Politico Manifesto: From the hands of Toby and Koonta

Poor logic.

2008-05-23T11:54:00.002-04:00

Ad hominem arguments are ones that attack the source/arguer rather than the argument. This would be saying "Your cookies are bad because you're stupid." Basically, it's the official word for name-calling, and wherever you see it, it's a good indicator of intellectual stuntedness.

In regards to politics, this means that any sort of commentator or opinion-ator that uses the term "moonbat" or "rethuglican" should be more critically looked as regards to their credibility. Why? Because anyone who simply dismisses another for being ideologically left or right has shut down their brain. This is intolerance at its best, intellectual dishonesty and laziness epitomized. It's easier to call someone a name than (truly) objectively analyze something, and honestly, that's what a lot of people in politics do. They tailor their information to their beliefs, not the other way around.

Qur'an shooting.

2008-05-19T09:48:00.002-04:00

So if you don't know about the recent incident of a soldier (I think a sniper) using a Qur'an for target practice, look it up.

So let's look at the left and right think-tanks in regards to this issue. The left? Going apeshit, exaggerating and blowing this all out of proportion. Cool. The right? Hmm... hard to say... oh yeah, totally blowing this off as "totally not a big deal... and they apologized! Stupid liberals."

This is why I hate political parties. Both are absolutely insane and idiotic, doing nothing but emotionally riling up people, the left without shame, the right cloaking it in pseudo-reason. Which is typical.

Obama isn't elitist.

2008-04-15T16:27:00.004-04:00

Why?

Because his comments about poverty causing people to be bitter and act in discriminatory ways are right. "They took our jobs!" is a real argument against immigration... people with jobs don't say that sort of thing. The effects of de-industrialization are real as well.

Poverty is an enemy of everything, and that's what Obama was saying. It's the conservatives and reactionaries calling him "elitist," "out of touch," and even "Marxist," because he's right to focus on the little people getting fucked by the administration and their ass-backward economic policies.

All this hoo-ha is about nothing except character assassination, again. Being sadly correct doesn't make a person elitist, it makes them right. Don't fall for the bullshit.

This is why conservatives can suck my balls.

2008-04-04T21:38:00.002-04:00

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/04/oreilly-transgender/

Say what you like about "not all conservatives are this way," but time and again, this bullshit comes from that side of the aisle. Virtually every "true conservative" I know thinks along these lines, as well as most people on some level, and it's complete crap. Intolerance blows.

Apparently, race is a birth defect.

2008-03-29T19:22:00.002-04:00

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States still has trouble dealing with race because of a national "birth defect" that denied black Americans the opportunities given to whites at the country's very founding.

"Black Americans were a founding population," she said. "Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That's not a very pretty reality of our founding."

As a result, Miss Rice told editors and reporters at The Washington Times, "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that."

Source.

Now, I realize she was attempting to be satirical. At first glance, this seems at first like a great line.

But it's really not, because it places the idea of "race" into the neutral ground of happenstance, of nature, when in reality race is really nothing more than a social construct. The average person can attempt to argue against this point (I gladly welcome the challenge; please, try it) but it isn't the main point of this post.

Please note the bolded section, and the two main points: "descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start," and "[she] think[s] [we] continue to see some of the effects of that." To which I say: understate much?

This pairing truly infuriates me, for a few reasons. One: she said this at the behest of another, as the token minority in our administration, in response to Barack Obama's smashing speech. This is a politically correct, useless-in-reality comment.

Two: It implies that African-Americans gota head start... this is patently false. Ever hear of Jim Crow? Yeah... and how that didn't really come off the books until the 60s? And how it's still in effect on a de facto basis? Ms. Rice, what's the deal here? Furthermore, by putting it in the past tense it implies that "head start" was enough to essentially equalize things, and is no longer necessary. Once again, appallingly incorrect.

Three: She thinks we see some effects of that? Thinks?! Where the hell did she grow up so that she completely missed out on the whole racial reality of America? Who is spoon feeding her this shit? Does she really believe what is coming out of her mouth?

The blatant, probably willful ignorance of many of the leaders of this country is still astounding to me, even though I try to expect it.

Sweet Irony

2008-03-19T23:03:00.002-04:00

If you've been following the democratic nomination, then you know about the war being waged between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now let me lay down some knowledge that needs to be understood before I make my final point.

Hillary Clinton has been primarily using her "experience" to say that she deserves to be president. She thinks that her time in the white house as first lady, combined with her experience as a senator is a world of experience. Which is actually probably true to a point.
She has also said that the president of the United States needs to be "...Ready on day one" and her experience will allow her to do this.
Hillary has also expressed the notion that if she was given the nomination she'd have Barack Obama on her ticket for vice president.
She also considers Barack Obama not experienced enough to be president

Now props to my poly sci professor for revealing this contradiction: She doesn't want Barack Obama to be president because he isn't experience enough to lead the country on day one. Yet she wants him as her vice president, who very well may have to lead on Day 2 if anything were to happen. Hopefully he'd learn all he needs to know on Day 1.

Cuba Signs UN Rights Pact

2008-03-05T13:46:00.002-05:00

"At the United Nations, Cuba's foreign minister, Felipe Pérez Roque, signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which have been in force since 1976. He announced on Dec. 10 Cuba’s intention to adhere to the accords. He also said then that Cuba would open its doors in early 2009 to regular scrutiny by the United Nations Human Rights Council."

An interesting development since the end of Fidel.

An update on the war in Iraq

2008-03-03T13:07:00.002-05:00

I've been beginning to notice that there has been a remarkable lack of news about the war in Iraq in recent weeks. So I did a brief seach on google news for "Iraq" and there has been a lack of news everywhere. There were a few articles though, and more importantly, some of those were actually good news, that explains why I haven't heard about it.

I found this article

"AP Count: US Casualties Drop in February
By JOHN AFFLECK – 2 days ago
BAGHDAD (AP) — At least 29 U.S. troops died while serving in Iraq in February, the third-lowest monthly casualty toll for the U.S. military since the American-led invasion in 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Troop fatalities declined from 40 in January, and also dropped steeply from February 2007, when at least 81 troops died in Iraq.
But Iraqi casualties increased compared with January, although violence was reduced substantially from a year ago.
The AP count revealed at least 739 Iraqi security forces and civilians were either killed or found dead last month, up from 610 in January, which had the lowest monthly death toll since the end of 2005.
In February 2007, at least 1,801 Iraqis were killed.
The statistics on casualties are considered a minimum, and are based on AP reporting. The actual number is likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted.
Three factors are widely credited with reducing violence in Iraq over the past six months: an increase in U.S. troop levels; a cease-fire by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia; and the decision by tens of thousands of Sunni fighters to accept U.S. funding and turn against al-Qaida in Iraq.
At least 3,973 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to the AP's count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,237 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
Since the invasion of Iraq, only two months have had a lighter U.S. death tolls than February, the AP found. They were last December, when 23 deaths were reported, and the month of February 2004, when 20 American troops died. Last month's troop fatalities included three non-combat deaths. "

Now obviously this isn't saying that Iraq is won, but it's saying a few things. One, the hotly-contested surge has had some effect. More troops, less casualties. Two, the US is doing things that I had no idea about, I had no clue there was a cease fire, or that we were giving people a reason (money) not to join al-Qaida in Iraq.

