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stupidicus
stupidicus's Journal
stupidicus's Journal
July 25, 2014
The question and the answer many an individual come up with lead to many a blind spot, like a disregard for such fixtures in international law and laws of war like proportionality, collective punishment, etc. These things are imo, a direct consequence of those individuals casting both parties under the same moral equivalence umbrella in an effort to justify the far more damaging actions/war crimes of Israel http://prospect.org/article/moral-responsibility-and-israel-palestinian-conflict without any consideration whatsoever to the actual damage respectively suffered, like it's really nothing to consider.
I also read and hear time and again about how it is that Hamas -- a Frankenstein Monster not unlike AQ or SH in terms of construction and motive for it http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/06/18/Analysis-Hamas-history-tied-to-Israel/UPI-82721024445587/ -- intends to not be satisfied until every jew on the planet is killed. That reads eaxctly like the rational our current pres and crew have used to justify the extra-judicial killing of American citizens. "Intends" is morphed into the definitional equivalent of "imminent/immediate" justifying both the means and end of their removal -- the constitution in that case be damned. Israel appears to be using the same rationale the 9/11 criminals used to justify their punishment of innocents -- criminalization of us all, and this conflict provided a good measure of that criminality in their minds.
There's also that old "Well, they shouldn't have elected Hamas as their reps" line, which in my mind is not unlike the justification I use to read and hear from rightwingnuts regarding Bush's collective punishment of the Iraqis -- "Well, if they didn't want what they got, they shoulda deposed him".
And just to be clear here, I'm a "just war" proponent, always have been and always will be, so I'm not trying to justify the war crimes, etc, that Palestinians or their leadership are guilty of in the course of explaining things. I do however have no difficulty whatsoever assigning and apportioning most of the blame for current conditions on the Israelis. In the final analysis, what we have here is a case of one party taking, the other wanting to take back, and there's no mystery as to who is who, no, and who the resolution to the conflict should favor in terms of turning back the clock?
The question for the American people is, how high a price are we willing to pay for the same guilt by association we shamelessly continue? They, like us, continue to be #1 at all the wrong things http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/study-israel-leads-in-ignoring-security-council-resolutions-1.31971 so I can't help but wonder based upon what they lay claim to having the "moral authority" in the matter other than in "never again" lessons they have long been on the dispensing end of in this instance, while harboring a wholly unreasonable expectation that their victims go quietly into night so that they can live rightly without fear of reprisals from the parties they willfully, disproportionally, and excessively harm because they can as the far superior force.
Just because the spoils go to the victors doesn't make the right of might, right.
Hiding War Crimes Behind a Question
Like with all conflicts, it seems to me that a satisfactory resolution to it can only come from a fact-based and just assignment and apportionment of blame accepted and acknowledged by the parties involved, which in turn leads to acceptable and agreed upon solutions.
The impediments to this are many in this case, but few stick out like the proverbial sore thumb like this one imo.
Doesn’t Israel have a right to defend itself? Though it is hard for a question to be wrong, this is a dead wrong question even though it is the heart and soul of Israel’s defense of its attack on little Gaza.
It is also the basis of the U.S. assessment of the ongoing moral disaster. The Senate voted unanimously to answer the question in the affirmative while ignoring all other piercingly relevant circumstances. Never has a misplaced question had such prestige and high-level cachet.
Israeli Prime Minister and U.S. President Barack Obama during an Oval Office meeting on May 18, 2009. (Photo credit: White House)
The contorted question sins by deviousness and legerdemain. With verbal wizardry, offense suddenly becomes defense with all the legitimacy that defense imports. It is akin to asking “Does a rapist during a rape have a right to defend himself if the victim resists?”
With collective amnesia, Israel and the United States brush aside basic realities of warfare. Siege (or blockade) is an act of offensive warfare. Indeed it is among the most devastating of weapons, condemned by both “Just War” theory and — very much to the point — by Jewish and Christian ethics of war. http://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/24/hiding-war-crimes-behind-a-question/
The question and the answer many an individual come up with lead to many a blind spot, like a disregard for such fixtures in international law and laws of war like proportionality, collective punishment, etc. These things are imo, a direct consequence of those individuals casting both parties under the same moral equivalence umbrella in an effort to justify the far more damaging actions/war crimes of Israel http://prospect.org/article/moral-responsibility-and-israel-palestinian-conflict without any consideration whatsoever to the actual damage respectively suffered, like it's really nothing to consider.
