On 2002-03-18 20:47, Marc Lamb wrote:

Let's get a group shot of this neocon revival:

(L to R): Bob Butler, Bill Kristol, Bill Bennett, George W. Bush, John Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Alan Keyes, and MARC LAMB :grin:

I'm proud, Bob, to be lumped in with those worms, blowhards, frauds, puppets, and lackeys.

Actually, given your line of work, you should logically be the guy taking the picture, Marc. Just don't tell them to undress, please!

And...when you are not taking pictures, you can make yourself useful by carrying around Bill "Book of Virtues" Bennett's briefcase...er, Little Playmate cooler. That's where he stores his spare ham sandwiches. And no pilfering of ham sandwiches from Mr. Bennett, Marc!!!



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stonewall Patton on 2002-03-18 20:54 ]</font>

You're quite correct, Mr. patton, I should be shooting the pic, not in it. Guess my enthusiaism got the best of me. :smile:

Especially when one thinks about Mr. Butler's notions of the 4T.

On 2002-03-17 06:36, TraceyX wrote:

On 2002-03-16 20:06, Chris Loyd '82 wrote:
My efforts to find the birthdate of Mr Hanson have failed. I can only guess he is a Boomer. Feel the passion, not the macho-ness, of his writing.

Although I also have been unable to find his birthdate or age listed anywhere, I have discovered from this page:

http://www.ucsc.edu/news_events/pres...alumaward.html

that he graduated from college in 1975.

I think we can be 99% sure that he is a boomer. I mean, look at him:

And, on 2002-03-17 07:57, Virgil wrote:

Mr. Victor Davis Hanson was born in 1953. I just read his latest Culture and Carnage and found my self sadly unconvinced. As he is an agraian and a grape grower of long tradition, his book seemed an exercise in "cherry picking" which may be fruitful in the orchard but is a bit dubious when contemplating the Muse Clio.


He has written very well on farming and on Greek ways. Imperial overreach comes to mind when looking at his last volume. HTH

If anyone's still interested: I received today an email reply from Dr. Hanson to my email inquiry of him as to his birthdate. It is September 5, 1953. I included the link to here, also, in case he wanted to lurk or comment in person. Wonder if he looked. His reply was short and sweet, but he still responded. I thought it pretty nice. :smile:

On how to be a <S>stalker</S> questioner by E-mail:

Did you tell Mr. Hanson, we have your article, we have your occupation, we have your picture; all we need is your DOB, please reply?

Do advise us youngsters on the Silent Treatment in a matter such as this.

On 2002-03-17 07:57, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
Mr. Victor Davis Hanson was born in 1953. I just read his latest Culture and Carnage and found my self sadly unconvinced. As he is an agraian and a grape grower of long tradition, his book seemed an exercise in "cherry picking" which may be fruitful in the orchard but is a bit dubious when contemplating the Muse Clio.


He has written very well on farming and on Greek ways. Imperial overreach comes to mind when looking at his last volume. HTH

Well, Hanson does address the issue of "cherry-picking" in Chapter One.

As for "imperial overreach", I don't know how you got that out of Carnage and Culture. The book does not advocate any particular foreign policy. It is merely an analysis of how various Western cultural values and military traditions have made the West formidable in battle.

On 2002-03-17 07:57, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
Mr. Victor Davis Hanson was born in 1953. I just read his latest Culture and Carnage and found my self sadly unconvinced. As he is an agraian and a grape grower of long tradition, his book seemed an exercise in "cherry picking" which may be fruitful in the orchard but is a bit dubious when contemplating the Muse Clio.


He has written very well on farming and on Greek ways. Imperial overreach comes to mind when looking at his last volume. HTH

Well, Hanson does address the issue of "cherry-picking" in Chapter One.

As for "imperial overreach", I don't know how you got that out of Carnage and Culture (sic). The book does not advocate any particular foreign policy. It is merely an analysis of how various Western cultural values and military traditions have made the West formidable in battle.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: TraceyX on 2002-03-19 07:19 ]</font>

A A "KULT" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? McCain Lives!

On the right, it is a commonly held notion that the influence of the right is larger than ever, and that there is more support for conservative politics than ever.

However, the left says that they are growing very rapidly. In fact, many will tell you that the grass-roots liberalism is larger than ever.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0318-03.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0319-02.htm

Can it be possible that both of them are right? Yes. Since 9/11, which I would place as the catalyzing event, Americans have no doubtedly become interested in what is going on in this nation, and where they want this nation to go. Apathy and cynicism has largely disappeared. As a result of the lost of this detachment to world events, both sides have been gaining very rapidly in numbers. Also, the lines between the left and right sides of politics have become much clearer since the event. We have seen a polarization of public opinion, with both sides fighting each other urgently to gain the minds of the public.