This is important news to me. I looked into my last few copies of the New York Times, and the only relevant information referring to it was last thursday (February 28th), and it was buried on page A10. It was an article about potential troop withdrawals... I guess it's less important than page A3's article on wine buyers in France.

My stance on the environment

2008-02-27T18:15:00.003-05:00

When it comes to the environment my views are all over the chart. They are inconsistent and don't make any sense. On some things I'll think one way, and on others the complete opposite. I suppose some examples are in order. In my dorm room at the University of Connecticut the TV is on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This may seem like an exaggeration, but it isn't. My roommate and I go to bed with the TV on, and when we go to class in the morning the TV stays on. The light is usually on. Our computers are always on. I have all my chargers plugged in constantly--this matters if anyone is a big proponent of 'phantom energy'--. I worry about the energy crisis, yet I do nothing to prevent it. Why is this?

Perhaps it stems from my frustration with the current system, and what complying with energy conservation will bring about. It is no secret that oil is not a problem that can be solved, only abated. If everyone cuts energy consumption by 15%, what happens? Oil prices will likely tank, and we will go back to abusing oil and cutting back on research on alternate sources of energy. Sometimes, I believe allowing the problem to get worse, is the only way to make progress. Andrew mentioned a number of things plauging our country at the moment--energy, stock market, and the sub-prime mortgage shitstorm--there are a number of things that we can do to stem the flow into recession, but should we? Is a temporary solution going to be best in the long run? It's like welfare, if we stop welfare people will suffer, but instead of relying on welfare and doing nothing, people will go out and get a job. If we allow the system to crumble, people will suffer, but we will be forced to fix the problem. I suppose it's time to bust out one of my favorite cliches, “Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.” ~ Confucius.

If the problem is fixed though, I still believe environmental conservation is a must. I'd also like to applaud Connecticut Govenor Rell's "OneThing" campaign. The general idea is if 3.5 million people do one thing, it adds up to a whole lot. It truly does. It's people like Rell that let me know that some people are trying to change things, and it just might inspire me to shut off the TV when I'm not in the room.

Declaration of intent.

2008-02-27T16:33:00.002-05:00

I couldn't decide whether to post this here or at my other blog, The Top of the Mountain. I'm gonna post it in both places.

Probably in the last year, I've become much more environmentally conscious. I'm not a "GLOBAL WARMING IS GONNA KILL US ALL" guy, not even in the slightest, but I figure why fuck shit up if we can avoid it? If we can reduce pollution and stop being environmental dickheads, just in general, why shouldn't we? So I do my part; I actively recycle, I don't litter (in fact, I generally pick up litter), I don't use grocery bags when I don't need to, I turn off lights... I generally hate waste, so I avoid it.

At the same time as I'm developing this way, I'm looking at the oil situation. Anyone who doesn't see the oil "situation" as a "situation" needs to get a fucking clue. Analysts are saying gas could hit four bucks in the Spring... our economy is slowly beginning to falter, our currency is worth shit, and the stock and housing markets are seriously on PCP.

What's the connection? I've finally internalized the need to do something, to make more of an effort to affect change. I know the efforts I've been making are important, but it's just about time that I put such matters a little higher on the list of things I consider often. I'm not going to become a fanatic or a hippie, that's just not me. But being "environmental" doesn't mean you have to be radical, it means you have to care enough to change your actions a little bit. It's not a big difference... it just means that, whereas in the past I've never really gone out of my way to do anything environmental, I'll do so more often in the future, to some extent.

This is important, finding things to stand for. Even if it's not a defining characteristic, just everyone being a little more environmentally conscious could make the difference. So I say, the little things MATTER, because big things are made of little things. Take the time to consider the effects of certain actions... do you really need a plastic bag for a pack of gum or a gift card? Is it really necessary to do 1 day air on something from across the country? Do you REALLY need to drive around that Suburban. or have every light in the house on, or the temperature at 65 in the summer? A slight change does help.

A quick question.

2008-02-10T14:15:00.000-05:00

What the hell does crying have anything to do with the quality of a candidate? Honestly, can anyone tell me? Because quite frankly, I would prefer a president who cries, as crying is an extremely effective stress reliever.

Yes, I'm talking about Hillary Clinton, you dummy.

What's that? It's fake crying? Oh, I see... so you're making a big deal over a candidate laying it on thick... LIKE EVERY OTHER CANDIDATE? Why is it that everyone is so hell bent on trying to dig into their opposing candidates... it drives me nuts.

Conservative blogs make such a massive deal about Clinton's tears, I think they secretly worship her in their basements.

The issues that are important to me.

2007-12-11T20:45:00.000-05:00

As I commence my earnest search for a presidential candidate this upcoming year, I will be looking at a few things, including, but not exclusive to, these:

Children and education: What is the candidate's stance on child health care? pre-school programs like Head Start? No Child Left Behind? school funding reform? delinquency policies? vouchers? bussing? scholarships? foster care?

The "morality" (I use that term loosely and a bit pejoratively) issues, like abortion and homosexuality. AKA, how invasive will they prove to be in our personal lives?

In the economy, how pro-corporation will they be? Will they discontinue the trend of raping unionization? Will they stop giving big business and the rich tax breaks? Will they try to decrease the effects of the military-industrial complex and the iron triangle? (This last one is sort of a throwaway... nothing will be done, but it's still good to hope, neh?)

And, most importantly, when the fuck are we getting out of Iraq? What is their stance on how to reduce the massive deficit?

Something to keep in mind when thinking of "Palestine."

2007-11-29T23:34:00.000-05:00

"Hamas on Thursday called on the UN to rescind the 1947 decision to partition Palestine into two states, one for Jews and one for Arabs.

The group said in a statement, released on the 60th anniversary of the UN vote, that "Palestine is Arab Islamic land, from the river to the sea, including Jerusalem... there is no room in it for the Jews.""

Source.

Nationalism: A feigned necessity?

2007-06-05T08:19:00.000-04:00

Throughout history leaders have taken advantage of Nationalism to rally the people into doing things that they would normally stray away from doing. Which leads me to wonder, is nationalism just a tool exploited by leaders to exploit us?

