144 thoughts on “End of the Road?”

  5. The title of this thread goes great with my two post,this one being the second:

    “It is unusual for a presidential campaign to employ a local investment adviser as an economic policy expert. Major electoral campaigns typically seek out high-profile economists with federal policymaking experience or academic gravitas.

    According to Lowrie’s LinkedIn profile, his education tops out with a Bachelor of Science in accountancy from Case Western University. He has no formal training in economics, and there is no indication that he has ever worked on public policy”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/11/richard-lowrie-herman-cain-tax-plan_n_1006201.html

  6. “OWS is a good start because it is a movement based not on the denigration of people whom we don’t agree with, such as “tea baggers””

    Your irony detector has failed again. “Tea baggers” is a denigrating term, as you must know. “Tea Partiers” is the term used by people trying not to denigrate those they disagree with.

  7. “SanPete isn’t into a debate or honest discussion of any kind!”

    Wow, Jill, for someone who uses the excuse of being insulted by a personal attack to not reply to fact-based criticism, you sure don’t mind doling out personal attacks yourself!

    I’m quite sure I’ve been no more insulting than you and some others here whose completely unfounded (and rather paranoid) personal attacks you express no qualms about, but if I hurt your feelings, I apologize and will try to be more delicate. In any case, I assure you that everything I said was my honest view and can be backed up if you aren’t familiar with the points I refer to.

    As I said, those inclined to a fundamentalist, black-and-white view of things, which is typical of the political extremes, will find Obama impossible to understand. Those willing to question their own opinions and try to understand all sides will find him an idealist who is also committed to practical results, who is operating under severe practical restraints. Many expected him to walk on water, and still are disappointed when he doesn’t do the impossible or finds he must revise his views. He’s not ideal, to be sure, and I think he ran for President too green, but I see no reason to doubt his good faith or commitment to civil liberties, when all the facts are considered.

  8. “I am not going to be put in a position to be used as bait by all the Obama haters on this blog whether they are coming from the left or right.” (SwM)

    Wise move 😉

  9. “And the oh-so-cynical side of me has to wonder if the current administration believes that a war with Iran would increase the chances of Obama’s reelection.”(anon nurse)

    Of course … 10% of the voting population will go for the incumbent if there is a war or serious threat of war and Iran would easily fill the bill.

  10. Does the picture mean we have to put the car in reverse and hope like hell we don’t do any damage on the way out? How far back to we go to get to a more sane time? Can we have Lyndon Johnson without Viet Nam?

  11. Well said, Jill. And I agree that there has been and is “left wing complicity”…

    And the oh-so-cynical side of me has to wonder if the current administration believes that a war with Iran would increase the chances of Obama’s reelection.

  12. Washington believes they can get away with this war, not because they are only able to convince the 15% of the population who is in the tea party that the threat is real, but because they have been quite successful in deceiving the majority of our population for a very long time. This includes Democrats, Republicans not in the Tea Party, and Independent voters who assent to the idea, that when it comes to war and terrorism, we should not question the motives of our “leaders”.

    So far, their calculation has been exactly correct. It is therefore up to us to end the correctness of that assumption. OWS is a good start because it is a movement based not on the denigration of people whom we don’t agree with, such as “tea baggers”, rather, it is a movement to oppose the egregious wrong doing of this govt by banding together for this common purpose, even with people whom we don’t agree with on other political matters.

    I sincerely wish the left would quit blaming everything on “tea baggers”. Glenn and JT have both made powerful factual arguments that govt. wrongdoing is tolerated by both right and left alike. Yet the left refuses to look at their own complicity in the mess we find ourselves. If we keep refusing to acknowledge/understand left wing complicity we will never end it.

    I’m certain it is no accident that this pretext for war comes in the wake of OWS getting out of control for the govt. While the US govt. has been dying to go to war with Iran, literally for years now, I believe the govt. feels this war could be the “uniter” of the population. They will get their “dream” war and get rid of those pesky protesters at the same time.

    I’m not certain that cynical calculation will hold true now. I hope not because this is one of the most dangerous wars the US could start.

  13. That’s because our nation is controlled by a bunch of sociopaths -Blouise

    I couldn’t agree more… Believe me, I’ve seen my share of them…

    ===============

    Something’s Happening Here

    By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
    Published: October 11, 2011

    Excerpt:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/theres-something-happening-here.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB

    “So there you have it: Two master narratives — one threat-based, one opportunity-based, but both involving seismic changes. Gilding is actually an optimist at heart. He believes that while the Great Disruption is inevitable, humanity is best in a crisis, and, once it all hits, we will rise to the occasion and produce transformational economic and social change (using tools of the Big Shift). Hagel is also an optimist. He knows the Great Disruption may be barreling down on us, but he believes that the Big Shift has also created a world where more people than ever have the tools, talents and potential to head it off. My heart is with Hagel, but my head says that you ignore Gilding at your peril.

