Americans Finally Learn To Cooperate On A National Suicide Project

[Tom Joad]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/20...tional-suicide

This is an awesome article!

The author gives just about everyone a well deserved ration of shit for the sorry state of affairs this country finds itself in. It's a long article, but well worth reading because he nails it on just about every point.

Here is an excerpt on Hillary Clinton's Iraq War vote that I particularly like.

Clinton also lost a lot of progressive supporters by voting for George W. Bush’s Iraq war resolution, as well she should have. In fact, she should count yourself lucky that she’s not sitting in some civil or criminal court, or both, to answer for that crime. The lie that she’s offered in the form of some jive apology only compounds the sin of the original lie. Iraq, which had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, was no threat to America in 2003, and in fact wasn’t even making threatening noises in our direction. Weapons inspectors were on the ground, finding nothing, and begging for a few more weeks to finish their job. Moreover, plenty of countries in the world had weapons of mass destruction at that time, and nobody talked about launching an invasion against China or Russia or even North Korea. And yet Clinton, who never even bothered to read the intelligence dossier presented to Congress, voted for the war resolution. Why? Everybody knows the answer to that. She desperately wanted to be president and feared—perhaps especially as a female candidate—that a no vote would make her look weak on national security. So, now, somewhere between 100,000 and one million Iraqis, Americans and others are dead, all lives sacrificed on the altar of the personal careers of American politicians like Bush, Kerry and Clinton. Again, please forgive my naïveté, but I just don’t know how somebody like that sleeps at night. To be honest, it seems to me that only a full-blown sociopath could live with themselves, having traded so much human misery for their own pathetic career ambitions.

Jimmy Dore interviewed the guy on his show.

Here's the link to it on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jl-...&feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jl-...&feature=share

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

http://www.commondreams.org/views/20...tional-suicide

This is an awesome article!

The author gives just about everyone a well deserved ration of shit for the sorry state of affairs this country finds itself in. It's a long article, but well worth reading because he nails it on just about every point.

Here is an excerpt on Hillary Clinton's Iraq War vote that I particularly like.

Jimmy Dore interviewed the guy on his show.

Here's the link to it on youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jl-...&feature=share
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jl-...&feature=share

Misdirected blame IMO. Bush/Cheney and Co. went out of their way to sell that war based upon inconclusive/mistaken/fake evidence and a NeoCon wetdream. I respect those who voted against it (e.g., Obama, Sanders), but don't hold Congress anywhere near as responsible as Dubya and Co.

They convinced 77 Senators and 297 Congressmen with their sales pitch. It must have been pretty convincing to get that kind of support when you consider how chickenshit Congress is when it comes to authorizing war. They still haven't authorized our war against ISIS (one of Tim Kaine's signature issues, BTW).

[Tom Joad]

Originally Posted by finnbow

They convinced 77 Senators and 297 Congressmen with their sales pitch. It must have been pretty convincing to get that kind of support when you consider how chickenshit Congress is when it comes to authorizing war.

I don't buy that for a nano second.

I knew the war was bullshit and I'm just an ordinary schmuck.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by Tom Joad

I don't buy that for a nano second.

I knew the war was bullshit and I'm just an ordinary schmuck.

I too was against the war, not because I was convinced it was bullshit, but I didn't see Iraq as a imminent or existential threat, even if they indeed had a nascent WMD program (as Iran, Pakistan, Libya and North Korea certainly did). I was fearful that it was a NeoCon scam, but not convinced of it.

But when the President personally sells an idea, a lot of people buy into it. Just look how you hang on Trump's every word, despite him being the biggest liar ever to grace the American political stage.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I too was against the war, not because I was convinced it was bullshit, but I didn't see Iraq as a imminent or existential threat, even if they indeed had a nascent WMD program (as Iran, Pakistan, Libya and North Korea certainly did). I was fearful that it was a NeoCon scam, but not convinced of it.

But when the President personally sells an idea, a lot of people buy into it. Just look how you hang on Trump's every word, despite him being the biggest liar ever to grace the American political stage.

Sounds to me like you saw through Dubya's BS sales pitch. That Congress overwhelmingly approved OIF is on them. Plenty of blame to go around. I remember well how overly emotional some bright and normally rational colleagues became when the administration's misdirection was pointed out along with the fact that Iraq hadn't attacked us. Saddam was an evil leader (public perception) and 9/11 provided the excuse needed to finish the job.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by nailer

Sounds to me like you saw through Dubya's BS sales pitch. That Congress overwhelmingly approved OIF is on them. Plenty of blame to go around. I remember well how overly emotional some bright and normally rational colleagues became when the administration's misdirection was pointed out along with the fact that Iraq hadn't attacked us. Saddam was an evil leader that needed to go and 9/11 provided the excuse needed to finish the job.