I'll give an exmaple of what I mean. September 11th is the most obvious though by no means the only example, but it does the trick either way. 9/11 was a horrific event that reshaped the course of American history. Following "a day that will live in Infamy" we've entered into a war on terrorism which brought us to Iraq and Afghanistan. Everyone seems to have forgotten, but support for both of those wars was absolutely overhwhelming. Even on the night of 9/11 people were crying for military action. I'm actually proud of the Bush administration for showing restraint in the face of that kind of stress. The nationalism that formed in the 9/11 aftermath to me was great, people came together and just sort of worked things out. Yet there had to be some kind response, cue in the wars. The Afghanistan war was "popular" with the American and people, and more or less we won it, but the Iraq war is a completely different story. Nationalism was used by the Bush administration to rally the people into Iraq, and it worked wonderfully. Later people feel they were conned into it, like they were betrayed by their leaders into a way. People fail to realize is that they were betrayed by their own emotions, and by patriotism, George Bush has the power to move troops, but it was by the will of the people that he moved them. I firmly believe we'd be in Iraq right now whether the phrase WMDs was ever muttered or not. Now that the feelings of patriotism are waning the world is becoming a giant clusterfuck. This example shows the power of nationalism and the downside it usually offers.

It is a widely held notion that America is "The most powerful nation in the world" and everyone seems kind of proud of that and never wants to lose that. This phrase is actually the main reason for this post. When the power of the United States is challenged everyone gets riled up. Everoyne is afraid of what'll happen if we lose that post as most powerful. I am also one who believes we should maintain our power, and I feel feelings of pride just thinking about the idea, but it is this thinking which leads to ethnocentrism and"America: World Police". Then just the other day I was reading "The Serpent Queen", the second book of "The Mallorean" a very enjoyable series of books by David Eddings, and the story is about a question group of individuals trying to recover a King's son, most people in the group are from a different nationality and background, yet they all work seamlessly together. Obviously this is a book and it can be shaped to the Author's will, but there is no sense of nationalism, it's more polarized into a good vs evil type of thing. Then I thought "What if America wasn't the strongest country in the world?" my mind immediately projected images of doom and gloom, but I didn't understand why, and then I realized, we would just be like everyone else. When I go on vacation in the Carribean, Canada, or even Mexico, they aren't living in a dead society fearing for their lives. The lives of the people is unchanged, almost completely unaffected by the intentions of other nations. It is the bickering of governments that makes Nationalism dangerous. Almost everyone is patriotic and thinks that their country is the best, and this makes for a diverse world atmosphere in a good way. It's only when channeled by the government that tempers flare beyond managable domain and people begin to die. It seems like without government's exploiting their people--I'm not pointing fingers or naming names, it is done by everyone government, every leader, and it may even be unavoidable--the world would just have a lot of super-intense soccer matches. Now this assessment is probably a little Utopian, but I feel it holds some weight. It seems if Governments focused on the domestic front, that the world be more secure than it is now.

Now a bit of a disclaimer:
Of course this is the analysis of my mind of the world. I fail to take into many factors such as trade, taxes, the global economy, and the nature of human beings, but it is an interesting point on nationalism, on how it is used to use people. It may or may not be a necessary evil, but I'm not in the position to test it, and if I was I'm not sure I would want to make that drastic a change--that's another thing I've noticed, people absoutely despise change--. Also, this post lacks the focus and clarity of a organized paper, so judge it accordingly.

Good ol' Doctor Death.

2007-06-02T09:47:00.000-04:00

He has served his prison term and is now free. I was too little at the time to really care or understand the significance of Jack Kevorkian, but I did read an interesting article about his effect on the assisted-suicide debate. I'm gonna emphasize some points I think important.

Assisted suicide debate has passed Dr. Death by
Jack Kevorkian's back, but here's why we shouldn't listen to a word he says

By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 10:19 a.m. ET June 1, 2007

The last time I saw Jack Kevorkian was April 23, 1994, in a courtroom in Pontiac, Mich.

Oakland County prosecutors had charged him in the death of 54-year-old Janet Adkins of Portland, Ore. The charges were assisting in a suicide, murder and delivering a controlled substance for administering drugs without a license. I was there to testify that what he had done to Adkins — providing her with his "suicide machine," which she used in the back of his 1968 VW van parked in a dark campsite to end her life — was both immoral and a gross violation of medical ethics.

Kevorkian, who became known in the press as "Dr. Death," was found not guilty. A few years later he was asked by Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old who had trouble breathing and swallowing due to advancing Lou Gehrig's disease, for help in dying. Kevorkian injected him with a lethal dose of potassium chloride while videotaping the ghastly proceedings. He sent the tape to "60 Minutes," which aired it. This gave prosecutors incontrovertible evidence that Jack had gone from assisting in suicides to personally killing people. He was sentenced to 10 to 25 years for murder. After serving just over eight years, Jack is back.

I believed Kevorkian was a very dangerous killer then, and I still believe it now. He helped dozens of depressed and disabled people die without trying very hard to convince them to live.

That day in the Pontiac courtroom, he stared and scowled as I said that it was unethical for a doctor to help kill someone they barely knew, who was not terminally ill and who was still enjoying a good quality of life. Adkins had been told she had Alzheimer’s but it was not clear how many months or years of quality life she had left when she used Jack’s jury-rigged death machine to infuse a lethal dose of drugs into her bloodstream.

All this matters because now that Kevorkian is out of jail, he has said he plans to reinsert himself as a vocal participant in the ongoing debate in America over assisted suicide.

No doubt he will get an audience. There are plenty of Americans who still, incredibly, view him as a hero. And the media loves him, too, knowing the audience-grabbing power of an unrepentant killer. (++ for truth)

To be fair, there are those who admire Kevorkian as the lightning rod who changed how Americans view both the care of the dying and assisted suicide. After all, didn’t he bring these issues center stage in courtrooms, state legislatures and the media? No one else did more than he did to promote assisted suicide.

Fanatic, not leader
But I do not see him this way. He was more of a fanatic than the founder of a movement. A zealot who could rally public opinion but could not shape it.

You see, Kevorkian believes in suicide on demand. He thinks that doctors have an obligation to help anyone who decides that their life is not worth living, whatever their reason. Some of the 130 people he helped die had no terminal illnesses. Some were clearly depressed. Others had histories of mental illness. Only a few got any counseling. Kevorkian helped them all to die.

Kevorkian’s problem was and is that he likes death way too much. The enthusiasm he brought to his cause was always deeply troubling. No doubts, no ambivalence, ever seemed to cross his mind as he dispatched his victims. The fact that he helped some to die within hours of meeting them, the fact that he would turn a disabled man’s death into a national spectacle by giving a tape of his murder to "60 Minutes" — never mind that they used it! — and the fact that he never seemed to try particularly hard to talk those who came to him out of their decision to die made him morally suspect then and hardly worth hearing from now.

There are other reasons besides his fanaticism and moral obtuseness that we don’t we need to hear anymore from Jack Kevorkian.

When Kevorkian went to jail, polls showed Americans were not sure what to think about legalizing assisted suicide. They still are not. According to an Associated Press poll out this week, 48 percent of people said assisted suicide should be legal; 44 percent said it should be illegal.

Debate has passed him by
But the debate has grown more sophisticated than it was when Kevorkian was offing people on TV.

The citizens of Oregon legalized a form of physician-assisted suicide in 1997. Proponents said the biggest obstacle they faced was Kevorkian and what he had done. They convinced people to vote for legalization despite Kevorkian, not because of him.

