35 replies to this topic

[niner]

Do you think that Obama approves of everything Ayers has done in the distant past or will do in the future?

That's not a serious question. I assume you asked it because you believe it has some rhetorical value. Let's not waste our time.

I don't think it's wasting any more time than your claims that Obama is being dishonest about his relationship with Ayers.

Those are not my claims, it's the CNN report that's concluding that Obama is being dishonest about his relationship with Ayers. Do you really find that so surprising? How different is this from how he reacted to the Reverend Wright thing? It doesn't seem to be out of character for him.

OK, I guess I should have said 'your report' instead of 'your claim'. Or 'your report of CNN's claim. My feeling is that if he said he knew the guy, and CNN said he did more than just "know" him, he sat on a commission with him.. (along with a bunch of Republicans) that Obama is therefore "being dishonest" is small potatoes. The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot that the right wing is cynically using because they can't compete on the issues.

[niner]

That's good to hear. Did you support Clinton? I'm just curious because a lot of people on the right were bent on undermining him from day one.

I voted for Clinton.

The same could be said about people on the left and Bush. Of course, being an American means being free to criticise your government if you believe that they are acting inappropriately.

Yes, I should have said that better: by giving my support to the president I mean I will view the job he is doing through the lens of an American rather than a member of this or that party (I have always registered independent by the way.)

That's cool. That's what I do too. That's why I was angry with Bush; because of how much he hurt America.

In any case, the situation was already bad during the Clinton admininstration, and it became much worse during the Bush administration - and the seeds for that had sprouted well before the invasion of Iraq I should add. Seeing all the conspiracies brewing at my university (in a very liberal part of the country) is in part why I found myself in the position of a reluctant defender of Bush - not a role that I particularly relished. In any case, I am convinced there is a psychological illness going on here.

Conspiracies? What sort of thing do you mean? Organized political opposition to Bush? Who is suffering from this psychological illness? Did you think the Right was suffering from it during the Clinton administration? The left during Bush II, or both?

Unfortunately, as I indicated in my previous post I'm afraid Obama, in part because of his past associations with Wright, Pfleger, Ayers, etc., is not well-positioned to break this cycle - especially if his presidency is marked by significant challeges which seems very likely. I think a McCain presidency along with a Democratic congress would be the best realistic hope to halt the descending cycle of madness. Of course, even better would be a Democratic presidency with a Republican congress but that out of the realm of possibility.

Do you mean that the Right will be so freaked out by his associations with these people, tenuous, ginned up, or taken out of context as they were, that it will be impossible to unify the country? I suppose that will depend on how much some people want to remain in opposition, and how much the Right continues to bombard people with these images and out-of-context video clips. Andrew Sullivan has said that America's fundamental divide can be traced to the Vietnam war. We drew up into two camps at that time, and that fault line has largely remained to this day. Obama is the first presidential candidate who is a post-Vietnam figure. He could perhaps bridge that gap. It's really ironic, and frankly tragic that the Right has dragged the Vietnam war back into the picture with this blowing up of Obama's trivial association with a Vietnam era radical.

[Connor MacLeod]

In any case, the situation was already bad during the Clinton admininstration, and it became much worse during the Bush administration - and the seeds for that had sprouted well before the invasion of Iraq I should add. Seeing all the conspiracies brewing at my university (in a very liberal part of the country) is in part why I found myself in the position of a reluctant defender of Bush - not a role that I particularly relished. In any case, I am convinced there is a psychological illness going on here.

Conspiracies? What sort of thing do you mean?

Well, certainly one of the most offensive would be that Bush administration perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. And that stuff started up among the Left before the dust had even settled. Countless others as well. Probably less than even a year ago you'd hear people frantically proclaiming that Bush was going fake another terrorist attack, declare martial law and declare himself dictator for life. Hell, I bet you could even find some of the "rational" folks here on imminst who believed that. I think those people should stay home on Nov. 4th. I don't think that George Bush has been a good president, but I don't think he is Hitler, or even a bad person.

Who is suffering from this psychological illness? Did you think the Right was suffering from it during the Clinton administration? The left during Bush II, or both?

Both of course.

[niner]

In any case, the situation was already bad during the Clinton admininstration, and it became much worse during the Bush administration - and the seeds for that had sprouted well before the invasion of Iraq I should add. Seeing all the conspiracies brewing at my university (in a very liberal part of the country) is in part why I found myself in the position of a reluctant defender of Bush - not a role that I particularly relished. In any case, I am convinced there is a psychological illness going on here.

Conspiracies? What sort of thing do you mean?

