Originally Posted by sean '90

pbrower2a, if you EVER post anti-corporate non-optimistic crap like you just did, you WILL be arrested and sent to re-education camp where we Millies will FORCE you to drink and eat and wear and etc. only corporate stuff as a punishment for your pessimism.

Not if we Xers torch the camp first, as well as the corporate factories, and your house too for good measure...

When the brownshirts meet the Black Bloc, the Black Bloc wins every damn time. Count on it. Livesearch "4GW".

HTH. HAND.

Originally Posted by sean '90

pbrower2a, if you EVER post anti-corporate non-optimistic crap like you just did, you WILL be arrested and sent to re-education camp where we Millies will FORCE you to drink and eat and wear and etc. only corporate stuff as a punishment for your pessimism.

The GIs had more commies and socialists then any other generation in history. In Millennials Rising one of the quotes on the side of the page (by Susan Brombacher, a old poster from way back before I joined, IIRC) comments that "If the Millies are disadvantaged economically you won't have a generation of gangsters, you'll have a generation of Communists" or something to that effect.

Originally Posted by sean '90

pbrower2a, if you EVER post anti-corporate non-optimistic crap like you just did, you WILL be arrested and sent to re-education camp where we Millies will FORCE you to drink and eat and wear and etc. only corporate stuff as a punishment for your pessimism.

Wal-Mart is corporate. K-Mart is corporate. Target is corporate. Safeway is corporate. Kroger is corporate. JCPenney is corporate.

Most of us are trapped into eating corporate-supplied food, clothing, and fuel. Unless one wants to become self-sufficient to the extent of trapping, growing, or raising his own on some frontier, evasion of Corporate America is impossible.

I don't trust big corporations with my civil liberties and economic interests. Giant corporations tend to seek far-right political figures to crush unions and to fix prices while stripping people of civil liberties. I see little difference today between some of the big industrialists of our time and those who paid Mussolini, Hitler, and the Tojo clique.

Greed and power-lust remain vices.

Originally Posted by Odin

The GIs had more commies and socialists then any other generation in history. In Millennials Rising one of the quotes on the side of the page (by Susan Brombacher, a old poster from way back before I joined, IIRC) comments that "If the Millies are disadvantaged economically you won't have a generation of gangsters, you'll have a generation of Communists" or something to that effect.

Indeed. Millies are averse to fundamentalist religion, one of the most powerful forces of political reaction in America. I see them as far more protective of children than Boomers, and glaring poverty for their own children is inconsistent with such protection.

So far the pathology supporting economic inequality is the narcissism among the powerful -- and Boomers dominate in the managerial elites. The Me Generation is capable of unspeakable cruelty toward the powerless... as one should expect of narcissists whose sole motivation is economic gain and indulgence. Anyone expecting the fast track in a business career had better put all else subordinate to the gain of the shareholders and one's bosses.... and it's bad form to not to show support for the consumerist ethos. That is, go deeply in debt so that you must advance in the corporate ranks and will do anything for a buck other than outright embezzlement or betrayal of company secrets.

Collectivism in a capitalist system that serves customers and workers reasonably well creates the likes of Ronald Reagan -- but in a capitalist system that mistreats almost everyone other than the well-connected -- and, worst of all, perverts the political process -- ensures a large Hard Left. I figure that the generation contemporary to our GI Generation was the one most sympathetic to commie rule where it occurred. Capitalism and collectivism are compatible -- if the capitalist system works reasonably well.

Let's discuss Marxism as simply as possible as a philosophical construct. It is one of the simplest philosophies as presented to peasants, farm laborers, clerks, and industrial workers. It depends upon two premises:

1. Capitalism is a hopelessly corrupt and inequitable order that ensures mass poverty so that it can indulge the sybaritic excess of landowners, industrialists, and financiers.

2. Such a system deserves overthrow so that the masses can get some personal dignity in a system that works better, at the least, in meeting human needs and hopes.

Face it: an ideology so flawed as Marxism must be simple if it is to appeal to those with the least education, the fewest assets, and the least stake in a social system. It does not win its struggles on university campuses, let alone in corporate boardrooms (in the latter, it's fascism that is likely to prevail). The negation of one of those premises is enough to negate revolutionary socialism in any form, including some millenarian composite of Christianity and extreme socialism. Hint: Jesus Christ, contrary to a delusion of the Hard Right, was very much an economic egalitarian.

The more successful proponents of capitalism believe in competition among businesses, labor freedom, and consumer choice and see those as the means of challenging the worst tendencies in capitalism. Being able to walk away from an employer who treats one badly without fear of destitution is the best defense that a worker has.

Fascists endorse and enforce the cruelty of capitalism at its worst; they believe in inequity as a necessity for "national glory", first within a country and then internationally. So does the Rove/Bush clique.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

What does the troubling investigation of previous and ongoing mass murder and the complementary wish to ignore such killing say about the 3T/4T divisions?

The POTIROI wants "more investigation" (sic) of the European exterminations of Jews, Roma, Slavs, JWs, homosexuals, the infirm of body, the unsound of mind etc. after questioning the killings.

Such says more about the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran than it does about the historical record. After all, the Nazis kept accurate records of their killings... what could be done to refute those killings? Claim that the records are forged?

The POTUS wishes that the killing of peoples in the Armenian Unpleasantness not be labelled a 'genocide'.

There's a simple way out of that mess: for the current Turkish government to acknowledge that that genocide occurred under a despotic regime that Turks themselves overthrew. The Turkish Republic is no more the Ottoman Empire than the Federal Republic of Germany is the Third Reich -- or that the Japanese political system of our time is not the same one as that that sponsored massacres of conquered peoples and horrific abuse of prisoners.

The memorial for the slaughter of Poland's elite by Progressives in Katyn Woods becomes a political football between "nationalists" and "progressives".

"Progressives"? "Nationalists"? By 1940 Josef Stalin was in league with the worst thugs who ever called themselves unambiguous Europeans. If anything, I suspect that Stalin butchered Polish internees at Katyn at the behest of Hitler. After all, those people were a possible core for Polish national revival in the event of some 'unpleasantness' or 'misunderstanding' between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact included clauses that neither the Soviet Union nor the Third Reich would tolerate any revival of Polish nationalism.