I also read and hear time and again about how it is that Hamas -- a Frankenstein Monster not unlike AQ or SH in terms of construction and motive for it http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/06/18/Analysis-Hamas-history-tied-to-Israel/UPI-82721024445587/ -- intends to not be satisfied until every jew on the planet is killed. That reads eaxctly like the rational our current pres and crew have used to justify the extra-judicial killing of American citizens. "Intends" is morphed into the definitional equivalent of "imminent/immediate" justifying both the means and end of their removal -- the constitution in that case be damned. Israel appears to be using the same rationale the 9/11 criminals used to justify their punishment of innocents -- criminalization of us all, and this conflict provided a good measure of that criminality in their minds.
There's also that old "Well, they shouldn't have elected Hamas as their reps" line, which in my mind is not unlike the justification I use to read and hear from rightwingnuts regarding Bush's collective punishment of the Iraqis -- "Well, if they didn't want what they got, they shoulda deposed him".
And just to be clear here, I'm a "just war" proponent, always have been and always will be, so I'm not trying to justify the war crimes, etc, that Palestinians or their leadership are guilty of in the course of explaining things. I do however have no difficulty whatsoever assigning and apportioning most of the blame for current conditions on the Israelis. In the final analysis, what we have here is a case of one party taking, the other wanting to take back, and there's no mystery as to who is who, no, and who the resolution to the conflict should favor in terms of turning back the clock?
The question for the American people is, how high a price are we willing to pay for the same guilt by association we shamelessly continue? They, like us, continue to be #1 at all the wrong things http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/study-israel-leads-in-ignoring-security-council-resolutions-1.31971 so I can't help but wonder based upon what they lay claim to having the "moral authority" in the matter other than in "never again" lessons they have long been on the dispensing end of in this instance, while harboring a wholly unreasonable expectation that their victims go quietly into night so that they can live rightly without fear of reprisals from the parties they willfully, disproportionally, and excessively harm because they can as the far superior force.
Just because the spoils go to the victors doesn't make the right of might, right.
July 4, 2014
Why Gore, the yellow-bellied sapsucker who folded like a wet earth-toned suit gets most of the sympathy while Nader is designated by so many as the real "peckerhead" as the term is commonly used, while understandable, remains unjustified to me. As a Gore voter myself, I think he'd deserve my malice as a quitter if I were to have any, not Nader.
Why Nader had less of a right to run on a platform that nobody criticized then or more recently http://votenader.org/issues/ -- but be my guest if you must -- than Gore did to fold and disappoint all those that voted for him, does not compute. Imagine a Bernie Sanders doing a similar independent/under another banner run http://www.change.org/petitions/bernie-sanders-run-for-president-in-2016-as-a-green-party-candidate against the ACA loving but single-payer hating Hillary Clinton in 2016. Must any and all wouldbe candidates on the left with desires of giving a voice to what's left of the real left do so at the cost of a villian branding because of the potential consequences as so many proudly make clear awaits them with the Nader example?
It does appear so. And who or what is to blame for the SCOTUS selecting or the Gore dereliction in duty to his supporters but Gore for failing to sell himself sufficiently well to avoid both scenarios? It seems to me that to detest Nader so for his real or imaginary role in the Gore loss borders on if not crosses the anti-democratic line, and resembles in many respects the way many rightwingers think ANY dem, regardless of religion, color, creed, etc, etc, etc, has no right to be president. It differs only insomuch in the Nader case, to extending that to the right to run for office, win or lose, and regardless of the motivation for doing so. He's no more ignoble politically than his platform linked to above is. He's more a scapegoat than anything else used to ease or explain the pain of the Gore loss that never occurred in terms of votes if the linked to analysis is correct,
As we saw and learned from the Howard Dean experience, our so-called "liberal media" will certainly assist in the destruction of anyone leaning too far to the left running under the dem banner, as well as those not. Just look at the work of Dowd and others in regards to Gore. As a supporter I resigned myself to his failure as soon as he announced that that one of his highest priorities was to bust up the media conglomerates -- a thing that "Big Dog" gave us as a corporate friendly "centrist" with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You'd think a genius like him would be able to foresee the ramifications of his actions, no, and particularly over something his pecker had no role or presence in to override his better judgement with.
