Sort of reminds me of the "Christian Mythology".
Posted by Alex at November 22, 2006 07:06 AMEven if the pretense is shown that a subpoena is being complied with there are hundred ways to stall and obfuscate, easily breaching a threshold where impeachment is unfeasible because the term clock runs out.
Exactly. Which is why I have consistantly said that calls for impeachment are pointless and the Democrats energies should be focused elsewhere. On issues that can actually help repair the damage done by Bush.
Posted by snark at November 22, 2006 07:22 AMPrecisely.
The United States is a total rejection of Jesus in codified constitution, internal values and empirical behavior. Of this there is no doubt at all, it is the complete truth.
Posted by paradox at November 22, 2006 07:23 AMYes, we are an empire. We think and act like on.
For 12 years we bombed Iraq whenever we felt like it -- and few commented on it.
When Kosovo and Serbia began to get tense we shortcut the diplomacy process, enlisted NATO and started bombing. In the subsequent war crimes trials it became clear that all of the war crime events occurred after the bombing began.
We invaded and occupied Panama and Grenada.
We have debates about what level of torture we should utilize and about under what conditions we should unilaterally invade and occupy other countries.
We are an empire.
The founding fathers warned us about this. The Declaration of Rights of Virginia, dated 1776, warned that: "standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty." Eisenhower warned us of this as well. When you create a war machine that is at least equal in power to the rest of the world's war machines combined, you *will* use it. Even if you lie to yourself and call it "Defense".
Posted by Galloping Goose at November 22, 2006 07:38 AMGoose is probably correct; it's remarkable that I was precisely thinking this just 36 hours ago.
Once the US abandoned it's posture of no standing armies and succumbed to a military-industrial complex in 1946 it doomed forever whatever chance it had to survive and be a good force in the world.
Perhaps. That is not a certainty, and it is a great failure of duty to pre-ordain that it is so. It in fact makes failure inevitable, we have to believe we can get out of this.
[smiles] I know I can try. It's good enough. Most days.
We're definitely an empire...we have troops stationed in 135 countries--70% of the countries on the globe. And as for "winning" in Iraq, as far as the neocons are concerned it's a already a win. Even if we "pull out" we'll have permanent bases there. Look at other countries we "pulled out" of...are there still troops in Korea? Vietnam? Kosovo? Yep...and 14 permanent bases--including 4 superbases--are being built in Iraq:
http://joecrubaugh.com/blog/2006/11/20/iraq-were-here-to-stay/
Posted by JoeC at November 22, 2006 08:10 AMTom Hayden has a report on Huffington Post which outlines the "withdrawal/re-deployment plan" of Jim Baker and company---except it is not the Baker Commission Plan. It is something Baker is alleged to be running for the Bush's secretly. It includes releasing Tariq Aziz by year's end from prison to help for a revived Baathist Faction with whom the US will deal; it includes a coup against Maliki; it includes Condi Rice talking to warlords. This is all being done, per Hayden and his sources, to create a regime change from the presently elected to the puppet, cutting our "political" losses (of pride) and allowing us to leave as we left Vietnam and a few other places: "thinking we did the right thing".
I am not a sophisticated political thinker, but a number of the commenters who logged on seemed to think this was not just a Tom Hayden story, but a legitimate one. I encourage all of you Left Coasters to look it over and comment.
Posted by Gtash at November 22, 2006 08:46 AMC'mon, the War of 1812 was a tie.
We're losing in Afghanistan and Iraq--a two-fer!
Posted by croatoan at November 22, 2006 08:52 AMAmerica isn't losing in Iraq. What has happened is Americans don't like Iraq anymore. America would never lose any war if they choose to win. The choice of most Americans is to leave Iraq now. It's costing us too much money and giving us bad reputation.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 09:52 AMIt's costing us too much money and giving us bad reputation.
Sounds like a loss to me!
Posted by Seven of Six at November 22, 2006 10:11 AMWe have a King but I'm not sure we're an empire. Look at what happened to the Soviet Union. They used their resources on their military machine and went belly up. St. Ronnie and the Catholic church had nothing to do with it.
Posted by JohnT at November 22, 2006 10:38 AMGtash: The piece at Huffington is interesting. It would appear that, if it's true, Condi's team is throwing every little negotiating scrap they can find on the table hoping somebody will pull a chair up. The premise of these scraps is so very much the antithesis of Cheney's neoCon mandate it's astonishing. But, you're right, the post would be interesting to talk about here.
Dubya and Rove forgot about one factor when they lied and led the US into the Iraq War. Dubya and Cheney and Rove don't want to leave Iraq because their careers and their reputations are inextricably linked to the Iraq War. They hugged that tar baby to their bosoms so tight that it oozed out between their fingers. For the US electorate, not so much.
We've got no investment psychologically in the war, really. We got no legitimate "buy in" to the enterprise. Now that the whole mess has blown up in our faces, the electorate really doesn't care if Dubya and Cheney are branded as losers eternally. The electorate knows that the nation won't be branded such, because Dubya and Cheney are ready made scapegoats, courtesy of their having lied us into the war in the first place.
