Totally in the realm of fun and not necessarily apropos to the above… I wonder if General Schwarzenegger is going to suffer some future sickness brought about by his steroid use.
He’d make a wonderful poster boy for the ravages of drug use.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 3 2004 14:55 utc | 3

Apropos:

“And to those critics who are so pessimistic about our economy, I say: Don’t be economic girlie-men.” “Girlie-man” is a peculiar accusation. It reveals fear of women and their complex values. The name-calling is a frantic effort to suppress nuance, which the action hero fears he may harbour within.

Posted by: beq | Sep 3 2004 15:21 utc | 5

@beq – anabolica cause impotence – impotent man-men hate potent girlie-men.
—
A story by William S. Lind ‘Neo-Barbs’ and War With Sweden

How did it happen? The answer is to be found not in Washington, but in Copenhagen. There, the governing coalition is dominated by the Greater Denmark Party, whose goal is to retake for Denmark all the lands it once governed: Norway, southern Sweden, even northern England. The Party’s semi-secret slogan is, “From the River (Thames) to the Sea (the Baltic).”
The Danish government knows it is not powerful enough to achieve that goal on its own. It needs someone else to do most of the fighting. And it has found that “someone else” in the United States.
When the Gore administration came to power, it promptly turned America’s defense and foreign policy over to a small group of people who were de-facto members of the Greater Denmark Party. Some had actually participated in drawing up Denmark’s new grand strategy, which called for defeating all Denmark’s opponents (with American help) so completely they would accept whatever terms the Danes offered. Now, from their key positions in the Pentagon, the U.S. State Department and the White House, they have made America into the Greater Denmark Party’s tool, at vast cost to America’s national interests, its treasury, and the lives of its soldiers.
…
Nonetheless, the neo-barbs have intimidated most of their critics into silence. Not only do they denounce them at every opportunity for “anti-Vikingism,” they long ago seized control of the nation’s herring supply. Anyone who points out that the neo-barbs are unregistered foreign agents quickly finds himself starving.
The result of this colossal sellout of America by its own leaders is all too well known. President Gore’s administration has backed the Greater Denmark Party to the hilt. It has ruined our relations with the rest of Europe, undermining whatever friends we had in the region. It has done what no enemy could ever do; it has made America hated.

Posted by: b | Sep 3 2004 16:33 utc | 7

Breaking with few details: Bill Clinton admitted to NYC hospital with heart attack. Doctors recommending bypass surgery. Google awaits.

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 3 2004 16:48 utc | 9

Looking for the story on Clinton, I found this.

“Austrian historians are ridiculing California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for telling the Republican National Convention that he saw Soviet tanks in his homeland as a child and left a “Socialist” country when he moved away in 1968.”

Posted by: beq | Sep 3 2004 17:31 utc | 11

Some Iraq links:
A long but good article of the CPA´s screwup in Iraq in the New York Review of Books: Iraq: The Bungled Transition. Many interesting and mind twisting details on incompetence.
U.S. diplomat: Iraq elections may ‘slip’
Two Iraqis killed, six wounded by US shelling in Fallujah
U.S. Troops Death Toll Mounts as Iraq Danger Persists
Chalabi Plans Another Comeback in Iraq
Chalabi’s militia is still operating in Iraq
Turkey losing patience with US stance on Kurdish rebels, PM warns
Israel-Syria in War of Words
Amec looks to £9m Iraq profits
Seven dead in Iraq clash
Protestors dare Americans to fight in Fallujah
Samarra Becomes Latest No-Go Zone in Iraq

Posted by: b | Sep 3 2004 18:03 utc | 13

more @alabama
It is exponentially more complex but I can’t help but believe that a lot of this (truckloads of) evidence is being sorted and hidden as they go. Too many crimes and too many perps.
Several months ago I crowed that the govt was certain to collapse, I think after one bit of especially damning testimony. I still think so but it sure is taking them a long time.

Posted by: rapt | Sep 3 2004 18:18 utc | 15

Herring? OHEC, I don’t know but if you like I can give you my mom’s recipe for Danish mustard. It is easily a WMD.

