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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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 Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 8:13 am Post subject: |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
Did you notice that you are drawing an equation betion between a woman who had a purely sexual affair with a politician, on the one hand, with a woman who has lost her firstborn child due to a war which she never believed was just or neceassary?
On the one hand, you have desire for notoriety, fame and possible financial gain - Jennifer Flowers, if I need to point out the obvious - and on the other, you have a woman in the midst of very conscious pain who just might see the healing process she needs for herself to be commensurate at least similar need for the salvation of her country ... at the very least, as she has said many times, she wants no more mothers to feel what she feels now.
I'm having trouble seeing your comparison as anything other than sick and twisted, and I'm hesitating, but I'll say it anyway : anti-woman.
(I don't know enough about Cindy Sheehan to call her an angel, but putting her in the same league with Jennifer Flowers - why not just call her a crack whore giving oral sex to the Commies at $5 a pop and be done with it ... I mean, hey, why not?)
There was a time when I welcomed your voice here as a voice of sanity which the rest of us might benefit from. This post makes me think my previous notions about you were absurd. |
Civilized discourse: "Gopher, you said [quote]. Would you mind elaborating on what you meant here, because it's not clear to me."
Unproductive, confrontationalist discourse: [See above].
Bobster: I'd be more than happy to exchange views with you on any topic, provided you are interested in a mutually respectful tone. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 8:57 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| The Bobster wrote: |
Did you notice that you are drawing an equation betion between a woman who had a purely sexual affair with a politician, on the one hand, with a woman who has lost her firstborn child due to a war which she never believed was just or neceassary?
On the one hand, you have desire for notoriety, fame and possible financial gain - Jennifer Flowers, if I need to point out the obvious - and on the other, you have a woman in the midst of very conscious pain who just might see the healing process she needs for herself to be commensurate at least similar need for the salvation of her country ... at the very least, as she has said many times, she wants no more mothers to feel what she feels now.
I'm having trouble seeing your comparison as anything other than sick and twisted, and I'm hesitating, but I'll say it anyway : anti-woman.
(I don't know enough about Cindy Sheehan to call her an angel, but putting her in the same league with Jennifer Flowers - why not just call her a crack whore giving oral sex to the Commies at $5 a pop and be done with it ... I mean, hey, why not?)
There was a time when I welcomed your voice here as a voice of sanity which the rest of us might benefit from. This post makes me think my previous notions about you were absurd. |
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Civilized discourse: "Gopher, you said
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. Would you mind elaborating on what you meant here, because it's not clear to me."[/quote
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| Unproductive, confrontationalist discourse: [See above]. |
Bobster: I'd be more than happy to exchange views with you on any topic, provided you are interested in a mutually respectful tone. |
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I got two topic reply notifications in a very short time. One of them said that the topic I linked to no longer exists. What it means is that you wrote something more than what you said above, then though better of it before the rest of us had a chance to see it and respond to it. You have that right, but the fact that it happened is deserving of notice.
But I will play your game. Here it is, and I will say "pretty please. with sugar on top if" it helps you to tell us what is honestly insinde your heart here : you compared a grieving mom of a firstborn son lost in war that was instigated by lies that have been shown to all and sundry ... to a woman (Jennifer Flowers, you named her) who sought notoriety and possibly money by such confessions and I have to say, in order to behonest to what I believe about the world, that I find the comparison to be denigrating to ALL women, simply by your arrogance at mentioning them in the same discussion.
Do you want to defend that? Then you can. Or perhaps you cannot. I'm guessing the latter. It was a dumb thing to say. And that might be why you deleted a post made just a few minutes before I clicked on it.
You want civilized discoursed, my man, you should never embark upon such a course as you did right here and right now.
First, you make a prudish comparison seeking to equate a woman in grief over the death of a son due to what has been shown to be lies on the part of the current administration - you equate that grief, I say, with the cynical manipulations of a woman who wished to better her life by associating herself publicly with a purely sexual exchange ... and then you delete your own earlier post (whatever it was) by trying to take the "high road" here?
You ask for a mutually respectful tone. You will respect us all in a mutual way when you admit that your opinions are what they are, and not try to present them as somethinbg else. And comparing Cindy Sheehan to Jennifer to Flowers was a vile and ugly thing to do.
Do I seem ticked off? It's because, due the deletion of whatever you wrote before, I have been denied the chance of knowing what you REALLY think here. I have a pretty good idea of your opinions, though, but you force me to read between the lines - you think that you can make a comparison such as you did recently and that no one will understand what you truly think of women in general, as well as Cindy Sheehan?
It's something important that you need to look at. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:21 am Post subject: |
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| The Bobster wrote: |
I got two topic reply notifications in a very short time. One of them said that the topic I linked to no longer exists. What it means is that you wrote something more than what you said above, then though better of it before the rest of us had a chance to see it and respond to it. You have that right, but the fact that it happened is deserving of notice.
