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This one made my jaw drop.

Postby banned » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:52 am

"even to the extent that the Cold War was a sham, it was often a very believable, plausible one."<br><br>TO WHOM? <p></p><i></i>
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Re: This one made my jaw drop.

Postby robertdreed » Mon Nov 21, 2005 1:17 am

Then I'll just have to live with your jaw dropping. <br><br>Instead of assuming the stance that I'm a)insincere; b) gullible; c) both, and reacting with shock, horror, derision, ridicule, and/or sarcasm- how about someone attempting something resembling a refutation of the rationales provided for the Cold War? <br><br>In view of my statements on the matter, I'd like to see thosewho comment on the topic include a perspective on how matters were presented and perceived in the USA at the time that the Cold War was being carried on, rather than relying on the sources and factual findings that have been developed post-1989. Hindsight is 20/20. <br><br>I'd like to see questions like these addressed:<br><br>Did the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc comprise a totalitarian system, or not? How about Maoist China? <br><br>Does revolutionary Marxist-Leninism support an agenda of global domination, or not?<br><br>Does the Marxist-Leninist Soviet model allow for a plurality of economic, cultural, and social alternatives to the same extent as the West, or not?<br><br>Is the phenomenon of a small armed political vanguard taking power be force of arms inevitably an expression of the popular will, as long as the armed faction adheres to a Left ideology?<br><br>Did revolutionary Communists engage in assassination, kidnapping, support for political repression, torture, covert funding, blackmail, illegal drug-running, and subversion of foreign soveriegn governments- or were such tactics the exclusive stock in trade of Western espionage agencies and covert ops carried on for the benefit of capitalist regimes? <br><br>Soviet Russian/Warsaw Pact armed forces- aggressive capability, or not? <br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 10:31 pm<br></i>
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Actually it's a compliment to ask...

Postby banned » Mon Nov 21, 2005 1:37 am

...what could motivate an intelligent person to seem to miss the point...we could just conclude you're just dumb. <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START ;) --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br><br>Seems to me you're contradicting the point you made about how if the 'good guys' do certain things then they're 'just as bad' as the bad guys, if now you're asking was the USSR guilty of doing some bad stuff as if, if we admit yes, then you can say that whatever the US did to counter the USSR was justified.<br><br>You can't have it both ways. <br><br>Also, the USSR was a mess after WWII and remained a mess. A nation that cannot make a working toaster at a reasonable price and put it in the kitchens of its citizens cannot remain a world power unless its enemies approach delusionality OR push the myth of that nation's power in order to justify its own sleazy behavior, which imho is exactly what happened then and is exactly what's happening now with the Muslims becoming our most recent bete noir. People who have to strap dynamite to their waists and blow themselves to kingdom come are not a threat to Western civilization, kids. The Israelis endured decades of Palestinian terrorism without whining as much as the US did over 9/11. Do you hear the French hollering that the Basque or Corsican liberation movements, which also occasionally pop off bombs, pose a threat to Western civilization? The Brits weren't happy with the IRA but when Lord Mountbatten bought it they didn't carry on like it was the frickin' end of the world. Even if Al Qaeda wasn't a CIA front and 9/11 hadn't been MIHOP, even if there were some disgruntled Islamic fundies disgruntled whatevers are the price of empire and have been since what, Sumeria?<br><br>Americans are big fucking babies which is what their leaders, who are playing the game of Empire just like other governments have for millenia, count on. We have to be the only Empire in history whose populace is in near-total denial that we are one.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: Actually it's a compliment to ask...