Posted by: beq | Sep 3 2004 18:46 utc | 17

I almost thought I was listening to a SOTU last night – a very Clintonian SOTU, what with its no-government-program-left-behind laundry list of domestic initiatives. My husband wandered into the room sometime during the first half and said, “A chicken in every pot, huh?” Indeed. He didn’t stick around for the “freedom in every pot” climax. How many other Republicans will occasionally listen to Kerry, shaking their heads or grimacing or making snarky comments, but cannot any longer – is it out of embarassment or incredulity? – bring themselves to listen to Bush?
I saw Kerry afterward, saying to a crowd of supporters that the Vice President called him “unfit” to defend the country. Cheney never said that – but I wonder who gave Kerry the advice to act as the echo chamber for his attackers? Kerry pointed out that Cheney received five service deferrments, but the fact of the matter is that duty in Vietnam, or lack thereof, is a campaign issue for Kerry, not for Bush or Cheney. Clinton’s first campaign, and then Bob Dole’s, demonstrated that most Americans do not consider wartime service or its avoidance to be especially important in choosing a president. And it would certainly be odd for Kerry to criticize those who failed to “serve when they had the chance” in a war that he has stated was “for nothing.”
Kerry holds his service in Vietnam as a greater value than his outspoken opposition to that war. Does he do it for political reasons or does it reflect what he has come to believe: tis more important to serve one’s country than to stand in judgment of the causes alleged to be served. If the latter, there are plenty of Republicans who do not disagree.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 3 2004 20:23 utc | 19

If nothing comes of it…I will be stunned, I tell you, absolutely stunned.
Dragging their collective feet pending the outcome of Cheney’s November-to-January program, which cannot be finalised until Nov.3 or 4. So rest assured, we see nothing of substance here before the election or absence thereof.
I could be wrong but I doubt it.
This sure is a long game ain’t it; is it halftime yet? O yeah the cheerleaders did their show last night.

Posted by: rapt | Sep 3 2004 21:28 utc | 21

@sukabi
Cheney didn’t use the word unfit; he never said that Kerry is unfit to lead.
Kerry, however, did use the word in his response to the vice president’s speech – though it carries the freight of accusations related to his service in Vietnam, not to his Senate voting record, which Cheney used as the basis of his criticism.
I don’t think it was smart of him to respond personally in any case.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 3 2004 23:54 utc | 23

@Kate, where’s Powell?
maybe in a secure undisclosed location with genuine Tom Ridge Duct Tape over his mouth? after all his last SNL skit, in front of the UN, didn’t go over all that well, so maybe he “failed the audition” for the grand old opry in NYC.
I still think Kerry and the Dims have been paid to throw the fight. so many great big tempting targets to aim a rhetorical sling at, and there he goes boring on again about Viet Nam, trying to undo or disown the whistleblowing he participated in at the time. heaven forbid he should actually talk about TODAY and relevant current issues.
kee-rist, if only he could even connect the Winter Soldier Reports to Abu Ghraib, and talk about how occupation makes bad soldiers worse, indifferent ones bad, and exceptionally ethical ones into whistleblowers who then have to watch their backs — that the price of Empire is paid in more than dollars, it’s paid in the destruction of all moral sense at home and ‘in country’ — that would make a helluva speech. but no, he has to wrap himself in a flag just a bit less vibrantly red, white and blue than the one the Dubster is wrapped in… trying to feed the “red, dripping meat” crowd when he doesn’t have the instinct or the timing, yet afraid to talk to any other audience.
reportage from the RNC has me more scared than usual. these guys are laying the foundation for a huge anti-gay backlash (among other stuff). notice how one Repo after another is playing the “fag-bashing” theme in a public speech, from Ahnold (who has a nerve considering how he used to pay the rent in his earlier days) to Cheney to their new Hispanic front-man. they’re revving up the echo chamber. there were moments at RNC that were seriously scary hate-rally stuff.
and speaking of infantilisation . . . John Cory on “stern parents” and Stockholm Syndrome for kiddies.

