Democrats & Liberals: Archives

I’m reminded of a great soliloquy from a Neo-Evolutionist in the film “Waking Life”

“If you’re looking at the highlights of human development, you have to
look at the evolution of the organism, and then add the development of
the interaction with its environment. Evolution of the organism will
begin with the evolution of life, proceeding through the hominid,
coming to the evolution of mankind: neanderthal, cro-magnon man. Now,
interestingly, what you’re looking at here are three strains:
biological, anthropological (development of cities, cultures), and
cultural (which is human expression). Now, what you’ve seen here is
the evolution of populations, not so much the evolution of
individuals. And in addition, if you look at the time-scale that’s
involved here: two billion years for life, six million years for the
hominid, a hundred-thousand years for mankind as we know it, you’re
beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm.
And then, when you get to agriculture, when you get to the scientific
revolution and the industrial revolution, you’re looking at ten
thousand years, four hundred years, a hundred and fifty years. You’re
seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time. What that
means is that as we go through the new evolution, it’s going to
telescope to the point that we should see it manifest itself within
our lifetimes, within a generation. The new evolution stems from
information, and it stems from two types of information: digital and
analog. The digital is artificial intelligence; The analog results
from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism, and you knit the
two together with neurobiology. Before, under the old evolutionary
paradigm, one would die and the other would grow and dominate. But,
under the new paradigm, they would exist as a mutually supportive,
non-competitive grouping independent from the external. Now what is
interesting here is that evolution now becomes an
individually-centered process eminating from the needs and desires of
the individual, and not an external process, a passive process, where
the individual is just at the whim of the collective.

So, you produce a neo-human with a new individuality, a new
consciousness. But, that’s only the beginning of the evolutionary
cycle because as the next cycle proceeds, the input is now this new
intelligence. As intelligence pods on intelligence, as abilty pods on
ability, the speed changes. Until what? Until you reach a crescendo.
In a way, it could be imagined as an almost instantaneous fulfillment
of human, human and neo-human, potential. It could be something
totally different. It could be the amplification of the
individual…the multiplication of individual existences, parallel
existences, now with the individual no longer restricted by time and
space. And the manifestations of this neo-human type evolution could
be dramatically counter-intuitive; That’s the interesting part. The
old evolution is cold, it’s sterile, it’s efficient. And, it’s
manifestations are those social adaptations. We’re talking about
parasitism, dominance, morality, war, predation. These will be subject
to de-emphasis. These will be subject to de-evolution. The new
evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of
loyalty, of justice, of freedom. These will be the manifestations of
the new evolution, and that is what we would hope to see from this,
that would be nice.”

I think the problem is that as we’re on the cusp of two evolutionary paradigms, there is a conflict going on between Traditionalism and Progressivism.

Traditionalism teaches people to keep things the way they are, that life is a zero sum game, and that we must be competitive in everything we do in order to dominate, or win, and preserve the current power structure.

Progressivism believes that life is not a zero sum game, that in fact we can cooperate and live in harmony, and work together to make the proverbial pie bigger and bigger.

Very simply put, the chickenhawks are Traditionalists who are wired to want to win and dominate. Their massive egos fuel their hawkish policies. The more enlightened bunch — the Progressivists — are willing to forgo this self-flagellation to just live happily and harmoniously. Traditionalists just don’t seem to be happy unless there is a disparity of wealth and power.

Nicely done, Paul, and great reply Andrew. I’m not completely anti-war either, but I am definitely pro-peace.
Realistically though, we must realize that these kinds of ideas aren’t going to be heard by the Neocon’s in the Whitehouse, and our current majority in the House and Senate.

Paul, I respect where you are coming from. But, your assessment and preferences are too simple to meet the threat. We need surgical military strike activity to take out terrorist camps and cells. We need international money monitoring and the cooperation of all other nations to in that endeavor. And we need, as you recommend, the diplomatic and crisis intervention techniques that will preempt terrorist recruitment - But, we cannot afford that effort alone. It will take NATO, the UN, and APEC to work jointly in this effort to intervene where massive hunger, illness of natural disaster strike. And we need to win over the Mullahs of Islam who view Islam as religion to live by, instead of one to die by.