Critics who knew of Kevorkian's seeming disinterest in those he helped to die worried about abuse of the vulnerable and dying in Oregon. However, the passage of the carefully crafted Oregon law seems to have accomplished the goal of giving the terminally ill the option of controlling their death without encouraging them to die.

What is so interesting is that almost no one who asks for a lethal dose of medication actually does end their life. The Oregon law requires a determination of terminal illness by two doctors, counseling and a waiting period before a doctor can assist in dying.

It was the Oregon law, not the actions of Jack Kevorkian, that shook the complacency of the medical and nursing professions in that state and across the country. And it was the rise of palliative care and hospice as an alternative to rather than as a result of Kevorkian that has made dying a less horrifying prospect all over the United States.

We are far from ensuring a dignified and pain-free death for every American. The Terri Schiavo case was a stark reminder that your right to control how and where you die is not beyond the meddlesome grasp of pandering politicians and religious harpies. But we know now what we did not know when Kevorkian went on his assisted-suicide rampage — that we have a duty to make dying bearable and to ensure that each person gets the support, technology and pain control they wish.

The fact that Jack is back is no cause for celebration. The world of death and dying has, thankfully, passed him by. There is still more to talk about but not much useful that Jack Kevorkian can possibly say.

Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
© 2007 MSNBC Interactive© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18948499/

It's tough these days.

2007-05-12T13:55:00.000-04:00

Christ, looking back at my last few posts, I'm kind of embarrassed. They're awful. I don't even know what I was thinking.

Anyway, I do know what happened: things these days go too fast for me to keep up with. If I wanted to stay even moderately up to date, I'd have to post three, four, five entries a day. So for now, I'd say this blog is on indefinite hiatus. At least until I can figure out a better way to get out what needs to be gotten out.

Time to leave.

2007-04-08T13:43:00.000-04:00

You know things are bad when the Pope says there is nothing good coming from fighting terrorists.

Looks like even the "religious right" is starting to pull away from Iraq. Maybe they've got the right idea. Virtually everything has been going downhill for a long time. I was willing to put more stock in the situation, viewing the progress the surge has been making, but damn, I'm tired of the whole situation. The skill level of this administration has been lacking of late. This is frustrating.

Time to work on turning things around.

The media and their bullshit.

2007-03-14T22:18:00.000-04:00

Let us see... I'm sure everyone knows by now I fucking hate the media. They're a bunch of cocktards with stupid agendas, totally against the actual function of their jobs, which is to tell the NEWS. Normally, I just ignore the bullshit, because I've really come to expect it. But sometimes, like now, I just can't handle it.

Let me put it short and simple: the surge in Iraq is working. How do I know this? I dig, hard. Because I like to know the truth. And truly, I would be the first to say, "GOD DAMNIT YOU'RE RETARDED" if I thought that it wasn't. But it is.

Technically, how do I know this? The information is BURIED. By dig, I'm fucking serious. The MSM hides basically all positive information about Iraq. I hit upon this particular subject from a post at Ace of Spades HQ. Yes, it's a conservative site. But he's one of the more objective ones out there, preferring to ridicule the fucking stupid than play partisan.

Back to the story, the surge is working. Death tolls are down all across Baghdad, but it's virtually impossible to quickly and easily find this information. In fact, it's buried in stupid ass articles titled "Death Squad Leaders Seized in Iraq." Search for that, and you'll probably come up with articles very similar to this:

Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2007
Death Squad Leaders Seized in Iraq
By AP/BRIAN MURPHY

BAGHDAD, Iraq—U.S.-led strike forces seized suspected Shiite death squad bosses Tuesday in raids that tested the fragile bonds between the government and a powerful militia faction allowing the Baghdad security crackdown to move ahead.

The sweeps through the Sadr City slum were part of highly sensitive forays into areas loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has ridiculed the 2-week-old campaign for failing to halt bombings by suspected Sunni insurgents against Shiite civilians.

Al-Sadr withdrew his powerful Mahdi Army militia from checkpoints and bases under intense government pressure to let the security push go forward. But the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also worries that al-Sadr could pull his support if he feels his militiamen are being squeezed in Baghdad.

The pre-dawn raids appeared to highlight a strategy of pinpoint strikes in Sadr City rather than the flood of soldiers sent into some Sunni districts.

Bombings have not slackened off, with at least 10 people killed in blasts around Baghdad on Tuesday. However, an apparent success of the clampdown can be measured in the morgues: a sharp drop in the number of bullet-riddled bodies found in the streets of the capital, victims of sectarian death squads.

The number of bodies found this month in Baghdad _ most shot and showing signs of torture _ has dropped by nearly 50 percent to 494 as of Monday, compared with 954 in January. The figure stood at 1,222 in December, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

"We have seen a decrease in the past three weeks _ a pretty radical decrease," said Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq.

Many Sunnis have long alleged that most of killings were by Shiite militias, such as the Mahdi Army or rogue elements within the Shiite-led police.

The U.S. military said the raids targeted "the leadership of several rogue" Mahdi Army cells that "direct and perpetrate sectarian murder" _ an apparent reference to execution-style slayings and torture. At least 16 people were arrested.

"My sons and wife were very terrified," complained Muhannad Mihbas, 30, who said his brother and six cousins were taken in the sweeps. "Does the security plan mean arresting innocent people and scaring civilians at night?"

Odierno declined to comment on whether there were special tactics governing the Sadr City sweeps. "We will go after anyone who we feel is working against the government of Iraq," he said.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told Al-Arabiya television that forces "will increase our operations in the coming days," but noted that the security crackdown in the capital should continue until at least October.

Added Odierno: "We will keep at this until the people feel safe in their neighborhoods."

Also Tuesday, a roadside bomb southwest of the capital killed three U.S. soldiers assigned to a unit based in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. A fourth Ameridan soldier was killed near Diwaniyah, a mostly Shiite town 80 miles south of Baghdad.

Iraqi authorities, meanwhile, have arrested a suspect in the attempted assassination of Shiite Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi, an aide said.

The aide said the arrest was made after reviewing security camera video from Monday's blast, which ripped through an awards ceremony at the ministry of public works and killed at least 10 people. Abdul-Mahdi suffered leg injuries.

The aide declined to give any further details about the arrest or the suspect. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Abdul-Mahdi is one of two vice presidents. The other is Sunni.

In the southern Qadisiya province, Iraqi security forces said they captured 157 suspects linked to a shadowy armed cell called the Soldiers of Heaven, or Jund al-Samaa. The group was involved in a fierce gunbattle last month with Iraqi forces who accused it of planning to kill Shiite clerics and others in the belief it would hasten the return of the "Hidden Imam" _ a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad who disappeared as a child in the 9th century. Shiites believe he will return one day to bring justice.

A U.S. Apache helicopter was shot down in the fighting, and two U.S. crew members were killed.

Meanwhile, state television reported that 18 boys were killed when a car bomb exploded in a park in Ramadi, and Iraqi and international officials were quick to deplore the slaughter. But questions about key details of the report emerged just as quickly.

