A Game Of Inches

The U.S. Senate came within one vote Monday of embroiling the entire nation in a pointless debate over the symbolism and sanctity of the American flag. By the count of 66 – 34, a constitutional amendment vesting Congress with the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States failed to gain the two thirds majority required for passage and submission to the states for ratification.

For a crowd who’s always going on about “strict construction” and the “intent of the founders,” Republicans sure seem dissatisfied with the Constitution as written.

The so-called “flag burning amendment” is yet more proof of the Republican party’s elevation of form over substance, coming on the heels of its failed promotion of a constitutional amendment to define “marriage” as a union possible only between a man and a woman.

The past five and a half years in Washington have seen the Congress opt continuously for legislation that fails to address the real desires of the American public or meet the country’s real needs for security and leadership.

Polls have consistently shown the public’s major concerns in recent years to be the war on terrorism, the economy, health care, energy prices, and immigration (not necessarily, or always, in that order). For a longer term perspective on Americans’ perceptions of their most important problems, look here.

The Bush administration and the Republican controlled House and Senate have given the country a war they conned many into supporting based on “intelligence” they knew to be suspect at best, and false in many respects. They committed the country’s armed forces to a war they said could be fought on the cheap, whose monthly tab is currently running over $9.5 Billion, and has risen steadily in each year since its inception. Yet, we are constantly turning the corner and our enemies are in their last throes.

The Bush administration and the Republican controlled House and Senate have engineered an economy that has expanded and brought greater prosperity to its wealthiest participants, while contracting and paying the vast majority of its participants less. The Congress recently refused to increase the Federal minimum wage above $5.15 per hour, the level at which it has remained since 1997. If the minimum wage from 1968 had been merely adjusted for inflation, it would stand today at $9.09.

The Bush administration and the Republican controlled House and Senate sold America sham Medicare reform lesgislation in 2003 that fails to provide adequate health care for millions of Americans, threatens the long-term fiscal health of the nation, and guarantees unconscionable enrichment of the already obscenely wealthy pharmeceutical industry for decades to come.

The Bush administration and the Republican controlled House and Senate have presided over a 200% rise in the price of unleaded gasoline, a 120% rise in the price of heating oil, and an over 300% rise in the price of crude oil since 2001. The President proposed, and the Congress awarded, in energy legislation passed last year, over $2 Billion in tax breaks and incentives to the nation’s major oil companies.

Immigration is the only major area of concern to Americans on which the Administration and Republican leaders in Congress have failed to unite in finding a method for ignoring the needs of the many in favor of the interests of a few.

But yes, let us busy ourselves with considerations of whether the flag needs protection under the constitution, that we may neglect to question the felonious violation of privacy rights already enshrined there. Let us argue the question of whether affairs of the heart may be legislated, that we may fail to notice when the President signs legislation he has no intention to be bound by.

And by all means, let us leave the conduct and reconciliations of our electoral affairs to the proverbial man behind the curtain, for we have well and truly entered the Land of Oz.

Now, where are those Lollipop Kids I’ve heard so much about?

Comments

  1. Michael Herdegen - July 13, 2006 @ 12:33 am

    As for your cavalier dismissal of grandmothers, I suppose she got what was coming to her for speculating in such a fly-by-night operator as Enron…

    That’s correct, she was speculating, and the first rule of gambling is never to wager more than you can afford to lose.
    Further, if she lost her life savings on one stock, obviously she wasn’t diversified, and thus hadn’t done any homework on how to invest wisely.

    Are you this worked up over grandmothers pouring their life savings into slot machines ?
    How do you propose to stop people from gambling, whether in casinos, on Wall Street, with commodities, or real estate ?

    …do you really believe that all grandmothers have the time or the expertise to compete in the market with Warren Buffet? That’s absurd and you know it.

    Which is why nobody is proposing that SS accounts be allowed to invest in anything but funds – no individual stocks. If any one stock goes belly-up, the account only takes a hit of a few percent.

    …you really must understand that the attitude you and the sharks display about these things guarantees that ordinary people will never willingly submit to having their retirement funds controlled by such people.

    Really ?

    Ordinary people seem content to leave their retirement funds in the hands of an institution that has SPENT ALL OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS. That seems pretty shark-like.

    In the private sector, that’s known as “embezzlement”, and it leads to long prison terms, but the ordinary peoples of America aren’t very upset yet, displaying a touching faith that all will be well.
    We’ll see how they feel when the SS “trust” fund goes bankrupt in a decade or so.

    In time, the Saddams, Milosovics, Arafats, and Ills of the world will end up taking care of themselves.

    Well, everybody dies eventually, if that’s what you mean, but are we to let them run amok while waiting for them to keel over ?

    It’s similar to saying that we need not imprison criminals, because if we simply pray for them and create good energy, then they’ll “take care of themselves”.

    The “in time” bit is a good dodge, though, as it acknowledges that we’ll need to possess and be prepared to use arms for the foreseeable future, while still asserting that pacifism is the wave of the future. (And always will be [rimshot]).

    Is this the kind of buttering up [that Iran] can expect in the run-up to our unprovoked attack on that country?

    Unprovoked ?

    Is it possible that you are unaware of why England, France, and Germany have spent two years in fruitless diplomatic talks with Iran ?

    And, since the talks are a failure, doesn’t that mean that attacking is indeed the last resort ?

    I’m also curious whether you view Pakistan as friend or foe.

    For now, friend; that may change.
    Rather depends on them, and what they perceive as being in their national interest, long-term.

    While they have nukes, they don’t have a history of funding terrorism around the globe, as Iran does, and they aren’t threatening to destroy another nation, as Iran is.

    And finally, I’d submit that a small group of Iraqi pacifists orchestrating a program of non-violent civil disobedience during the Saddam regime would have…

    Died or been imprisoned.

    Castro isn’t as big a thug as Saddam was, and he still throws people in jail for non-violent disagreement.

    Civil disobedience only works if the ruling clique has an aversion to killing.
    In places where the government is brutal, civil disobedience is the same as suicide.

    How effective was non-violent civil disobedience in changing Pol Pot’s Cambodia ?

  2. lonbud - July 13, 2006 @ 9:39 pm

    For a smart guy you sure have a myopic view of time AND history, Michael.

    Do you not believe the Amish and the Quakers possess and employ methods for dealing with criminal behavior? My suggestion that — in time — “bad actors” would take care of themselves in a non-violent society by no means implies that criminality ought be permitted to run amok or go unpunished.

    Violent repression of abhorrent behavior as a matter of course, on the other hand — and in degrees far out-stripping the behavior sought to be prevented, quashed, or punished — only ensures the unending recurrence of violence (N.B. the history of the Middle East).

    Absent clear evidence of Iran’s intention to construct and deploy nuclear technology for military ends — a project impossible for them to bring within years of fruition without its being known, and therefore preventable — what exactly is the provocation?

    Loose talk by some whacked-out mullahs? Kind of like, “bring it on,” and “dead or alive”?

    Pakistan has been the locus of terrorist training — and putative source of funding for Islamofascists whose handiwork has been shown from Afghanistan, to New York, Washington, DC, to Baghdad, Madrid, London, and most recently Mumbai. With “friends” like that, who needs to portray her enemy as a philosophical construct?

    The queston about Cambodia is instructive. Where is Pol Pot today? And Cambodia?

  3. Michael Herdegen - July 14, 2006 @ 12:37 am

    My suggestion that — in time — “bad actors” would take care of themselves in a non-violent society by no means implies that criminality ought be permitted to run amok or go unpunished.

    Exactly. And when “bad actors” are in charge of countries, and use those nations’ resources and militaries to threaten their neighbors, one of the ways in which they’re “punished” is war.

    Absent war, how would you punish an aggressive nation ?
    Sanctions are an annoyance, but hardly a closer – twelve years of sanctions hadn’t cowed Saddam, and Kim Jung Il is no closer to leaving, despite ongoing sanctions of NoKo.

    …a project impossible for them to bring within years of fruition without its being known, and therefore preventable…

    Preventable how ?
    We’ve already seen diplomacy fail with Iran; are you now calling for military strikes on Iran, once we “know” that they can build nukes ?
    If so, welcome to reality.

    Pakistan has been the locus of terrorist training — and putative source of funding for Islamofascists whose handiwork has been shown from Afghanistan, to New York, Washington, DC, to Baghdad, Madrid, London, and most recently Mumbai.

    In Afghanistan and India, sure. Otherwise, simply mentioning places where terrorist acts have occurred is less than overwhelming evidence that Pakistan was behind any of it.

    But, let us take your argument at face value, and conclude that Pakistan is an enemy of the U.S. What do you think should be done ?
    Should we attack them, as you seem to be calling for in the case of Iran ?

    If we shouldn’t attack them, then ought not we be doing exactly as we are – working to integrate them into the international community ?
    An approach that Iran has explicity rejected, by the way. They don’t want to be part of the community of nations.

    The queston about Cambodia is instructive. Where is Pol Pot today? And Cambodia?

    Perhaps you are unaware that two million Cambodians died before Pol Pot was deposed by Vietnam, and that very nearly all educated Cambodians that were unable to flee were tortured to death in sickening ways, including anyone wearing glasses; they seemed “intellectual”.
    Out of the entire Cambodian population, only one lawyer and two doctors survived in-country.

    If Cambodia is your idea of a good example of how bad actors “end up taking care of themselves”, you might as well pack it in.
    The killing fields of Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge, were a greater evil than the Nazi Holocaust and the Third Reich. Cambodia suffered mightily while waiting for Pol Pot to self-correct.

    Further, you may be unaware that Pol Pot didn’t just fade away, or was peacefully overthrown by Cambodians; he was removed from power by warfare, by violence; specifically, Vietnam invaded Cambodia.

