Hey, Fran. Wonderful post. Maybe we can get Sheri to promote since there hasn't been a new thread since this morning.

 Oh, and the grassroots activists are first!

Turning anger into positive action. I like that. People fear anger too much and it gets a bad rap. It can be a powerful motivator when applied in a healthy manner.

Great work, Fran! 

What I wanna know is...why this blog thread says it was published early morning and it will be promoted at 6pm, and it is now past 6pm and the thread isn't promoted. Can't that be automated?

The fly on my monitor screen is wondering the same thing. ;) 

"Ethanol is a horrible fuel," my dad said. We were sitting in my former bedroom, at my parents' house. A few hours before, we had finished our Thanksgiving dinner.

"Why? I've heard arguments for making it from switchgrass instead of corn but..." I asked.

"Switchgrass won't work," he said.

What? What does my dad know about this stuff anyway? I mean, he's a liberal. He votes Democrat. He drives a Prius, and stays up on the news. He laughed his ass off when the Ted Haggert scandal came out. But he's never shown more than a mild interest in environmentalism before.

Then he said: "I've been studying biofuels since the 70's." Ohhhhh, that makes much more sense. Dad's a chemical engineer. Over the course of his 30-year career, he's often worked with plastics (insert The Graduate joke here), but he's also worked with biofuels.

More 

This narrow world view, mind you, spans the partisan divide. Remember, conservative columnists like John Stossel, Bill O'Reilly, Max Boot and George Will are among this group of coastal elites. The world view, in other words, is not really partisan: it is about power. Almost all of these columnists, with a few exceptions, worship power rather than challenge it, and disdain the very concept of change coming from ordinary Americans, who they see as the "great unwashed" (by the way, this explains why these people so often use their platforms to attack the netroots). Almost all of them, with few exceptions, believe America's great source of wisdom comes from inside the Beltway from what Duncan Black calls The Serious People - no matter how many times the Serious People hurt the country, no matter how far out of touch these Serious People are with what the vast majority of the country wants and voted for. And worst of all, almost all of them, with few exceptions, push a definition of the political "center" that has nothing to do with the actual political "center" in the country.

Spaceman "Bob"

I kid you not.

Crikey............and I thought Oler posted alot..................................

More troops!

From previous thread:

144. Jean - nice letter to Broder. He's too entrenched to completely *get it* but it's a start.

Charlie Cook has given major kudos to Dean with respect to the 50-state strategy and Dr. Dean's vision.

Well, Michael, I DID tell you there was a new thread. What took you so long?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061211/editors

Carviles moronic rant (from the nation):

Excerpts:

Carville's freakish initiative was bogus in every way. He has the same influence in party affairs as any other talking head on CNN--that is, none. In a year when the Democrats achieved their first real Congressional victory since 1992, Carville accused Dean of losing seats by not devoting more money to close House races.

In contrast, Dean got a lot of flak when he remarked that Democrats should start talking to everyone, including people in deeply red states. He made the same pitch when he ran for DNC chair in 2005 against the establishment and won.

Surprise--Dean has actually done what he promised. He gets funds to states, with the result that Democrats are speaking directly again to people in red areas, including through ads on Christian-right radio. This is politics for the long term. Nobody expects early conversion in Mississippi. But less than two years after Dean's launch, Democrats won control of the House and Senate for the first time since the Clinton team lost it in 1994.

By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National WriterSun Nov 26, 6:56 AM ET

Zach Plante is close with his parents — he plays baseball with them and, on weekends, helps with work in the small vineyard they keep at their northern California home. Lately, though, his parents have begun to notice subtle changes in their son. Among other things, he's announced that he wants to grow his hair longer — and sometimes greets his father with "Yo, Dad!"

"Little comments will come out of his mouth that have a bit of that teen swagger," says Tom Plante, Zach's dad.