The resurrection of the Nader bogeyman, or the continued whining about him -- however you wanna look at it -- diminishes the role of the selectors on the highest court in our land in the Gore loss, as well as the prospect of anyone speaking for what's left of the real left in the way and manner that he has. He's an endangered species many wanna assist down the road to extinction. It is of course something that can be confused with and related to the ongoing attempts at silencing lefty critics of the dems, and BHO especially and in particular. Nader personifies and exemplifies what can happen when support for dem candidates is sufficiently eroded, and it's far far better to blame it on the better salesmen that takes those votes away than the failure of their candidate to hold them. Since when did so many members of the democratic party start hating democracy in action, or people largely if not solely for participating in that process as Nader did? It's almost like a lefty posing a challenge to dem candidates should be criminalized or something, no? Given all the "lefty extremists" talk and writing I've consumed, it seems we ain't far from that. Let's start with ALL these guys. http://www.cagreens.org/alameda/city/0803myth/myth.html ANd of course, history had lessons available to Nader, like this http://www.leinsdorf.com/perot.htm. Gee, Ralphy musta been real mad over Perot's numbers, which were what, over six times his own in 2000. It's almost like he knew that Florida and the circumstances and happenstances there would lead to to his infamy, which he subsequently sought because he's never been anything but a self-serving jack-ass, which is something no other pol could justifiably be described as, and especially dem ones who all enter politics with noble goals in mind, like wouldbe priest entering the seminary for example.
What slays me most of all, and particularly in the wake of the recent Hobby Lobby decision, is that the guy who has historically been the biggest thorn in their side and who has spent the most time trying to restore the view and legal status of them that our founding fathers held, and to hold them to account, has been CONverted into a villian by the very same people likely whining the loudest about that decision. It's almost like he was supposed to know that Bush would turn into an unindicted war criminal whose only real success would be setting the bar for being spectacularly successful at failure or something. SHeesh, why not blame OBL, without which much of the Bush damage would likely never have occurred? Hell, without the "changing horses" scenario/mentality that the Iraq War posed, can it not be reasonably argued given his record otherwise to that point, that his reelection and last four years of potential damage would never have been as his father was prevented from doing?
I think there's something very inCONgruent/inCONsistent about all of that, but that's just me.
Maybe Gore simply lost his you know whats between here http://ri.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrBT4cM.LVTuEQAispXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzOTJ0bWZ2BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDQ2MV8x/RV=2/RE=1404463245/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.tvclip.biz%2fvideo%2foAUcyfKESts%2fal-gore-tries-to-intimidate-fight-george-bush-at-debates-nod.html/RK=0/RS=If3xqFOBTWJWrEEFoTgA_F_IZMM- and when he cried mommy and gave up.
Has anyone consulted the shadow about this?
If "we" collectively want the most "liberal" candidate possible, being taken for granted as we are every four years ain't the way to get it. The way to get it is to compel our candidates to fear the loss of doing/being otherwise, which would require more Naders, not less. It's a call for the promotion and maintenance of the status quo, even though for example, the last two dem presidents signed Glass-Steagall and the other let most of the crooks it produced off the hook.
WHat I'd really like to know is how anyone can expect leftism/liberalism to prevail on policy matters when the party that allegedly represents both fail to put those animals in the biggest fighting cage, or can deny the role that the "they're both the same enough to ignore the differences" mentality that results in and explains in no small part the apathy/disenchantment that keeps voter participation as low as it is in this country. How many Nader voters would have even voted period without his candidacy for example?
and Nader ain't to blame for that. Corporatist/third way/DLC dems that couldn't get their interest and votes then are. While the Nader haters are all concerned about who got/gets the votes, they lose sight of those who don't vote and why, and the same applies to those who voted for him instead of Gore -- because both are due to what the dems either fail to provide or injustices they are instrumental in perpetuating, like income inequality, etc, etc, etc.
