"We are faced with the false, anti-democratic equation
that argues that aggression, racism, and lack of empathy mean love of
the homeland, while any other opinion—especially one that does not
encourage the use of power and the loss of soldiers’ lives—is nothing
less than an attempt to destroy Israel as we know it."
Another quality op-ed from Keret,
questioning why some people expect others to show love for country with
such extreme hatred for the "enemy", and intolerance for any other
opinion besides total unwavering support for war. His article also
reminded me of America after 9/11, and sadly Germany
between the wars too: the terrible right-wing nationalist rhetoric that
the country would prevail if it wasn't for "the enemy within" subverting
their efforts. If Israel wants to level Gaza to the ground, nothing can
stop them - not dissidents, liberals, traitors, or Arab-lovers. Same
thing with America in Iraq - we can destroy the whole country if we
wanted to. But the question is: will that make us safer? Will our
unrestrained violent actions prevent the enemy from ever returning? Of
course the answer to the second question is "no" (if the IDF could
magically wipe out Hamas, another org would take its place), and the
answer to the first question is still a source of debate.
And as
Jon Stewart said, showing concern for the gratuitous murder of women
and kids in Gaza is not the same as supporting Hamas and being
anti-Semitic. I thought the person who killed kids (or condoned others
doing it) was the asshole. Now in Israel (and sometime in the US), it
seems that the real asshole is the person expressing regret over child
killings. Sometime we have to step back, take a deep breath, and
recognize the insanity of our prejudices.
Furthermore, the intolerance of dissent from ostensibly free
societies is really troubling. Disasters occur when people don't speak
up and allow biases people to make rash decisions. If the hawks are so
certain of the righteousness of their cause and soundness of their
strategy, then why squelch debate? If I know that 2+2=4, what do I have
to fear from the person claiming that the answer is 5? Maybe the hawks
are worried that the disloyal, subversive cowards will convince the
gullible populace that the answer is actually 5, and support will turn
against them. If that is the case, then that exposes the utter contempt
that the hawks have for the intelligence of the citizenry that they
claim to be protecting.
Showing posts with label stewart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stewart. Show all posts
Friday, July 25, 2014
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
MITT stands for "Moron, Idiot, Total Turd"
Who makes arguments like this? And if you say "me" under your breath, I will go to your home and slap you. :)
"Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive," Obama said Friday, citing the teachers and people who build "roads and bridges." He continued: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." Romney seized on Obama's comment, calling it "foolishness" and "insulting to every entrepreneur and every innovator in America."
Typical individualist bias. Of course people like Romney are winners just because they are personally so awesome, right? They deserve all the credit. It didn't have anything to do with the facts that he:
- Was born the son of a governor, and grew up in a peaceful community, stable home, and with good role models
- Was born a white, heterosexual, Christian, rich male with no major physical or mental handicaps (except for being lame and boring to a clinical degree)
- Was born in an advanced nation with functional institutions, rule of law, and markets
- Attended elite schools (through merit and connections)
- Didn't have to go to Vietnam
You're a stellar guy Mitt, but other people made you who you are also. Don't act like it's not true. You got so much help on the way up (on top of the people you stepped on or out-competed in order to win), it's not even funny. That's why more average Americans can relate to your opponent, a half-black guy who grew up on tropical islands and has the middle name of Hussein. He actually had to struggle against disadvantages to reach the pinnacle of success (with some luck along the way too), and never forgot to thank the people who made it possible. He wants to use his time in office to give more people a fair chance, not to help the rich get richer like you want. That's why you can't connect to the average voter. Ignorant frustration over the economy and media misinformation are the only things keeping you in this race.
"I'm ashamed to say that we're seeing our president hand out money to the businesses of campaign contributors," Romney said at one point.
Wow, like that's never happened before, especially under Republican leadership.
"President Obama attacks success. And, therefore, under President Obama, we have less success," Romney said. "I will change that." ...But Romney largely focused on the larger picture of what he called Obama's hostility toward business—which he argued has been a setback to efforts to revive the economy and has, in turn, made life tougher for struggling Americans. He accused Obama of "crushing economic freedom" in the country with burdensome regulations.
