4 years later

[pentha.livejournal.com]

Comments

[desidono.livejournal.com]

Brilliant.

[homais.livejournal.com]

Some of these are decontextualized enough that I'm not sure if they were really as myopic as they seem, and there are too many ellipses for my tastes, but damn that Fred Barnes quote is dumb, no matter how you spin or contextualize it it. It's a good thing I didn't have much respect for him, or else I would have lost it.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[sorry, LJ is being difficult; test comments in my journal work, let's see how this goes...]

Provide context, please.

[sunpony.livejournal.com]

It might make some of these comments seem less damning, but one thing that this cartoon points to is an overall attitude of delusion and propagandizing. Not sure how much of that can be ameliorated by context. . . .

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Google is your friend. The names, dates, and venues are given.

If folks who want context find anything that seems to change the meaning of these quotes, they can provide it here.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

*shrug* The comic makes the point that these people are unrealistic nitwits, and if homais wants to make a counterpoint that context mitigates that to some degree then they can dig up the context. Just saying there may be context is not a counterpoint.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

My error, replying to you. I wasn't sure what you were saying with 'Provide context, please,' hence my "if folks..." construction.

Yes, it's homais who's making the claim about 'context,' and that's who should provide it.

[bearbugs.livejournal.com]

Silly far-right-wingers. Is it just me, or are they always bad at foresight?

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

except they're not all far-right wingers. some of them are liberals with bad foresight.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[mid-limbo.livejournal.com]

those fuckers.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Okay. All this is true. Lots of folk have egg all over their faces.
We still have a mess to clean up. And we still have to find the right way of doing that.
Recriminations can wait until afterwards, which is not to say that we forgive and forget.
The tu quoque 'yah boo' political posturing seems much more the preserve of those discredited by subsequent facts, rather than that of the position of those who had forethought.
Ideological victory is pyrrhic in these circumstances.

[i-muad-dib.livejournal.com]

Bullfuckingshit
Of course there is a mess to clean up. THEIR MESS.
Afterwards? People are dying right fucking now.
I say get these 11 pieces of shit an m16 and drop them in Baghdad so THEY can be used for target practice instead of some kid with a family from Kansas that just called home to tell that his tour has been extended.
Seriously. Shove it.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

It might be fun, but I don't think it would help any. Getting our troops out of there might stop them from being in the firing line, but doesn't do much for the actual situation for the ordinary people in Iraq. But I don't know what will.
I wouldn't start from here...but here is where we are. The whole thing's a fucking mess, but it's our mess, not 'theirs', because, like it or not, (which I don't) this stuff is what democracy is all about: if you vote in GWB you get GWB's policies and mistakes. If you didn't vote for him, of course you may disagree, but he's still the one in power.*
If you want to change the system, fine go ahead: I'm right behind you and can't wait for you to succeed.
And in some senses, perhaps you are right, but in the politics of the real world you're never going to be able to arraign GWB, are you?
So we'll keep on prosecuting and pillorying the small men, the runners, the ordinary soldiers, the people carrying out the policy: because we can never get the big guys, the ones who were the 'deciders'.
Pointless scapegoating, and as bad as the opposition, but at least it will give those that need it some vindication in the scapegoat's pain, and act as some collective contritional catharsis.
Same coin, different face.
My, aren't we the cool ones.


*If you're an Iraqi you didn't get to vote, then you are a victim, and have legitimate complaint, both against GWB and his policies, and the previous regime. But still, I can't see a court agreeing with you, for all the moral rightness of the case.

[i-muad-dib.livejournal.com]

Didn't I tell you to shove it?
No one needs a retelling of the facts or of the situation though calling it a consequence of democracy is a stretch at best and the system works fine but it is easily abused by less that scrupulous SOB's.
This is the consequence of an elaborate lie, perverted Democracy and manipulative media. It is unfortunate that heads will not roll. Desiring that they would does not imply ignorance of the fact that they won't. Liars. All of them.
Though anger serves no purpose, tepid "situationisms" do little to express what should be outrage.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Alas, it's what uncontrolled outrage does that worries me.