Nader represents the failures they support or fail to criticize, while criticizing and/or condemning those that do. The "bizness" he gets/has gotten differs little in substance or form from that recieved by any/all of us alleged racist BHO-haters around here have recieved. The reason/motivation are the same in both cases, given the prominence and prevalence of the "you're trying to cost us the election" charge found in their assaults.
I'm surprised that "Nader Jr" hasn't found its way into common usage around here by now.
Gore won, and Nader lost
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/111201a.html leaving us all to pay the cost.Why Gore, the yellow-bellied sapsucker who folded like a wet earth-toned suit gets most of the sympathy while Nader is designated by so many as the real "peckerhead" as the term is commonly used, while understandable, remains unjustified to me. As a Gore voter myself, I think he'd deserve my malice as a quitter if I were to have any, not Nader.
Why Nader had less of a right to run on a platform that nobody criticized then or more recently http://votenader.org/issues/ -- but be my guest if you must -- than Gore did to fold and disappoint all those that voted for him, does not compute. Imagine a Bernie Sanders doing a similar independent/under another banner run http://www.change.org/petitions/bernie-sanders-run-for-president-in-2016-as-a-green-party-candidate against the ACA loving but single-payer hating Hillary Clinton in 2016. Must any and all wouldbe candidates on the left with desires of giving a voice to what's left of the real left do so at the cost of a villian branding because of the potential consequences as so many proudly make clear awaits them with the Nader example?
It does appear so. And who or what is to blame for the SCOTUS selecting or the Gore dereliction in duty to his supporters but Gore for failing to sell himself sufficiently well to avoid both scenarios? It seems to me that to detest Nader so for his real or imaginary role in the Gore loss borders on if not crosses the anti-democratic line, and resembles in many respects the way many rightwingers think ANY dem, regardless of religion, color, creed, etc, etc, etc, has no right to be president. It differs only insomuch in the Nader case, to extending that to the right to run for office, win or lose, and regardless of the motivation for doing so. He's no more ignoble politically than his platform linked to above is. He's more a scapegoat than anything else used to ease or explain the pain of the Gore loss that never occurred in terms of votes if the linked to analysis is correct,
As we saw and learned from the Howard Dean experience, our so-called "liberal media" will certainly assist in the destruction of anyone leaning too far to the left running under the dem banner, as well as those not. Just look at the work of Dowd and others in regards to Gore. As a supporter I resigned myself to his failure as soon as he announced that that one of his highest priorities was to bust up the media conglomerates -- a thing that "Big Dog" gave us as a corporate friendly "centrist" with the Telecommunications Act of 1996. You'd think a genius like him would be able to foresee the ramifications of his actions, no, and particularly over something his pecker had no role or presence in to override his better judgement with.
The resurrection of the Nader bogeyman, or the continued whining about him -- however you wanna look at it -- diminishes the role of the selectors on the highest court in our land in the Gore loss, as well as the prospect of anyone speaking for what's left of the real left in the way and manner that he has. He's an endangered species many wanna assist down the road to extinction. It is of course something that can be confused with and related to the ongoing attempts at silencing lefty critics of the dems, and BHO especially and in particular. Nader personifies and exemplifies what can happen when support for dem candidates is sufficiently eroded, and it's far far better to blame it on the better salesmen that takes those votes away than the failure of their candidate to hold them. Since when did so many members of the democratic party start hating democracy in action, or people largely if not solely for participating in that process as Nader did? It's almost like a lefty posing a challenge to dem candidates should be criminalized or something, no? Given all the "lefty extremists" talk and writing I've consumed, it seems we ain't far from that. Let's start with ALL these guys. http://www.cagreens.org/alameda/city/0803myth/myth.html ANd of course, history had lessons available to Nader, like this http://www.leinsdorf.com/perot.htm. Gee, Ralphy musta been real mad over Perot's numbers, which were what, over six times his own in 2000. It's almost like he knew that Florida and the circumstances and happenstances there would lead to to his infamy, which he subsequently sought because he's never been anything but a self-serving jack-ass, which is something no other pol could justifiably be described as, and especially dem ones who all enter politics with noble goals in mind, like wouldbe priest entering the seminary for example.