Hitler and Stalin had a common interest in the destruction of what remained of any Polish elite capable of resuscitating a Polish State -- and I suspect that Hitler was delighted at the massacre.

The Peking Olympiad is styled the "Genocide Games" by Progressives angered by the Darfur Difficulty and the Myanmar Murders though the Celestials are not the trigger pullers or rapists in question.

China has become the #1 rival as a superpower to the United States. Unlike the Soviet Union it has no ideology to promote. The Communist Party of the PRC might as well style itself a "Conservative" party, from which it differs only in its maintenance of commie icons. China's culture -- unlike that of Russia -- is not exportable except to Chinese diaspora. But the PRC has far greater economic power than the USSR ever had.

We'd love to have the Chinese government to use moral suasion in Sudan and Burma... because the Bush administration has lost the talent and credibility for such an effort.

Is this 3T behavior, this hemming and hawwing about State Killings on an impressive scale? Or is this denialism a 4T gambit?

National pride becomes one of the few social unifiers in a late 3T as cultural identity fragments on lines of class, ethnicity, region, and generation. Large-scale killings, whether apocalyptic war or outright democide, are almost always 4T behavior. Concentrated power creates great potential for killing, as do rage and fear, legitimate or otherwise. Power tends to concentrate sharply during a 4T; whether the power is used for good or ill depends upon the moral values of those who wield the power.

Stalin, Hitler, and Tojo were all unqualified evil.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Such says more about the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran than it does about the historical record. After all, the Nazis kept accurate records of their killings... what could be done to refute those killings? Claim that the records are forged?



There's a simple way out of that mess: for the current Turkish government to acknowledge that that genocide occurred under a despotic regime that Turks themselves overthrew. The Turkish Republic is no more the Ottoman Empire than the Federal Republic of Germany is the Third Reich -- or that the Japanese political system of our time is not the same one as that that sponsored massacres of conquered peoples and horrific abuse of prisoners.



"Progressives"? "Nationalists"? By 1940 Josef Stalin was in league with the worst thugs who ever called themselves unambiguous Europeans. If anything, I suspect that Stalin butchered Polish internees at Katyn at the behest of Hitler. After all, those people were a possible core for Polish national revival in the event of some 'unpleasantness' or 'misunderstanding' between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact included clauses that neither the Soviet Union nor the Third Reich would tolerate any revival of Polish nationalism.

Hitler and Stalin had a common interest in the destruction of what remained of any Polish elite capable of resuscitating a Polish State -- and I suspect that Hitler was delighted at the massacre.



China has become the #1 rival as a superpower to the United States. Unlike the Soviet Union it has no ideology to promote. The Communist Party of the PRC might as well style itself a "Conservative" party, from which it differs only in its maintenance of commie icons. China's culture -- unlike that of Russia -- is not exportable except to Chinese diaspora. But the PRC has far greater economic power than the USSR ever had.

We'd love to have the Chinese government to use moral suasion in Sudan and Burma... because the Bush administration has lost the talent and credibility for such an effort.




National pride becomes one of the few social unifiers in a late 3T as cultural identity fragments on lines of class, ethnicity, region, and generation. Large-scale killings, whether apocalyptic war or outright democide, are almost always 4T behavior. Concentrated power creates great potential for killing, as do rage and fear, legitimate or otherwise. Power tends to concentrate sharply during a 4T; whether the power is used for good or ill depends upon the moral values of those who wield the power.

Stalin, Hitler, and Tojo were all unqualified evil.

The first paragraph of your post demonstrates one more reason why the Shah of Iran should be restored.

The Ottoman Empire was not despotic, at least not in the way the evil Turkish Republic is. The Sultan would not be arresting Nobel Prize winning novelists like Orhan Pamuk for "insulting Turkishness", whatever that means. The reason the evil Turkish Republic refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide is b/c they are ideologically descended from the Young Turk regime that ruled Turkey during the First World War, after having effectively neutered the Sultan. The evil republicans ruling Turkey would also be forced to acknowledge that not everyone under their authority is a Turk, as they have been falsely claimimng for decades. The Kurds, btw, may have been granted rights to independence by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire near the end of its existence. I abhor Mustafa Kemal, the evil founder of the evil Turkish Republic, who is known for his hatred of religion. Long live the true ruler of Turkey, Sultan Ertugrul Osman V!

Stalin and Hitler were actually devout Satan-Worshippers, and they are burning in Hell now, as they will be for all eternity. Tojo was a wannabe shogun and a traitor to his Emperor, the Showa Emperor of Japan. God **** Hideki Tojo!

Calm down, son.

Originally Posted by sean '90

Stalin and Hitler were actually devout Satan-Worshippers, and they are burning in Hell now, as they will be for all eternity. Tojo was a wannabe shogun and a traitor to his Emperor, the Showa Emperor of Japan. God **** Hideki Tojo!

Hitler was a Catholic.

Originally Posted by MichaelEaston

Calm down, son.

My god he is hyper.

MichaelEaston : Calm down, son.


sean '90 : Stalin and Hitler were actually devout Satan-Worshippers, and they are burning in Hell now, as they will be for all eternity. Tojo was a wannabe shogun and a traitor to his Emperor, the Showa Emperor of Japan. God **** Hideki Tojo!Calm down, son.

Odin : Hitler was a Catholic

Ritalin (Tm), The Millie Pillie suggestion from the over the Hillie generation.

I would pay to see Sean in a political science, history, or theology class.

Pass the popcorn!

Originally Posted by sean '90

The first paragraph of your post demonstrates one more reason why the Shah of Iran should be restored.

I have seen the Crown Prince of the Pahlevi dynasty on television... and he sounded as if he were ready to do for Iran what Juan Carlos has done for Spain. I'll take a monarchical restoration if necessary should a constitutional government be established or restored.

