|
|
|
Comment |
Sorted by
Date Written |
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Paul: The weather is clearing away; the sun is out again. We had quite a bout of rain -- which we always need in this semi-desert.
I have had a comment alert, but not for this one of yours.
I'll hope that any reading you do will be reported to me.
I'm still depressed, still trying to dig out of it.
Feeling a bit better today. Going with my son tonight to see COLOR ME KUBRICK. Maybe that will get me off the dime.
Alex
|
Feb 13 '07
9:35 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
And you so close to Brisbane,
I saw PACIFIC HEIGHTS (again) recently and it made me think of you out there in S.F. Also, I was watching the AT&T Pebble Beach Classic yesterday and watched as the weather closed in on the players late in the day.
I remembered the one time I played there about 16 years ago. It was a gorgeous day and gorgeous course and a guy I played with had a hole-in-one. He also had 3 birdies in a row on the front nine and four separate birdies on the back and everything else was par. While I was envious, I was just happy to be playing Pebble Beach.
I've been lucky to play golf 2 x in the last 2.5 years.
Oh well.
Paul
|
Feb 11 '07
12:16 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Paul: I have a hard time at the moment even imagining what Nikon D200 and D2Xs look like. I know they are cameras though, so go to it.
I'm really going to finish my review today.
Brisbane has given me my Epinions Alerts back (but I'm now sure about Comment Alerts). They had been sending them to the wrong address for over a year! Almost like being in the Army again.
Anyway, that's some kind of inspiration.
Alex
|
Feb 09 '07
1:05 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
I know how it is.
Can you believe that I can't seem to get started on two dSLR reviews for the Nikon D200 and D2Xs?
Paul
|
Feb 09 '07
11:34 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
By the end of the week, promise.
I really want to write about the "war" and the Constitutional situation at home, but I've written too much about that, and besides, I don't have the concentration at the moment to go for it.
I lost half a review yesterday. Have to hit the subject again and reconstruct it.
Thank you, Paul, for your concern.
Alex
|
Feb 07 '07
1:26 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
So, where are they?
|
Feb 06 '07
2:48 pm PST
|
|
Re: Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
You're right, Paul.
Events and conditions have discouraged me lately.
Thank you for the encouragement.
Alex
|
Jan 30 '07
11:59 am PST
|
|
Time to get back to work (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
for the both of us!
I have a couple of reviews in the works. How about you?
Paul
|
Jan 29 '07
6:22 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: off topic comment (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Paul: We've got to quit meeting like this.
If you don't like Scotch liquor . . . your call!
Any time you are in town.
Regards.
Alex
|
Jan 12 '07
2:02 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: off topic comment (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Alex,
You'd be wasting a good single malt on me, as I am not a scotch drinker. Quite candidly, I think it tastes like iodine to me.
Then again, I've heard that it is an "acquired taste."
Paul
|
Jan 12 '07
11:28 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: off topic comment (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
I got the message.
But I'm very caring of my Single Malts these days. A colleague gave me a bottle of The Dalwhinie, for my birthday, nearly four months ago, and I have only had a nip or two of it.
Another reason for you to stop by, should you come Frisco way.
Alex
|
Jan 11 '07
1:58 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: off topic comment (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Well Alex,
That WAS SUPPOSED to be part of the plan. For you to sample the wares, so to speak.
Paul
|
Jan 11 '07
9:48 am PST
|
|
Re: off topic comment (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Thanks, Paul. I shall go sample the reviews.
I would rather, though, sample the product.
For Auld Lang Syne.
Alex
|
Jan 09 '07
5:37 pm PST
|
|
off topic comment (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Alex,
POPSROCKS has some new reviews on scotch that you may want to check out.
Cheers,
Paul
|
Jan 09 '07
10:04 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: We tread a perilous path (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Paul: I think we should wind this discussion down, too.
But your personal observations of the Dutch soldiers, I thought, were most interesting. [The basis of an excellent book?]
I can only tell you that the textbooks and readings about French Post-War plans for their Empire stressed the concept of making the colonies part of France, perhaps along the lines of the then apparently successful [and not so bad] British Commonwealth of Nations, but the French idea was to bring the Moroccans, the Algerians, the Senegalese, the Mauritanians, etc, into their General Assembly. No doubt, even if the plan were seriously contemplated, like many Grand Designs, events and entrenched interests plutoed [hey, I got to use that neologism!] its realization.
I still don't think you quite make sense in your remarks about the German Prime Minister. Germany was and is a Christian country. That's what all those crosses, indeed the double crosses, in their heraldry were all about. If Angela Merkel were the President of the United States (something the Constitution would forbid -- but for arguments sake), she could not say: "The United States is a Christian Nation." She might finesse it with references to "God" or "may God Bless the United States" or "religious tolerance" or "our many religions which exist peacably, side by side," but she would be in for a challenge if she uttered her belief boldly and precisely on a regular basis. One of the blessings of America is the dozens of nutty religions we spawn or welcome. I happen to lean toward being "A Tree Worshiper," and Christ was not a tree (except in the original symbolism of his conception).
The insufferable assumption that we are a Christian Nation, since the election of Ronald Reagan, it seems to me, has increasingly gotten us into trouble in the World. I, for one, don't believe in Armageddon or Armageddonists, nor does the Constitution, no matter what our crazy present "enraptured" leaders may think in their Team B Cabal.
Another part of the Constitution's genius is that, without stating any belief system, it allows us to believe what we please so long as we do not force our beliefs on others. The Fundamentalists have a hard time with that, and their misapprehension may ultimately prove more dangerous than the plots of Extreme Islamists in the caves of the Tora Bora.
Paul, every basic article of the Constitution, every one of the Bill of Rights, affirms that we ARE both a Democracy and a Republic. As I've written, if you want to go back to an America of the late 18th Century, where only White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Male Property Owners (who can pay their poll taxes) are Citizens, so be it. But you live in a different America, the same America where the "uber-rich," you write of, would like to secure the exclusivity of your talents.
Democracy is what we have spent over two hundred years attempting to achieve, and it has never run in a straight, easy line. And the creaky Constitutional Republic is the engine carrying the Democracy where it is going.
