I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy!

[stormwarning]

Well, Sweet, if you had been informed about the goings on of the other boards, then you would know better than to fuck with the dog.

Rope, as much as I agree with your arguments, I really wish that you'd allow others to express their opinions without making them feel that they are challenging your infallibility - or entering a dogfight so to speak. When you intimidate people by saying that expressing their opinion is "fucking with the dog" then I think you're actually discouraging the free exchange of opinions on this board.

Discuss.

[DrJ]

Yes and no. There's nothing to stop a right wing version of rope leash coming on this board and arguing their case all crazee style.

What I find odd is that I have american friends, I was in NYC in January, I've met american people here in Dublin (including two nice girls from New Orleans last night) and I still can't find anyone who admits to liking or voting for this asshole. Maybe I move in a more enlightened circle...

DrJ

[A rope leash]

Greetings from a rooftop in Arkansas...

Storm, I'm just warning folks that I'm kind of arguementive, but I see what you are saying. I really do it in an effort to change minds. It rarely works, but as you can see, Sweet might have been better off warned...

Don't let me be an impediment to free speech. Don't expect to go unchallenged, either.

Sweatingly yours,

A rope leash

[SweetPear]

Well, Sweet, if you had been informed about the goings on of the other boards, then you would know better than to fuck with the dog.

Rope, as much as I agree with your arguments, I really wish that you'd allow others to express their opinions without making them feel that they are challenging your infallibility - or entering a dogfight so to speak. When you intimidate people by saying that expressing their opinion is "fucking with the dog" then I think you're actually discouraging the free exchange of opinions on this board.

Discuss.

Thank you Storm.....and with that I will say....To Rope and Pophead2K and Noise and Sulky and whoever else.....
I have been trying to respond for days but had been unable to post anything. I kept getting an error message. Now whether that was a glitch or something else.....I don't know. But I think it very unfair to judge a person by 2 or 3 dialogues on a topic as explosive as politics. I'm not a horrible person! You don't know me.
And Rope, you came with no warning label.
Putting aside the personal opinions, just the intolerance of someone elses point of view is shocking to me. And for as "well informed" as you seem to be, that shouldn't BE the issue. It COULD be an issue (intolerance) but if it is, well then we can just all take three steps back.
A lot of you seem to be waaay more up on your history and current affairs than I. And Rope, now that you've bitten a big chunk out of my ass...the answer would be no....I don't want to fuck with your passionate opinions. But you don't need to be a such a pompous prick. You have a right to be, it's just not very cool.
Yeah....discussion...that's good. You learn stuff that way (I don't mean YOU, I mean anyone). Minds can bend. Opinions do change.
I'm not as difinitive about things as you are, Rope. I see good and bad in all places. There is very little for me that is cut and dried. Stuff just isn't that simple.
There were just a few comments I wanted to address very quickly....
and very simplistically...Reagan...I'm not a die hard Reagan fan. Yes, there was bad but IMO, I think at that point in time, the U.S. needed a strong prez like him. On the Clinton sex thing....geez....it wasn't JUST the sex.....but c'mon, it was very unappropriate and disrespectful.....get a room already! But the big thing for me was it showed very poor judgement and brought up important things like character, morals and truth. I'm not just pointing at Clinton, but that's who we're talking about. Yes, those infidelities run rampant but I'm talking about Bill Clinton. These things can not be cast aside when considering a presidential candidate.
Noise, I'm not defending Wolfowitz' comments....no, I don't like the LIE, but I seriously don't understand this at all: Saddam is evil. EVIL. Why should we (or anyone else with the ability) not stop him? He HAD to go if for nothing else, his horrific crimes against humanity! How can one defend that? That doesn't mean I'm FOR WAR. That's ridiculous! But how do we stand by and watch this guy slaughter and mame and do nothing about it? THAT is what I don't understand.
As for a U.S. agenda to facilitate further military action in the Middle East, I wasn't even thinking that, but having read your comments, it's.....uh.....interesting. Wow
And lastly there, Sulky, I have nothing against welfare and such. It's not the people like you and I, who've used it for what it is truely intended for and who are grateful to have had a place to turn to. I'm talking about the rampant and gross abuse of it and ALL the other crap that is just way out of control. I meant no offense...I had, at one time needed gov't assistance also and don't know what I would have done had it not been available to me. BUT I HAVEN'T LIVED OFF OF IT EVER SINCE!!!! I try. I work. I pay my share.
(I don't mean to shout....) Point made, I hope.
This world is such a fucked up place and getting worse by the minute. I know I usually see the glass as half empty and maybe I don't look hard enough but this world is going to hell in a hand basket and it scares me.

