006 at 4:04 pm
I didn’t see that about Grass. Waffen SS were volunteers right? Or was he drafted? Maybe that’s why he is a moralist.
August 16th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
He says he was drafted though a willing soldier. He presents his time as spent mainly soldiering and not executing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4785851.stm
August 16th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Here’s a George Will column that’s worth a read – my effort to give equal time to a conservative who can, in fact, think critically, whether I always agree with him or not.
http://tinyurl.com/zzmct
August 16th, 2006 at 4:29 pm
In dealing with the wingnut right, few due it as well as the
Howler. http;//www.dailyhowler.com/
August 16th, 2006 at 4:37 pm
“I see your point that there is value in debunking the Republican talking points and media myths that Woody provides. But there is zero point in a getting in a discussion with him.”–Mavis
I agree, and you may have noticed that I do not get into exchanges with Woody anymore. I simply contradict what he has said when it seems useful and leave it at that. But no one does it better than reg!
August 16th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
I don’t want to beat this to death, but since you guys started it, I’m entitled to respond–and, I hope that this ends it. (Word Count: 25)
Balter, there is too much inbreeding in your ranks when you and others buddy up and always think that you’re right and somehow prevail, and I really had to laugh when you discussed contradicting me. The phony superiority of the left knows no ends. You must understand that I don’t respect the views of the left, for good reason based on its history, and I can only roll my eyes as you guys espouse wondrous thoughts that may make you feel good but are simply foolish to rational minds. It’s like watching a Democratic convention when Ted Kennedy speaks and the loyal supporters wet their pants with glee with every repetitive, anti-Republican chant that he starts and builds in a crescendo. (Word Count: 121)
And, Samuel, pleeeeease don’t try to talk down to me about discussing differences in how the left and right analyze things–which was made in response to comment after comment that YOUR GUYS STARTED by attacking me and conservatives as idiots. How stupid and hypocritical on your part–and, I’m not taken in by your attempt to appear so above it. (Word Count: 61)
You guys remind me of an introduction that goes “he is a legend in his own mind.” And, the only reason that you think that Republican control is bad is because you haven’t seen how absolutely much worse it could be if the Democrats actually were able to do what they scream about. (Word Count: 53)
Tell me, for instance, why it would be a good idea to yank our troops out of Iraq immediately. If you think that you can explain that without considering the consequences, then you guys are too blinded by herd mentality. (Word Count: 40)
Luckily for you, my notebook battery is dying. going forward, please try to discuss things other than conservatives and me, and maybe try being a little more humble. You certainly have earned that the need for that.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Woody, you err in stating that you AND conservatives were attacked as idiots. You were singled out for your history of transgressions into the land of idiocy and as an indicator of a TREND in right-wing thought, not as a conservative. There’s a difference between the reductionist right-wing opportunism and one-note axe-grinding that you represent and conservativism in general and it’s important. Unfortunately, apparently not to you.
Incidentally, I agree with you that an immediate withdrawal from Iraq would have some very negative consequences, which is why few liberals advise it. Unfortunately, any course we follow at this point is going to have very negative consequences. At the core of your argument for “staying the course”, i.e. following the blindered blundering BushCo no matter what – which is probably one of the worst alternatives facing us – is the hard truth: the little shit you have been adulating in these threads for as long as I’ve been reading them has demonstrated such monunental incompetence, swaggering recklessness and bald-faced dishonesty that he’s managed to back America into a corner that it can’t escape from without looking some combination of weak and stupid. Mostly because of this escapade and the rank apologies I’ve witnessed as it unfolded, my contempt for your corner of the political sphere knows no bounds. You’ve basically seen fit to shit on America and deliberately derail honest debate over real national security – while turning another entire country into a chaotic mess and making our enemies list even longer – while taunting, grinning, slandering, denying and dissembling – essentially giving anyone who has ever counseled caution or asked too many questions the finger. Thanks a lot. If you sense rage in some of my writing on this and related subjects, you’re right.
August 16th, 2006 at 6:16 pm
If a prominent conservative pundit starts asking questions like this, the pooch is obviously pretty screwed. Of course, the guy’s gay, has long claimed Mel Gibson is an anti-semite and he doesn’t have the conservative intellectual credentials of Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Niel Boortz, Sean Hannity, LaShawn Barber, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Fred Barnes, Byron York, Jonah Goldberg and Captain Ed. (I mean, if you combined them all together.)
http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html
August 16th, 2006 at 9:29 pm
reg writes: “Here’s a George Will column that’s worth a read – my effort to give equal time to a conservative who can, in fact, think critically, whether I always agree with him or not.”
I started reading George Will when I was 16 years old, William Buckley around the same time. I was not a likely candidate: a rabid ex-Catholic living in an ulta-liberal (actually radical leftist) town, Berkeley, and somewhat more rebellious than average. However, I liked good writing, and could appreciate a well-reasoned argument from any direction. I find that revising my beliefs in the face of new facts is bracing — a cold shower that may be a shock at first but which leaves you with a certain briskness and glow. Even when I don’t agree, I can admire–as when William Buckley bravely took up the proposition that “blood for oil” might actually be a casus belli for war, while most conservatives around him could only heap scorn on that motivation as an egregious slander of the Bush administration.
But let’s face it: most people are viscerally, not rationally, attracted to the beliefs they come to hold. They tend to rationalize them after the gut-event of instantly identifying with them. Political beliefs probably have more value as a means of maintaining social identity than as a source of understanding of social reality, for most. It’s significantly tribal. This is probably as true of most liberals as of most conservatives. Contrary evidence often has little effect, and sometimes even hardens belief systems.
The thing I find most dismaying about politics is that it’s mostly sales and marketing, a perpetual fishing for the impulse-buy. To the extent that politics is war by NON-violent means, it is considerably more ignoble than most commerce. Do corporations vie for market leadership in, say, toothpaste by slinging mud about CEO sexual pecadillos? Is there not more dignity in anonymously forking over money for a product than in currying voter favor by doing favors?
The other day, my wife asked me to use my English skills to intercede in an issue involving the trimming of tree branches at the Indian Ambassador’s residence nearby, so that they wouldn’t drop leaves on neighbors’ roofs. A local elected official had already tried, but her English wasn’t up to the job. I went over there and by a stroke of luck, made friends with the groundskeeper, and tried to suggest alernative solutions. But my wife insinuated into the conversation the fact of efforts from the city council member she knew . “Oh great,” I thought, “I’m part of buying the neighbors’ votes for a politician.” It became more about who we knew, People in High Places, instead of being about the merits of various solutions. That social identity thing again.
I’ve never been able to muster more than two cheers for democracy. The closest I come to warm fuzzy feelings for it is when I see something like a photo of John McCain (ADA rating: around 5%) sitting and chatting amiably with John Kerry (ASA rating: 95%?). Ideologically, perhaps, they are opposed officers in two ignorant armies that clash by night. Are they both narcissistic egomaniacs? Quite possibly. But in their evident and heartfelt desire for better government they have a shared perspective that makes them something more like comrades-in-arms: as shitty as politics may be, at least it’s not war.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:45 pm
“Take, for example, the Democrats’ war on poverty that has run into the trillions and is still not conquered.”
The kind of poverty the Democrats first made war on has, in fact, been eradicated. There is no longer a vast, rural population suffering malnourishment with no hope for advancement of any kind. Poverty certainly exists in America, but it is of a very different, and milder, variety.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:32 pm
I love this meme about how Woody is neither a genuine conservative nor a respectable spokesman for the American Right nor for American Republicans. He is all of these. Beyond that, he is brave and admirable for giving as good as he gets without resorting to personal insults. (Personal; Personal; Personal).
The first principle of conservativism is that humans are highly falliable and frequently wrong and misguided. This goes back all the way to the origins of modern conservatism: when the father of Modern Conservatism, the imeccably liberal and progressive Eddy Burke explained in his magesterial Reflections on the Revolution in France why it is a good idea to pay deference to custom and prejudice (look prejudice up in the dictionary) before automatically advocating political regimens of re-education and head-chopping.
To repeat: this is a hilarious meme: that Woody is not a true conservative; nor an able and respectable right -winger.
As though most of you jokers are capable of writing 100 words on how right-wingers were ever right about anything, in the history of the world.
Multi-culuralism only goes so far, eh? You can find kind and extenuating words for Jihadis who advocate executing infidels, Christians and Jews, who advocate clit-chopping and execution of “warm brothers,” as the Germans say, but Woody? Man, Woody is really the problem!
Woody is the most stand-up guy on this blog.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Michael Turner Says: The Amnesty bill at least gives us a reasonable “startover point†that isn’t massively destabilizing.
As I tried to point out above, it’s actually a “continuation” point. The same corrupt forces that support illegal immigration will still be out there, and they’ll be stronger. They will continue to support the illegal immigration that results from the amnesty, and they’ll have more power to do it with.
Michael Turner Says: I think a good step in the right direction might be to make Mexico a good place for Americans to retire.
That’s not necessarily a bad idea, even if the CFR wants the same thing. They also want to join the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a superstate ruled by a governing council. So, I’d suggest looking into what you want and who else wants the same thing in a bit more detail.
Mavis Beacon Says: They’re bright enough to imagine nightly news segments on immigration workers barging into homes and ripping families apart. Until the “send ‘em back†plan can deal with the reality that many families are a mixture of illegal and legal, that strategy is dead in the water.
That’s a standard strawman argument; no major public figure is suggesting mass deportations.
Of course, if you want to think about this in a bit more depth, you might wonder whether some crackdowns are intentionally harsh in order to generate a backlash, which will then discourage enforcement. Since illegal immigration is a billion dollar industry, it’s necessary to think everything through.
And, the more illegal immigration continues, the more mixed-status families there will be. The only way to reduce the numbers of mixed-status families is to enforce our laws.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
“And, Samuel, pleeeeease don’t try to talk down to me about discussing differences in how the left and right analyze things–which was made in response to comment after comment that YOUR GUYS STARTED…”
*eyes…glazing…over… can’t… fight… impending…*
>
You’re digging that same ol’ hole, fella. It’s a dark and lonely place.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
That should be a *YAWN* after the “impending…”, but given the precipitating source, you probably figured that one out.
August 17th, 2006 at 2:58 am
Who’s this “Woody” guy, anyway? (Word count: 5)
August 17th, 2006 at 3:13 am
Great, so most of us newswatchers have gone a long time without seeing a long dead toddler tarting it up in endless home videos, played on a loop while serious sounding news anchors tsk tsk up a storm. Yet the JonBenet story is a pungent reminder of what the national press became during the Clinton years; and how George W Bush got to be President. The fact that her parents were innocent all along makes the sorry glove of this story fit fools like Cooper, who cheered this garbage on, all the more snugly. I don’t acquit.
August 17th, 2006 at 3:16 am
“Since this thread now seems a bit ‘open mike’ I’d like to ask if anyone has any thoughts on Gunter Grass coming out and admitting that he was actually Waffen SS during the war.”
I’m not German, so perhaps I don’t quite get what’s going on with that. One thing I *really* don’t get: some people are accusing him of timing the revelation so as to pump up book sales. I mean, geez, the guy’s, what, 79 years old now? He’s probably got plenty of money, from book royalties, film rights residuals, Nobel laureate speaker honoraria. Let’s just take him at his word: he’s no spring chicken, he wants to get it out there in the court of public opinion while he can, face the music and get a verdict. Keeping quiet about it originally may have been a matter of habit–in the first few post-war decades, Germany didn’t do much retrospective soul-searching. In 1949, if you got on a crowded train and found yourself pressed into intimate contact with five passengers, probably two or three of them were ex-Nazi party members.
Minor synchronicity: In the wake of recent revelations that the late Hirohito stopped going to Yasukuni because he had some issues with Class A war criminals being buried there, the Japanese media have been offering up refresher courses on “war responsibility” (with Hirohito getting a pass, at least for now.) PM Koizumi has since persisted in visiting Yasukuni, but he’s a lame duck, and besides, he’s probably just burnishing up his credentials for when he “retires upward” to a *real* position of power: the rank of ex-prime minister LDP faction leader. (It may have been reports of Hashimoto being on his death bed that opened up a new slot. The club door was closed for so long. Poor guy.)
Japan is considered a laggard in facing its history. But I’d argue that America has that problem as well. If killing civilians in savage, unrelenting bombing attacks is the ultimate in cowardly war crimes, Al Qaeda will have to keep it up until the 25rd century at its current rate to match what America did in the 20th.
August 17th, 2006 at 4:06 am
You people keep talking about “Woody”. Who is he? Anybody know him? (Word count: 12. Proper name count: 1. Number of punctuation marks: 5. Number of capital letters: 4. Number of lower-case letters: 47. Number of occurrences of the letter E: 5. Of the letter Q: zero. My strength at analyzing political issues, based on my ability to put numbers into categories and add them up: effectively infinite compared to that of any leftist, which is what you are if you agree with any leftist position more than 15.7% of the time. Beyond 23.54%, you’re a Stalinist. Plus or minus 2.3% for sampling error, anyway.)
August 17th, 2006 at 5:47 am
Those who are most critical of Grass now are the same ones who did not like his campaign to make Germans accept responsibility for what they had done, and those who are most forgiving are those who viewed his attempts to do so with sympathy. He may have made a mistake hiding his SS past all this time, but it doesn’t change the validity of what he has said and written in the years since. And since it doesn’t, judge the motivations of the current critics accordingly.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Hey gang,
I’ve been ignoring all the dufuses that show up here for months by simply noting who is pontificating and scrolling past the obnoxious, willfully ignorant and adolescent. I see no reason to waste time on them. There are plenty of opportunities to get all sides and points of view without having to subject oneself to on-line badgering by wankers.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:04 am
“Japan is considered a laggard in facing its history. But I’d argue that America has that problem as well. If killing civilians in savage, unrelenting bombing attacks is the ultimate in cowardly war crimes, Al Qaeda will have to keep it up until the 25rd century at its current rate to match what America did in the 20th.”