Gradually, we have enfolded the landless, the immigrants, the people of color, the women, the exotic creeds, the poor and the paupers (like myself), and the wild cultural art forms. It has never been perfect, it has never been complete, it has been in a constant state of becoming, it has always been in danger (usually, more from within than from without), and the plantation owners and the robber barons were the fathers and grandfathers of those "uber-rich" of today. The sons and grandsons, like the Bushes of my home state of Ohio, would like to return things to the grand old days of the early 1800's, or better yet, the Great Chain of Being of the European Kings (in which, in their version, mega-corporate CEO's would sit just below the archangels and God).
A Free Press? That was the first expenditure of the First Congress, to provide post roads so that, among other goods, newspapers could be delivered to the growing nation.
A Free Press? You are taking part in it here, as am I. Epinions is one of those nice balances of the commercial and the public good. But why do you think that Epinions is now the subdivision of a subdivision of a mega-corporation.
Go read the theories of "J. Ward Moorhouse," the advertising and public relations pioneer of John Dos Passos' The Big Money (1929). In his early vision, he understood how the American citizenry could be manipulated by co-appeals to greed, prejudice and sentimentality.
We both recognize, Paul, that good guardsman that you are, there are Caesars, always waiting in the wings, who need a Praetorian Guard more than they do an army to protect the citizens.
Let's continue to do what we can.
Alex
|
Jan 08 '07
7:05 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: We tread a perilous path (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Alex,
I have a feeling that this debate shall continue 'ad infinitum.' I will answer some of your key points and I hope a linera approach is not too boring....
The French in Algeria: I do not think that there ever was a lofty approach by the later governments of the Fourth Republic when it came to the retention of Algeria. They governments from 1946 through 1958 viewed "Algerie" as an overseas department of France and therefore, an integral part of France.
The 'colons' commonly known as "pied noirs" were (and still are) some of the most conservative of all French citizens. Ironically, many were not even French; instead, they came from Spain, Italy, Malta, and Greece. Many were lower to middle class, but they had all embraced France as their mother country. Many had served in the French Army in WW I or II and expected France to protect them (and their interests) as they had done for her.
Many of the Algerians (esp. the Berbers) had also served France and there were at least two and sometimes three battalions of "tirailleurs Algeriennes" at Dien Bien Phu. While successive governments did not always treat them as full citizens, after 1946, Paris was starting to move in that direction.
The abuses by the FLN and the ALN against French civilians and even the native populations prompted further reprisals by the French Army. The violence escalated to a point barely within any degree of human control.
So, with the hindsight available to us after nearly 45 years of Algerian nationhood, even the most ardent defender of the French colonial position realizes that de Gaulle really had no other choice. His courage at the time almost cost him his lfe and his "royal" decree gave rise to the OAS, the cashiering of far too many talented officers and a national nightmare that still haunts the dreams of former French soldiers and government officials.
The Netherlands: a small contry brutalized by Germany, but with smaller dreams of Imperial glory than a France haunted by too many defeats at the hands of Germany and Prussia.
Still, the Dutch tried, up until 1949 to hold on to Indonesia. Finally, in their case, the government of the day realized, especially when the UK had granted India and Pakistan independence just two years before that the historical tide had turned. Still, the held onto Irian Jaya until 1964.....
The Dutch must not be too bad as colonial masters go because the natives in the Netherlands Antilles continue, to this day, to repudiate ALL offers of independence from Holland.
I worked with the Dutch in Iraq. Their Royal Dutch Marines were very good men. Their all-volunteer army is, too. I found their officers to be quite thoughtful and professional and their experience as a colonial power gave them much needed insight into how to deal with occupied populations.
Their patrolling style was less confrontational then ours and instead of armored vehicles, theirs were soft-sided. They wore soft caps instead of helmets and their officers directed the Marines and soldiers NOT to wear sunglasses. When they spoke to the Iraqis, they did so 'eye-to-eye.' There was a lot of merit to their approach and when I worked with them, I found myself smiling in realization (many times) that the American way isn't always the best or most effective at solving problems.
The Dutch military walked softly and while they had big sticks available to them, they were rarely visible (or needed). I developed a new admiration and respect for their soldiers and the country from whence they hailed.
Germany and Angela Merkel: First, she is a Christian Democrat and not a Socialist. I made the comments I did because had her comments been uttered here in the USA, she would have been labeled a racist, a fascist and a bigot. All I am saying is that Germany, with its history of religious intolerance, is a country that has found a degree of understanding so that when a leader makes a comment like she did, that the media doesn't automatically jump them as would be the case in America.
Alex, the USA is not a "republic and a democracy." At least not any more. It is and always has been a representative republic. Unfortunately, it is fast becoming a completely balkanized nation where the rulers are plutocrats and the rest of us have to live with their self-serving behavior and decisions. The plutocrats are neither rightists or leftists, they are simply the "uber-rich" who place themselves and their interests above the rest of us. More importantly, they place their interests above what is best for America as a nation and a society.
Full citizenship, hah! tell that to the illegals and their kin who protested in LA last summer while waving Mexican, Honduran, Salvadoran, Panamanian, Colombian and other flags from the Bolivarian republics of South America. They make a mockery of U.S. nationality and seem, in no small part to want to do everything they can to dilute the very concept.
Past generations of immigrants assimilated. These folks refuse to do so.
Citizenship in this country is not a right, except to those born here. Too many Americans take that for granted or completely ignore it.
Alex, it is NOT the responsibilty of the United States (or her taxpayers) to feed and clothe the flotsam from every semi-failed state and economy south of our border with Mexico. Let the corrupt governments of Latin America fix their own problems. Their oligarchs continue to refuse to do so and then we are left to clean up the mess.
Like it or not, the media in this country is as polarized as the populace. On the one side, you have the establishment media (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NY TIMES, LA TIMES, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, BOSTON GLOBE, et al) and on the other FOX NEWS. neither presents news any longer, they present editorial positions presented as news.
An independent press here in the USA is as much of an anachronism as the 'milk man.'