Hi!

That Noam Chomsky is even still around, in light of history, touting Marxism is truly amazing.

What will history say about us who, having faced down the "evil empire," decide to have a civil war trying to fashion one here?

I dunno, it just doesn't seem plausible that the American people would choose to throw it all away for the sake egalitarian nothingness and economic slavery to the elite class of Bolsheviks like Brian Rush, Noam Chomsky and Robert Reed.

But, that's what the left wants.

Pshaw, Marc. Of course it isn't. That's your demonization of what the left wants, without any connection to reality whatsoever.


Get a grip, dude.

On 2002-03-19 09:35, Marc Lamb wrote:

I dunno, it just doesn't seem plausible that the American people would choose to throw it all away for the sake egalitarian nothingness and economic slavery to the elite class of Bolsheviks like Brian Rush, Noam Chomsky and Robert Reed.

How is this any worse than the fascist emptiness of the Bush administration and economic slavery to the elite class of allied Mensheviks like Bill Bennett, Bill Kristol, and David Horowitz? Not much of a choice, I'd say.

Marc's trolling here, Stonewall. When you want a cheap rise, call a conservative a Nazi or a liberal a Commie. Usually works.

On 2002-03-19 09:35, Marc Lamb wrote:

That Noam Chomsky is even still around, in light of history, touting Marxism is truly amazing

What will history say about us who, having faced down the "evil empire," decide to have a civil war trying to fashion one here?

I'm more concerned about the Bush Administration's attempts to build a Fourth Reich. But anyways, the problem with both fascism and communism is the elevation of state power over individual liberty, which is exactly what the Bush Administration is going. The opposition to state power is individual liberty. The libertarians and greens are against state-power, and prefer giving power and liberty to individuals.

I dunno, it just doesn't seem plausible that the American people would choose to throw it all away for the sake egalitarian nothingness and economic slavery to the elite class of Bolsheviks like Brian Rush, Noam Chomsky and Robert Reed.

But, that's what the left wants.

And people aren't in economic slavery now? Historically, all anarchist or semi-anarchist movements are ANTI-elite. Looking back into American history (here we go again ), we can see this in the Glorious Revolution. If we match the economic, cultural, political, and social arenas of today to very early 1676, we will see that at the top of the social ladder is the Stuart government class, which is equivalent to the corporate class of today. The lower classes of society is analogous to the non-property owners and to indentured servants. The middle class consisted of property owners. Nanthaniel Bacon was a leftist. When Bacon's Rebellion happened, society sought to overthrow the elite. That happened in 1689 - 1691 in various colonies. What came afterwards was a smaller elite, a larger middle-class, and a smaller lower class. Now, let's go forward to the American Revolution. The class structure was very similar, with the British officers in the owning class, and the non-property owners in the lower class, and property owners in the middle class. When the American Revolution happened, the lower and middle classes sought to overthrow the elite, and the results were largely the same as before. In the 1930s, the middle and lower classes sought to overthrow the elite classes. By the late 1940s, the middle class was by far the largest, and had the power in society, with fewer "elites", and fewer poor. The "elite" grew again during the 1980s with the yuppie craze.

So, what does all of this history mean? If we align our current class structure with that of societies just after the initial catalyst (assuming here that 9/11 was the catalyst), then the elite class is the corporate class, with those people living in gated communities. The lower and middle classes include everyone else.

In every 4T, the power that the elite class holds is transferred to that of the middle class, which inevitably grows very large. One can easily see that the Dems and Pubs represent this corporate class, while the other parties represent the middle and lower classes. Because the Green Party is a populist one, it is gaining support from the lower and middle classes.

If we look at American history, then having a small elite that controls society is not likely to happen until the aftermath of an Awakening in the 2060s. But if we can make a proposition that the entire GI generation to be an elite class because of the enormous political and economic power they harbored, then one can conclude that we will see the same thing in the 2020s. When looked at this way, would you rather live under an elite controlled by the equivalent of the Bush Administration with the political and economic system similar to today's, but with a much larger gap in wealth and concentration of wealth at the top with the middle and lower classes becoming entirely indistinguishable from each other and getting poorer and corporations control every aspect of your life, or would you rather live in a society that is more economically mobile in which you can easily join the middle class which is the dominant class and in which your individual rights are protected? That is the difference between the New New Left and the New New Right.

Robert:

Here are some musings on the Bush administration, new stamps, Neighborhood Watch, Ed McMahon, Mussolini, Rome, and the Third Reich:

http://www.almartinraw.com/column53.html



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stonewall Patton on 2002-03-19 11:30 ]</font>

Homeland Security Czar Tom Ridge addressed the Federation (or Union) of US Firefighters last week. It was televised on C-Span.

