Sorry Everybody (POLITICAL)

[Amy Sweet]

Have you seen this site?

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/

It even got a reply:

http://www.apologiesaccepted.com/index.html

 

[Amy Sweet]

The world responds:

 

[Jagged]

I am not really going to get into this one as I have in the past. But I must say to the half of American that is so traumatized by the past election. Get over it!?! Please. I would have not thought it the end of the world if Senator Kerry got elected. Sure he wouldn't have been the man I wanted for the job but I did not see myself leaving in a Socialist society over night.


Since when do we care what other people thing about us??

Those who are against us had (and still want) stakes in the Middle East that have nothing to do with wanting peace. The oil for food scandal involves many nations opposed to United States actions. The secretary general was involved for crying out loud. Nations that regularly employ torture are on the human rights committee.

In the past four years I have not seen the loss of my rights? The economy is getting better which by the way has little to do with the President for better or for worse. Security has improved but that still has a long way to go despite what has already been done. We may actually start enforcing laws.

In the end though considering things were not a tie it seems one view one out in the end.

So once again I will say something that is not said enough in this society...........Get over it. There is a lot of work to be done.

 

[cantdog]

Honestly. Kerry wasn't the best candidate. You went out of your way to ignore and obstruct the best one.

The important thing now is to pay attention to what's currently being planned and done by the Bushies, so that you can try to head it off. Subscribe to a listserv, like YT or ACLU or something, that will feed you alerts. Then respond.

cantdog

 

[Amy Sweet]

Since when do we care what other people think about us??

[/COLOR]

Hmm, maybe that's the problem...


Since some of us don't want to be antisocial isolationist bullies.


Since we all live on the same planet- and there isn't really another one to go to.

Since we are not self-centered two-year olds who only care about ourselves. (or are we)

What the hell kind of argument is "who cares what others think"

Well god- who cares what others think about gays marrying. I'm gay and I want to marry- who cares what others think?

Who cares what others think about my need to shower, I'm perfectly comfortable being dirty and smelly- who cares what other people think?

who cares what other poeple think about me littering? who cares- it's my garbage, I'll throw it where ever I want.

Who cares what other people think. I'm the only one that matters.

(OH yeah, and who cares what you dems think- your loosers anyway. Get over it. You lost. Your oppinion doesn't matter.)

 

[Amy Sweet]

Honestly. Kerry wasn't the best candidate. You went out of your way to ignore and obstruct the best one.

The important thing now is to pay attention to what's currently being planned and done by the Bushies, so that you can try to head it off. Subscribe to a listserv, like YT or ACLU or something, that will feed you alerts. Then respond.

cantdog

I heard an older song the other day that kinda reminds me of you. I'm going to start a thread.

 

[Sunnie]

Have you seen this site?

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/

It even got a reply:

http://www.apologiesaccepted.com/index.html

Yayse, I go to sorryeverybody.com about every day to see the new pics. It's heartening, yes? :-D

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

. . . Since when do we care what other people thing about us?? . . . .

Since we purposefully shut our eyes, so we would not see what our government is doing.

Sound familiar?

Iraq's Silent Dead
Jeffrey Sachs
December 02, 2004


November 2004 has the dubious distinction of being tied with April as the bloodiest months in Iraq for American soldiers. In both months, at least 135 U.S. servicemen or women died. But it's anyone's guess as to which months were the bloodiest for Iraqi citizens. No one is counting their deaths—and the American media isn't reporting on it, either. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute goes where the mainstream media doesn't tread: deep into a war where civilians are targets as often as insurgents.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is professor of economics and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Evidence is mounting that America’s war in Iraq has killed tens of thousands of civilian Iraqis, and perhaps more than one hundred thousand. Yet this carnage is systematically ignored in the United States, where the media and government portray a war in which there are no civilian deaths because there are no Iraqi civilians—only insurgents.

American behavior and self-perceptions reveal the ease with which a civilized country can engage in large-scale killing of civilians without public discussion. In late October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began. The sample survey documented an extra 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths compared to the death rate in the preceding year, when Saddam Hussein was still in power— and this estimate did not even count excess deaths in Fallujah, which was deemed too dangerous to include.

The study also noted that the majority of deaths resulted from violence, and that a high proportion of the violent deaths were due to U.S. aerial bombing. The epidemiologists acknowledged the uncertainties of these estimates, but presented enough data to warrant an urgent follow-up investigation and reconsideration by the Bush administration and the U.S. military of aerial bombing of Iraq’s urban areas.