    So, you seem to be suggesting that the pacifist ideal is to submit to being slaughtered wholesale, while waiting to be rescued by people with more sense.
    If so, then we are in agreement; that’s exactly how pacifism works in reality.

  4. Michael Herdegen - July 14, 2006 @ 12:47 am

    Absent clear evidence of Iran’s intention to construct and deploy nuclear technology for military ends…

    Missed that the first time through, but let’s nail it down: You seem to be implying that there does not now exist “clear evidence” that Iran intends to construct military nukes.

    Do you not believe that Iran wants to build nukes ?
    You are positive that Iran only wants civilian nuclear power to use for electrical generation, despite their fourth-largest-in-the-world oil reserves ?

  5. lonbud - July 15, 2006 @ 9:10 am

    As it turns out, sanctions did in fact have Saddam well in check. The Iraqi military put up virtually no defense against Ameican shock and awe and there was nothing to the Bush administration’s claims of Saddam’s imminent danger to anyone.

    Sanctions have worked just fine against Ill as well. North Korea may be able to poot a rocket into the sea, but anyone who holds that toy soldier nation as a credible threat is just plain paranoid. If they were a real threat to anyone, China would bring the hammer down swiftly and surely.

    As for Iran, there is no clear evidence of a military component to their nuclear R&D. It doesn’t matter what I believe about their intentions — absent a verifiably imminent ability and intention on their part to use nuclear weapons, peaceful means for engaging them in a course of non-violent action ought to be employed.

    This world is not going to become Valhalla overnight. Humanity seems mostly ignorant of the benefits of non-violence, especially at the level of Nations. However, as I’ve said before, non-violence is a personal philosophy which, in time, when adopted by enough people, will provide mankind’s sole hope for survival on this planet.

    In the meanwhile, the world’s lone Superpower and self-appointed policeman ought to be at least led by people who understand the last choice nature of violent responses to perceived threats. That is currently not the case, as is shown by the shitstorm of death and destruction unleashed by the First Cowboy.

  6. Tam O’Tellico - July 15, 2006 @ 7:35 pm

    And as for those rising wages Michael keeps touting:

    Big News: Arithmetic Problems at the Council of Economic Advisors
    By Dean Baker
    Beat The Press

    Thursday 13 July 2006

    Economists are supposed to be good at math. It is a great honor for an economist to be appointed as head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. For these reasons, it should be big news that the person currently holding this position apparently has problems with simple arithmetic.

    According to an article carried by Dow Jones Newswire, Ed Lazear, the current chief of the Council of Economic Advisors, claimed that wage growth “seems to be taking off right now.” The article reports Mr. Lazear’s view that workers now seem poised to get substantial real wage gains.

    If the article presented Mr. Lazear’s comments accurately, then it missed the real news. Nominal wages are at best just keeping pace with inflation, leaving no room for real wage growth. From June 2005 to June 2006, the average hourly wage increased by 3.9 percent in nominal terms.

    From May 2005 to May 2006 (the June data is not yet available) the
    consumer price index increased by 4.1 percent. This means that the real wage fell by roughly 0.2 percent over the last year.

    If we focus on just the last three months, real wages rose at a 4.5 percent annual rate over the three months April, May, and June compared with the prior three months. This is equal to the annual rate of growth of the CPI in the three months of March, April, and May compared with December, January, and February. In other words, the most recent data indicate that wages may now be just keeping even with inflation.

    If wages have slightly trailed inflation over the last year and are just now roughly breaking even, how can President Bush’s chief economist say that wage growth “seems to be taking off?” Mr. Lazear either does not know arithmetic or is not being honest. The fact that he is making a claim so completely at odds with reality should have been big news.

    ****

    So much for the statistical analysis of Bush league experts. As Mr. Dylan put it “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” As the Bush Boys have proven time and agains, one may choose to interpret the statistics any way that suits their political purpose – but those who are standing in the shadows of bread lines ain’t buyin’ even if they could afford it.

    Prediction: The most popular song in America by 2012 – the remake of “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” – “Brother, Can You Spare Ten Bucks For A Gallon Of Gas?”

  7. Tam O’Tellico - July 16, 2006 @ 6:09 am

    M: “The reason that the Pentagon Generals are upset with Rumsfeld has to do with his permanently shifting money and power to air assets and special forces, not due to anything going on in Iraq.”

    Here’s some more from a couple of these “lunatic fringe” generals:

    Is U.S. Winning? Army Chief Is at a Loss
    By Peter Spiegel, Times Staff Writer
    July 15, 2006

    WASHINGTON — It seemed like a routine question, one that military leaders involved in prosecuting the war in Iraq must ask themselves with some regularity: Is the U.S. winning?

    During a Capitol Hill briefing for an audience mostly of congressional aides, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff known for his straight-shooting bluntness, paused for more than 10 seconds after he was asked the question — lips pursed and brow furrowed — before venturing:

    “I think I would answer that by telling you I don’t think we’re losing. The challenge … is becoming more complex, and it’s going to continue to be. That’s why I’ll tell you I think we’re closer to the beginning than we are to the end of all this.”

    It is a candor that appears to be contagious. The Army’s top commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., acknowledged this week that the recent increase in sectarian violence in Baghdad might mean the U.S. has to increase the number of soldiers in the Iraqi capital — rather than the long-awaited decrease for which commanders had hoped.

  8. lonbud - July 16, 2006 @ 2:03 pm

    How does one score a war?

    Though plenty of our commentators find analogies to sport comforting — “it’s third and goal; time to go for it!” or “it’s fourth and long; time to punt!” or “this is a slam dunk,” or “killing [insert name of bad guy here] was a home run!” — such an approach only serves to highlight the remove from reality under which the vast majority of the populace and the government labors.

    In the end, body counts are meaningless and the sacrifice made by the warriors on either side are indistinguishable from one another.

    If we accept the proposition that the rising conflagration in the Middle East will not culminate in the extinction of mankind, the likely outcome will be that little change will come soon to either “Western” or “Middle Eastern” society.

    In which case, the sum total of the entire “adventure” will be nothing more than monumental waste.

  9. Michael Herdegen - July 17, 2006 @ 6:47 pm

    Nominal wages are at best just keeping pace with inflation, leaving no room for real wage growth.

    That is correct, but only for ONE YEAR, which is why I used a ten-year data set – it filters out the static.

    If oil prices come down this year or next, then real wage growth will suddenly be over 2% annually. No rational person would project that rate to continue, just as it would be foolish to assume that real wages will never rise again.

    …those who are standing in the shadows of bread lines ain’t buyin’ even if they could afford it.

    ROFL
    It’s kind of you to provide examples of bush-league economic analysis.

    As it turns out, sanctions did in fact have Saddam well in check.

    For the sake of argument, let us assume that that statement is true.
    For Saddam to remain in check, the sanctions would also have had to remain in place, right ?

    You may not be aware that the sanctions were not going to remain in place. Given that Saddam would then not have been in check, what was your Plan B to deal with him ?

    Let me guess: Leave him alone, he was no threat to America.

    In any case, why do you think that America, Australia, and Britain did attack Iraq, if Saddam wasn’t perceived as a threat to international interests ?
    One view is that Bush the Child-Eating Monster just likes war, and revels in the deaths of American servicemembers…

    A more adult mind might think “Hmm, the leaders of many of the world’s most successful and powerful nations seem to think that Saddam was a threat to their interests. I wonder if I could find out why they thought that ?”

    …the sacrifice made by the warriors on either side are indistinguishable from one another.

    Say what ?
    Are you seriously admitting that you see no difference between American-imposed democracy and religious-nut-imposed Sharia Law, between those fighting to create a stable, relatively corruption-free government and nation, and those attempting to ignite a religiously based civil war ?!?

    If we accept the proposition that the rising conflagration in the Middle East will not culminate in the extinction of mankind…

    Since there’s no possibility whatsoever that the rising conflagration in the Middle East could culminate in the extinction of humankind, that’s an easy proposition to accept.

    However, I am a bit curious about what scenario you see that could result in human extinction. Would you mind laying it out ?

    …the likely outcome will be that little change will come soon to either “Western” or “Middle Eastern” society.

    On the contrary, “Middle Eastern” society has two choices: Change drastically, or die. (Which is also a fairly drastic change).

    The enormous populations of the Middle Eastern/North African nations are primarily supported by selling oil, but the oil won’t last forever.
    If they don’t become much like the West in the next two decades, then they’ll end up dependent on the West for food aid, and will become much like any of a dozen African hell-holes.

  10. lonbud - July 17, 2006 @ 8:27 pm

    Everybody loves a man with a crystal ball. Well, everybody probably loves a woman with a crystal ball, but I bet lots of people love a man with one, too.

    At this stage, 20-year prognostication is a fool’s game.

    Michael, your logic (re: Saddam) is badly flawed. Why would sanctions necessarily have had to remain in place for his ambitions to remain in check? Only given an approach unchanged from the one BushCo brought to the party (ie. Saddam must go) could Saddam’s inherent weaknesses fail to be used against him to ensure relative docility among the competing madmen of the Middle East.

    Britain’s and Australia’s token support of the Rumsfeld Adventure in Iraq was naught but a hedge.

    Do not kid yourself that the deaths of American grunts and some Iraqi citizens are somehow more hallowed than those of different Iraqi citizens and so-called terrorists, insurgents, and suicide bombers. Each and every one is a waste and brings the Middle East no closer to the drastic change you believe is necessary for its survival than it would have been if Saddam had been “left alone.”

  11. Michael Herdegen - July 18, 2006 @ 10:28 am

    Well, everybody probably loves a woman with a crystal ball, but I bet lots of people love a man with one, too.

    Ha !
    Good one ; – )

    At this stage, 20-year prognostication is a fool’s game.