Has Woody done this to you MT, driven you into the left-wing camp? Disappointing comment from somone who seemed much more level headed in my past comment reads of yours.
It is too bad you didn’t use your intellect to compare the mad men suicide tactics of Worldwar II Japan, a first in war and a total shock to the civilized world at that time, and the exponential escalation of mad men suicide tactics of radical Islam the world is fighting against today….and must win now as then btw, instead of blaming us for the affect the inhumanity of war has on humanity.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:09 am
Stott: I won’t deal with your more obvious and tendentious bullshit about how Woody’s critics here are apologists for Jihadi terrorists. It’s just too fucking stupid and noxious to waste time on by taking what would be appropriate offense.
But I will say, in response to your defense of Woody’s essential and typical “conservatism”, that the dominant current in the Republican Right is hardly “Burkean”. First, they try to distance themselves from what is obviously the weakest link in Burke, i.e. his defense of prejudice as a form of wisdom, by strenuous public denials of any and all prejudice, even when their prejudice is obvious. (See George Allen and Mel Gibson for petty manifestations du jour.) But they pretty consistently reject, at least rhetorically, what is probably his strongest argument – i.e. that a historicist approach to the evolution of society is preferable to one that is based primarily on arguments from a abstract calculation of what “should be” or on idealistic declarations of universal rights.
Because Burke steeped his writings in a certain glib religiosity, it’s easy for folks on the Right to gloss over the otherwise uncomfortable fact that he was a firm opponent of doctrines of universal rights (often characterized as “God-given”) and had a utilitarian, albeit utilitarian-traditionalist, view of society. Frankly I think Burke’s approach is as historicist and relativist as any intellectual trend that’s ever found a home on the left (fairly obscure academic, post-marxist “Post Modern-isms” are the favored demons in right-wing circles seeking straw men for public hangings). Of course, it’s an error to analyze or invoke Burke as a fully coherent political philospher. He was a career politician and his writing was polemical and primarily in reaction to events.
Also SS, FYI, the Iraq war – currently Exhibit #1 among Great Moments of our current “conservative” regime and premised ultra-optimistically by it’s most vocal proponents as the first step in some sort of re-structuring of the Middle East as democracy swept the region – was about as “un-Burkean” a strategy as one could possibly imagine. Which is a major reason many liberals fault the “conservative” credentials of the current crop of GOPers and their lapdogs like Woody. (I know Woody has been trying to distance himself from the war these days for obvious reasons, but he’s been a consistently vicious critic of those of us who’ve questioned the war here and generally takes refuge in the “Father Knows Best” school of discourse on Iraq.)
August 17th, 2006 at 7:32 am
I didn’t intend to be totally critical, MT. You deserve credit for not including Israel in your war crimes accusation, which most in the ‘moral equivalency’ confused left-wing always do.
Thank you for that. There’s still hope you can recover a temporary lapse in logic. I use Maker’s Mark in trying times myself….only after of12 course, that there is anything wrong with that.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:34 am
This is a pretty disturbing chapter in the continuing saga of Bushidiocy.
http://maxspeak.org/mt/archives/002438.html
August 17th, 2006 at 7:35 am
only after 12 of course, not that there is anything wrong with that.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Jim R, apparently in response to my noting that U.S. bombing of civilians in the 20th century far exceeds what any other country has done:
“Has Woody done this to you MT, driven you into the left-wing camp? Disappointing comment from somone who seemed much more level headed in my past comment reads of yours.”
I’m sorry, but it has nothing to do with political leanings. It’s just a fact: the firebombings of Japanese cities were the largest mass slaughter of civilians by military means in the 20th century–until the U.S. possibly topped its own record later on in Indochina. You don’t have to be a “leftist” to believe that–you just have to be able to do arithmetic.
“It is too bad you didn’t use your intellect to compare the mad men suicide tactics of Worldwar II Japan, a first in war and a total shock to the civilized world at that time …”
In Nevil Shute’s autobiography (his life as a novelist, aviator, and aeronautical engineer) he professes having felt surprised at the shock that others felt over kamikaze tactics. When he was a teenager during WW I, his graduated classmates who had joined the RAF would visit his school in uniform and were greeted with adulation. These young men had average lifespans measurable in weeks, at that point. And it was understood that they were basically signed up for suicide missions. That made them doubly heroic. Shute himself tried to sign up, but didn’t qualify.
Suicidal warriors are “madmen” when they are on the enemy side, “heroes” when they are on our side. Our slaughterers of civilians were doing the grim but regrettably necessary work of bending the evil enemy to our will–but when it’s the enemy doing it, of course, it’s a war crime.
“… and the exponential escalation of mad men suicide tactics of radical Islam the world is fighting against today….and must win now as then btw, instead of blaming us for the affect the inhumanity of war has on humanity.”
Suggested reading: Robert Pape’s Dying to Win. Suicide bombing has less to do with radical Islam and more to do with the invention of easily improvised, easily hidden explosives combined with territorial claims of nationalist movements against liberal democracies. Were you quaking in fear when Tamil Tigers were blowing themselves and Ceylonese up in Sri Lanka? Did you even notice? I believe the total that have perpetrated attacks in Sri Lanka still exceeds all of the suicide bombing done by muslims–who adopted the tactic after seeing its effectiveness for the Tamil Tigers.
War is politics by violent means, terrorism is war by asymmetric means, and all politics is local. Attacks like 9/11 and certain others would seem to be the exception to the “local” rule, but if the attacks aim to provoke the West into involving itself in local conflicts in ways that create political opportunities for the perpetrators, you have an almost syllogistic conclusion: “international terrorism is politics by violent means with the aim of provoking targeted nations into acting against other nations (your enemies and your allies) in ways that advance your local political goals.”
Does it work? Just ask bin Laden. And ask the guy who used to be responsible for attempts to track bin Laden full time, until his office was shut down by the Bush administration. And ask that American soldier in Iraq recently quoted as saying “they left us holding the bag–and it’s a bag full of garbage.” Explosive garbage.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:46 am
Illegal Immigration Face, how is my argument that any comprehensive immigration policy must have Amnesty a straw man? Obviously, there are quite a few politicians and organizations calling for an enforcement only approach. If they don’t want illegals deported and they don’t want them legalized either, then it’s really not a very comprehensive policy. Status quo limbo.
Just FYI, Tancredo assumes that employer sanctions will send illegals scurrying out of the country, but he’s perfectly happy to deport anyone who doesn’t conform to his plans. So he supports mass deportations unless you use that term.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11141/tancredo.html
August 17th, 2006 at 9:10 am
“You deserve credit for not including Israel in your war crimes accusation, which most in the ‘moral equivalency’ confused left-wing always do.”
Actually, those of us who accuse Israel of war crimes do so because, um, Israel has committed war crimes by any definition based on international law. No confusion about it.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:13 am
“This is a pretty disturbing chapter in the continuing saga of Bushidiocy.”–reg
Actually, it demonstrates once again that Bush does not know where any of these countries are.
August 17th, 2006 at 11:49 am
You guys sure didn’t need a substantive post by Marc to get you thrusting sharp sticks into one another’s eyes.
I just put protective goggles on and I’m leaving.
August 17th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
I actually find the JonBenet story interesting for what it is saying about the media that had all but convicted the Ramsey’s (particularly the wife) of killing their daughter. I’m just as squemish as many of our fourth estaters at those kiddie beauty contests but really, where was the evidence. It is a lot of fun watching them squerm now. Hell, I might even watch FOX News to see Geraldo – who assured us on his old show that there was no doubt of mommy and daddy being murderers – try to ‘splain his way out of this one!
August 17th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Geraldo’s new role as O’Reilly’s butt boy is his sorriest – and most deserved – to date.
August 17th, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Michael Turner points out that felonizing employers of illegal aliens would have unintended consequences. That was my point exactly, and why I said I would bet that it would never happen.
Actually, the punishment for employing illegally aliens should be deportation. That would stop it then and there, wouldn’t it.
My point isn’t that this is an appropriate or effective to solution to this thorny problem. Rather, it is a thought experiment designed to expose the chauvanist nativism at the core of the anti-immigration movement.
As a political tactic, it seems worth immigrant supporters’ time to purse the line of argument: If you want to get tough on illegal immigration, make sure you deal firstly and most harshly with illegal employers, just as you would deal more harshly and firstly with drug dealers, as opposed to users.
My own view is that immigration is a free-market signal of problems in Mexico and that, as Michael Turner suggests, any solution needs to focus on those problems. In the interim, the focus should be on accommodating immigrants, even undocumented ones, in smart, efficient ways that encourges pursuit of legalization and punishes harshly criminal activity that isn’t directly related to the immigration itself.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
I wanted to recommend a great film I saw last week: House of Sand. it’s a Brazilian film staring Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres, mother and daughter, respectively, in real life. It spans some 60 years and is a moving document of people on the edge of civilization in a landscape that seems so unusual that it appears, well, downright extraterrestrial: the Lençois Maranhenses in the state of Maranhão in the northeast region of Brazil (pictures here and description here – that’s fresh water by the way).
Don’t miss it.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
Here’s the web site for the film.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
I thought I knew a lot about Brazil, having spent considerable time there, but I never heard of these “Maranhão Sheets.”
If you want a strange movie with lots of sand, try the Japanese Woman In the Dunes, which oddly enough, I saw in Brazil about 40 years ago. Well-made, creepy, and full of allegory.
August 17th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Teshigahara was a one of a kind director. The Face of Another was another unusual and highly allegorical film of his.
August 17th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
If anyone still has doubts that the end is very likely near for the U.S. project in Iraq, the highly credible, on-the-ground, avidly pro-war blog-reporter Michael Yon – who has been warning his stateside chickenhawk cheerleaders that the country has been in civil war for quite a while – is now despairing that the war may well be lost. (If you don’t know his on-line milieu, Yon actually hypes Michelle Malkin’s witless video podcasts on his site – hopefully in exchange for some compensation.) When guys like Yon and Tom Friedman show sure signs of giving up the ghost, you know chickens are coming home, etc. etc. It will be interestiing to watch the websurfing scumbags try to lay blame for this impending disaster on those of us who have been persistently pointing to the signs of Situation FUBAR for a long time.
They will. No doubt about that, no matter how absurd. Because the current rightwing pack – particularly as represented by the blowhardsphere – who not long ago would genuflect every time Krazy Don Rumsfeld dropped a bon mot, is one of the most dishonest, low, reckless gang of clowns I’ve ever seen congregate to pursue their mischief.
Since they’re also chickenshit, they’ll need to find someone else to blame for their follies. Taking Responsibility R Not Them.
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/precarious-road.htm
August 17th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
Jim R: “… the exponential escalation of mad men suicide tactics of radical Islam the world is fighting against today”
Exponential? Guess the provenance of the following passage:
“Markedly different pictures can be presented depending on what one chooses to include in data relating to terrorism. For example, some would argue that the Iraq casualties — which are largely the product of sectarian violence, rampant criminal activity, and home grown insurgency — grossly distort the global terrorism picture and perhaps should not be attributed to terrorist activity. According to NCTC data, outside of Iraq, the total number of incidents with ten or more deaths remained at approximately the 2003-2004 level — 70 per year. This suggests that, excluding Iraq, the number of higher casualty terror attacks remains relatively stable.”
Who? Some defeatist liberal over at the NYT? Maybe even The Nation?
Nope, it’s from a Juloy 2006 report on global trends on terror issued to Congress from the U.S. Department of State (which is run by Condi, last I checked.)
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/69479.pdf
And these suicide bombers are all “madmen”? Try Wikipedia:
“Most suicide bombers do not show signs of psychopathology. Indeed, leaders of the groups who perpetrate these attacks search for individuals who can be trusted to carry out the mission; those with mental illnesses are not ideal candidates. They often find solace in the ritualistic communion found in extremist circles, which are often headed by charismatic individuals looking for new recruits.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bomber
“Radical Islam”? Seriously overestimated as a factor. Of some 41 Hezbollah suicide bomber attacks in Lebanon from 1982-86, only 8 were fundamentalist muslims, Pape’s study found. A useful summary of Robert Pape’s arguments can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism
Useful, that is, if you have an open mind and can endure brief periods of feeling confused by the facts.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
Jim R: “… the exponential escalation of mad men suicide tactics of radical Islam the world is fighting against today”
Exponential? Guess the provenance of the following passage:
“Markedly different pictures can be presented depending on what one chooses to include in data relating to terrorism. For example, some would argue that the Iraq casualties — which are largely the product of sectarian violence, rampant criminal activity, and home grown insurgency — grossly distort the global terrorism picture and perhaps should not be attributed to terrorist activity. According to NCTC data, outside of Iraq, the total number of incidents with ten or more deaths remained at approximately the 2003-2004 level — 70 per year. This suggests that, excluding Iraq, the number of higher casualty terror attacks remains relatively stable.”
Who? Some defeatist liberal over at the NYT? Maybe even The Nation?
Nope, it’s from a Juloy 2006 report on global trends on terror issued to Congress from the U.S. Department of State (which is run by Condi, last I checked.)