As I watch the events that take place every day, I realize that I am not unlike those centurions who manned the ramparts along Hadrian's Wall. I am hoping and praying that I am never involuntarily forced to become a Praetorian.
Paul
|
Jan 08 '07
6:29 am PST
|
|
Re: We tread a perilous path (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Dear Paul: Thank you for your extremely civil and thoughtful reply.
I think what we often forget in our discussions is that the United States of America is a nation unique on Earth. We cannot be easily compared with other nations because, being of all peoples, religions and creeds, we have set our public standards so high (even if our actual performance has often been quite sub-par, in comparison with less well-endowed countries of the World) that we have acted as a desired model for others. What we have done in the last six years, as I take it we agree, has been to trash that reputation.
As for the French, they were caught between their ideal (not so different than our own) of bringing their colonies under the nurture of La Belle France. When I was working upon my Comparative Governments major in the 1950's, it was their hope that all their African and other colonies would unite in their General Assembly as part of France. For various reasons, that did not happen. The most Right Wing French leader in many a year (in a nation which tends to be, whatever its cultural professions, conservative), and a very great statesman, Charles DeGaulle decided that the war in North Africa could not be won. Far too many mistakes had been accrued.
The consequences for mistakes can often not be foreseen, as we shall soon see ourselves, even when the only reasonable decisions have been made. It is not fair to condemn France for the movements of history and demographics, especially when their diplomatic efforts and offers of assistance have so often been denigrated and rebuffed.
The Dutch, small and often threatened by political and natural forces, had been torn by conflicts between the Catholics and the Protestants for nearly 400 years. They had achieved a difficult state of tolerance by the end of World War II (in which many worked to save their Jewish population), and that may have been a factor in their abandoning their East Indian Empire. A country crushed and stripped by war was not going to retain that empire anyway. Their attempts to assimilate some of the Muslim peoples they once ruled are admirable. They realize, given their history, that such assimilation does not come easy, and it doesn't come within a couple of American Presidential Administrations, nor probably within any finite number of human generations.
Your German example is a non-sequitur, Paul. There is nothing antithetical about being German, Christian and Socialist.
What's fascist about that combination? What you say doesn't make sense. Germany has been a Christian nation during all its relatively brief existence from the time of Bismarck, at least.
[Germany was a Christian nation all during World War II. Hitler was nominally a Catholic.
Whether you or I like it or not, Paul, Our Country of the United States is both a Republic and a Democracy. Our strengths and our weaknesses politically devolve from that fact. We are not France, Holland or Germany. Perhaps our greatest strength is, until the present Right Wing geniuses you appear to admire, took power, we had succeeded in keeping sectarian religion out of our political and public life.
Yes, of course, Chaney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle started out on the Left, as did Von Ribbentrop, Goebbels and Himmler in Germany. For a brilliant analysis of this process, I beg you and George to download THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1002626006461047517&q=bbc
You may wish that the Nation might return to the Articles of the Confederation, or the earliest formulation of the Constitution, but that is not going to happen. We are an evolving republic, which only eighty years ago or so first recognized that women were full citizens. And today, after the massive Civil Rights movements of the 1960's and 1970's, every individual within the country is, or is approaching, the state of full citizenship, which is what makes us irrevocably a democracy.
You say, "With the demographic chnages [sic] over the last 40 years, I believe it has permanently moved toward the left-center. I find that problematic because it has empowered the have-nots and those who seek power from the left to carp and demand for instant gratification, more money and the permanent repudiation of all of the values that made this country what it used to be."
That may be true but just think how big the group of "have-nots and those who seek power from the left" used to be. Nothing fails like success in politics! Most of the people I grew up with are now retired, on pensions and Social Security, and own their own homes. A lot of them who were once fervent New Dealers now vote Republican. ["Got to keep the riff-raff and the godless in check."] We may both may be looking at mirror images when I say the country has moved to the Right, and you say, it has moved to the Left. The incontrovertible fact is that the wealth of the Nation has gone more and more to the upper five percent of the population, squeezing and frustrating the Lower Middle Class.
I was puzzled by what appears to be the thesis of your latest installment. You write:
". . . I detect that you feel a compelling need to defend the excesses of liberal/left-wing policy failures and I find that rather distressing."
You may well find that distressing because nowhere do you specify the excesses of liberal/left-wing failures which you say I have this "compelling need to defend."
Are you speaking of trying to give children living below the poverty line medical attention? affording rural children electric light? insuring that children, especially in the Midwest and South (areas drained by the great watersheds), have potable water and indoor plumbing? efforts to make Our Administration realize that Global Warming will, in a few decades, put many low-lying population centers under water? the constant fight against the oil and car companies, whose pollution is literally slowly choking me to death when I walk abroad in the airy seaport town of San Francisco?
As I pointed out to George, some of these battles have been admirable successes. Others, I suppose you might drive home, have been "failures." I defend them and other "liberal" causes because they were and are human causes. They are all causes which have been trenchantly opposed by reactionary Republicans from at least the 1930's on. These are not successes or failures dealing with life on champagne and caviar while letting the waste product "trickle down" on the general populace.
Paul, when you have no Middle Class, you have no democracy. And when you have no democracy, you may represent the Republic with the Roman Senate, the Nazi Reichstag, the Soviet Presidium, or any of a hundred other sham governments, past and present, around the World.
When I read over your hopes for (I take it) a Libertarian revolution, I am reminded of my experience in the Union Movement, which might be summed up in the grand old song, "Brother, Which Side Are You on." When I was a shop steward, an organizer, and a strike captain for AFT Local #1481, the majority of our members were "in the middle" (understandably, because it is human nature to "bunch-up"). Not only them, there were the management suckups, and "conservative thinkers" and the Libertarians (relatively new on the scene then).
Most of them saw the light and stood with "their brothers and sisters" in the end. But, gadfry, in the meantime, how many mindless, selfish, craven -- yes, sometimes elitist and fascist -- arguments and excuses I heard:
"Well, I don't know. I can't decide."
"I can't attend the meeting on Thursday. That's my bowling night."
"The vote doesn't bind me. I wasn't there."