America’s public reaction has been as remarkable as the Lancet study—for the reaction has been no reaction. The vaunted New York Times ran a single story of 770 words on page 8 of the paper (October 29). The Times reporter apparently did not interview a single Bush administration or U.S. military official. No follow-up stories or editorials appeared, and no New York Times reporters assessed the story on the ground. Coverage in other U.S. papers was similarly frivolous. The Washington Post (October 29) carried a single 758-word story on page 16.

Recent reporting on the bombing of Falluja has also been an exercise in self-denial. The New York Times (November 6) wrote that “warplanes pounded rebel positions” in Fallujah, without noting that “rebel positions” are actually in civilian neighborhoods. Another New York Times story (November 12), citing “military officials,” dutifully reported that, “Since the assault began on Monday, about 600 rebels have been killed, along with 18 American and 5 Iraqi soldiers.” The issue of civilian deaths was not even raised.


The Full Article On What We Don’t Care About Because We Won't Look.

 

[shereads]

People either get it, or they don't. The dividing line seems to be between those who say, "I haven't lost my rights" and those of us who say, "Some people are being denied their rights, and we need to stop it."

If you don't particularly care, because it's not happening to you; and if you don't feel a responsibility to the rest of the world when you're fortunate enough to live in the richest and most powerful country, then the election should be easy to shrug off. You weren't much of a Democrat to begin with.

 

[shereads]

"If the state cuts off your hand with a hatchet and I don't try to stop it, then it's my hatchet and my fingerprints are on it." ~ Garrison Keiller in "Homegrown Democrat"

Jagged, this election is not one to "get over" the way we get over losing a bowl bid to a rival team. This was a tipping point, and the fact that the world is afraid of us and mistrusts us is a big, big deal. We had an opportunity after the cold war, as the world's one remaining superpower, to demonstrate that we could handle power wisely and compassionately. We blew it. It matters.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

Waiting for Iraq
By Gwynne Dyer
7 November 2004


Most Americans don't realise how much the rest of the world opposed
their country's invasion of Iraq, because most US mass media shield them
from the knowledge. Watching the domestic service of CNN just after the
election, I heard three different newsreaders in the same day explain to
their American audience that France and Germany had been "cool" to the
American attack on Iraq.

They weren't "cool" to it; they opposed it utterly. They saw it as
an illegal act intended to undermine the entire multilateral system and
replace it with a unilateral system in which America is the global
policeman -- indeed, the global judge, jury and executioner. They refused
to support it at the United Nations, and in that refusal they had the
support of every other great power except Britain. So what do all these
great powers -- France, Germany, Russia, China, and India -- do now?

They were never that confident that President George W. Bush would
lose the election, or that Senator John Kerry would make much difference if
he won. They know that there is now a broad consensus in the United States
on the desirability of imposing a "Pax Americana" on the world through the
unilateral exercise of overwhelming US military power. They will never
accept that, but they still want to avoid a direct confrontation with the
United States as that would also destroy the multilateral system. So they
are hoping that the war in Iraq will erode US popular support for the whole
unilateralist adventure.

To be specific, they are hoping for the rise of an anti-Iraq-war
movement in the United States like the one that ultimately destroyed
popular support for the US war in Vietnam a generation ago. And they need
it to happen soon, because their no-confrontation policy has a limited
shelf life. It must succeed before popular pressures at home push them
into open confrontation with the US.

So how fast can Iraq go bad in the eyes of the American public? In
Iraqi eyes, of course, it has already gone bad, with every opinion poll
since last spring showing massive support among Arab Iraqis for the
resistance forces and a huge majority in favour of immediate US withdrawal.
But it is Americans who must be convinced that the whole neo-conservative
project for re-ordering the Middle East and establishing US global hegemony
is foolish and doomed.

<CLIP>

If the US does not change course, the other great powers will
eventually give up on the waiting game and move to counterbalance and
contain American power. That would mean alliances, arms build-ups, all the
lethal nonsense we thought that we had left behind us. Nobody wants to go
down that road, but they inevitably will if US policy doesn't change. We
probably have a few years before that starts, but we don't have a long
time.

Of course, a new arms race it just what Bush supporters in the old Military-Industrial Complex have been begging Santa for since the collapse of the USSR. If it means sabre-rattling at the rest of the world, so be it.

 

[rgraham666]

I do wish people would stop referring to the Shrubbies et al. as neo-conservatives.

