Black Dog

Call me cynical, but I find pronouncements of the purity of the political lobbying process ring hollow when uttered by a political lobbyist. I don't think the authour is necessarily up to no good, but i think his assessment that reads like something out of a high school civics text. It's a trifle naive and sounds like he is softening the message for his audience (Spin 101). Simple fact is, it doesn't take a genius to follow the trail between money and power. Lobby groups, PACs and so forth will naturally try to portray themselves as representing the interests of a particular constituency, but the fact is, they only represent the folks who sign their checks. That these people are the main players in Washington speaks volumes about chequebook democracy in the States.

If I'm not mistaken, Craig is using "liberal" in the classic sense of free and unrestricted markets, not in the contemporary North American usage of the term.

I dunno how I missed this rib-tickler before.... Typical blind arrogance. Sadly I've become accustomed to this kind of simple-minded claptrap from you. By denying the role played by the West in general and America in particular in keeping the Arab world fragmented through selective support of repressive regimes, through the systematic exploitiation of local resources and through the unequivocable support of Israel (to name a few grievences), you deny the forces that drive anti-American/anti-Western sentiment in the mideast. The struggle between Islamic reformationists and hardliners has been going on since the 19th century. Islam needs to sort itself out, but not under the threat of annihalation by crusading ninnies like you. Whatta crock! You are so blinded by fanaticsm and the propaganda you greedily ingest that you don't even know what's happening under your very nose. If you think America is not governed by an elite, you're dead wrong. Democracy in the U.S. is a meaningless exercise at best, allowing a disaffected, uninterested population to select which figurehead to vote for every four years. In the meantime, special interest lobbies use campaign contributions and pork barreling to exercise their will over the government (a government, I should add, that has as nothing in common with the average American). I don't know if it's naivete or ignorance that drives you, but it sure ain't the truth. 70 per cent of American also believe in UFOs and angels. 60 per cent believe Iraq was directly responsible for 9-11. Taking one's policy cues from a survey of a cowed and ill-informed populace is folly. The only thing I fear from the American street is their amazing capacity to eat whatever B.S. their government ladels out.

Perfectly justified since, in conducting the war on terror, the U.S. has killed babies. That's a fact. If you choose to interpret my unwillingness to adopt the ridiculous dichotomy of "good versus evil" that you frame this debate in as equating you with terrorists, that's your problem, not mine. I stand by my statement. Now, I could go into the rest of your stuff, but won't bother as it' snot all that new. Suffice it to say that by simply accepting, without question or reservation, that your country is "right" in all things and is the sole arbiter of truth, justice, freedom, and little fluffy kittens, you are derelict in your duty as a citizen of a democracy. For democracy and its attendant freedoms to survive and flourish, citizens must be aware, informed and above all, willing to ask questions of their leaders and demand accountability for the actions committed in the name of society (including killing babies). Instead, I see a willingness to surrender critical thought to so-called conventional wisdom, to fall into outmoded forms of jingoistic nationalism and subvert your own will to the will of the nation's leadership. To, in short, stick your fingers in your ears, close your eyes and shut your mouth and declare "My country: right or wrong!" Who then, is really anti-American: those who accept without question the action sof the nation's leadership, regardless of their motives or the consequences, or those who would seek to keep the Republic on the path set down by it's founders 225 years ago?

It also depends if you're the nun who is being knife-raped by U.S.-backed Contra guerrillas. Is it just me, or is using the Stalinist "ends justify the means" ideal tio justify atrocities committed in the name of preventing atrocities seem a little...well, funny (albeit in a dark, dark way)?

