“So the same person who didn’t see it coming (((Bush))) , now says it was foreordained — and not his fault.”
The Froomkin summation of the arguments and speech is precious.
My “(((Bush)))” inserted.
You couldn’t find a clown like this at Ringling Bros.

Posted by: Groucho | Mar 31 2006 1:49 utc | 3

So let’s continue with Bush’s logic: the current animosity and violence in Israel and Palestine is the legacy of the British Empire, that created a state of fear and oppression.
And Louis XVI is responsible for the rioting in France…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 31 2006 5:10 utc | 5

If only the Sargon I had hung there for a few more millennia we would’t be in this mess.

Posted by: brian boru | Mar 31 2006 6:08 utc | 7

Monolycus,
yes, and there’s an entire religion that lays all of humanity’s probems at the feet of two folks who once lived in the Garden of Eden, which many biblical scholars believe was located somewhere in Iraq…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 31 2006 14:44 utc | 9

@ralphieboy
Sorry, you stepped in there while I was rising to vbo’s hateful bait. The above wasn’t directed at you.
And yeah. Organised religion is not exempt from the great passage of the buck; they’ve elevated it to an art.

Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 31 2006 14:47 utc | 11

vbo is expressing what milliions feel. I realise natural doesn’t make right, and everything is more complicated than that.
Many warned that if Bush was elected a second time opinion in the previously pro-American West, the man-on-the street opinion, would turn against ordinary Americans. These would still be well treated individually, or as members of groups who were familiar (engineers, etc.) That turned out to be the case.
If America is the greatest democracy – and it takes great pains to present itself as such – and then compounds folly (first Bush election, which was decried only somewhat later) with war-mongering (second), it must be the people, and not the system (democracy, cherished by all) that is to blame. Many people – around me anyway – have never heard of Diebold and are astonished when I tell them the elections were stolen. Some of them remember Florida as the land of the hanging chad, but not more. After all, a democracy has procedures to deal with that kind of thing, and Americans love to make a huge fuss about Gvmt. and so on – they are agressive, loud mouthed, have a free press, tend to argue and blame and indulge in conspiracies, is the pov. (Contrary to the Swiss who never say anything at all and rely on procedure and voting on minutiae to get them through.)
Many here can’t imagine that Americans might be prisoners of the system (or of a criminal class) as that couldn’t happen to them, couldn’t happen in a democracy. (Never mind the huge differences between the two countries.) They blame Bush and those who voted for him, as well as all those who didn’t vote at all. (Ignoring civic duty!) Additonally, they can’t understand why Americans don’t do anything – they have representatives, they can publish what they like, etc. etc. Most of them must be for the killing in Iraq, or at least happily ignoring it.
These attitudes are short-sighted, simplistic, and confortable. (I’m not saying they are vbo’s, but that of some ppl in CH.) They are also politically correct – blame Bush, excuse Europe’s seeming impotency, etc.

Posted by: Noisette | Apr 1 2006 9:19 utc | 13

Maybe Monolycus was just having an off moment but there was no need to be so aggressive towards a long standing poster like vbo. Maybe Monolycus thinks that verbally bullying people who come from other places whenever they venture an opinion is the way to go but it actually isn’t.
Now that you’ve ‘acted out’ and ‘feel better about yourself’, now that you’ve done the tired old ‘feeling powerful by bullying someone else’ routine (and as you learned, it doesn’t really make you feel good, does it?), you might want to consider apologizing to vbo for the offensive tone of your reply.
Unless you want to think you’re the cyberworld’s policeman, crushing criticisms of the U.S.A. and driving off ‘foreigners’ who don’t see the world as you do, that is. Some people like the idea of a community of different voices here and evidently some don’t.

Posted by: HS | Apr 1 2006 13:10 utc | 15

@HS
I’ve seen this same counterproductive argument too many times in the past, and the only thing that I am sorry for is the fact that, once again, I am the one who rose to the bait. I certainly do not owe anyone an apology if they came looking for a fight and I happened to give it to them.
I’m also sick of being called “cyberworld policeman” or “thought police” when I have asked for the same kind of respect that someone else is demanding. This has happened far too many times now and it is the height of hypocrisy for anyone to tell me to shut up because I am interfering with their free speech.
Maybe Bernhard was correct… we do seem to be repeating ourselves. If you think it’s a productive solution to blame the American people for everything their unchecked government does, that’s your own affair, but to me it smacks of the same hideous bigotry that causes the Right to demonise all members of Islam because of the unrepresentative actions of a few.
I’ve appreciated the community and cherished the debates here for the most part, but we’re within a hairsbreadth now of the “Stalinist fruitcake” level of discussion we’ve seen before. And I won’t be any more a part of it.
Tschüs.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 1 2006 17:41 utc | 17

I tried to just ignore vbo’s bile spewage. Shame it had to drag down the otherwise friendly and civil level of discourse around here.