But I will play your game. |
You're wasting a lot of energy playing "a game" that I'm not playing. There is no secret to be revealved here.
I wrote a reply and then thought better of it. There is no conspiracy to be uncovered.
That is one advantage writing has over real-time discussion: we can look at something we wrote and then think better of it. I had originally written a more detailed reply, but then deleted it because I did not see the point.
You have not uncovered any smoking gun here. I don't understand the tension.
Have a beer.
| The Bobster wrote: |
| denigrating to ALL women...your arrogance...a prudish comparison seeking to equate a woman in grief...cynical manipulations of a woman who wished to better her life by associating herself publicly with a purely sexual exchange...comparing Cindy Sheehan to Jennifer to Flowers was a vile and ugly thing to do...what you truly think of women in general, as well as Cindy Sheehan? |
Jennifer Flowers was an unqualified foreign policy/area specialist who was thrust onto the national stage, where her ideas about Clinton's foreign policy objectives were, for a time, given credence and somehow taken seriously.
Cindy Sheehan is an unqualified foreign policy/area specialist who has been thrust onto the national stage, where her ideas about Bush's foreign policy objectives are being given credence and somehow taken seriously.
Both of these examples strike me as ridiculous. It's a sign of the times that our media behaves this way -- seeking out provocative, emotionally-based "news."
That is the beginning and the end of the comparison. It has nothing to do with "all women" or any of the other bullshiat about crack hoares or blowing Commies for five bucks or whatever other nonsense you are citing in your rage (see, for example, the excerpts above and the earlier tantrum).
What I had said in my earlier post is that I fault you for constantly taking my comments out of context, putting them in some other context, or reinterpreting or restating what I said. I say what I say. If you don't like it, ask me what I meant. But taking what I said, expanding it and placing it in the context you think it "really belongs" is taking too many liberties.
I concluded with something like this: You question my morality? (Ridiculous because I don't claim the moral high ground on any issue.) I question your education. You are not apparently capable of dealing with evidence or information that you do not like.
After saying all of that, I read it and then thought that it was a waste of time, as your venemous attack has made even more clear to me, and I also found it to be an inappropriate thing to say, so I deleted it. It has nothing to do with "concealing what I really think," as you accuse. It simply occurred to me that I would be wasting time and energy attempting to reason with someone who is so angry over a point. |
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:44 pm Post subject: |
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CATHY YOUNG
The Cindy Sheehan you don't know
By Cathy Young, Globe Columnist | August 22, 2005
IT IS ENORMOUSLY difficult to say anything critical about Cindy Sheehan, the Everymom of the antiwar movement, without sounding indecently callous. She is, after all, a woman who has lost her child -- one of humankind's most universal images of grief. Her vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where she has vowed to stay until the president meets with her and hears her out, has inspired great sympathy. Conservative attempts to make an issue of Sheehan's far-left ties have been cited as an example of how low those abominable right-wingers will to stoop: They'll even slime a grieving mother.
I respect Sheehan's pain, no doubt compounded by her mother's stroke last week. Yet Sheehan is not simply expressing her pain and rage, privately or even publicly; when she turns her grief into a political cause, her politics cannot remain off-limits.
Sheehan's first and foremost demand is that all American troops be brought home from Iraq immediately. On this scale, irrationality becomes dangerous. Even many of those who opposed the war in Iraq from the start are convinced that a quick pullout would be a disaster -- both for the Iraqis, and for all those who would suffer if Iraq became a fully operational terrorist base. Who will have to give account to the bereaved men and women whose loved ones will be killed as a result?
But there's more than that to Sheehan's politics. She is not simply against the war in Iraq (and, as she told talk show host Chris Matthews on CNBC, against the war in Afghanistan as well). She has thrown in her lot with the hardcore Michael Moore left, and this less savory aspect of her crusade has been largely ignored by the respectful media.
In her public appearances, Sheehan has not only called Bush ''the biggest terrorist in the world" but suggested that his ''band of neocons" deliberately allowed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 to happen: ''9/11 was their Pearl Harbor to get their neo-con agenda through," she told a cheering crowd at San Francisco State University last April.
That crowd, by the way, was holding a rally in support of Lynne Stewart, a radical New York attorney convicted in 2003 of aiding and abetting a terrorist conspiracy. Sheehan compared Stewart -- who served as a liaison between her incarcerated client, terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, and his network outside -- to Atticus Finch, the lawyer in ''To Kill a Mockingbird" who heroically defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in the Jim Crow South.
Even more troubling opinions have surfaced in an e-mail Sheehan sent to ABC News last April: ''Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC [Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative think thank] Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel."