Iraqi police and state TV said the attack occurred Tuesday. Later, police said it happened Monday.

The confusion grew deeper following an announcement by U.S. forces that 30 civilians and one Iraqi soldier were injured by flying debris Tuesday when troops intentionally detonated 15 bags of explosives found in Ramadi.

The news first broke after nightfall when it is too dangerous for local journalists to check the reports independently in Ramadi, a Sunni insurgent stronghold 70 miles west of Baghdad. Western reporters normally tour the area only as part of military patrols. Much of Ramadi is under effective insurgent control, and even the police have difficulty establishing the facts in bombings and assassinations.

Unless you're looking for it, you won't find it, and you can't tell me it's not intentional, for political and partisan motives. This bullshit will be the death of America.

The Surge

2007-03-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

Petraeus' counterinsurgency strategy seems to be showing remarkable results. Talking about defeat and retreat while we have not finished playing out our hand would represent an unprecedent capitulation by the US to an enemy in the field -- and not an enemy like Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, or the Soviets, with a military that should frighten us -- but an enemy that has so little support and so few combatants that they dare not show their face to American troops in the streets of their own cities.

Plan B should be victory by another means, not defeat by surrender to terrorists.

From Captain's Quarters.

An interesting article.

2007-02-21T17:30:00.000-05:00

Not just for its obvious consequences, but also it's more underlying issues. Read it.

Obamination
Demercrats item by Erik Rush

How many Americans would vote for a presidential candidate who was the member of a church that professed the following credo?

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the White Community
3. Commitment to the White Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the White Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the White Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and Supporting White Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all White leadership who espouse and embrace the White Value System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the White Value System.

The question is rhetorical, of course. The answer is that such a candidate wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected dog catcher (apologies to America’s animal rescue and public safety personnel) let alone President, because that candidate would be instantly branded a racist, among the most vile and frightening of white supremacists.

And those holding the branding irons would be 100% right.

Yet, in the “About” section of the U.S. Senate website for Barack Obama, Democratic senator from Illinois and contender for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, it states that Obama and his family “live on Chicago’s South Side where they attend Trinity United Church of Christ.”

So…?

Well, to say that the Trinity United Church of Christ (http://www.tucc.org)
is afrocentric in the extreme would be a gross understatement. It’s not simply afrocentric, it’s African-centric. In fact, one could argue that this organization worships things African to a far greater degree than they do Christ, and gives the impression of being a separatist “church” in the same vein as do certain supremacist “white brethren” churches – or even Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.

Shocking? An overstatement? An overreaction?

One can see for oneself on the Trinity United Church website, which is replete with confirmation of what I present here. What follows is an excerpt from their Mission Statement:

“We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.

“Trinity United Church of Christ adopted the Black Value System written by the Manford Byrd Recognition Committee chaired by Vallmer Jordan in 1981. We believe in the following 12 precepts and covenantal statements. These Black Ethics must be taught and exemplified in homes, churches, nurseries and schools, wherever Blacks are gathered. They must reflect on the following concepts:

1. Commitment to God
2. Commitment to the Black Community
3. Commitment to the Black Family
4. Dedication to the Pursuit of Education
5. Dedication to the Pursuit of Excellence
6. Adherence to the Black Work Ethic
7. Commitment to Self-Discipline and Self-Respect
8. Disavowal of the Pursuit of “Middleclassness”
9. Pledge to make the fruits of all developing and acquired skills available to the Black
Community
10. Pledge to Allocate Regularly, a Portion of Personal Resources for Strengthening and
Supporting Black Institutions
11. Pledge allegiance to all Black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value
System
12. Personal commitment to embracement of the Black Value System.”

Sound familiar? Of course it is, since it’s identical to the 12-point list at the beginning of this column – the one from the theoretical white supremacist candidate’s church; the only difference is the substitution of the word “Black” for “White.”

Trinity United Church of Christ’s congregation also claims to hold to a “10-point Vision” which is similarly afrocentric, or if you will, separatist. Again, like the Nation of Islam, a white separatist church or the Branch Davidians, Trinity United more resembles a cult than a church. Only this one has as one of its most prominent members a serious contender for the White House.

And George W. Bush’s born-again Christian status scares people?

These revelations, of course shed all the light we need on Obama’s inscrutability; since before he announced his candidacy, both the Right and Left have commented on the lack of information vis-à-vis just who Barack Obama is and what he’s about.

From The Chicago Tribune, February 06, 2007, Column: Against Middleclassness? by Rich Lowry. “Vallmer Jordan, a church member who helped draft the precepts, said they were designed to empower the black community and counter a value system imposed by whites. ‘The big question mark was racism,’ he said. ‘Black disempowerment was an integral part of that historical value system. It became increasingly apparent to me that we black people had not developed our own value system . . . to help us overcome all we knew we had to battle.’”

“A value system imposed by whites…” Is Jordan speaking of the value system that kept families together and promoted morality, industry and integrity, or the one imposed by liberal dependency pimps since the Civil Rights Movement?

True enough that many blacks did abandon values; again, this was due to the corruption of the black clergy by white socialists and their black foremen. Trinity United seems to have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Gravitation toward an Africanized “year-round Kwanzaa”-based pseudo-Christianity seems less of a solution than returning to the moral and social conservatism Blacks held prior to the aforementioned socialists gaining their stranglehold in the black community.

So is Obama seeking to be our first black president, or our first stealth black nationalist president? You see, were he a run-of-the-mill insincere Christian of convenience like Bill Clinton, Obama might belong to a run-of-the-mill, lukewarm, large nondescript church. But he doesn’t. He belongs to a church which is (as I indicated before) blatantly afrocentric and even suggests the supremacy of Africa’s descendants in America.

Granted that the Left will have no qualms about this highly questionable affiliation, but what about all of the American swing voters to whom Obama has built broad appeal by presenting himself as sort of a generic, open-minded moderate Democrat (as Bill Clinton also did, by the way)? Are they going to go for a candidate whose heart is actually closer to that of a refined Black Panther?

Trinity United clearly embraces things African above things American. The content of their website makes this undeniably clear. Aside from this tack being divisive, separatist and calls into question its adherents’ identification as Americans, if they’re looking for values, they – and Obama – would be better served by looking to modern political conservatives and traditional Christianity than retrograde African precepts and the Democrat Party.

Obama’s affiliation with this church, if I must call it that, should be as alarming to the American voter as a Republican candidate for president belonging to the Aryan Brethren Church of Christ. Any argument against this assertion is politically-correct delusion, reverse discrimination and a hypocrisy – a very dangerous one.

Source

Pretty interesting, no? It's astounding the hypocrisy that plagues every level of our government and society.

Darfur as a Fashion

2007-01-07T01:04:00.000-05:00

Thousands of people being killed, and for what? Useless desert and some oil, political control over a garbage country. These people are suffering horribly by the hundreds of thousands. We must pay attention to them.