"We should have demanded another 2% instead of trying to save the library and the music program!"
"I don't believe in unions or political parties. I'm a Libertarian. Whenever I want a raise or new equipment, I just want to go sit down with good old Joe Kecker. He and I are in the Kiwanis, Junior Chamber, former Young Republicans -- future executives together. We understand each other. Let the other b*stards fend for themselves."
"Why should I pay a service fee. I didn't like the contract you guys negotiated."
It comes down to "Which side are you on? Which side are you on?"
When you successfully finish your career, Paul, I want you to try to form a political party which "governs from the center."
Lot's of luck -- but you can't drink or play golf too much with "the other side," remember. For one thing, you get mixed up about what "the other side" is.
Meanwhile, with luck, we have two years. I don't particularly like Mr. Obama, Mr. McCain or Mrs. Clinton. [My choice has long been Senator Joe Biden.] But we have to give them all a chance to deal with the (probably dismal) prospects of 2008.
Let's give them that chance, Paul. Some of the issues and players may be greatly different than we can now imagine, in this particularly volatile period.
Alex
|
Jan 07 '07
6:51 pm PST
|
|
Re: I am... (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Thanks, Vasillis. This debate is with colleagues with whom I go back a way. George Chabot has been here nearly so long as I have. And Paul is obviously a soldier of the first rank.
Frankly, when I'm not feeling well, I tend to get into these discussions. They're easier than doing real research, reviews or creative projects. They pass the time.
Besides, the arguments from the other side are often easily disputed!
Take care.
Alex
|
Jan 07 '07
1:41 pm PST
|
|
We tread a perilous path (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Alex,
You make fine arguments, but somewhere in your answers to both myself and George I detect that you feel a compelling need to defend the excesses of liberal/left-wing policy failures and I find that rather distressing.
I will conceded that Iraq has been an abject policy failure. But you too, resort to sweeping generalizations when you label Republican leaders as the monsters you'd have other readers of these comments believe.
It is very easy to quote the history of the 1930s and I respect that you grew up in trying times. As a historian, I could argue, if I so chose that the imperialism of France and the UK made for a more stable world overall than what we face today.
Ahh, what would the average Frenchmen have thought in the 1950s if he knew that granting Algeria independence in 1962 would have reulted in la belle France becoming the most Islamized country in Europe?
Or the Dutch, the encroachment of South Moluccan, Indonesian and other radical Islamic elements threatening their peace-loving welfare state? Perhaps that explains why the Dutch responded so quickly and provided a brigade of Royal Dutch Marines and a rotating brigade of infantry, MPS and other troops for Iraq? I think even the average Dutch citizen was growing tired of the extremist demands by their unwelcomed and in many cases illegal populations.
As socialist as Germany is, the current Chancellor, Angela Merkel, raised in the DDR (an 'Ossie') labeled the unified Germany a Christian country, yet no one here (or there) labeled her a revanchist or fascist.
The problem with the left is that too many people who subscribe to its basic tenets refuse to accept any responsibility for its philosophical inconsistencies and grosser failures at both the policy and practical levels.
Alex, its all too easy to call names and I think that a constant referral to the policies of FDR and LBJ does nothing but delay discussion of the problems we currently face.
I don't think you give enough credit to those members of the American right who believe that 'W' has failed them as well as the rest of the nation.
On MEET THE PRESS this morning (1/7), some mentioned that in the Senate, only 12 of 49 GOP senators support a troop surge in Iraq. Those are telling figures.
The time for troop surges is long since past and we should have gone in much heavier in 2003 or at the latest, boosted troops by mid-2004.
Now, I fear, we will bolt, especially if Pelosi and the other self-righteous members of the congressional left have their way.
Yes, it is now true that the majority of the military thinks Iraq was a mistake and perhaps if we had had a draft, this would have never happened. Then again, that's supposition and really has no place in the debate.
It took the U.S. Armed Forces 15 years after the Vietnam debacle to rebuild their own sense of confidence and re-earn the trust of the American people. The problem with this war is that this time, it was a GOP administration and its hubris that presumed that Iraq would be a "cakewalk."
Do I need to remind you that with the exception of Cheney and Rumsfeld, that many of the neo-con architects, including Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz were 1960s's leftists (and draft dodgers)? Their political pendulum had come full circle.
Alex, your arguments are not without merit, but the style and its delivery have started to mirror the ritualized name calling so prevalent in the broadcasts of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Marc Levin. Their bombastic commentary from the right, while not without huge audiences, is in my opinion doing nothing more than contributing to the extremes of polarization in America.
I disagree with many conservative commentators who have stated over and over again that the United States is a basically conservative country. With the demographic chnages over the last 40 years, I believe it has permanently moved toward the left-center. I find that problematic because it has empowered the have-nots and those who seek power from the left to carp and demand for instant gratification, more money and the permanent repudiation of all of the values that made this country what it used to be.
Alex, I cannot and will not apologize for every egregious historical event that pre-dated my arrival on this planet. What I will do is admit that some very nefarious men committed some acts that defy current norms for what we expect of Americans. Then again, every society has had its share of great and not-so-great leaders.
What I will say for the record is that I oppose all tyranny. I will fight fascism just as quickly as I fight extremism on the left. What I will not do is voluntarily surrender my liberty. So if someday, the federal government (regardless of which party is in power) decides that I am a threat to the commonweal, you can rest assured that I will then become a revolutionary.
Alex, we do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic (and thank God for that).
The attempts by the DEMS to right what they perceive to be as GOP inspired wrongs are nothing more than their continued pandering to their special interest groups which includes the permanently ensconced underclass you queried George about.
This country needs a real reformer and it is not Barak Obama, Hillary, John McCain or anyone else currently present on the national stage.
Perhaps we need ANOTHER American revolution and the dis-establishment of the eminently corrupt two party oligarchy that currently exists. The question is, will anyone who lives here now accept such a 'radical' proposition?