I expected, (because of 911 and the patriotic feelings among police and firefighters) , the firefighters to be big Bush Administration supporters. Not so. They were polite to Ridge, but not very enthusiastic when he spoke.

They saved their enthusiasm for their Union President who loudly denounced 3 Republican Senators (Larry Craig ID...2 others) for their non-support of the FFs, and vowed to "get Them" in the fall election.

Their response to Dick Ghephart who was the final speaker was very positive.

"Marc's trolling here, Stonewall. When you want a cheap rise, call a conservative a Nazi or a liberal a Commie. Usually works."

Well, two out of three ain't bad, Mr. Rush! And, to be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure that you, like Gorbachev, have really lost your first love.

But anyway, how does it feel, Mr. Rush, to have once toyed with the idea of supporting a Nazi?

So he who posts as "madscientist" is an elite Bolshevik? Has anyone noticed that on the spam thread that he has also been labeled as an Eagle Scout and a Propellerhead?

On 2002-03-19 11:28, Stonewall Patton wrote:
Robert:

Here are some musings on the Bush administration, new stamps, Neighborhood Watch, Ed McMahon, Mussolini, Rome, and the Third Reich:

http://www.almartinraw.com/column53.html

This page was very amusing. Imagine using the design of a postage stamp to imply that the United States was now Nazi Germany, just because it had an eagle on it, and a particular shade of blue that, if you look it up in some esoteric color naming book that nobody ever thinks about, is called "Nordic Blue".

NEWS FLASH: An eagle has been featured on the back of our dollar bill for decades. I guess we've always been Nazi Germany.

Honestly, the argument is as valid as a Christian Fundamentalist arguing that the Founding Fathers were Satan-worshipers because of the eye-over-the-pyramid symbol.

I remember having a discussion in high school with a guy who argued that the fact that there was red on the American flag was proof that we were partly Communist. This is about as valid.

On 2002-03-19 12:40, Tim Walker wrote:

So he who posts as "madscientist" is an elite Bolshevik? Has anyone noticed that on the spam thread that he has also been labeled as an Eagle Scout and a Propellerhead?

Good point, Tim. And this reminds me that, in considering Marc on that thread, he struck me as something of an ?ber-Blowhard deserving of a separate classification not found on Vince's chart. It then occurred to me that an ?ber-Blowhard is better classified as a Fartiste, i.e Marc = Fartiste. I will explain later on that thread when I get a chance.

Virgil writes

Mr. Butler, Mr. William Bennett wants Y-O-U! HTH http://www.avot.org/

As they say in my war gaming circles, I seek to evade.

Stonewall adds

Let's get a group shot of this neocon revival:

(L to R): Bob Butler, Bill Kristol, Bill Bennett, George W. Bush, John Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Alan Keyes.


I'm just kidding, Bob. I wouldn't lump you in with those worms, blowhards, frauds, puppets, and lackeys. But you have to admit that it would make one hell of a shot.

If you don't mind, I'd rather be behind the camera than in front of it. (I'd joke about preferring to be behind some more destructive technological device, but jokes that might conceivably be construed as threats to government officials do not seem prudent in the presence of such fine gentlemen as I am here associated with.)

Anyway, I haven't felt this complemented since Eric praised me as a fellow liberal.

Again, my feeling is that the world is flawed, that progress is necessary, that the division of wealth between the first and third worlds along with more access to weapons of mass destruction will be at the core of the upcoming crisis. This is liberal to the extent I'm showing a concern for (and fear of) the downtrodden. On the other hand, the conservative values of human rights, democracy and equality ought to be major tools in reinventing our increasingly global society. These tools served us well in prior crises. There is more to be done with them.

Marc adds

"What is Evil? Those who attempt to cling to the past in a Fourth Turning are evil." --Bob Butler 54

Of course, part of this is that the winners get to write the histories. If George III, Jefferson Davis and Hitler haven't received the best press known to man, this is in part because they never deserved it. IMHO colonial imperialism, the divine right of kings, slavery and fascism do have their place. That place is in the past. In my mind, evil might be associated with a wealthy privileged class attempting to maintain political, military and/or economic dominance over the poor and powerless. If this makes me sound a bit like a commie, I'll note that the professional Communist and Republican party members could both be described as elite minorities. It would perhaps be safer if I quoted McCain on campaign finance reform or Eisenhower on the dangers of the Military Industrial Complex, or the hippies on The Establishment rather than Marx. Still, Marx called it straight, with no doublespeak inserted to avoid sounding like Marx.