    It usually is, but in this case we know four things that won’t change over twenty years: Middle Eastern oil is being rapidly consumed, Middle Eastern populations are growing, few Middle Eastern countries could support their present populations absent oil revenues, and fundamentally changing a society is hard, and takes a long, long time.

    Therefore, it doesn’t take Einsteinian genius to see that the Middle Eastern societies are already in deep trouble – they can’t go on as they are, and they aren’t yet much interested in changing.

    Saddam’s inherent weaknesses [could have been] used against him to ensure relative docility among the competing madmen of the Middle East.

    Really ?
    Then why hadn’t that been done before ?

    Why weren’t Saddam’s inherent weaknesses exploited to prevent him from invading Kuwait, an action that resulted in Arab armies fighting alongside the Americans, against the Iraqis ?

    Given that your asserted “best practice” was untried or unsuccessful, a rather detailed explanation of how it might work would be necessary before anyone would consider giving it a try.

    Britain’s and Australia’s token support of the Rumsfeld Adventure…

    You are quite mistaken if you believe that 20,000 troops are a “token”, and you further insult the servicemembers of the United Kingdom by belittling their contribution – adjusted for the size of their deployed forces, they have taken as many casualties as the American forces have.

    Do not kid yourself that the deaths of American grunts and some Iraqi citizens are somehow more hallowed than those of different Iraqi citizens and so-called terrorists, insurgents, and suicide bombers.

    Sure, sure – “American servicemember” = “terrorist”.

    You indict yourself. There’s really no need for me to provide counterargument.

  12. Michael Herdegen - July 18, 2006 @ 12:12 pm

    Also, what scenario did you see that could result in the rising conflagration in the Middle East culminating with the extinction of humankind ?

  13. lonbud - July 18, 2006 @ 4:45 pm

    Michael:

    Post-Gulf War I, Saddam was a toothless tiger. He may have played peek-a-boo with the Blix crew but he was no imminent threat to anyone. Therefore, my “best practices” had not only been tried, they were largely successful.

    Your 20,000 figure is wildly inflated. The UK never had more than 12,000 total troops in country and fewer than 5,000 in theater; Australia’s commitment amounted to about 1000 troops. Token support, yes. A political hedge against the unlikely prospect the George W. Bush had even the first clue about what he was doing as the Commander-in-Chief.

    What I said in my original comment was:

    If we accept the proposition that the rising conflagration in the Middle East will not culminate in the extinction of mankind, the likely outcome will be that little change will come soon to either “Western” or “Middle Eastern” society.

    No prediction of mankind’s extinction, no scenario leading to such proposed. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.

  14. Michael Herdegen - July 18, 2006 @ 9:11 pm

    Post-Gulf War I, Saddam was a toothless tiger.

    Saddam was a caged tiger, which is not at all the same thing.
    Once the sanctions ended, is it your belief that Saddam would have continued to behave as though he were still constrained ?

    Given that during the twelve years of sanctions he tried mightily to subvert and end them, such as in the Food-for-Oil bribery scandal, my guess is that post-sanctions he would again have become the aggressor who invaded Iran and Kuwait.

    Further, claiming that Iraq was a “toothless tiger” because it couldn’t stand against the U.S. military is laughable. NO military can currently stand against that of the U.S.

    The better question is, was the Iraqi military of ’03 capable of menacing Iraq’s neighbors, if allowed to do so ?
    The answer is definitely “yes” – the tiger might have been past its prime, but the claws were still there. Why else would Kuwait and Arabia allow U.S. troops to be stationed in their nations ?

    Therefore, my “best practices” had not only been tried, they were largely successful.

    Your “best practice”, which you defined as “using Saddam’s inherent weaknesses against him to ensure relative docility among the competing madmen of the Middle East”, boils down to SANCTIONS ?!?

    After all, it was the sanctions that caged the tiger, that produced the situation that you claim was “largely successful”; the problem was, the sanctions were not going to be kept in place.
    What then, is the question that you seem unable to answer.

    If there was some dynamic, other than sanctions, which you believe leveraged Saddam’s inherent weaknesses against him, I’m eager to hear of it.

    Unless the key phrase is “Post-Gulf War I”, in which case by “use Saddam’s inherent weaknesses against him to ensure relative docility” you must mean “bomb Saddam’s military until they run home to Mommy”, which is in fact exactly what happened in Gulf War I.

    Here’s a rundown of the consequences to the Iraqi people of various approaches tried against Saddam:

    Desert Storm: 25,000 – 100,000 Iraqi deaths.
    Sanction regime: 300,000 – 600,000 Iraqis prematurely dead due to shortages of food and medicine, disproportionately children; Saddam increases his personal fortune by $ 2 – $ 4 billion, his cut of the black market profits made by smuggling stuff in and out of Iraq.
    Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom: 100,000 – 200,000 Iraqi deaths so far, from Coalition Forces, terrorists, and insurgents.

    As you can see, even using the high estimates, the toll on the Iraqi people from taking out Saddam is much lower than the toll on them from opposing him, but leaving him in power.

    What I said in my original comment was:

    If we accept the proposition that the rising conflagration in the Middle East will not culminate in the extinction of mankind…

    No prediction of mankind’s extinction, no scenario leading to such proposed. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.

    I’m not putting words in your mouth, I simply do you the honor of assuming that you are capable of more than shallow surface reasoning.

    For instance, when you write “if we accept the proposition”, it necessarily means that there is a flip side: We could reject the proposition that the rising conflagration in the Middle East will not culminate in the extinction of humankind.
    Therefore, there must be some scenario under which things will end with extinction, otherwise one would simply write that “the likely outcome of the rising conflagration in the Middle East will be that little change will come soon to either ‘Western’ or ‘Middle Eastern’ society.”

    But you seem to be saying that it was simply sloppy writing, and that you meant nothing by it, and if that’s the case then I apologize for pressing the issue; I was merely curious about the implications.

    On a different topic, here’s an interesting dish that I discovered this afternoon. While I expected that it would be good, I wasn’t prepared for just how wonderful this gustatory delight turned out to be !

    Ingredients:
    ground turkey
    cooked kidney beans
    sauerkraut
    lime juice
    tomato sauce (the kind found next to the tomato paste on the grocery shelf, not spaghetti sauce – although actually, spaghetti sauce might work too, if it’s a vegetarian style)
    barbecue sauce (a sweet type)
    garlic powder (not garlic salt, but ground dried garlic)
    cheddar cheese (sharpness to taste – I used medium sharp, but extra-sharp would also have been tasty)
    butter
    fresh spinach leaves, washed

    One serving:
    Grate or dice one ounce of cheddar cheese, set aside.
    Brown about four ounces of ground turkey, in a patty or loose, liberally sprinkling with lime juice while cooking.
    Heat two thirds of a cup of kidney beans to piping hot. In a medium bowl, combine the beans, a tablespoon of butter, a quarter cup of tomato sauce, two tablespoons of barbecue sauce, and a half teaspoon of garlic powder (or more for garlic lovers such as myself – I actually used a full teaspoon). Mix well.

    While still warm, spread the bean and tomato sauce mixture on a dinner plate. Crumble or spread the hot turkey on top, and then sprinkle on another teaspoon or two of lime juice. Add the cheese.
    On top of the cheese, spread a half cup of sauerkraut, and then a cup and a half of fresh spinach leaves.

    Holy Hannah, that’s good eating !

    It also helps to prevent flu, scurvy, heart disease, and cancer, but in this case those are secondary benefits.

  15. Tam O’Tellico - July 19, 2006 @ 9:15 am

    M: Further, claiming that Iraq was a “toothless tiger” because it couldn’t stand against the U.S. military is laughable. NO military can currently stand against that of the U.S.

    True, but a few thousand determined religous zealots and raghead nationalists with cell phones and IEDs can hold the most powerful army on earth almost at bay, can keep them virtual prisoners inside their Green Zone and Humvees, can kill the citizens and policemen of Iraq almost at will, and prove what history has proven over and over again to “the mightiest army on Earth”:

    Long-distance wars fought against zealots and nationalists and their ragtag armies are never as easy as they first appeared to be, and in the end, they are seldom worth the trouble or the expense. Complex logistics and complicated machinery and weapons create a situation in which armies run out of money long before they run out of blood. However, the combination of money and blood creates a situation in which a nation runs out of will. This we have discovered long before our discredited so-called leaders.

    If you don’t believe this is the lesson of history, ask the Romans and the Picts, the Crusaders and the Saracens, the British and the Colonists, and now, the Americans and the Insurgents.

  16. Michael Herdegen - July 19, 2006 @ 9:40 pm

    …a few thousand determined religous zealots and raghead nationalists with cell phones and IEDs can hold the most powerful army on earth almost at bay…

    Kinda – those determined religious zealots and raghead nationalists are getting killed left and right. For now, their passion overrides their concern for personal safety, and they can suck up their 50% casualty rates, but it remains to be seen if they’ll have accomplished anything in the end.

    Otherwise, I agree with everything that you’ve said.

  17. Tam O’Tellico - July 19, 2006 @ 9:57 pm

    Michael, you have given me hope – and that is not intended as sarcasm.

    As for the zealots, I doubt whether they are any more concerned about their casualty rates than were the Jews at Masada, particularly since, like the Vikings, their brand of infantile religion guarantees them an immediate and special reward in the hereafter.

    What remains to be seen is whether there are enough of them to outlast our money, blood and will. At the moment, I’d say it’s better than even money that they will. That is not something that gives me any cause for rejoicing.

    As for the British, from what I hear from my friends across the sea, the general public in England started out as skeptical of the Iraq War as the American public has finally become. It was mostly Blair and his inexplicable toadying to Bush that got England involved.

    Be that as it may, the notion of a “coalition of the willing” is a joke. The first Gulf War was a “coalition of the willing” and the ready to pony up some cash. This is an American war, pure and simple. And just as it was with Viet Nam, it will be America that celebrates victory or suffers a terrible defeat.