It makes them sound all restrained and careful, as most conservatives are.

They are revolutionaries. Indeed, because of their economic determinism and their hijacking of public discourse through the use of language, the closest analog in my mind is the Bolsheviks.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Get over it!?! Please. I would have not thought it the end of the world if Senator Kerry got elected. Sure he wouldn't have been the man I wanted for the job but I did not see myself leaving in a Socialist society over night.

The unfortunate problem is that so many Bush supporters think it IS the end of the world, and that they're going to escape this horror by flying nekkid into the sky. (Now that's a disaster movie I'd pay to see! Forget about flash-freezing NYC, I wanna see nekkid Evangelicals flying around!)

 

[yui]

(Now that's a disaster movie I'd pay to see! Forget about flash-freezing NYC, I wanna see nekkid Evangelicals flying around!)

Perv.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Perv.

I know! It's like satisfying both a voyeur and sadistic fetish at the same time!

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I always wondered...


...is George W. Bush an evil man?

 

[yui]

I always wondered...


...is George W. Bush an evil man?

That's for history to decide, isn't it?

 

[logophile]

I always wondered...


...is George W. Bush an evil man?

No.

He's a puppet.

Being manipulated by lots of evil men and women.

www.newamericancentury.org
I'm not into conspiracy theory, but this site scares the hell out of me.

From the site...

Statement of Principals:
June 3, 1997

American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.

We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

And it's signed by:
Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

More from the site:
The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle; and that too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership.


Go to the site. Check it out. Especially be sure to read the "ideas" they have for the Middle East and Israel. Keep in mind that most of this was written in the late '90s.

Brrrr, that's the shit that'll keep me up at night.


Oh, and one more rambling thought for the night...
from RG:
I do wish people would stop referring to the Shrubbies et al. as neo-conservatives.

It makes them sound all restrained and careful, as most conservatives are.

They are revolutionaries. Indeed, because of their economic determinism and their hijacking of public discourse through the use of language, the closest analog in my mind is the Bolsheviks.

Hmmm neoconservative isn't my fave either, but Neo-Con seems suitable considering the way they've manipulated the citizens and the media into believing their lies.

And I don't like calling them Revolutionaries either. When a revolutionary war is over, it's often (but not always) found that the Revolutionaries were on the correct side all along. I can't even stomach the thought.

 

[rgraham666]

I disagree, logophile. Historically, revolutions throw up worse governments that the ones they overthrew.

Russia was no paradise under the Czars, but worse under the Bolsheviks. The Iran of The Shah was an unpleasant place, but under the Ayatollahs a lot of people now wonder if they made a mistake. France under Louis XVI was a sclerotic society. Robespierre and Bonaparte were not an improvement. Or was that XVII? With so many Louis, it's hard to keep track.

And the Shrubbies show all the characteristics of revolutionaries. They do not accept our system as working or workable and intend to destroy it. They treat any criticism as treason. They reward only their own and punish everyone else. They are never satisfied. They are eager to push their logic to its utmost limits. They see no reason to restrain their actions.

Ah well. nations are born, they grow old and they die. Pity the death of one of the greatest will happen in my lifetime.

 

[logophile]

I disagree, logophile. Historically, revolutions throw up worse governments that the ones they overthrew.

Ah well. nations are born, they grow old and they die. Pity the death of one of the greatest will happen in my lifetime.

RG - Thanks for your response. I've been pondering it for several hours as the examples you gave were good ones. I'm wondering if I might be prejudiced in my preference for the revolutionary. In my eyes (which typically see through rose colored glasses) most Revolutions are honorable - the people putting down or shirking off oppressive governments. When I think of a new upstart political party overthrowing an established government, I typically think of the word Coup.

Of course, you're right in that the "People" need to have a new governmental structure in mind before they pitch the old one and for that reason all successful Revolutions are Coups.

It's potato potahto, most likely. Or just a generalized preference for one word over the other (kinda like some women love the word pussy while other love cunt...).

Thanks again for the chance to play with this in my mind a little bit. We agree on the main point - Bush and his puppeteers ARE NOT conservative!

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I always wondered...


...is George W. Bush an evil man?

On issues of petty sadism, deriving pleasure from the deaths of others, using bullying tactics for greater power, and disregard for human lives that aren't his or people he knows, then yes, he is an evil man.

On all other counts, jury is still out.

 

[cantdog]

I disagree, logophile. Historically, revolutions throw up worse governments that the ones they overthrew.