    You decide.” (end of excerpt)

  14. “Most of us are dispensable, as far as these warmongers are concerned… Anything to enrich and empower themselves… and “thin the herd of those” whom they view as dispensable…” (anon nurse)

    That’s because our nation is controlled by a bunch of sociopaths:

    Glibness and Superficial Charm
    Manipulative and Conning
    Grandiose Sense of Self
    Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
    Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
    Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
    Authoritarian
    Secretive
    Paranoid
    Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
    Conventional appearance
    Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
    Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim’s life
    Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim’s affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
    Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
    Incapable of real human attachment to another
    Unable to feel remorse or guilt
    Extreme narcissism and grandiose
    May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

  15. Blouise,

    I watched “The Most Dangerous Man in America” again the other night. Oh, the lies that roll of our politicians tongues… back then and now…

    Anything to keep war alive, it would seem…

    Regarding, “Why is it that Washington thinks we’re all a bunch of teabagging fools?”

    I don’t have the answer, but I know this. Most of us are dispensable, as far as these warmongers are concerned… Anything to enrich and empower themselves… and “thin the herd of those” whom they view as dispensable…

  16. anon nurse,

    When I first read the headline about this “scary” new plot which came from NYTimes in my email, I thought … oh, oh … somebody has decided it’s time to do a regime change in Iran.

    Why is it that Washington thinks we’re all a bunch of teabagging fools?

  18. Wednesday, Oct 12, 2011

    The “very scary” Iranian Terror plot
    by Glenn Greenwald

    http://politics.salon.com/2011/10/12/the_very_scary_iranian_terror_plot/singleton/

    Excerpts:

    The most difficult challenge in writing about the Iranian Terror Plot unveiled yesterday is to take it seriously enough to analyze it. Iranian Muslims in the Quds Force sending marauding bands of Mexican drug cartel assassins onto sacred American soil to commit Terrorism — against Saudi Arabia and possibly Israel — is what Bill Kristol and John Bolton would feverishly dream up while dropping acid and madly cackling at the possibility that they could get someone to believe it. But since the U.S. Government rolled out its Most Serious Officials with Very Serious Faces to make these accusations, many people (therefore) do believe it; after all, U.S. government accusations = Truth. All Serious people know that. And in the ensuing reaction one finds virtually every dynamic typically shaping discussions of Terrorism and U.S. foreign policy.

    To begin with, this episode continues the FBI’s record-setting undefeated streak of heroically saving us from the plots they enable. From all appearances, this is, at best, yet another spectacular “plot” hatched by some hapless loser with delusions of grandeur but without any means to put it into action except with the able assistance of the FBI, which yet again provided it through its own (paid, criminal) sources posing as Terrorist enablers. The Terrorist Mastermind at the center of the plot is a failed used car salesman in Texas with a history of pedestrian money problems. Dive under your bed. “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents,” explained U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and “no explosives were actually ever placed anywhere and no one was actually ever in any danger.’”

    But no matter. The U.S. Government and its mindless followers in the pundit and think-tank “expert” class have seized on this ludicrous plot with astonishing speed to all but turn it into a hysterical declaration of war against Evil, Hitlerian Iran. “The US attorney-general Eric Holder said Iran would be ‘held to account’ over what he described as a flagrant abuse of international law,” and “the US says military action remains on the table,” though “it is at present seeking instead to work through diplomatic and financial means to further isolate Iran.” Hillary Clinton thundered that this “crosses a line that Iran needs to be held to account for.” The CIA’s spokesman at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, quoted an anonymous White House official as saying the plot “appeared to have been authorized by senior levels of the Quds Force.” Meanwhile, the State Department has issued a Travel Alert which warns American citizens that this plot “may indicate a more aggressive focus by the Iranian Government on terrorist activity against diplomats from certain countries, to include possible attacks in the United States.”

