Spurious attacks on Obama, what do you think? - Tilted Forum Project - TFP - Sexuality, Philosophy and Political Discussion

Amaras · 11-11-2008, 08:33 AM

So begins the silliness. Already a Republican Congressman has started with the flinging of random shit at Obama. What is it with these guys? I can understand disagreeing with his policies, or what he stands for, but this is propaganda of a cro-magnon brow nature.
Does anyone actually believe this stuff?

Here's the original link: Republican Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship - FOXNews.com Elections
WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship.

"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism."

Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy."

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force.

Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally.

"We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."

Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks.

How do you feel about these types of attacks?
Is there a grain of truth to what they say?
Does this add or subtract to the political debate?
Or is it solely done to muddy the waters, and reduce the effectiveness of Obama
BEFORE he even takes office.
Is this type of attack primarily from the Republican side of the fence?
Republicans/righties, how does this make you guys feel?

roachboy · 11-11-2008, 08:40 AM

this really is not about the world that other people know about: it's more a symptom of the situation in which the republicans now find themselves:

Quote:

Sparring Starts as Republicans Ponder Future
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON — One week after the Republicans were routed in the presidential election, the fight is on over who will be the new leaders of the party. Republicans are debating how to position themselves ideologically and how aggressively to take on President-elect Barack Obama.

The competition to fill the vacuum left by Senator John McCain’s defeat — and by the unpopularity of President Bush as he prepares to leave office — will be on full display at a Republican Governors Association meeting beginning Wednesday in Miami.

The session will showcase a roster of governors positioning themselves as leaders or future presidential candidates, including Sarah Palin of Alaska, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Charlie Crist of Florida, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

At the same time, Republicans representing diverse views about the party’s direction are preparing to fight for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, a prominent post when the party is out of the White House. The current chairman, Mike Duncan, has signaled that he wants to stay on after his term expires in January, but he is facing challenges from leaders in Florida, Mississippi and South Carolina, among other states.

Mr. Duncan was installed by Mr. Bush, and the fight over his post reflects the effort by many party leaders to erase any remnant of the Bush legacy.

These struggles come as the party prepares for a broad ideological battle, in particular over how much to emphasize social issues like opposition to abortion rights and gay rights. Party leaders said the focus on those issues had constricted the party’s appeal to moderate and independent voters more interested in jobs, health care, education and other issues that touch their lives in more concrete ways.

“We can’t be obsessed with issues that are not the issues that are important to American voters,” said Jim Greer, the Florida Republican chairman and a likely candidate for national party leader.

Across the party, Republicans described this period as one of the toughest in recent history, reflected by the scope of the losses last Tuesday but also by the recriminations that have gripped the party as it seeks to learn lessons from Mr. McCain’s defeat and Mr. Bush’s presidency.

“I hope we are going to stop the infighting and the backbiting and move forward as a party,” said Katon Dawson, the South Carolina chairman, who is a potential candidate for party chairman. “There’s anger about losing the majorities in 2006 and losing the White House and suffering a political tsunami of proportions that are very resemblant of the 1992 election. But that is what encourages me. America often takes a step back and sees the other side.”

This is hardly the first party to have been left sapped and divided by a losing presidential campaign. But the scale of the party’s difficulties appears particularly daunting as the Bush era seems to be ending and no obvious leader is waiting in the wings.

“We need to be honest about the level of failure for the past eight years and why Republican government didn’t succeed,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who has played an increasingly assertive role in the debate over the party’s future. “Otherwise, we’ll get back in power again and do the same things again.”

In another year, Mr. McCain might have continued to lead the Republicans through this interim period. But he has never been particularly well-liked in his party, and his standing was seriously eroded by a campaign that was widely criticized as inept.

Ms. Palin inspired a wave of enthusiasm from social conservatives when Mr. McCain named her as his running mate, and she has signaled that she intends to remain an influential voice in the party. But she has been forced in recent days to defend herself from criticism by unnamed McCain aides and from polls suggesting that she had hurt Mr. McCain more than she helped him.

The extent of her interest in repairing her image and moving to the front of the line was reflected in the series of interviews she has done and her full schedule of public appearances in Miami.