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/69479.pdf
And these suicide bombers are all “madmen”? Try Wikipedia:
“Most suicide bombers do not show signs of psychopathology. Indeed, leaders of the groups who perpetrate these attacks search for individuals who can be trusted to carry out the mission; those with mental illnesses are not ideal candidates. They often find solace in the ritualistic communion found in extremist circles, which are often headed by charismatic individuals looking for new recruits.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bomber
“Radical Islam”? Seriously overestimated as a factor. Of some 41 Hezbollah suicide bomber attacks in Lebanon from 1982-86, only 8 were fundamentalist muslims, Pape’s study found. A useful summary of Robert Pape’s arguments can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_to_Win:_The_Strategic_Logic_of_Suicide_Terrorism
Useful, that is, if you have an open mind and can endure brief, dizzying periods of feeling confused by the facts.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:04 pm
Apologies for the double post–I got a message that said I’d already posted something, but I didn’t see it immediately. Maybe the mouse button bounced when I hit “Submit Comment”.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Grumpy Old Man, you’re right–Woman in the Dunes is an incredible, haunting story. I’ve never seen the film, but I read the novel about fifteen years ago (God, that makes me feel old) and it’s still vivid in my mind.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
Yeah, ok there Reg. You make a couple of points, which I am pleased to rebut.
First,
“I won’t deal with your more obvious and tendentious bullshit about how Woody’s critics here are apologists for Jihadi terrorists. It’s just too fucking stupid and noxious to waste time on by taking what would be appropriate offense.”
First, congratulations. You called my ideas “tenditious bullshit” and failed to insult me personally. In any case, I reject your characterization of my accusation. I don’t accuse you and all of your buddies on this blog of being apologists for jihadis. (Although, in fairness, I see how my words could have been read that way.) So let me say this in plain English. I don’t think you or most people on this blog are deliberately apologizing for Jihadis and Islamo-facists. I think you and most people on this blog are SOFT on Jihadis and Islamo-facism. I think you don’t take Muslim fanatics and their millions of followers and cheerleaders seriously. I think you reserve your hate for W and Woody and me and the likes of Ariel Sharon . I think you do this because, for ideological resons, you are disinclined to take brown and black-skinned people from poor, backwards countries seriously. If I ever saw you or any of your co-horts ever expending any of your breath on defending women and Labor and free-thinkers and free-speechers in Egypt or Iran I would think differently, but I don’t, so I don’t.
Regarding your point that Edmund Burke was an historicist, in exactly the wise numerous Lefties are historicists, you are too clever by half. The history Burke defended was the Common Law and English civilization, (i.e. the history lived in) not a boutique set of arbitrary multi-cultural preferences he pulled out of his ass.
Burke’s idea of “prejudice,” goes to the point here. You obviously understand that by “prejudice” Burke meant those ideas that are received and ratified through history in concrete historical communities, but then you turn around and proffer Mel Gibson as a representative of such “prejudice,” as though a raving Anti-Semite who accuses Jews of starting every war in the history of the world is representative of the US or the West or the Anglosphere.
This is delusion squared. The people who earnestly hope to slit your mom’s throat blame the Jews for starting every war and taking blood with their Matzoh. They are poor and live in backward countries so you, in your infinite cognitive dissonance, heap your scorn on people like Woody.
Like I said, you are soft on facism. It’s impossible not to be, for joker partisans such as yourself. Fucking Republicans!
But I will say, in response to your defense of Woody’s essential and typical “conservatismâ€, that the dominant current in the Republican Right is hardly “Burkeanâ€. First, they try to distance themselves from what is obviously the weakest link in Burke, i.e. his defense of prejudice as a form of wisdom, by strenuous public denials of any and all prejudice, even when their prejudice is obvious. (See George Allen and Mel Gibson for petty manifestations du jour.) But they pretty consistently reject, at least rhetorically, what is probably his strongest argument – i.e. that a historicist approach to the evolution of society is preferable to one that is based primarily on arguments from a abstract calculation of what “should be†or on idealistic declarations of universal rights.
Because Burke steeped his writings in a certain glib religiosity, it’s easy for folks on the Right to gloss over the otherwise uncomfortable fact that he was a firm opponent of doctrines of universal rights (often characterized as “God-givenâ€) and had a utilitarian, albeit utilitarian-traditionalist, view of society. Frankly I think Burke’s approach is as historicist and relativist as any intellectual trend that’s ever found a home on the left (fairly obscure academic, post-marxist “Post Modern-isms†are the favored demons in right-wing circles seeking straw men for public hangings). Of course, it’s an error to analyze or invoke Burke as a fully coherent political philospher. He was a career politician and his writing was polemical and primarily in reaction to events.
Also SS, FYI, the Iraq war – currently Exhibit #1 among Great Moments of our current “conservative†regime and premised ultra-optimistically by it’s most vocal proponents as the first step in some sort of re-structuring of the Middle East as democracy swept the region – was about as “un-Burkean†a strategy as one could possibly imagine. Which is a major reason many liberals fault the “conservative†credentials of the current crop of GOPers and their lapdogs like Woody. (I know Woody has been trying to distance himself from the war these days for obvious reasons, but he’s been a consistently vicious critic of those of us who’ve questioned the war here and generally takes refuge in the “Father Knows Best†school of discourse on Iraq.)
August 17th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
“I don’t accuse you and all of your buddies on this blog of being apologists for jihadis. (Although, in fairness, I see how my words could have been read that way.)”
Yes, in all fairness. What were your words, Samuel? It’s hard to see how they could be read any other way. Here they are again:
“Multi-culuralism only goes so far, eh? You can find kind and extenuating words for Jihadis who advocate executing infidels, Christians and Jews, who advocate clit-chopping and execution of “warm brothers,†as the Germans say,…”
Can you point to any such “kind and extenuating words” from any of us?
“Clit-chopping”, by the way, is not a specifically muslim practice–in fact, it’s a cultural practice to which some muslims in some countries adapted themselves, to accommodate the local culture. (Most muslim-majority nations don’t practice it.) Educate yourself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_circumcision
Interestingly, the first muslim on record as proposing a moderation of the practice, and on the grounds that, properly done, it might even enhance female sexual pleasure, was none other than the Prophet himself. In some countries where it is supposedly practiced, it involves touching the clitoris of a female infant with a knife–considerably less violent than what was done to me as an infant.
“So let me say this in plain English. I don’t think you or most people on this blog are deliberately apologizing for Jihadis and Islamo-facists. I think you and most people on this blog are SOFT on Jihadis and Islamo-facism. I think you don’t take Muslim fanatics and their millions of followers and cheerleaders seriously.”
I see. So it’s a matter of degree. To what exact hue must the litmus strip turn in order to pass your test? What’s your measure, so that we may know whether we’ve strayed across the line? If one is a leftist (which I am not, by the way), does the color have to be deeper, richer or brighter in order to pass? Where can we get tested?
I frequently cite Robert Pape in this comment section. I like his analysis not because it allows me to be “soft” on islamic extremists, but because it builds a quantitative case, rather than a subjective one based on personal assessment of “hardness” and “softness” in rhetoric.
Accusing people of being “soft on” this or that is argument by intimidation. Give me an argument from numbers. I may not be a CPA, like the supposed exemplar of rational, responsible conservatism you extoll here. But I can do arithmetic.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:07 am
Stott, since I didn’t insult you the first time, I will now. You make a string of unhinged assertions that are totally fucking obnoxius, if not lunatic, and if you can hook one of them to anything I’ve actually stated as opposed to the contents of your apparently diseased mind, I’ll apologize for telling you to go shove your hackneyed, fabricated shit up your sorry ass.
As for the attempt at a rejoinder on Burke, your ridiculous proposition regarding my passing reference to Mel Gibson is such a perfect and obvious example of one lacking the capacity for actually engaging another’s actual argument without manufacturing strawmen – and badly – that I won’t bother with dissecting it. You choose to argue with a fleeting bracketed reference, slide past my point and then accuse me – again – of somehow being soft on fascism and antisemitism. Frankly, based on the evidence of that response, I think you’re more than a bit mad. As in nuts. My original impulse was to ignore you because you’re not worth the time – your comments are so consistently rancid and reflective of little more than recycling a bad attitude, at best – and, of course, it was the right one.
August 18th, 2006 at 3:21 am
Also, the latter half of Stott’s “rejoinder” is simply a long paste from my original comment, if it’s not obvious. Presumably a result of not having preview, as opposed to another example of his not making any sense.
Not that anyone else couuld possibly give a shit.
August 18th, 2006 at 5:46 am
Since this is the summer of bashing Chomsky (you know,the holocaust denying-milosevic loving-closet nazi-self-hating jew), here’s a clip where he (rightly)dismisses the 9/11 conspiracy theorists,
http://youtube.com/watch?v=LoDqDvbgeXM
August 18th, 2006 at 6:59 am
More on sandy movies here, along with the Google total on “sand dunes” and “anti-semitism.”
August 18th, 2006 at 7:22 am
Max, what do you make of Chomsky’s statement in your link “Even if were true(9/11 was an inside job), who cares.”?
Doesn’t sound like he is totally convinced it wasn’t yet, and if it was, he’s tired of trying to convince us. Amazing to say the least for an otherwise highly articulate and intelligent human.
Shows us the dangers of taking our politics, like our religiion, way to seriously. It can get extreme and rob us of common sense and rational behavior.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:53 am
Came across a good blog called Mark a York checked it out.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:07 am
I meant to comment on GWB’s reading list this summer which includes, if you believe the WH spinmeisters Camus’ THE STRANGER. Well Billmon thinks if that is true maybe Shrub put Edith Piaf on his IPOD. Hey why not? When asked in 2004 if he could name any mistakes he couldn’t:
“No, I regret nothing
Good and Bad,
Its all the same to me.”
Boy, wait till FOX NEWS hears he’s going French!
And BTW, anyone know where I can get a “Sore Loserman” T-shirt from 2000? I think it might have new currency in CT.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:42 am
Not to detract from the novel’s enduring qualities, but The Stranger is a short, easy read that was a major catalyst for “deep thoughts” back when I was in high school. Next on Bush’s list: The Catcher in the Rye. Frankly, I’d be more impressed if he were reading some military history about now. I guess a case can be made for Bush being fascinated with a man who’s immune to guilt over killing an Arab. Or maybe he’s studying existentialist philosophy because of it’s emphasis on man as a “decider”.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Nope CATCHER IN THE RYE has bad language. Besides Holden Caulfield is intelligent as well as screwed up. Funny you mention Salinger though, Reg, since I just reread the Glass stories. Do it every so often.
Maybe after he finishs Camus he can pick up a copy of NO EXIT. In Shrub’s case Hell is other Neocons.
August 18th, 2006 at 11:57 am
And I’m not sure I’d want him reading military history since it would probably be something by Victor Davis Hansen or Robert Kagan.
August 18th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Yeah. Actually he should probably start with Cobra II and then move on to Fiasco.
Hopefully Laura’s keeping him away from Atlas Shrugged, which would be just about his speed in the category of “philosophical novels”. Except it’s way too long.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:38 pm
Besides he’s already internalized the virtues of selfishness.
August 18th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
When I was at Andover, where GWB went a few years later, one of the younger English teachers thought “The Catcher In The Rye” was a great novel.
It’s not bad, but not great, and the rest of Salinger’s work is a pretentious yawn.
August 18th, 2006 at 5:12 pm
There’s some obvious partisan bullshit in this Little Richie Lowry piece I’ve linked below, but I consider it a must-read, if only as a measure of how far the “true believers” have come in recognizing their debacle.
The most interesting part is that there’s absolutely no attempt to defend against what critics of the war have been saying all along – only the cheap fall-back of “If you’re so smart, how come you can’t solve the mess we’ve made?” (Quite an impressive defense of one’s own recklessness. Sort of like saying, “There’s no point in dwelling on the fact that you told me not to have that last drink at the party and to stop at the red light. I’ve crashed the car and the only important thing now is that we figure out how to crawl out of the wreckage before the gas tank explodes!” Well, yeah…duh. )
http://tinyurl.com/oyqbl
(And, of course, there’s no credit given by this craven, come-lately crowd to Democratic war critics like Anthony Zinni or, for that matter, John Kerry who have been proposing strategies aimed at more realistic course correction for years, based on a recognition of the incompetence that was manifest – while BushCo just kept repeating that the corner was being turned. Not that any of this advice could have guaranteed a successful, positive conclusion to an essentially flawed decision to rush to war on a reckless hunch, some egregious opportunism (a little neo-con dance choreographed on the dead of 9/11) and the self-serving assurances of dubious exile groups, but the response of the administration and it’s apologists has been a steady diet of denial each step of the way. We’ve seen reflections of it in these threads for years. For the Lowrys and Kristols to suddenly try to own the ongoing, deep and informed criticism of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice triumphalist strategy of reckless abandon and cockeyed optimism that set in after the initial phase of toppling Saddam is just base dishonesty and political revisionism. These slimy mouthpieces and ridiculously glib cheerleaders have been part of the problem since day one and it’s time for some honesty and accountability.)
August 18th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
In a way, the “soft” charge is a bigger insult, and more inacurate, than the garden varity McCarthism of the traitor stuff.
It’s the Republicans, of course, who have been soft on Osma, and may well privately regaurd him as a kind of political asset. Again, the Coulter outrage was pure payback, how DARE these women question are partys RIGHT to FORGO any investiagtion into 9-11! The asleep at the wheel appraoch that just ripped the Middle East was the mindset that took our gaurd down during 9-11; and an honest assesment from the right would have admitted it. You have put promoting the regal Presidency of the Gerald Ford All Stars far above bringing the 9-11 killers to their just deserts. You’re soft, not me.