Oh it's happening, albeit on a smaller scale than it should. After all, "black ops" don't have the same cachet as full on exercise of military might. The President can't "land" on an aircraft carrier to declare "Mission Accomplished!" for something as mundane as the lawful arrest of terrorist suspects. God, but you are thick. Analyising the casuses of terrorism is not the same thing as "justifying terrorist actions." If you choose to frame the debate in this fashion,well, you're an idiot. If that lin eof thinking is the one that dominates U.S. society, you'll never, ever win the war on terror. I've already denounced terrorism, and think it needs to be countered at the sub-national and the national level. Bush and his ilk (you included, apparently) use the word "freedom" as a rhetorical club to bludgeon people over the head, while lacking any kind of understanding of what the word means. And again: where did I say America was the "bad guys"? There's no such dichotomies here, only competing geopolitical interests. Your black and white/giood and evil outlook on the world is limiting. Who are "the terrorists" exactly? Al Q'aeda? Hamas? The Tamal Tigers? The IRA? The UDF? the C.I. freaking A? Jesus. How can you win a war against an enemy you can't even identify? As for "terrorists" not making the world a better place, let's not forget that "terrorists" founded the United States. "Terrorists" fought fascists in Spain and the Nazis in Europe before America even entered the war. "Terrorists" helped create the state of Israel. If you equate questioning the policies of a national governemnt with "justifying terrorism", you are so far gone as to not really be worth debating. (It's not a tough concept to grasp: why are you having such a hard time with it?)

How about using the time-tested and effective methods of counterterrorism (intellignece gathering, co-operation with other countries, law enforcement and selective use of force) instead of bombing the crap out of whatever country happpens to drift into your cross-hairs. How about you stop cozing up to foreign dictators (like the House of Saud or Mushareff) who support terrorism? Howzabout you stop the shameless plundering the developing world and the accompanying exploitation of foreign resources for domestic profit? Those would be a nice start. The fact that you interpret my views as being "hating everything the United States and Bush stand for." shows you need to work on your reading comprehension skills. (Seriously: show me where I've said "I hate America and everything it stands for.") What part of: did you nott understand? Well you do. Get your head out of the sand. www.robert-fisk.com/iraq3_2apr2003.jpg www.robert-fisk.com/1_146933_1_6.jpg Do these look like terrorists to you??? :angry:

What the hell are you talking about? Have you read a newspaper or turned on the TV lately? The place is a war zone. Makes it awful hard for Halliburton, Betchel and Exxon-Mobil to do their thing in those conditions, dontchewknow. But don't you worry: y'all will stick around till the oil (and profits) start pumping again. Seriously, I'd love to see the U.S. go into Iran. Shit, why not Syria too? Throw in North Korea and make it a party. Stretch yourselves thin, plunder your economy, make yourselves an even bigger target for the nutcases of the world with an ax to grind. Gut whatever social programs you have left to keep Lockheed Martin in the black and Dick Cheney's portfolio nice and healthy. Put your country into the grip of a debt from which it'll never recover. Kill thousands more civilians and conscripts so your president can strut around looking all manly and heroic for the TV cameras. We know what happens when an Empire's reach exceeds its grasp. Thus has it ever been, so shall it be with America. Sic transit gloria mundi. Anything to bring you neocons back to reality.

Cluster bombs don't make distinctions. Conservatiove estimates put the number of Iraqi civilian dead at 10,000+. All terrorists to you, I suppose. Me, I'm against all terrorism, especially in it's most pervasive and destructive form: state terrorism. There are no "good guys" in this. Which ones? The Saudis who allegedly perpatrated the 9-11 attacks? They're dead. The people who supported and financed them are still around, consorting with the President of the U.S.A, while America spends billions rooting out "terrorism" in a ruined country that never attacked it and posed no threat. Yes. But a better thing would be for the west to stop propping them up in the first place. Who's freedom? Ours or the Iraqi people? I loathe the way the word and concept of freedom has been co-opted and turned into a buzz word by Bush, his puppetmasters and fawning media syncophants. "Freedom" to them means "America: right or wrong".

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Exhibit A: FoxNews. A totally biased, subsidised media firm would be fine by you if it peddled views you agreed with. Don't even try to pretend you have any real interest in objectivity or fairness, any more than the Coulter's, O'Reilly's, Limbaugh's and other right-wing syncophants (who, curiously enough, seem to do fairly well in spite of the alleged "left wing" bias in the media) do.