The vacuum seems unlikely to be filled on Capitol Hill, where Republicans suffered losses last week. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House minority leader, and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader, were weakened as they oversaw losses in their conferences. Both have always been more inside players than the kind of politicians who could lead a dispirited party through a difficult time.

But as part of the ideological struggles, some members of a new generation of Republicans, like Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, are in leadership positions that could give them a chance to reinvigorate the party and update the image of the conservative movement.

The most important question for Republicans in both the House and the Senate — and for the future Republican chairman — is how forcefully to take on Mr. Obama once he becomes president. Richard N. Bond, a former Republican chairman, said he thought the Congressional Republicans would — and should — take on Mr. Obama aggressively. Mr. Bond suggested that Republicans should not be deterred by the enthusiasm inspired by Mr. Obama’s election, which he argued would be transitory.

“When people wake up from their Bush hangovers, six months from now,” Mr. Bond said, “it is my belief that they are not going to be buying into some of the things that Obama will potentially be doing. You have a real potential for these guys making a fundamental misjudgment of this election. They just didn’t want George Bush anymore.”

But Mr. Gingrich, a veteran of what turned out to be damaging Republican wars with President Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1994, cautioned against that, saying the party would be wiser to offer a broad idea of what it stood for and how it would lead the country, and pick its battles carefully.

“I think the party should be very selective,” he said. “We’ve had an election. The new president and his family should be in our prayers. We should give every indication that we will work with him when we can. But we should be comfortable disagreeing with him when we have to.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/us...repubs.html?hp

i would expect period issuances of such gunk as this internal debate unfolds. it's the populist zanies who are in the most immediate danger, so they can be seen as a particularly busy sector for dissociative pronouncements as their ship sinks---or doesn't as the case may end up being.

Baraka_Guru · 11-11-2008, 08:41 AM

I think roachboy is right (has been right) about what's happening to the Republicans, and I think the byproducts, symptoms, and problems are gross. Let's hope the ultimate outcome isn't as unsavoury.

I can't believe this guy actually Godwined the media.

This is a classic slippery-slope fallacy.

I think this congressman is an idiot.

If he isn't an idiot, then he's a propagandist.

Didn't the Nazis and Communists use propaganda?

Who's the fascist now, my friend?

guccilvr · 11-11-2008, 08:41 AM

well.. in all honesty.. it's never too early for the right to be thinking about 2012.

that's the only reasoning I can come up with when these type of statements are made.

lotsofmagnets · 11-11-2008, 09:19 AM

it´s just more of the same. i saw a lot of these sorts of attacks made by all sorts of politicians back in australia.

shakran · 11-11-2008, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by guccilvr

well.. in all honesty.. it's never too early for the right to be thinking about 2012.

that's the only reasoning I can come up with when these type of statements are made.

Sadly the public will probably not remember what this little jackass said when he's up for reelection.

But we have to remember that this, rather than governing, is what the republicans are best at. They're lousy as hell when they're actually in power, but they tend to be very good at hampering and harassing when they're not. I expect an all out republican assault on Obama and the congressional democrats for the next four years. It's what they did with Clinton. I just hope (and I have a feeling it is not unwarranted hope) that Obama is a lot better at . . keeping it in his pants. . .than Billy boy was. The republicans had a wonderful time launching an all out assault on Clinton over his marital infidelities (which made it especially ironic that they ran McCain this time around) - it would be nice if that little bit of ammunition were not available for their arsenal this time around, because the rest of it (they're driving us to economic ruin, they're taking your rights away, and they're... Nazis) will make them, especially in light of the W administration, look rather foolish.

abaya · 11-11-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baraka_Guru

I think the byproducts, symptoms, and problems are gross.

That's a polite word for it. It's more than alarming that some people actually take this bullshit to be *reality*, though.

It disconcerts me how the Republicans are already scheming out their plan of "attack" to take back power, before Obama has even been sworn in. As if this country has nothing better to do than sit through another 2+ years of clusterfucked campaigning between The Two Parties, and actually convince themselves that this is how Things Should Always Be. As if no one else in this country cares about actually working TOGETHER, and not alienating the other party (in the way that Bush's 8 years have done) and everyone else. It sickens me.