But... face it: "protesting" against the "genocide in Darfur" has become fashionable, all the cool kids are doing it. What makes the suffering in Darfur any more special than the suffering of EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD? This is not an isolated incident. What does it take, sheer numbers to get people to pay attention? And really, it's not paying attention, it's hopping on the fucking bandwagon. If the majority of the people "involved" reallyknew what the fuck was going on, they wouldn't have just started to pay attention to .00001% of the real fucking world, nevermind the 99.9999% of the world that is completely ignored. What, do we think that just because so many people are saying "Oh jeez, that's so terrible, we need to do this and this and this and this" means that "this and this" are viable solutions, just because they seemingly solve one problem? Let's start at the top:

The main goal of people is to write Congress, Governors, etc., to increase pressure to solve the problem and stop the deaths. Seems reasonable, right? Yeah.... right up until you look and see that the US has been outstandingly the most providing country, allocating more than $1 billion to relief. Relief for some symptoms.

From what I've seen, and I beg those who REALLY care to correct me, is that's where it stops, the bandaid. No real solutions. Because no one REALLY cares. It's easy to write a letter saying "Oh this is bad, fix it" and give some money. It's even marginally easy to hold rallies and raise awareness. But in brutal reality, results matter, and telling people bad things are happening doesn't make those bad things go away. Which is actually what some of the less retarded and more devoted people use as an argument for stronger action, and I applaud that. However, some things are still being blatantly ignored.

Like the fact that the UN, the pillar of modern society, has consistently procrastinated, along with all the other "Unions." That all across the world there are people suffering just as badly, and have been for longer periods of time. That right now, there are people that want to get rid of the western infidels, and that right now, we're a bit entangled in trying to solve that issue.

More to the brutal point is that fact that Sudan has no value to the United States as a country and a government. It's a useless sandpit with some oil in the south. And why is all this shit happening there anyway? Because of hateful people? And if we just go in there, it'll stop all the hating? What are the real underlying causes is the real question, and how these causes can be addressed is the real answer. Darfur is hemorrhaging gash right around the aorta of the damn country, and we're stuffing it with gauze! What the fuck does that do? And here we are, the brilliant Americans, stuffing in more fucking gauze with our awareness groups and fundraising. Where are the god damn surgeons?

Now chill out, I do not want the gauze stuffing to stop. In fact I strongly urge everyone to keep going; the more gauze, the slower the bleeding. But I want to emphasize the fact that the god damn battle doesn't just stop there. People walk for an afternoon, people sign checks, people write on message boards, all in support of Darfur, ignoring pretty much everything else and neglecting to take in the big picture. We have to KEEP PUSHING. Don't focus on one fucking part of the world, focus on the whole thing! Don't fight suffering in one place, fight it EVERYWHERE. Think of the people on this planet, not just in Sudan, but in Haiti, and North Korea, and Iraq, and the Eastern Block, and in our own damn country, who do not have our easy lives. Look at the big picture, and think: how best can these be solved? Macromanagement or micromanagement, and how well-suited am I at each? Am I suited at all? Don't join the fucking bandwagon, become aware of EVERYTHING, and choose YOUR OWN battle. The widespread suffering of a region is no worse than the suffering of the starving or diseased in any other part of the world, so why point the spotlight on just the one region that everyone else is?

This close-mindedness is not good focus or making a difference, it is escapism. We are escaping from our responsibilities by saying "Oh I pay attention to Darfur, so my quota is met." But when everyone else is paying attention too, it makes it fucking easy.

And nevermind the fact that while we're throwing our money into Darfur, education is in the shitter in this country, and social security is too. Everyone has fucking lost their minds in the government, with pork and civil suits and Iraq and campaign bullshit, and we're taking the easy way out of our responsibilities. Disaster is everywhere, and has been for a long fucking time, and people are pouring money into a HUGE problem that not only would take a bazillion dollars to solve RIGHT NOW like everyone wants. But hey...

Congratulations, you care. You can now ignore the world.

A viable Iraq strategy that I like

2006-12-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

Though brutal, I like this guy's style. The basic premise is excellent. Source

Thoughts On The Firestorm Over Iraq

It's artificial.

By this I mean there was no seismic change in the circumstance in Iraq. Incrementally most say it has gotten worse, but worse in a specific way: sectarian violence has increased. There has been an increase in US combat deaths, but such rises and declines in combat intensity has been largely cyclical; there may be some reason to fear that it will only get worse from here, but there is also good reason -- the whole history of the war -- to suspect it will abate. And then, later, increase in intensity again.

The sudden determination -- now the Conventional Wisdom, according to the media -- that everything has gone to hell and that we must get out immediately if not sooner is almost entirely a creation of the Democratic victory in November, and the media's consequent emboldment to say clearly and forcefully the things they've been thinking since, oh, before the war began, and since the one-day "quagmire" in the actual invasion when our troops had to stop moving due to sandstorms.

It's not real. There was no genuine "Iraqi Tet," and even to the extent there was something of an Iraqi Tet, we know something about Tet offensives: they're designed not to achieve military victories, but public opinion victories in America.

The Sunnis cannot win this war. They are greatly outnumbered. The best they can hope for is... well, to be slaughtered en masse and ethnically clensed from all Kurdish or Shi'ite strongholds. And make no mistake: That is the inevitable consequence of an American withdrawal. The odd truth of this war is that Sunnis are fighting their greatest protector, the American military, which will not permit slaughter on a mass scale, even against the Sunnis, who pretty much deserve it by this point.

With the American forces departed, the restraints come off the Shi'ites entirely. What, precisely, will all those militias do when they no longer have American patrols to dodge, or American soldiers to snipe at?

Of course the full force and fury of decades of hatred and desire for vengeance will be visited upon Sunni men, women, and children. What we are seeing as far as "sectarian violence" now is nothing compared to what will transpire when the moderating force of American troops is removed from the equation.

If you want to talk to realism -- let's talk realism. Cold-blooded, heartless, amoral utilitarian realism. Rule by men with guns is not a "lawless" situation. It's in fact the oldest, and most primitive, sort of "law" there is -- law by superior numbers and superior military might. The Sunnis cannot win this war; their plan, to the extent they have one, is to make the country so unstable that some outside force such as -- if you can believe this pipe-dream -- America itself will come to see them as the only group capable of ruling the fractured, fratricidal country of Iraq and reinstall them as masters of the country.

That, of course, will not happen. The Sunnis will never control Iraq again; the best they can hope for is the success of the American plan to create a stable, peaceful, power-sharing and federalist Iraq in which they have, yes, a disproportionate amount of power, but not the total control they once had.

That's their best option. The other option -- the one they may finally have brought to fruition -- is to have no power at all, and to be driven out of the cities into the barren (and oil-free) wastelands of the western deserts, to live out their lives in misery and privation, and to occasionally have these sad lives cut short by Shi'ite gangs raiding villages and killing them by the dozens.