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 1 2006 18:42 utc | 19

I also reckon that it would be a loss to the MoA if vbo and Monolycus would stay away, I found their/your posts always worth reading and thinking about, with the ones in this thread being no exception. I’ve had to endure some friendly fire in my blogsphere life time, but hey, happens to the best of us that we write or read something seemingly offending, and the good thing about a blog, and one would think the Moon in particular, is that you can talk about issues and debate their various angles, controversial or not.
I understand vbo’s reasoning to a certain degree. Remarks by USAmericans like “we are in big trouble” etc. have not the same meaning as when an Iraqi or Afghani person make such a comment. Even if you are in the low income bracket in the US, you’d still have running water and the fridge would be running all day in the summer heat. Vbo was actually refering to a statement by ‘brian boru’, expressing that he reckons we would be in a mess. I have no idea whom brian is including in the we, but he could have meant Europe, Australia, Canada, the world even is in a mess. Vbo assumed he meant the USA and pointed out that compared with the mess many other countries and their citicens find themselves in, the real deep shit end of things, the US doesn’t fare too badly and the worries of Average Homer in the US are different to the worries of the Average Omar in Iraq. And in that regard vbo is right. Here in Australia the anti-war faction is faced with an almost identical dilemma as our US or British friends, and that is that we live in a nation where the leaders who went to war against all good advice, leaders who are responsible for tens of thousands of death, who lie and cheat at any given opportunity, were re-elected, had their disregard for human life rubberstamped by their electorate, of which we are part of.
In Oz the opposition to John Howard’s Liberals, the Australian Labor Party, has been crowing ever since the Iraq war weant pear shaped that if they’d be in power they would reduce/withdraw the troop support for the coalition. The very same ALP however had no issues with the war being started in the first place, similar to the Democrats in the US. Neither in the US nor in Australia is there currently an opposition that is worth its name. Four times did Howard get elected, you’d have to say that a large portion of Australia seems to identify with that man and his policies, especially since the other 40% vote for an opposition that is at best the lesser evil by a fraction or so.
From the outside looking in, seeing by world standards rich and comfortable people arguing amongst themselves if it is OK to impose with all means dominance on other countries, while its troops are doing it anyway, can give one the urge to write a comment like vbo’s. Despite its merit, I don’t quite agree with it, as it stereotypes and dishes out collective guilt, something that as a German living in Australia I know a little bit about. I suppose we all pidgeonhole people on the odd occassion, its hard not to, I possibly even did it in this post.

Posted by: Feelgood | Apr 3 2006 2:29 utc | 21

I also reckon that it would be a loss to the MoA if vbo and Monolycus would stay away,
i very much second this. so much of communication is done thru voice inflection, timing, nuances that often don’t come thru in writing. it is very easy to read something one day, come back the next and discover new meaning. a mixture of a very reasonable sentiment You (Americans) are not “in mess”given the right context makes perfect sense. sometimes i imagine what it would be like to have foriegn troop parading the streets here and groups of armed soldiers bursting into my home at night dragging away my son who may end up on his hands and knees naked w/a leash around his neck, which would be a plus if the alternative was death.
in that sense we are not in a mess at all. but i know exactly what its like to misinterpret something or make light of someone elses pain or jump to conclusions, get all huffy, make an ass out of myself,scrap egg off my face, all of these things.
we’ve simply shared to much together to have people jump ship over seemingly insignificant differences, and when you compare all the thoughts and sentiments we have in common, really, nothing said here merits anyone leaving the bar for good. in fact, the very topics we discuss that create the friction would make for a very good thread on a calmer day. so please don’t anyone rush to judgement.
that said, we are in a bit of a mess, in the same way when one sees the sea receed before a tsunami, you may have heard about it before from your ancestors but never actually witnessed it. there is an inevitabilty, a hush, a quiet, a stillness of sorts. and i wonder, how are we(the good people in the world) ever going to turn this around.we need as much unity as we can muster. so don’t anybody stay away too long.

Posted by: annie | Apr 3 2006 3:22 utc | 23

@ Groucho
Well, FG, we can play these little feel good games forever.
Fine by me, what are the rules?
It’s like the old joke for some fast food restaurant here, can’t remember which, which was about growing up and in relative privation, which began: YOU HAD SHOES!!?
I know the joke, Mounty Python send their regards, but I think you are missing the point here. I agree with you that it makes no sense to sit around and compete about who is fairing the worst out of all countries, e.g. ‘but I had to live in a shoe box and clean the street with a toothbrush, only to come home, get smacked by my dad and being sent to bed, which was a stinky sardine can’. However, I do believe there are two kinds of messes, the ones we are in, and the ones they are in, and they are hardly the same. The mess in Iraq or Afghanistan, at least for the people who have to live through it every day, is not a joking matter. To loose ones job in Australia or the US is certainly no fun either, but stack that up against loosing half your family!
Don’t despair. I’ll send you both the last bullet, FedEx air, my expense.
I am not quite sure how to interpret your offer, but thanx anyway, your generosity is noted. How about some shoes? Got some shoes?
@ annie
You are right, there is no denying, the US is in a mess just as much as Australia and Europe are in a mess, but the proportion of this mess, as real as it is, is dwarfed by the hunger, dispair and death in so many other nations. Here in Australia more and more people grow so obese that the government is considering changing the toilet seat standards SBS News 8th March 06:

TOO BIG FOR OUR LOOS
Australia’s standards association is worried that Australians are getting so fat that toilet seats may have to be made stronger to bear their weight.
Standards Australia is expected to recommend “an increase in the strength of toilet seats to accommodate the increasing size of humans”.
The percentage of Australians who are overweight or obese has jumped from 10 percent in the past decade to 62 percent of men and 45 percent of women.
Toilet seats are currently required to meet a rigidity test of 45 kilograms or 99 pounds, which supports most people’s weight in a seated position.
A heavyweight committee, including manufacturers and consumers, will assess whether that standard was still adequate.

What a mess, too fat for our toilet seats. Damned. I guess what I am trying to say is that the magnitude and nature of the problems we “rich nations” face are somewhat different to the ones the poorer countries are struggling with, and this degree of separation is something we should not loose sight of.

Posted by: Feelgood | Apr 3 2006 5:21 utc | 25

i am going to join in here and ask something i have wondered about for years. there may not be an answer. and i will phrase it in particulars, which as i say write this i realize may actually be the reason why there may be no real answer. so the question – is there a real difference in the pain felt even when the living conditions are different? i learned today that a family of friends just lost its 80 something year old patriarch. he may have been old but they did not think he would ever die and they are reeling in pain. r’giap just lost his mother who he hadn’t seen in 10 years and was not able to say goodbye in person. is this pain different in quality from the pain experienced by a family losing a father or a son in iraq? my bf has a hereditary kidney disease that is killing him. it knocks the wind out of me to think of how it will be when we lose him – his children, his friends, and i. he is also in pain on a daily basis. another close friend has deteriorating vertebrae and is in excruciating pain every moment of the day. he doesn’t expect to be able to walk within a year. is there a metric by which we can or should compare the degree of pain? does it make a difference whether the pain is experienced in an affluent society as opposed to a developing country? my gut tells me that for this kind of intimate pain that we all experience at different times in our lives there is no real metric. but when you look at societies or countries or continents of people and see a populace suffering then perhaps it makes sense to measure and make comparisons. but here, where we speak to one another as individuals, perhaps we need to bear in mind how personal pain is. it is likely that the broad brush approach to the circumstances which lead vbo to leave his/her homeland are more horrific than those that lead monocyclus to leave the us, but to each of them as individuals, as persons, at times it must be unbearably and overwhelmingly difficult, frightening, depressing.
vbo, monocyclus, groucho, and debs, please do not leave. if we can’t sustain a dialogue here, is there any hope for the future? there are forces so much more evil. to steal a phrase – we, each one of us, needs every bit of force et tendresse we can muster here. it is afterall up to each of us alone to keep going each day and whatever sustenance a community offers is invaluable. this community of like souls is a treasure.

Posted by: conchita | Apr 3 2006 6:11 utc | 27

ralphieboy, sadly, i think you are much too optimistic. on friday, the senate judiciary committee held a hearing on russ feingold’s censure resolution. do you know how many democratic senators showed up? leahy. not even the fucking democratic members of the judiciary committee were there to support him. and what of their oath of allegiance to the constitution and their oversight responsibilities. this administration has hijacked and is raping this country – where are our elected leaders?? i would like to agree with you, but no, i believe the decline has begun. it is just a matter of if it will be a freefall. and here in new york it is 2:43 am and i have an 8 am class, no easy feat for my 40+ years.

Posted by: conchita | Apr 3 2006 6:45 utc | 29

conchita,
censure is a fine thought, and I agree that Bush has committed enough high crimes and misdemeanors to warrant impeachment, but I think the Democrats are just being realistic: given the current political climate, things would quickly degenrate into a political circus and further distract us from the problems at hand.
In any case, I remain an optimist about America, after all, it took Rome centuries from defeat in the Teutoberg Forest (Rome’s 9/11) until the Barbarians reached the gates…

Posted by: ralphieboy | Apr 3 2006 10:29 utc | 31

things would quickly degenrate into a political circus and further distract us from the problems at hand
just WTF are they doing about the problems at hand? being a little hesitant before they bring the rubber stamp down?
optimist has to be the understatement of the millenia.

Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 3 2006 14:41 utc | 33

I had visions of an angry free-for-all and nobody to blame for bringing down the discussion but myself. Sometimes, I don’t give you guys enough credit.
well, that statement turned out to be a bit to early…

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | Apr 3 2006 16:00 utc | 35