It's so difficult to imagine how the US is going to evolve into a system that has more to offer its citizens. I look around here at the Icelandic 6-party system (in a nation of 300,000 people), and stand amazed that it has been able to come up with this in just 64 years as an independent nation. There are a lot of things wrong with Iceland, but I believe that their more diverse political system has many lessons for us as Americans.

Amaras · 11-11-2008, 09:41 AM

I wonder what those who voted for McCain think?

filtherton · 11-11-2008, 09:43 AM

He's just speaking for the people who voted for him. One can only hope that they keep it up. People seemed to overwhelmingly reject this type of thing last Tuesday.

Derwood · 11-11-2008, 10:10 AM

idiots like this make me yearn for term limits

Poppinjay · 11-11-2008, 11:10 AM

Jeb Bush had a good line, about the GOP being kind of stupid wondering why they lost when they campaigned almost solely about what they were against, which seemed to be health care, the environment, young people, hispanics....

The GOP is deeply split right now. There are some die hard take it to the grave right wingers who are increasingly going to give the GOP a bad name. Then there's the crunchy cons who actually have a real chance to take over the party.

Ah, here's Jeb's quote:

"Conservatives need to do the math.
We can’t be anti-Hispanic, anti-young
person and anti many things and be
surprised when we don’t win elections."

Then there's the John Derbyshire faction:

"This shallow, ignorant, self-obsessed man, who held an actual job for just one year
of his charmed life, this red-diaper baby and his wife, will be our First Couple for the
next four years and some weeks. It’ll be interesting."

Please, oh please keep it up. As long as these idiots are the larger faction of the GOP, democrats will sit pretty.

genuinegirly · 11-11-2008, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grolsch

Does anyone actually believe this stuff?

Yes. My parents-in-law believe it. This article was printed out and placed in a prominent place in the middle of the breakfast table for in-depth conversation among all family members today (have I mentioned I don't enjoy living here?). They are concerned about losing their freedoms with Obama in office. They see him as a hard-core communist and closet terrorist because of certain political affiliations. They are afraid of losing their arsenal of legal, registered guns. They are bothered by the idea of a national healthcare system, and view many of Obama's remarks about ceasing offshore drilling as hair-brained and naive. I could go on, but you get the point.

abaya · 11-11-2008, 01:09 PM

GG, in your honest opinion, what do you think is behind their beliefs?

For me, all I can see when I read about people who believe that stuff is FEAR. Loads and loads and loads of it. I don't know if it's race-based fear, or if it extends much further than that into all kinds of other paranoia, but it all strikes me as extraordinarily unproductive.

genuinegirly · 11-11-2008, 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abaya

GG, in your honest opinion, what do you think is behind their beliefs? ...I don't know if it's race-based fear...

Well, they have close friends that fit into the entire range of different ethnic heritages, so there's definitely no race-based fear in their case.

I honestly don't know what is behind their beliefs. It is not religion, as the local parish that they're actively involved with is pro-Obama. Perhaps it's all about their background. Fa-in-law is a Veteran and a lawyer. He has very firm opinions on everything. Mo-in-law is just as opinionated but more violent with her opinions. It is not uncommon for her to get into screaming matches when it comes to religion or politics. She is exceptionally conservative in some respects, but in others she's progressive (animal rights, for instance). They have traveled extensively with the service and on their own. They firmly believe in democracy and see the constitution as sacro-sanct. They feel strongly that any form of socialism undermines individuality and is a threat to their way of life. They see things as black and white, true or false, entirely good or entirely evil. Very few of their relatives and friends share their extreme perspectives.

Baraka_Guru · 11-11-2008, 02:22 PM

Does she know socialism is responsible for universal suffrage?

shakran · 11-11-2008, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by genuinegirly

They feel strongly that any form of socialism undermines individuality and is a threat to their way of life.

Next time they say that, if you want to have a little fun, point to their car and ask them how they can live with themselves driving on the american socialist street network.

The_Dunedan · 11-11-2008, 09:44 PM

The Fear.