Posted by: DeAnander | Sep 4 2004 2:27 utc | 25

@Pat
“it would certainly be odd for Kerry to criticize those who failed to serve when they had the chance in a war that he has stated was for nothing.”
I think Kerrys point here might be: that in the undeclared war in Vietnam, that was manned in part through conscription, He (Kerry) chose to serve without reservation, he enlisted. Cheney, on the other hand chose not to enlist, and further”evaded” the possibility of being drafted, by stacking up deferments. While I’ve never heard Cheney give a valid moral reasoning (other” priorities”” does’nt cut it ) for not choosing to to serve, Kerry, by choosing to serve, without prejudgement, gives him the moral high ground about the call to service.
The fact that, upon completion of his service, Kerry came to see that the moral and political underpinnings of that war to be misguided and largly unbeknown to the American people, he chose to both inform (to congress) and protest that war– does not in any way form a contradiction or put one “act” moraly in front of the other. I have heard some regret from Kerry on the voraciousness of some claims, but nothing that would disavow his protest.
While some on the right may see any disavowment on Kerrys protest, as a step in the right direction, his base on the left would evaporate, over night.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 4 2004 4:11 utc | 27

Okay, so if Arnold’s speech was a lie…that means we can play with the words right?
When I was a boy, the Americans occupied part of Iraq. I saw their tanks in the streets. I saw terrorism with my own eyes. I remember the fear we had when we had to cross into the Green sector. Growing up, we were told, “Don’t look the soldiers in the eye. Look straight ahead.” It was a common belief that American soldiers could take a man out of his own car and ship him off to the Abu Graib as slave labor.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 4 2004 5:22 utc | 29

@Pat
Would’nt the(current) endless video bites showing reservist, and guard troops assembled and ready to ship out saying “just doing my job”, ” if they need me I’m prepared to go” show just that suspended judgement? I would think that over the past 50 years or so, the vast majority join the service with no particular conflict in mind, but if a conflict should arise, you’re not paid to have an opinion (even though you may have one) a sort of forced suspension of judgement. I don’t know if Kerry joined the Navy with the intention of going to Vietnam or not (many joined the navy, at the time, to avoid being drafted–an additional 2 years exchanged for possible infantry service).
I’m seeing this (polimic) as a preamble to the shitstorm on the immediate horizon–that Kerrys war protest was “aid and comfort to the enemy”.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 4 2004 7:36 utc | 31

US claims getting close to Osama

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and the US Friday stepped ahead in bilateral cooperation on, inter alia, anti-terrorism while the American coordinator on counter-terrorism has claimed in a separate briefing that the arrest of Osama bin Laden was close now.
…
Later, in the day the US-Coordinator told a select group of journalists that they were very close to the capture Osama bin Ladin but was not sure when Washington would be able to actually nab the world’s most wanted man.
“Are we closer to getting Osama bin Laden, yes” Black told a questioner at the American Center. “Our President has told us that we are going to catch Osama bin Laden,” he added. “When exactly,  can’t say. Could be tomorrow. Could be later. Programmes are in place,” he maintained.

Does that mean they have him and are just waiting for Karl Rove´s sign to start the show?

Posted by: b | Sep 4 2004 8:46 utc | 33

DeAnander,
Forgot. One more thing about the infantilism link. I wonder how much projection plays a part in all of that. The obvious paternalistic system notwithstanding, it seems like genius in marketing to pander to everyone’s scared inner kid forever scanning the horizon for a “good parent”, eh?
Perhaps when adulthood and maturity become fashionable, people can begin to think more critically about who they choose for “leaders”, eh?
Sigh. If wishes were nickels…

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 4 2004 10:03 utc | 35

Can we shot the dogs?