Paul
|
Jan 07 '07
12:20 pm PST
|
|
I am... (Reply to this comment)
by lammet
amazed, Alex, at the breadth and depth of your knowledge of American history. I have been following this discussion with utmost interest. Like I noted elseplace, sometimes the comments are more enjoyable to read (not to say more illuminating) than the original post.
-Vasilis
|
Jan 07 '07
6:46 am PST
|
|
Re: - (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
George: ???
"We have created an underclass of dependence and the illegals and the others beholden to big government now have their champions in Washington."
Paul really should have been the one to develop this idea, should he have chosen to do so.
I was kind enough not to touch the statement because our discussion was veering beyond its original parameters, but now that you highlight it, let me ask you a couple of questions concerning you expansion on it.
You write:
"The Democrats, starting with FDR, but escalated by LBJ, knew they needed an underclass to keep them in power, because nobody with more than a minimal education would buy what they were selling. 50% on the dole and 50% taxpayers was their intention all along."
First of all, what are your bonafides for drawing such a sweeping conclusion from his remark?
And secondly, what are your sources? Your figures are brutally precise. Any statistics, any inside secret transcripts of Democrats plotting, to back up your figures?
Third, when you speak of an "underclass," do you speak of "the permanent underclass"? I ask the question because the concepts have very different meanings, in terms of their political usage.
If you speak of "the underclass," do you refer to the 90% of rural Americans who had no electricity when the New Deal was launched in the early 1930's? That figure was reduced by 30% within four years of the passage of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. You could look it up, George.
Found many homes without electricity in your area lately?
And if you grew up in rural Northeastern Ohio (but only 60 miles from Cleveland), as I did in the mid-1930's, you would have had to go to an outhouse, if you left the city limits of my home town. I dare say, the same thing might have been true on the outskirts of Atlanta.
Every year young people, classmates of mine in elementary school, came down with something called "rheumatic fever:" (haven't heard the term in years), and often their hearts and kidneys were permanently damaged. The disease, which was also a leading cause of death in children, came from drinking unsafe water or eating food insufficiently cooked in water tainted by inadequate sewage systems, bathing in polluted waterways and lakes.
The Evil New Deal began putting an end to that with assistance water systems such as TVA. These projects were often bitterly opposed in Congress (sometimes, true, by both Republicans and Democrats), and by local Republican businessmen [with flush toilets], who complained it would raise their taxes, and waste their hard-earned money. "What if kids out in the country have to drink water that has a brownish tinge? The minerals will do them good!"
Is that the "underclass" you speak of? The children, sometimes the maimed children, I went to school with?
If you mean "The Permanent Underclass," George, you are using a term I never heard until the late 1970's. The term, a code phrase mostly for the Black diaspora to the North during and after World War II, was used by Right Wing Republican theorists critical of "The War on Poverty" championed by LBJ (which foundered on the Vietnam War). The term had been developed as an adjunct to the Republican "Southern Strategy."
Their argument was that there was a large group of people at the bottom of the economic ladder who would always be stuck there. No good reason to try to help them, they said, could be advanced by anyone who was not "a bleeding heart liberal." And I suppose from that conclusion comes the notion that Democrats have met in smoke filled rooms ever since to further cripple "The Permanent Underclass."
To this profoundly undemocratic, mean-spirited theory has been added the millions of people who have entered the country, fleeing Cold War conflicts (often initiated by us) and poverty in the colonial backwaters of the New American Empire. These refugees (much, in fact, like the politically persecuted Europeans of the 1930's) staff our hospitals, run our social services, wait our tables, cook in our restaurants, and yes, pick our crops, build our houses, clean our apartments, pick up our garbage, work in our sewage plants, etc, etc.
I trust that every day, George, you demand of local and federal authorities that the employers of these miscreants, possibly some of your neighbors or colleagues, be arrested, tried, and if convicted, fined and put in jail. How many of these potential criminals have you, as an upstanding American Citizen, of a Conservative and/or Libertarian streak, I gather, brought to justice?
Just wondering, George.
Not all of these people will remain in "The Permanent Underclass" without help because America has a history of providing opportunity, but it is much harder today to make ones way into the Middle Class than it was when my father came here in 1929. In fact, the lower middle class, I believe, will become part of the "Permanent Underclass," if Republican sink or swim theories continue to hold sway.
These same theoretical types in our present Administration have held up any measures against Global Warming for the last six years, using similar arguments: Global Warming doesn't exist. The data is not yet in. The data is not conclusive. We must study the matter further. Someone else should take the lead. To fight Global Warming will be hugely expensive. Even if we join the battle, we might not win. It surely not be so bad as the scientists say it will be. Oh yeah, but anyway, it won't affect my family. Hey, are you in on the ground floor in those new Global Warming stocks? See my broker. You can make a killing!
George, do you have any hilltop real estate for sale in the Atlanta area ? -- because large numbers of Americans are going to become members of a true permanent under[water] class in the next thirty years.
Won't it be wonderful to partially restore America to how it was before Franklyn D. Roosevelt ruined it with the New Deal!
"Money, Money, Money -- makes the World go 'round . . . the World go 'round . . . ."
Alex
|
Jan 06 '07
10:43 pm PST
|
|
- (Reply to this comment)
by George_Chabot
Hi again - I see the debate/discussion still rages on -
Just a minor thing I noted, that Paul brought up:
We have created an underclass of dependence and the illegals and the others beholden to big government now have their champions in Washington.
This was intentional. The Democrats, starting with FDR, but escalated by LBJ, knew they needed an underclass to keep them in power, because nobody with more than a minimal education would buy what they were selling. 50% on the dole and 50% taxpayers was their intention all along. This also explains the sad state of our schools, now that the Dept of Education has had their greasy mitts on it for a generation or so. Let the debate/discussion continue! Over and out :>
|
Jan 06 '07
4:04 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Alex (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Dear Paul: It is hard to argue with your quotations, or the purposes to which you put them. I think we can both agree on a belief and defense of the Constitution. That means, I hope we may agree, working to uphold the entire document, each of its parts, each of its checks, each of its balances, all the time.
