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Nowhere Man

Joined: 08 Feb 2004
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 12:01 am Post subject: ... |
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| Never mind that now; he is committed in advance to a serious projection of American power into the heartland of our deadliest enemy. |
That's a hysterical exaggeration of what was debunked sometime last spring.
Christopher Hitchens should focus his journalism on having himself tortured in increasingly creative ways and leave it at that. |
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aka Dave
Joined: 02 May 2008 Location: Down by the river
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Posted: Tue Sep 16, 2008 1:58 am Post subject: |
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| Hitchens can be a good writer at times. He can also be bat crap crazy at times. So whatever. |
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tomato

Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Where are these "warmongering atheist drunks" which you mentioned in the title? |
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Justin Hale

Joined: 24 Nov 2007 Location: the Straight Talk Express
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Tomato wrote: |
| Where are these "warmongering atheist drunks" which you mentioned in the title? |
He's having a good-natured potshot at Christopher Hitchens. God is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything touched a raw nerve, I'm guessing. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007 Location: retired
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Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:38 pm Post subject: |
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| That's a reference to Hitchens, who is an atheist, an alcoholic and likes the war in Iraq. |
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jkelly80

Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Location: you boys like mexico?
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Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 11:12 pm Post subject: |
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| The notion of "Pakistan" is tenuous at best. Punjab doesn't like Sindh who don't like the Baluchis who don't like the Pashtun tribesmen in the frontier provinces. The gov't has effectively lost control of the frontier for some time and a US invasion would be a great PR move for Islamabad to unite Pakistanis, however briefly. |
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bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 5:43 am Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
| If Pakistan does indeed warrant the label 'enemy', I doubt the more belligerent McCain will turn a blind eye to it. |
Exactly. Policies will be essentially undistinguishable regardless of which Demoblican is elected. |
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PBRstreetgang21

Joined: 19 Feb 2007 Location: Orlando, FL--- serving as man's paean to medocrity since 1971!
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 7:42 am Post subject: |
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| I think though regardless of whether or not Hitchens exeggerates Obama's vision of American relations with Pakistan he does bring a very important point-- years from now Bush's alliance with Pakistan will come back to haunt the US in ways eerily similair and quite possibly significantly worse than our alliance with Afghanastan in the 80s. We have been giving them too much intelligence that they are now using it against us. Just recently it was in the major news outlets that a major afghanastan attack on coalition forces was the result of American intelligence given to them by Pakistan's ISI. I shudder to think about what would happen in the event that that government where to become even more pro-tribal. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003 Location: I walk along the avenue
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Justin Hale wrote: |
| Tomato wrote: |
| Where are these "warmongering atheist drunks" which you mentioned in the title? |
He's having a good-natured potshot at Christopher Hitchens. God is not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything touched a raw nerve, I'm guessing. |
Not all that raw. I bought it and read most of it a few months back. It's somewhat uneven in quality. He gets in a few good points here and there, but it's nothing like the devastating anti-clerical tour de force it's been built up as.
My guess would be that, for most believers who have already given some critical thought to what they believe, the book won't present anything all that strikingly original. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 12:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Exactly. Policies will be essentially undistinguishable regardless of which Demoblican is elected. |
You've clearly forgotten that during most of the Cold War 'partisanship ends at the water's edge'. |
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bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
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| Exactly. Policies will be essentially undistinguishable regardless of which Demoblican is elected. |
You've clearly forgotten that during most of the Cold War 'partisanship ends at the water's edge'. |
Thank you for the opportunity to elaborate.
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The media create the impression that the American public has a real choice. They tell us you can choose Bush or Gore, the implication being that they are very different. But on sibstantive budgetary or economic issues, the differences between them are really on the margins.
Both leading Democrats and Republicans support the privatized health care system, corporate-backed global trade agreements, maintaining a cold war defense budget, and generally favor the interests of big business.
But the media give the impression that the Democrats and REpublicans represent a broad range of opinion by focusing on civil liberty, non-monetary issues, like gay rights or abortion where Democrats and Republicans really do differ. This masks the degree of elite consensus. |
- Prof. Justin Lewis, author of Constructing Public Opinion: How Political Elites Do What They Like, and How We Appear to Go Along With It, Columbia University Press. This excerpt is from the documentary Constructing Public Opinion: How Politicians and the Media Misrepresent the Public |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 9:36 pm Post subject: |
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| You forgot to mention that since both parties support the Constitution and capitalism we never get to vote for a Commie. How unfortunate for us. |
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bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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You forget that both parties have engaged in enough socialism of risk and outright losses of private corporations.
Close enough for you?
And actually, we do get to vote for Communists. They have been on ballots for many years in many states. (But maybe not in Iowa.) |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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You forget that both parties have engaged in enough socialism of risk and outright losses of private corporations.
Close enough for you?
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You're going to have to talk a lot faster than that to pin this debacle on socialism. Everyone but the far right knows it was unbridled capitalism. BTW, how could the far right have been so wrong? |
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bacasper

Joined: 26 Mar 2007
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Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:26 pm Post subject: |
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OK, it was the socialization of risk and loss and the privatization of profit.
Is it too late for me to start a corporation? |
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