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Sep 4 2004 14:32 utc | 37

Now I don’ t know too much about Kerry. So this is from far off.
I agree with Pat, that enlisting and fighting in Vietnam, and subsequently critising or opposing that war (e.g. Winter Soldier Speech) are not at all contradictory or odd: through experience people learn, and may change their opinions, politics, ideology. If anything, Kerry is to be commended for that, as we see it today, 30 years or more on.
However, another reading is possible. It is possible to see Kerry as an opportunist, surfing on the zeitgeist of the times, doing what was conventional, what would bring visibility and approval. Pro-war (in some measure), then anti-war (a close reading of the speech mentioned shows that anger is expressed but US foreign policy is not really adressed – OK, it was not his place, as he says himself..) and now pro-war, again. Kerry, as far as I can see, is more committed to the US taking over the ME in cahoots with Israel than Bush ever was.
Flip flopping is an apt term. The third switch is too much: at some point in life, people must find a center, and stick to it. The heartfelt opinions, the understanding, the empathy, the politics they express must be upheld, or if changed, clearly explained.
Kerry has explained nothing. Kerry fans interpret this as politician’s smoke – he has to keep a low profile, etc. Everyone knows that Kerry could ‘win the election’ if he came out with opinions like that expressed in the Winter Soldier speech. He has not done so.
Kerry is subservient to the powers-that-be, and always was.
He cannot win. One cannot at the same time contest and condemn the incumbent power and bow to it behind the scenes.
The Democrat opposition is fake. Mirrors and spoofs.
The Democrats will win in 2008, as it will then be possible to implement a ‘regime change’. Right now, it can’t be done, it is too dangerous. Some bushy-tailed idiots might take it upon themselves to unearth documents, etc.

Posted by: Blackie | Sep 4 2004 18:27 utc | 39

@Blackie
Sadly I think you are right. I held out hope for a short while but have now resigned myself to the inevitable.
I have a sense that we are witnessing in this moment, the beginning of the headlong plunge into fascism.

Posted by: Dan of Steele | Sep 4 2004 19:44 utc | 41

@b
I can’t access the article at 4:46 AM.
I posted an article a couple of days ago about US troops in Pakistan. There are only two reasons US troops receive permission from the SecDef to cross the border: bin Laden and Zawahiri. And they only receive permission if they think they’ve got one or the other. But the article also said they were accompanied by Pak troops, which means they didn’t get bin Laden or Zawahiri. Pakistani troops wouldn’t be involved in the capture of either one; they’re too unreliable.
But they must be really, really close, so I think the opinion expressed in the exerpt you posted is credible. And what a pre-election capture would mean for the Bush camp is pretty obvious.
It’s anything but a certain victory for Bush at this point – something we should all keep in mind. Is it common knowledge yet that Democrats are too quick to despair? Bush is still behind in electoral college votes and it will all come down to three states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Whoever wins two out of those three wins the elections. And all three are in play and will likely be toss-ups until very close to, or even going into, Nov. 2.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 4 2004 21:30 utc | 43

Re: Other than that… should bush win…well…America deserves bush and bush deserves America.
What I meant to say there is much more deeper than sour grapes (which a quick reading would render).
I believe democracy moves in strange ways. And one either pledges allegiance to the outcomes of democracy, or one does not.
I do.
The people of American have proven me wrong before.
They may prove me wrong again.
Then again… they may not.
Either way, I belive that election results well up from some deep primitive basin of the shared consciousness of the shared electorate.
Sort of like…the quicktime messages that passes from ant to ant with a touch of antennae.
In the 80s the ant message was: Big Government is bad.
In the 90s the ant meassage was: We’ve got to be globally competitive.
In the 2000s the ant message appears to be: Strong Leader.
Ants are very successful.
So one should never underestimate the simple messages of a hive democracy.
Sometimes I suspect…the collective really is operating at a deeper level than any one individual.
Which is to say: you could be wrong, I could be wrong, and quite possibly the whole damn colony could be wrong.
But nearly always: you and I are dust even as the colony persists.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 4 2004 22:37 utc | 45