To win the war on terrorism globally requires the kind of leadership that can muster cooperation, rally global attention, and provide leadership on all of these fronts listed above. President Bush has proved he is not the person capable of this kind of multi-faceted complex approach.

I pray America considers long and hard on the person they elect in 2008 and ignore party politics, because we need the right person in the Whitehouse to become successful in this war, not the right party. Frankly, there is no right party for this job. Democrats and Republican parties both have far more interest power, than they do in finding the best person to address America’s needs. Vote the person, forget the parties.

We did not like Saddam Hussein, so we decided on regime change.

There was also that little thing about funding terrorists, killing close to a million of his own people, invading foreign countries, the torture, the rape… “we just didn’t like him,” is a little, well… a tad misleading.

Cindy makes me think of another way to fight terrorism, indeed, a drastically different approach to foreign affairs. Instead of trying to get rid of terrorists by killing terrorists and supporters of terrorists and fighting wars for regime change, we should use peaceful and democratic overtures in order to turn potential terrorists into friends. Instead of basing our foreign policy on competition and conflict, we should base it on cooperation and helpfulness.

I agree wholeheartedly. Finally, someone says what we’ve all been thinking. But, are these just words Paul? I mean when are we going to see the anti-war movement camp outside of some third-world dictators ranch and demand to see them? I think you are absolutely correct. These protestors need to put their money where their mouth is. Stop taking the easy road by protesting people that they know won’t kill them and get on a plane to really change the world over there in the middle east.

C’mon guys! Micheal Moore, et al, get over there and create regime change where it counts!

What we did to help Indonesia with the tsunami catastrophe, should be a guide for what we should do in other parts of the world. Increasing our foreign aid to .7% of GDP, as has been suggested, is another way. When we sign treaties, we should be offering educational, health and economic aid, not arms.

What? You’re getting off track here. Money? Send money? That’s your version of working for peace? How crudely capitalistic. Everything doesn’t boil down to money, you know Paul. You can’t put a dollar value on peace.

Offering help with no strings attached will make clear to the Palestinians that we are their friends and want them to live in peace with Israel. Arabs in the Middle East will begin praising U.S. as they have never done before. Anti-American propaganda will decrease. Even the mullahs will take notice. The entire global environment will change.

War or peace? The war approach has failed miserably. Let’s try the peace approach.

Right. Let’s test this hypothesis. This might be the perfect example to see if the ‘peace approach’ could work. Now that Israel has shown itself to be appeasement minded, do you think the Palestinians will see their good intentions for what they are or will they see that they are finally getting what they want from Israel? In other words, the war approach worked fine for them to get Gaza back, why change course now?

See that’s ultimately the problem with a political philosophy that is based on such imbalanced moral equivalence. We (the good guys) must give in to them (the bad guys) so that they will realize that we really mean them no harm. In return they (the bad guys) get the idea that the war approach really does work wonders. Then when they (the bad guys) attack again, the appeasers among us think, “Gosh, they still think we mean them harm. They need another example of how we are really nice people who mean them no harm.” This is called a cycle of violence. It’s a cycle that must be broken in order to have peace which can be expressed in an easily understood equation:

appeasement = violence
might + right = no more violence

Andrew L,

Uh, yeah, sure. Is it ok if I’m not willing to pretend the laws of the universe can be suspended just because the ‘enlightened ones’ want it to be so?

you people just don’t get it do you. in war if you side with the enemy you are the enemy .peace only comes after victory.

—-
you people just don’t get it do you. in war if you side with the enemy you are the enemy .peace only comes after victory.
—-
So - do you support Bush? If so, and he lied to get us into Iraq, then who exactly are you saying the enmy is?

Peace only comes from not engaging in warfare, it is not a one-sided proposition.

eric —

“There was also that little thing about funding terrorists, killing close to a million of his own people, invading foreign countries, the torture, the rape… “we just didn’t like him,” is a little, well… a tad misleading.”

Wow. I admire your tenacity in holding to unteneble reasoning after it has been widely debunked. It’s fairly well known that there was little/no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The last Iraqi invasion of a foreign country was addressed by the last Iraq war. Torture and rape was occurring, to be certain, but far, far worse was and is occurring on a far grander scale in a number of other (less profitable) countries.