Whenever we suspend part of it, or let the checks and balances fall out of kilter, we run into a problem we later regret, whether it be the suspension of Habeus Corpus during the Civil War, the Red Scares of the 1920's and 1950's, the roundup of Japanese Americans in World War II, or the completely despicable acts of the present Administration since 9/11. During the last 25 years, we have allowed the Executive to gain such an upper hand that neither the Congress nor the Appellate Courts (with which I take it you disagree) have been able to re-balance the system.
In the last six years, we have turned away from a foreign policy of cooperation and interdependence in the World toward one of Global Hegemony. At home, we have gradually stopped caring for our needier citizens, our veterans, our elderly. Domestic policy, if you will forgive me, has largely become a Libertarian one: "Let every man sink, as long as I have my place in the dingy." That has led to increased tribalism and religious extremism -- not to mention the neo-fascism of the Neocons.
[I sincerely hope you have taken [or will] the time to download Adam Curtis's THE POWER OF NIGHTMARES, which I feature on my Profile Page, and in my previous little essay.]
If you are telling me that Nancy Pelosi may be a hypocrite (which you do), I can't disagree. We are all in danger of it, and the bureaucracy is the bane of every government. [Read the records of the Assyrian Empire which were uncovered a few years ago. Every nitpicking, grafting, hypocritical charge we might make now was made then. It's called being human, I'm afraid.] No matter what the Penthouse authority may claim, bureaucrats are both Democrats or Republicans, or something else -- that's why they are called "faceless." If bureaucrats only came in the Democratic flavor, your argument, Paul, would make perfect sense.
[Of one thing I'm sure: we shall have bureaucracy so long as any kind of civilization exists. The question is, will it be a good, responsible civil service, such as the one the British Empire left India? or the one which, in the next 18 months, we shall learn helped largely Republicans squander in graft tens upon tens of billions of American taxpayer dollars (and Chinese credit) on the most outlandish stuff, some of it which caused the unnecessary death and maiming of good, loyal American Service men and women.
We must give Speaker Pelosi a chance; she has been on the job for just two days, and so, far she has done exactly what she promised to do. Once "The First Hundred Hours" are over, we can begin to judge her performance. The oversight hearings and investigations begin next week, and we may expect the President to fight them with every tool at his disposal, up to and including a Constitutional Crisis.
As for your attack on "Liberal Fascism," where are the extremes in our system? I grew up in the days of the Popular Front (betrayed by the Stalinists, and hunted down, years later by the FBI), the Socialist Party of Norman Thomas (whose best ideas were appropriated by the New Deal, when the Nation had an unemployment rate approaching 23%), a few Union Leaders of the really Left Wing (in an old-fashioned European sense), such as Harry Bridges. [I met Harry once, shook his hand, a benign old man, much the worse or better of Irish Whiskey at that moment, who had recently seen all of his San Francisco Long Shore Men given lifetime pensions, when the ports wanted to convert to automatic loaders and container ships. He may have been a Communist, but he stood with his men until the very end.] All these people -- Liberal Socialists or Liberal Fascists(!!?), as you call them -- are long gone.
Are you speaking, Paul, of those Liberal Radicals who want lunch programs for kids? a free breakfast for those who have none? housing for those who lie on cardboard boxes in the 40 degree cold just outside my apartment house tonight?
That kind of thing?
[Now, there's a truly easy, underhand softball to whack out of the park!]
I know the "Liberals" can be made to look ridiculous, even frightening to the rest of the country on Fox News, but it makes more sense (at least to my mind) to try to help 40,000,000 people who live below the poverty line in this richest country in the World, even in the poverty pockets of this richest of American cities (San Francisco) which has nurtured such an evilly hypocritical Democrat as Nancy Pelosi, than it is to squander two trillion dollars on a "long war" which cannot be won in military terms, and which will sap the blood of many of your brothers-in-arms, Paul.
That is where the Republican Extreme lies, and their leaders are still in power. Their policies will lead, as they did in Alexander's time, to mercenary armies, who will betray us, as they betrayed Alexander's Empire; to religious crusades such as Constantine's and, later, the Holy Roman Empire's, crusades that left Europe exhausted in the Middle Ages, and the Middle East in a depression from which it has never fully recovered. And if we start throwing around atomic weapons, we shall change the human form, and extend all the other horrors for a thousand years.
You suggest a certain dissatisfaction, anger, depression, that we share at events. We ain't seen the proverbial "nothing" of it all.
You (we) have a choice, for a short while yet.
I don't expect, at this point, any large number of people will say either thank you, or you're welcome, to the results, whatever they may be.
Let's hang on to restoring that Constitution of ours, which we have both sworn to defend, in our time.
All the best.
Alex
|
Jan 05 '07
6:46 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Re: Alex (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Alex,
The military did have a better friend in Congress than Jack Murtha and he died last year, I believe. His name was Cong. Sonny Montgomery, a conservative Democrat from Mississippi. he was the author of the Montgomery GI Bill, a D-Day veteran and a retired Major General in the National Guard/USAR.
I met him several times and he was genuinely interested in the welfare of the troops. He was also the quintessential 'southern' gentleman.
I disagree with your views of libertarians. I believe enlightened self-interest without the overbearing need to take interventionist action in the economy, people's personal lives, or the outside world can and will temper the propensity for any government, be it local, state or federal to meddle where they shouldn't.
Pelosi may be wealthy, but she's also a hypocrite. Her restaurants in S.F. utilize illegal immigrants, she has been cited for not paying social security, her vineyards also will not allow grape pickers to join the UFW and so on.
Neither party has an exclusive hold on hypocrisy or those with ethical challenges, it's just that the media, especially of late, has focused on those piggish acts by members of the GOP.
During my last tour, I was asked to meet with several politicians and too many times I declined. I did so because I was so angry, especially at the ones I was asked to meet and chat with that I didn't think I could remain civil. Failure to do so, especially with United States Senators could and would have resulted in my being court-martialed and that is not how I wanted the twilight of my career to be marked.
As I said earlier, the American people have spoken. I believe the vote in November was ALL about the war, as well as the most recent scandals in the administration and the House (on the GOP side).