Wanna know where it comes from?

Take a good, long, hard look in the mirror. Because chances are, you've been part of it. I have too. And here's what The Fear is.

The Fear is the fact that everywhere rural, religious, individualist people look, they see a sneering mob of Others, of people who don't speak their language or hold their values or understand the world in the way they do. These Others act and perceive the world in ways which people afflicted with The Fear regard as crazy, or perhaps more accurately as incoherent, indescribable, inconsistent, and crazy. The Others hold all the power; they control the media, the Government, most of the everyday bureaucracy of life, and their consistent message is this:

You, your culture, your way of life, and everything you value will be eradicated. You are backwards, superstitious, left-behind relics of an irredeemable past, practitioners of a useless, pointless, and socially unacceptable way of life. Your culture, your values, and your ideals and properties and persons if needed, will be destroyed for the Greater Good. Your children will grow up inculcated with ideas and modes of thought that are alien to you in every way, your way of life will die and be forgotten. You and your people will cease to be. Die now and despair.

The thing is, The Fear is universal. Non-religious people feel it, pacifists do too, because the message which creates The Fear is literally everywhere in this society. From the "Cops Always Win" dramas on cable TV to the sneering faces of leftist newspaper columnists to the truly idiotic attacks one routinely sees posted on internet bulletin boards, the message is omnipresent and hyperconsistent. The Collective will always win, The Collective is always right, and if you do not submit, The Collective will crush you utterly. People with The Fear are in a minority, and they know it. They fear annihilation, not only in body but in spirit, on a very visceral level. Many of them have spent the last 8 years fuming and spewing damnations of the Bush regime, knowing that Bush was winning for The Collective powers that would one day be used...and now they see their ultimate horror, the hardest-left Collectivist in the legislature not only elected President, but elected President just as all the kinks in the PATRIOT ACT and it's excrementitious progeny were being ironed out. They see The Others looming over them, not only motivated but now empowered as well to utterly obliterate them and their way of life. Believe it or not, a lot of these people are very intelligent. Most, in my experience. They know what happened to the Native American Indians, and that's what they see on their horizons.

Fix that notion in your minds. They perceive the imminent, total destruction of their entire culture, on a scale of totality and ferocity not seen since the Indian Wars. They see themselves at Wounded Knee and Sand Creek and Waco, and they see no distinction between the three. They may have a point. None of the High Society Ladies back in New York, the ones who donated money to "Christianize the savages" had to get her hands bloody, that's what the Bluecoats were for. And none of the High Society Ladies who drive what these people see as a similar crusade will have to get their hands bloody either, between Blackwater and Obama's "domestic security force."

You wanted to know where The Fear comes from. There it is. It comes from fear of total destruction, the fear that can only come when that destruction is gloated over on national television. This kind of fear makes people a little crazy sometimes, and a little stupid a lot of the time. People under stresses like that will believe a lot of silly stuff, especially if that silly stuff has roots in fact. I spent this entire election season seething because, as I put it to a friend, "there are enough legitimate reasons to dislike Obama with making this silly shit up." But this silly shit sticks for a reason.

genuinegirly · 11-11-2008, 09:49 PM

Dunedan, excellent post. You have given me much to think about.

filtherton · 11-11-2008, 11:16 PM

The funny thing about The Fear, is that people who experience The Fear generally have few qualms with forcing other people to experience it too.

For what its worth, The Fear is also what motivated a lot of people to vote for Obama.

Charlatan · 11-12-2008, 01:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by filtherton

The funny thing about The Fear, is that people who experience The Fear generally have few qualms with forcing other people to experience it too.

For what its worth, The Fear is also what motivated a lot of people to vote for Obama.

Very true.

dc_dux · 11-12-2008, 06:03 AM

There will always be fear of government. There are fears and then there are FEARS!

There were FEARS that Bush was creating displacement camps and would round up citizens under the Patriot Act or that he would find a way to cancel the recent election.

The FEARS that Obama will take the US down the road to socialism are equally ludicrous even as they continue to be fueled by partisan infotainment radio.