It is no doubt Mrs. Bush that has finally gotten her husband to pick up a book. Next sememster, “A Seprate Peace” and “Lord Of The Flies”, no doubt.
August 18th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
How about we do another thread for greatest movies ever?
August 18th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
Richard and reg,
I think the one book Bush should read without question is Dispatches by Michael Herr.
Grumpy Old Man,
I believe that the Lencois Maranhenses was called that because of the whiteness of the sand and also to distinguish from Lencois, the main town in the Chapada Diamantina.
Haven’t gotten to Maranhao yet (my furthest north is Paraiba), but I’ll get there soon.
By the way’ I hope that Marc, in his absence, has found this article vindicating his late friend Gary Webb.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:25 pm
““So let me say this in plain English. I don’t think you or most people on this blog are deliberately apologizing for Jihadis and Islamo-facists. ”
Of course the American government isn’t consciously supporting jihadi extremists when supporting Israeli occupation of Palestine or the barabaric bombing of Lebanon or the illegal US occupation of Iraq, etc….but then again, so what, that is what their policies in fact do, eh?
August 19th, 2006 at 1:42 am
Jim R writes:
—-
…. what do you make of Chomsky’s statement in your link “Even if were true(9/11 was an inside job), who cares.â€?
—-
The actual quote is, “I mean, even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares?”
This is after minutes of deriding the theory as not only useless, but worse than useless, a distraction from more important issues.
—
“Doesn’t sound like he is totally convinced it wasn’t yet, and if it was, he’s tired of trying to convince us.”
—
If you mean, “tired of trying to convince us that it isn’t true”, how can you blame him? It’s an incredible tedious subject. If you mean he got tired of trying to convince anybody it WAS true, where’s your evidence for that?
“Amazing to say the least for an otherwise highly articulate and intelligent human.”
Chomsky goes on to draw a parallel to the JFK assassination and the conspiracy theory industry around that (likewise pointing out that it’s a colossal waste of time.) If there was some high level conspiracy in that situation, then it becomes interesting. If it was just the Mafia that knocked him, well, as he says, “so what?”
Chomsky’s actually pretty careful–he qualifies 99% of what he writes and 95% of what he says by citing sources, not saying outright that something is true or false. His logic on this particular issue is impeccable: if there were a 9/11 conspiracy in the Bush administration, it would almost certainly have leaked. I think the best anybody can prove is what’s already been proven: until 9/11, the Bush administration didn’t give terrorist threats much priority, despite some evidence that something was brewing. If that negligence was a calculated strategy of virtual inviting a strike strike, you won’t find a paper trail. Any other trail is also very unlikely–after Nixon, no president is going to secretly record Oval Office conversations.
But let’s say that someone involved in such a conversation actually recorded it on the sly. (I have a digital pocket recorder about the size of a pack of chewing gum–it’s not hard to do.) And let’s say that some inquiry into the Bush administration’s Iraq/Afghanistan policy squeezed this participant hard enough that he/she decided that the recording had plea-bargain value. Well, what do you have? You have some people agreeing that a major terror strike on U.S. soil would help advance a New Middle East policy. And you might have some mumbling about how downplaying the threat of terror would make such a strike more likely. And then what do you have? Probably somebody saying, as Nixon did in another legally problematic context, “But that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”
On top of all the dissembling since 9/11, that would indeed be a “so what” moment.
August 19th, 2006 at 2:42 am
re the Iraq war, I have previously recommended George Packer’s “The Assassin’s Gate” and am now in the middle of Thomas Ricks’ “Fiasco.” Both are highly recommended reading for anyone on either the left or right who wants to discuss Iraq with a modicum of knowledge to back up their statements. “Fiasco” especially is chapter and verse about the ignorance and arrogance, especially on the part of Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, that led us into the quagmire; Packer is terrific on nuance and interpretation.
August 19th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Didn’t take Israel long to break the cease fire. It almost makes one think they would like to see the cease fire fail, but that can’t be true.
I’ll jump in on Chomsky. As a formerly avid reader of everything he put out, I frequently had problems wih the loose way he quoted sources. He has a habit of taking a source very much out of context, or taking some rather banal policy statement, and then laying it down on the page followed by some dryly delivered sarcasm. (Ths device actually gets pretty tiresome once you’ve read a few thousand pages of him). But style aside this is the key to my issue: very often these scathing conslusions he reaches about that particular quote and what it means are a tremendous reach. Either the quote itself can’t bear the weight of the bridge he’s building to his next step, or it’s obvious that this is not what the person quoted meant, bu Chomky sstretches it to an absurd limit and then uses that as the basis to makee hi grand pronouncement on the lack of concern for people, peace, self-determination, whatever, on the part of the US. Those claims may be true, but the sources he uses to get fom A to B in that instance frequently leave me unsatisfied.
I used to look up the full quotes from time to time and his citations were right whenever I checked them, but there is a kind of rhetorical slipperiness in this device, which is odd because as MT points out, he generally is pretty careful to qualify things. It’s a subtle thing, but I think it seriously mars his work.
August 19th, 2006 at 8:51 am
“[Chomsky] has a habit of taking a source very much out of context, or taking some rather banal policy statement, and then laying it down on the page followed by some dryly delivered sarcasm….very often these scathing conslusions he reaches about that particular quote and what it means are a tremendous reach. Either the quote itself can’t bear the weight of the bridge he’s building to his next step, or it’s obvious that this is not what the person quoted meant ….”
Or at least, there’s a tendency for the quoted to claim so. I like to call that tendency “Huntington’s Complaint.”
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/11044
Short version of the exchange:
Complainer: “I was taken out of context by Chomsky!”
Chomsky: “You want context? Try reading my footnotes AND re-reading your own work, in HISTORICAL context.”
Note that he gracefully concedes at the end that Huntington was not necessarily working for what was “effectively” a State department task force.
Huntington has since distinguished himself by trumping up a bunch of regional conflicts into yet another Clash of Civilizations, this time with Islam. Repeat after me, over and over: War is a Force that Give Us Meaning.
Many of the intellectual camp-follower consultants in these largely fabricated global collisions seem rather careful to make sure that their blue dresses won’t end up with any stains that might be subject to DNA analysis. Roy Prosterman comes to mind–he designed the land reform aspect of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program
What kind of person associates himself with a program consisting so significantly of political assassinations and Geneva convention violations, out of some desire to do good?
August 19th, 2006 at 9:14 am
Dan O:
Would you please provide some specific examples of Chomsky’s “very much out of context” quoting”, absurd stretching of quotes etc.?
Since “he has a habit” of doing it, you should have an easy time providing several examples that clearly support your contentions.
August 19th, 2006 at 10:21 am
I agree with you Randy, DISPATCHES is a great book. Funny, but along with Salinger I just reread some of Herr’s reporting the Library of America collection of War Reporting. Boy does it stand up well against what we see today! And while we’re at it, why not get Laura to recommend ONCE UPON A DISTANT WAR which chronicles the early work of reporters like Arnett, Halberstam, and Sheehan (among others) in that place.
Reg I think we have a new definition of Chutzpah. For the LAT to now say that, hey Webb was basically right is small solace. I mentioned the Bonner case the other day where the NYT did not back up its man in El Salvador over Govt. war crimes reporting. Stories we found out later were 100% accurate. I mentioned the chilling effect that had. Well what Webb did was even better. Driving a man to suicide has to, as the French say “encourage others” to keep quiet. So all hail Judy Miller. She lies and gets the Pulitzer. Webb tells the truth and gets elimination.
And still they are afraid. See all the stories about the Bush “Bounce” from London? Check the polls. None, Zip, Nada! But the cowards in the MSM still don’t believe it. And I bet Bonner and Webb did their part in fostering that attitude – Rove can do no wrong! People like Shrub!
August 19th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Look, I don’t intend to disparage all of his work by any means, it’s just a tendency I have noted. Ed, since all my Chomsky books are either sold or back in Minneapolis, I can’t readily cite an example. I will concede though, that this is insufficient as evidence. So you’ll either have to write my comments off as drivel, or accept that I offer them in good faith based on a pretty thorough familiarity with his work. I held this opinion even when I was a much more hardcore fan. I would add, as MT further notes, that Chomsky probably feels the conclusions he reaches are fair in a broader context, i.e. a historical one (or HIS historical one), but it usually left me feeling the conslusion was unfair. When I have some spare time I’ll try to find some examples and get back to you.
August 19th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
So Marc is gone until August 22nd? Hhmm…isn’t that the date set for the next war?
http://armageddoncocktailhour.wordpress.com
August 19th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
FYI just saw on one of the blogs (might have been HUFFINGTON POST but don’t remember) an article from the INDEPENDENT of London that left-wing members of the Labour Party will introduce a motion calling for Tony Blair to resign at once and also to support the remarks of Deputy PM Prescott who called Bush “Crap” recently. So it looks like another friend of shrub is in hot water.
August 19th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Wow! This is really interesting! Comments between liberals about obscure books and movies so that each can try to out-impress the other. Let me guess. You’re either smoking a pipe or sampling wine as you cover these riviting topics. Carry on.
August 19th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
“Comments between liberals about obscure books and movies so that each can try to out-impress the other.”
Except that I hardly think Grumpy Old Man considers himself a “liberal”. My, this Woody chap is desperate for attention. Either that or feeling a little left out, which causes him to lash out at others, like a frustrated adolescent. How pitifully sad.
August 19th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
An exchange between Bill Bennett and Noam Chomsky
http://www.chomsky.info/debates/20020530.htm
It’s interesting less for its content (which unfortunately is about as coherent as your average Bill O’Reilly shoutfest) than for this: Chomsky saying that he chooses to live in the greatest country in the world, and Bennett telling him he should say that more often.
Oddly, I think Bennett’s right. I see no contradiction between being a political moderate and a patriot, and agreeing with Chomsky about U.S foreign policy on most points. Chomsky has said more than once that he’s in a privileged position–able to publish whatever he wants, taking as much time as he feels to do it, and without interference from his employers. He’s very much a beneficiary of what’s great about America. If he were to preface all of his comments in debates with some such apologia, he’d be taking the high ground in almost every debate. But no–we only find out when he’s on the defensive, when someone like Bennett accuses him “making a career” of America-hating.
At the core of my own agreement with much of what Chomsky says is a painful irony: America really is a great, free nation, offering so much for other nations to emulate, but it shoots itself in the foot abroad. America-hating seems to be approaching a pitch that I can’t remember seeing since the late Vietnam War period, when Chomsky first established his reputation as a critic of American foreign policy and media. And the reasons for that hatred are not too different.
August 20th, 2006 at 4:00 am
“I would add, as MT further notes, that Chomsky probably feels the conclusions he reaches are fair in a broader context, i.e. a historical one (or HIS historical one), but it usually left me feeling the conslusion was unfair.”
Another common fallback position: “It’s not that Chomsky is *wrong*, exactly. It’s just … well … the *impression* he leaves.”
If you come to a piece of writing with certain biases, you’ll come away from it with a different impression than someone with different biases.
Need an example? Take Oliver Kamm. (Please!)
http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/11/chomsky_and_tha.html
There are two quotes of Chomsky in Kamm’s blog entry. One is fragmentary, “freedom of speech” (fragments being usually a clue that distortion is at word), and is contained within a block quote from Marco Attila Hoare to set up the premise: Chomsky’s sole *ostensible* concern was that Diana Johnstone’s “freedom of speech” was being infringed. But his real agenda is something else.
However, if you actually read the “open letter” to which Kamm links (a letter with some genuine errors, detailed elsewhere), you see that Chomsky primarily inveighs against one “van Reis” as being an opponent of free speech, and primarily in the context of the successful litigation against the magazine Living Marxism for slander, under British libel laws upon which Chomsky heaps some scorn. However, nowhere does he say that Johnstone’s freedom of speech has somehow been denied her across the board. If he even approaches anything like that statement, it has nothing to do with direct government censorship, but rather against the press itself. Which is consistent with his notion of Manufacturing Consent: liberal democracies don’t need official censorship, because it’s so easy to get 95% of the effect of official censorship when you have the bully pulpit of state and a free press that effectively infringes on its own freedom of expression to accommodate the bullying.
The second quote Kamm uses from the open letter is: “Johnstone argues — and, in fact, clearly demonstrates — that a good deal of what has been charged [against the Serbian government] has no basis in fact, and much of it is pure fabrication”.
So that’s the real point for Kamm. To summarize what Kamm seems to be trying to say here: Chomsky wraps himself in the First Amendment, but what he’s really all about is genocide apologetics.
Anyone coming to the “open letter” having irrevocably bought the story that Milosevic directed a program of genocide in Bosnia, with Srebrenica as the epicenter, and 8,000 dead in Srebrenica as a result, will of course come away with that impression. They might even come away with the impression that Chomsky denies that there were massacres on a significant scale in Srebrenica, and that he is keen to defend Milosevic.
In fact Chomsky has said that there were massacres, more than once. As for being a Milosevic fan, Chomsky even exulted, in no uncertain terms, over the unseating of Milosevic, who he considered corrupt and brutal. Oh, but how is one expected to know that Chomsky ever said any such thing? Surely that would take hours of researching, poring over his every word?
Google: brutal corrupt Milosevic Chomsky
Under 10 seconds, including typing the search terms. And it’s the first link.
Does that leave you with an “impression” of any kind?
August 20th, 2006 at 7:40 am
Well Michael, that’s not my point at all. You’re choosing to lump me in with someone who seems rather clearly to be distoring what Chomsky says in an unfair way, and that’s just a little bit sly.