Click. That's interesting. I'd like to see a debate between Clark and Bush: the war hero versus the draft dodger. That said, I'm no great fan of Clark, but it adds an interesting new element to the race. Personally, I'd rather he joined with Dean. Regardless of the arrangement, though, one thing is certain: Bushco must go.

Good. keep your superstisions to yourself. It cuts both ways. Keep the two spheres as far apart as possible (does anyone want a U.S. Christian theocracy?) People should be (and are) allowed to practice their private beliefs, but the line should be drawn at pushing religion onto others through prayer in schools, etc.

If Arafat dies at the hands of Israel, I wonder if we would see Sharon go speeding down to hell after him: one war criminal for another. That said, killing Arafat will indeed stiffen the resolve of Palistinian militant groups. Which, I fear, is exactly what the Likudniks want: not peace, but a rising tide of bloodshed that will allow them to advance their agenda on the backs of innocent Israelis and Palestinians alike.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been a guiding principal of U.S. foreign policy for decades. Osama is a prime example, Saddam Hussein another. It's a policy which continues today, which means the U.S. will be in the business of bumping off former clients for decades to come. Obviously, you don't see the inconsistancy between those statements. Terrorists come from the ranks of those you write off as "being unsympathetic to you". Thus, the war on terror will create more terrorists, which means your war will last forever. Is that what you want? Ah yes, they're just jealous. After all, why consider complexities such as foreign control over domestic resources, creeping cultural and religious imperialsim and so forth when you can just chalk it up to geo-political penis envy. The right's tendancy to consider simplistic solutions to complex problems never ceases to amuse. Sorry, but considering how many were killed by Saddam during his tenure as the U.S.'s errand boy and how many more died when George I bailed on the Iraqi uprising in '91, your statement rings a little less than sincere. Plus, I'm sure the Iraqis America has killed in this conflict are thankful they died at the hands of Americans instead of Saddam... You just don't get it: this war will never end.

The mantras and inanities I'll leave to you (seriously: you've repeated the same stock phrases- "we will never forgive and never forget", etc- so many times that I've lost count. Time to get a new schitck.) Your Toby Keith-nationalism and complete ignorance of intelligent discourse indicates you are totally unable to justify your country's course of action on a rational level and must therefore resort to Stone Age "eye for an eye" sentiments and macho posturing. Which is easy for you, I suppose, since you're not the one hunkered down in some foreign desert. All that bluster may make you feel like a tough guy, but it certainly doesn't lend any credibility to your position. Put another way: by crouching the debate in terms of a life or death, total war struggle between the U.S.A and a nebulous "other", you provide a justification for additional strikes against the U.S. population. Not that it matters to you. Just fall in line behind that flag and don't ask questions: just swear fealty to fatherla..oops, "homeland" and send someone else's sons to die so that you can feel good about yourself.

So dismissive. Yet the evidence is there for all to see. Contracts awarded without competition to th elikes of Cheney's former company Halliburton, corporate criminal World Com, G.O.P intimates in Betchel...the list goes on. Corporate Invasion. U.S. interventionism has long been driven by domestic business interests. That may run contrary to the version of history peddled in America, but it's right there in front of you. I can only chalk your reluctance to even consider the possibility that America's motives may be anything but pure as simple cognitive dissonance. One cannot draw a direct connection between terrorist attacks of 9-11 and U.S. actions in, say, Chile, but there is a common thread between them nonetheless. That thread is U.S realpolitik in foreign matters. Panama is a good example. Like Osama bin Laden, Manuel Noreiga was a CIA creation that happened to slip his leash. Ditto Saddam Hussein (the original Ba'athist coup was CIA-backed and, as everyone knows by now, Sadddam was an American client right up till the invasion of Kuwait.) By examining these events in a historical context, we can see how U.S. foreign policy can create monsters that often turn on their masters. While OBL's list of grievences with the west may stretch back to the time of Saladin, a historical analysis demonstrates how U.S. foreign policy as practiced over the past century and a half can give rise to terrorists and so-called "rouge states". This is not, as some would wish to paint it, "blaming the victim" but simply establishing a historical context that is generally lacking in today's discourse.