Postby robertdreed » Mon Nov 21, 2005 2:05 am

but you didn't take a lot of time to answer the question. <br><br>But I don't really care that much, because from this point on we're in pretty much complete agreement:<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>People who have to strap dynamite to their waists and blow themselves to kingdom come are not a threat to Western civilization, kids. The Israelis endured decades of Palestinian terrorism without whining as much as the US did over 9/11. Do you hear the French hollering that the Basque or Corsican liberation movements, which also occasionally pop off bombs, pose a threat to Western civilization? The Brits weren't happy with the IRA but when Lord Mountbatten bought it they didn't carry on like it was the frickin' end of the world. Even if Al Qaeda wasn't a CIA front and 9/11 hadn't been MIHOP, even if there were some disgruntled Islamic fundies disgruntled whatevers are the price of empire and have been since what, Sumeria?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Up to this point, where you betray the biases of your own personal temperament, which is by your own admission morose and often trending toward depression: <br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Americans are big fucking babies which is what their leaders, who are playing the game of Empire just like other governments have for millenia, count on. We have to be the only Empire in history whose populace is in near-total denial that we are one.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>This is yet another formulation of that hoary old saw, "the masses are asses (present company excluded, of course.)" <br><br>If the American populace is "in near-total denial" about the aggressive, militaristic imperialism of our present leadership, then what accounts for all the resistance? What accounts for George W. Bush's precipitous slide in the polls? It isn't due to the citizenry being stampeded by the mainstream media, I don't think... <br><br>banned, you have entirely too much of a sense of humor and survivor's cussedness to cling to such a poor-faced take on things. <br><br> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/20/05 11:07 pm<br></i>
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I'll take the compliments...

Postby banned » Mon Nov 21, 2005 2:32 am

...on my humor and cussedness, but then I gotta hoot:<br><br>" then what accounts for all the resistance"<br><br>Please tell me what in this country at the moment bears any resemblance to actual "resistance" other than perhaps the people who got arrested today for protesting a company that does CIA torture flights (can't find the story now but it's on buzzflash.com).<br><br>Telling some pollster who calls that you think Monkeyboy is a cock-up is not RESISTANCE.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: I'll take the compliments...

Postby robertdreed » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:11 am

Somebody must be pressing their elected representatives, otherwise there wouldn't be so many of them scrambling to re-think their position.<br><br>That <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>is</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> the only way that the troops are going to be withdrawn from Iraq, after all...through the actions of the US Congress to pressure the Executive Branch. <br><br>In that regard, I'd caution against the idea that "the more dramatic and defiant the gesture of resistance, the more effective." Getting arrested as part of a non-violent protest is a salutory act, but it isn't practical or appropriate for most Americans. <br><br>For instance, I have a bedridden octogenarian father to help take care of, and I can't do that in the holding pen of the DC Jail. For that matter, I lack bail money. So I'll have to content myself with actions like directing a finely focused beam of good old Swiftian outrage into the mouthpiece of a telephone receiver, directed at places like the editorial voice mail of the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Washington Post</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->. ( Cowards. Mush-mouthed equivocators. ) Which was full up, last time I checked. So I'll wait until they clear their cache tomorrow.<br><br>I saw a photo on the lower half of the front page of the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>WP</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> this morning, and hit the ceiling. I really gave my mother a piece of my mind, and then I couldn't sleep, after being up all night. I had to go out walking for an hour or so. <br><br>Republican and all, my poor mother is 79 and hard of hearing, and she's been carrying too much of the load in terms of caring for my dad. We have to live together. So I'm back, somehow forgiving her for her decision to continue to support the ghastliness that George W. Bush has foisted on us all. <br><br>I hope that you'll appreciate the inevitability of the next question-<br><br>banned, do you yourself plan to get arrested as part of the war resistance movement? <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/21/05 12:27 am<br></i>
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Re: I'll take the compliments...

Postby dbeach » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:40 am

politics is still local in many ways.<br><br>I recently wrote 2 letters to my local paper asking for the removal and impeachemnet of bushler and pointng out his fascism ..cronyism .. budget cuts ect...I received a hate letter from a neighbor and they also wrote another hate letter about me to my VFW commander who laffed it off cuz most around here know well of family bush and their long history of privlege <br><br>buhsler JR is down to 36% and going down.<br><br>Now national VFW needs to change thier support and stop making statements like protesters need to shut up ect..<br><br>Politics is still local and protests do account for something EVEN writing these words and knowing that BIG BRO is reading is a form of resistance..<br><br> sam bush armed the kaiser<br>prescott bush armed hitler<br>ghw bush armed sadam,iran contras and many more<br><br><br>buhsler jr is AWOL and possibly a deserter from the AL/ or TX Air reserve and a member of an illegal secret society <br><br>AND the boys need to arrest G W Bush before he gets his dream which is WW III.<br><br>.."tick tock..the clock on the wall<br><br>no wonder we're losing time<br><br>ring ring the ole church bellsb and the soldiers fall..'<br><br>neal young <p></p><i></i>
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oops