The Ottoman Empire was not despotic, at least not in the way the evil Turkish Republic is. The Sultan would not be arresting Nobel Prize winning novelists like Orhan Pamuk for "insulting Turkishness", whatever that means.

That "evil Turkish Republic" harbored plenty of Jews during World War II. The Greeks and Serbs at the least would have welcomed the Turks as liberators had the opportunity arisen during World War II.

The reason the evil Turkish Republic refuses to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide is b/c they are ideologically descended from the Young Turk regime that ruled Turkey during the First World War, after having effectively neutered the Sultan.

You ought to read what Alfred Toynbee had to say about the Sultan.

The evil republicans ruling Turkey would also be forced to acknowledge that not everyone under their authority is a Turk, as they have been falsely claimimng for decades. The Kurds, btw, may have been granted rights to independence by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire near the end of its existence. I abhor Mustafa Kemal, the evil founder of the evil Turkish Republic, who is known for his hatred of religion. Long live the true ruler of Turkey, Sultan Ertugrul Osman V!

Turkish citizens at least have freedom of religion within the only secular State in the Middle East. Mustafa Kemal is the George Washington of Turkey... and he established a two-party system so that Turkey would not have an entrenched dictatorship. Turkey may be a flawed democracy -- which is more than one can say of Syria, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, or Saudi Arabia.

.... What is your level of formal education? You seem to have some potential... but you are far from achieving it.

Sean seems to (perhaps unintentionally) make a convincing case for monarchy in one particular areas... the need people have for heroes, those whose public and personal behavior stand as a model for others to emulate.

For what other good can royalty be that to serve, essentially, as paid National Heroes? Think of the British Royal Family... the calm, collected grace under pressure exhibited by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles... and the humanitarian efforts of the late Princess Diana. I would agree that royalty has its uses, and is an institution worth preserving in societies with such a tradition.

But the days of absolute rule by divine right are gone, and are never coming back. No one person, or group of people, have the right to lord their own desires, ambitions, or whims over everyone else. Modern day corporations are bad enough... and, I can only hope, will soon be dealt with.

Bill Cosby could be a grey champion. But he is essentially a conservative one. Cosby is clearly making a call for a return to something that worked better in the past (the old heads). I could make the argument that what he thinks will help the black community may very well help everyone else.

That makes me wonder. Some here hold the idea that the conservatives are holding on to the answers from the previous crisis, while the progressives are trying to answer the new questions. But isn't it entirely possible that the progressives are heading down unsuccessful paths themselves, and if so, what implications does that have for a crisis' playing out?

First U.S. baby boomer applies for Social Security
Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:17pm EDT
By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Retired school teacher Kathleen Casey-Kirschling on Monday became the first ripple in a "silver tsunami" of retiring baby boomers applying for pension benefits that threatens to overwhelm U.S. government finances.

Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, and will receive her first Social Security check in February 2008 as the first wave of baby boomers turns 62 next year and becomes eligible for early retirement benefits.

Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said the agency is bracing for some 80 million Americans to apply for retirement benefits over the next two decades.

"We are already feeling enormous pressure from baby boomers being in their peak disability years and now we're preparing for so many of them to file for retirement," Astrue said at a press conference with Casey-Kirschling.

The system also includes benefits for disabled workers.

Part of that preparation is to encourage boomers to apply for benefits online at www.socialsecurity.gov/onlineservices. Astrue said the roughly 40 minutes it takes to apply from home is more convenient and less time-consuming than traveling to the local Social Security office.

Because Casey-Kirschling is retiring early, her monthly benefit is reduced to 75 percent of what she would have received had she waited for full retirement at age 66.

The age of full retirement for Social Security is gradually rising from 65 for those born before 1938 to 67 for people born after 1959 under a 1983 law that was enacted to shore up the pension program's finances.

Social Security, which referred to the looming crisis as a "silver tsunami," is facing enormous financial pressures from the generation born in the aftermath of World War Two. The latest report by the program's trustees said by 2017, Social Security will begin to pay more benefits than it receives in taxes. By 2041, the trust fund is projected to be exhausted.

Lawmakers have been talking about fixing the problem for years, but failed amid partisan bickering over a plan by President George W. Bush to partially privatize Social Security.

"There is no reason to have any immediate panic," Astrue said. "I and most people who are really familiar with the situation are confident that there will be some pain along the way, but we will get there and Social Security will be there for future generations."

Casey-Kirschling, who taught food and nutrition to seventh-graders in New Jersey, said she is also confident lawmakers will eventually tackle the retirement program's long-term financial problems.

"I do think they will come up with a solution," she said.

Budget-watchers in the U.S. Congress have been contemplating forming an independent bipartisan commission to review ways to fund the growing number of pensioners. So far the idea has not gotten off the ground and no decisions on program changes are expected at least until the next president takes office in January, 2009.

Originally Posted by antichrist

Bill Cosby could be a grey champion. But he is essentially a conservative one. Cosby is clearly making a call for a return to something that worked better in the past (the old heads). I could make the argument that what he thinks will help the black community may very well help everyone else.

That makes me wonder. Some here hold the idea that the conservatives are holding on to the answers from the previous crisis, while the progressives are trying to answer the new questions. But isn't it entirely possible that the progressives are heading down unsuccessful paths themselves, and if so, what implications does that have for a crisis' playing out?

I have no doubt that the Progressives are heading off in the wrong direction ... and the right direction ... and no direction. Part of the problem with trying new things is, they're new and untested. Do you think that, prior to Henry Ford, anyone thought the automobile would be the ubiquitous form of transportation it's become? And what about computing, from the perspective of the 1950s?

I think FDR hit on the correct formula, perhaps by accident: Try it. If it doesn't work, admit it and try something else. Repeat until success is achieved. Implicit in that procedure is an evaluation of why things don't work, so mistakes aren't repeated. There's also the problem that early success is not necessarily long term success, but that's inevitable. It's also the prime driver of the saeculum.