I have a sense that we are witnessing in this moment, the beginning of the headlong plunge into fascism dan of steele
sadly, couldn’t agree more. al quaeda & bush admin locked in their embrace of happy mutual infantilism sendinf us somewhere where light any light will be in short quantity
what did dylan say – it not dark yet but its getting there – we are living in the darkest times since the rise of german fascism & its actual & contingent allies in the west. then we were lucky – the soviet union did the fighting & the winning & the dying for us – now they are as much part of the problem as a solution
we are watching warsaw ghettoes being reenacted in palestine – again with the young risking all in a vain hope of liberation
the crudity of thought as it is articulated by the well dressed gentlemen of washington & london & their parasitic allies bbccnn who trot out so much shit i have difficulty imagining the bowels of the empire
bush is a draculian version of robert taylor in father knows best & wolfiee no more thean a zionist beaver cleaver, rumsfield the captain on gilligans island & ashcroft gilligan himself
i have the sensation that the empire is vomiting & vomiting all its poisons all at once – luckily here i so not have to actually hear these morons speak & prefer the mauvais & maladroit translation to the real thing because the real thing is not the real thing or even the thing as heidegger might have noted in the black forest after a night of amphetemines & masturbating to the poetry of paul celan
buchanan – oohmph – why not bring back goldwater or even the good senator mccarthy – let’s have a good old time – bring the lawyer cohn & friends – oh let us – so we can draw up lists of enemies so that we can blacklist them from mtv or entertainment tonight
oh give me back the days of that old greek spiro agnew who was in reality an expert on the philosopher diogenes & could now tell us a thing or two about adjectives & nouns that the clan of those who piteouslly call themselves journalists use in their exhaustive ejaculation on the front pages of papers i wouldn’t wipe my ass with
oh bring back all the bad boys – let’s have no confusion or doubt
oh these are dark times dan & they are getting darker by the minute
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 5 2004 0:45 utc | 47

@RGiap:
WELCOME BACK!
Always enjoy reading you take on things.
Night All.

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 5 2004 1:03 utc | 49

If you feel you’ve been slam-dunked by the convention bounce, try this.

Posted by: beq | Sep 5 2004 1:53 utc | 51

Is the WaPo thinking of actually going deepon this one?
“FBI counterintelligence investigators have in recent weeks questioned current and former U.S. officials about whether a small group of Iran specialists at the Pentagon and in Vice President Cheney’s office may have been involved in passing classified information to an Iraqi politician or a U.S. lobbying group allied with Israel, according to sources familiar with or involved in the case.”
Sure, the usual vague and somewhat menacing lead that the OpEd page can brush off on Monday, but then the editors let Wright and Eggen name names….
“Investigators have specifically asked about a group of neoconservatives involved in defense issues, including Feith, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Iraq and Iran specialist Harold Rhode and others at the Pentagon. FBI agents also have asked current and former officials about Richard Perle of the defense board and David Wurmser, an Iran specialist and principal deputy assistant for national security affairs in Cheney’s office, according to sources familiar with or involved in the case.”
And the editors even go so as far as to let W&E take a not-so-veiled jab that comes supports alabama’s grand hypothesis.
“….one official, a Feith ally, has said the investigation is an effort by some intelligence officials to discredit Pentagon hawks”
So, is that it, or will the WaPoEds run with it on Monday against the tide of the inevitable “OBL is within our grasp” tsunami?

Posted by: RossK | Sep 5 2004 2:56 utc | 53

Oh, and one other thing, remembereringgiap: there would be no freedom fighters in Iraq, tossing sand into the engines of the American war machine, were it not for the mighty examples of Giap, Ho and their fellow warriors. Why else would we have to endure the barbarous, impotent ravings of a sore loser like the obscene Zell Miller were it not for the great warriors who beat him and fellow bully-boys back into the waters of the South China Sea? A century hence, historians will point to the brain-dead madness of the war in Viet Nam as the start of this country’s long slow descent towards a threadbare senility on the global scene. And we don’t have to wait for one hundred years to see the inevitable wisdom of that (impending) assessment.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 5 2004 4:24 utc | 55