Postby dbeach » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:42 am

"Tick-tock<br>The clock on the wall<br>No wonder we're losing time<br><br>Toll, toll<br>The fallen soldier bell<br>The old church on the hill<br>Still standing when so many fell'<br><br><br>Neal Young<br> <p></p><i></i>
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war protest

Postby robertdreed » Mon Nov 21, 2005 3:54 am

Since we've been seguing in and out of talking about musicians and their role in war protest, I thought I'd give honorable mentions to some folks who actually did make their views known from the stage:<br><br>1)Grateful Dead songriter Robert Hunter, the lyric force for most of their original compositions, strolling the stage with a wireless amplified acoustic guitar in hand during one of his last public performances to date, at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, strumming while hurling improvised imprecations at people like Donald Rumsfeld. Spring 2003, I think that was. <br><br>2) Related by some New York neoconned Deadhead, on the pages of DeadNetCentral- Kenny Brooks of GD member Bob Weir's (inelegantly named) Ratdog Revue, announcing a peace rally from the stage of the Yew York City's Beacon Theatre in the fall of 2002, and getting heckled by the jingoist goon contingent in the crowd for his trouble. <br><br>It's very rare to find a war-mongering Deadhead on the pages of DeadNetCentral.com any more, they've almost all been out-thought, out-argued, and shamed off of the page. One or two of them still occasionally post on a sporadic basis on the political pages, but for the most part the jingoists have relegated themselves to one-shot sniping- what we call "drive-bys." I've repeatedly extended invitations to purported Deadheads Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson to enter the ongoing exchange as part of the Free Market Of Ideas, but I guess they don't want to face the possibility of having their asses handed to them by the DNCer radical-liberal militia, some of whom have been known to wield wicked poison pens. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 11/21/05 1:24 am<br></i>
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It's clear how much the world has changed...

Postby banned » Mon Nov 21, 2005 4:11 am

...if calling your Congressman now constitutes "resistance."<br><br>That just used to be being a citizen in a democracy.<br><br>I have no intention of going to jail, I'm way too purty <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :D --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/happy.gif ALT=":D"><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> .<br><br>I believe resistance begins in one's beliefs before it manifests in action. I do not believe that either the 2000 or the 2004 elections were valid; BushCo pulled a coup d'etat. Therefore in my opinion, as I have said elsewhere, Bush and Cheney and all their appointees are usurpers, the legal President of the US is Albert Gore. However, he does not have the balls to declare himself.<br><br>I also am of the opinion that the behavior of the Congress in accepting the coup d'etat renders them with a handful of exceptions to be traitors.<br><br>My loyalty is to the Constitution of the United States and to what I believe to be right and just. I have no other allegiances, I am not a member of any political party or movement because at present there is none that reflects my own political/social/economic beliefs...which might be best described as a cross between an anarchist and a New Deal Democrat. The American politician of the last 100 years I admire most is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, warts and all the man was brilliant and saved the country twice, once from the Scylla and Charybdis of Communism/Fascism in the Great Depression and once from the murderous designs of the Axis powers.<br><br>The people who have perpetrated 9/11, the Iraq War, the murder of New Orleans, and the looting of the middle and working classes to enrich the super rich need to be deposed and brought to account for their crimes against humanity and against the Constitution. As to the means for so doing, I am a pragmatist: If the answer to two threshhold questions is yes, I am for it.<br><br>The two questions are:<br><br>Is it just?<br><br>and <br><br>Will it work?<br><br>That answer YOUR question?<br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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of course you answered my question...