As for the system being fine and dandy: well that's an opinion I don't share, in fact, it seems to me that late capitalism looks a lot like the Roman republic in it's final phase, before Ceasar subsumed the Republic. But no doubt, on that we differ.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

History shows that any time someone else bails them out of the mess they make, they manage to evade accounting, and make a bigger mess the next time. They need to be nailed for it.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I'm cynical: it's not going to happen. The only guys who ever get thrown to the wolves in these cases are the bit-part players: this is also historically 'true' in many cases.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

So that the same people can't do the same thing again.

(Yes, I know you're making a joke on the ever-popular GOP "blame game" game, but what the heck.)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And you think no-one's ever going to do this sort of thing again...hahahaha.
I think otherwise.
I wish we could arrest our leaders. T Bleuch would be first on my list, followed by GWB, but my months (nay years) of apoplexy over this have only left me exhausted and secure in the knowledge that those people will get away with it.
However, we have to blame someone; and get angry at someone: even the folk on our own side advising restraint.

No wonder I'm cynical.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

"So that the same people can't do the same thing again." Success is not guaranteed, but that doesn't mean we should not try to make it harder to do it again. Similarly, they should be held to account so that someone else contemplating it might feel a twinge of thought that they might not get away with it.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

So that the same people can't do the same thing again."
True, beg y'pardon.
And of course I'd prefer that we weren't governed by such folk.
I seem however to be a minority of one in my opinion that the problem is systemic, and only folk that can get the backing and bankrolling of huge corporations and/or wealthy individuals will ever get elected.
Self elected, self-perpetuating, self-congratulatory, self interested tools of the corporations. But that's late capitalist democracy. The best system you can buy if you can afford it.
There are other forms of democracy, but they tend to get overlooked because they give more power to the electorate.

[desidono.livejournal.com]

The mess is not going to be cleaned up by GWB. His administration is not going to make this a success. If anything, his administration will perpetually make it worse and worse and worse. So we can either muddle through for another two years with the risk it gets worse or we can get the hell out of the way and pray that someone competent can make something work. Either option sucks ass.

[ccnuggie.livejournal.com]

O'reilly was right

the only thing is

he was talking about the iraqi military

[weswilson]

So you think he wasn't sure that once the Iraqi military was defeated that the military conflict would be over? Nobody on this list of pundits thought that the insurgency/civil war that we're experiencing now was even a remote possibility.

[ccnuggie.livejournal.com]

all quotes taken out of context

yay bias

You still troll here?

[desidono.livejournal.com]

What was the context they were taken out of?

Re: You still troll here?

[ccnuggie.livejournal.com]

you're the troll here

for some reason you have this homosexual infatuation with me that I find tiring

Re: You still troll here?

[desidono.livejournal.com]

And you /still/ can't answer questions with substance! Good on ya!

As for the other, go away and it won't be a problem anymore. You won't get tired and I won't be disgusted. Seems like a fair trade.

Re: You still troll here?

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Never mind, m'dear. Why ccnuggie should think you're hitting on him is beyond me. (Is that gun loaded or are you just pleased to see me?)

But honestly, isn't it about time folk had a look at the oligarchical nature of their 'Democracy'; the financing of candidates by business interests; and the fact that those business interests also control the media.
Because that's why you get folk like George Walker Bush elected.
Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar formed the first Triumvirate. After that failed...
Iacta Alea est.
As long as we have bread and circuses, I don't suppose most folk will be too bothered. We always look for excuses from the outside - someone else is to blame.
We all blindly accept the lies when they start. When they're proved to be lies we get upset and blame the liars. Get a grip, they're all politicians - lying is what they do for a living. Like PR.
Of course GWB lied, of course Hillary will lie, of course they're all funded by whom
I read recently that Barak Obama had managed to better Hillary's contributions, as if this was proof of fitness to govern. The more people are prepared to bribe you the more fit you are to govern... And just what favours does one have to return in order to get re-elected?
And we not only tolerate this, we turn it into a table showing who has recieved most donations from rich business interests, so we can work out who is leading the race.
The Potential Presidential Position is determined by dollar contributions.
Oligarchical control of democracy works because the electorate don't care.
If the electorate cared they'd do something about it. Hahahaha. Late Capitalist Democracy, don'tcha love it, shame only the very rich indeed can use it properly to further their interests.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