Thing is, Zach isn't a teen. He's 10 years old — one part, a fun-loving fifth-grader who likes to watch the Animal Planet network and play with his dog and pet gecko, the other a soon-to-be middle schooler who wants an iPod.

In some ways, it's simply part of a kid's natural journey toward independence. But child development experts say that physical and behavioral changes that would have been typical of teenagers decades ago are now common among "tweens" — kids ages 8 to 12.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1124-27.htm

The United States is in a no-win situation in Iraq. The American people realize that. We must now pressure our political leaders to wake up, face facts, and withdraw.

Adding 20,000 more U.S. troops will not solve anything.

But it will have one effect.

More U.S. troops will die.

<> ----------------------------------------------

McCain knows this. He's just posturing for the uber-right wingers 

Huron John - thanks for posting the link to the article from The Nation on Dean. Excellent!

Did I mention that I just loathe Carville? Well, I do!

With the neocons in disarray, Elliott Abrams may be their best hope for keeping President Bush onboard.

It's been a rough season for neoconservatives, the group that has dominated U.S. foreign policy since the attacks of September 11. They've been largely run out of the Bush administration, beset by infighting, and mocked by a foreign-policy establishment that hailed their power just a few years ago. Last month was particularly brutal. They looked on helplessly as Democrats took both houses of Congress. They had to grit their teeth when President Bush met with Washington dealmakers James Baker and Lee Hamilton, whose bipartisan group is charged with extricating America from the mess the neocon-influenced policy created in Iraq. Then, insult to injury: they watched their cold-war nemesis in Central America circa 1986, Daniel Ortega, rise again to be president of Nicaragua.

The neocons are reeling, but they're not dead yet. A few stalwarts are digging in their wing-tips. And there's already a small backlash against the backlash. At the State Department, supposedly the bastion of realism, some officials are sounding defiant. "There are a lot of people throughout the ranks who believe in the democracy agenda," says one senior official who would only discuss policy issues anonymously. "If the result of the Baker report is that we have to make any deal necessary ... to get out of Iraq, I don't think that's going to fly." Their hopes, and the hopes of neocons everywhere, may rest on the shoulders of Elliott Abrams, the number-two official at the National Security Council—who remains in charge of promoting democracy in the Middle East, a linchpin of the neocon agenda.

--Newsweek

Abrams, who declined an interview request from NEWSWEEK, has his work cut out for him. A Harvard-trained lawyer, Abrams handles the Middle East, though not Iraq. Earlier this year, Abrams pushed for an $85 million expansion of TV and radio programming beamed into Iran to gently promote regime change.

Now, toppling the mullahs might be off the table. The same goes for the policy of pushing reforms on Arab allies like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, who has kept a key opposition figure in jail for more than 11 months and scaled back rights. Michael Gerson, who served until recently as Bush's speechwriter (and who is now a NEWSWEEK contributor), says Abrams must be troubled by the swing. "People who support the democracy agenda are deeply concerned that Mubarak is significantly backtracking," Gerson says.

And Abrams has to cope with the fallout of his push for Palestinian elections—the rise of Hamas, and the breakdown of the peace process. But Abrams has one powerful advantage. "Bush has enormous regard for him," says a senior administration official who would not speak about their relationship on the record. "One, because he knows Elliott is keeper of the flame. And also, he's the only one who doesn't draw any attention to himself."

(Abrams has been somewhat press-shy ever since he admitted to withholding information from Congress about the Iran-contra affair two decades ago; he was later pardoned.)

--Newsweek 

8.

_ FiReFoX!
Sun, 11/26/06
6:04 pm

Reply to this

"Ethanol is a horrible fuel," my dad said. We were sitting in my former bedroom, at my parents' house. A few hours before, we had finished our Thanksgiving dinner.

--------

I guess that's why drag racers prefer it over high-octane gasoline.