Well, certainly one of the most offensive would be that Bush administration perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. And that stuff started up among the Left before the dust had even settled. Countless others as well. Probably less than even a year ago you'd hear people frantically proclaiming that Bush was going fake another terrorist attack, declare martial law and declare himself dictator for life. Hell, I bet you could even find some of the "rational" folks here on imminst who believed that. I think those people should stay home on Nov. 4th. I don't think that George Bush has been a good president, but I don't think he is Hitler, or even a bad person.

My impression of the people who didn't buy the official story on 9/11 was that they spanned the political spectrum. I suppose there was more of a concentration among the far left and Libertarian types. I think that the WTC 1&2 "demolition" stories are just wrong, based on a misunderstanding of the behavior of steel at temperatures that are high but below the melting point, and a lack of recognition of the fact that insulation had been stripped from some structural beams by the collision. That notwithstanding, there is a list of suspicious items in that entire affair as long as your arm, and some very suspicious behavior by Bush & Cheney. Just because people would like to hear a good explanation for some of that doesn't fall into tinfoil hat territory in my book. I guess whether or not Bush is a bad person would depend on what he knew about Iraq before we went in. The most charitable explanation would be that he believed his own stovepiped intelligence and thought that ignoring other viewpoints was the right thing to do. At the very least, he's guilty of negligence for having brought such ruin on our country and our standing in the world. Many would consider his stand on torture to be prima facie evidence that he is a "bad person". I count myself in that group.

[Zenob]

In any case, the situation was already bad during the Clinton admininstration, and it became much worse during the Bush administration - and the seeds for that had sprouted well before the invasion of Iraq I should add. Seeing all the conspiracies brewing at my university (in a very liberal part of the country) is in part why I found myself in the position of a reluctant defender of Bush - not a role that I particularly relished. In any case, I am convinced there is a psychological illness going on here.

Conspiracies? What sort of thing do you mean?

Well, certainly one of the most offensive would be that Bush administration perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. And that stuff started up among the Left before the dust had even settled. Countless others as well. Probably less than even a year ago you'd hear people frantically proclaiming that Bush was going fake another terrorist attack, declare martial law and declare himself dictator for life. Hell, I bet you could even find some of the "rational" folks here on imminst who believed that. I think those people should stay home on Nov. 4th. I don't think that George Bush has been a good president, but I don't think he is Hitler, or even a bad person.

My impression of the people who didn't buy the official story on 9/11 was that they spanned the political spectrum. I suppose there was more of a concentration among the far left and Libertarian types. I think that the WTC 1&2 "demolition" stories are just wrong, based on a misunderstanding of the behavior of steel at temperatures that are high but below the melting point, and a lack of recognition of the fact that insulation had been stripped from some structural beams by the collision. That notwithstanding, there is a list of suspicious items in that entire affair as long as your arm, and some very suspicious behavior by Bush & Cheney. Just because people would like to hear a good explanation for some of that doesn't fall into tinfoil hat territory in my book. I guess whether or not Bush is a bad person would depend on what he knew about Iraq before we went in. The most charitable explanation would be that he believed his own stovepiped intelligence and thought that ignoring other viewpoints was the right thing to do. At the very least, he's guilty of negligence for having brought such ruin on our country and our standing in the world. Many would consider his stand on torture to be prima facie evidence that he is a "bad person". I count myself in that group.

The 911 "Truthers" are just crackpots. Any major event that takes places ALWAYS draws crackpots. The moon landing has moon hoaxers, the Kennedy assassination has grassy knoll nuts, etc. This has nothing to do with politics either right or left. Some people are just nuts.

As for Bush being a bad person, he has almost destroyed our country. He lied us into a war, got thousands of US soldiers killed, got tens of thousands wounded, got hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's killed, outed an undercover CIA NOC to try and cover up the lies(and then pardoned the one memeber of his staff that got caught), put us all ten trillion dollars in the hole, etc, etc, and all for what? Because he has unresolved daddy issues. He might not be "evil" in the classic sense, but he's certainly one immature, idiotic jack ass that should have STAYED in Texas.

[luv2increase]

believed his own stovepiped intelligence and thought that ignoring other viewpoints was the right thing to do.

I think pretty much everyone was fulled back then by our so-called intelligence experts. The majority of the legislative branch obviously believed the lies as well because they authorized the war. Don't forget that the Executive Branch needs the authority from the Legislative Branch to go to war. The blame isn't solely on Bush. I do think he could have went about things in a different manner, but once the chips were in the pot, he was pot committed so to speak. Many people were fooled by erroneous intelligence. It is truly a tragedy. I myself never was for that war, and definitely feel sad for those who've since been killed or injured.

We need to take this war as a lesson to be absolutely sure that the threat is imminent before we partake such a thing again.