    In case that’s not enough to frighten you — and, really, how could it not be? — some Very Serious Experts are very, very afraid and want you to know how Serious this all is. Within moments of Holder’s news conference, National Security Expert Robert Chesney – without a molecule of critical thought in his brain — announced that this “remarkable development” was “very scary.” Very, very scary. Chesney then printed large blocks of the DOJ’s Press Release to prove it. Self-proclaimed “counter-terrorism expert” Daveed Gartenstein-Ross tapped into his vast expertise to explain: ”Holder weighing in on the plot’s connection to Iran means the administration is deadly serious about it.” Progressive think-tank expert and Atlantic writer Steve Clemons decreed that if the DOJ’s accusations are true, then ”the US has reached a point where it must take action” and “this is time for a significant strategic response to the Iran challenge in the Middle East and globally,” which “could involve military.”

    …

    The complaint quotes Mr. Arbabsiar as making conflicting statements about the possibility of bystander deaths; at one point he is said to say that killing the ambassador alone would be preferable, but on another occasion he said it would be “no big deal” if many others at the restaurant — possibly including United States senators — died in any bombing.

    …

    Meanwhile, President Obama decried this plot as “a flagrant violation of US and international law.” But maybe some Persian Marty Lederman in Tehran wrote a secret legal memo concluding that this was all in accordance with domestic and international law, which — as we know — is conclusive and provides a full shield of immunity.

    So facially absurd are the claims here — why would Iran possibly wake up one day and decide that it wanted to engage in a Terrorist attack on U.S. soil when it could much more easily kill Saudi officials elsewhere? and if Iran and its Quds Force are really behind this inept, hapless, laughable plot, then nothing negates the claim that Iran is some Grave Threat like this does — that there is more skepticism expressed even in establishment media accounts than one normally finds about such things. Even the NYT noted — with great understatement — that the allegations “provoked puzzlement from specialists on Iran, who said it seemed unlikely that the government would back a brazen murder and bombing plan on American soil.” The Post noted that “the very rashness of the alleged assassination plot raised doubts about whether Iran’s normally cautious ruling clerics supported or even know about it.” The Atlantic‘s Max Fisher has more on why this would be so out of character for Iran.

    But while some attention has been devoted to asking what motive Iran would have for doing this, little attention has been paid to asking what motive the U.S. would have for exaggerating or concocting the connection of Iran’s government to this plot. Aside from the benefits the FBI and DOJ receive when breaking up a “very scary” plot — the bigger, the better — it has been one of Obama’s highest foreign policy priorities to isolate Iran and sanction it further: as a means of placating Israel and punishing Iran for thwarting America’s natural right to rule that region (so monstrous is Iran that, as the U.S. has repeatedly complained, they actually continue to “interfere” in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan!). As Ignatius explains, the U.S. Government instantly converted this plot into a vehicle for furthering those policy ambitions:

    …

    What’s most significant is that not even 24 hours have elapsed since these allegations were unveiled. No evidence has been presented of Iran’s involvement. And yet there is no shortage of people — especially in the media — breathlessly talking about all of this as though it’s all clearly true. If the Obama administration decided tomorrow that military action against Iran were warranted in response, is there any doubt that large majorities of Americans — and large majorities of Democrats — would support that? As I said when discussing the Awlaki killing, the truly “scary” aspect of all of this is that the U.S. Government need only point and utter the word “Terrorist” and hordes of citizens will rise up and demand not evidence, but blood.

    UPDATE: Perpetual war-cheerleader Ken Pollack of Brookings says that, if true, this plot “shows that Tehran is meaner and nastier than ever before” and “would represent a major escalation of Iranian terrorist operations against the United States.” Also, he announces, this “should remind us that Iran also is not a normal country by any stretch of the imagination.” That — self-anointed arbiter of who is and is not a “normal country” — from a person as responsible as any pundit or think-tank expert for the attack on Iraq that killed at least 100,000 human beings, denouncing as Terrorists and abnormal a country that has invaded nobody.

    UPDATE II: On NPR this morning, Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations — and Ken Pollack’s co-author on Iran — said this when asked if he has any doubts about the accuracy of U.S. government statements: “The only unusual aspect of this is actually having a terrorist operation on American territory. I don’t know what the evidence about this is, but I’m not in a position to doubt it.” That perfectly summarizes the political, media and “expert” class’ attitude toward U.S. Government claims: they’re keeping everything secret about their accusations, so there’s no reason to doubt what they’re claiming.

    The National Security Priesthood that uncritically amplified every U.S. Government claim and fanned the fuels of war against Iraq is alive, well, and more mindless and dutiful than ever. (end of excerpts)

  20. S.M.,

    Thank you for your response.

    P.S. SanPete isn’t into a debate or honest discussion of any kind!

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