  18. lonbud - July 20, 2006 @ 6:27 am

    Michael:

    Thanks for the recipe; I’ll post my review over the weekend.

    As for the “proposition” regarding extinction, I had in mind thoughts of “end times” and armageddon put forth by the “left behind” crowd (of which your Commander-in-Chief is an unreluctant member, by all accounts). In reality, what’s been going on in the Middle East of late is much more kif-kif, which is Arabic for “same old, same old.”

    “Zealots” of any stripe will always be able to stomach greater casualty rates than people who go to war professing to do so in the name of peace, because the zealots have nothing to lose. In the end, regardless of the outcome, neither side in the current conflict will have accomplished anything at all.

    We will not see democracy flourish in the Middle East in our lifetime; nor will my 6 year-old son see it in his. BushCo took up a fool’s errand and have prosecuted it foolishly.

    Kif-kif, indeed.

  19. Michael Herdegen - July 20, 2006 @ 4:46 pm

    It was mostly Blair and his inexplicable toadying to Bush that got England involved.

    Neither “inexplicable” nor “toadying”, although one might believe his actions to be “foolish”, if one disagrees with Bush and Blair’s worldview.

    Blair’s actions were predicated on three assumptions: That the United Kingdom is still a world power, that the major source of the world’s present ills are the failed societies and cultures of the Middle East (which necessarily includes what you characterize as an “infantile religion” – while this isn’t exactly a “War on Islam”, it’s pretty close), and that those societies can be successfully forced to change, just as part of American society was forced to change by the Civil Rights Act and school desegregation.

    [J]ust as it was with Viet Nam, it will be America that celebrates victory or suffers a terrible defeat.

    Yeah, but not to the extent that it was with Vietnam. The public supports the servicemembers to a far greater extent than was true in Vietnam, and the war in Iraq will have been much shorter than Vietnam, with only 1/20th as many Americans killed, assuming that no more than another thousand U.S. servicemembers die.

    So, while it’s not impossible that history will see Iraq as a “defeat” for America, it won’t be “terrible” to the public.

    The upcoming Congressional elections will serve as an imperfect proxy for how greatly the American public is upset over the war in Iraq. My sense is “not very” – many people are slightly discontented with the war, and a few are rabidly against it, but it’s not an issue over which many Congresspeople will lose their seats.

    Again, my prediction is that the GOP loses three or fewer Senate seats, and ten or fewer House seats, keeping both houses.

    In the end, regardless of the outcome, neither side in the current conflict will have accomplished anything at all.

    Except remove one of the region’s most bloodthirsty and aggressive tyrants, and free the Kurds and Shi’ites from oppression by the Sunnis.
    However things end up, those accomplishments are real and irrevocable.

    We will not see democracy flourish in the Middle East in our lifetime; nor will my 6 year-old son see it in his.

    Overly cynical, I think; your son will likely live for another 110 years – that’s a long time for all failed societies to remain in the mire.
    While it’s possible that some Middle Eastern nations will still be backwaters in 110 years, I am confident that others will be flourishing democracies.

  20. lonbud - July 20, 2006 @ 5:50 pm

    I see. Free the Shi’ites from Sunni oppression by having the two sides reverse roles. That’s quite an accomplishment.

    I doubt we’ll see average lifespans approaching the hundred-teens anytime soon (sorry, son), but even if we do, my bet is there will be no flourishing democracies in the Middle East during the first quarter of the current milennium.

    Hell, at the rate we’re going, we may not have a flourishing democracy in this country come the 2010s.

  21. Tam O’Tellico - July 24, 2006 @ 6:34 am

    Michael: “Blair’s actions were predicated on three assumptions: That the United Kingdom is still a world power, that the major source of the world’s present ills are the failed societies and cultures of the Middle East (which necessarily includes what you characterize as an “infantile religion” – while this isn’t exactly a “War on Islam”, it’s pretty close), and that those societies can be successfully forced to change, just as part of American society was forced to change by the Civil Rights Act and school desegregation.”

    1. Yes, the UK is still a world power, but it is rapidly losing that status – thus Blair is behaving like a punch-drunk old boxer, who overestimates his diminished “skills” and grasps at an opportunity to prove he’s still got it, or worse yet, the US and the UK behaved like a WWF tag-team of steroidal bullies who get whipped by leaner opponents

    2. Reread my post, I did not and would not characterize Islam as an infantile religion – only the perverted form favored by fanatics; in that, they are just like Christians of the same stripe who are willing to commit any atrocity in the name of God; you, however, reveal why you continue to show such allegiance to such failure because like your President, you believe this is the New Crusades

    3. To believe that these societies can be forced to change is to be ignorant of history – Did Alexander force the Persians to change or did they change him? Did the Romans force the Jews to change or did they lay waste to their cities, kill off as many as they could, and send the rest packing? Maybe that’s how you see this playing out in Iraq, and then we can get our hands on all that oil

    The only examples I can cite where the argument might be made of forced democracy are Japan and Germany after WWII, but I submit those successes had at least as much to do with “Marshall Plans” as with our status as conquerors – and I would remind you Japan still has an emperor

  22. Michael Herdegen - July 24, 2006 @ 9:25 am

    2. Only to the extent that Islam is contributing to the dysfunction of Arab society – otherwise, I couldn’t care less what they worship. They’ll still call it “Islam” after we get done whipping it into shape, just as Protestants call themselves “Christians”.

    3. “All” that oil ???

    America is sitting on ten times as much petroleum as is Iraq, although Iraq’s is much cheaper to produce.
    Given that, it’s easy to see that invading Iraq in order to seize their oil would indeed have been a foolish idea, so it’s a good thing that all non-crazy-people recognize that we did not do so.

    As a practical matter, Japan no longer has an Emperor.
    There is a man who is technically the Emperor of Japan, but before WW II the Emperor was a demi-god – they truly believed that he was divine – and after WW II the Emperor of Japan was just a rich dude with an inheritable title.

  23. lonbud - July 24, 2006 @ 11:34 am

    Non-crazy people recognize the dangers of hubris, too.

  24. Michael Herdegen - July 24, 2006 @ 1:43 pm

    I’m not sure that it was hubris. Maybe it was just frustration.

    Carter and the Camp David Accords in ’78 – ’79; Reagan and the “peacekeeping” force of Marines in Beirut in ’83; G.H.W. Bush and the merciful Feb. ’91 cease-fire, codified as UN Security Council Resolution 687; Clinton and the Oslo Agreements of ’93 and ’96, plus the protection of the Kosovar Muslims, when Europe wouldn’t do it…

    It still led up to 9/11.
    Diplomacy ultimately failed, although it may have bought a few years.

    There IS NO option for Middle Eastern societies that involves not changing, just going on as they are. Their choices are:

    A) Change themselves, from within
    B) Be changed by the sword, from without
    C) Perish by the sword
    D) Perish through starvation and grinding, hopeless poverty

    Diplomacy works to accomplish A, but TWENTY YEARS, an entire generation, after Camp David, diplomacy’s victories amounted to the Egyptian/Jordinian/Israeli peace, in entire. That’s it.

    So, 9/11 puts the Middle East back on the front burner, and the Bush admin decides “Hammer it, we’re going with B”.

    It’s more compassion and effort than I would have shown and attempted – I would have gone straight to D, and the Islamic radicals are clearly attempting to subject their societies to C.

  25. lonbud - July 24, 2006 @ 7:33 pm

    So, 9/11 puts the Middle East back on the front burner, and the Bush admin decides “Hammer it, we’re going with B”.

    Indeed.

    w, ever the mediocre student, got it wrong. The correct answer was A.

    As the leader of the richest, most powerful nation in the history of mankind, George the Lesser decided to Hammer it, thereby squandering immeasurable stores of diplomatic goodwill and both human and financial assets that can never be replaced.

    Nice going, junior.

  26. Michael Herdegen - July 25, 2006 @ 4:25 am

    The correct answer is A ?!?

    List for me, please, the successes of Middle Eastern diplomacy from ’48 to ’01.
    You’ll find them to be few and far between.

    Further, please list the practical and substantial gains that accrued to America due to this supposed “immeasurable store of diplomatic goodwill”, and list the concrete ways in which “squandering” it has harmed America.
    I’ll save you some time: There were no benefits, and nothing has been lost.

    Choosing A again would have been madness.
    Why else do you believe that Israel is pounding Lebanon, and hopefully Hizzbollah too, into dust ?

  27. lonbud - July 25, 2006 @ 7:00 am

    I see. By your reckoning, Michael, those ills of the world that cannot be cured in the span of a single lifetime through diplomacy ought then be pounded into dust.

    I’ll give you props for the moral clarity your Commander-in-Chief lacks.

    The answer is still A. The only place from whence comes change is within.

  28. Tam O’Tellico - July 25, 2006 @ 1:31 pm

    Nay, Lon, let us put Michael in the chair and ask him to list for us the long periods of peace and prosperity brought to this world in the previous century by almost continous armed conflict, let him list even one benefit of the Viet Nam War.

    In fact, Michael would be in such desperate straits to do so, I’ll even help:

    WWI certainly slowed down overpopulation for awhile – of course, the Right’s worst nightmare, abortion, would have accomplished the same thing much more cheaply and humanely

    WW II elminated two dictators, Hitler and Mussolini – who would probably never have come to power without WWI – and in the process established two dictators who were arguably worse, Stalin and Mao

    Certainly, war must remain an option, but it ought always to be the last option, not the first. Thus, the fallacy of Pre-emptive War, the fundamental plank of this administration, an administration made up of men who are a pitiful excuse for politicians, let alone statesmen.

  29. lonbud - July 25, 2006 @ 9:32 pm

    One benefit of the Viet Nam War is the awesome noodle dishes and Vietnamese seafood delicacies available here in San Francisco (among other places) since the 1970s.