So 4Ts are high-risk eras, which generate low-risk 1Ts, and so on. It's not perfect, but it may ideal.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I have no doubt that the Progressives are heading off in the wrong direction ... and the right direction ... and no direction. Part of the problem with trying new things is, they're new and untested. Do you think that, prior to Henry Ford, anyone thought the automobile would be the ubiquitous form of transportation it's become? And what about computing, from the perspective of the 1950s?

You mean to tell me that Henry Ford was unable to predict US society's over dependence on the automobile? After all, he was the one who made sure that the workers in the plants were paid enough that they could actually afford to buy the product. It was predicted during the oil shocks and gasoline lines of the 1970's that our love affair with the auto was ending. How wrong they were! We are more dependent than ever, while mass transit systems are constantly going broke. No acceleration in gasoline prices have reversed this trend at all.


I think FDR hit on the correct formula, perhaps by accident: Try it. If it doesn't work, admit it and try something else. Repeat until success is achieved. Implicit in that procedure is an evaluation of why things don't work, so mistakes aren't repeated. There's also the problem that early success is not necessarily long term success, but that's inevitable. It's also the prime driver of the saeculum.

So 4Ts are high-risk eras, which generate low-risk 1Ts, and so on. It's not perfect, but it may ideal.

Interesting that you bring this one up, because in this Sunday's Chicago Tribune there was an op-ed piece about how the GI Bill was perfect for its time, but that it wouldn't be for ours. At the time FDR signed the bill, it was to avoid a repeat of the debacle of the Bonus Army march of the 1930's by veterans of WWI, who by and large were paid a pittance. Said bill is now remebered as the visionary product of a nation's gratitude. There is now a proposal called the Webb program which would probably lower re-enlistment rates by 5 to 10 percentage points.

Sorry I do not know how to break up quotes correctly when responding to more than one paragraph. Guess in the future I will have to make separate posts so that it comes out right.

Brian,

Click quote, and edit the post like so (Replace all < with [ and > with ]):

<quote=Brian Beecher;217240>Interesting that you bring this one up, because in this Sunday's Chicago Tribune there was an op-ed piece about how the GI Bill was perfect for its time, but that it wouldn't be for ours. At the time FDR signed the bill, it was to avoid a repeat of the debacle of the Bonus Army march of the 1930's by veterans of WWI, who by and large were paid a pittance. Said bill is now remebered as the visionary product of a nation's gratitude. There is now a proposal called the Webb program which would probably lower re-enlistment rates by 5 to 10 percentage points.</quote>

How interesting.

<quote>Sorry I do not know how to break up quotes correctly when responding to more than one paragraph. Guess in the future I will have to make separate posts so that it comes out right.</quote>

Does this help? After you break up the parts you want to respond to, you'll have to add the quote tags wherever they are missing. This will be at the end of the first part you break up, and the beginning of the second. When you replace the < with [, we get:

Originally Posted by Brian Beecher

Interesting that you bring this one up, because in this Sunday's Chicago Tribune there was an op-ed piece about how the GI Bill was perfect for its time, but that it wouldn't be for ours. At the time FDR signed the bill, it was to avoid a repeat of the debacle of the Bonus Army march of the 1930's by veterans of WWI, who by and large were paid a pittance. Said bill is now remebered as the visionary product of a nation's gratitude. There is now a proposal called the Webb program which would probably lower re-enlistment rates by 5 to 10 percentage points.

How interesting.

Sorry I do not know how to break up quotes correctly when responding to more than one paragraph. Guess in the future I will have to make separate posts so that it comes out right.

Does this help?

Originally Posted by jadams

First U.S. baby boomer applies for Social Security
Mon Oct 15, 2007 5:17pm EDT
By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Retired school teacher Kathleen Casey-Kirschling on Monday became the first ripple in a "silver tsunami" of retiring baby boomers applying for pension benefits that threatens to overwhelm U.S. government finances.

Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, and will receive her first Social Security check in February 2008 as the first wave of baby boomers turns 62 next year and becomes eligible for early retirement benefits.

Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said the agency is bracing for some 80 million Americans to apply for retirement benefits over the next two decades.

"We are already feeling enormous pressure from baby boomers being in their peak disability years and now we're preparing for so many of them to file for retirement," Astrue said at a press conference with Casey-Kirschling.

The system also includes benefits for disabled workers.

Part of that preparation is to encourage boomers to apply for benefits online at www.socialsecurity.gov/onlineservices. Astrue said the roughly 40 minutes it takes to apply from home is more convenient and less time-consuming than traveling to the local Social Security office.

Because Casey-Kirschling is retiring early, her monthly benefit is reduced to 75 percent of what she would have received had she waited for full retirement at age 66.

The age of full retirement for Social Security is gradually rising from 65 for those born before 1938 to 67 for people born after 1959 under a 1983 law that was enacted to shore up the pension program's finances.

Social Security, which referred to the looming crisis as a "silver tsunami," is facing enormous financial pressures from the generation born in the aftermath of World War Two. The latest report by the program's trustees said by 2017, Social Security will begin to pay more benefits than it receives in taxes. By 2041, the trust fund is projected to be exhausted.

Lawmakers have been talking about fixing the problem for years, but failed amid partisan bickering over a plan by President George W. Bush to partially privatize Social Security.

"There is no reason to have any immediate panic," Astrue said. "I and most people who are really familiar with the situation are confident that there will be some pain along the way, but we will get there and Social Security will be there for future generations."

Casey-Kirschling, who taught food and nutrition to seventh-graders in New Jersey, said she is also confident lawmakers will eventually tackle the retirement program's long-term financial problems.

"I do think they will come up with a solution," she said.

Budget-watchers in the U.S. Congress have been contemplating forming an independent bipartisan commission to review ways to fund the growing number of pensioners. So far the idea has not gotten off the ground and no decisions on program changes are expected at least until the next president takes office in January, 2009.

What is often forgotten is that the money that the elderly spend goes back into the economy (so long as it is not spent on exports). The multiplier effect works well for transfer payments to people who would otherwise be poor. The money goes back into the system, and governments are able to take in revenue from sales and income taxes. Such is far more effective than throwing money at the super-rich or at the cronies of elected officials.