FOR THE HOLIDAYS

GIVE A GIFT (TO THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE EVERYTHING) AND MANY OTHERS IN DARFUR AT THE SAME TIME

GIVE A DONATION TO THE SAVE DARFUR COALITION IN SOMEONE'S NAME
AND GIVE A HAT, OR T-SHIRT TO RAISE AWARENESS FROM THE SAVE DARFUR STORE

http://yhst-88482264721289.stores.yahoo....

THEN SEND AN EMAIL TO THE SAVE DARFUR with your name address and total donation INDICATING HOW MANY CARDS YOU NEED FOR "DONATIONS IN THEIR NAME" GIFTS

THEN SEND A PETITION TO KOFI ANNAN AND BUSH

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign.js...

Elliot Abrams is just another discredited NeoCon with blood on his hands. How many times do these boobs get to screw up and still make policy?

Sitka, it seems the majority of Bushie's cabinet is made up of recycled, neocons and former felons!

sorry for the rogue comma^

:) 

Elliot Abrams is just another discredited NeoCon with blood on his hands. How many times do these boobs get to screw up and still make policy?  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Only in America Sitka..................or banana republics.........................you stay at home!

Sitka, it seems the majority of Bushie's cabinet is made up of recycled, neocons and former felons! 

And it's laughable that anyone thinks Abrams could be the rat who will refloat the NeoCon ship. 

and the article ends with the wisdom of Kristol:

The biggest dogfight is still ahead: whether to cut a deal with regimes like Iran, North Korea and Syria. Bush's approach has been to counter threats from oppressive regimes by trying to change them.

Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and the punditocracy's best-known neocon, says it's hard to imagine the president turning his back on all that. "I think Bush is the last neocon in power," he says. "The truth is, it was always Bush."

Kristol acknowledges the neoconservatives are turn-ing on each other. Francis Fukuyama, the "End of History" sage, has broken with the neocons publicly and believes that they are discredited. Richard Perle, the former Pentagon adviser, now says he probably wouldn't have invaded Iraq at all (Perle refused to talk to NEWSWEEK).

Kristol dismisses what he calls the "confessional mode" of his old friend Perle. But Kristol also believes the infighting is natural. "Every intellectual group, every political group, goes through a period of mini crackup and reassembles in slightly different ways," he told NEWSWEEK. "For a group that's discredited, an awful lot of people are spending an awful lot of time discrediting us." Kristol's allies are looking to Abrams to pick up the pieces.


--Newsweek

You are right that not many watch the History or Military Channel, but those that do generally lock things they learn away as 'unshakeable' knowledge...Robert's perception seems to be a good example of 'unshakeable' knowledge. 

David.

I found your post "entertaining".  It has been my experience that the least critical people in terms of "knowledge shake" are the extremes of the political spectrum. 

Some of which is visible on this blog.  One guy was so eager to critique US military spending that he labeled a Chinese aircraft carrier as being US, another is so anti Bush that when an accident happened to a Presidential motorcade which was moving without the President, she was stupidly all over that.  She completly disregarded the fact that THE BLOG THREAD was about The President overseas.  (the accident was in WAshington)...One could sell anything N. Chomsky says...the far left has to believe as long as it is just anti US.

The far right is no better. Ricky Santorum coming up with WMD in Iraq was completly weak.  He wanted to believe it so it was an easy sell.  I know people on the right who to this day believe that WMD was in iraq but smuggled to Syria.  Defies logic but they have it.

The extremes measure every bit of knowledge AGAINST what their ideology is.  Anti US story comes up, ignore the fact that the author is so stupid he makes Colin Powell SECRETARY GENERAL OF THE US...whats a few errors!  Just post the anti US dribble.

Since you use my name.  When I come to believe in something I believe in it as if it were God's own truth.  That is the function of beliefs, they should through faith engender courage.  But that does not mean that my beliefs have not evolved.  they just dont change radically...and they always change with critical thinking.

And that is my final point. the people on the extremes are enormously weak intellectually.  Anyone who disagrees with them is "a troll" and they only get their news from sources that agree with their ideology.  Hence Chomsky and Fox News.