    Not that American statesmen are due any thanks for it.

  30. Michael Herdegen - July 25, 2006 @ 9:36 pm

    Well, lonbud, if we conceive of a “single lifetime” as three-score-and-ten, then the Middle East hasn’t got that long. If they don’t do A, they’ll surely get D, and probably C too.

    It is amusing, though, to think that you would respond to terrorism by thinking “Oh well, my kids and I might get blown up by fanatics, but at least someone else’s grandkids won’t get blown up”.

    Tam O’Tellico:

    Stalin was well-established as the head of the USSR long before WW II, and Mao came to power due to the Japanese, whose expansionistic plans coincided with Hitler’s, but those plans were not a reaction to WW I, unlike Hitler’s rise to power.

    WW I did nothing to slow down global overpopulation, because overpopulation was never a problem in Europe during the 20th century.

    One positive result of Vietnam was that it handed another military defeat to Communist China, and furthered the West’s policy of “containing” Communism, until it burned itself out.

    Your question about whether war during the 20th century brought peace contains the underlying assumption that peace is the natural order of things, and war is an abberation.
    Sociologists and anthropologists can tell you that such is absolutely NOT the case – continuous conflict has been the norm throughout human history, although usually not of the “total war” variety that the rise of the industrial age allowed to be practiced during the 20th century.

    Sixty years seems to me to be a “long time”, and so I submit that the period of 1945 – 2005 qualifies as a “long period of peace and prosperity” – it’s nearly three generations, after all.

    Now, a purist might point out that the post-WW II period contained such events as the Korean War, Castro’s rise to power, the putting down of revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the Vietnam War, the killing fields of Cambodia, the invasion of Cambodia by Vietnam, the Afghanistan War, a half-dozen humiliating total Arab defeats at the hands of Israel, the Iran/Iraq war, civil wars funded by the U.S. and the USSR in Central America, Desert Storm, the annihilation of Chechnya, the crushing of the Taliban, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and too many civil and international wars in Africa to numerate.

    However, those were all regional conflicts.
    If one didn’t live there, or go there to fight, one could simply ignore them at no peril to one’s safety. They didn’t hinder civilians from travelling around the world, nor were they a threat to international commerce and shipping.

  31. lonbud - July 25, 2006 @ 9:53 pm

    The empirical evidence suggests one is far more likely to perish by the efforts of those combatting terrorism than by the efforts of terrorists themselves.

  32. Michael Herdegen - July 26, 2006 @ 3:15 am

    Is it your belief that if there is no response to terrorism, then terrorism will cease ?

    That if, after 9/11, America had simply buried the dead and went about business as usual, there would have been no further attacks ?

  33. Tam O’Tellico - July 27, 2006 @ 7:33 am

    M:Stalin was well-established as the head of the USSR long before WW II, and Mao came to power due to the Japanese, whose expansionistic plans coincided with Hitler’s, but those plans were not a reaction to WW I, unlike Hitler’s rise to power.

    My use of “established” in regard to Stalin and Mao was not to suggest that either came to power as a result of WWII, but that WWII established them as absolute rulers and world figures to be reckoned with. To understand what I mean, imagine Germany and Japan had won instead – in that case, I doubt either Stalin or Mao would have enjoyed such status.

    Obviously, I’m not suggesting the world would have been a better place given such a frightening scenario as an Axis victory. All I’m saying is that by it’s very nature, war tends to produce at least as many tyrants as it defeats.

    One obvious reason for this is what we are witnessing in our country at the moment with the absurd notion of executive powers claimed by his excellency, the fool who would be king. Our citizenry has become so cowed by the events of 9-11, and the continued promoting and propagandizing of “a post 9-11 world’, that many are perfect willing to give up a substantial portion of their hard-won freedoms for the small chance – as evidenced by the incompetence and malfeasance of our Department of Homeland Security – of a little security.

    That so many Americans fail to see the comparison between what is going on with this administration and what the National Socialists did in Germany in the Thirties astounds me. But then I shouldn’t really be surprised, since that is the point I’ve been making all along.

  34. Michael Herdegen - July 27, 2006 @ 9:28 pm

    That so many Americans see any comparison between what is going on with this administration and what the National Socialists did in Germany in the Thirties is what astounds me.
    But, as you say, I shouldn’t really be surprised, since few people know anything about the German National Socialists and what they did, aside from a half-dozen headline bullet points.

    People with an actual knowledge of history find such comparisons absurd.

    [B]y its very nature, war tends to produce at least as many tyrants as it defeats.

    I agree that such was the case before WW II.
    Now, not so much. Monarchy, fascism, and communism have all fallen by the wayside – now all that’s left is democracy and dictators. While dictators might always exist, they’re no longer a “legitimate” choice, they’re just what happens when a nation lacks a strong rule of law.
    There will always be pressure on the dictator to step down, especially if they’re successful in re-establishing order and prosperity.

    [M]any are perfectly willing to give up a substantial portion of their hard-won freedoms for the small chance – as evidenced by the incompetence and malfeasance of our Department of Homeland Security – of a little security.

    And yet, no foreign terror attacks in America since 9/11. Gee, if only all gov’t agecies would be that “incompetent”.

    Also, please give some examples of “substantial” freedoms relinquished.
    Having your library records looked at by the Feds is a trivial thing, in my opinion.

  35. lonbud - July 27, 2006 @ 10:22 pm

    I believe if the response to terrorism is violence, terrorism will not cease.

    I believe if after 9/11 America had buried the dead, made significant changes in the command and control structure of its intelligence and security forces, and spent half the money wasted thus far in Iraq on work to address the root causes of terrorist thinking, there would have been no additional attacks in this country.

    I do not believe the Department of Homeland Security has “uncovered” or prevented a single terrorist attack on America, and I don’t believe it ever will.

    There has not been a terrorist attack on America since 9/11 for a number of reasons, none of which has anything to do with George W. Bush.

  36. Tam O’Tellico - July 27, 2006 @ 10:26 pm

    M: And yet, no foreign terror attacks in America since 9/11. Gee, if only all gov’t agecies would be that “incompetent”.

    Surely, you can’t be serious about defending Mr. Chertoff and his bonehead department in light of Katrina and our porous borders. And if the FDA and the FCC were that incompetent, we’d have TV ads for prescription drugs and record profits for Big Pharma; if the DOE were that incompetent we’d have price gouging and record profits for Big Oil; if the SEC were that incompetent, we’d have companies like Enron colluding with Arthur Anderson and Dick Cheney; if the DOI were that incompetent they’d be taking orders from Jack Abramoff; if the DOD was that incompetent, we’d be in a protracted war in Iraq long after we declared mission accomplished – uh, wait a minute, maybe you’re right, all government agencies seem to be mismanaged under this administration.

    Surely, you can’t defend the fact that funds got taken from blue states like New York and were given to red states like Tennessee – where by the way funds are to be spent fortifying the Sweetwater Flea Market. Surely, you must wonder why Wyoming received the highest per capita expenditures for homeland security – unless you remembered that Cheapshot Cheney use to be the senator from that state.

    M: Also, please give some examples of “substantial” freedoms relinquished. Having your library records looked at by the Feds is a trivial thing, in my opinion.

    Since you are the expert on pre-war National Socialism, you already know the connection between libraries and facism. The first thing we do is kill off all the intellectuals, the lawyers we can always buy off – sorry, Lon. And if we can’t kill ’em all, we make intellectuals the butt of our smarmy jokes and we belittle learning and reading – does this sound like any pet goatherd you know? Then we burn all the books.

    Am I seriously proposing that is what is afoot at this moment? No, but we better keep our eyes and ears open with this crowd – after all, Hitler’s little idosyncracies didn’t sound so bad to many Germans at first either. Our present supreme leader glorifies war and physicality while pointedly and repeatedly being dismissive of intellectuals – and the mob cheers him on – at least until recently. If that doesn’t sound eerily familiar to you, then perhaps you don’t know as much about pre-war Germany as you imagine.

    Thank God, our would-be king lacks Hitler’s oratorical skills.

  37. Michael Herdegen - July 28, 2006 @ 3:14 am

    I believe if the response to terrorism is violence, terrorism will not cease.

    Terrorism will not cease if the response to terrorism is passivity, or even loving outreach.

    Acts of terror are warfare by non-nation groups. Like all warfare, the aggressors have a goal. A failure to respond with force to the terror group will not cause them to lay down their arms – they see any lack of response as weakness, a sign that they will be successful.

    We don’t respond to crime by ignoring it. Doing so only breeds more crime. So too with terrorism. By the time that people decide to kill random innocent people in an attempt to further their cause, they’re in a “success or death” mindset. They won’t be swayed by pretty words.

    The best response to terrorism is not violence alone, but violence had better be a part of it.

    I believe if after 9/11 America had […] made significant changes in the command and control structure of its intelligence and security forces…

    We did exactly that.
    According to Tam, the results of doing so are an abysmal failure.
    In your own words, the revamped security forces haven’t “prevented a single terrorist attack on America, and I don’t believe it ever will.”

    …and spent half the money wasted thus far in Iraq…

    Again, you appear willing to call the race before the runners even round the turn.
    We have no idea if the money spent on the Iraqi adventure will turn out to have been a waste. It may well be the best American investment of the 21st century.

    …on work to address the root causes of terrorist thinking…

    What do you believe the root causes of terrorist thinking to be ?

    I believe them to be related to the abject failure of most Arab societies, and Bush has addressed that directly. If Arabs have an opportunity to advance in the world, to be a part of a culture with a future, far fewer will be filled with such despairing rage.
    It’s no accident that most of the terrorists implicated in attacks on Western nations are educated men from middle-class backrounds. That is a group that is acutely aware of how bleak the future is for most Arab nations, combined with an inability to do much about it, and some of them naturally look to blame someone or something other than their own culture or leaders. At least if they’re blowing us up they get to feel like they’re doing something about the situation, since blowing up people in their own nations won’t do jack.