I remember when the elderly were poor -- when the Lost were getting pittances from Social Security and miniscule pensions (if that) or relying upon the support of their offspring. That's in the past -- unless the coming 4T turns out very badly and Thirteeners are obliged to glean the means of raw survival out of the rubble.

The 'young old' (65-75) are still buying cars, books, furniture, electronic goodies, and the like; the old-old (80+) are spending money on medical care and funeral expenses. The people who supply such things are paying income taxes... Social Security payments are far from a drain on the treasury; they are models of Keynesian economics at work.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Here, from a blatantly right-wing web site, is your Coalition of the Willing. Most of the listed countries did virtually nothing, but needed to show support for political (read: economic) reasons of their own. Not stellar by any means.

And the coalition of the unwilling - those nations among our allies that publicly condemned the action totaled about 4. Obviously, those who supported it vastly outnumbered those who objected. It wasn't unanimous. No. No one said it was - but neither could it be called - by any rational measure - unilateral.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Well, there are certainly war profiteers and a few special sectors (wireless services, for example) making money. But as a whole, the picture isn't bright. The last paragraph says it all.

I find it interesting that even in the article you (a blatantly anti-bush, anti-war individual) chose to quote, there is a section noting bright spots in the economy. I've seen articles that give the overall growth rate at 10% rather than the 2-3% quoted here. But, the data even in this article is sufficient to back up some of what I was saying.

Pre-war, oil revenue was roughly 70% of the Iraqi economy. With just a few percentage points difference, that largely remains the case today. As I'm sure you're aware, there has been little to no growth in oil exports due to frequent damage by terrorist attacks.

That means the private sector is at the very most just 30% of the economy and is generating virtually ALL of the 2% growth suggested by this article. If you do the math, that's about a 10% growth rate for the private sector - which isn't bad.

BTW - because Iraq is in such a state of flux, accurate data from the country is VERY difficult to obtain. The result is that the range of different values for any given data point is quite large - even amongst the most respected sources in the country. I suspect you're getting your links from sites which advocate very anti-war views. These sites tend to post links that have the most extreme version of the data available. I think if you really look at the entire range of respected sources, you'll find that that 2% figure is the lowest of all of them.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I've heard exactly the contrary, so you can cherry pick, but I doubt the general case holds (see previous cite).

I would have agreed with you several months ago, but alas your information is a bit out of date. The surge strategy has now reduced countrywide violence levels to below the point they were immediately before the first bombing of the mosque in Samarra (you may remember that was when violence really started spinning out of control and folks like yourself started screaming "civil war.")

BTW - that particular data point is from the report below: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/news....aspx?id=47662

Much of this is, of course, due to the broadly reported "Anbar Awakening." Sunnis in areas around Baghdad and in the West of the country have largely started to reject AQI (now, I believe calling itself AQM, M for Mesopotamia) because of the large amount of violence those lunatics rain down even on their closest friends. These areas are now working with the coalition to provide a significant reduction in violence.

What is not as widely covered yet is the fact that Shiites in Baghdad has also started turning against their violent allies - in this case the Mahdi Militia for the same reasons. see this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/wo...t/12mahdi.html

In fact, coalition commanders are now saying that violence is pretty much limited to just 4 of Baghdad's (17, I think) districts. This is a relatively new development to be sure and things could change - but in the greater part of Iraq, life is starting to return to normal.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

I'll save everyone some time. Here's a great consolidated study by the Brookings Institution. Go to page 40 for electricity. Note: pre-war level of 95,000 MWh has rarely been reached since, even allowing for the massive investment in infrastructure.

Even the study you're quoting here says that we've added 600 MW of capacity just in the last month and that we're now a full 1000 MW (more than 25%) above the pre-war capacity nationwide. The total capacity is now just short of 5000 MW.

That in itself, however, is a bit misleading. Looking at the top of that chart, you can see that we destroyed 90% of the power grid during the invasion. We restored about 3/4 of that within a month and the terrorists have NEVER been able to reduce it below that level since.

It's also kind of ignoring what a sorry state the power grid was in pre-war. Centcom says (http://www.mnf-iraq.com/images/stori...wot_070806.pdf) that the goal for all USG projects is to raise the total capacity to about 6700 MW - that's almost TWICE the pre-war level, and frankly, increasing a national power grid to that extent will be HUGE accomplishment. But even then, the estimate is that Iraqis will only have an average of about 10-12 hours per day. So pre-war, the power grid was producing at most only about a third of what was really needed.

Baghdad residents are particularly vexed because they're currently only getting about 8 hours of power a day. Pre-war, they were already getting 12 or more hours of power a day because Sadam diverted most of the power grid to Baghdad - at the expense of the rest of the country. Now, they only get about 8 because power is distributed more evenly across the country.

The rest of the country is pretty happy with the power situation because they were getting practically nothing before the war. Now, most of the country outside of Baghdad has 10-12 hours per day - a vast improvement. A few areas are claiming that they now have 100% of what they need (even though what they receive may be somewhat below what we would expect here in the west).

With the success of the surge, rebuilding is now apparently (judging by the +600 MW figure for September) occurring very fast indeed.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

So, anecdotal evidence trumps the head count of refugees in all countries reporting them.

Nope. But neither should you discount anecdotal evidence just because it disagrees with your world view. The fact of the matter is that refugees are moving in both directions - depending on how bad the fighting is in any given area.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

See above. No need to repeat what has already been debunked.

See my debunking of your debunking above.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

You cited these numbers before. Provide a cite or drop this assertion. I can find no credible numbers anywhere.

It's a pretty recent survey and frankly, I have better things to do than to waste any more time looking up links for someone who clearly isn't interested in facts. You'll note I took the lazy route on some of this and used the facts you presented rather than bothering to find alternate sources. Frankly, you're not worth more effort.