So it IS that the neocons (I won’t say “we”) didn’t like Saddam.

“What? You’re getting off track here. Money? Send money? That’s your version of working for peace? How crudely capitalistic. Everything doesn’t boil down to money, you know Paul. You can’t put a dollar value on peace.”

What an absurd rejoinder. Charity has nothing to do with capitalism.

Your scales of equivalence are equally silly, even as oversimplifications go. A cycle of violence is not when one side is violent and the other is not. A cycle of violence occurs when, as in Israel, neither side backs down and both engage in continual hostilities.

Moreover, the Israel situation is NOT actually a perfect example of when the hypothesis you deride should be tested. There are decades or more of hostilities and violence at work in that situation, and to say all of that can be disregarded if there is one peaceful, conciliatory act is a tad naive. A more comprehensive and complicated solution is necessary, one that will probably require a multitude of peaceful acts.

your hate towards bush reads like the Unabomber’s Manifesto a mad mans journy in stupidity election’s have there consequence if you belive bush lied way dont you strap on a bomb and strike a blow for peace. you people have gone over the edge and the hate you put out in your blogs shows me that you are cowards and treasonous traders who can never be trusted with the security of the United States of America.

And your failure to comply with our policy just earned you an invite to take your namecalling and denigrations elsewhere, dammstamm. —WatchBlog Managing Editor

dammstamm,
Now, now. critique the message; not the messenger.
Oh, by the way, I think you meant “traitors” and not “traders”.

Just to let everyone understand that we cannot leave Iraq until the Insurgency is destroyed. I understand your feelings but we have a Duty to see this Republican War to the end. Let us persevere.

Call me silly, but frankly, as much as I respect an individual’s perspective on the war, I can’t help but feel that Cindy Sheehan is disrespecting her son’s choice to be in the military, and what he died for. I mean, I know she is grieving and wants the war to end, but I also feel that there are alot more parents that feel their sons died as heros and perhaps even support the decisions their sons made to enter the military and sacrifice their lives in an effort to support our country. I guess I am curious why the media has not spent any real time focusing on the parents of other fallen soldiers, of varying opinions regarding the war? Honestly, it belittles her son’s accomplishments. I was watching CNN this morning, and the press made her son look fairly ineffective, and not very complimentary regarding his choice to go into the military. I mean, he did sign up for it right? So what is so difficult about accepting that, and even moreso, respecting his choice?
I also don’t think terrorists who are sitting around watching peaceful sit-ins on CNN are exactly quaking in their boots wondering if we will stop the war. I have no idea what messages we (american media) are sending to terrorists, but I would think they are having a pretty good laugh.

Sharon-
Her son died for the love of his country. Tell me what could possibly make that ineffective? It is the war that he had to fight where she has the problems. It is only from your point of view that her opposition to the war is a betrayal of her son and her country.

She would say that Bush is the one who has done the betrayal, and her son is a casualty of that betrayal, having died in a fight that Bush’s policy has made more difficult than it ever had to be.

I would say she’s wrong to want to pull out everybody. But I would not attack her, throw aspersions at her character to make that argument. You can disagree with this poor old woman without calling her names. You should see that report on the family whose land the woman was on. Here we had a father who fought that War in Iraq, and though he doesn’t agree with all she says, he is understanding and respectful. Why not follow that soldier’s example and disagree respectfully?

Here it comes…

Cindy Sheehan is an UnPatriotic American who is hurting our Troops by her questioning of the Iraq War. She is probably a supporter for Osama bin Ladin. She probably is a lesbian. She probably had a black baby too since her husband is divorcing her.

Sharon, what of the 5,500 American soldiers who have gone AWOL since 2003? What of the defectors we are just beginning to hear about? What of the suicide rate amongst GI’s in Iraq. And what of the fragging? They chose to serve our country. Apparently, a great many of them differ with Bush on whether invading Iraq does service to our country or our military.

I guess you could chalk up these many thousands of American GI’s as cowards and traitors. I wouldn’t. I would say, having been in the military, that there is a very serious morale problem in Iraq, and I am damn glad some folks are now starting to ask what that problem is and who is responsible for it?