The people have (had) a right to be angry. The problem however, is that we have a two-party tyranny. I have never been a fan of the parliamentary system, but I think the time has come for the U.S. to make it easier for alternative parties to gain the recognition and representation their views would seem to deserve.
The problem with the GOP and the DEMs is that both parties are, for the most part, firmly in the hands of the more extreme members of each.
I am a conservative and a Christian, but as a man, believe that a woman should have the right to choose. I do not believe that I should be legislating or voting on legislation that denies a woman control over her body. That is, after the removal of religion, a classical conservative position. In today's world, it is a position held by libertarians on both the right and the left.
As a libertarian, I fear big government. That is why I firmly support the protection of the right to keep and bear arms found in the 2nd Amendment.
I believe in the primacy of our Constitution and that the judiciary should NOT make law from the bench. I believe in the due process clause of the 6th amendment, as well as a strict view of its "takings" clause.
Liberal fascism is NOT a contradiction in terms. In fact, many years ago, PENTHOUSE did n article on it. They stated that liberals, because of their reliance on bigger government, with un-elected bureaucrats writing and enforcing un-ending regulations and executive orders are the epitome of fascism. Statist bureaucrats diminish liberty everyday with more and more regulation of every aspect of society, yet they DO NOT answer to the electorate. For the most part, they immunize themselves from the reactions of the very people whose freedoms they diminish.
I believe in my heart that the Founders are literally spinning in their graves at a high RPM rate.
Remember Mr. Jefferson's words: "that government is best that governs least..."
He also said: "the tree of liberty needs to be fertilized with the blood of patriots and tyrants every twenty years or so. It is the natural manure."
Finally, words from a French philosopher I admire, Messr. Montesqiue:
"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death, your right to say it."
Unfortunately, in DC, civil discourse seems to be long dead. And it has been the shrill members of the left who have been the primary name callers.
Yes, W has been a disappointment and I don't think the historians of the future will treat him well. He has angered conservatives as well as those on the left.
But as the American body politic commences, once again, its inevitable cyclical swing, I think you'll see compensation for many of this administration's poorer polcies.
Democracy is a very ugly thing and I am glad we live in a representative republic. Pure democracy is tyranny by the majority and that holds for me, the portent of far greater danger to the individual.
Let no one here, say as Charles De Gaulle once did, "I am the State."
As I have said several times before, my allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States, not the United States itself. Without the document, we'd have no country.
The United States and the people who live here seem to be all too willing to surrender too many of their freedoms for some modicum of security.
For me, I agree with Ben Franklin who is often quoted as having said: "those who would give up freedom in the name of momentary security, deserve neither."
As we enter the year 2007 of this new millenium, I look around and see too many Americans who are all too willing to tolerate the increasing encroachment on their rights and freedoms by extremists from both ends of the spectrum. They do so, I fear, like sheep being led to the slaughter.
One day, they will wake up and realize, too late, that they have gone out with little more than a whimper.
Should that day come and I am still here, as I lose my freedom to this nefarious super-state or trans-national government, I will go out on my feet and the last word that passes my lips will echo the word uttered by Mel Gibson in his role as William Wallace: FREEDOM!!!!!!
Cheer up Alex! We are still a relatively free nation and as long as we are, hope springs eternal!
With deepest respect,
Paul
|
Jan 05 '07
7:01 am PST
|
|
Re: Re: Re: Alex (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Paul: I admire conservatism that stresses "to conserve." And I have always found much to admire in your views. As I see it, the 19th Century conservative became the 20th Century liberal, but that pendulum has been swinging back for a long time. A conservative President would not be defending torture, phone taps, and mail searches with extremely little oversight, or none whatsoever.
A conservative President would not have precipitously taken to War on false pretenses.
A conservative President would not have temporized on Global Warming until Katrina rammed it down his throat (and then he lied about it, to an extent still unknown).
---------------
Libertarianism, in my observation, means a small group, usually with a hidden agenda, get to do as the please while everyone else is at each others throats.
I've always liked Pat Buchanan (if not all of his ideas) because he always tells you where he stands. William F. Buckley seems to me the fool who got us on our present course. It was a frog's leap from his Conservatism to the Straussians, "The Committee for the Present Danger" and "The Project for a New American Centuury."
As for "the Socialists and other anti-American forces to be found in the Democrat Party in both houses of Congress," Millionairess Nancy Pelosi must be at least a "Fabian Socialist," I gather, and the Armed Services have never had a better friend in Congress than Representative Murtha.
I can see your trepidation at being subject to foreign courts, but the World Court is well run (and slow moving), and I would join the picket line against having Myanmar try you! The point is that I don't think our nation should commit acts in your name and mine that are not strictly within the Constitution, starting with asking Congress to formally declare War, when the President calls for it. Otherwise, exceptions become the rule, and soon, "all is permitted."
I don't think President Bush will actually back down. He knows what he wants to do, no matter how crazy it may be, and he looks at the World as the only poker player with five aces in his hand. He will use every one of them, I'm afraid, without admitting to it.
And "liberal fascism" is a contradiction in terms. Liberalism, at its best and most easily recognizable, is inclusive. Modern Conservatism (and Libertarianism, really) is about being exclusive. But it is an exclusivity built in a pig pen.
In addition to Global Warming (which trumps everything), we have at least three gargantuan macroeconomic problems, Paul: 1) The World is overpopulated, and the U.S and Europe are feeling all the pressures that brings (the U.S., for the first time); 2) Services require taxes and revenues to pay for them, or a bank of last resort to borrow from; we require both to pay for our greed; 3) our old economic partnerships are wearing thin, and that is why we are looking covetously toward China and Russia, which is what Iraq and Afghanistan were all about.
As we shall see within the next year, with the Evil Socialist Democrats (chuckle-chuckle) holding the oversight hearings and investigations the Republicans should have been holding for the last five years, the bill of High Crimes and Misdemeanors will reach from Crawford to Miami and back to New Haven.
Paul, don't adopt "The Light That Failed" solution, at least on my account. Stay here. We need your courage and intelligence here. You've done your bit.
May all go well for you. That glass will always be turned down for you at The Ha-Ra Club.