So, all we must do is reassure the electorate that they didn't lose this war, Dubya and Cheney lost this war, because they illegitimately and incompetently went to war in the first place on their own. Don't be surprised if Cheney flees the country for points south while Dubya doesn't wake up to what's happening until he shows up in the dock in The Hague.
Posted by PrahaPartizan at November 22, 2006 12:16 PM"America would never lose any war if they choose to win".
Naked jingoism from a citizen of the superpower. Define away defeat and disaster and you're always home free--we can't lose, we can only "chose" not to win! What nationalistic bombast.
I think we "won" the idiotic "war" against Saddam---we just can't forcibly create a new form of elected "government", nor can we dictate the political future of the region. Anyone with a brain predicted that such things couldn't be done. They were right.
Whatever the Iraqis come up with as a government over the next decades will be their creation, not ours. And our destructive, disastrous intervention and arrogant alteration of their national history for our own selfish ends will never be viewed benignly by them. Nor should it be by thinking Americans.
Posted by euzoius at November 22, 2006 12:53 PMMore proof that Bush supporters are more intelligent than Kerry supporters.
Posted by Dumbocrats are Faggots at November 22, 2006 01:05 PMWhat's really sickening to me is how Republicans opposed the Kosovo war and are still at it. The other day Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell came out saying they want Kosovo to go back to being a province controlled by Serbia. Kosovo is the one war American has won and the Republicans want to turn it into a humanitarian disaster AGAIN. The republicans are inconsistent, and hypocrites. They aren't decieving so many people anymore as shown in the last election.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 01:37 PMAll I pulled up was some mentally-challenged winger site that seems to equate income with intelligence. Is that what the link is supposed to be? I guess you must be a low-wage earner...
Posted by tempus at November 22, 2006 01:37 PMDumb fag,
So, the people who have benefitted from the Bush tax policy, namely those with over $200k of income a year favor a tax policy that has enriched them at the expense of others. How does this make them more intellegent?
Posted by herbal tee at November 22, 2006 01:42 PMherbal tea you know the truth is right before our eyes. If people just turned off the republican propaganda machine and did a little uncritical thinking they would see they've been getting abused. Since 2001 college tuition at my local community college went from $11 per unit to $24 per unit, books cost more too. Gas went from $1.60 per gallon to $2.60 per gallon and is rising. College students have to pay more to commute now too. Housing prices have went up a lot too. Rent has risen at least $200 for a single room since 2001. These rises happened from the moment Bush took office to 2003. Then right before Bush's 2nd election for president cost settled down a little. After Bush's election cost went back through the roof. Right before the 2006 congressional election gas went back down. Then the election is over and now gas is back up and rising. It's common sense to see these Republicans are the fault.
The economy isn't that great. The other day a Republican says that since taxes were lowered that rich people have paid more taxes than ever before. That is because it's not the quanity of jobs that count, it is the quality of jobs that counts. There is a big problem with monopolies going on in America again, it's like the 1920s. We need to break up the strangle hold these big Republican supported corporations have on America. That way middle class people get a piece of the pie when starting up small businesses.
It's clear Republicans are liars and decievers. The last election has proven that people are no longer so gullible. Republican hypocrisy is exposed and the downfall is going to last at least the next 10 years.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 01:50 PMMy favorite part is after 6 years of unlimited out of control abuse from Republicans they now say "ok the elections over, no hard feelings, can't look to the past, lets not get revenge now, got to move ahead". Such idiots,lol. Oh, revenge is coming. Republicans sown the wind and are going reap the whirlwind.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 02:13 PMOooh...look at how upset the disease-laden Leftist faggots are that :
Tee hee...
Posted by Dumbocrats are Faggots at November 22, 2006 02:34 PMYour behavior doesen't prove your claims. Since you're going on and on in such a rage and making mindless comments. Most people don't make $50,000+ per year. This is more accurate - http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html
Your lies don't fly. Especially with your attitude.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 02:46 PMjames,
The percentage of voters in each income bracket is in the table in that article. The data is from CNN.
The $50K to $75K bracket voted 56% for Bush. Period. Deny it all you want, but that is the middle class.
Posted by Dumbocrats are Faggots at November 22, 2006 02:51 PMYou diden't mention that's inclusing dual income from the mother and father working full time.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 02:57 PMEach one of your comments has been a red hering. I already know no matter what you say if I just probe your comment I'll find out the truth. It's not to hard. Sad thing is you can't conform yourself away from error. You just keep lying and repeating information that is relative and without any substance.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 03:06 PMI think that is individual voter income.
Your census data is from 2003, so it is a bit old.
If what you are saying is right, then even poor people are voting for Bush more than expected, and the $100K earners are middle class due to both spouses working (meaning they are even more Bush-supporting). But I suspect this is individual voter income.
Posted by Dumbocrats are Faggots at November 22, 2006 03:10 PMIt's ok, democrats are getting back in control. After we get a democrat president in 2008 the tables are turning. We will be out of Iraq in a year. A civil war will start. Iran and Syrian might go to regional war over the sunni and shia in Iraq. Then later on the U.N. and Russia can move in to clean up the pieces. Meanwhile, more poor Americans will be moving up to middle class positions since democrats will break down the corporate monopolies that were raised up during the last 6 years with their Kingdom like powers. There won't be another Enron too soon.