Enjoy

Robert

      Fran Ryan,    That IS the story.   The precinct, the neighborhood, the street , the kitchen table is the beginning and the end of all successful political action.    My greatest hope and my greatest fear is that We have the power, and we have always had the power, to shape the universe we inhabit.

It's the only game in town.  Play on! 

2876

A FAIR PROBE WOULD ATTACK LIBERTY MISINFORMATION
by Thomas Moorer

....

Fred Admiral Moorer was a great man.  I have had the pleasure of interviewing him and Rockstar and DancerSTar (SAratoga and America ACTUAL) from the period on the events of that day.  Indeed I did the oral history of those three men for a relativly well knowns school on a river in Maryland.

Keep going there Fred, there is more to learn!

Robert

Someone should tell Robert Im not military..........Im civilian.....by all rights I shouldnt know the differance between a Chinese aircraft carrier and an american one(but for quality workmanship and no cost overruns, id go with the chinese)................

I will say one thing thiough.........HAD i been a sailor on the USS Vincennes, ya would not have found this swab jumping up and down like a middle school footbal player after shooting down an iranian passenger liner filled with women and children..................

Im a stay at home............and damn proud of it...............  :+]

FRED from OR
Sun, 11/26/06
1:23 pm
-----------------------------------------------------------

Does Rachel Corrie sound familiar?  Youtube has great video of the bulldozer operator laughing after the incident..............................oh the irony

Crikey..........its frickin 4.30am Monday Iraq time...............WTF is Robert doing up at that hour, IF he is even there................again, no video.........i dont believe.

23.

The question is, at what point are the neocons going to realize they been had? Or maybe they do think that selection at the ballot box is all that democracy is about. Which would explain why people who make the WRONG choice are not supposed to get their way.

BTW, I couldn't resist responding to Broder, too. He really doesn't have a clue what went down in NH.

.....by all rights I shouldnt know the differance

Thank YOU MIKE, YOU DIDNT KNOW BUT JUMPED TO A CONCLUSION ANYWAY...that was my point.

It showed amazingly uncritical thinking and an ability to leap to a conclusion even though you didnt have the foggiest idear of the facts.  That was the point I was trying to make in my post.

You do this frequently.  Your comments on the Vinny illustrate that as well!

Nameste Gong

Robert

A great bumper sticker I saw today:

I love my country,
but fear my government

Michael Ellis
Sun, 11/26/06
8:22 pm

"My friend" just got back from a nice night ride in the helo doing night rounds.  Bagged a couple while out...no bags, no tags no limit.

Part of the 18 hours days!

Robert

Mike - From my husband (who was on the commissioning crew of the *Vinny*) - you're about right on.

the parrot is lying about bagging anything of course too

Nov 2006 --

-- it's still the economy that matters most to Americans:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200661121034&template=printart

Dionne: Democrats, pay attention and pay the bills

By E.J. Dionne

November 22, 2006

WASHINGTON — Democrats might usefully take a break from their inane round of backstabbing and score-settling to focus for a few moments on why voters gave them their congressional majorities. A lot of Americans are hurting in the pocketbook, and if Democrats don't use the next two years to help them, the party will squander the trust they have temporarily earned.

To prepare for next year, the Democrats (and those Republicans who want to revive their party) should read a truly remarkable speech that Janet Yellen, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, gave the day before voters went to the polls.

In plain language backed by sophisticated analysis, Yellen makes clear that voters who feel severe economic pressures are not deluded, despite the economy's strong performance in keeping down unemployment and inflation.

The reason: new forms of inequality that don't fit into our conventional understanding of how the economy works. She argues that “much of the gain from excellent macroeconomic performance has gone to just a small segment of the population — those already in the upper part of the distribution.''

