Any ideas about the dual staged press conference, The Debate, tonight?
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September 30, 2004
Fresh Open Thread
Comments
OT but somehow funny. The House Committee on International Relations had some exchanges yesterday: “Nobody questions your patriotism,” Mr. Hyde said. “It’s your judgment that’s under question.” …
There is a webcast (Real Player) available. The exchange starts at about 1:50h. NYT has more.
Posted by: b | Sep 30 2004 10:10 utc | 1
Post John Rawls-ism?
or…Neo-Cons and the Counter-Enlightenment
So what I want to do to begin is describe this counter-Enlightenment, for that is what it is, with one pregnant addition. It certainly hasn’t replaced classical American liberalism, but it contends for power with it; and now it has welded together its own anti-modernism with a political strategy imported by ex-Trotskyite and ex-Leninist intellectual savants. Together they now look not just to struggle with liberalism but to wipe it out—along with, of course, all variants to the Left of liberalism. This is where my theme of counter-Enlightenment meets the more specific theme of “neo-conservative strategies.”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 30 2004 11:27 utc | 2
Thanks Uncle $cam.
This too:
“The debasing of rational thought by millions of people, and beyond that the acquiescence in or encouragement of that debasing by educated and knowledgeable persons who know the difference between hysteria and thought, chills the blood, and suggests that the lust for power has become unlimited.”
Posted by: beq | Sep 30 2004 11:56 utc | 3
Salon.com is publishing excerpts of the 60 Minutes Analysis of Iraq that CBS Will Not Air:
LINK
Also Interesting Story of a Retired Marine LTC Whose Last job Was to Prepare a Report on Reserve Component Morale/Retention. Very Interesting Thoughts. LTC’s Running for Congress as a Democrat in New Jersey.
Marine Declares War On Bush
While Salon is a subscription site, interested readers can get a free day-pass at the first link.
Posted by: Walter Cranckcase | Sep 30 2004 13:09 utc | 4
From the Cato Institute:
[…]The security situation [in Iraq] is so bad that the seven members of Iraq’s Independent Electoral Commission are unable to move freely around the country. Backed by a $320 million budget, the commission is responsible for the conduct of the upcoming election. However, for security reasons, the commission’s official business is confined to Baghdad’s high-security Green Zone.
The commissioners are increasingly forced to abandon their bodyguards and travel incognito throughout Iraq as they try to hire some 36,000 election officials to operate the 9,000 polling stations required to conduct a free and fair national election. Beyond the overriding security concerns, the commissioners are faced with the short-term problem of trying to register voters as part of an electorate that has never before participated in a democratic election and has never been included in a national census.
Independent observers on the ground consider it increasingly unrealistic to attempt to hold elections in such an inhospitable climate. Nevertheless, government officials insist that elections will take place on schedule. Allawi has suggested that elections could be “delayed” in Fallujah and other hostile centers without invalidating the overall outcome. Under that scenario, a significant portion of the Iraqi electorate would be immediately disenfranchised.
However, according to Allawi, Fallujah’s residents could take part in elections “after we liberate them from terrorists.” But the liberation of Fallujah from those guilty of terrorist acts and terrorist sympathies will require the removal of most Fallujans. A genuinely democratic vote would result in an overwhelming endorsement of those cloaked in Baathist-friendly colors.
Pessimistic Iraqis, especially the minority Sunni, already see little light at the end of the democratic tunnel. Today, public opinion surveys reveal that a majority of Sunnis support the insurgents. Without any political representation, Sunni pessimism will turn into rage that will be directed violently at Iraq’s nascent democratic institutions and actors.
No amount of wishful thinking in either Baghdad or Washington will erase the unpleasant reality that division, fear and hatred distinguish contemporary Iraqi politics. If Iraq’s first election is a partial one, the country’s new democracy will be politically stillborn. That would represent an insufficient return on so costly an investment.