My fear is that the expectations for Obama are so high that they are impossible to meet and will lead to disenchantment among those who want change and want it now.
-----Added 12/11/2008 at 08 : 07 : 32-----
The Washington Post has an interesting analysis that looks at presidential "breakthrough ideas"

Quote:

President-elect Barack Obama is currently mulling one of the largest legislative agendas in modern history. He promised it, and the public expects it. But if the past is prologue, his agenda is likely to be one of the smallest since the 1960s.

Obama's problem in going big is not just a lack of money, though interest payments on the nation's $10.5 trillion debt will soon come to rival the Social Security program in annual costs. Nor is it pent-up demand on Capitol Hill, though House and Senate leaders are well ahead of Obama in setting next year's agenda.

Rather, there is simply less room in government for the kind of breakthrough ideas that Obama has promised. He is not just in charge of all things new; he is also the caretaker of all things old. As the grand legislative achievements of the past continue to rust, presidents have become more repairmen than reformers

The president's agenda began shrinking as soon as Lyndon Johnson left office in 1969. Every Democratic president since Johnson has sent fewer major proposals to Congress, just as every Republican president since Richard Nixon has done the same.

The trend is easy to spot in the legislative messages and State of the Union addresses in the first terms of the last seven presidents. Whereas Johnson sent 91 major domestic/economic proposals to Congress during his only full term, Jimmy Carter sent 41 and Bill Clinton sent just 33. Whereas Nixon sent 40 major proposals to Congress during his first term, Ronald Reagan sent 29, George H.W. Bush sent 23 and President Bush sent just 18....

....Notwithstanding the constraints imposed by the national debt and congressional entrepreneurship, the shrinking agenda reflects three significant changes in how presidents set the agenda.

First, presidents can no longer rely on the Senate to incubate new ideas well in advance of Inauguration Day. The Senate long ago lost its reputation as the anvil on which great compromises are forged. With every senator an entrepreneur, legislative proposals are rarely ready for the president's adoption. Whereas Johnson adopted dozens of polished proposals from the Senate he once led, Obama will have trouble finding more than a handful.

Second, presidents can no longer rely on the federal government to faithfully execute the laws. The thin, agile government that drew so many young Americans to public service in the 1960s has become a sluggish shell in which risk-taking is punished, time on the job is rewarded, and political appointees are free to meddle as they wish. Without aggressive reform, which would itself be a breakthrough idea, the federal government simply cannot honor the promises Obama makes.

Third, presidents are still part of a system that protects the status quo. No matter how hard he tries, Obama will end up appointing an administration composed of insiders. They may not be registered lobbyists in the narrow definition of the term, but they will know lobbying. Roughly two-thirds will live inside the Beltway, many will come from congressional staffs and K Street law firms, and a substantial number will take significant pay cuts to join the administration. Obama must make sure that his team shares his commitment to change....

Less Room for Breakthrough Ideas

11-11-2008, 08:33 AM	#1 (permalink)
Amaras Addict Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: At my daughter's beck and call.	Spurious attacks on Obama, what do you think? So begins the silliness. Already a Republican Congressman has started with the flinging of random shit at Obama. What is it with these guys? I can understand disagreeing with his policies, or what he stands for, but this is propaganda of a cro-magnon brow nature. Does anyone actually believe this stuff? Here's the original link: Republican Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship - FOXNews.com Elections WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. "It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he's the one who proposed this national security force," Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. "I'm just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may -- may not, I hope not -- but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism." Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military. "That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist." Obama's comments about a national security force came during a speech in Colorado about building a new civil service corps. Among other things, he called for expanding the nation's foreign service and doubling the size of the Peace Corps "to renew our diplomacy." "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set," Obama said in July. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Broun said he also believes Obama likely will move to ban gun ownership if he does build a national police force. Obama has said he respects the Second Amendment right to bear arms and favors "common sense" gun laws. Gun rights advocates interpret that as meaning he'll at least enact curbs on ownership of assault weapons and concealed weapons. As an Illinois state lawmaker, Obama supported a ban on semiautomatic weapons and tighter restrictions on firearms generally. "We can't be lulled into complacency," Broun said. "You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential." Obama's transition office did not respond immediately to Broun's remarks. How do you feel about these types of attacks? Is there a grain of truth to what they say? Does this add or subtract to the political debate? Or is it solely done to muddy the waters, and reduce the effectiveness of Obama BEFORE he even takes office. Is this type of attack primarily from the Republican side of the fence? Republicans/righties, how does this make you guys feel? __________________ Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. -Noam Chomsky Love is a verb, not a noun. -My Mom The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later. -Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928