Alex
|
Jan 04 '07
5:24 pm PST
|
|
Re: Re: Alex (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
Alex,
I find myself in a quandry here. I admire your writing and the intellect behind it, while at the same time I have difficulty accepting the views you possess that generate the negativism.
I realize that politically we probably remain poles apart and while I have always been open and honest about my conservatism, I also stipulate (here at least) that I am a conservative with a small "c" and that traditional Lockian view of the world is tempered too, by a mean streak of modern libertarianism.
Patriotsim does not mean servile obedience to the government in power and I am the first to stand up to governmental abuse of power.
Given the changes in the House and the Senate, effective today, I think we'll see more divided government and W will be forced to make compromises. I also think that he will use the veto pen more now than in the previous six years.
I doubt we'll see the cries for justice/retribution you predict and I for one am glad that we are not subject to a World Court. As a member of the US Armed Forces, I would not want to be subject to arrest and trial by representatives of any EU country or one of the many dictatorships where human rights are routinely trampled. That would be the ultimate irony, to see American leaders or GIs tried by the government of the Sudan or Myanmar (Burma).
I believe in the USA, our sovereignty and our right to act unilaterally when necessary. Unfortunately, Iraq did not mee the test of "when necessary."
I would hope Alex, that your views will be ameliorated by the control the American people have placed in the hands of the Socialists and other anti-American forces to be found in the Democrat Party in both houses of Congress. After all, I view people like Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, John Murtha, Chuck Schumer and others of their ilk with the same disdain the folks on the left do W, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Sadly, what you don't see or hear, because the Limbaughs and Hannitys shout us down are those conservatives (like W.F. Buckley and Pat Buchanan) who opposed this war even before it started.
The Army Times published a survey in the 8 January 07 issue citing the fact that for the first time, the majority of the military disapproves of W's handling of the war and that a majority also now believes we should have never gone into Iraq in the first place.
I think that you will find that we are not in any real danger (yet) of sliding into that dark abyss of fascism. If anything, the pendulum has already started its leftward swing. Likewise, with Pelosi calling the shots, I think what we will see is "liberal fascism" with more judicial activism, less homeland security as way of pandering to the ever increasing hordes of illegal immigrants and continuous more wasteful spending.
We have created an underclass of dependence and the illegals and the others beholden to big government now have their champions in Washington.
Never fear, Alex, Bush's wings have been clipped. We are now looking at the enshrinement of liberal hubris and their supercilious snd self-righteous belief that 'they know better.'
Welcome, the resurrection of Big Government (and higher taxes!).
I think I will volunteer to go to Afghanistan, so that I won't have to be around to watch the continued reduction of individual liberty at the hands of the leftist elite and all in the name of social justice.
Paul
|
Jan 04 '07
2:24 pm PST
|
|
Re: Alex (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Paul: I understand your concern and your revulsion. I share it to a considerable extent.
In eight years here, I have refrained from using such terms, but the fortuitous juxtaposition Saddam Hussein's hasty hanging and the long staging of Gerald Ford's funeral observances caused me to make an exception. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the most distinguished of recent Republican Presidents, had a swift and simple service by comparison.
Every one of the thousands of service people deserve the kind of funeral Gerald Ford had. Yet in the first couple of years of "the long war," their interments were more like Saddam Hussein's.
If you are a leader -- call him Jerry Ford, Saddam Hussein, or George W. Bush -- who knowingly condemns thousands of innocent people to death for no good reason, I finally exhaust my store of euphemisms, and call that person a murderer.
What really set me off, Paul, is that I am convinced, within two years, criminal proceedings of some sort will be unavoidable in the case of many leaders from this administration. I am not talking of minor graft but of the very highest crimes and misdemeanors. Many Americans and people around the World will legitimately cry out for their blood. But in the last week, we have seen another step in the buffering process against prosecution, which began when we opted out of the World Court in 2001. Now, conservative pundits and lawyers will say: "Let us remember the example of Good Jerry Ford. Let us not condemn these alleged murderers and thieves. We elected many of them to office. We must heal the wounds and move on! May they go and sin no more!"
And that means, Paul, the next time, we will have a full-blown tyrant come to office, who will shout, "We must have one people, one government, one leader, to deal with the evil ones in Central Asia. And the American Republic, like most republics of the past, will be finished."
If I'm wrong, and still alive, I shall sincerely beg your pardon.
But that's how I see it going, and unfortunately, my prognostications have been fairly accurate so far.
Let's hope, Paul, I am wrong.
Alex
|
Jan 04 '07
1:06 pm PST
|
|
Alex (Reply to this comment)
by colonialpara
I really do have to take exception to your description of our leaders as 'murderers.' Yes, they may be ethically challenged, but they are not murderers.
The use of such inflammatory rhetoric by a man of your education and intellect really is unworthy of you.
Paul
|
Jan 03 '07
2:31 pm PST
|
|
Re: Irony of the Year (Reply to this comment)
by macresarf1
Thanks, Wayne.
A big difference between my work and that of Jonah Goldberg is that he gets pretty well paid for what, as you suggest, is errant nonsense. To see how far he pushes his thesis, we shall have to await the book he is writing (I'm not making this up): Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton.
We can't forget either that his Mom, Lucieanne Goldberg, a literary agent of the 1990's was behind the selling of Monica Lewinsky's little blue dress, which in some small, strange way helped bring us George W. Bush and the Project for a New American Century boys.
I really do believe that thinkers like Jonah Goldberg actually believe some of their own stuff, no matter how illogical.
Happy Hogmanay!
Alex
|
Jan 01 '07
11:38 am PST
|
|
Irony of the Year (Reply to this comment)
by waynio
Well said, Alex,
I wonder if you saw this editorial a couple of weeks ago. I almost had to laugh:
http://www.startribune.com/562/story/878830.html
As more than one wag pointed out, the neocons already had their "Pinochet" in Iraq, but oops, he got hung the other day!
Your writing's a big step up from the abysmal level of political discourse in the mainstream media. Keep it up, old boy!
Happy Hogmanay!
Wayne
|
Jan 01 '07
11:18 am PST
|
|
|
|