It's time to use that fact to our advantage. It's time to get "realistic." And the realistic way to settle this is to announce -- couched in diplomatic language that makes it seem less vicious than it actually is -- that unless the Sunnis disarm immediately, and before the Shi'ite militas do, the US can no longer justify the cost in lives to protect the Sunnis from Shi'ite militas. Compliant Sunni areas that give up or drive out their Al Qaeda or Ba'athists terrorists will have US/coaltion garrisons to defend them, and vigorous patrolling to protect them from murder.

Areas which do not comply will be left to the tender mercies of the law of superior firepower.

That will remain, hopefully, a threat and a threat only, and we can hold out some optimism the Sunnis will come to their senses and accept the best possible outcome of this war -- a life in which they have some substantial power in the country, a good chunk of the oil revenues, and peace for themselves and their children.

But if they do not accept the terms of their defeat -- then we ought to stop attempting to disarm the Shi'ite militias, and let them do as the please.

Except for those Shi'ite militiamen who attack US forces, of course. Those should be wiped out mercilessly.

The warplan should be the opposite of that suggested by Baker. Baker claims we must stop making fighting Al Qaeda the priority, and instead seek peace. That's quite wrong. We should refocus on killing Al Qaeda and Shi'ite militiamen who attack US troops, and let peace seek itself, through the brutal methods by which peace is usually ultimately had.

The word "pacify" has a nice connotation, suggesting coddling a baby by giving it warm milk to suckle on. In historical reality, populations are "pacified" through extremely brutal, dirty, and nasty means, killed, raped, butchered, and driven out of their homelands until they ultimately lose all hope of military victory and all desire to fight.

So let the Sunnis be pacified. As the Shi'ites and Kurds may wish. The US will change its mission to hunting Al Qaeda and the like, and offer protection only for those populations willing to support it, where US troops can patrol in almost total safety from attacks by the locals.

In any area where the US is not so welcome by the locals, then they have chosen the manner by which their dispute shall be settled, and such disputes are never settled happily. One side is simply killled and brutalized so badly they're no longer capable of fighting at all.

Let that be the victory in Iraq.

That's "realism." And that's the sort of "realism" I would have greeted from the Baker report.

Kill those who attack Americans or the Iraqi government forces. But if Shi'ite militas want some payback against the Sunnis who have been murdering them for decades now -- well, sure, we'd like to see less murder and mayhem, but we're past the point of caring very much about that.

It was perfectly inevitable that the Shi'ites would ultimately start visiting their own rough justice on the Sunnis -- what did the Sunnis imagine would happen after the hundredth bombing and thousandth murder? That's how wars go. Yes, there is a cycle of violence -- until that cycle is broken. Not by treaties or diplomacy; those are incidental, formalities observed after the cycle ends.

The cycle of violence ends when so much violence is inflicted on one oppponent or both that one or both sues for peace. War ends when one or both sides can no longer stomach seeing their children killed.

That's realism.

Instead we have a lot of happy talk about getting Syria and Iran to reverse their clearly-expressed policy goals and overriding national interests in order to "help" us in Iraq.

And since we're talking about Baker's destroy-Iraq-get-Israel-free fire-sale -- we should note the incredible forebearance Israel has shown in not simply attacking the Palestinians according to the same rules of war the Palestinians show them, i.e., none. Reduce three or four large Palestinian cities to the ground, killing thousands and dispacing a hundred thousand, and you'd find "peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict" could be reached in fairly short order.

If there is a civil war, then let there be a civil war, with the US only stepping in to fight terrorists of global reach and those who specifically target Americans. If there must be a bloodbath, then let there be a bloodbath, and let the US take a more active role in rebuilding the country when enough people have been killed that those who survive are actually interested in rebuilding, and peace.

But enough of this media-confabulated rush to the exits. The American people voted the Republicans out in November, but they are not clearly in favor of losing this war. Republicans lost because they were perceived as not winning the war. If the country wanted defeat and surrender that badly, it could just as easily kept the old Republican guard in place. They were doing a fair job at it.

posted by Ace at 06:00 PM

A very well-thought out piece on the Iraq War

2006-11-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

I think this guy has some valid points. You just need to ignore his fairly standard Bush-bashing comments and get to the meat of the arguments.

Source

After being thoroughly thumped by the voters, and struggling to keep his poll numbers above 30%, George Bush heads to Vietnam, a country whose war he avoided (checked the "no" box when asked if he would volunteer for overseas duty), and, more tragically, whose lessons he did not learn. The idea that a Vietnam-era no-show would even utter the word "quit" and use that war to cheerlead continued loss of US life, limbs and treasure without being excoriated by the press is intolerable.

Daddy may have kept him from Vietnam, rescued him from his failed company while his co-investors lost, enrolled him at Yale and then Harvard Business School, provided the basis for his participation with the Texas Rangers, but even Daddy's friends, it seems, cannot teach George anything worthwhile about history.

The parallels between Vietnam and Iraq have been addressed. Several key points deserve comment.

Proponents of the Iraq War try to distinguish Vietnam by asserting that, in that war, our losing would not have increased the danger of attacks inside the United States whereas with Iraq, they assert, such an exigency is likely if we withdraw. This is John McCain's major argument for raising troop levels. How quickly they forget. At the time of Vietnam, the official line was that we were threatened by the "red menace", and that we needed to fight them in Saigon to keep us from having to fight them in San Francisco. Sound familiar?

One of the arguments made by Vietnam War opponents was that our military action actually accomplished precisely the opposite of what supporters asserted was the major rationale for the war. Vietnam, supporters said, was a client state for China (that we called "Red China") and the Soviet Union, and so the war was a major theater in the struggle against Communism. Ho Chi Minh was, indeed, a communist. But, he was first and foremost a nationalist, who fought the French, the Japanese, the French again and then the United States. In fact, Vietnam had an historical enmity to China, an observation confirmed by the border war with China that started shortly after the United States exited Vietnam. During the war, we drove Ho Chi Minh into the arms of China, accomplishing precisely the opposite of what we claimed were our key aims. We also succeeded in destabilizing Cambodia, leading to the ascension of the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, and then the conquest by Vietnam, turning the "domino theory" into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Similarly, fighting in Iraq is somehow to reduce the worldwide terrorist threat. Like the Vietnam strategy, however,the Iraq War is accomplishing precisely the opposite. Not only is Iraq the major recruiter for more terrorists, with another grievance against western boots on muslim soil and the feeling of humiliation arising from powerlessness, but its course can hardly be convincing to neighboring states to move toward democracy. [Where the idea that creating a democracy in the middle east would set off regional democratization came from is puzzling. Turkey became a western style democracy in the 1920s, and Lebanon was a democracy of sorts prior to the civil war: neither had any impact on the other countries in their vicinity.]

Like Vietnam, the Iraq war weakens the United States and emboldens its enemies. Daddy kept George Bush from experiencing the Vietnam quagmire. Daddy's minions will not rescue us from the Iraqi quicksand into which he, stupidly, arrogantly, led us. Now he dares deceive us again by lying about the lessons of Vietnam.

There are some exaggerations, but his arguments are some of the most reasonable I've seen. I DESPISE rabid Bush-haters and super-liberal conspiracy theorists. This author is a good example of how we should address politics, with civility and intelligence, not hysteria, paranoia and hatred.