Increasing access to college, extending the Bush tax cuts, and enacting several new private sector tax cuts of his own were such terrible attacks on success. Hostility towards business huh? That must be why the S&P500 has risen 50% over the last 3 years under Obama (not that the president controls stock prices, but you'd think a leader who is so anti-business wouldn't preside over such huge equity growth). And which is it Mitt? First you say Obama is giving $ away to his allies' businesses, and now you say he's anti-business?
And I think the abuses enabled by 3 decades of steady deregulation have made life tougher for struggling Americans than any new regs Obama has pushed through (most of his campaign proposals didn't pass Congress of course).
"I'm convinced he wants Americans to be ashamed of success," Romney declared. "I want Americans to welcome and celebrate success and to encourage people to reach as high as they can. … I don't want government to take credit for what the individuals of America accomplish."
Great deductive logic. No comments needed here, the guy is just a textbook d-bag.
--------
Follow-up to this thread from the 7/25 Daily Show:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
"Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely f**ked and they know they have no argument!" - Jon Stewart
Basically the DS described how the MSM misrepresented Obama's recent comments about society enabling individual businesses to succeed, presumably to reduce the significance of Romney's private sector success record and legitimacy of his minimal government model for prosperity. They made it sound like Obama was suggesting that business owners don't get credit for their success, as it was due to the government only. Anyone with half a brain would know that Obama would never make such a claim, and the confusion was due to a "slight grammatical error" as he chose to say "You didn't build that" instead of "those" (referring to roads, bridges, internet, and other state-funded infrastructure that enable commerce). "That" could be misconstrued as Obama claiming that businesspeople didn't actually build their businesses, which of course doesn't make sense. And if you read or listen to the speech uncut (see link at end), you can grasp the context of his comments and would never jump to that erroneous conclusion. But of course the conservatives and Romney campaign pounced on it hard. The president is saying that the government is the economy, not the small business owners! Apparently the Romney camp is even selling shirts and other merchandise saying "I built my business, Mr. President!"
So the Romney campaign is showing its true colors (and FNC too - by busting out their "big guns" interview with child lemonade stand owners!). They don't have a legit plan for improving the economy and employment for the sub-rich, so they are resorting to misrepresenting the president's words (or should I say word singular, out of the thousands of words he has uttered about the economy over his short political career) in order to make him look like an anti-business, Marxist a-hole. Unfortunately many people do not see through this, and may even buy their argument.
I was surprised that "The Ticket" by Yahoo! News (source of the article I cited originally) was no better than Faux News. They failed to provide context for Obama's quote, and did not include his key summary statement of, "The point is when we succeed... we succeed from our individual initiative, but also because we do things together." Why exclude a sentence starting with "The point is..."!?! Actually that sentence was all they needed to show, and there wouldn't have been any criticism (actually Romney said basically the same thing during a campaign speech too). But they didn't, because twisting the message makes this a more juicy, buzzworthy story. I doubt that was part of a big anti-Obama, Koch-funded conspiracy, as probably the author just wanted to ignite a fire where there isn't even smoke. Still, it's reprehensible and shameful "journalism". It's also a sad reflection on the MSM that we needed the Daily Show to point this out. However, despite Y! News not providing context for the Obama quote, I could clearly understand what the president was trying to say. It's not exactly cryptic or novel. So the conservatives actually had to exert a lot of effort to twist his statement into something offensive and untrue. I guess I really shouldn't be surprised. They're resorting to desperation attacks yet the polling is enigmatically neck-and-neck. Maybe if Obama's lucky, they'll swing for a home run with the VP pick a la Palin style, and select a total loser like Jindal or something.
Obama's unedited comments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
It's actually kind of sad that in 2012 Obama still has to explain the obvious, but laissez-faire classical propaganda has been working hard since the Guilded Age.
Right wing media's take: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
FNC host: "[Obama's statements are] all in an effort to justify increasing taxes on the so-called 'rich' in this country... Joining me now for a 'fair and balanced' debate..." She then introduces the panel guests, of course a hot blonde conservative chick who hosts another FNC program and a black small business owner (see the GOP is diverse!) vs. an old, ugly, meek liberal former Clinton-Gore strategist (and she even pronounces his name wrong, despite him being a repeat FNC guest a.k.a. self-hating Democrat punching bag).
Argh typical crap from their playbook... I haven't watched FNC in years so I forgot how bad it was. #1 cable news network, booyeah!!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Problems with our Afghanistan approach
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n13/stew01_.html
I found these 3 quotes from the author to be most telling:
-Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building.