After some media outlets publicized these comments, which smack of blaming the Jews for drawing the U.S. into the war in Iraq, Sheehan disavowed them: she claims the offending lines were inserted into her email by an ABC News staffer. (The original email has been lost due to an Internet virus attack.) But this latest conspiracy-mongering is hard to believe, especially given the general anti-Israel tenor of Sheehan's public statements: for instance, she railed against the notion that ''it's okay for Israel to have nuclear weapons, but Iran or Syria better not get nuclear weapons."
A comment on the left-wing website Daily Kos described Sheehan as ''Terri Schiavo reincarnated." I believe this was meant as a compliment. But actually, the Sheehan circus has a lot in common with the Schiavo circus, none of it good. Both stories represent a triumph -- on different sides of the political divide -- of emotion- and sentiment-driven politics. Schiavo's parents could go off on paranoid, crazy, vitriolic rants, and enjoy a certain immunity by virtue of their unthinkable tragedy. The same is true of Sheehan.
Sheehan's grief entitles her to sympathy, which is why I believe the president should have granted her the meeting she wanted. (On pragmatic grounds, it would have also taken the sting out of Sheehan's protest.) But her loss does not give her, as New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has claimed, an ''absolute" moral authority -- any more than it would if her reaction to her son's death was to demand a US nuclear strike against the insurgents.
Correction: Last week I referred to Robert Byrd as a senator from Virginia. He is from West Virginia.
Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears regularly in the Globe. |
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/08/22/the_cindy_sheehan_you_dont_know?mode=PF |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| So take away the pretexts, take away the religious intolerance, take away the nationalism, and what remains are six billion people collected into several "tribes," who realize that there may not quite be enough to go around, and there you go. It still hasn't been worked out. But it's only been about seven million years, which, geologically, is not much time at all. So Marx was basically right in his analysis that it all comes down to economics, and everything else is just smoke and mirrors. |
Marx was wrong. Right now people are blowing themselves all over Iraq and elsewhere. It's about more than economics. Fundamentalist 'ideology' cannot be simply reduced to have-nots striking out at the haves. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| So take away the pretexts, take away the religious intolerance, take away the nationalism, and what remains are six billion people collected into several "tribes," who realize that there may not quite be enough to go around, and there you go. It still hasn't been worked out. But it's only been about seven million years, which, geologically, is not much time at all. So Marx was basically right in his analysis that it all comes down to economics, and everything else is just smoke and mirrors. |
Marx was wrong. Right now people are blowing themselves all over Iraq and elsewhere. It's about more than economics. Fundamentalist 'ideology' cannot be simply reduced to have-nots striking out at the haves. |
This is perfectly arguable. Suicide bombers, in particular.
If you start looking much deeper, however, you can strip away these surface issues and get into deeper struggles, a lot of which come down to spheres of influence (political economies, socioeconomic influences, etc.) and control over specific territories -- and these are ultimately economic considerations. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| So take away the pretexts, take away the religious intolerance, take away the nationalism, and what remains are six billion people collected into several "tribes," who realize that there may not quite be enough to go around, and there you go. It still hasn't been worked out. But it's only been about seven million years, which, geologically, is not much time at all. So Marx was basically right in his analysis that it all comes down to economics, and everything else is just smoke and mirrors. |
Marx was wrong. Right now people are blowing themselves all over Iraq and elsewhere. It's about more than economics. Fundamentalist 'ideology' cannot be simply reduced to have-nots striking out at the haves. |
This is perfectly arguable. Suicide bombers, in particular.
If you start looking much deeper, however, you can strip away these surface issues and get into deeper struggles, a lot of which come down to spheres of influence (political economies, socioeconomic influences, etc.) and control over specific territories -- and these are ultimately economic considerations. |
Don't get me wrong, I hold economic considerations to be extremely important, almost essential. But Marx reduced pretty much all philosophy and politics itself to the realm of 'ideology.' And he defined 'ideology' as simply the justifications given by the ruling power for their economic hegemony.
Marx's theory has the advantage of being simple. Namely, we have one indicator to refer to with almost all social inquiries. We follow the money. Marx's theory also has the advantage of being widely applicable. He's not way off. A lot of conflicts at their roots are centrally conflicts over resources or wealth.
However, I would argue that Marx goes too far and that when he turned Hegelian philosophy upside down on its head, Marx himself got a little muddled. But the truth is, while men came together into society to make supplying the home easier, this is not the final end of society. And while some people put a lot of faith in Marx's books, a lot of others put it in the Quran. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2005 5:22 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| Kuros wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| So take away the pretexts, take away the religious intolerance, take away the nationalism, and what remains are six billion people collected into several "tribes," who realize that there may not quite be enough to go around, and there you go. It still hasn't been worked out. But it's only been about seven million years, which, geologically, is not much time at all. So Marx was basically right in his analysis that it all comes down to economics, and everything else is just smoke and mirrors. |
Marx was wrong. Right now people are blowing themselves all over Iraq and elsewhere. It's about more than economics. Fundamentalist 'ideology' cannot be simply reduced to have-nots striking out at the haves. |
This is perfectly arguable. Suicide bombers, in particular.