There have been studies on the effects of the full moon and behavior. there's been no correlation found, so it's likely that "full moon fever" (apologies to Tom Petty) is a byproduct of supersition and urban legend. They are out there, but most governments and corporations are so enraptured with either being pro-growth (apparently for its own sake) and making a quick buck that sustainability falls by the way side. Consider the current measure of economic well-being, the GDP. GDP is a straight-up measure of economic activity that does not consider the costs. We need to change how we measure growth in order to reflect the costs to ourselves, our society and the environment. We're running a environmental defecit due to mass consumtion and waste that is putting us in an increasingly untneable position.

Snerk! Apparently teh government is the root of all evil...unless you need to use it as a club for your own brand of morality... Given the realities of today's mass media and the messages therein, comprehensive sex education is the only way to address teen sexual problems. We can't shut our eyes and hope for the best Well actually teens as young as 14 do have the "right" to have sex in the sense that it's not illegal for them to engage in consenual sexual activities. Whether or not that's too young is not an argument I want to address right now. That said, I agree the hyper-sexualized media environment is a big contributor to the sexual confusion that racks young people today. But isn't that just the free-market in action? I mean, since sex sells (and it's being used to sell to younger and younger kids), I would expect the conservative cohort to be OK with that. Caveat emptor and all that. Good for them. Kids need to be educated about their options and given real information on sex. Simply expecting them not do do it isn't going to work. If I were a parent, I'd be less concerned about the possibility of my kid being sexually active if they actually knew to use condoms. Actually, I'd klike to hear what other sex-ed ideas you might have Hugo (seriously; not trying to be confrontational or anything).

Bush Jr: -Got into two Ivy League schools soley on the basis of his family connections (his grades wouldn't have cut it) -Dodged Vietnam by joining the "champaign division" of the ANG; subsequently went AWOL for 18 months. -allowed 9-11 to happen - lied to America about Iraq's WMD capabilites - was convicted for drunk driving and public mischief and allegedly arrested for cocaine possession. And so on. No, not all Democrats are geniuses (I don't care for that party; they're just Republican-Lite), but I've heard farts that are more articulate than Georgie W.

First: there's no correlation between how much money one makes and how hard one must work. Second, I've said before that the tax system needs to be fixed so that the folks who own most of the wealth pay their share so that people who actually do work hard-small business owners, lower and middle income earners-can actually get ahead. For starters this reeks of "straw man" from miles away. I also fail to see how someone scraping $500 a month off the system constitues such agreat threat to society, especially considering that only a fraction of welfare recipients are actually "welfare bums." So? Sounds like Bush is still your kinda boy. Uh, let's see the Supreme Court justices who ruled in his favor were apointees of his dad or Reagan, the mainstream media is owned by major corporations who also happen to give very generously to the G.O.P (example: NBC is owned by G.E., which is also the largest defense contractors in the country), while non-mainstream reporters (such as Greg Palast) have done great work on exposing the fraud of the 2000 election. It's not like we're talking big backroom conspiracy stuff: just old-fashioned partisan realpolitik where power is the only thing that matters and the ends more than justify the means. No I don't. Why can't one can call for social justice and equality for women in both Afgahnistan and the U.S.A? I guaran-damn-tee that the same groups who want affirmative action and greater gender equality here were fighting for the women of Afghanistan long befor eyou and your ilk decided to make them your cause du jour. My apologies for the accident of birth that made me a white, middle-class Canadian instead of a tribesman in Sub Saharan Africa. All things being equal, I would expect that, given your position on terrorism and radical Islam, that you are currently posting from a foxhole near Baghdad. I'm certain that's not the case. Once you get out and actually put your money where your mouth is and put your ass in the line of fire, get back to me. I've said before that the Canadian Health care system has problems (problems stemming from years of ideologically-based spending cuts and downsizing). But I'd much rather have our system than the State's non-system. Sept. 25, 2002: DEA Raids California hospice. Link. One last thing. Why don't you take your assumptions, your smug superiority and your condescending attitude and shove 'em up your arse. Your clearly not as smart as you fancy yourself. If you were, you'd back up you rposition with facts instead of merely arguing by decree.