What slays me most of all, and particularly in the wake of the recent Hobby Lobby decision, is that the guy who has historically been the biggest thorn in their side and who has spent the most time trying to restore the view and legal status of them that our founding fathers held, and to hold them to account, has been CONverted into a villian by the very same people likely whining the loudest about that decision. It's almost like he was supposed to know that Bush would turn into an unindicted war criminal whose only real success would be setting the bar for being spectacularly successful at failure or something. SHeesh, why not blame OBL, without which much of the Bush damage would likely never have occurred? Hell, without the "changing horses" scenario/mentality that the Iraq War posed, can it not be reasonably argued given his record otherwise to that point, that his reelection and last four years of potential damage would never have been as his father was prevented from doing?
I think there's something very inCONgruent/inCONsistent about all of that, but that's just me.
Maybe Gore simply lost his you know whats between here http://ri.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrBT4cM.LVTuEQAispXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEzOTJ0bWZ2BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1ZJUDQ2MV8x/RV=2/RE=1404463245/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.tvclip.biz%2fvideo%2foAUcyfKESts%2fal-gore-tries-to-intimidate-fight-george-bush-at-debates-nod.html/RK=0/RS=If3xqFOBTWJWrEEFoTgA_F_IZMM- and when he cried mommy and gave up.
Has anyone consulted the shadow about this?
If "we" collectively want the most "liberal" candidate possible, being taken for granted as we are every four years ain't the way to get it. The way to get it is to compel our candidates to fear the loss of doing/being otherwise, which would require more Naders, not less. It's a call for the promotion and maintenance of the status quo, even though for example, the last two dem presidents signed Glass-Steagall and the other let most of the crooks it produced off the hook.
WHat I'd really like to know is how anyone can expect leftism/liberalism to prevail on policy matters when the party that allegedly represents both fail to put those animals in the biggest fighting cage, or can deny the role that the "they're both the same enough to ignore the differences" mentality that results in and explains in no small part the apathy/disenchantment that keeps voter participation as low as it is in this country. How many Nader voters would have even voted period without his candidacy for example?
"In the year 2000, exit polls reported that 25% of my voters would have voted for Bush, 38% would have voted for Gore and the rest would not have voted at all."[18]
and Nader ain't to blame for that. Corporatist/third way/DLC dems that couldn't get their interest and votes then are. While the Nader haters are all concerned about who got/gets the votes, they lose sight of those who don't vote and why, and the same applies to those who voted for him instead of Gore -- because both are due to what the dems either fail to provide or injustices they are instrumental in perpetuating, like income inequality, etc, etc, etc.
Nader represents the failures they support or fail to criticize, while criticizing and/or condemning those that do. The "bizness" he gets/has gotten differs little in substance or form from that recieved by any/all of us alleged racist BHO-haters around here have recieved. The reason/motivation are the same in both cases, given the prominence and prevalence of the "you're trying to cost us the election" charge found in their assaults.
I'm surprised that "Nader Jr" hasn't found its way into common usage around here by now.
July 1, 2014
Dems are struggling mightily for a solution to the hobbling of the Hobby Lobby decision
why get all complicated when single-payer will do, won't it?
Why not let the law of unintended CONsequences prevail before Mr. Murphy enters again from stage right with more religion based bondage in mind?
Oh that's right, they are hobbled by that "politically possible" thing. That's why, unlike with the unrealistic goals of rightwingers --like a Ryan budget -- they generally start from a less demanding position, you know, the way it was ignored in the last health care reform battle.
And as we can see, the country is now barely hanging on in the wake of that economy, etc, destroying Obamacare being implemented, and the rightwing swamis are feeling bold, authoritative, and even more uncompromising in the wake of their succesful predictions as the loving and empathetic stewards of the general welfare of we citizens that they've always been.
never mind