Yellen tells unfashionable truths. She does not claim, as many conservatives and free traders try to, that globalization and decline in union membership are innocent in the inequality saga. “Globalization and skill-biased technological change may have been working in combination to particularly depress the wage gains of those in the middle of the U.S. wage distribution,'' she says.

Note the word middle. That's where the biggest negative impact of globalization is being felt. At the top, Yellen says, globalization has been helpful to “highly able workers performing non-routine work requiring problem-solving skills.'' In the middle, “technology and globalization had the opposite effect — substituting for workers performing routine or repetitive tasks and depressing their wages.''

By the time we reached this decade, “many low-wage jobs that could be eliminated by technology had already vanished.'' That means the remaining jobs “involve manual and service work that cannot easily be automated.''

As a result, “wages in the middle not only rose far more slowly than those at the top, they also rose more slowly than those at the bottom of the distribution.''
Yes, there is a middle-class squeeze.

People at the bottom of the economy need help, which could come from an increase in the minimum wage, guaranteed health insurance, expanded wage subsidies through the Earned Income Tax Credit and unionization.

But for the left-out middle, which rebelled in large numbers last week, the answers are more complicated, though no less urgent.

Job training and education are always touted as the answer. Yellen is all for them. But they are no cure-all because Yellen notices something else that many others have ignored: Even the better educated are now being hit by globalization and technological change, too.

She says that “the distribution of (job) displacement has shifted towards the highly educated: Workers holding a college degree saw nearly a 50 percent increase in their displacement rates between the early 1980s recession and the most recent one in 2001.''

Americans are also suffering from much larger fluctuations in their incomes than in the past. In the 1970s, she says, “a typical family might have seen its income vary from a high of $60,000 to a low of $30,000 over the decade.'' In the most recent decade, the same family might see its income drop to as low as $15,000. Any wonder why so many working Americans are mad?

Yellen draws on the essential policy book of the year, Jacob S. Hacker's “The Great Risk Shift.'' Again, if Democrats get tired of recriminations over an election they won — imagine if they had lost! — they might spend time with Hacker, who shows how more and more risk is being offloaded from government and private corporations and onto individuals. He makes a powerful case for remodeling our social insurance systems to provide genuine economic security for all working Americans.

Hacker makes the paradoxical and insightful point that “we are most capable of fully participating in our economy and our society, most capable of taking risks and looking toward our future, when we have a basic foundation of financial security.'' It's common sense: Secure people are more likely to be risk-takers.

Nite all. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving wknd.

Buona Notte.

Mike - From my husband (who was on the commissioning crew of the *Vinny*) - you're about right on.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

vb,

Then I consider that a compliment........the Vincennes "incident"(Ill be respectful of your husband) was one of just another events in this countries overinvolvement in the ME which one after another have sent shockwaves thru the ME region and IMO needless deaths of our fellow countrymen and Middle easterners..................this has been a growing trend since the early 1980s.................and now basically with iraq we have, in polite terms, had our butts handed to us.................and fools like robert can go and knock off a few "suspected" insurgents and somehow justify our presence and make them feel like men or heroes but essentially the war is over and lost for the next 50 years................our name is shit there and will be for several generations...................

im still amazed at myself who in 1977 and a very young 21 years old predicted pretty much this is where we would be at someday.........................and only 1 course in the ME too!

stay at homes need love and support too             :+]

24.

Abrams is a good example of someone who's trapped in an association by guilt. It's a classic tactic. Get someone to commit an act which makes him feel guilty and he's controlled by the fear of being exposed.

George Allen making his hunting buddies participate in stuffing that deer head into someone's mailbox was doing the same thing. The people with him were so intimidated they didn't speak up about his racial antagonism for decades. And, in a sense they were right, because Allen wasn't motivated by any particular antagonism towards a black family, but rather by a desire to establish his control over his buds. Once they realized that then speaking up was actually liberating.