11-11-2008, 08:41 AM	#3 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru In the 6th percentile Moderator Join Date: May 2006 Location: Toronto	I think roachboy is right (has been right) about what's happening to the Republicans, and I think the byproducts, symptoms, and problems are gross. Let's hope the ultimate outcome isn't as unsavoury. I can't believe this guy actually Godwined the media. This is a classic slippery-slope fallacy. I think this congressman is an idiot. If he isn't an idiot, then he's a propagandist. Didn't the Nazis and Communists use propaganda? Who's the fascist now, my friend? __________________ Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men. —Leonardo da Vinci Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —"Burnt Norton," Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 11-11-2008 at 08:44 AM..

11-11-2008, 08:41 AM	#4 (permalink)
guccilvr Scouse Free Super Moderator Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: NC USA	well.. in all honesty.. it's never too early for the right to be thinking about 2012. that's the only reasoning I can come up with when these type of statements are made. __________________ We've seen planes in the windows of buildings crumbled in We've seen flames send the chills through London And we've sent planes to kill them and some of them were children But still we crumbling the building Underfunded but we still don't understand Under God but we kill like the son of Sam ~flowbots~ Have a question about TFP in General? CLICK THIS

11-11-2008, 09:19 AM	#5 (permalink)
lotsofmagnets Upright Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: reykjavík, iceland	it´s just more of the same. i saw a lot of these sorts of attacks made by all sorts of politicians back in australia. __________________ mother nature made the aeroplane, and the submarine sandwich, with the steady hands and dead eye of a remarkable sculptor. she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron. physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

11-11-2008, 09:41 AM	#8 (permalink)
Amaras Addict Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: At my daughter's beck and call.	I wonder what those who voted for McCain think? __________________ Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. -Noam Chomsky Love is a verb, not a noun. -My Mom The function of genius is to furnish cretins with ideas twenty years later. -Louis Aragon, "La Porte-plume," Traite du style, 1928

11-11-2008, 09:43 AM	#9 (permalink)
filtherton A poor man's version of a rich man. Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: In the land of ice and snow.	He's just speaking for the people who voted for him. One can only hope that they keep it up. People seemed to overwhelmingly reject this type of thing last Tuesday.

11-11-2008, 10:10 AM	#10 (permalink)
Derwood Who You Crappin? Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Everywhere and Nowhere	idiots like this make me yearn for term limits

11-11-2008, 11:10 AM	#11 (permalink)
Poppinjay You had me at hello Join Date: May 2004 Location: DC/Coastal VA	Jeb Bush had a good line, about the GOP being kind of stupid wondering why they lost when they campaigned almost solely about what they were against, which seemed to be health care, the environment, young people, hispanics.... The GOP is deeply split right now. There are some die hard take it to the grave right wingers who are increasingly going to give the GOP a bad name. Then there's the crunchy cons who actually have a real chance to take over the party. Ah, here's Jeb's quote: "Conservatives need to do the math. We can’t be anti-Hispanic, anti-young person and anti many things and be surprised when we don’t win elections." Then there's the John Derbyshire faction: "This shallow, ignorant, self-obsessed man, who held an actual job for just one year of his charmed life, this red-diaper baby and his wife, will be our First Couple for the next four years and some weeks. It’ll be interesting." Please, oh please keep it up. As long as these idiots are the larger faction of the GOP, democrats will sit pretty. __________________ I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

11-11-2008, 01:09 PM	#13 (permalink)
abaya Moderator Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Iceland	GG, in your honest opinion, what do you think is behind their beliefs? For me, all I can see when I read about people who believe that stuff is FEAR. Loads and loads and loads of it. I don't know if it's race-based fear, or if it extends much further than that into all kinds of other paranoia, but it all strikes me as extraordinarily unproductive. __________________ And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran

11-11-2008, 02:22 PM	#15 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru In the 6th percentile Moderator Join Date: May 2006 Location: Toronto	Does she know socialism is responsible for universal suffrage? __________________ Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men. —Leonardo da Vinci Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —"Burnt Norton," Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot

11-11-2008, 09:44 PM	#17 (permalink)
The_Dunedan Addict Join Date: Jul 2003	The Fear. Wanna know where it comes from? Take a good, long, hard look in the mirror. Because chances are, you've been part of it. I have too. And here's what The Fear is. The Fear is the fact that everywhere rural, religious, individualist people look, they see a sneering mob of Others, of people who don't speak their language or hold their values or understand the world in the way they do. These Others act and perceive the world in ways which people afflicted with The Fear regard as crazy, or perhaps more accurately as incoherent, indescribable, inconsistent, and crazy. The Others hold all the power; they control the media, the Government, most of the everyday bureaucracy of life, and their consistent message is this: You, your culture, your way of life, and everything you value will be eradicated. You are backwards, superstitious, left-behind relics of an irredeemable past, practitioners of a useless, pointless, and socially unacceptable way of life. Your culture, your values, and your ideals and properties and persons if needed, will be destroyed for the Greater Good. Your children will grow up inculcated with ideas and modes of thought that are alien to you in every way, your way of life will die and be forgotten. You and your people will cease to be. Die now and despair. The thing is, The Fear is universal. Non-religious people feel it, pacifists do too, because the message which creates The Fear is literally everywhere in this society. From the "Cops Always Win" dramas on cable TV to the sneering faces of leftist newspaper columnists to the truly idiotic attacks one routinely sees posted on internet bulletin boards, the message is omnipresent and hyperconsistent. The Collective will always win, The Collective is always right, and if you do not submit, The Collective will crush you utterly. People with The Fear are in a minority, and they know it. They fear annihilation, not only in body but in spirit, on a very visceral level. Many of them have spent the last 8 years fuming and spewing damnations of the Bush regime, knowing that Bush was winning for The Collective powers that would one day be used...and now they see their ultimate horror, the hardest-left Collectivist in the legislature not only elected President, but elected President just as all the kinks in the PATRIOT ACT and it's excrementitious progeny were being ironed out. They see The Others looming over them, not only motivated but now empowered as well to utterly obliterate them and their way of life. Believe it or not, a lot of these people are very intelligent. Most, in my experience. They know what happened to the Native American Indians, and that's what they see on their horizons. Fix that notion in your minds. They perceive the imminent, total destruction of their entire culture, on a scale of totality and ferocity not seen since the Indian Wars. They see themselves at Wounded Knee and Sand Creek and Waco, and they see no distinction between the three. They may have a point. None of the High Society Ladies back in New York, the ones who donated money to "Christianize the savages" had to get her hands bloody, that's what the Bluecoats were for. And none of the High Society Ladies who drive what these people see as a similar crusade will have to get their hands bloody either, between Blackwater and Obama's "domestic security force." You wanted to know where The Fear comes from. There it is. It comes from fear of total destruction, the fear that can only come when that destruction is gloated over on national television. This kind of fear makes people a little crazy sometimes, and a little stupid a lot of the time. People under stresses like that will believe a lot of silly stuff, especially if that silly stuff has roots in fact. I spent this entire election season seething because, as I put it to a friend, "there are enough legitimate reasons to dislike Obama with making this silly shit up." But this silly shit sticks for a reason.

11-11-2008, 09:49 PM	#18 (permalink)
genuinegirly Force-Strong Moderator Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: 805	Dunedan, excellent post. You have given me much to think about. __________________ "violence is no more or less real than non-violence. " roachboy

11-11-2008, 11:16 PM	#19 (permalink)
filtherton A poor man's version of a rich man. Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: In the land of ice and snow.	The funny thing about The Fear, is that people who experience The Fear generally have few qualms with forcing other people to experience it too. For what its worth, The Fear is also what motivated a lot of people to vote for Obama. Last edited by filtherton; 11-11-2008 at 11:18 PM..