Thanks for bearing with me. I didn't want everything to end on such a note of hatred and tension. I just want to get back to ELVIS!

[A rope leash]

I've been through being "cool" for years now. Being a pompous prick does not bother me, as I'd rather be that than a pretentious puppet.

Now, while I might have entered a fierce rebuttle, I don't recall having applied any lables to you, Sweet. If I did, I apologize, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Perhaps I should have called you a gullible goose-stepper, but I did not. You dove into by thread pool...if the water's too chilling, you should get out.

It isn't intolerance. Debate is fun. Just because we disagree does not mean I can't tolerate you. I tolerate the intolerable every day in the flesh. You can say whatever you want, and the names will never hurt me. The key to peaceful debate is to keep it impersonal. These are not never-ending arguements. Someone is closer to being correct than the other, and that's where individual judgement enters in. One of the reasons I keep posting on this board is because I do find some sympathy here, and I also believe that Elvis is on my side on many of these issues.

As far as Saddam being "evil", I agree, from all reports he's a bad bad man. But, I don't think you can say that the Bushes are morally elevated in any sense, either. What if Russia, China, and North Korea decided he had to be taken out, and attacked us? What if they saw American imperialsm as a threat to their way of life, and decided to nip it in the bud? Saddam was no Hitler, he did not have the absolute love of his people, and the Bushes have no real mandate to do what they are doing, they are just using the power while they have it.

As far as "evil dictators" go, there's supposedly one just 90 miles from Lapinsjolis. We've been putting the screws to them for years, and the people there live a kind of backwards life because of it, but they haven't risen up against him. What about the assholes that run Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Liberia? Are those folks not worthy of "liberation"? Also, few countries can match the oppression found in China. What? Are we too chicken to liberate them, as well?

Face it, the Bushes are whores for big money interests, especially the oil and defense industries, and they don't care how many Americans and others die in their quest to secure their financial priorities. Bill Clinton was probably not much different, except he was a bit more worried about his particular constituents, namely the unmoneyed.

If you get another chance to vote, why not vote for anybody but a Demo or a Repub? The other parties are on the ballot every time, and it is not yet a crime to put your mark by that name, and send these users packing.

Now, I'm packing up to go bust my ass in Illinois and Indiana for a week. I work for a bunch of rich fucks who wouldn't know a days labor if they had a nightmare about it. Next time the bean-counter's axe falls, it will probably hit me, and I'm sure they'll just tell me to "get a job".

[noiseradio]

Sweet Pear,

I will address the part addressed to me. First, I wasn't trying to attack you or really anything you said. I was just chiming in.