I worked with Viet Nam era vets in an Army psychiatric hospital. Gotta tell you, I couldn’t find a coward or traitor in the entire lot of them, from Lt.Col’s to Privates. A lot of them though, had trouble reconciling their actions as a soldier taking orders with their belief in themselves as good, honorable human beings. Others lost their compass being away from home, family, and loved ones too long. A few, a very few, simply did not get screened well enough at induction. Arlo Guthrie did an expose’ of that group in Alice’s Restaurant.

I have finally figured it out. In this Watchblog format there are editors and respondents. I see the editor group as a well educated, extremely knowledgable group of people also blessed with the ability to research facts and pertinent data and, write articles in such a way as they can be understood by most respondents. The editors are also proficient at writing to the political and/or moral pro and/or con of virtually every topic.

Then, there is “the agitator”. It could be that there is more than one. This agitator generally has the same things to say, repeating themselves over and over again and, the not very secretive way of being incredibly sarcastic. The plus side of the “agitator” is that he/she can annoy you so much that you promise yourself you will never respond to what you consider his/her crap ever again but, as hard as you try to restrain yourself, you cannot.

Don’t hate yourself, Steve Smith. Being an agitator’s not so bad. If you work real hard, you might become as good as me.

Aldous, what in the world makes you think I was referring to you?

unkind,

Wow. I admire your tenacity in holding to unteneble reasoning after it has been widely debunked.

I have yet to hear any such credible debunking. Unless you are counting the slogans, “no war for oil”, and, “Bush lied, People died”, as credible arguments.

Charity has nothing to do with capitalism.

It has everything to do with capitalism actually. Charity is what private individuals choose to do with their money. Something altogether different from the forced giving that Paul envisions. Which is probably closer to funding terror.

There are decades or more of hostilities and violence at work in that situation, and to say all of that can be disregarded if there is one peaceful, conciliatory act is a tad naive. A more comprehensive and complicated solution is necessary, one that will probably require a multitude of peaceful acts.

In other words my description is entirely correct.

Then when they (the bad guys) attack again, the appeasers among us think, “Gosh, they still think we mean them harm. They need another example of how we are really nice people who mean them no harm.” This is called a cycle of violence. It’s a cycle that must be broken in order to have peace…

Another example of a war advocate stopping up his ears and repeating himself ad nauseam.

“I have yet to hear any such credible debunking. Unless you are counting the slogans, “no war for oil”, and, “Bush lied, People died”, as credible arguments.”

Actually, you just did hear it. From me. It must be convenient to have such a spotty memory. I addressed each of your contentions as to why it was “necessary” that we depose Saddam. If you chose to ignore them, it only shows that you have no suitable response. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

“It has everything to do with capitalism actually. Charity is what private individuals choose to do with their money. Something altogether different from the forced giving that Paul envisions. Which is probably closer to funding terror.”

What? Wow, you are just the king of self-serving oversimplifications, aren’t you? Actually, if you know anything about economics, you know that charity plays virtually no role in capitalism or traditional economic theory. Capitalism has to do with investment in captial goods in the context of a free market. Charity is not an investment. Moreover, the relationship between “forced giving”, as you call it, and funding terror is fairly attenuated without further explanation.

Your explanation, which doesn’t strike me as making a whole lot of sense, is nowhere near correct. A “cycle of violence” is a notion that probably has a number of possible incarnations. The kind you describe is fairly uncommon — I can’t think of instances of it offhand after WWII. I would posit that a far more common one is the type in Israel, where two entrenched sides engage in perpetual hostilities because neither will back down or extend an olive branch.

I don’t think anyone in today’s political discourse is saying that we will tolerate unilateral violent action taken against us.
Anticipating your retort, the attacks we suffer in Iraq are not unilateral. We invaded Iraq, we struck first. We can’t be the bully who cries and tells the teacher when the smaller kid hits them back.

Moreover, if you read Paul’s post, I don’t believe he ever suggested that we court CURRENT terrorists with peaceful means; by all means, if someone attacks us, we defend ourselves. But rather than imposing our will on people militarily and tempting them to answer our aggression with further aggrestion in the form of terrorism, let’s show them the benefits of our way of life via peaceful endeavors and let them decide to join us. I think this is a relatively uncomplicated assertion that is difficult to dispute, but unfortunately, has rarely been attempted.