My point about “his” historical conext, is that he has a very specific and severe view of US foreign policy (and he is often right), and that the distortions I claimed to see earlier are regarded, not as distortions, but pronouncements in service of the reigning imperial ideology.
The Huntington NYRB article you cite above as exclupatory for Chomsky and damning for people who complain, actually rather nicely makes my point. Chomsky mutilates a quote from Huntington. The elipses and elided last sentence dramatically change the meaning from the original. If Chomsky believes that Huntington ultimaltely reaches the conclusions that Chomsky implies with his Frankenstein stitching, as he goes on to ague in his lengthy reply, then why not simply find the right quotes in the first place and put that in your original writing? It’s just sloppy and it is unfair.
August 20th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Samuel, no I don’t care for attention and what’s sad and adolescent, to use your words, is that you would attack me personally rather than address the point that I made. But, I’m used to it, as that is par for the course from the left side of the political spectrum.
It’s just that I noticed that when Marc left the thread open to his commenters, the liberals took over and, as you tried with me, drove others away–as is often the case when a vacuum exists in any organization. The comments got as interesting as listening to National Public Radio. You can almost hear the same borrrrring speech patterns of NPR commentators emanating from this comment section.
I bet that the number of hits on Marc’s site has taken a steep dive thanks to that. Maybe you guys can start a fundraiser to keep the site going by giving away doo-wop CD’s for pledges. In the meantime, keep up with the boring, esoteric discussion.
Forgive me for expressing my opinion once you guys on the left claimed this comment section for your own. And, you wonder why liberal talk radio fails.
August 20th, 2006 at 8:44 am
“You’re choosing to lump me in with someone who seems rather clearly to be distoring what Chomsky says in an unfair way, and that’s just a little bit sly.”
And it’s not sly to say that Chomsky comes off as sounding unfair, but you just can’t come up with an example because all your Chomsky books are in storage in another city?
I don’t have any of his books anymore, but whenever I want to see what he sounds like ….
Google: Chomsky
Over 18 million links.
As to whether Chomsky’s quoting of Huntington “dramatically changes” Huntington’s meaning, that depends on what Huntington’s meaning actually was, doesn’t it? Huntington claimed that this “mutilation” resulted in a “directly opposite” meaning. Chomsky convinces me that Hintington’s meaning closely parallels U.S. foreign policy of denying the enemy sanctuary by depopulating the countryside by force of arms–it was just a question of when, and how. How else, after all, could “forced draft urbanization” be achieved in South Vietnam on any reasonable schedule without depopulating the countryside? And how else might that have been done except as it was already being done, by the “direct application of mechanical and conventional power…on such a massive scale as to produce a massive migration from countryside to city.”
If what Chomsky did in “mutilating” a quote from Huntington is “unfair”, I can’t say I’m touched by the suffering imposed on Huntington in a debate context that, at the time, also included whether it was fair, exactly, that Vietnamese children were being scarred for life by napalm burns. To me, Huntington comes off as sounding something like, “I didn’t approve of that, you can’t prove that I approved of that, and I promise I’ll never approve of that again.”
No doubt I’m being slyly unfair.
August 20th, 2006 at 9:29 am
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Israeli’s once again show thier utter disdain for peace, international law and human life.
Thier bull shit cover story of trying to stop arms supplies is just pure arrogance (12 IDFs dressed as Hezs in SUVs is not how the Israeli’s stop arms supplies). Regardless of what thier objectives were, thier violation of the cease-fire demonstrates that they are not even on par, morally, with Hezbollah who indicated thier intentions to continue to honor the cease-fire despite the ‘incursion’.
August 20th, 2006 at 10:23 am
# Woody Says:
August 19th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
Wow! This is really interesting! Comments between liberals about obscure books and movies so that each can try to out-impress the other. Let me guess. You’re either smoking a pipe or sampling wine as you cover these riveting topics. Carry on.
Gee, Woody, I’ve linked and commented on a series of conservative pundits on the situation in Iraq. How fucking obscure can you get. Seems like it might be an opportunity for you to weigh in with your incredibly heavy artillery, since you’re so much more logical and better informed than fools like me.
Oh, well.
Also, I find it hard to believe a discussion of Noam Chomsky – especially one that references an exchange with Blowhard Extraordinaire Bill Bennett – would seem obscure to a right-winger, since he’s routinely demonized and put forward by your crowd as an example of how loonytoons the mentality of anyone and everyone on the left is. But since you’ve probably never actually read him other than as contextless quotes lifted by other right-wing hacks, I guess you’re out of that loop.
Then there’s the question of Lebanon’s aftermath and impending “peace”, which has been brought up several times. Another obscure issue.
Also, why bother when football season is upon us…
Why don’t you do Marc’s hits a favor here by posting links to the Heisman Hopefuls ?
August 20th, 2006 at 10:36 am
Most of you probably read Kevin Drum’s WashMonthly blog, but I just read a post there that made me laugh out loud, so I’m going to cross it over here since Marc’s taking a snooze.
QUOTE MONGERING….Chad Orzel says the latest blog timewaster is to head over to the Quote Randomizer and pick the first five quotes that “reflect who you are or what you believe.”
Sounds like fun. But on the theory that you can judge a man more by his enemies than his friends, how about the first five quotes that you think are a crock of shit? Here are mine:
1.
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
Publilius Syrus (~100 BC)
Why not? Do you really want your neighbors walking around in public in their underwear scratching their butts?
2.
If you think you can win, you can win. Faith is necessary to victory.
William Hazlitt (1778 – 1830)
Then how come Rudy Ruettiger doesn’t play for the Steelers?
3.
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.
Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642)
Galileo obviously didn’t get out enough.
4.
Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God.
Heywood Broun (1888 – 1939)
I so wish this were true. And perhaps if I had died in 1939 I would have believed it too.
5.
You can never learn less, you can only learn more.
Keith Degreen
Then explain George W. Bus
August 20th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
I’m so glad you’ve managed to instruct me twice on the usage of google. Do I do that in a web browser?
Didn’t seem right to use the interwebs to attempt to find quotes to make my case because the point I’m making doesn’t lend itself to trolling for links “to see what he sounds like.” I know what he sounds like, and what he “sounds like” is not my issue, but rather what he actually writes. He writes big books, with thousands of quotations and explanatory footnotes and citations. To make my case I need to get into one of his books and find an example, make sure the footnotes (not generelaly available online) don’t cover my objection, and perhaps see what the original citation was. I don’t think it’s fair to Chomsky to “Google: Chomsky” and not follow up carefully.
Also, not to be too pissy about this, but I clearly stated in an earlier post that I grant that this does not suffice as evidence, so what do you want? If I can’t come up with a concrete example, and I can’t right now, then blow it off. Fine with me.
But sadly, you cannot ignore the very example you kindly provided. On further reflection this is a perfect example of Chomsky’s maddening and sophistic habit: Quote an author’s premises and then draw conclusions for him . Too bad I can’t go read the original Huntington without going to the library.
But bear with me for a moment. Let’s look at Chomsky’s actual response in the NYRB. Huntington puts the quote back together with it’s conluding senstence which says, “Peace in the immediate future must hence be based on accommodation.” He also notes where Chomsky attributes to him the writings of another author instead, and where Chomssky takes quotes from earlier in the article and places them after the Frakenstein quote to give the appearance of conclusions flowing from premises. Huntington disavows these conclusions and then goes on to say that this is exactly the opposite of what he means and instead he concludes “Instead of attempting this, we should aim at a political reintegration of the country which ‘clearly will depend, however, upon the recognition and acceptance of Viet Cong control of local government in these areas. It is here that accommodation in the most specific sense of the word is a political necessity.’ ”
Chomsky’s repsonse is just more sly sophistry of the kind he was upbraided for by Huntington. He cites more examples of Huntington’s description of the situation divorced from his ultimate conclusion. In the third paragraph he begins with more stitched together quotes which, by now are under deep suspicion: If he’s got the goods on Huntington then provide a full quote. Laer in that paragraph he employs another of his techniques–he condemns Huntington for making no judgments about the strategy in Vietnam and then brings in quotations from two completely different authors from an article a year earlier and then shifts back to Huntington to further condemn his use of terminology. Here’s the common Chimsky trick: These other two authors make some offensive remarks about counter-insurgency, and Chomsky manages to make it appear as if Huntington endorses these views when he does no such thing, and in fact clearly states that peace requires accomodation. This is just intellectual thuggery.
Chomksy then uses another of his favorite techniques, which is to, after imputing the conclusions he prefers, to describe apalling conditions on the ground, as if these things were the result of Huntington’s views. It’s a very slippery rhetorical trick. He then tries to make an important distinction seem like a quibble, i.e. whether Huntington favors war or peace, even after Huntington has explcitly denied that he thinks force should continue and affirmed the need for peace. And then Chomksy goes on with some ridiculous hair-splitting to defend his original distortion where he clearly ascribed (“the conslusion is obvious, and he does not shrink from it”) to Huntington views that don’t follow. Chomsky then relies on repeating what he “literally” wrote, and I can only say it’s awfully obtuse for a man of his intelligence to not understand what “implication” means…or maybe he does and he’s just being a sophist.
And I’m sure, Michael, you don’t really mean to conflate the issues over fairness in a debate in an intellectual journal and the horrors of Vietnam. Context, horrible as it was, does not excuse sloppiness, or worse, deliberate distortion.
August 20th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
reg, nope. I don’t read Chomsky and neither does 99+ percent of Americans. There is another life out there, and I’m not going to spend my time trying to keep up with everything and everyone discussed in the Daily Kos, for which this has become an extension in the last few days. And, I’m confident that more Americans can tell you who won the Heisman Trophy than anything about Chomsky–and, that’s good.
But, since I’m very proficient at using google, here’s what I found as one of the first links: Noam Chomsky
If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Tribunals, he’d be hanged. So too, mind you, would every single American President since the end of the second world war, including Jimmy Carter.
The suggestion comes from perhaps the most feted liberal intellectual in the world – the American linguist Noam Chomsky. His latest attack on the way his country behaves in the world is called Hegemony or Survival, America’s Quest for Global Dominance.
Uh, huh…. Good reading there. That kind of thinking is worth less than the time that it took me to type this.
Just because you and others whose opinions that I don’t respect consider Chomsky a great mind, doesn’t mean that I do or that I consider his opinion worthy of my time.
If I want to be bored, I would have thought that NPR would be a better source for that than marccooper.com, but not today.
And, something doesn’t have to be about politics to be of interest…. Evolving Universes My mind can carry beyond how Bush upsets the left each day.
reg, I know that you attempted to be smug (and intellectual?) with your comment, but, as usual, I’m just laughing at you.
Oh, I can hardly wait for Marc to come back and repair the damage to his site. Until then, you just keep dragging things down.
August 20th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Well, it’s clear that I didn’t properly close the italics after the second quoted paragraph on Chomsky, but I’m going to hope that this doesn’t confuse you and that you can somehow tie it into a Republican plot.
August 20th, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Who cares about the Heisman? Name the winners who actually amounted to anything in the pros. OJ, Dickerson, Staubach and maybe half a dozen others. BTW Woody since I’m an obscurantist liberal why not name the first winner and the school he played for.
August 20th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Reg,
Regarding obscure books and films, one wonders why anyone would regard as obscure a film released by the specialty Classics division of Sony Picture, which will probably turn a much more significant profit for them after all is said and done (largely due to the lower costs involved) than many of the blockbusters that have failed and continue to fail this summer.
One also wonders why anyone would refer to a book as obscure if it were regarded by John LeCarre as “the best book I have ever read on men and war in our time” and got the writer jobs writing the narration for Apocalypse Now and the intor for Full Metal Jacket.
Unless, of course, one enjoys wearing one’s ignorance like a badge of honor.
August 20th, 2006 at 4:18 pm
Yes, obscure to Woody might be any book without a lot of good pictures. Woody, I’m no big Chomsky fan; but he is one of the most debated and read voices on the left. Yet you smugly dismiss liberal arguements and speak in broad generalizations as if you at some level know what you are talking about. But you don’t; your a conservative, a word which alas has degenerated, thanks to people like you, into shorthand for “know nothing slob.”
Would it were that Woody was some sort of freak or social outcast on this point. When Chomsky appeared on “Politicaly Incorrect”, Andrew Sullivan had his little flag waving hissy fit and claimed Chomsky had been “pro-Soviet.” Even a casual Chomsky reader like myself knew that was false.
But we’re lucky. To us, the swinefests of the right will always be low comedy. Iraq is now living the hell created by Men/Boys like W and Woody; they know it all… except that they know nothing, and that’s how they like it.
August 20th, 2006 at 4:50 pm
Dan O hits a bullseye on Chomsky. Everything Chomsky writes is worth reading for its clarity, understanding and analysis. Still he does have the very annoying habit of taking others’ words out of context. And there is more than enough sly rhetorical maneuvers and overuse of sarcasm. Anyone who’s read him should be ready to acknowledge that.
August 20th, 2006 at 6:02 pm
rlc, the Heisman is for the top college player–not the best pro prospect.
Here’s the answer to your question: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/02/020627.berwanger.shtml
———-
Randy, the people have voted with their dollars. Based on that, Talladega Nights is a better film than any you discussed. I’ve actually taken a ride around the oval at Talledega, which is a lot more interesting than a poetry reading.
———-
Wall, I realize that you’re new here, but I’ve discussed in the past, before you came along, why there is no reason to go into great depths to discredit ideas from the left. They have such a history of bad positions and results, that it is easy and legitimate to simply dismiss their latest ideas as bad until they actually show that they can offer something useful.