@koreyel
“mammy… mammy… mammy… moon… june… croon… Everthing That Is Not Forbidden Is Compulsory… it is done or it is not-done…”
(bits of the ant-culture as imagined by T H White in a chapter that was later dropped from the final ms of The Sword in the Stone)
I’ve just been re-hiving a swarm of bees today so koreyel’s thoughts on the mysteries and terrors of the hive mind are rather apropos.
but what destroyed the pleasant tenor of my day was reading the headlines as I went into the grocery store. Putin sent in the thugs and the school hostage situation ended in a bloodbath with 200 dead. the price of “me big primate never back down” thinking: dead kids, mothers screaming with the grief that will accompany them to their own graves.
the politics of Ogg.
ants and bees don’t take hostages. whatever our hive mind is, it’s something worse. rgiap I hear you, but I have a feeling that the result of excessive power is always infantilisation: the first privilege of the powerful is to behave like infants, to have their needs met without considering others, to scream and vomit, piss and shit on everyone and be forgiven, to assume everything is theirs to break and ruin or grab and eat.
the excesses of the powerful always seem in the end to become the games of mad, evil children, the ‘acting out’ and ‘naughtiness’ getting more and more grotesque until you have the equine Senator being led across the marble floor before a Senate too terrified either to laugh or leave… both RNC and DNC were exhibitions of juvenile feeling, behaviour, and language this year, there isn’t an adult in the house.

Posted by: DeAnander | Sep 5 2004 5:07 utc | 57

BTW, philosophy buffs, Ted Honderich has a helluvan essay at counterpunch this weekend. lead article. philosophical discourse written lucidly and with feeling. go you huskies! [sorry about that, recent dose of State and Main]

Posted by: DeAnander | Sep 5 2004 5:23 utc | 59

911-Saudi links: investigation blocked by Bush and FBI Yawn, maybe we should go back to sleep …

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Sep 5 2004 13:34 utc | 61

From a 1996 interview with Giap…
“The people in the White House believed that Americans would definitely win and there is not chance of defeat. There is a saying which goes, “If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you would win every single battle.” However, the Americans fought the Vietnamese, but they did not know much about Vietnam or anything at all about the Vietnamese people. Vietnam is an old nation founded in a long history before the birth of Christ. … The Americans knew nothing about our nation and her people. American generals knew little about our war theories, tactics and patterns of operation. …”
From here.
I remember that there has been a discussion here at MOA about ShrubCo’s lack of knowledge about the people of Iraq now, resulting in the all-too-familiar events taking place today. This interview seems timely…

Posted by: Kate_Storm | Sep 5 2004 14:56 utc | 63

RGiap wrote … no this thing called history is not even farcical because even a farce requires talent & a sense of humour – there is neither talent nor the humanity to have humour – no these times are so stupidly dark …
It all reminds me of an underground power struggle in a corporation, where two or more factions are vying for power, often for rather trivial reasons, or reasons that don’t relate to anything concrete or certain. The struggle is often kept from the minions, who must, naturally, go on doing their work, for the corporation to survive. That leads to various cover-ups and mealy-mouthed reassurance, as well as reinforcement of authority, as the minions must believe and obey. Leaders attempt charisma and exploit petty control.
Fighting factions tell nothing but lies, as there is no truth to tell. Were they to tell the full truth, the corporation would fall apart and die, so all is lies except for the occasional slip or ‘accidental truth’ – a fact which is used for some propaganda purpose divorced from the fact. Enemies in the corporate jungle also thus shield each other – they cannot come out and expose the other’s total duplicity, obfuscation, and criminal behavior, as such accusations would be too serious, and might also expose them to a return of same – leading once again to the demise of the whole enterprise. So they pussy-foot around, hurling accusations of mismanagement on trivial points, and try to spread rumours about personal lives or very minor (but hush hush) misdeeds, in the hope of discrediting their oppponent.
In these struggles, there are no laws, in the sense of ‘the rule of law’ in a certain country. As people’s livelihood are at stake, even regular penal law is suspended at the entry door of the corporation. Laws are replaced by implicit ‘restraints’ which deal with consequences for the corporation, with ‘image’ (directed to the worker, the shareholder, and the public at large), and are based on principles that are straight out of the middle ages (mafia type honour, family relations, possession of women, booty, etc. – translated into modern terms..) Some conventions must apply, otherwise the fight cannot be fought, so it is back to ancestral gut values, an appeal to raw sentiment, group think, group belonging, etc.
Dark, yes.
I see a sludgy grey, with patches of red blood…
Welcome to MacWorld!
(bit long but RGiap made me think of this)

Posted by: Blackie | Sep 5 2004 16:32 utc | 65

My take on Iraq has clarified over the past three months: I hope our armed forces are driven out of Iraq, even as they were driven out of Viet Nam. If it costs us as much in blood, treasure, and opportunities lost, I see no reason to regret this–because we’ve shown that we’re unteachable, and that we’ll never really learn what losses are. We’re stupidly grandiose: it seems to be our fate.