This is not appeasement. We’re not sitting by while Hitler invades the Sudetenland. The implicit comparison I assume you’re making when you choose that term is baseless.

Even the war’s most ardent supporters, President Bush included, acknowledge that the effort to transform Iraq into a democracy faces enormous challenges. The military insurgency shows no sign of abating. On the political front, Iraqi leaders missed their Aug. 15 deadline for a new constitution and are struggling to meet their fallback deadline Monday.
By Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru
Updated: 12:49 a.m. ET Aug. 21, 2005
BASRA, Iraq - Shiite and Kurdish militias, often operating as part of Iraqi government security forces, have carried out a wave of abductions, assassinations and other acts of intimidation, consolidating their control over territory across northern and southern Iraq and deepening the country’s divide along ethnic and sectarian lines, according to political leaders, families of the victims, human rights activists and Iraqi officials.
Media experts note that the journalist’s job is to report what’s happening and why, not to rally support, and that news judgment requires assessing which facts are most important. If schools are being rebuilt, that’s a news story, but if the society they’re in is being blown apart by civil war, that’s a bigger news story.
“If events go well, that’s what you report. If things are going poorly, that’s the reality,”

said GWU professor Livingston, who’s lectured at the National War College. “If bombs blow up and bombs kill Marines and kill soldiers, that’s an important story, and covering that is not bias.”
U.S. journalists will always focus on lost American lives, media experts said, because that’s the most direct link between Americans at home and the war overseas.
“That’s the nature of journalism. And it’s the nature of combat,” Wyatt said. “To criticize the media for covering combat in wartime is like criticizing the sun for coming up.”
While Iraqi representatives wrangle over the drafting of a constitution in Baghdad, forces represented by the militias and the Shiite and Kurdish parties that control them are creating their own institutions of authority, unaccountable to elected governments, the activists and officials said. In Basra in the south, dominated by the Shiites, and Mosul in the north, ruled by the Kurds, as well as cities and villages around them, many residents say they are powerless before the growing sway of the militias, which instill a climate of fear that many see as redolent of the era of former president Saddam Hussein.

“Here’s the problem,” said Majid Sari, an adviser in the Iraqi Defense Ministry in Basra, who travels with a security detail of 25 handpicked Iraqi soldiers. “They’re taking money from the state, they’re taking clothes from the state, they’re taking vehicles from the state, but their loyalty is to the parties.” Whoever disagrees, he said, “the next day you’ll find them dead in the street.”

Karen McLuskie, a British spokeswoman. “We are raising our concerns with the Iraqi authorities at the highest level.”
‘There is no law, there is no order’
“My rights were violated. From whom am I supposed to get them back?” he said last week. “The Americans? The Americans are the ones who gave the Kurds the opportunity to do this.“‘The parties have become businessmen,” said Khazaal, the Basra party leader.
Desperate to restore order, the U.S. military brought in the battle-hardened Kurdish militia, the pesh merga, under the auspices of the new Iraqi army

Kurds, by all accounts, make up no more than 1 percent of the population.

Habeeb, who refused to be interviewed, told the party that he could halt the distribution only if he received an order from “a higher authority” — either the provincial government in Mosul or the central government in Baghdad.
Fifteen minutes later, five pick-up trucks filled with militiamen pulled up, according to witnesses. The fighters dragged the paunchy, 53-year-old Habeeb from his chair and beat him with their fists and rifle butts, the witnesses said. The soldiers placed him facedown in the bed of a pickup, pushed their boots into his back and legs and drove him around “to show everybody what they had done,” said a witness who asked not to be identified out of fear of retribution.
“There is an absence of law,” said a 40-year-old Transportation Ministry official who was detained for five days in Dahuk last month. The official said a Kurdish officer had accused him of “writing against the Kurds on the Internet.”

“‘Freedom’ and ‘liberty’ are only words in ink on a piece of paper,” he said. “The law now, it’s the big fish eats the small fish.”

Fainaru reported from Qaraqosh.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Station won’t air anti-war ad before Bush visit
Spot featuring war mom Sheehan deemed ‘inappropriate’ by Utah affiliate
“
The law now, it’s the big fish eats the small fish.”
Here’s the message to militants: Okay our mistake, you can have Bush and how about we call it even okay?