Say what you want about Iraq, but whatever you say is premature. A long-term historical look-back will have the last word.
Would you like to discuss the successes of Jimmy Carter with Iran now that enough time has passed? http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041213/aslan
———-
bunkerbuster, if you will allow me to join the wine and cheese club for a moment, the little that I have read of Chomsky doesn’t impress me. He’s a cheerleader for the left, sort of like reg is here, but his statements are a little dishonest and his positions go to the point of being ridiculous–sort of like reg, too.
Take the first sentence that I referenced from him earlier: If George Bush were to be judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Tribunals, he’d be hanged. So too, mind you, would every single American President since the end of the second world war, including Jimmy Carter. Well, at least he gave Richard Nixon a pass. Why should somene who starts out like that deserve the ears of any rational person?
The left claims heroes because of their extremism–not for any substance. Think about that. It’s true.
———
I hate coming back here to deal with individual attacks against me. Really, why don’t you guys quit worrying about what I say and do something else that you like? This tit-for-tat talk is almost as boring as the NPR styled discussions.
Want to see a cool picture? http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1096711/M/
August 20th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
Randy, the people have voted with their dollars. Based on that, Talladega Nights is a better film than any you discussed. I’ve actually taken a ride around the oval at Talledega, which is a lot more interesting than a poetry reading.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz
August 20th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
Woody, glad to see you are using The Nation in support of your overall contention that the left has no credibility. I’m glad your broad grasp of history is not so wide that you can’t boil Iran down to Jimmy Carter (!). Have you also only read the opening few sentences of a history of the Nuremberg Trials? (Chomsky’s overheated here, but not exactly WRONG).
August 20th, 2006 at 8:34 pm
” he’s a cheerleader for the left, sort of like reg is here, but his statements are a little dishonest and his positions go to the point of being ridiculous–sort of like reg, too.”
Example pleeeze of my “dishonesty”. And if you categorize me with Chomsky, it’s proof that you’re a complete idiot and have never paid any attention to what I’ve written here – other than that you’re an idiot.
I didn’t bring up Chomsky, incidentally, but I find a lot of wingnuts on the right obsess on him far more than most liberals. Personally, I don’t pay much attention to him. But I constantly find people on your side of these debates citing him as someone folks like me consider iconic. Frankly, very few liberals do and most of the folks I know who do read him take a lot of his pronouncements with a grain of salt. If you don’t want to take the opportunity to kick around one of the faves among the right’s demon strawmen, so be it. Although I could care less about Chomsky, from what I’ve observed he does an enormous amount of documentation and is far more cogent than most of the people you periodically quote here and could run circles around them. I would love to see Ann Coulter try to take him on. I just found your dismissive comment about these posts to be typically full of shit as to what had actually constituted the range of topics on this thread.
I guess that response was a signal that you’re taking a pass on discussing anything substantive. As for “anything you say on Iraq is premature” – are you referring to crap like “Mission Accomplished” or “the insurgency is in it’s last throes”. Did you believe what your trying to tell us now when your silly little man in his codpiece was breaking out the champagne three long, deadly years ago ? Or when scumbag Cheney was spitting at anyone who wasn’t in lockstep ? No, you were trying to shut up critics like me and sliming us with the notion that asking too many questions about where things were going and why we had even gone in was a sign that we didn’t “support the troops”, etc. etc. ad nauseum. So shove your “historical perspective” up your ass, because it’s a coward’s way of avoiding any actual reckoning or responsibility as regards what’s actually been happening and total denial of just how badly the gang you’ve been touting here like some snake oil salesman have fucked up.
August 20th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
Dan O writes:
“I clearly stated in an earlier post that I grant that this does not suffice as evidence, so what do you want? If I can’t come up with a concrete example, and I can’t right now, then blow it off. Fine with me. But sadly, you cannot ignore the very example you kindly provided. On further reflection this is a perfect example of Chomsky’s maddening and sophistic habit: Quote an author’s premises and then draw conclusions for him.”
I don’t have a problem with Chomsky doing that, so long as the conclusions plausibly follow from those premises, and there are no other conclusions nearly as plausible. I don’t consider that a “maddening and sophistic habit.” In the context of America’s involvement in Indochina, there isn’t a whole lot else one could have done when so much information was being covered up anyway, and politicians were lying (as is their tendency when they can benefit, or at least escape harm, by lying, and get away with the lie.)
If Chomsky, in fact, had such a “maddening and sophistic *habit*”, how can it be that it’s so incredibly difficult to turn up evidence of it now, when so many of his words are available within seconds?
Huntington is right to say he was not a member of “the” Vietnam study group for the State Department, because there were many. Chomsky concedes that this was hearsay. But it’s not very substantive. What IS substantive is this: the study Huntington involved himself in concluded that the use of American firepower had benefited in its aims. In a defense of Huntington, Fareed Zakaria writes of Huntington,
—–
…. attempting to explain that the South Vietnamese government had grown more secure around 1967, Huntington argued that one of the unplanned consequences of U.S. military action in rural areas coupled with the economic activity of cities in wartime was a peasant migration to cities–South Vietnamese government strongholds. Huntington described this process, and did say that the consequences were to America’s benefit. [My emph. added - MT] But on the next page (which Lang did not Xerox) he asserted that this should not be the strategy of the United States, and that “peace in the immediate future must hence be based on accommodation.” The report to the State Department, which has been declassified for years, was even more critical of U.S. policies. The “summary conclusion” reads:
The U.S. should shift the emphasis in its policies from pacification and urbanization to the encouragement of rural political organization. … Efforts should be made to assimilate segments of the Viet Cong. … [This] requires a reversal of the current expansion of the American role in South Vietnam. The United States should lessen its efforts radically to reconstruct Vietnamese society and should instead come to terms with it.
—
In other words, Huntington either didn’t have a big problem with, say, carpet bombing the countryside, or maybe he thought that the time for that tactic was past, or perhaps that there should at least be a “shift in emphasis”, or maybe that what he proposes would have been better all along, even if rural “pacification” was OK, or … well, what exactly? Did he ever condemn the bombing in moral terms? Not to my knowledge.
According to Zakaria, we get more clarity from a report that “has been declassified for years” (but was it declassified in 1970? How can Chomsky be responsible for not getting Huntington perfectly right when Huntington’s most clearly stated conclusions are a state secret at the time?) If Huntington wanted to be perfectly clear, why didn’t he do a mini-Ellsberg and quote his own secret report? Perhaps because, when you’re a gentleman and a scholar, one does not stoop to “leaking”? Even if you’re a gentleman and a scholar who counsels mass killers that, in the short tun, they should perhaps kill a little less and face unpleasant political realities a little more, if they hoped to prevail in the long run?
What’s clear from all of this: Huntington wasn’t criticizing the American policy in Vietnam in any moral terms. Peace requires “accommodation” (in the “most specific” sense of that term, whatever that is) as a *political* necessity, not because, well, killing civilians or herding them into cities is, y’know, *wrong* or anything. “Peace”, “accommodation”–lovely sounding words. But accommodation itself might have been an immoral basis for peace in the immediate future of the time–it’s not like the Viet Cong were innocent of atrocities, after all.
But morality has nothing to do with it, does it? The U.S. is currently backed into a somewhat similar corner, and is finding rather amoral ways to “accommodate”:
http://transcendentalbloviation.blogspot.com/2006/08/tea-with-queen.html
Not that they work very well, exactly:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/15/ap/world/mainD8JGOA6G0.shtml
“And I’m sure, Michael, you don’t really mean to conflate the issues over fairness in a debate in an intellectual journal and the horrors of Vietnam. Context, horrible as it was, does not excuse sloppiness, or worse, deliberate distortion.”
And I’m sure, Dan, that you don’t mean to insinuate that I would cut Chomsky a little extra slack in that context. That would be … wrong! After all, getting a little sloppy with quotes is just not done, when you’re a true gentleman and a true scholar, regardless of the topic of discussion. Nobody should ever get *that* upset. About anything. I mean, OK, Huntington was writing a secret report for a State Department run by Henry Kissinger, about whether continuing to kill a lot of people was *strategically* correct. But so what? They were just wasting ‘em. It was no big deal. Gentleman and scholars are careful to keep the gloves on, tightly laced, at all times, even when shrapnel and napalm are flying around elsewhere. You’re right. Where’s my sense of perspective? I mean, perpetrating large-scale intentional violence against civilians is a pretty minor matter compared to even the most isolated and negligent violence done to *words*. Maybe we should have a name for that crime against humanity? How about “quoteslaughter”? I kinda like the ring of it. Maybe we can get the ICT to approve the term.
August 21st, 2006 at 12:32 am
Since it seems like a free for all on this post, I thought I would post this. Especially since this was a subject in previous posts:
http://gnn.tv/video/viewer.php?id=63&n=1
It is in quicktime format, let me know what you think.
August 21st, 2006 at 12:37 am
Sorry:
http://gnn.tv/videos/viewer.php?id=63&n=1
it’s late, this should work
August 21st, 2006 at 1:26 am
Michael, you clearly have a problem with Huntington, and I’m not interested in defending him, given that I know very little about him. He may be a war mongerring lunatic for all I know, but what I do know is what I outlined above regarding the article referenced in the NYRB. My charges against Chomsky’s method are unrefuted and now you’ve shifted tactics from claiming I cannot come up with an example supporting my claim, to now arguing that it’s ok to charge a person with saying what they never said.
You once again accuse me of not finding examples, but I think I’ve explained myself there twice now. And I don’t care about the State Department connection, it’s not where Chomsky displays his bad habits.
And now you’re doing it. How does, “a reversal of the current expansion of the American role in South Vietnam,” turn into “Huntington either didn’t have a big problem with, say, carpet bombing the countryside…”?
And finally, hey man, what can I say: I do think fairly and accurately representing your opponent’s arguments is the hallmark of civilized, adult debate. You can mock it all you like, but I would charge you to define what “context” is sufficiently inflammatory to warrant just playing fast and loose, which you now defend.
I really have no problem with how heated and passionate things get between people, just don’t misrepresent–this is the first rule of intellectual honesty, and when that breaks down, the conversation breaks down, veracity suffers, and your ability to persuade your audience (let alone your opponent) plummets. It is perfectly possible to condemn, say, the Viet Nam war in the strongest possible terms and also treat your opponent fairly. You’re pretty insistent that I’m some kind of Victorian boob for insisting on this, but you’re forcing a zero sum calculation on a situation that is not one. It’s perfectly possible to be unethical in your condemnation of an immoral act, but why is it necessary?
August 21st, 2006 at 1:41 am
Since it is open mike time I am reprinting this editorial from today’s NYT re the Clinton-Tasini primary contest. Although Tasini is way behind, wouldn’t it be more “Democratic” to hear his views aired? Or is pretending you don’t have an opponent a principled way to win elections these days?
http://www.michaelbalter.com/Civilizations/08_21_2006|Clinton_should_debate_Tasini.php
August 21st, 2006 at 3:45 am
“How does, “a reversal of the current expansion of the American role in South Vietnam,†turn into “Huntington either didn’t have a big problem with, say, carpet bombing the countryside…”?
Wouldn’t the moral high ground have been to be calling for an end to the bombing, because it was wrong? Huntington advocated not a reversal of the *policy*, but a reversal of the *expansion* of the policy. As is clear from context (if Zakaria’s interpretation is correct), Huntington said that the forced urbanization (of which bombing was a big, if inadvertent, part) was positive for American aims, but that it was time to shift gears–not in the face of moral atrocities, but rather because of political realities.
“I would charge you to define what “context” is sufficiently inflammatory to warrant just playing fast and loose, which you now defend.”
Quoting Huntington in full textual context in the footnotes, and interpreting him in full *political* context in the main text sacrificing perfect clarity to expository flow is not “playing fast and loose.” (If you object that nobody reads footnotes, count me as an exception–I’d often read one of Chomsky’s books straight through without reading many footnotes, then read it again–*starting* with the footnotes, which you’ll notice is where a lot of the really good stuff is, if you’re reading Chomsky carefully at all.) As I read the passage that Huntington complains about, it *could* be interpreted as misquoting, but only if you jump to conclusions and don’t read footnotes. You can find complaints like his all over the Web without hardly trying.
Chomsky was clearly enraged at how the press and academia kowtowed credulously to Vietnam policy, keeping the administration’s inconvenient secrets when it was professionally convenient for them, even as innocent people were being slaughtered. Huntington was one of those guys. It doesn’t wash. Chomsky quotes Huntington in a way that makes him look like a kind of warmonger. Huntington tries to defend himself as some kind of peacemonger, by insisting that a sentence should have been added that sounds like it means he was a warmonger, and that another one arguably should have been more directly attributed in the main text, rather than in the footnotes. But what kind of peacemonger approves of carpet bombing civilian populations as having been a means to advance U.S. interests in that region at the time?
Huntington doesn’t say “You got my moral position wrong, Noam”. He complains “Somebody could misinterpret my policy position from what you wrote.”
One can hardly be blamed for “misrepresenting” the position of a person who on the one hand won’t clearly take the attributed position in print, and on the other, collaborates with people who have taken that position, and who basically admits that he held that position himself until it became *politically* unrealistic. Actions speak louder than words. And Chomsky was looking at more than just words, since so many words at the time were deceptive.
August 21st, 2006 at 3:50 am
Errata:
For “by insisting that a sentence should have been added that sounds like it means he was a warmonger” make that “peacemonger”.
Also, in my immediately previous post: when Huntington’s Foreign Affairs article came out, Henry Kissinger was not yet the Secretary of State.