If you start looking much deeper, however, you can strip away these surface issues and get into deeper struggles, a lot of which come down to spheres of influence (political economies, socioeconomic influences, etc.) and control over specific territories -- and these are ultimately economic considerations. |
Don't get me wrong, I hold economic considerations to be extremely important, almost essential. But Marx reduced pretty much all philosophy and politics itself to the realm of 'ideology.' And he defined 'ideology' as simply the justifications given by the ruling power for their economic hegemony.
Marx's theory has the advantage of being simple. Namely, we have one indicator to refer to with almost all social inquiries. We follow the money. Marx's theory also has the advantage of being widely applicable. He's not way off. A lot of conflicts at their roots are centrally conflicts over resources or wealth.
However, I would argue that Marx goes too far and that when he turned Hegelian philosophy upside down on its head, Marx himself got a little muddled. But the truth is, while men came together into society to make supplying the home easier, this is not the final end of society. And while some people put a lot of faith in Marx's books, a lot of others put it in the Quran. |
I read this and don't see anything to disagree with. I, too, am suspicious of overly simplistic explanations. That's why I think Marx is basically correct, but unable to explain everything... |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2005 2:21 am Post subject: |
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>. According to CNN Bush has already met with her ??? Hmmmmmmmm ... I wonder if this all too fuzzy snapshot purportedly taken somewhere around 14 months ago is what they're referring to ???
Cindy Sheehan Meets President Bush
While you can read the riveting account of Cindy Sheehan's day at the new world headquarters at Huffington Post, you won't find any mention of this picture of her June 2004 meeting with President Bush (giving her a kiss on the cheek), which she's pulled from her tribute website to her son Casey 
One real great ( gee, how can you tell i'm a politician ) quote from GW on CNN was "Most of the families i've met with ... don't share in her views".
Well duh ... look what it took for you just to talk with someone like her in the first place: a major national media firestorm.
You've got a real well rounded view of "reality" when you're completely surrounded by boot-licking & grovelling psychophants  |
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Apple Scruff
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:03 am Post subject: |
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| Hank Scorpio wrote: |
Somehow along the line the term "neo-con" became an epithet that roughly translates into "scheming, hooknosed Jew".
I find it curious how the left still likes to call conservatives fascists when you've become appeasers for actual fascists and promote antisemitism in every possible venue you can reach.
You people are scum. Traitorous scum. |
That's strange, because these days I and many other people associate the term "neo-con" with fat, scheming, whitebread Christian assholes.
And the left promotes antisemitism? I'll just assume you got ahold of a bad batch of opium and mumble bad words about you under my breath. |
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desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:17 am Post subject: |
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| Apple Scruff wrote: |
| Hank Scorpio wrote: |
Somehow along the line the term "neo-con" became an epithet that roughly translates into "scheming, hooknosed Jew".
I find it curious how the left still likes to call conservatives fascists when you've become appeasers for actual fascists and promote antisemitism in every possible venue you can reach.
You people are scum. Traitorous scum. |
That's strange, because these days I and many other people associate the term "neo-con" with fat, scheming, whitebread Christian assholes.
And the left promotes antisemitism? I'll just assume you got ahold of a bad batch of opium and mumble bad words about you under my breath. |
| Quote: |
The American Heritage�� Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
neoconservative
SYLLABICATION: ne��o��con��ser��va��tive
NOUN: fat, scheming, whitebread Christian asshole |
Hey apple scruff- your should cite your sources. 
Hey, where have you been? |
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papa_geno
Joined: 26 Aug 2005
Location: Gangneung
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| Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 3:30 am Post subject: |
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| Somehow along the line the term "neo-con" became an epithet that roughly translates into "scheming, hooknosed Jew". |
Well, not to wade too deeply into this discussion (cuz I have strong opinions, but do think about those opinions), but I'm thinking it's best to put tight constraints on the discussion at this point, and err early in favor of Godwin's law. The above comment would strike me as reason for the thread to die on page 1.
What I find most interesting about all of this is the way those who hold the balance of power in DC have somehow managed to represent themselves--at least to themselves--as the true victims here, to the extent of comparing themselves to the victims of the holocaust. Pretty impressive political feat, really, and one you'd think the progressives would have enough savvy to communicate to the electorate. Oddly, they don't seem to be that savvy.
Makes me think that what we need to do, if we really want to make a change, is to stop voting for politicians.
hmm... |
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