Posted by: Pat | Sep 30 2004 13:15 utc | 5
Some links – Palestine and Iraq are getting ballistic – and someone has a big idea:
Twelve Palestinians, 3 Israelis Die in Gaza Violence
Film shows 10 new Iraq hostages
Many killed in Baghdad blasts 41 killed, most of them children
U.S. soldier killed in Iraq rocket attack
No. 1054 if you believe the official numbers are correct
Israel Plans Large-Scale Gaza Operation
Gunmen Kill Police Official in Mosul
This one is special:
Iraq’s oil-rich south considers forming breakaway region – let me think – “cui bono”; it is small, it has no Sunnis or Kurds, it has good logistics (sea port Basra, Kuweit boarder) and the locals have not yet been anoid by US troops only by Brits. On top of that it has 80% of Iraqs oil reserves. Now who could be interested in seperating the south from the rest of Vietraq???
Posted by: b | Sep 30 2004 13:24 utc | 6
His critics would say so emphatically, and they are not without evidence. On its face, the rhetoric of Bush’s recent convention speech harkened back to the democratic idealism of Woodrow Wilson. Bush spoke of this generation’s “rendezvous with destiny” and of America’s obligation to spread the light of freedom across the globe. He spoke of the great things being done for the liberated people of Afghanistan and for the newly-freed people of Iraq. He underscored America’s enduring obligation to facilitate the triumph of liberty. Yet reality and rhetoric often depart, or if they do not depart, they at least fail to line up in perfect congruence.
The reality of Bush’s presidency is that he is still a realist. He is a realist who understands the mandates of American realism. While America must indeed act dispassionately to maximize global stability and its national security, the governmental actors conducting that foreign policy must ultimately still answer to the American people. In the American democracy, the people are not satisfied with the sacrifice of US soldiers for the sake of “stability” or mere “security”. Americans must believe that they are also in the right.
[Jeeeeezuz H. Christ. Ask yourself what ‘national security’ means. Simply speaking, it means the safety of the country from danger originating abroad. Simply speaking, it is the protection of our lives and our property from foreign harm. This is the ONLY mission appropriate to the armed forces of a free country – not to prop up a world order, not to act as that world’s policeman or governor, not to chase the phantom of ‘stability,’ not to “bestow the blessings of liberty” upon others, and most certainly not to turn the globe into one large theater of meddling and intervention for ambitious generals and politicians. If securing our lives and our property against threats from abroad is not, of itself, “in the right,” then we are doomed to sacrifice life and wealth forever in pursuit of ostensibly grander goals.]
Posted by: Pat | Sep 30 2004 13:55 utc | 7
Sorry. The exerpt above, to which I commented, is from Michael McClellan’s article at Tech Central Station, “George W. Bush, Realist or Idealist?” (Link provided at Realclearpolitics.com.)
Posted by: Pat | Sep 30 2004 14:00 utc | 8
One of the most informative articles about Kerry’s background, I have read so far. Maybe there is more to him, than the media has let on so far.
Introducing John Kerry
Posted by: Fran | Sep 30 2004 15:03 utc | 9
National Security isn’t just about external threats. The greatest threat to our collective interests actually comes from w/i, from those who pass themselves off as leaders.
In his last book, Kolko had this to say re interventionism:
The strongest argument against on nation interfering w/ another does not have to be deduced from any doctrine, moral or otherwise; it is found by looking honestly at the history of the past centuries.
Posted by: b real | Sep 30 2004 15:31 utc | 10
Uncle $cam, the “intellectual history” in your post upthread at 7:27 AM obliges me to go out on a limb–a “sociological” limb, if you will, which is something I don’t like to do (from fear of falling). The limb is this: in the United States, as elsewhere, our most active Trotskyites and Leninists were Jewish intellectuals from Eastern Europe. Some of their heirs are various neo-cons with Likudite affinities. We aren’t tracing “enlightenment” and “anti-enlightenment” lines here (everone’s very enlightened), we’re tracing the vicissitudes of an Eastern European Jewish tradition of Messianic and utopian political activism (to which, for example, our own Civil Rights Movement owes so much). I regard the aims of the neo-cons as a regrettable narrowing of that energy. I see nothing of philosophical interest at stake in tying the fortunes of the U.S. to one or another side of a religious civil war in Palestine. I think it’s a disaster mainly driven by a theology of “election” (and you know that I tend to carry on about “election”).