-Americans are particularly unwilling to believe that problems are insoluble.
-The new UK strategy for Afghanistan is... not a plan; it is a description of what we have not got.
From Rory Stewart, Kennedy School of Government, Afghanistan expert. NATO may find it a lot harder to achieve Iraq-level "success" in Afghanistan (how disheartening is that?). A troop surge may buy time for government to fill the Taleban void, reconcile the hostile groups, and improve the rule of law/human services, except that this is the Afghan government we're talking about - completely incapable of doing any of that. It's not necessarily their fault, since Afghanistan is one of the 10 poorest nations on Earth, very remote/harsh, with a very under-educated populace, and recovering from decades of war and social turmoil. In addition, there are no marginalized, deal-making Sunnis to "awaken" to our side, and Afghanistan is geographically larger than Iraq yet we've devoted 38% fewer troops: 146,000 for Iraq vs. 90,000 for Afghanistan (that is including the less motivated, experienced, risk-taking non-US forces, as well as the upper estimate of Obama's 2009 surge request). But of course military models recommend a force of at least 500,000 to properly stabilize a nation like Afghanistan. That is impossible, and so is this: the Pentagon seeks to train and deploy a combined Afghan security force of approx. 450,000 men to take over as we draw down (assuming Surge part 2 succeeds). But supporting such a force would require 500% of Afghanistan's current budget (narco-commerce not included).
This is what Obama recently said of the Afghanistan challenge:
[The Afghan gov't] is undermined by corruption and has difficulty delivering basic services to its people. The economy is undercut by a booming narcotics trade that encourages criminality and funds the insurgency . . . If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged – that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can . . . For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralysed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people – especially women and girls. The return in force of al-Qaida terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence.
‘There can be only one winner: democracy and a strong Afghan state,’ Gordon Brown predicted in his most recent speech on the subject.
Well that leaves very little room for error, doesn't it? Isn't this the same problem Bush/Blair had justifying/selling the Iraq quagmire? I guess Democrats can do fear-mongering too, like LBJ in Vietnam. Just as it was ludicrous to fear that Saddam would equip terrorists with WMD to strike America, it's unrealistic to think that Western inaction will lead to Taleban/Qaeda takeover of 2 failed states and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. And it's not a foregone conclusion that those 2 groups will even be able to cooperate in the future, as they have poor track records and clearly different objectives.
And Stewart continues: It misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion. It conjures nightmares of ‘failed states’ and ‘global extremism’, offers the remedies of ‘state-building’ and ‘counter-insurgency’, and promises a final dream of ‘legitimate, accountable governance’. The path is broad ... general ... and almost too abstract to be defined or refuted. It papers over the weakness of the international community: our lack of knowledge, power and legitimacy. It conceals the conflicts between our interests: between giving aid to Afghans and killing terrorists. It assumes that Afghanistan is predictable. It makes our policy seem a moral obligation, makes failure unacceptable, and alternatives inconceivable. It does this so well that a more moderate, minimalist approach becomes almost impossible to articulate.
Sounds like a blast from the past. New administration but same ignorance, hubris, and vague/misplaced goals. Yes it's true that the stakes are great and Afghanistan is a critical foreign policy priority, but framing the discussion in this manner is not helpful or responsible. In other words, we can't approach Afghanistan as a test of wills or a holy war. That is how our opponents think (or so some say), and that is what they want from us. Yet strangely everyone and their mother are on board for Obama's plan (the UN, aid groups, NATO, our Muslim allies, and even Afghans). It's just because they hate/fear the oppressive Taleban so much, and are terribly war-weary and desperate. We all hope that an increase in troops will magically fix Afghanistan, but we have to remember history and consider the objective data.
Stewart suggests a sleeker approach with less of a Western footprint on Afghanistan. Nation-building must be an Afghan-driven process, and nothing that we implement will work well or last. Our special forces operations to cripple Qaeda have been effective since 2001, so let's continue that instead of clogging the battlefield and Afghan communities with our regular troops that weren't built or trained for this delicate, difficult purpose. Careful air strikes and 20,000 special forces are enough for surgical missions that will place fewer civilians at risk. If we truly want to increase the rule of law, government functionality, and development over there, then we should stop pretending and actually seriously fund/equip those projects to the level that is required. So we need more boots on the ground for sure, just not boots toting rifles.
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