Kid Gets Tased at UCLA

2006-11-16T22:37:00.000-05:00

Watch the video first.

Now, read some articles. Like this one, and this one, and this one.

Informed? Good.

Opinions? Post comments, I'm dying to hear what you think.

Here's my take:
Cries of police brutality are absolutely ridiculous. Nothing I see in that video tells me that kid is being at all cooperative. He's on the ground, shouting obscenities and being a belligerent ass, refusing to stand up and leave. The rules are quite clear and simple: don't have an ID? You need to leave. So this kid is either brain-dead or a jackass. He is shouting randomly about the Patriot Act and taunting the police. So he is either brain-dead or a jackass.

What is so hard to understand? Honestly. Get the shit out. You've been tased already, don't push your luck. What's worse is that the whole fucking library must've stood up and gathered 'round to watch the spectacle. What good does that do? Nothing. All it does is add more stress to the situation, which is exactly what the officers DON'T need, and gives the stupid kid an audience, which is exactly what he WANTS.

I've read in various places about how this is a great example of civil disobedience... what kind of idiot "civilly disobeys" a request to leave a private building because he doesn't have the proper identification? A big one. Anyone who says that needs to get a brain. We aren't fighting segregation or unequal rights. He breaks a rule, and refuses to act in the proper manner. His resistance is pointless and stupid and proves NO POINT. Civil disobedience my ass.

Added Content:

A main blog I visit, americablog.com, is covering this story intently. Read up a bit. Anyway, I responded in a comment to the irrational comparison of the retard kid to Rosa Parks. This is what I said:

"Yeah, having to have an ID is SO DISCRIMINATORY. I mean, Rosa would be so proud of this insolent young college student! He was fighting against the oppression of being identifiable as a member of a private institution, and we should all praise him. Screw authority!"

Then he replied in another comment:

"NOTE FROM JOHN: You ignorant fuck. So Miranda rights are no longer necessary because Miranda was a Mexican and an idiot. And all those others I mentioned in the story, whose court cases form the basis of your civil rights today - what about them? They're all a LOT worse than this student, and a lot worse than Rosa Parks. So using your Soviet-style police-state logic all of those civil rights should be thrown out because the people we owe those rights too are scum. Congratulations on being one big ignorant fuck, and a sad excuse for an American."

Now, I was quite astonished to find this awaiting me. Ignorant fuck? ME? So I thought about it for a second... the only possible explanation must be that he missed the sarcasm. I still can't really figure it out. His language and tone left much to be desired too.

Anyway, my reply:
"Wow John, that was an incredibly intelligent and well thought out response. /sarcasm

I don't know whether you missed the sarcasm or are completely off your rocker with paranoia, but the tasing of a stupid belligerent college kid disobeying a lawful order is perfectly reasonable. That Miranda garbage you're spouting is totally unrelated.

Rosa Parks resisted an unjust law. Mr. Smartass was resisting a simple rule. There is a massive difference. COMPARING the two is an insult to civil rights.

You should really learn to be civil."

I can support civil disobedience, in the proper situation. This stupid fuck was resisting a completely reasonable rule, for ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON. The rule wasn't discriminatory, or racist, or unjust. Show your ID or leave. HOW IS THAT SO HARD TO COMPREHEND? He refused to obey. That's illegal. Fucker deserved to be tased just for being an idiot.

General Agreement with my Compatriot, and a State of Affairs

2006-11-12T14:19:00.000-05:00

I return to blogland after a long hiatus. The reason for the hiatus was partly due to lack of time I chose to devote to things of this nature, but mostly due to the weakness in my arguments. In my mind I constantly have an argument brewing to defend the things that I believe it, but recent developments have undermined my arguments and made glaring holes in them. I often choose to avoid arguing when it is hard to discern a right and a wrong course of action. As is the case with the biggest political issue in the United States today, the War in Iraq.

Now I believe the War in Iraq was right when it started, and I do believe that it is still right and that we need to stay the course. But the blaring hole that anyone, including myself, can rip apart is the fact that our main focus for going into Iraq was WMDs, and while I really could care less if they were there or not. It is the fact that the other two countries that President Bush named in one of his famous post-9/11 speechs, Iran and North Korea, are ignored despite the fact one is confirmed to have developed a nuclear weapon, and the other is blatantly trying to get them. This paradox puts my argument in severe jeopardy. How can one argue for something based on a cause, than can be used for two other, and more dangerous countries?

Another thing is the blatant idiocy of our political system. The common people all the time pull out random quotes from people like Martin Luther King, Ghandi, or Confucius, that say powerful messages. It's quotes like these that people use to strengthen their arguments, but there are always quotes on the other side of the spectrum that say the exact opposite, and yet, are ignored. Are they less valid, just because they don't agree with the majority of people? That's the way it seems to be. I'll bring up a certain quote, by one of our "Greatest Presidents" according to polling of the American Public.... Jorge Washingtino.... or George Washington. I knew that George Washington said this, but he says it in a way that is much more supporting of my argument than I thought.
In relation to partisan politics:

"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passion. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."

People use George Washington quotes for a variety of arguments, but this is one that attacks exactly what we have become, so it is pushed to the backburner. I am disgusted at how the American government has become a mass of two bickering parties that result in nothing productive getting done. Anyone who says American's are "united" should really think if that's true. Andrew brings up a good point:

"The magical Democrats have won based on one thing: they're not Republicans. They're not special, they're less bad."

In presidential elections, it is a shocker if a candidate gets above 50% of the popular vote. 50% of 300 million people? Half of our country agrees on one thing, and the other half agrees on something that is distinctly different. And it is very likely that a large portion of each 50% doesn't even agree with their party, they just like Andrew said, are less bad than the other. And with the latest general elections, it is clear that we have taken a turn for the worse. Democrats have triumped on the fact that they are not republicans, and even more specifically, that they are not George Bush. The opinions of the masses are contradictory to each other. George Washington advised against a multi-party system for the sake of the country. For a country to be successful and prosperous, they need to be united under a common belief or cause. Oh and just another fun fact, George Washington believed in the use of morality and RELIGION in government. People take a reference to religion in any political statement as a violation of the constitution. Washington didn't see it this way, and more than likely the founding fathers didn't either.

Andrew mentions that there will never be a draft again, and I agree unless someone takes hostile actions against us, i.e. someone gets nuked. There will not be a draft for a US-induced war. It will be a defensive war is their is a draft.

Everyone's beliefs are different, I for one believe in a powerful, and strong central government, I would not rule out warrantless arrests, unless done in an unacceptable manner. If done right, I belive it could be the right choice, but there is always that chance that it gets out of hand. There is a delicate balance between security and oppression, and that is another argument I will avoid, because it is one of those arguments where someone else's opinion I don't necessarily view as wrong, I view it as different. I could argue against myself with ease, because it is a thing that is a matter of sheer opinion. In closing, that guy is an idiot.