Second, I don't quibble that Sadam is evil. That can't be our justification for going to war with countries, or else we would be at war all the time. Most countries are ruled by evil men. With callous motives, and violence to back up their policies. Most of the continent of Africa is ruled by evil men. Military dictators, religious fanatics, "democratic" or "parliamentary" systems are regularly corrupt or outright overthrown by military dictsatorships. The Democratic Republic of Congo (great name for a military dictatorship, ain't it) has slaughtered so many of its own young men that children as young as 9 and 10 are being conscripted and wearing uniforms and toting AK-47s. In Sudan, the majority Muslim faction is systematically murdering and torturing the minority Christian population. People are literally being crucified and hung up on the side of the road all with the sanction of the government. And China is run by some of the biggest pricks on the plant. Not only is the SW 1/4 of their nation an overthrown Tibet (where countless pacifist monks were slaughtered), but the country is guilty of some of the vilest human rights violations imaginable over the last 50 years. Religions outlawed, people spending decades in prison for following the wrong faith, mandatory abortion for having too many children, sweatshop child labor, and let's not forget rolling tanks over peaceful protesters. Oh, and they're nuclear. To the teeth. No arguments about the fact that they have weapons of mass destruction, aimed at us, as we speak. But they have most favored nation status with us. To paraphrase Annie Get Your Guns, anything Iraq can do, China invented.

The evil of leaders is a convenient selling point when you have to convince your citizens to give up their sons and daughters for a military cause. It's even a good one, if it were consistently applied. But it's not. Sadam was doing the same evil things in the 1980's against Iran (and his own people). But because we hated Iran, he was a good guy according to Ronnie and Georgie. He was a son of a bitch, but he was our son of a bitch. Then he had the gall to threaten our gas prices. So we invade. Oh, and by the way, he's an evil bastard.

Evil? Saudi Arabia is guilty of terrible crimes against women, and they fucking funded the terrorists who knocked down the twin towers. 15 of those fucks were from Saudi Arabia. Our ally.

Evil? I'm living in a country that, with the help of Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal (among others) is completely stolen from those who owned it. Not a single treaty with Native Americans was kept, and we ripped the western third of our country off clean from Mexico. Stole half of their country. And we cal it the Mexican Cession. Meanwhile, the alcoholism rate among Native Americans is higher than most other ethnic groups in the US. Nice choice: drink hairspray or own a high stakes Bingo parlor.

Evil is everywhere, and every country is dirty with it. Yes, Sadam is evil. But there are more evil and much more threatening figures out there. We don't go to war with the ones who actively mean us harm, but we invade Iraq on the suspicion that he might be building weapons to use against us some day?

I'm sorry to rant, but I'm so tired of the rhetoric of the axis of evil. I would HONESTLY prefer a president who came right out and said, "it's in our economic interest to take over some shit in the middle east, and Iraq seems as good a spot as any to start."

[A rope leash]

Yes, a bit of candor would be great for a change. Nice one, Noise.

Do you know anything about a British invasion of Iraq back in 1919-20? I was reading about it the other day, and apparently they were using the same rationale for that invasion that we are using for this one. Nothing ever really changes, eh?

Here's another scary read:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... le4089.htm

[noiseradio]

Well Iraq was part of the former Ottoman Empire (along with pretty much all of the rest of the Middle East. France, the US, and the UK sliced it into protectorates, according to what rationale, I don't know (other than to break up an enemy empire). It was in this whole mess that virtually every present day nation in the Middle East came into being. The ivasion of which you speak too place before Iraq was an official, indepenent country. It was under the direct control of the UK from the end of WW1 until...I forget. But it was a decade or so. '36 maybe?

[Jackson Doofster]

Ronald Reagan: one of the greatest presidents of all time.


Is this for real ?

[Jackson Doofster]

I tend to avoid these discussions and prefer to enjoy reading them than to contribute. I feel that I always learn a great deal about our friends over the pond through these debates.

Although I find the concept of anyone regarding RR as 'one of the greatest presidents of all time' quite unbelievably scary, i fully endorse SP's right to hold that belief.

Noise - I don't think that you have ever written anything on politics that I disagree with. A truly wise man IMHO. I will simply nominate you as the presenter of my views until I read anything that changes my opinion of you. I still disagree with your views on some of the great man's music though....

NOISE FOR PRESIDENT (Emotional Toothpaste Party).

[noiseradio]

Jackson Monk Doofster,

You flatter me, and I thank you for your kind words. But I want to know the first time I step out of line with your views.