In other words let Bush be their new leader and take his administration to his new country.

The problem with cindy sheehan is that she identified herself with the far left element. If she would have kept her peace demonstration independent and not as aggressive, I believe she would have had a chance to meet the president and have a respectful conversation. As soon as the left wing element started calling her shots, she didn’t have a prayer in meeting the president.

-Tim
Traditionalist

Realistically though, we must realize that these kinds of ideas aren’t going to be heard by the Neocon’s in the Whitehouse, and our current majority in the House and Senate.

If everyone wanted peace and cooperation and compromise with their fellow human being, then everything would be hunky-dory, wouldn’t it? There wouldn’t be a war in Iraq because Saddam would have been a benevolent leader, Osama wouldn’t have killed 3000 of our citizens, etc., etc. Peace requires the OTHER GUY to cooperate. No matter how peaceful you are or want to be peace still requires two people/nations to cooperate.

Perhaps it would have been best to leave the mid-east alone over the last 2-6 centuries. Maybe it would have been best to let Europe handle its own internal squabbles in the first part of the 1900s. (end sarcasm)

War solves a lot of problems, especially if you kill all of those who want to kill others, or at least enough of them that they see the error of their ways. Imagine what the mid-east will be like in 40 years once those oppressed people find out they can live a self-directed life?

Paul, Good Post.
As a person that does not presrcibe to violence to solve problems because after all the killing and destruction of property talking is the only way things are resolved. Nevertheless, if and when force is necessary to bring both sides to the table than Absolute Force must be administrated. Why did MAD work? Because everyone believed that the Leaders had no problem pushing the button.

Yes, Preasident Bush painted America into a corner by his constent march on WMD’s. However, telling the American People the true reasons for taken Sadham(sp) out would of took more than a 30 second commercial would allow. Nevertheless, we are where we are because of the natural course of Human events.

Eric,
The only problem war has ever solved is one man’s ego of thinking he is righter than the other person. Might does not equal being right for if you study history, the mightyest of nations have failed when they have been proven to be wrong by nature. However, you do bring up a good point about those who are oppessed. However, if a person listens to the Republican Party, do they not also publicly state that The Poor is to be Oppressed? Blame the Liberals in America for they support The Poor does not work if you are fighting a War of Oppression that uses Terrorist Tatics to make their point.

Henry, war has solved slavery in America and the Nazi attempt to take over Europe. War freed us from Britain. I’m not saying War is good, I’m saying that it’s occasionally a necessary evil and can only be avoided when both parties are willing to compromise. My overall point is that if the other guy isn’t willing to seek peace then you’ve got to be prepared for war no matter how much you may not want to engage in it.

Eric,
Like you I do not wish to use absolute force. However, sometimes it is necessary. The Civil War & WWII was unconditional surrender and still both sides had to seat at a table to declare peace.

The problem with the War on Terror and OBL’s philosophy is that all governments are oppressive or appeasive. Sure, Americans may fight amongest ourself on just how to build a Righteous Nation, but I dare one Man to stand up at the public pulpit and declare that he wants to build an unalienable Wrong World. Even the Devil, himself is not that crazy. So if America is going to win the War on Terror than “We the People” must prove in words and actions that our Founding Fathers were unalienable Right when they wrote the words; “We hold these Turths to be Self-Evident.”

Human Nature’s drive to believe that they are Right is one of them, show that OBL’s and his Sages Reasoning & Logic are wrong by nature and you remove his followers drive. The alternative is to release upon the world a force that will impose to the citizens of the world “Conform or be Consumed by The Beast of Nature.? Both have the same outcome (Peace), but their path will have direct effect on how your children live 40 years from now.

David:

I pray America considers long and hard on the person they elect in 2008 and ignore party politics, because we need the right person in the Whitehouse to become successful in this war, not the right party. Frankly, there is no right party for this job. Democrats and Republican parties both have far more interest power, than they do in finding the best person to address America’s needs. Vote the person, forget the parties.

Sorry I reprinted the entire paragraph. Just though it bore a second read.

Clearly, anyone who maintains any objectivity can see you are correct. Parties seek power. That is what they do. That is all they do. Ends justifies the means…and all that.

David, I don’t always agree with you, as you know. But this hits it on the head.

Thank you.