Here's a hint, though. It's real and it won't go away just because you choose to pretend it doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

• Saddam supported the Palestinians families of terrorists. So have many Saudis and others. Let's blow the entire area to smithereens

As an individual item, it's minor and if it were just for that, we almost certainly wouldn't have gone beyond the diplomacy stage. However, as part of a much larger picture of issues that we were concerned about, it was yet another stone that tipped the scale toward action.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

• Name any AQ suspects being harbored by Saddam - with a cite this time.

Abu Masab Al Zaquari was, in fact, there. Are you saying he wasn't AQ? Also, you admit to the AQ training camp, but deny AQ suspects were there. Was the camp empty?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

• The AQ training camp was in the north: the Kurdish area we had under effective control long before we invaded

We controlled the area and yet we allowed an AQ training camp to exist there? Hmmm.... interesting theory. The fact of the matter is we were just doing flybys to keep Sadam's troops from coming en masse to persecute the Kurds. We actually had very little control at all. The Kurds were kind of self-governing, but they didn't have the strength to take on AQ.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

• I think the half-hearted attempt on GWHB is one of the reasons we went to war.

One for four is pretty bad.

Actually, as I stated earlier in the thread, these were only a few of the reasons we gave to the UN for action. There were, I believe, 17 reasons total. (look it up). I gave many of the primary reasons earlier in the thread. But, apparently you were unable to refute them. Any one of these might have been insufficient for action, but taken as a whole they present a pretty troubling picture of Sadam's behavior and intentions.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

The most up to date information was the UN inspectors who literally screamed that they didn't have any WMD. We even had an American member of the team (Scott Ritter) stand up (At great personal risk) and say so.

And the most up to date intelligence from our allies, who have the best intelligence apparatus in the world, was saying that those inspectors were being duped. So, in light of credible sources on both sides of the argument, what do you do? Give the benefit of the doubt to a raving lunatic who's just nutty enough to use WMD on a nation he doesn't like?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

If you hate the 'Bush sucks' meme, stop supporting the unsupportable.

Nope. Don't hate it at all. Actually, I find it quite laughable that folks on the left choose to use it in lieu of actual reasoned arguments. Please don't deprive me of my entertainment.

Originally Posted by Odin

Hitler was a Catholic.

Hitler imprisoned Catholic priests. Have you not heard of St. Miaximilian Kolbe?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

I have seen the Crown Prince of the Pahlevi dynasty on television... and he sounded as if he were ready to do for Iran what Juan Carlos has done for Spain. I'll take a monarchical restoration if necessary should a constitutional government be established or restored.



That "evil Turkish Republic" harbored plenty of Jews during World War II. The Greeks and Serbs at the least would have welcomed the Turks as liberators had the opportunity arisen during World War II.



You ought to read what Alfred Toynbee had to say about the Sultan.



Turkish citizens at least have freedom of religion within the only secular State in the Middle East. Mustafa Kemal is the George Washington of Turkey... and he established a two-party system so that Turkey would not have an entrenched dictatorship. Turkey may be a flawed democracy -- which is more than one can say of Syria, Iran, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, or Saudi Arabia.

.... What is your level of formal education? You seem to have some potential... but you are far from achieving it.

The Crown Prince of Iran is de jure His Imperial Majesty Shah Reza Pahlavi II of Iran.

Good for the Turkish Republic, then. Turkish citizens do NOT have freedom of religion when it comes to practicing it in public. Ask the Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Patriach of Constantinople is not treated with due respect by the Turkish government, they consider his title to be patriach of some neighborhood in Istanbul, I think. They also consider all people living in Turkey to be Turks. The Kurds are considered "mountain Turks". The Turkish government recently pulled its ambassador to America simply b/c we dared condemn the Armenian Genocide committed by their ideological forbears the Young Turks, who held effective political power during the late Ottoman Empire. You can legally be imprisoned for "insulting Turkishness", whatever that means. They tried to arrest Nobel Prize winning novelist Orhan Pamuk on that, for his Nobel Prize winning novels dealing with the Armenian Genocide. The state is so committed to secularism that the army will even intervene if they feel the state's official semi-atheistic stance is threatened. Mustafa Kemal can also be blamed for problems in the Middle East today since he abolished the Caliphate in 1924. There has been no widely accepted authority on the Islamic faith since then, which makes it hard to counter the radical fundie types. I abhor Mustafa Kemal, and hope he is in Hell!

Originally Posted by stilltim

And the coalition of the unwilling - those nations among our allies that publicly condemned the action totaled about 4. Obviously, those who supported it vastly outnumbered those who objected. It wasn't unanimous. No. No one said it was - but neither could it be called - by any rational measure - unilateral.

Yes, any "coalition" that consists of nations looking for a quid pro quo is not a "coalition of the willing". It's more a "coalition of the wishing".

Originally Posted by stilltim

... I find it interesting that even in the article you (a blatantly anti-bush, anti-war individual) chose to quote, there is a section noting bright spots in the economy. I've seen articles that give the overall growth rate at 10% rather than the 2-3% quoted here. But, the data even in this article is sufficient to back up some of what I was saying.

Pre-war, oil revenue was roughly 70% of the Iraqi economy. With just a few percentage points difference, that largely remains the case today. As I'm sure you're aware, there has been little to no growth in oil exports due to frequent damage by terrorist attacks.

That means the private sector is at the very most just 30% of the economy and is generating virtually ALL of the 2% growth suggested by this article. If you do the math, that's about a 10% growth rate for the private sector - which isn't bad.

BTW - because Iraq is in such a state of flux, accurate data from the country is VERY difficult to obtain. The result is that the range of different values for any given data point is quite large - even amongst the most respected sources in the country. I suspect you're getting your links from sites which advocate very anti-war views. These sites tend to post links that have the most extreme version of the data available. I think if you really look at the entire range of respected sources, you'll find that that 2% figure is the lowest of all of them.

This is an interesting view of the world - similar to the one Reagan used to justify the wonderful economy he created. The economy is far from healthy, and that's why so many are either leaving or have just given up. Are there a few bright spots? Sure. Does that mean things are rosy? No.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... I would have agreed with you several months ago, but alas your information is a bit out of date. The surge strategy has now reduced countrywide violence levels to below the point they were immediately before the first bombing of the mosque in Samarra (you may remember that was when violence really started spinning out of control and folks like yourself started screaming "civil war.")