Posted by: alabama | Sep 30 2004 18:11 utc | 12
So saith the Pentagon … DU is not a medical threat to human beings: War’s Littlest Victim[s](NY Daily News)
So mote it be.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 30 2004 18:44 utc | 13
@Fran
I have a dream.
Tonight Kerry will stand up in the ‘debate,’ and instead of getting trapped by the format, he will narrate his story.
In WWII, my mother, Rosemary, spent weeks fleeing from the Nazis, hiding in cellars and travelling at night under threat of death. As she struggled to escape the Nazi dragnets, my opponent’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, was running banking operations that were secretly funding the same Nazi’s who were our enemies. In 1942, the United States government seized grandfather Bush’s banking operations under the Trading with the Enemy Act.
During the Vietnam War, I served in the Navy in an operation that took 75% casualties. My opponent may or not have fulfilled his service in the Texas Air National Guard. For some reason, not a single person will vouch for this man.
During the 1980s, my opponent was taking loans from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International and driving companies into the ground. I and my people were investigating the same BCCI and proved that it was funding international drug dealing, money laudering and illegal arms deals to terrorists and international criminals. This enterprise was not being run by the Bush family, like in grandfather Bush’s day, instead it was financing them. An investigator of the BCCI rightly called it “The mother and father of terrorist financing operations.”
My opponent’s family have been business partners with Nazi financiers, with the greatest U.S. financiers of terrorism, and with the Bin Ladens, and now his VP seems to have become a spokesman for terror and has threatened that there will be more terrorist attacks if I am elected. Well, I do judge a man by the company he keeps, and tonight I am going to ask the American people to take a long look.
But just as he began to tell his tale of national betrayal, I awoke. Now that would make a real debate on our politics.
Posted by: Citizen | Sep 30 2004 19:50 utc | 14
WSJ journalist sending e-mails to his friends. Funny that stuff isn’t printed in the newspaper.
Not safe, not stable: A WSJ reporter discusses Iraq
Posted by: Fran | Sep 30 2004 20:48 utc | 15
alabama “We aren’t tracing “enlightenment” and “anti-enlightenment” lines here …”
Where is here? Are you talking about the US? If so I think we certainly are talking about enlightenment versus anti-enlightenment, at least in what the government is advocating. Who is the audience for this? How much of it titrates down to the media and hence the residents of Oz?
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 30 2004 20:52 utc | 16
Citizen, don’t give up your dream, because sometimes dreams come true.
Posted by: Fran | Sep 30 2004 20:53 utc | 17
Many people died today of foreign induced violence in Palestine nd in Iraq. The descison by Russia to join the Kyoto agreement may save much more lifes. heads up!
Russian Government Backs U.N. Accord on Global Warming
Posted by: b | Sep 30 2004 21:45 utc | 18
Kate, “here” was meant to refer to Uncle $cam’s distinction between two kinds of liberalism in his 7:27 AM post. I have trouble, it seems, marking off my contexts clearly. Freshman English is always near…..
Posted by: alabama | Sep 30 2004 22:02 utc | 19
Mmmmmm, nothing like the smell of a fresh thread.
So I heard about debate drinking games on the radio. Here is what the Chicago Tribune suggests for drinking conditions:
>>>
– Every time President Bush says the word “safer,” take a drink. If he uses the word “democracy” in the same sentence, make it a double.
– For every John Kerry reference to the UN, have a drink.
– If Bush uses the phrase “compassionate conservative,” you must chug your entire beverage.
– Take one drink for every three times Kerry points with his left hand.
– Any previously recorded Bushism, like “misunderestimate” or “subliminable,” used by the president during the debate requires one drink.
– If Kerry exceeds the time limit for any response, take a drink.
– Back-to-back offenses require a double shot and a NoDoz.