    There has not been a terrorist attack on America since 9/11 for a number of reasons, none of which has anything to do with George W. Bush.

    Yeah ?
    Then how about naming the reasons. Otherwise, we might as well assume that George W. Bush personally stops terrorist attacks on a daily basis.

    Tam, your standard for governance seems to be “perfection”, so I can assure you that you won’t like the next President any more than you like Bush.

    You write that “all government agencies seem to be mismanaged under this administration”, and as examples you list such things as “TV ads for prescription drugs” and “companies like Enron colluding with Arthur Anderson”. Perhaps you are unaware that those specific things also happened under Clinton, and did not start when Bush took office in ’01.

    Further, your concept that big profits for pharmaceutical and oil companies necessarily mean that something illegal is going on is a fundamental misunderstanding of how capitalism works.

    When you get paid for writing or performing, does that mean that you bought somebody off ?
    Since Stephen King and Britney Spears have made hundreds of millions of dollars by writing and performing, does that mean that they are criminals ?

    Why do you believe that Big Oil is “price gouging” ?
    Specific examples, please.

    Surely, you must wonder why Wyoming received the highest per capita expenditures for homeland security…

    No, I don’t, because…

    …unless you remembered that Cheapshot Cheney use to be the senator from that state.

    Ah yes, the “conspiracy theory” school of analysis. Fun, but seldom correct.

    The reason that Wyoming received a very high per-capita amount of Homeland Security funding is quite simple – Wyoming has the same number of U.S. Senators as does every other state, but a total statewide population of under one million. Therefore, per-capita, they got a lot of money, but in gross terms, very little.

    Your analysis of how America is like Nazi Germany was good for a chuckle.
    To paraphrase:

    Just like pre-war National Socialism in Germany, we’ll kill off the “intellectuals”, [apparently defined as anyone who uses a public library], or we’ll at least make fun of ’em – they hate that – and then we’ll burn all the books…
    OK, OK, so we’re not anywhere near to doing that, but Bush is still like Hitler because he works out…

    Priceless.

    I especially liked this part: “Our present supreme leader glorifies war and physicality… If that doesn’t sound eerily familiar to you, then perhaps you don’t know as much about pre-war Germany as you imagine.”

    That’s hilarious because you’re describing pre-war Italy and Mussolini. But hey, one fascist dictator is as good as the next, right? “Der Fuhrer”, “Il Duce” – whatever, man…

    I asked for “some examples of ‘substantial’ freedoms relinquished”. Two paragraphs later, you not only have given NO examples of substantial freedoms lost, you didn’t even give any examples of minor freedoms lost.

    I must therefore assume that you couldn’t think of any, which kinda puts a crimp in the whole “Nazi Amerikkka” concept, no ?

  38. lonbud - July 28, 2006 @ 8:13 am

    Michael, your refusal to think “outside the box,” and the continuing reflection of similar knee-jerk, old-school views of policy makers in the United States and Israel, ensures both the perpetuation of terrorism and the failure of our effort to re-make “failed” Arab society.

    It’s interesting that you can take the long view on America’s “investment” in a peaceful and prosperous Middle East, and yet cannot conceive of a strategy that does not involve obliteration of its infrastructure and wholesale slaughter of its civilian population. I can say without equivocation that what George Bush has orchestrated in Iraq these past three years will NOT turn out to be this country’s best investment of the 21st century. And he is about to throw good money after bad, and commit more soldiers — not fewer — to his hopeless cause.

    You come tantalizingly close to understanding the nature of the problem in noting the “despairing rage… felt by people acutely aware of how bleak the future is for most Arab nations.”

    Their “inability to do much about it” has a lot to do with the way the United States colludes with their leaders to make it so, and thus, “some of them naturally look to blame someone or something…”

    If Arab society is going to be re-made, it is going to have to be re-made from within. Unfortunately, the policies of the United Sates and other nations with “successful” societies have contributed to the consolidation of power within Arab society of its most intolerant, reactionary, and oppressive elements, which exacerbates the despairing rage of the multitudes and bleeds hope for a better future out of them.

    Couple that with the global military-industrial complex’s insatiable demand for profit and you get exactly what we have — an endless dance with death in which terror leads.

  39. Michael Herdegen - July 28, 2006 @ 10:09 pm

    …a strategy that does not involve obliteration of its infrastructure and wholesale slaughter of its civilian population.

    Wow, that sounds bad !
    Now if only you could give an example of where something like that is occurring…
    Chechnya ?

    The only other place that comes to mind where the wholesale slaughter of civilians is happening is in the Sudan, which is near but not of the Middle East.

    Neither is occurring now in Iraq, nor did they in the past.

    Although obliteration of infrastructure is occuring in Lebanon, it’s in a limited geographic area, and as a state of war exists between Lebanon and Israel, it’s not surprising that such is going on.
    Civilian casualties, however, have been very light in that situation. Israel is bending over backwards to avoid them, even as the cowardly Hizzbollah terrorists use human shields.

    Michael, your refusal to think “outside the box,” and the continuing reflection of similar knee-jerk, old-school views of policy makers in the United States and Israel, ensures both the perpetuation of terrorism and the failure of our effort to re-make “failed” Arab society.

    I find that to be quite interesting, because I feel exactly the same way about your shopworn calls for “more diplomacy”, especially since you’ve never articulated precisely what you think that America, Israel, Hizzbollah, Hamas, Fatah, the Ba’ath Party of Syria, the Mullahs of Iran, and more generally Shi’ites and Sunnis, can all agree upon.
    Many of those listed have diametrically opposed beliefs of the most deeply-held, existential kind.

    Thus, vague assertions that “diplomacy is the answer” is the very definition of an inside-the-box, knee-jerk, old-school view. After all, the crises of today were set up by the diplomatic successes of yesterday, since it was diplomacy, and not “the global military-industrial complex’s insatiable demand for profit”, that “contributed to the consolidation of power within Arab society of its most intolerant, reactionary, and oppressive elements”, and established such as the status quo.

    Now that the most intolerant, reactionary, and oppressive elements of Arab society are entrenched in power, what in the world makes you think that we can talk them into voluntarily giving up that power ?!?

  40. Tam O’Tellico - July 29, 2006 @ 7:43 am

    M: “Our present supreme leader glorifies war and physicality… That’s hilarious because you’re describing pre-war Italy and Mussolini. But hey, one fascist dictator is as good as the next, right? “Der Fuhrer”, “Il Duce” – whatever, man…”

    If you think my observation doesn’t equally apply to Hitler, you are the one who is sadly mistaken. While the Fuerher may have been no “jock” himself, he reveled in physicality and continually preached the supposed physical perfection and superiority of “aryans”, and built a whole sub-culture around “breeding” based on such notions. The present Governor of California would clearly qualify as the supreme example of the Wagnerian/Nazi model of aryan supremacy.

    If you also believe the fool who would be king doesn’t exhibit a marked and continual disdain for intellectual pursuits in favor of chopping wood and mountain biking, you are again mistaken. Since you seem to exhibit a deep and abiding respect for knowledge – even though you allow that knowledge to be clouded by your political persuasions, I find your unexamined and unabashed allegiance to a man so much the opposite, peculiar in the extreme.

    In many ways, you remind me of Ann Ice-Queen Coulter, full of facts and fury, but without the least comprehension of the lives of those less fortunate.

  41. lonbud - July 29, 2006 @ 8:19 am

    Please don’t take my criticisms of the violence in the Middle East as being directed in one way only. Both “sides,” though, as you point out, Michael, there are over a half dozen factions involved, have a we must kill (or destroy) what we don’t understand (or fear, or hate) philosophy.

    My only point is that such a philosophy leads to endless rounds of killing and violence in which there can never be a victor. The best that can be gained through such a philosphy is temporary lulls in the bloodshed during which none of the misunderstanding, fear, or hatred abates.

    While wholesale slaughter of civilian populations may skirt the bounds of hyperbole with respect to Iraq, it cannot be denied that infrastructure obliteration was part of the U. S. strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and has been Israel’s strategy against the Palestinians and Hezbollah.

    The whole human shield charge — at least as it has been leveled against Hezbollah — is a myth, as well. See Mitch Prothero’s excellent article in Salon (may require registration).

    In any event, all I am saying is neither Israel nor the United States will ever be able to bomb its way to security in the Middle East; nor will the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, Shi’ites, Sunnis, Kurds, or any other tribe or political party there gain power or control or acceptance of their philosophies through violence.

    I believe it’s a fairly twisted reading of history that blames the rise of Islamic fundamentalism on the diplomatic successes of yesterday while giving the global military-industrial complex a pass, but it’s not the first instance of Michael and I viewing the world through different-colored glasses.

    Be that as it may, the smart money says we can look forward to more death and destruction in the Middle East, and to less peace and security.

  42. Michael Herdegen - July 29, 2006 @ 1:47 pm

    If you think my observation doesn’t equally apply to Hitler, [etc.]

    I agree about Hitler and the Aryan culture of physicality; I was teasing you a bit for implying that simply because Bush works out more than the average American, and far more than the average POTUS, that therefore he’s “like Hitler”, and that his personal habits translate into a government-wide push towards fascism.

    But drawing that parallel is silly. Bush may work out more than does the average American, but he doesn’t use the bully pulpit to exhort Americans to get off their rears – although he probably ought to do so, given that two out of three adult Americans are overweight and underfit.
    Bush also reads more than does the average American, and holds a graduate degree, so in American culture Bush-the-moron is a relative “intellectual”.

    The present Governor of California would clearly qualify as the supreme example of the Wagnerian/Nazi model of aryan supremacy.