Posted by james at November 22, 2006 03:16 PMWhat is really pathetic is that Bush had the benefit of being able to look back in recorded history when deciding to invade Iraq. From the decline of Rome, to the Soviet Union's blunder in Afghanistan, to his father's decision not to go into Baghdad in Gulf I.
He chose not to, thinking HE knew better. We don't have to wait 30 years for history to come to the inevitable conclusion: worst, most destructive, devisive and uncaring president ever.
Posted by TIKI AL at November 22, 2006 03:32 PM[Ignore the TROLL!]
Look at what happened to the Soviet Union. They used their resources on their military machine and went belly up. St. Ronnie and the Catholic church had nothing to do with it.
It's an interesting story -- and Ronnie did have something to do with it, but not the way it's usually portrayed.
Of course, George Kennan's famous memos from Moscow in the late 1940s outlined the Strategy of Containment that the US followed in the Cold War. Kennan saw that the Soviet system was inherently unstable and inefficent and needed an outside enemy to prop it up. He proposed
containing the USSR & satellites to its post-WW2 borders but not actively engaging with them, and letting the USSR collapse of its own weight.
The strategy worked but for one thing -- the USSR was able to stay afloat economically due to its ability to export oil primarily from the central Asian SSRs (somehow the oil has, in one way or another, pretty much dominated international relations for the last century).
In 1978 the CIA reported that the USSR was past their oil peak -- they lacked the technology for advanced oil recovery and would become a net importer of oil around 1985. That prediction was spot-on. In 1985 the USSR lost its steady income of hard currency and they were economically in deep trouble. That's why the politburo chose the maverick Gorbachev -- they knew a traditionalist couldn't solve the crisis.
So here's where the Reagan administration came in. Recognizing the situation the state dept called upon allies in the middle east to flood the oil markets and collapse the price of oil. You may recall in 1986 Houston's economy collapsed. GHWB even made a speech calling for an oil price increase to help his home state -- either he wasn't in on the plot or he did it for show.
The tactic worked. Perhaps Gorby's reforms might have kept the USSR going for another decade or two, but the collapse in oil prices absolutely killed their economy. They had to stop investing troops in the satellites. Gorby started quietly encouraging the eastern Bloc to assert their independence. When Erich Honecker, East German dictator, started to prepare a Tianeman response to the East German protests Gorby paid him a personal visit -- two weeks later Honecker resigns and the wall fell.
A clever strategy. Alas, the heroes in the story have been overlooked in favor of the false heroes.
Posted by Galloping Goose at November 22, 2006 04:02 PMActually our lowest of low-grade gay-despising troll is just spouting idiocy as usual.
Research generally shows that intelligence is not very highly correlated with income, despite the "common sense" idea that it is.
And in the July 17, 2006 edition of an interesting blog called HalfSigma.com, it is reported that for those people whose highest education level is a bachelors degree, income and intelligence are actually NEGATIVELY correlated: the more intelligent college graduates tend to make less in BushAmerica!
Halfsigma reports that there does seem to be a weak correlation between intelligence and income for those with GRADUATE degrees but, regretably for our vicious, hateful, authoritarian, sub-average intelligence troll, that segment of the population went overwhelmingly for Kerry, as I recall.
Posted by euzoius at November 22, 2006 04:47 PMAnd finally, our cretinous troll may wish to reflect upon the fact that no less than authoritarian rightist David Horwitz thinks that the nation's college professors are overwhelming (90% plus) "liberal" and Democrat-voters. Remember the Right's hatred of our nation's lib'rul college profs?
Think there might be an itsy-bitsy correlation between intelligence and attainment of Ph.D degrees?
Cretinous Conservatives: the right hand never knows what the left is doing.
Posted by euzoius at November 22, 2006 05:36 PM"All I pulled up was some mentally-challenged winger site that seems to equate income with intelligence."
You mean like Paris Hilton?
Posted by Judith at November 22, 2006 06:34 PMWow!
56% voted for Bush!
So 44% didn't.
A swing of a massive 6% puts it at a dead heat!
Clearly all the intelligent people love George Bush.
Simple minds need simple answers.
Posted by snark at November 22, 2006 06:39 PMDon't let the stupid asshole change the topic. That's what he is trying to do.
Posted by Judith at November 22, 2006 06:50 PMAmerica is not losing and will not lose the war in Iraq; however, as regards the occupation of Iraq, we're getting the shit kicked out of us.
The "insurgents" are rising up against an occupation; our forces are trying to quell the "insurgency" to maintain and continue that occupation. Germany wasn't fighting a war against France in 42 and 43, it was trying to crush an insurgency by the maquis. Merkins are reluctant to accept losing a war; recognizing the end of an occupation is another matter and it would be well for the future if occupation replaced war in the common discourse.
One lost election sure brings out the rightwing loons.
Get over it! We won, you lost. Deal with it.
Posted by Christopher at November 23, 2006 04:11 AM