Russia was no paradise under the Czars, but worse under the Bolsheviks. The Iran of The Shah was an unpleasant place, but under the Ayatollahs a lot of people now wonder if they made a mistake. France under Louis XVI was a sclerotic society. Robespierre and Bonaparte were not an improvement. Or was that XVII? With so many Louis, it's hard to keep track.

And the Shrubbies show all the characteristics of revolutionaries. They do not accept our system as working or workable and intend to destroy it. They treat any criticism as treason. They reward only their own and punish everyone else. They are never satisfied. They are eager to push their logic to its utmost limits. They see no reason to restrain their actions.

Ah well. nations are born, they grow old and they die. Pity the death of one of the greatest will happen in my lifetime.

There's an old mnemonic which helps with the louies. It goes to the tune of "La Marseillaise".

Louie the sixteenth was the King of France
in seventeen eighty-nine!
He was worse than Louie the fifteenth
He was worse than Louie the fourteenth
He was wor-urse than lou-ou-ie the thir-teenth!
He was the worst
Since Louie the first!

 

[thebullet]

Jagged said:
But I must say to the half of American that is so traumatized by the past election. Get over it!?! Please. I would have not thought
it the end of the world if Senator Kerry got elected.

You wouldn't have thought it was the end of the world if Kerry was elected because it wouldn't have been. The republic would have continued as before. Kerry would have been a poor to average President, with all the normal foibles of a weak-willed leader.

But Bush's reelction may well mean the end of the Republic! You people just don't get it! It boggles my mind that you people can be oblivious to what is so obvious to many, many people in this country and mot people throughout the world.

Are you mindless followers of the neocons only going to understand when they rub your faces in it? We are dealing with a government that believes that the only goal is to increase its own power. We are being governed by ambitious, stupid men; men who have a pre-conceived world view that cannot be altered by the facts.

Our government is run by people who will be called war criminals not too far in the future. They sanction torture; use of weapons banned by the United Nations; the murder of well over one hunderd thousand helpless civilians, most women and children. And all the time they call themselves the saviors of Iraq.

Little Joseph Goebbels could learn things about fact-twisting from these people.

We have become the Evil Empire!

Is this a great country or what?

 

[cantdog]

Calling people purblind and stupid is counterproductive, bullet. That's what elitism is.

The liberals, who are the majority in this country, people who want to help others, people who care about justice-- liberals are losing elections because they themselves are acting stupid.

I don't blame democrats, not any more. Liberals themselves are to blame for what just occurred. You voted against a candidate who espoused your agenda-- Nader-- and voted for a pro-war, pro-corporate, pro-empire, pro-PATRIOT act candidate. To win.

You might win, but you don't further your agenda if you refuse to vote for a liberal-to-progressive candidate when one is right in front of your fuckin face.

Kerry was heavier than Bush on the war and never repudiated the PATRIOT act police-state measures. Liberals pointed to Bush, sobbing. "Everything will be just fine if we get rid of That Man!" they said. What shit.

Until Liberals in this country can show me they fucking mean it, by voting for a candidate who has their ideals in view, then they can ontinue to be pathetic losers.

Jesus.

Do you guys just like your martyrdom so much that you want to vote for the dems? How many times do you have to watch the dems put NAFTA and such measures in? How many times do have to watch the dem candidates concede elections to cheats in the name of "unity" and shit like that? How many times do you have to see the dems vote in measures like PATRIOT?

Of course Nader can win, ass!!! Any candidate can win, so long as people vote for him! Jesus! Every fuckin liberal talkin head in the known universe wanted to back Kerry! They all said "How stupid to vote Bush!" For the war? Kerry was stronger for the war than Bush, and smarter! For the PATRIOT thing? Kerry voted that in, man! If not on account of the police state and the Empire, then on what fucking account was it "stupid" to back Bush? Name one fucking thing!

And then look at Nader's platform. Is it there, that one fuckin thing? Was Kerry doing it, that one fuckin thing?

Once you decide to vote for the candidate who reflects your views, you'll have a reason to whine. Kerry wasn't even against torture, for Chris's sake!

Take your liberal martyrdom out of my face. This ass is no worse now than he was in twenty-hundred when Gore conceded for the sake of "national reconciliation" and "unity" to a fucking illegitimate judicial coup. No worse than four years ago.

cantdog

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

So, if the president we have is evil... or the government we have is evil... do you advocate the violent overthrowing of it? That would be very American.