Posted by: alabama | Sep 5 2004 16:43 utc | 67

@Pat
Those who believe in the “immaculate conception” come to mind.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Sep 5 2004 16:57 utc | 69

Touching and scary!
The Good Parent

Posted by: Fran | Sep 5 2004 18:04 utc | 71

Pat
Are you Zell Miller’s speech writer?

Posted by: Dan of Steele | Sep 5 2004 19:48 utc | 73

And in that rejection a more true freedom found.

Posted by: anna missed | Sep 5 2004 20:48 utc | 75

Thoughts on a campaign swirling clockwise about the drain:
I’ve been poking about left blogistan the last few days.
Seems the poll numbers really smote a blow.
Kevin Drum, for instance, decided a post about the size of m & ms was relevant.
Billmon…well…I guess he is still on that slow boat to China.
Here and there though…some people are mighty pissed.
And that’s good to see. As vim and vigorous is always better then dim and rigorous.
Which is to say you aren’t going to win this election, or probably any election, by appealing to the electorate’s dim intellect with rigorous arguments.
It is nearly all about passion and emotion. And who can say for sure that it ought not to be?
It seems to me the choices facing Kerry’s campaign are really two-fold.
1) Lose the election as a gentleman, and thereby preserve some facsimile of national unity.
Or
2) Lose–and perhaps even win–by attacking the republicans with every ounce of venom and hate you can muster. Thereby even further dividing the country and precipitating god knows what sort of civil strife.
I favor #2.
Go after these sombitches with every truth, half-truth, and rumor you can load into a media canon and fire point blank into the faces of viewers everywhere.
If you are going to go down the drain…reach out an grab a republican by his red tie and drag him down with you.
Kerry played the nice guy. “Please call off your hounds Mr. President.”
Bullshit.
If Kerry really is a fighter…he will stop the “please” and the “Mr.” and take this ass, his hounds, and this country down the drain with him–preferably, in a counterclockwise direction.
Who knows…
Maybe, after the great sucking and gurgling sound abates…maybe… something kinder and gentler and truer and better will be formed.

Posted by: koreyel | Sep 5 2004 21:24 utc | 77

oh teuton
that is just an idioy wind blowing through fom the gand collee dam to the capitol -it’s n idiot wind

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 5 2004 21:57 utc | 79

or tto expose the exactitude of that old hebraic prophet dylan :
“i ran into the fortune teller, who said beware of lightning that might strike
i haven’t known peace and quiet for so long i can’t remember what it’s like
there’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door
you didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars
after losin’ every battle
or
” you hurt the ones that i love best and cover up the truth with lies
one day you’ll be in the ditch, flies buzzin’ around your eyes,
blood on your saddle”
when in doubt read zimmie
still steel

Posted by: Anonymous | Sep 5 2004 22:10 utc | 81

alabama
ìn these dark hours
i turn from aforesaid zimmie
to george wilhelm friederich hegel
phenomenonology of spirit
a song or two from mr buckley’s greetings from l.a.
even a song or two by joni
a glance at nietzsche whne i am in misanthropic mode & to put myself into a dream state either the 18th brummaire of louis bonaparte by karl or leftwing communism an infantile disorder form lenin
or justy to drive myself a little crazier & understund more profound conceptions of love than i can understand
louis althussers letters to france & a little bit of old van morrison & phil ochs
& when i’m feeling extremely optimistic i get dressed up as a mousketeer & read loudly in street corners that marvellous tract of lin piao ‘ long live the victory of people’s war’ to the soundrtrack of taking tiger mountain ny strategy and snippets from the music of luigi nono, scelsi or luciano berio
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 5 2004 22:22 utc | 83

Happy Birthday, alabama.