    Not just for his impressive physique*, but for his awesome will and mental drive as well. From penniless immigrant to vast riches, and the Governorship of one of the most important states in the world’s most important nation. In every way but foreign policy, being Governor of California is more important than being President or Prime Minister of Austria.
    Further, Schwarzenegger isn’t just “rich”. There are many people in the U.S. worth a million dollars or more; however, there are very, very few people at the elite level of more than three million dollars in net worth. He’s one of them.
    (Roughly 90% of “millionaire households” in America are worth between one and three million dollars).

    * He used steroids to help achieve his dominant development during his muscle-show days, but obviously that’s just a tool, and not the keys to the city, or else there would have been a hundred Schwarzeneggers on the bodybuilding scene. Similarly, Barry Bonds may have been helped by ‘roids, but clearly the chemicals aren’t responsible for all of his success, or else everyone else would be just like him.
    However, I have more scorn for Bonds’ and other modern athletes’ use of chemicals than I do for Arnolds’, because we now know more about the negative health effects than we did in the 70s, and ‘roids are banned in today’s sports, while they were not addressed in 70s bodybuilding. Bonds knows that he’s cheating. (On the other hand, chemical-enhancement was purposefully not addressed by the bodybuilding authorities in the 70s, just as it’s winked at in today’s bodybuilding – they want overmuscled freaks at the shows. That’s what they’re selling the public. There’s a “natural” bodybuilder’s league, where they take urine samples before every show, and test the winners – it draws 10% of the crowds that the freakshows do).

    If you also believe the fool who would be king doesn’t exhibit a marked and continual disdain for intellectual pursuits in favor of chopping wood and mountain biking, you are again mistaken.

    As I wrote above, Bush reads more than does the average American, and he invites many authors to come to the White House to discuss their books with him. If you are going to condemn Bush as an “anti-intellectual”, you’ll have to scorn 75% of America along with him. (Which, it seems to me, you do in fact do, although for other reasons).

    Nobody has to choose between mountain biking and “intellectual pursuits”, as one can do both. And should. All reading and no exercise isn’t very wise, and marks one as a pedant, not an intellectual as it’s classically been defined.

    …you allow that knowledge to be clouded by your political persuasions…

    Look in a mirror.

    I find your unexamined and unabashed allegiance to a man so much the opposite, peculiar in the extreme.

    Hardly “unexamined”, as anyone who’s read my posts over the past year ought to know.

    Further, the charge that Bush “exhibit[s] a marked and continual disdain for intellectual pursuits” and has no “deep and abiding respect for knowledge” is plainly false, as anyone with any interest in knowing the truth could have found out in less than an hour. Not confirming one’s assumptions is a leading trait of non-intellectual people.

    But some people clearly prefer the myth to reality; it’s “too good to check”, as they say in the media biz.

    My fondness for Bush has a simple* foundation. While I don’t agree with him on every issue, and I have some criticisms about how he relates to the public, I do agree with him on most major issues, and Bush and I agree 100% on the issues that I find to be the most important, or have a great fondness for.
    Further, I have first-hand impressions of the personalities, policies, styles, and public relations of Presidents from Carter on, and some vicarious impressions of a few Presidents before Carter. Out of all of them, Bush the Younger is the President that’s closest to how I’d be as POTUS, and I don’t expect there to be another for some time after, based on the fact that there haven’t been many before.
    (Which is not to say that there aren’t prominent politicians who are more like me than is Bush – Bush is just the closest who’s actually been President).

    * Just like Bush himself! [rimshot]

    In many ways, you remind me of Ann Ice-Queen Coulter, full of facts and fury, but without the least comprehension of the lives of those less fortunate.

    Again, look in the mirror.
    You can’t conceive of how people live on a pittance, despite being shown exactly how it can be done, and yet apparently you feel some solidarity with the “less fortunate”. That paradigm led to the coining of the phrase “limousine liberal”.

  43. Tam O’Tellico - July 29, 2006 @ 4:50 pm

    Limousine-Liberal, eh? As the eldest of six children raised by a backwoods Michigan mother (who didn’t complete the eighth-grade and who probably never read a book in her life – including mine) – and a dirt-poor, hillbilly truck-driver from Kentucky who didn’t finish the tenth-grade (but managed most of the time to provide for himself and his family by hard work and having the good fortune to live in a time and a place when the Teamsters Union existed), I think I know something about poverty first-hand.

    Having known real hunger and been fed on USDA plain-brown wrapper bags of yellow-corn meal, powdered milk and govt-dole cheese, having been clothed thanks to Goodwill Industries and hand-me-downs, having lived in what used to be called “The Projects” before they became known as The Ghetto, having soometimes had to live out of a car, I’ll thank those not so experienced to at least acknowledge that I’ve earned my right to speak on the subject of poverty. As they say on the street, gimme my “props”.

    I don’t have to conceive of how people can get by today on a “pittance” of $10,000 a year – I know first-hand how they do. They do it by cutting corners, starting with health insurance. They drive all those unsafe cars you and I share the roads with, the ones with bald tires and bad brakes. And yes, in their desperation, they all often escape with illegal drugs. But far more often they expend their limited resources on the opiates our society says are OK, the drugs your Free-Marketers have no qualms about pushing – cigarettes, booze and bad TV. Shame on these lazy-assed slackers – everything would have been okay if they had spent that money on Enron stock instead.

    Speaking of drugs, I’m not sure what inspired your long discourse on steroids, but your perverse defense of admitted steroid use by Arnold, while at the same time engaging in an indictment of Barry Bonds for unproven use of steroids, strikes me as the sort of Alice-in Wonderland fantasy and racist reasoning fit for the Fuehrer himself.

    In any case, rather than crucify Bonds for possibly doing what countless others in professional sports did (with the tacit approval of the sports establishment), we should all be looking for a length of rope and a tall tree to string up the master manipulators of the beef, poultry and milk industry for injecting us all with steroids. We should also be stringing up the Congressmen who are in cahoots with these Agri-business criminals. BTW, if you think I’m engaging in hyperbole, check out the “ethics” of ADM or Dow sometime.

    Finally, as your incomprehensible fondness for the fool who would be king, those of us who in spite of our humble beginnings made it through college without the help of our Daddy and his friends, don’t consider it an intellectual pursuit to read My Pet Goat while New Rome burned.

  44. Michael Herdegen - July 29, 2006 @ 6:10 pm

    Mitch Prothero’s argument in Salon is essentially that Israel just likes killing civilians. I suppose that if one is antisemitic, then that argument is self-evident, but I’d like a more rigorous analysis.

    For instance, we know that Hizzbollah fighters gather, and also launch rockets, from an arms-length away from the UN observation posts in So. Lebanon. They do that because they hope that, as Israel attempts to avoid hitting the UN observers, they’ll also miss the terrorists.
    We also know that Hizzbollah launches rockets from civilian centers of population in So. Lebanon, not just from empty fields.

    In this, Hizzbollah is behaving exactly like Hamas and Fatah, attempting to hide in crowds.
    Also, Hizzbollah chose to store their arsenal of rockets in population centers, rather than in rural bunkers.

    But suppose that we didn’t know any of the above, and could only observe that the Israelis are killing civilians, and destroying civilian targets like apartment buildings.
    We could draw two conclusions from this: Either those targets are really military targets, and we don’t have all of the info that we need to see that, or else that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians.
    However, if it’s the latter, then the IDF is doing a really poor job of it, having killed only 600 or so people, by the count of the Lebanese gov’t. Since we know that the IDF is anything but incompetent, then we must conclude that the former solution is more likely than the latter.

    Therefore, what is a myth is that Hizzbollah does not intentionally put civilians into harm’s way.

    But suppose that Hizzbollah using human shields was a myth, at least at a tactical level.
    What should we say about a private group of armed lunatics who drags an entire nation, unwillingly and without consent, into a war with the most fearsome military in the region ?
    Whether Hizzbollah technically uses human shields or not is far less relevant than the fact that they have put an entire nation of millions of people at risk of injury or death, and have caused billions of dollars’ worth of damage to be done to the nation’s infrastructure and economy, all in pursuit of the private and unshared-with-the-rest-of-Lebanon goal of destroying Israel, and they did that at the request of a foreign nation – Iran.
    At the very least, Hizzbollah are traitors to the nation of Lebanon.

    Both “sides” […] have a we must kill (or destroy) what we don’t understand (or fear, or hate) philosophy.

    No, they don’t, which is why claiming that all of those groups are equal is so offensive.
    Israel, for instance, pulled out of Lebanon, pulled out of Gaza…

    That’s the “diplomatic” solution at work, right, accommodation instead of violence ?
    Did that result in more peace, in less violence against Israel ?

    …such a philosophy leads to endless rounds of killing and violence in which there can never be a victor. The best that can be gained through such a philosphy is temporary lulls in the bloodshed during which none of the misunderstanding, fear, or hatred abates.

    …neither Israel nor the United States will ever be able to bomb its way to security in the Middle East;

    When your opponents won’t budge from their goal of your total destruction, what else is there to do but try to achieve “temporary lulls in the bloodshed” ?

    Long term security may be unachievable, but Israel and the U.S. can definitely bomb their way to short term security, which is a desirable goal in and of itself.

    When terrorists are shelling your kid’s school, what kind of moron thinks “Well, I’ll do nothing, because there’s no long term solution.”

    Here is where Tam O’Tellico and I disagree with you: For some reason, you seem unwilling to admit that diplomacy, like any negotiation, can fail. Sometimes there really is no set of terms that all parties will voluntarily agree upon.

    What then ?

    …nor will the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, Shi’ites, Sunnis, Kurds, or any other tribe or political party there gain power or control or acceptance of their philosophies through violence.