You have the emotional logic reversed there, I think. 9/11 meant we wanted to hurt someone, so 'evil Saddam needs to go' was an easy sell.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I too was against the war, not because I was convinced it was bullshit, but I didn't see Iraq as a imminent or existential threat, even if they indeed had a nascent WMD program (as Iran, Pakistan, Libya and North Korea certainly did). I was fearful that it was a NeoCon scam, but not convinced of it.

But when the President personally sells an idea, a lot of people buy into it. Just look how you hang on Trump's every word, despite him being the biggest liar ever to grace the American political stage.

We were on the exact same page. I didn't care how big a cheese Saddam got to be in the region. No real threat in any of that.

[nailer]

Originally Posted by donquixote99

You have the emotional logic reversed there, I think. 9/11 meant we wanted to hurt someone, so 'evil Saddam needs to go' was an easy sell.

Nope. Not getting rid of Saddam as a part of Desert Storm was immediately seen by many as a lost opportunity. After all he was sold as another Hitler to get the American people to buy into that war. In addition, Clinton enjoyed bombing the shit out of him and punishing him with economic sanctions. OIF was an easy sell because this emotional demonization came first.

[Tom Joad]

Like I said, it's a long article. The indictment of Clinton for her war vote is just a small piece. There's something for everyone. Let's move on to Obama.

The American presidency, as compared to other chief executives in other democracies, is actually a relatively weak institution. What makes it strong, and what successful presidents understand makes it strong, is effective use of the bully pulpit. You have to lead. You have to persuade. You have to be proud to have the enemies you do, and you have to punish them publicly for their intransigence, their obvious self-interested motivations, and their hostility to the public interest. You have to show some courage. You have to be thematic. You have to demonstrate that you really, really care about something, and explain to the public why they should really, really care about it too. This is not a job for the aloof. Cerebral golfing philosopher kings need not apply. They may get the office, but they’ll never get success.

Obama never understood the slightest bit of this, and his presidency has been a woeful failure relative to the challenges of our times, in huge part because of his lack of insight. And the cherry on top of that cake—make no mistake about it—is Donald Trump. When Obama came to office in 2009, people were being crushed economically. Responding to their plight, no matter what obstacles got in his way, should have been his first, second and third priorities for his first two years in office. He should have presented a clear and comprehensive solution to the crisis in people’s lives and pitched it relentlessly. We should have gotten sick of constantly seeing him fighting so hard for us. He should have never skipped a waking hour in pointing out the (true) fact that his opponents to national recovery in the Republican Party were putting personal politics above the survival of the American people in a midst of a crisis. They should’ve been made to pay dearly for their cynical intransigence.

But he did none of these things, instead bringing to Washington an astonishing combination of arrogance and historical naïveté. Of the latter, I was struck right from the beginning by the degree to which Obama and I seem to have lived different realities for the past thirty years. Looking back, I saw little but a wake of sheer institutional destruction to the fabric of American democracy in the years of Reagan, Gingrich and Rove. Obama, instead, just seemed to perceive some very nice men, having good patriotic intentions, with whom he just happened to have a few minor policy differences. He never understood his adversaries in the slightest, but boy did they understand him. And then the bizarre arrogance thing kicked in, because he also seemed to believe that he was the Kid Jesus figure who could come to Washington and finally bring the (equally guilty, equally intransigent) warring parties together over his holy body, and heal all the wounds of the American Republic. No doubt Valerie Jarrett told him he could do it (which pretty much seems to have been the totality of her job in the White House) and so, hey, it must be true! In fact, no president has ever been more completely rolled by the opposition than Barack Obama, ultimately culminating in having his Supreme Court nomination shoved back in his face while he haplessly sat on the sidelines whimpering (again) for an entire year, knobby tire tread marks all over his body.

I mention all this in part because of the anger I feel towards this buffoon who wasted eight years of opportunity, and who crushed the hopes of tens of millions who believed in him. But mostly because this wholesale meltdown calling itself the 44th presidency had so much to do with allowing a civilizational catastrophe like Donald Trump to waltz into the White House. People want action and leadership from their president, they want passion and a narrative, and they want the issues that affect their lives to be addressed. If you don’t give it to them, they will look further and further afield until they find it. I’m not sure there’s a more succinct way to explain Election 2016 than these last two sentences. So, thanks Barack, and thanks especially for the smug reminder that the sun will come up again tomorrow, even as you welcome into the White House the very man who did more than anyone in the entire world to delegitimize your presidency through disgusting racist innuendo. Really, is there anything anyone can say to or about Obama that might make him even slightly fighting mad? Evidently not.

[icenine]

Originally Posted by finnbow

I too was against the war, not because I was convinced it was bullshit, but I didn't see Iraq as a imminent or existential threat, even if they indeed had a nascent WMD program (as Iran, Pakistan, Libya and North Korea certainly did). I was fearful that it was a NeoCon scam, but not convinced of it.

But when the President personally sells an idea, a lot of people buy into it. Just look how you hang on Trump's every word, despite him being the biggest liar ever to grace the American political stage.

Bam Fucking Bam!