Posted by: beq | Sep 6 2004 0:12 utc | 85

@Teuton:
I think it would be very nice if we took up a collection, and bought R. Giap a 1 year subscription to Atlantic Monthly, just so he could learn to properly appreciate expat English genius.

Posted by: Christopher Hitchens | Sep 6 2004 0:52 utc | 87

Thanks, beq! Anyone who can help me confuse myself with Nietzsche, if only for a split second–that person makes my day…..
And remembereringgiap, don’t forget to add Bruno Maderna and Salvatore Sciarrino to that way splendid soundtrack of yours! They belong there–yes, they most definitely belong there…..

Posted by: alabama | Sep 6 2004 1:04 utc | 89

In one of the unending accidents of history, the phrase that was to symbolize the Wilsonian case [for war] received its impetus because a near-deaf man heard it. Toward the end of his war message, in the midst of statements of grave importance, the President said: “The world must be made safe for democracy.” Mississippi’s master orator, Senator John Sharp Williams, had been leaning forward, his hand cupped to his ear. Williams knew a natural slogan even when it had to fight its way through his deafness. At the words “safe for democracy,” the Senator began to clap all alone and kept it up until others had joined in and the sentence was called to the attention of reporters. Making the world safe for democracy – what could be more certain to produce good that outweighted the evils of war, what could be freer of the taint of national self-seeking?
Wilson did not invent out of whole cloth his justification for intervention. Some of it was implicit in traditional American attitudes. Other parts had been originated and given currency by individuals or organizations working independently of the Administration. But the President who denounced war the night before he asked Congress to pass a war resolution was peculiarly qualified to justify fighting to an anti-militarist nation, and the anti-war progressive who had to answer himself was precisely the man to presuade other anti-war reformers. The Wilson formula, conceived out of his own doubts and stated with rousing artistry, became the ideological bridge by which most progressives moved with their leader from neutrality to intervention.
Rendezvous With Destiny, by Eric F. Goldman, 1952
That ideological bridge stands today, and has seen an awful lot of traffic since its construction.
Isn’t about time to demolish the damned thing? In order to do that, you have know where the critical weaknessnes are located.
Liberals focus almost obsessively on the trumped-up case against Iraq as a threat. This is necessary, but not sufficient. The “humanitarian” or liberationist case for war, essential not only in selling OIF but in continuing to sell it to a now ambivalent nation, must be examined and refuted. When all other arguments for this war have collapsed, it is the one that will remain. And it is the one that will be used in all subsequent interventions.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 6 2004 4:05 utc | 91

The new/old challenge is finally making into the press.
The Next Shock: Not Oil, but Debt
Hypocrisy and conspiracy!Maybe finally coming out.
Was George W. Bush “Involved” in an Illegal Abortion??

Posted by: Fran | Sep 6 2004 5:55 utc | 93

dreiser & dos passos & james agee
wrote of the beast well – how it was born
with a disease & that disease coulod only lead to ruin
are they read in america today – i imagine they are not – too difficult & much too boring for the goahead person
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 6 2004 12:02 utc | 95

Sorry, that was me above.

Posted by: Pat | Sep 6 2004 15:07 utc | 97

alabama
meeditating today on how eugene o’neill got that fucked up entity – the family that is america – in long day’s journey into night – sso exquisite & so close to being perfect
america is given character that is as exact today as it was when it was written – no wonder he needed taoism
i remember seeing the film of the play with katherine hepburn – this shabby mansion full of ghosts of the future & of the past that becomes the future becoming the past
was it ralph richardson as the old tyro – the ham actor that is the politics of america – playing the fool but causing carnage each time he breathes
remember jason robards & the young dean stockwell who might be a kennedy, a kerry – sick before it’s even begun
(a parenthetic issue – clearly my vukgar marxism is not clear enough – every time i post here – i receive emails from nigeria, zaire, cote d’ivoire etc offering me millions to become like my enemies – perhaps the do not understand that fraud is the theology & money something so small i spend it on pens & pencils)
still steel

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Sep 6 2004 15:39 utc | 99