BTW - that particular data point is from the report below: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/news....aspx?id=47662

Much of this is, of course, due to the broadly reported "Anbar Awakening." Sunnis in areas around Baghdad and in the West of the country have largely started to reject AQI (now, I believe calling itself AQM, M for Mesopotamia) because of the large amount of violence those lunatics rain down even on their closest friends. These areas are now working with the coalition to provide a significant reduction in violence.

What is not as widely covered yet is the fact that Shiites in Baghdad has also started turning against their violent allies - in this case the Mahdi Militia for the same reasons. see this article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/wo...t/12mahdi.html

In fact, coalition commanders are now saying that violence is pretty much limited to just 4 of Baghdad's (17, I think) districts. This is a relatively new development to be sure and things could change - but in the greater part of Iraq, life is starting to return to normal.

Quoting the Defense Department as a source of how great they're doing is like quoting a preacher on why his religion is the right one. But I'll agree that some violence is abating, due almost entirely to the fact that the areas now becoming peaceful have been cleansed of all elements not part of that religio-ethnic group. Is this true progress?

Originally Posted by stilltim

... Even the study you're quoting here says that we've added 600 MW of capacity just in the last month and that we're now a full 1000 MW (more than 25%) above the pre-war capacity nationwide. The total capacity is now just short of 5000 MW.

That in itself, however, is a bit misleading. Looking at the top of that chart, you can see that we destroyed 90% of the power grid during the invasion. We restored about 3/4 of that within a month and the terrorists have NEVER been able to reduce it below that level since.

It's also kind of ignoring what a sorry state the power grid was in pre-war. Centcom says (http://www.mnf-iraq.com/images/stori...wot_070806.pdf) that the goal for all USG projects is to raise the total capacity to about 6700 MW - that's almost TWICE the pre-war level, and frankly, increasing a national power grid to that extent will be HUGE accomplishment. But even then, the estimate is that Iraqis will only have an average of about 10-12 hours per day. So pre-war, the power grid was producing at most only about a third of what was really needed.

Baghdad residents are particularly vexed because they're currently only getting about 8 hours of power a day. Pre-war, they were already getting 12 or more hours of power a day because Saddam diverted most of the power grid to Baghdad - at the expense of the rest of the country. Now, they only get about 8 because power is distributed more evenly across the country.

The rest of the country is pretty happy with the power situation because they were getting practically nothing before the war. Now, most of the country outside of Baghdad has 10-12 hours per day - a vast improvement. A few areas are claiming that they now have 100% of what they need (even though what they receive may be somewhat below what we would expect here in the west).

With the success of the surge, rebuilding is now apparently (judging by the +600 MW figure for September) occurring very fast indeed.

If you look at the data you'll see that capacity rises in the hot season, when attacks are suppressed by the weather, and drops in the cooler seasons when it isn't. Summer just ended. Bring fresh data in January or February.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... Nope. But neither should you discount anecdotal evidence just because it disagrees with your world view. The fact of the matter is that refugees are moving in both directions - depending on how bad the fighting is in any given area.

The main stream of refugees is out of the country - if the target countries will let them in. Many without resources are simply turned away. Others that have expended their resources are forced to leave by circumstance, not by choice.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... It's a pretty recent survey and frankly, I have better things to do than to waste any more time looking up links for someone who clearly isn't interested in facts. You'll note I took the lazy route on some of this and used the facts you presented rather than bothering to find alternate sources. Frankly, you're not worth more effort.

Here's a hint, though. It's real and it won't go away just because you choose to pretend it doesn't exist.

So you say. Look, even the former commanders, once safely in retirement, are calling this unwinnable. They have no ax to grind, so I tend to give their POV a lot more credence.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... Abu Masab Al Zaquari was, in fact, there. Are you saying he wasn't AQ? Also, you admit to the AQ training camp, but deny AQ suspects were there. Was the camp empty?

No, I'm saying that Saddam had no control over or contact with that band of AQ rebels, because they were in the Kurdish area where Saddam had no reach.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... We controlled the area and yet we allowed an AQ training camp to exist there? Hmmm.... interesting theory. The fact of the matter is we were just doing flybys to keep Saddam's troops from coming en masse to persecute the Kurds. We actually had very little control at all. The Kurds were kind of self-governing, but they didn't have the strength to take on AQ.

That's more accurate than saying that Saddam had control.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... Actually, as I stated earlier in the thread, these were only a few of the reasons we gave to the UN for action. There were, I believe, 17 reasons total. (look it up). I gave many of the primary reasons earlier in the thread. But, apparently you were unable to refute them. Any one of these might have been insufficient for action, but taken as a whole they present a pretty troubling picture of Saddam's behavior and intentions.

Attacking a sovereign nation requires a real and present threat, or an international sanction. Neither applied in this case - as you are fully well aware.

Originally Posted by stilltim

... And the most up to date intelligence from our allies, who have the best intelligence apparatus in the world, was saying that those inspectors were being duped. So, in light of credible sources on both sides of the argument, what do you do? Give the benefit of the doubt to a raving lunatic who's just nutty enough to use WMD on a nation he doesn't like?

The French knew the inspectors were right, because they had the Foreign Minister on their payroll. They tried to warn us, but we had the word of a taxi driver that this wasn't the case. Best sources?

Originally Posted by stilltim

... Nope. Don't hate it at all. Actually, I find it quite laughable that folks on the left choose to use it in lieu of actual reasoned arguments. Please don't deprive me of my entertainment.

Feel free to entertain yourself, but have the courtesy to cite unbiased data when contested unbiased data quoted by others. Other than that, go for it.

Here is a particularly interesting event that certainly shows a change of attitude from 'glorify ME' to 'glorify US'.

Originally Posted by Associated Press

Donors Bid Millions NOT to Rename School
By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- When he became dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business in 2002, Michael Knetter went looking for a big donor, someone who would give $50 million in exchange for putting their name on the school.

No one was interested.