I'll be 35 in 2008, which is the minimum age requirement. Maybe my campaign slogan could be "Barely Legal." That way, I'd get the dirty old man vote.

[A rope leash]

That's funny, Noise, and I can see it on a lapel pin...

Here's a link I think you'll approve of. The information is backed up with a lot of other links...

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/07/08.html

[SweetPear]

Noise.....I am in awe of your knowlegde of world affairs! I can't even pretend to carry on an intelligent conversation with you about such things. I agree with all that you've said about the "evil factor". I guess it takes someone like yourself, armed with the knowledge and the ability to express your views both succinctly and intelligently so people like me can say.....yeah, what he said.
From my very simplistic point of view, I'm glad that there's one less evil tyrant in the world but in the battle between good and evil, that just seems insignificant. I don't mean to trivialize any of the lives that were taken (or saved b/c he is no longer in power) as a result of Sadaam and his regime. I'm not defending our presidents and their selfish political agendas. I put them in the same catagory as all the rest. Perhaps I just find it easier to exist by telling myself that these men are too much like me and therefore MUST have some sort of conscience or morals or scruples or whatever than to ever be on the same level as a Sadaam. It is a very reluctant justification on my part because I know if I surrender myself to the reality of all the evil in this world, then I would just end it right now. The scenarios of evil that you outlined are paralizing to me to the point of interfering with me living the good life that I've been blessed with. The hopelessness and helplessness are overwhelming to me. (Women are just so emotional, aren't they?)
I'm not saying that to be dramatic. It is, in fact, a very personal revelation and something that I truely struggle with. I do believe in God, and that's probably the reason why I wrestle with this to the point of distraction. Humanity is just so far gone and fucked up and I say why?
Why God....you're GOD.....do something about it! Why don't you do something about it??
Now i'm off on a whole other tangent.
I didn't feel attacked by you, Noise. I think just overwhelmed.
I too would welcome the honesty of a president who had the guts to tell it like it is, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

[SweetPear]

I've been through being "cool" for years now. Being a pompous prick does not bother me, as I'd rather be that than a pretentious puppet.

Now, while I might have entered a fierce rebuttle, I don't recall having applied any lables to you, Sweet. If I did, I apologize, but I'm pretty sure I didn't. Perhaps I should have called you a gullible goose-stepper, but I did not. You dove into by thread pool...if the water's too chilling, you should get out.

Ouch!
Rope, having the guts not to be a pretentious puppet commands a great deal of respect. It is a most admirable quality.
I apologize if you feel that I've resorted to name calling. You went after my throat and took me totally off guard. I can see that I have confused the passionate expression of your points of view with arrogance and intolerance. You came off that way. I have been warned.
As with Noise, I am equally impressed with your knowledge of world affairs and don't even consider myself close to being qualified to "discuss" on that level, however, Noise doesn't appear to express or defend his opinion with the infusion of personal innuendo as you seem to do. It's hard not to feel attacked. Of course, now I know otherwise.
I don't mean to brush aside your opinion.....regarding the above, I agree with what you're saying.
I don't know, Rope, you seem to have a chip on your shoulder that seems to permeate your points of view. That's not bad! I don't mean that in a derrogatory way! Anger is a very driving force. But it's like there's a sadness or unhappiness that is lying beneath the surface. (Sorry, didn't mean to imply that" the dog" could have such a sensitive or vulnerable quality..... )
From the way you described it, it sounds doubtful.....but have a good trip and come back and dazzle us some more.

[A rope leash]

Every dog has a mean streak. You're not the first to put the "prick" label on me. In fact, I believe the first was Mr. Noise...

Who is, by the way, quite persuasive and right on, most of the time. Tell me, Sweet, has you're mind changed at all?

Bye-bye, ya'll. I'll be checking in from time to time this week. Don't make a mess of it...

[noiseradio]

Rope, it takes one to know one.