Postby robertdreed » Mon Nov 21, 2005 4:15 am

you stated that you didn't intend to go to jail because you're "too purty", and that's a good enough answer for me. Far be it from me to deride you for your decision on that question. <p></p><i></i>
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I could also have said I agree with Patton.

Postby banned » Mon Nov 21, 2005 4:19 am

He said the idea of war is not to die for your country but to make the other poor son of a bitch die for his.<br><br>Somebody's going to jail fer sure, but I'll do my best to make sure it ain't me.<br><br>As Bob Mitchum's character said in "Out of the Past" when the double crossin' dame said "Oh Jeff, I don't want to die!":<br><br>"I don't want to die either but if I do I'm gonna die last." <p></p><i></i>
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Re: I could also have said I agree with Patton.

Postby Dreams End » Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:36 am

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> how about someone attempting something resembling a refutation of the rationales provided for the Cold War?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Not a completely unreasonable request but we are coming from so far apart on this one that I can't imagine trying to get into THAT debate. <br><br>So I'll try to get us back to the original post. Even if the USSR was the real threat and the US were the good guys during the "cold war", does this justify the following things all done in the name of anti-communism:<br><br>1. Election fixing all over the place<br>2. Infiltration and manipulation of labor unions<br>3. Assassinations<br>4. Funding of secret armies and "low intensity" warfare<br>5. Support of death squads<br>6. Support of coups d'etat<br>7. Destabilization of economies<br>8. Cointelpro style operations to disrupt legal organizations <br><br>But here's the thing that has me so confused about your position. I could say that drug abuse is bad (alcohol being the worst, in my opinion, but that's another story.) And many people participate in the "war on drugs" sincerely, from SOME of the police who raid housing projects, to the jailers, to the judges sentencing nonviolent offenders to ridiculous jail terms to the people providing weapons and helicopters to "anti-drug" allies...surely within all of those there are some who believe that what they are doing is helpful.<br><br>SO WHAT? I'm not even going to bring up all of the reasons that it's clear the drug war is really a sham and that truly horrible things are being done in its name because you are so much more knowledgeable than I am in this area.<br><br>Now, does that fact that drug abuse is actually bad in any way justify ANY of this stuff? Of course not.<br><br>Robert, I think the biggest hole I see in your perspective is your understanding of WHY there IS a drug war. I think you see it as simply overzealous, morally up-tight folks on the one hand and, I suppose, some corruption on the other. <br><br>But it is clear to me that the drug war is used for a variety of reasons and that, at high enough levels, the bosses are quite aware of this. For example,<br><br>1. Social control. Who is in jail, primarily? What neighborhoods have been destroyed?<br><br>2. Cover for military aid and even military operations designed to help authoritarian regimes stamp out various revolutionary movements. I can guarantee you, from personal testimony I've heard myself from Marcos, that there are American helicopters in Mexico which are allegedly illegal to use for anything but the "drug war" which were instead being used against the Zapatistas. I've also been shown pictures of American "advisors" in Mexico during such operations. Multiply by I don't even know how many countries.<br><br>3. An alternate means of financing OTHER illegal operations that aren't even pretending to be about the "drug war". Funding of the contras comes to mind. Maybe Gary Webb did actually kill himself, but surely the attacks he endured suggest he wasn't far off the mark.<br><br>So if the drug war is being used to cover, justify and fund these OTHER operations, what's the actual motivation here? I don't think your point of view can even really account for it. Simply saying "imperialism" isn't enough...what, specifically, is the agenda?<br><br>Clearly, it is the removal of obstacles to US capital. Plain and simple. The IMF taketh and then the military aid keepeth away. I don't have to support every revolutionary movement in Central and South America to understand this and condemn it. <br><br>When leaders start threatening nationalization (Arbenz in Guatemala, I believe, made Dole Fruit quite nervous, and I believe ITT wasn't happy with Mr. Allende, and Chavez, of course, ALREADY has a nationalized oil industry, for three examples) or other actions which threaten capital, the hammer comes down. <br><br>The USSR is no more, and yet these activities continue. And, naturally, I know you don't believe Iraq was actually a threat. That doesn't prove the USSR was (a lengthy debate for another time) but it does show how that rationale can "rope people in" or, in the case of the democrats, allow them to SAY they were roped in when people catch on. It justifies nothing, however.<br><br>All right. That's foreign activities. Starroute's post was my exact feeling on the domestic front...and he and I both would argue that there's plenty of evidence of this but maybe making the whole case might be difficult in this forum. I think it would actually be a good thing to continue looking at this. Starroute, Gouda, I and others have, for the moment, gotten into looking into intel connections to all the New Age stuff, which has some similar purposes. It's about social control.<br><br>And really, your own posts reflects the zeitgeist under which these activities take place. Conspiracy? Oh, there's a big one, but much of what we are talking about is simply activities that the upper classes take for granted as their proper function. Give the "reasonable" groups access to funding, Congress and media and ignore the other, overly radical groups. <br> <br><br>If things get out of hand with those "bad" groups...there are some other folks to take care of that. Infiltration, disruption, assassination...etc. <br><br>Having experienced 2 out of 3 of the above myself, I know this stuff still goes on...the end of the USSR didn't put a dent in it. Actually, things are worse now...I'm not sure we could have invaded Iraq with a full-strength USSR in the picture, whatever your opinion of them. <br><br>Now, as starroute points out, we have more overt kidnapping, torture and assassination programs. Since the death of the USSR we have destroyed Iraq militarily and killed hundreds of thousands through sanctions. And, everyone knows you are as big an opponent of both gulf wars as the rest of us are.<br><br>Without an underlying understanding of what the US and England and other western powers seek, none of this makes much sense. What they seek is to keep the world safe for capital, pure and simple. You can call it imperialism, but what do you think imperialism is? What good is an empire if you aren't GETTING stuff out of it? <br><br>So, since the topic is intel agencies' domestic dirty tricks to "manage" popular domestic movements, I guess the burden really is on you to show how your opinions of the USSR justify these activities. I see the dirty wars abroad and dirty tricks at home as all tactics in the global fight to protect capital. Your analysis doesn't really offer an underlying motive, especially now that the USSR is no more. <p></p><i></i>
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the Cold War