America should try dabbling in democracy, freedom of speech and religion, freedom of association, and respect for human life and dignity soemtime. Do you have any means of backing up your idealogically-driven drivel, or are making sweeping pronouncements the best you've got? 'cause I'd love to see how this country "punishes success and rewards...stupidity." I mean, considering th eintellectual capacity of your president, it seems that laziness and stupidity are means to acheving the highest post in the land (well, those plus a well-connected daddy). But I digress. What the (sorry, Greg) fuck do you know about my knowledge of the world? Ha!Groups like RAWA, Amnesty International and so forth were calling attention to the atrocities committed against women in Afghanistan long before 9-11. Oddly enough, the same right wingers who trumpeted women's rights as an excuse to undertake military action in Afghanistan were the same ones passing millions to the Taliban to keep heroin production down while turning a blind eye to huiman rights abuses. Spare me your crocodile tears for the women of that broken nation. The Taliban may be gone but women are still being treated as chattel, still subject to gang rapes, forced circumcision and more. So, America is better than a third-world totalitarian dicttorship? Wow, way to shoot for the stars, buddy. And how many U.S.Americians die "against their will" because they can't afford basic medical care or access to life-saving perscription drugs? How many die of malnutrition? Besides which, where did I mention Holland? You're losing it. Nice straw man. Who was "applauding...misery and indignity"? Hardly the same thing as questioning the wisdom of policies that lead to heavily armed DEA agent sroughing up old ladies in wheel chairs for smoking medicinal marijuana. Besides, alcohol is the cause of a myriad of social ills, yet is perfectly legal.... Distortions and straw men seem to be your stock in trade.

Gee, why didn't someone think of that before? I mean, teenagers always listen when others, especially authority figures, tell them what to do.

Oh brother. It's time the United States, hiding behind archaic notions of nationalism and myths of cultural superiority, took off it's blinders and earplugs and joined the rest of the world. The war on terror will be long, expensive, difficult and, ultimately, unwinnable. Time to stop the bull-in-a-china-shop unilateralism and get engaged. Time to stop with the fatuous nonsense of U.S. superiority- a country with a bloated, over-subsidized military, huge gaps in standards of living, draconian and repressive drug policies and a corrupt, inefficient health care system that leaves millions without access to basic medical care has little to chirp about. I can do this all day.

Nooo. I'm saying the 800 lb gorilla can only lie down in so many places before it can expect to be challenged. Thus has it ever been with Empires, yet you seem to think America is an innocent dragged into a war with an entire race of people. Nothing exists in a vaccum. Doe sthat excuse or justify terrorist actions? No, but context is important. As for your final comment, I challenge you to find any reference to the Jewish people in anything I've written. Your thinly veiled accusations of anti-Semetism are a sure sign that you're slipping. :angry: Oh, and I've never read marx. I'm a social democrat.

Please. American news outlets did their damndest to hide the "reality of war" from viewers. The war, like its predecessor, was cast as a video game (I remember watching with disgust as, on the first day of ground operations, CNN kept showing computer animated graphics of U.S. military hardware. They reminded me of trading cards. "I'll trade yopu a Bradley fighting vehicle for a MOAB.") Where were the mangled, bloody bodies, the charred remains of Iraqi conscripts? The last thing the U.S. wants is people to see the true face of war. If they did, no one would want to fight. (Is it any wonder though, since the men who forced this war never served their country?)