Sweet Pear,

I feel overwhelmed about the same things. As the the Why God question, well, that's the big one for all time, isn't it? I suspect (never sure about these things, for obvious reasons) that God lets us exercize our free will without interference most all of the time. Perhaps it's not fair to ask him to clean up our mess. Not that I don't join you often in asking.

But life is still good. And enjoying your blessings is a must.

[Otis Westinghouse]

Just discovered this post, and enjoyed Noise's commentary on the world of evil, roatating on its own dirty axis there. The threat of the Ottoman empire goes back to the crusades. The cross against the infidels. We haven't moved on so much form the 13th century in bombing Iraq. Actually, we've gone backwards, cos at least then it was an honest fight, now it's just 'a show of strength with your boys parade'.

But I do love to see both Tone and Dub having to squirm a bit over their dodgy 'intelligence' (ironic term of the year award). They've had their fun, now they have to face the questions. Except, of course, that it won't affect Dub in the least. It would be nice to think it might hurt Tone more, though. Or at least his beloved Alastair Campbell (Machiavellian 'Director of Communications').

Apparently, The (English) Beat do now play 'Stand Down Margaret' (NB EC cover on one of the forthcoming reissues) as 'S D Tony'. They should release it in the run up to the next election. I've only ever voted Labour in the past, but not next time. They can stick their axis of evil up their collective arse.

[Boy With A Problem]

Nice Jam referece Otis!

Favorite war t-shirt - "Who Would Jesus Bomb?"

[noiseradio]

"You have heard it said, 'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you if a man strike you on your left cheeck, turn and offer him your left. If a man force you to bear his burden for a mile, offer to bear it for a second mile. If a man demands your coat, offer him also your shirt...Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you."

--Jesus of Nazareth.

[BlueChair]

Jesus, we're quoting Jesus now?

[LessThanZero]

SEE!

Martin Luther King STOLE all those ideas! Just like Dylan!

[bambooneedle]

Je-heseus Chri-hist! Warning: Jesus subject matter ahead, proceed with caution.

Didn't Jesus apparently once say (maybe not exactly word for word):

"Think it not robbery to be equal with God"

"These things that I've done and greater things you can do too"

"As you think, so shall you be"

These statements suggest to me that Jesus was just a normal human being, and (the first one particularly) that 'God' wouldn't be a separate entity to be consulted, because you're the same thing. And each of us is in charge. So you wouldn't need to follow anything... if so, Jesus is just alright.

I know there are a few Christians here... what do you think?

[LessThanZero]

Jesus freed us from the law. He wants us to be proactive I think.

By showing God's Love, it all comes down to motives.

Like, don't just follow the law, Feel the Love.

I'm at work.

[bambooneedle]

I don't know that I've taken those statements out of a particular context... I'll try and find out.

[noiseradio]

Didn't Jesus apparently once say (maybe not exactly word for word):

1. "Think it not robbery to be equal with God"

2. "These things that I've done and greater things you can do too"

3. "As you think, so shall you be"

1. Not exactly. Paul said in Phillipians, "Christ, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being made as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross..." The context here is very clearly that (according to Paul, anyway), Jesus was fully divine but "gave up" divinity and took on humanity fully while on earth. The passage goes on to say that he is fully equal with God. In the King James, the phrase is "thought it not robbery to be equal with God," which I take to mean that he felt no compunction about identifying himself as God.

2. Yes. He said that to his disciples after a miracle. The suggestion being possibly that the miracles he was performing were just as accessible to the disciples as they were to him.

3. That sounds like Polonius, not Jesus. A lot of Shakespeare is confused for scripture (like "To thine own self be true" and "Neither a borrower nor a lender be"). I have never run across a statement that you are what you think in scripture.

Now, I'm not drawing conclusions from these quotes or non-quotes. I'm just answering your question about what Jesus claimed about himself. In other places, he says "I and my father are one." Or "If you have seen me, you have seen God." Or to the question "Are you the son of God?" he replied "It is as you say."

I don't know if this helps answer yopur question.