    Ah…
    You are surely NOT claiming that no person or group has risen to power through violence, including some of those listed, ?

    I believe it’s a fairly twisted reading of history that blames the rise of Islamic fundamentalism on the diplomatic successes of yesterday while giving the global military-industrial complex a pass…

    You apparently view “the global military-industrial complex” as a force that drives human events; I see it as an agent which reacts to the demands of human events.

    In any case, the meta-picture is that the current circumstances of the Middle East were shaped over decades by the Cold War competition between the West and Communism, led by the U.S. and the USSR. Both sides preferred a static situation to one in which the regimes of the Middle East acted independently.

    No doubt there’s a lot of overlap between what I call “diplomacy”, and you label “military-industrial complex”.

    Be that as it may, the smart money says we can look forward to more death and destruction in the Middle East, and to less peace and security.

    In the short run, and the medium run too, more death and destruction, but creative destruction this time, leading to long term peace and security.
    The death and destruction won’t end with the same players operating in the same regional paradigm – there are going to be fundamental changes.

    One of those changes will have to be Iran, although they’ll hopefully reform themselves.

  45. Michael Herdegen - July 29, 2006 @ 7:13 pm

    I’ll thank those not so experienced to at least acknowledge that I’ve earned my right to speak on the subject of poverty.

    Who would that be ?
    To the best of my knowledge, lonbud has never denied that you have a right to speak about poverty, and besides, for all I know lonbud too had a rough childhood.

    I don’t have to conceive of how people can get by today on a “pittance” of $10,000 a year – I know first-hand how they do.

    Yes, I suspected as much, and I believe that I’ve written in this forum that your intense opposition to my claims that one could do so was driven by some psychological or emotional need, rather than by reason.

    So now we all agree that one can get by in America on ten grand, which is one full-time job at the current Federal minimum wage. Excellent.

    Shame on these lazy-assed slackers – everything would have been okay if they had spent that money on Enron stock instead.

    Or maybe on an education, which is exactly what you claim that you did: “those of us who in spite of our humble beginnings made it through college without the help of our Daddy…”

    Surely you aren’t of the opinion that you are such a superior specimen of humanity that others of humble backrounds cannot succeed as you did ?
    So yeah, if one spends all of one’s few spare dollars on booze and cigarettes, and spends all of one’s free time watching TV, then one is a lazy slacker.

    Education’s often free, by the way, so all it takes is a little self-initiative.

    …your perverse defense of admitted steroid use by Arnold, while at the same time engaging in an indictment of Barry Bonds for unproven use of steroids, strikes me as the sort of Alice-in Wonderland fantasy and racist reasoning fit for the Fuehrer himself.

    Sure, why pass up the opportunity for unprovoked ad hominem ?
    Now I’m like Hitler !!
    I’m moving up in the world – me an’ the leader of the free world, two peas in a pod. Well, three, I guess, if you include our idol Hitler.

    My “defense” of Arnold’s steroid use was that he wasn’t aware of the risks, and that it was neither banned by his league, nor illegal.
    Are you claiming that Bonds is unaware that steroids are dangerous, that MLB bans them, and that it’s also against the law to buy them for non-medical use ?

    Talk about racism !
    The black guy’s too stupid to know what he’s doing…
    I doubt that Bonds would thank you for speaking up on his behalf.

    But I agree that Bonds hasn’t been convicted of any illegality surrounding his use of steroids, and so I will retract my remarks, and simply note that Bonds gave a lot of money to a guy whose only means of support was selling steroids that had been chemically altered to prevent detection on drug tests, to athletes.
    Make of that what you will.

    …as your incomprehensible fondness for the fool who would be king…

    Are you saying that you didn’t comprehend my explanation about why I like Bush ?
    I’m not sure that I can make it any plainer, but here goes: Bush is somewhat like me.

    No nuance, but it’s approximately accurate – like explaining physics to children.

    …those of us who [pretend to intellectualism] don’t consider it an intellectual pursuit to read My Pet Goat while New Rome burned.

    Yes, it’s the need to believe the myth that the President is somehow stupid or unread that exposes the mentally weak and the unreasoning.
    A person who was intellectually curious, and who desired to know truth, could easily find out that Bush is well-read, and a person with a strong sense of self-worth would find nothing fearful in acknowledging that.

    One can disagree with another person without needing to believe that said person is stupid or uneducated. They’re just wrong.

    BTW, there’s another culture that values rugged physicality and promotes communing with nature in the great outdoors – that of Sweden.
    Look out, they’re just like Germany before WW II !

    Or maybe valuing physical activity has nothing whatsoever to do with whether a society is moving towards fascism.

  46. lonbud - July 29, 2006 @ 9:43 pm

    C’mon, Michael, your best argument against an article crtical of Israel’s prosecution of its right to defend itself is that the author is anti-semitic? That doesn’t really help the discussion along, now does it?

    You seem so intimately knowledgable about Hezbollah, perhaps you can tell me exactly what it is. Some sort of club? A PAC? Is it something to which one swears a blood oath? A political party? A militia? Is it a nationless people, a tribe, a fraternal order, a self-help group, a cult? What exactly IS Hezbollah, and how do you know so f*cking much about the way it goes about its business?

    They may well be nothing more than a private group of armed lunatics, but they hardly drag[ged] an entire nation, unwillingly and without consent, into a war with the most fearsome military in the region. Nor did they cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage to be done to the nation’s infrastructure and economy. What they did was kidnap a couple of Israeli soldiers.

    Everything else you describe is largely a result of the manner in which Israel chose to respond to the kidnapping, which, more than anything, proves my point about violence begetting more violence.

  47. Michael Herdegen - July 30, 2006 @ 2:03 am

    C’mon, Michael, your best argument against an article crtical of Israel’s prosecution of its right to defend itself is that the author is anti-semitic?

    No, it isn’t. I note that you offer no counter-argument to my “best arguments”, and thus I assume that we are now in agreement: Hizzbollah uses civilians as human shields.

    What exactly IS Hezbollah, and how do you know so f*cking much about the way it goes about its business?

    I read.
    I recommend that approach to anyone who wishes to acquire knowledge, about any subject.

    You seem so intimately knowledgable about Hezbollah, perhaps you can tell me exactly what it is. […] Is it something to which one swears a blood oath? A political party? A militia? [A] self-help group, a cult?

    Yes to all of those.
    Hizbollah is an organization that has a political wing, and a military wing, like the IRA used to have. Hizbollah also builds and runs hospitals and schools, and provides pensions and disability payments to its members.
    Since they are organized around a religion, they also resemble a cult, especially since many of their militiamen are eager to be martyrs.

    [Hizzbollah] may well be nothing more than a private group of armed lunatics, but they [didn’t start a war]. What they did was kidnap a couple of Israeli soldiers.

    Everything else you describe is largely a result of the manner in which Israel chose to respond to the kidnapping, which, more than anything, proves my point about violence begetting more violence.

    So, if Hizzbollah isn’t responsible for the consequences of its actions, then how exactly do you think that diplomacy can work ?
    Doesn’t a non-violent solution require that everyone involved have confidence that any agreement will be abided by ?

    But really, that pales next to your suggestion that it’s no big deal if Hizzbollah kills and kidnaps Israelis. If your kid were snatched, is that how you’d respond, by doing nothing ?

  48. Tam O’Tellico - July 30, 2006 @ 6:07 am

    M: My “defense” of Arnold’s steroid use was that he wasn’t aware of the risks, and that it was neither banned by his league, nor illegal.

    First of all, users of steroids, like users of cigarettes, have known for a very long time about the dangers of steroids – unless your suggesting Ahnold the Oak was too stupid to understand the complications. He did the dope because it gave him immediate results and made him feel better about himself, at least temporarily – hey, just like crack-head.

    Ahnold, like Bonds, weighed the risks and believed that the rewards outweighed them. His current medical troubles might suggest otherwise. Ditto for Bonds, Steve Courson, Lyle Alzado and any number of other famous athletes who made that choice. That might possibly include the men who won the last eight Tours de France and countless other cycling events. It must also be said that like most young athletes, these men fall victim to the thinking of a sub-culture whose members tend to believe in their own invincibility. For their youth, we should forgive them.

    But for cheating, Ahnold included, we should not. And if Bonds is found guilty of cheating, then like Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose, at the very least, he should be denied the glories of his sport. On nthe other hand, it isn’t a stretch to suggest that baseball is indeed representative of America in that it embraces a winning at any cost mentality. NASCAR is at least a close second. It makes one pine for a Bobby Jones who takes a self-imposed penalty and loses a big tournament.

    Your flimsy justification that Ahnold’s use of steroids wasn’t illegal is why we can never trust our future to the jungle ethic of the Free-Marketers. They use the same argument to excuse the most obscene and otherwise criiminal behavior. It’s the same weak-willed argument that gives us shyster lawyers, bribes passed-off as finder’s fees and a whole host of bottom-feeders that make the Free-Market system a scourge of Christ.

    Unfortunately, these jungle cats have a hard time playing by even those lax rules, so we end up with guys like Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and Ralph Reed justifying their criminality by claiming to be doing God’s will.
    It’s the same argument that excuses Kenny Boy Lay and others who made a career of doctoring oil company books – people like George W. Bush.

    Yeah, I know George – just like Barry Bonds – has never been convicted. Hell, even Kenny Boy is on appeal. I wonder how the “it wasn’t illegal” argument is working out for him in the court system he is now facing?

  49. Michael Herdegen - July 30, 2006 @ 6:52 am

    Since it was illegal, probably not well, just as he was ultimately brought to justice here on Earth.

  50. lonbud - July 30, 2006 @ 8:12 am

    If my kid was snatched, I’m not sure what I’d do, to be honest. I am certain, however, that laying waste to entire towns inhabited by his suspected kidnappers would neither relieve my grief, nor lead to his being set free.

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