Michael Turner regrets these errors, but does not regret any pain they may have caused to war criminals.
August 21st, 2006 at 5:59 am
Tired yet Dan? Michael’s on a mission to identify war criminals and perceived supporters. Logic don’t apply.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:16 am
Actually it was impeccable logic. Turner spent a good deal of time clearly demonstrating that Chomsky’s rebuttal of Huntinton was sound, as well as providing some good historical context for the discussion.
If, after reading all of Mr. Turner’s posts, it isn’t crystal clear to you that, at least in this instance, Chomsky’s qouting is accurate, then your perception is clouded by ideological baggage.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:30 am
reg, the “mission accomplished” banner is an over-used, grasping-at-straws, meaningless attempt by Democrats to discredit the success of our troops, led by Bush, in moving into Iraq’s capital and overthrowing Hussein. That’s what it did. I think that it’s entirely appropriate to recognize and honor our troops when they have accomplished their missions–which those troops had. But, someone who does not support the troops would not care and would put politics above honor. Maybe you would prefer to keep kicking vets from Korea, Viet Nam, and Somalia, just as you do those in Iraq, for not finishing their jobs as you see it–just to gain a political point.
As far as substantive discussions go, let me know when one starts.
Finally, let’s assess your honor from your own past words: As for my own details, my paychecks have been so far from pure for the last twenty years, it ain’t funny. Before that they were too pure for my own good. I believe it.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:51 am
You won the election by pissing on the heroic war record of a Vietnam Vet, my sad little Wood man. At this moment, the President is chanting “the mission must be compleated”.
Yet the mission is lost. The right never had the will or interesting in unifing the country to the extent that they could pull off something like setting up an effective Goverment in Iraq. It would have taken a huge national effort, like WWII. That tends to make people ask something in return from the country in return.
Bush this morning is in full mentdown. It will be a pleasure to watch the rest of the right throw him to the dogs in the next couple of years.
August 21st, 2006 at 8:39 am
“But, someone who does not support the troops would not care and would put politics above honor.”
Fuck you, you disgusting moron. If you want to attack people for not supporting the troops and putting politics above honor, you can start with the little shit Bush, Cheney and Don Rumsfeld who have consistently left our troops hang out to dry in Iraq from day one. People like you disgrace this country with your steady stream of political revisionism to cover your sorry asses.
Attacking me won’t change history. A political war of choice, based on a hyped threat – that sapped our ability and will to actually finish urgent business in Afghanistan, incidentally, by pulling out forces prematurely and, typically, failing to commit them where needed – and conducted consistently on the basis of wishful thinking and denial is not a case of “honor” for the people I do in fact criticize – which have NEVER been the troops but the craven gang who put them there and have botched every strategic decision along the way. (I was, incidentally, one of a small group of people I work with who recieved a personal letter and a flag flown in country from a group of Marines who served twice in Iraq, thanking us for sending them a steady stream of “care” packages from home while they were on tour. I personally bought a frame for the letter and hung it with the flag in a prominent spot where folks gather in the foyer. I felt humbled and embarrassed to be thanked for something so small by guys who had sacrificed so much, but I’ll take it from actual troops about who’s been supporting them, rather than you. If you think you’re a better judge, I guess that would be typical of WoodyWorld. Supporting the troops means exactly that – it doesn’t mean exploiting their willingness to sacrifice, providing them with absolutely reckless and clueless leadership by politicians who think they know more about military strategy than the military, leaving them hang out to dry on a failed course without clear and realizable goals or shutting down any honest evaluation of the civilians who put them in harms way on a hunch, planning their mission hastily and foolishly on premises that ranged from totally false to extremely thin.
People like you who play GOPer politics with this pre-fab line about supporting the troops should be lined up and have the slime hosed off of you. You’re a bunch of degenerates IMHO. Really. Because you’ve politicized this thing from day one, trying to evade criticisms of this war, it’s rationales and the sorry way it was planned and conducted for your own purely political reasons, and, for my money, you are way beyond ever being forgiven for it. Right-wing scumbags touting BushCo have consistently stood by, ultimately in the manner of cowards, while our troops suffered far more than than they should ever have endured because you have, in fact, put party and politics before honesty or any semblance of honor – first by claiming that this war was necessary, then by claiming it had been easily won simply because Saddam had been run out of Baghdad, then as it got tougher and tougher by claiming that all we had to do was trust Bush & Co. who had set off the slow motion disaster in the first place. Thanks a lot, Woody. Tell me one more time how our nation turns it’s eyes to you and yours and you’re a more “authentic” American than I am because of your fascination with the Heisman Hopefuls while I could care less and spend more of my waking moments pained and disgusted by BushCo’s recklessness, incompetence and lack of accountability.)
As for your quoting me, it’s so far removed from this subject and so out of any context as to be absurd.
You really are a piece of work. No shame…
August 21st, 2006 at 8:48 am
“our troops, led by Bush”
Was there ever a more tragically laughable line uttered by one of these clowns ??? I would be horribly embarrassed to suggest that what Bush has provided in rushing the nation into this war and conducting it with supreme and consistent incompetence constitutes “leadership”. But then I’m not part of Woody’s World.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:22 am
This is a terrifying and stunningly ironic view of just how dire things are in Iraq and how dangerous and deadly the disintegration could become regionally. Courtesy of the dean of “liberal hawks” circa 2002, Kenneth Pollack. What’s most incredible about this perspective is that the potential for a growing terrorist threat obviously comes from all sides in the current scenario: A Shiite majority whose support for Hezbollah and Iran is growing exponentially and a Sunni minority who have linked up with al Qaeda cells in order to pursue their own sectarian ends. To listen to Bush fumbling and whining and joking around this morning in the midst of all such a prospect was terrifying. Not even Kurdistan – the “good part” of Iraq appears immune. I hope to God Pollack is painting an overly dire picture. He was spectacularly wrong about the nature of Saddam’s threat, but I have a nasty feeling he might be getting it closer to right this time. In which case we have him, along with BushCo which he aided and abetted, to thank for helping to create the nightmare of snowballing instability he now describes. And I think the strategies he proposes for stemming it are, even by his own admission, a combination of unlikely alliances attempting too little, too late, having failed at too much – essentially trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
http://tinyurl.com/jcw4g
George Will said it well in a column I linked to earlier. Essentially his point was that the “realists” had sought stability in the Middle East, while the neo-cons saw stability itself as the problem. That problem, Will noted in full irony mode, has been solved.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:36 am
Why doesn’t Rich Lowry of National Review support the troops?
From today’s Washington Post:
“It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq,” Lowry wrote in April 2005, chastising those who disagreed. This month, he published an editorial that concluded that “success in Iraq seems more out of reach than it has at any time since the initial invasion three years ago” and assailed “the administration’s on-again-off-again approach to Iraq.”
“It is time for the Bush administration to acknowledge that its approach of assuring people that progress is being made and operating on that optimistic basis in Iraq isn’t working,” the editorial said. Lowry followed up days later in his own column, suggesting that the United States is “losing, or at least not obviously winning, a major war” and asking whether Iraq is “Bush’s Vietnam.”
(End clip)
This is one of those conservatives who Woody tells us “given the same set of facts” can think more clearly, logically and analytically than the liberals who have been asking these same questions about the war for years.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:41 am
Sorry for the serial posting…but I just came across this which isn’t being reported by most media:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1852843,00.html
Okay, I’m done for the day.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:22 am
Reg, since Turkey and Iran both have a “Kurdish Prolem” and our NATO ally has already dispatched 250000 troops to the border it is great to see that GWB once again is a “uniter” as well as a “Decider”. He’s brough Iran and Turkey together in common cause.
Woody, do you really, I mean REALLY believe that the Heisman rewards the BEST College player?Or just the most hyped QB or Running Back? When was the last time a defensive player was honored?
And points for Berwanger and the U of C. Now for extra credit what happened to the stadium when Hutchens got rid of football and what was it best known for? Inquiring (and obscurantist) minds want to know.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:39 am
Reg, what has happened is the country was turned over to a nitwit who is a pawn of the reactionary right. This wing of the Republicans
came to power as a result of a series of freakish events; a combination of wilfulness of the far left and denial on what remains of the centralist, reality based right.
Doesn’t it tell you something that Cooper can’t discuss Clinton without the disclaimer that he’s incabable of speaking rationaly on the subject? There’s a reason he never did interviews with Joe Conason, or wrote such a mean spirited smear of David Brock? On the radio, he couldn’t have answered their sensible arguements with “HA!, How does the inside of Clinton’s ass look?” and other juvinile
rejoiners I get around here. Think about it, this guy gets paid to write for major market alturnative publications and that’s the best he can do.
Christpher Hitchens and Dennis Miller wern’t changed by 9-11; they just got to use it as an excuse. But their shoddy reasoning, petty vindictiveness and lame jokes were all their in the Clinton years. Check out a typically fine piece by Jeff Cohen on the Huffington post.
August 21st, 2006 at 10:43 am
Done for the day? Thank goodness. I didn’t read all that trash talk, anyway.
Hey, reg. The soldiers in Iraq like to keep up with college football and those players in the running for the Heisman Trophy. In fact, they enjoy it and have games beamed to them. Should we stop letting the soldiers watch football so that they can spend more time worrying about George W. Bush and Iraq? I bet that you think they’re stupid for watching games, don’t you?
Is it that the soldiers don’t have anything more important to worry about, or is it that you mock those who enjoy other aspects of life because you think you only what concerns you, to the exclusion of everything else, is important–which is your all consuming hatred for our President and the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. Well, if that’s the case, you can stop.
Also, maybe the troops on the ground there see the truth that you cannot and have more hope in the support of a new democracy in that region.
Maybe things will go better in Iraq once the radical left and the Democrats (hard to tell them apart) quit giving hope to the terrorists and encouraging them to hang on–like they, Kerry, and Fonda did on Viet Nam. If you guys support our troops (which you don’t), then quit helping the enemy.
Now, don’t post anymore. You said that you were through for the day–or, are we going to see a string of six or seven more?
———-
Wall, you have a strange take on how the last Presidential election was won. Kerry was lucky that he got as close as he did and that there wasn’t even more time to expose him for the fraud that he is. Just think. If Bush is so horrible, then people must think even less of Kerry, who lost. Maybe you guys need to realize that U.S. voters like to elect leaders who care more about A
America than care about what the French think.
———-
I’m finished, too.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:07 am
Since you’re finished Wooy I’ll answer my own question. The stadium(Stagg Field) was pulled down and replaced by the University Library. But the field is best remembered today for a non-football even. The first “Atomic Pile” (Nuclear Reactor) went critical there in the stadium’s basement in Dec 1942.
And all a good day!
August 21st, 2006 at 11:28 am
rlc, good piece of trivia. Thanks.
August 21st, 2006 at 11:43 am
Woody, like the dithering dittohead you will always be, you were finished before you got started. But I’d LOVE for you to post some more of your Fraud evidence against Kerry. The champion of W, the Babe Ruth of draft dodgers, spits on a Vietnam vet once again!
Tim Grieve at Salon is well worth checking out at Salon today. Check out Bush and Cheney’s Saddam/9-11 linkage, and rage at Cynithia McKinney!
August 21st, 2006 at 11:55 am
Ed:
I’m going to let MT have the last word on our over long exchange, but I completely disagree with you ( the gravamen of my charge is unanswered) and I’m not suffering from ideological bias. In fact, I tend to agree with Chomsky, in general, more than I disagree with him.
August 21st, 2006 at 12:39 pm
To rlc –
“When was the last time a defensive player was honored?” 1997, Charles Woodson, U of Michigan.
But I liked your trivia about the stadium even better.
August 21st, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Nope, I’m not a liberal.
I used to teach college, though. This qualifies me to be a literary and cultural studies poseur, just for old times’ sake.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:20 pm
“In fact, they enjoy it and have games beamed to them. Should we stop letting the soldiers watch football so that they can spend more time worrying about George W. Bush and Iraq? I bet that you think they’re stupid for watching games, don’t you?”
Woody, if they’re anything like Pat Tillman, they like football and reading Noam Chomsky.
August 21st, 2006 at 1:28 pm
“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
–– George Bernard Shaw
“Knowledge communicates to a man how little he actually knows.”
– Annonymous
I am amazed at self-proclaimed conservatives and liberal “progressives” freely attaching demeaning adjatives onto one another.
As Anais Nin quotes,”We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
What IF President Bush is right? What if Al Gore is right? Why can’t we digest the parts of a meal that we are mature enough to chew and avoid the parts of the meal that we are too immature to digest…without calling the one who offers the meal names?
May we always seek wisdom before knowledge. ——Jimbo
August 21st, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Hey, I was outa town a few days and now there are way too many posts for me catch up. How did that “let’s ignore woody” thing work out?
August 21st, 2006 at 3:54 pm
Don’t forget to tune in Spike’s New Orleans doc on HBO tonite…
http://tinyurl.com/ot5m3
By the time you pump your cable package up to get HBO it’s kinda expensive, but I don’t think there’s a better “entertainment” value on the planet, with all of those crappy movies now costing $20 for two, and another $10 bucks for sodas and popcorn. Deadwood alone has been worth it this season…damn, I’m gonna miss Al Swearingen.
August 21st, 2006 at 4:03 pm
reg, you will be honored to know that you are the inspiration for the latest ranting post of mine.
August 21st, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Randy, the people have voted with their dollars. Based on that, Talladega Nights is a better film than any you discussed. I’ve actually taken a ride around the oval at Talledega, which is a lot more interesting than a poetry reading.