Postby robertdreed » Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:48 am

I'm not going to get into my opinion on the reasons for the existence for the Drug War, because that's a quite different topic. <br><br>For one thing, the Drug War isn't really a "war." Drugs don't raid peoples houses and incarcerate them for not possessing them. Nor do they march north from the fields of "source countries" and demand that people ingest them. <br><br>The Cold War, however, does fit the definition of a "war." And given the overall history of wars, the Cold War wasn't the worst one that ever happened to the world. There's no real Cold War equivalent to the Battle of the Somme or the bombing of Dresden, for instance.<br><br>Much of your post seems to be the equivalent of saying that since one side in a war used artillery and high explosives, that it was morally unconscionable and inexplicable that the other side respond with artillery and high explosives of their own. <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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Re: the Cold War

Postby Dreams End » Mon Nov 21, 2005 12:25 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Much of your post seems to be the equivalent of saying that since one side in a war used artillery and high explosives, that it was morally unconscionable and inexplicable that the other side respond with artillery and high explosives of their own.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Well, okay, but only if you add to the analogy that the side that is "responding" is aiming the artillery everywhere but AT the first side. Cointelpro did not hurt the Soviet Union. The support of dictators and funding of dirty wars in central and south america did not hurt the soviet union. Or are you suggesting that you buy the rationale behind these actions? You think Pinochet was a beachhead against the Soviet Menace in South America. You think the contras really WERE freedom fighters? You think that ALL U.S. revolutionary and left movements targeted by the FBI were actually part of a Soviet plot? Martin Luther King? Are you really what you are portraying yourself to be in these posts? Surely not...our wires are getting crossed somewhere. <br><br>And to continue your analogy, why is OUR artillery still firing while the original side no longer even exists? <br><br>Or maybe you think the war on terror is real too?<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
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