by StarmanSkye » Thu Apr 20, 2006 8:51 am
Rothbardian --<br><br>"The whole thing is "rightwing is evil/the left is saintly". <br><br>This *thing* you say above (I don't even know what to call it) is simply nuts.<br><br>There's like NO basis for it at all -- tho it does explain why you might come up with some of the things you do.<br><br>Where did you ever get such a notion anyway?<br><br>The evidently pejorative value you place on liberal only further confounds this gross value-added oversimplification. I would think you're reflecting the knee-jerk conditioning of the right to poison the very term 'liberal', by associating it with all sorts of qualities, attitudes, assumptions, values, etc. that have NOTHING to do with liberalism. To the extent their clever propagandizing works, their target audience (ie., Joe Blow, Nascar dads and their spouses, the public-school dumbed-down sheeple who never question authority, anyone who doesn't have a very good grasp of actual history, world events, deep politics, etc., and who lacks the information, interest and/or aptitude to critique the politics of PTB exploitation, subversion of democratic principles and values, rampant militarism and stage-managing global conflict to benefit the core elite's narrow interests) experiences a Pavlovian revulsion whenever the term 'liberal' is used to disparage the 'bad' guys -- Democrats, unions, 'Lefties', college professors, welfare parasites, do-gooders, Hollywood, anti-war nuts, anti-Christian secularists, college students (in general, ie. 'slackers'), idealists, dreamers, criminals, parasites -- Do you deny the right has vilified 'liberal' and waged a underhandedcampaign to give it a totally 'different' meaning than what it has always meant throughout the establishment of an American civil society based on self-rule, equality, economic parity, justice, human and civil rights, enlightened principles of cooperation, progressive reform and constructive engagement.<br><br>Liberalism has always meant an ideology of personal freedom for the individual, democratic forms of government, gradual reform in political and social institutions, tolerance, being broad-minded, generous, not restricted to a close or literal meaning, absence of prejudice, sharing with others.<br><br>I don't know exactly what YOU think liberal means, but I certainly know it means the above -- and I never consented to anyone redefining it for me. To the extent liberal values are clearly antithetical to the Republican and esp. rightwing agenda, I'd say the evidence is abundant that the rightwing agenda is contrary to the core values this nation was founded on -- That in itself may not be 'evil', but the many crimes and abuses committed and horrors and needless suffering caused by both Republicans and Democrats following the postwar rightwing path of neocolonial exploitation and debt-peonage, electoral fraud and aggressive intervention in foreign domestic affairs, managing the public forum debate and criminalizing dissent, obstructing progressive reforms, provoking regional conflicts as a means to exercise coercive political and economic influence while selling arms to all combatants...<br><br>Clearly, I'm very critical of America's postwar foreign policy, and that's not even getting into the awful domestic abuses and frauds and crimes as a result of enormous political power being appropriated by the military industry in collusion with global finance and multinational combines -- with the dangerous, anti-democratic alliances we've seen developing with covert counterespionage and intelligence and military personnel running classified National Security operations that intersect with organized crime, terrorism, arms and drug networks, money-laundering, destabilization and coups -- The US has not only refused to completely and unambigiously renounce torture, genocide, war crimes, racketeering, terrorism, unprecedented arms proliferation, political interference and rampant militarism, but there are no indications that our rightwing 'leaders' have any intentions to change course anytime soon and agree to abide by international agreements and standards, and to cooperate with international institutions.<br><br>Similiarly -- How do you arrive at the 'conclusion' the left sees itself as 'saintly'? That's quite a bit different than the ideals of fairness, justice, equality, peace, dignity, self-awareness, compassion, understanding, and mercy --among other values and attributes -- that those on the left commonly seek to uphold.<br><br>Personally, I look more at what people do and have done and what they say and who they associate with as a measure of what they stand for, rather than depend on a label like right and left to determine whether or who I am critical of and why. But the present leadership, in close alliance with the hidden PTB forces of power and influence, openly acknowledge their rightwing allegiances and ideology, traced to the ideas of Strauss and dozens of right-leaning intellectuals, think-tanks, academic associations and special-interest groups.<br><br>I think the dangerous, reckless and irresponsible path the nation is on owes much to the collusion and cover-up of our 'leaders' in enormous crimes and frauds that constitute a sell-out betrayal of our nation's dearest principles. It sure wasn't the American 'left' that acquiesced in the murder of some 20-million people during the last 60 years in the US's leading role in many dozens of large and small wars, conflicts, invisible and proxy wars, strategy-of-tension, civil strife, induced shortages, blockades, bombings, military-poisonings, subsidized and actual assassinations, and weather wars.<br><br><br>To return to the Duke rape case -- It's curious you would place more weight on the unsubstantiated claim of a photograph than on the details of the arrest and search warrant, or the testimony (ABC article) of the woman's friend (or sister?) regarding her possibly being drugged -- substantiated by the Kroger security-guard who claimed that while he could smell alcohol on the breath of the good-samaritan woman-driver (who gave the (alleged) victim a ride after seeing her be verbally accosted by some men and taking pity on her) but NOT on the (alleged) victim's -- and also, while the guard claimed the woman never said ANYTHING in his hearing about being robbed and raped, he also acknowledged the woman didn't speak at ALL. And yet, the guard, speaking to reporters, said in her opinion there was NO WAY the woman could have been raped -- tho what this is supposed to based on remains obscure,<br><br>The woman's personal articles were found in the house, the men engaged in duplicity to 'fool' and hide their true identity from the woman, WHY would the coach quit and the rest of the season's games be cancelled IF the charges were patently false and evidently so? And what's the big deal about a time-stamped camera, couldn't it be modified to record a time an hour earlier or so? The photographs may have been scanned into one or more of the men's computer and manipulated with a false-time. It seems like the men simply couldn't grasp that they would actually be charged with a crime -- not because they didn't do anything, but perhaps they had done this before, enticed a girl to their rooms and drugged her so she wouldn't be clear about what really happened if anything. Only in this case, the woman victim was taken to a hospital and examined, finding evidence consistent with assault and rape.<br><br>What gets me -- If the woman was obviously drunk and injured, WHY did the guys insult her and then apologize so she'd return? Assuming nothing happened, WHY would the woman make-up a rape-charge? <br><br>Of course prosecuters are occasionally corrupt, sacrificing justice for self-interest. But that's part of the whole goddamned system that has been subverted and fouled, made a priveleged and protected institution that lacks effective citizen oversight <br><br>The way prosecuters have unlimited discretion to 'decide' whether a given crime has merit or the court has the resources to pursue a given case -- huge opportunities to scam the system from without, while big cases use the latest psychosocial techniques to select a jury they can 'win' with.<br><br>Talk about playing the media-audience -- The blowhard Limbaugh on a recent program called her a 'ho' -- How's that for keeping oneself from making a specious rush to judgement? Seems like that's slander at the very least (tho I don't know if he used her name, or if it was released yet.)<br><br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