To elaborate on why this notion is so wrong, allow me, who worked in the film distribution business and who has a degree in film explain once again why Woody doesn’t know what he’s talking about (it’s a dirty job, etc., etc.).
A far better indicator of a film’s profitibality is the per screen average income. Simply put, rolling out a major release tends to be more expensive. What Woody is unaware of is the fact that in addition to paying for the production of a film (including star salaries, etc. as well as a share of overhead expenses), the studios also pay for the cost of prints, co-op advertising, marketing, etc.
If the release a blockbuster film on say, 15,000 screens and after two weeks it is averaging say $10,000 per screen per week, whereas it could be averaging several times that much if it was filling theaters, while the overall number may be high, the studio and producers are probably going to be busy trying to whip up a great DVD version to recoup some of their investment.
On the other hand, if a classics division of a studio like Sony Classics, buys the distribution rights for a film that they have seen at a festival – along with all of the ancillary rights – they buy a completed product which very often has won awards, which certainly enhances the advertising.
They will roll the film out in fewer markets on fewer screens, but may have a higher per screen average than a blockbuster. Moreover, audiences for art house films tend to build on word of mouth. The Marriage of Maria Braun played at the Cinema Studio theaters in Manhattan for years to packed audiences and I can’t imagine how much the distributor, Dan Talbot, made on that film.
In other words, it’s a simple matter of profit and loss. The investment costs for classic films are much less than for blockbusters and while the potential rewards are much higher, the risk is astronomical. The number of failed blockbuster films is long, but the number of art house flops is miniscule in my experience.
August 21st, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Ancillary sales are also a major source of income for art films. If it wasn’t, Criterion Films, one of the biggest DVD distributors would be in bad shape and they appear to be doing quite well. Indeed, the potential market for cinephiles is probably staggering, especially in terms of demographics: many serious cinephiles have a great deal of disposable income.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in J & R Music World near where I work and have seen someone filling a shopping basket with foreign language DVD’s.
August 21st, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I wish it were that simple Randy but the economics of the major studios make the pursuit of “blockbusters” imperative. A “Talledaga Nights” might cost a lot more than an arthouse film but it has the potential for a lot more revenue. Besides the audience for most mainline movies are teenage boys (look it up) and they’re not interested in what Criterion has to offer. I think the real reason for the drop in attendance is the fall-off in repeat viewing. I bet those kids are now spendng more time on line and only go to the movies on date-night.
You’re right about HBO Reg. They have an economic model that still allows them to make movies for adults without having to pull punchs, like commercial outlets, to avoid offending potential viewers of commercials. It took me a long time (guess I’m slow) to realize that I am not NBC’s audience. No, their customer is Ford, P&G and other advertisers that pay good money and what I am is the “product” – eyballs for sale. The programming is the way they get me in the tent to sell to those wonderful folks at Foot, Cone and Belding. But if they show something that might offend me, or (more likely some pressure group) I migh boycott the sponser. HBO don’t care since they make their dough by subscription. Even the basic cable people can be more adventerous since they have two streams – ads and cable fees.
That’s why the nets pay thru the nose for sports even though viewership is down. Its better than rolling the dice on sitcoms or dramas.
August 21st, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Randy, what a crock. I’m talking popularity based on sales volume and you’re talking about profitability, which I never mentioned, based upon controlling costs.
Look at it like an election. More people voted for Talledega Nights than your art film–sort of like more people voted for Bush (a NASCAR kind of guy) over Kerry (kind of an effete art snob.) What’s important was who won–not what it cost.
So, if you are going to argue that I don’t know what I’m talking about, then you could start by sticking to what I talked about.
———-
Bubba, you got a laugh out of me. My kids ignore me so it should make sense that commenters would, too–and, I wish that they would.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:01 pm
rlc, you snuck that one in under me, again. One other revenue stream for popular films is this: http://store.nascar.com/sm-talladega-nights-shop–ci-2272652.html There will be more caps and shirts sold for that movie than for a minor film.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:02 pm
reg-
Hitchens has a new book out on Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, but it’s only published in England. Just got my copy today. I know you’re not super keen on Hitch at the moment, but thought this might interest you anyway.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Rob thanks, forgot about Woodson.
Woody, image is everything. The “effete” Kerry has a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Mr Macho GWB was a Cheerleader in HS and drank his way thru the Texas Air National Guard and should probably repay the government for his pilot training since he skipped his drug tests when he was a no-show in AL. But I guess appearance is everything.
By the way, when did “Wind Surfing” become less manly than clearing brush or falling off of bikes?
August 21st, 2006 at 6:57 pm
# Woody Says:
August 21st, 2006 at 4:03 pm
“reg, you will be honored to know that you are the inspiration for the latest ranting post of mine.”
Gee Woody, you got two comments in three days on your last meditation on Heisman Hopefuls, so I guess if most other people can contain their excitement about your posts, I can too. I haven’t read what you wrote and I think I’ll take a pass since you haven’t responded with any substance to anything I’ve written above and chose to do your usual twisty little dance of evasion, denial and bizarre non-sequitors (the bit about the troops watching football and all of your moronic and slimy related assertions was perhaps a new level of base stupidity).
On an even more absurd note, I’m absolutely convinced that you think Bush is a more “macho” guy than Kerry, but just remember that when it came down to the real deal, Kerry volunteered for combat and Bush hid out in the Air National Guard, which was an elite-only safe slot during the Vietnam draft. Your “Nascar kind of guy” is as phony as the arguments you torment us with.
Also, I think your notion that liberals won’t line up to see Talladega Nights is ridiculous and proves you live in a bubble. I plan to see it, for one, because I think Will Ferrell is very funny when he’s on a roll. And I like the idea of a NASCAR spoof. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be watching Spike’s When The Levee’s Broke this week or that I don’t enjoy Fassbinder or an indie film that won’t make megabucks. I went to see Miami Vice with high hopes for a great ride from Michael Mann, but it mostly sucked aside from the cinematography. (Don Johnson was actually a better Sonny Crockett than Colin Ferrel.) Too bad. Saw the “blockbuster” Da Vinci Code and thought it was one of the worst pieces of crap I’ve ever endured. The film I enjoyed most recently was Prairie Home Companion. Frankly, I think Garrison Keillor has his well-observed Middle-Americana down better than a goofball refugee from Saturday Night Live.
I’ve seen two oldies on DVD recently that I would highly recommend – City For Conquest with Jimmy Cagney and (if you like ’30s comedies) A Slight Case of Murder in which Edward G. Robinson does a gangster spoof. I’d also recommend His Kind of Woman, a weird noir near-parody with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell and Vincent Price, who steals the movie. Just got Anthony Mann’s The Naked Spur with Jimmy Stewart which I’m super looking forward to. I love gangster films, noir and westerns from the classic era – Cagney, Edward G, Bogart, Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Duke/Ford – total sucker for that stuff. No apologies.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:05 pm
Dan O – I actually like Hitchens very much when he’s not writing on current politics. That said, I do think he’s starting to lose it in general – I hate to join in with cheap shots, but I really wonder whether the booze is getting the best of him. It’s only a “writer’s friend” for so long before it takes it’s inevitable toll.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:18 pm
Randy, what a crock. I’m talking popularity based on sales volume and you’re talking about profitability, which I never mentioned, based upon controlling costs.
Woody, again you do not know what you are talking about. I worked in the business, you haven’t. You know nothing of how word of mouth helps smaller films, you know nothing of the value of festivals, you know nothing of the value of sustained box office receipts over the course of a theatrical run versus a flash in the pan blockbuster that lasts three weeks. Why did Disney pay 70 million dollars for Miramax? It was solely for the value of the library and their ability to put together deals for small, profitable films as that was all they really had to sell.
All you know how to do is in your sheeplike fashion run with the crowd. You know absolutelynothing about the film business.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:20 pm
reg,
Nightmare Alley is a noir masterpiece. Also, a twodisc release of Double Indemnity is coming out next week.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:41 pm
I picked up Nightmare Alley and loved it. I’ll have to pop for Double Indemnity. I think Fred MacMurray’s career peaked with that one. “Son of Flubber” just wasn’t at quite the same level. Of course, Stanwyck and Edward G weren’t bad either.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:57 pm
richard lo cicero writes: “Reg, since Turkey and Iran both have a “Kurdish Prolem†and our NATO ally has already dispatched 250000 troops to the border it is great to see that GWB once again is a “uniter†as well as a “Deciderâ€. He’s brough Iran and Turkey together in common cause.”
Why are we *still* hearing that Turkey has 250,000 troops on the border with Iraq? Turkey had about 210,000 distributed in the Kurdish regions of Turkey, they are still there for the most part, and they have been for years. Last I read, they added about 40,000 near the border of Kurdistan, and were complaining that the U.S. and the Kurdish regional government weren’t moving against the PKK enclave that both governments currently leave unmolested. 40,000 against perhaps some 4-5,000 PKK fighters–well, that’s your classic 10-to-1 counterinsurgency ration, so it’s hardly disproportionate for the task they might end up carrying out.
The Kurdish government has no great love for the PKK, and the U.S. doesn’t either. They are an irritation, an embarrassment and a distraction to both parties. The Kurdish government just shut down PKK “sympathizer” offices on the Iranian side of the country, and if they have objections to the Iranian shelling, they aren’t voicing them very strenuously. Honestly, I think the Kurdish leadership (and the U.S. military) is hoping and praying that Turkey and Iran *will* move in a coordinated fashion against the PKK, so that they can praise that action with faint damns.
Kurds killing Kurds? Kurds standing aside and letting other people kill Kurds, when it’s politically convenient? It’s nothing new. The Kurds as a whole (even in Turkey) will prefer a Kurdistan that’s stable, relatively free, relatively democratic, prosperous (possibly wildly prosperous, if they get Kirkuk) to any Kurdistan bent on Eretz Kurdistan. Greater Kurdistan is far too dangerous a game to play right now. The saner among them will not endanger autonomy gains won over the decades, first under Saddam, now under our umbrella. And the Kurds are for the most part very sane indeed.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:59 pm
You should read the novel Nightmare Alley. It’s much more noir than the film.
August 21st, 2006 at 8:02 pm
Randy, I don’t care where you’ve worked if you can’t reason properly. Count the people who go to one film. Count the people who go to another. Which one has the highest total? It’s that simple.
It’s not a matter of experience in the film industry. It’s a matter of being able to add. Maybe I can handle that better than you.
Will it help you to move on if I act impressed about one more thing that you brag about here? You’re more like the guy who swept up behind the elephants at the circus. When asked if he wanted to change jobs, he replied, “What…and get out of show business?”
———-
reg, I didn’t say that liberals wouldn’t go see Talledega Nights. I said that more people would go to that than some cheesy art film recommended by Randy. Can’t you guys get anything straight?
And, don’t be stupid about measuring interest in football from a site that is not dedicated to sports and to a throw-in post–and it’s August. Anyone interested in football is going to read CBS Sportsline or ESPN, which I linked, before they go to GM’s Corner. Duh. If Marc Cooper wrote about So. Cal football, the reponse to him would not reflect the interest in that team.
On Kerry and Bush—screw 35 years ago. I’m not the same person today that I was then, and neither are the two candidates from the last Presidential election–even though one would have you think that he was a hero although he was in and out before the ink dried on his medical reports, which he still keeps secret. Kerry looked as dumb in his hunting photo op as Dukakis did tooling around in that tank.
I’m not going to respond to you or Randy for a while. I know, I know. Ann Coulter warned me about trying to talk to liberals, and she’s right.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:20 pm
“I said that more people would go to that than some cheesy art film recommended by Randy. Can’t you guys get anything straight?”
That’s pretty lame, Woody. First of all, you don’t know whether a film is “cheesy” unless you’ve seen it and so you’re just blowing hard. Second. The idea that you are imparting some sort of wisdom by suggesting that a Will Ferrell film is likely to do draw more people to the box office than what you call an “art film” is more proof that you’re a very silly, tiresome, self-important ass. I mean, who knew ? If I ever attain Woody’s level of analytical competence, I might eventually be able to figure out the really hard stuff all by myself, like the possibility that large numbers of our folks in uniform enjoy watching football games on television.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:23 pm
“Kerry looked as dumb in his hunting photo op as Dukakis did tooling around in that tank.”
But neither will go down in history for looking as painfully ridiculous as Bush did in his helmet and codpiece on that aircraft carrier with the “Mission Accomplished” sign.
August 21st, 2006 at 9:36 pm
Randy, thanks for that. You link to a Rodriguez graphic novel version, which looks cool, but I realized looking at that Amazon site that it’s also in a crime novel collection that I’ve had for a long time but never finished. It would have probably just sat on the shelf since I didn’t know the movie when I bought it, read a couple of other things and set it aside. Will definitely check it out.
August 22nd, 2006 at 3:13 am
The novel “Nightmare Ally” is a facinating, over the top, garrish work of pulp by William L. Gresham, an interesting and tragic figure. Well worth seeking out.
Booze can never function as an excuse for Hitchens; whose campaign for Bush’s folly has included every guttersnipe, sleezo tactic we are supposed to notice with Coulter. Our Orwell? In as much as Adam Sandler is our Buster Keaton.
August 22nd, 2006 at 6:34 am
reg, do you enjoy being miserable all the time?
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:33 am
“Our Orwell? In as much as Adam Sandler is our Buster Keaton.”
Hey, Wall, c’mon. I thought Punch Drunk Love was a lot more like Buster Keaton than writing columns for Slate and appearing on Hugh Hewitt is like volunteering to fight fascists in Spain.
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