A reference by your candidate to any of the following requires one drink:
1) Florida
2) North Korea
3) Axis of evil
4) Saddam Hussein
5) The American people
– And for an exciting twist on the game, anytime anybody mentions the word “Vietnam,” everybody has to take a drink.
<<<
Other versions threw purple hearts, nucular,...
Posted by: PRob | Sep 30 2004 22:28 utc | 20
alabama, I was mostly just ribbin’ you about “here”… 😉
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Oct 1 2004 0:40 utc | 21
Kerry says – “We’ve got to win the war in Iraq. I’ll win the war in Iraq by holding a summit conference.”
I don’t think so.
And I’m voting for him.
May the Creative Forces of the Universe have mercy on our souls, if any.
Posted by: mistah charley | Oct 1 2004 2:39 utc | 22
Hey Kate, English teachers are paranoid about problems of context; and when did a paranoiac ever smile about his paranoia?…..OT: I notice that no one mentioned the neo-cons in the great debate, and that Israel was mentioned just once, in a subordinate clause by someone or other…..Two WASPs from Yale on their best behavior?
Posted by: alabama | Oct 1 2004 2:51 utc | 23
I think Kerry just waxed the floor with Mr Bush, and he probably still does’nt realize it, having never performed the task himself.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 1 2004 3:18 utc | 24
I love it alabama … “two wasps from Yale on their best behavior” … I dunno, but “from context” is all that I can do on the Happy Planet. You?
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Oct 1 2004 3:28 utc | 25
I hate that Repub talking point that Bush keeps hammering, about how Kerry’s questioning of the war’s motive sends the wrong message to the troops over there, and is inappropriate for a commander-in-chief.
Truth and Nuance held hostage in the name of those risking their lives, gungho or shutdafuggup. arghh.
Thank the goddess Kerry jumped on the “they attacked us here, so we had to go to Iraq” biz.
Posted by: catlady | Oct 1 2004 3:32 utc | 26
I thought that Bush was at his best tonight,
and it wasn’t good enough. Kerry clearly seemed “more presidential”: the BBC spin-doctors Sid Blumenthal and David Frum
showed respectively disdainful satisfaction and ill-concealed consternation. Nevertheless, the American electorate has ofter preferred a sow’s ear to a silk purse,
and neither man did anything to diagnose of cure America’s enduring national megalomania.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 1 2004 4:27 utc | 27
Best Bush line of the night:
“But I’m, I just know how this world works.”
When was the last time a world leader packed so much hubris alongside so little intellect?
Posted by: koreyel | Oct 1 2004 4:47 utc | 28
Isn’t it a bit odd that bush really only had the flipflop attack (“changes his position”,”mixed messages”) lined up, which he pretty much struck out on. CSPAN running the split screen was bad for bush; he fidgeted, got red in the face, made faces, drank a lot (including raising an empty glass to his lips), leaned on the podium, stammered, yammered, (half)brain-dumped old talking points, and looked quite testy. What were these guys thinking? He came across terrible on the visual portion, and not any better on his grasp of the issues. Which makes me wonder just why they could be so cavalier about the whole thing. The event was actually more impactful than I was thinking it would be — for Kerry. But what was the deal w/ him saying “It’s right for Israel. It’s right for America.” That’s gonna hurt. But Bush wasn’t really prepared tonite. Why? Too busy planning something at the ranch this week? (Where’s Rummie? Not scheduling any drills I hope…) I did find it interesting how he refered to Missy’s soldier husband — “He got himself killed.” As if it was the guys fault.
Looks like the dems echo chamber is working, much thanks to the weak effort of bush. Kerry could have been hitting them out of the park tonite. Would have preferred it if Citizen’s dream materialized though…
Posted by: b real | Oct 1 2004 4:56 utc | 29
The puppet-show!!!
Lawmaker expresses “dismay” that White House allegedly wrote Allawi speech
Posted by: Fran | Oct 1 2004 6:31 utc | 30
After all the comparisons to the latest Nixon administration and Vietnam war, could it be that Bush is rather the Nixon from 1960, looking silly on TV debate?