One of our problems is we deny our own culpability in all this mess. If more than half of the population of the country had voted in the last Presidential election things might have been different. En masse, we don't give a damn, until we need to, then we blame the mouthpieces, or the ordinary soldiers, or the simple folk told from above what to say (that they may pay their mortgages - such is wage slavery).
So we project our guilt (for our ignorance and our culpability) onto whomsoever.
Strange Fruit.
And it doesn't solve the problems. Just makes us feel better about ourselves, so we can ignore the problem again, because after Hillary or Barak, it will be another person funded by the giant corporations. And just like Bush or Clinton or Bush or Reagan, when you know who pays your check, you know who your friends are.
I wonder, technically speaking, are any late capitalist countries really democracies?
Or are they all just accepting of their circumstances and delusional?

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

You seem so, down and reading the replies you received earlier I can see why.

/sympathy

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Thank you for you courtesy, m'dear.
I hate the mob mentality when I see it: it often leads to someone being strung up from a tree. I hated it when I saw it from the right, I equally hate it when I see it from the left or the centre. There's no point in trying to sustain any political position's moral advantage if all sides are equally bonkers.
Some of us should be keeping clear heads. Perhaps the rational on the Left and Right should start setting examples.
As for me, I've got to the Pontius Pilate stage of the debate.
I'll send for a bowl of water and a towel.

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

I would ammmend you statement slightly

I hate the mob mentality when I see it: it often leads to someone being strung up from a tree. I hated it when I saw it from the right them, I equally hate it when I see it from the left or the centre us more. *

Not that I would ever put words in your mouth, but I feel this states it more clearly.

The corrosive and destructive power of Hate is limitless. It is well thought of as the darkside in each of us. I have been
thinking on this topic for a long time.

* hat tip to my teacher kip_w

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

My political position these days is acutely cynical. I am predisposed, because of my history, to the left, but I am too cynical to believe anything a polician from either the left or the right says. Which seems profoundly negative, so I try to adopt a middle-ground position, but one dependent upon morality and humanity rather than one of political bias. Fairness strikes me as appropriate, as does balance.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

sp politician rather than polician.

[readwriteblue.livejournal.com]

Cool Post and a thought provoking cartoon.

Do you have any links to the full text of the original statements?

[jimb.livejournal.com]

Neo-cons are the best people in the imaginary universe.

[j0kerr.livejournal.com]

All these quotes are taken out of context. Watch how easily it is done.

Example
"Taxation without representation!"

See our founding fathers wanted taxation without representation. It was there battle cry.


See how easily that was done. Now don't let your hate blind you. By the way, the label Neo-Con sounds cooler than Secular Progressive.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

And a Che Guevara (or an Uncle Adolph) picture makes a better T-shirt than a Dick Cheney one: but it don't change the substance.
The aptness of names doesn't change content. 'Dementia Praecox' sounds better than 'boring sanity'.

[j0kerr.livejournal.com]

OK, since

[j0kerr.livejournal.com]

Ok, Since you are too dumb to get that phrases can be taken out of context if they don't have a name attached to it, I'll try again in a way that you can understand.

Example,

"You know one thing that's wrong with this country? Everybody gets a chance to have their fair say."
-Bill Clinton

Do you get it now or is your hate for Republicans so great that you will never see that there is a possibility that the lines quoted were taken out of context. Please stop being dumb.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I wasn't commenting on either the context of the comments or the Republicans specifically (see above), merely your statement that Neo-Con sounds better than secular progressive. Mistake me if you will.

[j0kerr.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my bad.

My point about one name sounding better than the other was just to point out that by saying Neo-Con or Secular progressive it kinda puts the debate to a name calling contest. It just seems that Neo-Con is the phrase people use when they don't want to deal with what a Republican has said.

Maybe it was done horribly wrong, but that was the point.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

No problem.
As the courtesy you have shown in your reply indicates, you are evidently a person who thinks. Please allow me to add you as a friend.