If there is a common theme between Enron, the World Trade Center and Clinton Impeachment, it might be an abuse of power by those (expletive deleted) capitalist imperial scum Marx so hated. Of course, the Cold War proved that Capitalists ruling elites limited by representative government can run countries more prosperously than Marxist ruling elites less handicapped by feedback from the workers. Thus, Marx is very out of fashion. The class struggle anti-imperialist lingo is very unpopular since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thus, the enemies of imperialism are quoting perversions of Agricultural Age fundamentalist religious values, rather than Marxist. This is a great leap backwards. It results in a massive values gap, with neither faction caring that much about the wording of the other's propaganda.

I've got to admit that I blinked on seeing the Four Freedoms quote on the AVOT web site. For a second, I thought they might be getting it right. I then noted they had edited out FDR's "everywhere in the world" phrases. In the original Four Freedoms speech, each of the Four Freedoms was followed by "everywhere in the world." AVOT is downplaying that aspect of FDR's vision, FDR's justification for the US leaving isolation behind and becoming a world power. AVOT's vision is too much concerned with maintaining the United States' wealth, freedom, political influence and military dominance for my taste. AVOT's crusade is not to spread the Four Freedoms through all the world, with the primary concern focused on those who lack the Four Freedoms most. AVOT seems more concerned with maintaining the status quo.

And that puts them uncomfortably close to evil.

_________________
We shall not have Freedom from Fear, everywhere in the world, while we forget the other three.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Bob Butler 54 on 2002-03-19 13:13 ]</font>

"I've got to admit that I blinked on seeing the Four Freedoms quote on the AVOT web site. For a second, I thought they might be getting it right. I then noted they had edited out FDR's "everywhere in the world" phrases."

I haven't a clue why Mr. Saari would've thought Bennett wanted you, Mr. Butler.

"In the original Four Freedoms speech, each of the Four Freedoms was followed by "everywhere in the world." AVOT is downplaying that aspect of FDR's vision, FDR's justification for the US leaving isolation behind and becoming a world power."

FDR, with/without prior knowledge, had a gift handed to him, Mr. Butler. It was called Pearl Harbor, and came wrapped in the death of "tens of thousands," throughout the Pacific theater, of innocents in the days following December 7th.

Without such a gift, Mr. Butler, would you have persuaded FDR to attack on all fronts armed only with a gun and a piece of paper called the Four Freedoms, Mr. Butler? Do you honestly think you can just demand that mothers freely give the blood of their sons like this? Is there any reality flowing through those brain cells of yours, Mr. Butler?

"AVOT's vision is too much concerned with maintaining the United States' wealth, freedom, political influence and military dominance for my taste. "

What would be the point of losing our "wealth, freedom, political influence and military dominance," Mr. Butler?

"AVOT's crusade is not to spread the Four Freedoms through all the world, with the primary concern focused on those who lack the Four Freedoms most. AVOT seems more concerned with maintaining the status quo. "

So your "crusade," Mr. Butler, is to attack, subdue and occupy any country on this planet that fails to meet your standards of "freedom," Mr. Butler?

"And that puts them uncomfortably close to evil. "

And you, Mr. Butler, are one sick puppy. :smile:

On 2002-03-10 18:25, TrollKing wrote:

i swear to christ i've gone over this before, jesse. they are not all "preppy and conservative".

Actually, you did go over this before, but you were talking to me. I remember the schools attracting little preppies all the way back to when I was in college and high school. Before even leaving high school the solid, straight-arrow overachievers seeking a good degree in business had their sights set on Harvard or Yale.

Walker: So he who posts as "madscientist" is an elite Bolshevik? Has anyone noticed that on the spam thread that he has also been labeled as an Eagle Scout and a Propellerhead?

Patton: Good point, Tim.

Lamb: Uh, guys, you might want to read what Mr. Reed wrote. It's raw revisionism of American history and pure Marxist class-envy. Label Mr. Reed anything you like, but make no mistake he is a young, Marxist radical.

I strongly advise anyone near or around St. Louis to grab your wallet, coz if you got one Mr. Reed believes it belongs to him, not you.

Happy fourth, all! :smile:

On 2002-03-19 13:42, voltronx wrote:

Actually, you did go over this before, but you were talking to me.

a thousand pardons, then. i just assumed that it was jesse as i thought it unlikely that 2 people would say virtually the same thing within a couple weeks.

Before even leaving high school the solid, straight-arrow overachievers seeking a good degree in business had their sights set on Harvard or Yale.

well, yes, the business schools at either university are likely rather conservative, but that is the nature of business schools everywhere.

but my point was that the ivy league schools are not generally conservative.


TK