Posted by: CluelessJoe | Oct 1 2004 7:52 utc | 32
@ Clueless Joe Right on! This debate was Bush’s Waterloo. Apparently his remark about keeping his daughters on a leash was, rightly, perceived as highly inappropriate (but characteristic) for a candidate trying to free himself from command responsibility in the Abu Ghraib torture case. Will Lynde England now endorse Bush? Will the bondage & discipline brigrade transfer en masse to the Republican ranks?
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Oct 1 2004 8:22 utc | 33
You know what makes me crazy?
“What message does it send to the troops” when you launch them unprepared to invade a country that never threatened us?!?! I believe they signed up to defend our country not to invade and occupy others. Is this too hard too wrap your brain around?
Posted by: beq | Oct 1 2004 11:33 utc | 36
A correction to my misquote of bush last night. He said “he got killed.” My mind/fingers filled in the missing word as it was what I took away from the sentiment. A couple other stmts that stood out for me: “every life is precious, that’s what separates us from the enemy” and that we couldn’t join the ICC b/c of “unaccountable judges @ the hague.”
Posted by: b real | Oct 1 2004 14:30 utc | 37
Alabama Getaway Rolling Stone covers what little boots did in the “Missing Year”.
Posted by: beq | Oct 1 2004 14:32 utc | 38
Good comment on the debate!
It Was a Rout – By William Rivers Pitt
Posted by: Fran | Oct 1 2004 15:02 utc | 40
@Citizen…
That’s damn strong drink.
Very heady.
Can you decant some more?
That really ought to be hyperlinked and posted front and center someplace important.
Posted by: koreyel | Oct 1 2004 15:53 utc | 41
@ beq: always glad to know that i’m not alone.
And I have a feeling that Bush is gonna sorely regret the efforts being made to get mail-in ballots from the troops in Iraq.
Posted by: catlady | Oct 1 2004 16:37 utc | 42
@ catlady:
Election? What election? At Soldiers for the Truth I saw a letter the other day from the wife of a soldier in Iraq who said that the tvs in the mess “had technical problems” during the Democratic convention but worked fine in time for the other thing. Those efforts to get mail-in ballots may be moving another direction by now.
Posted by: beq | Oct 1 2004 16:59 utc | 43
When I hear any talk of exploring new energy sources,it reminds me of when I was a kid my dad took me to a friends house in Pa. 35 yrs ago.His entire house has run off some machine in a small shed.Same old story the gov’t swooped in and took his patent and eventually his property.Just this year 3 patents were made secret by DOE.We already
have these sources.(tesla comes to mind)Recently I’ve read articles on the Quantum Flux Level Over Unity device and Zero Point Energy among many others.I wish Kerry would mention these hidden patents and that he would look into them.Let the unimformed know we don’t need anyones stinking oil.No one is going to rush out and trash their SUV there will not be an instant economic crash (except for oil companies…hee hee)With cheaper and cleaner energy the middle class could afford to start saving again.Sorry rambling its just this has been bothering me since I was a child.Thanks for listenting.
Posted by: onzaga | Oct 2 2004 23:28 utc | 44
In Condemnation of Despair It has become fashionable in recent years to indulge in public displays of resignation and to celebrate history’s darkest moments. The magnitude of today’s culture crisis has produced a particular spectrum of despair which, in its worst formulations, has become the justification of further grave-digging. I am referring to the smug celebration of any number of toxic futures which Western military-industrial excess has made possible. This hip resignation takes many forms, from the punk Luddite who welcomes apocalypse as the termination of collective misery, to the capitalist whose tacit cynicism gives him license to rape and plunder until the well runs dry.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 3 2004 9:14 utc | 46
@koreyel
Painful to listen to. SNL did a good send-up last weekend.
My husband said he listened to Bush speaking at a campaign event today and he sounded really, really awful. Tired, confused, almost like the sufferer of dementia. He wondered if maybe he’s drinking again.
I doubt it, but have nothing to offer other than the strain that’s been evident since last winter.
Posted by: Pat | Oct 5 2004 4:24 utc | 48