So, Knetter decided to do something radical: find contributors willing to pay to keep the school's name off the market.

The rest of the story.

This is a sure sign that "we are entering a different era." In fact, it surprises me that many Blacks don't view themselves as a single race. Ironically (as predicted by S&H) the most important racial issue may be the class/values divide within Black America.

Redefining What It Means to Be Black in America

by Juan Williams

One of the most damaging forces tearing at young black people in America today is the popular culture's pernicious image of what an "authentic" black person is supposed to look like and how that person is supposed to act.

For example, VH-1's highly rated Flavor of Love show features a black man in a clownish hat, a big clock hanging around his neck, spewing the N-word while demeaning black women. And hip-hop music videos celebrate the "Thug Life" and "gansta" attitude for any young black person seeking strong racial identity.

But a critic who points out that this so-called culture is defeatist and damaging — because it leads to high drop-out rates, record black-on-black murder statistics and a record number of out-of-wedlock births — is dismissed as a prude and a censor. Anyone questioning lyrics that glorify violence and make it cool to treat women as sex toys is told that the words reflect the reality of black life, and that they are "acting white."

Well, today there is new fuel for the debate.

A poll released by the Pew Research Center, in association with NPR, finds that 67 percent of black men and 74 percent of black women think rap music is a bad influence on black America. In fact, 59 percent of black men and 63 percent of black women think the whole hip-hop industry — from the jailhouse fashion of pants hanging low, to indifference to work and school — is equally detrimental to black America.

White and Hispanic Americans agree, too. The Pew poll finds 64 percent of whites and 59 percent of Hispanics agree on the damaging impact of hip hop.
This Pew poll is a uniquely reliable measure of black opinion. Unlike most polls, it has a large sample of black people, in addition to whites and Hispanics. Most polls include such a small number of blacks and Hispanics that it is hard to draw reliable conclusions about racial issues. This poll is different and its findings are stunning.

Damaging Media Images

For example, young black people are the most upset (when compared to older blacks in the poll) about the way black Americans are portrayed on television and in the movies. Blacks under the age of 50 are much more likely to say media images of black people are worse today than they were 10 years ago.

And the proportion of young black people in the 18-29 age group who condemn the current media images of black people is 31 percent — higher than the 25 percent of blacks between the ages of 30-49, and the 17 percent of blacks in the 50-64 age group with similar disdain for black images in the media.

Similarly, when asked if the portrayal of black people on television and in the movies is harmful, it is young black people who most likely scream "Yes!" More than half (54 percent) of 18- to 29-year-old African Americans say black people are presented in a negative way in movies and TV shows. Fifty percent of black people ages 34-49 agree.

It is interesting to note that among black people 65 and older — who may have lived through times of rank racial images, from Amos 'n Andy-type minstrel shows to blaxploitation movies — the percentage concerned about current negative portrayals of black people drops to 18 percent.

Note that in every age group, the level of outrage about troubling images in movies and on TV is far less than the alarm over the corrosive impact of rap and hip-hop.

These revealing cultural findings are just part of a series of revelations about the reality of black opinion today.

Falling Concern over Immigration

Take the explosive subject of immigration. Last year, an anti-immigration group in Los Angeles, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, pulled together a group of black academics and activists to announce that most black Americans oppose guest-worker programs, want to close the U.S. border with Mexico and favor rounding up illegal immigrants. This got wide attention and was cited as Congress struggled with immigration reform earlier this year.

But the Pew poll finds that only 28 percent of African Americans say illegal immigration represents a "very big/big problem" in their community. There is a split on the question of whether blacks would have more job opportunities if there were fewer immigrants. The poll found 46 percent of black Americans disagree with that statement, while 44 percent agree.

When a poll asked a similar question in 1986, nearly three-quarters of black respondents said blacks would have more job opportunities if there were fewer immigrants. That would indicate that despite the higher profile of immigration today, black concern over the issue has actually dropped dramatically.

The level of concern over illegal immigration in black America is about the same as it is in white America (30 percent) and lower than it is among Hispanics (44 percent).

The big concerns for black Americans are lack of good jobs (58 percent); unwed mothers (50 percent); crime (49 percent); and drop-out rates (46 percent).

A Single Race?

Another revelatory finding in the Pew poll is that 37 percent of African Americans now agree that it is no longer appropriate to think of black people as a single race. A little more than half of the black people polled — 53 percent — agreed that it is right to view blacks as a single race. And the people most likely to say blacks are no longer a single race are young black people, ages 18-29.

Forty-four percent of those young black people say there is no one black race anymore, as compared to 35 percent of the 30- to 49-year-old black population, and 34 percent of the black people over age 65.

The split in the black race comes down to a matter of values, according to the poll. In response to the question, "Have the values of middle-class and poor blacks become more similar or more different?" 61 percent of black Americans said "more different." White Americans agreed, with 54 percent saying there is a growing values gap between the black middle class and the black poor; 45 percent of Hispanics agreed, too.

At the same time, 72 percent of whites, 54 percent of blacks, and 60 percent of Hispanics agree that in the last 10 years, "values held by black people and the values held by white people (have) become more similar."

Making It in America

This leads to what may be the most important finding in the poll: 53 percent of black Americans now agree that "blacks who can't get ahead are mostly responsible for their own condition."

White America (71 percent) and Hispanic America (59 percent) agree that racism, while still a factor in American life, is not the principal force keeping poor black people in poverty. The more oppressive force, they seem to be saying, is a lack of strong families and the prevalence of values that do not emphasize education, hard work and perseverance.

It is important to note that this is not some Pollyannaish view that ignores the reality of racism. Sixty-eight percent of blacks say they deal with racial discrimination today in at least two of the categories of experience cited in the poll: such as applying for jobs, buying a house, renting an apartment, applying for college, shopping or dining out.

But even with that hard-edged view of how often they have to deal with discrimination, a majority of black people say that regardless of the race of an individual, a black person can make it in America.

That is a very different tune from the one the rap lyrics want you to believe — the one that says black people are all victims unless they are society's thugs, pimps and criminals.