It obviously doesn't take a whole lot of smarts to pull that trick. Think of how many people he's made feel guilty by letting him send the military to attack Iraq. If they object, he can up the ante with the simple declarative statement, "You let me."

mary vb
Sun, 11/26/06
8:32 pm

Mike doesnt have a clue what happened on "Robo Cruiser" and why and if your hubby was a plank holder on the boat, he would know that!

Robert

im still amazed at myself ....

Self aggrandizement!

Robert

Self aggrandizement!

Robert

Like telling everyone about "Boderline" in a documentary clip? 

46.

Yes but secure people are less likely to follow stupid orders and many of the people giving orders are too stupid to be doing so.

When you come right down to it, we've had several decades when a lot of effort had been going into trying to get out of being responsible for failure.

jc
Sun, 11/26/06
8:49 pm

Certianly not as good as Mike "amazing himself"!  But no the story of the little clip has made its way around the "kaneck of the Kadeck".

Nameste Gong

Robert

If I'm not mistaken, Chuck Hagel was the first of the *big surprise* winners using the new electronic voting technology, and his win had the special added feature that it was his own company who made the voting machines.

jc
Sun, 11/26/06
8:49 pm

Reply to this

********************************

Borderline Lyrics

Madonna

Something in the way you love me won't let me be
I don't want to be your prisoner so baby won't you set me free
Stop playin' with my heart
Finish what you start
When you make my love come down
If you want me let me know
Baby, let it show
Honey, don't you fool around

Just try to understand
I've given all I can 'cause you got the best of me.

CHORUS:
Borderline … feels like I'm goin' to lose my mind
You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline
Borderline … feels like I'm goin' to lose my mind
You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline (borderline)
Keep on pushin' me, baby
Don't you know you drive me crazy
You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline.

Something in your eyes is makin' such a fool of me
When you hold me in your arms you love me till I just can't see
But then you let me down, when I look around, baby you just can't be found
Stop driving me away, I just wanna stay,
There's something I just got to say

Just try to understand
I've given all I can 'cause you got the best of me.

REPEAT CHORUS

Look what your love has done to me
Come on, baby, set me free
You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline (borderline)
You cause me so much pain, I think I'm goin' insane
What does it take to make you see?
You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline.

Keep pushin' me, keep pushin' me, keep pushin' my love
(You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline, borderline)
Come on, baby, come on, darlin', Yeah
Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da

Please *someone* view the clip and give Bobby the tenshun he's been a beggin' for.....gawwwd. 

Rocky Jones
Sun, 11/26/06
8:11 pm

Fred Admiral Moorer was a great man. I have had the pleasure of interviewing him and Rockstar and DancerSTar (SAratoga and America ACTUAL) from the period on the events of that day. Indeed I did the oral history of those three men for a relativly well knowns school on a river in Maryland.

Keep going there Fred, there is more to learn!
-------

This could happen, does happen, to all countries, races, religions. The holocaust and our Judeo-Christian traditon wants to believe Israelis are above this, but there is good and bad in all kinds of people and being "God's chosen people" doesn't change human nature.

But when I read about this kind of stuff, I wonder how many "accidents" like the one last week, 500 yards from the intended target, are really accidents. Israeli politicians have already admitted that bombing civilian areas in Lebanon was done for political reasons, to enrage the people against the militants.

Could "accidents" like the one last week that killed 19 civilians including many women and children, be done to turn the people against militants also?

I don't accuse, I just ask the question.

Thanks for telling me about the Liberty. I was a stoned out hippy at the time (living in NY lower east side, and was very pro-Israel) and wasn't really a news buff.

Stuffed to the gills we are :-) And somehow the last week disappeared and puddle returns home tomorrow - too fast but I sure am glad this is the week she was here. Things are pretty much the same with my brother, they're doing a couple tests tomorrow...

This is the anniversary weekend of starting the Ms. Roadpop trips began -well over 30,000 highway miles.

But when I read about this kind of stuff, I wonder how many "accidents" like the one last week, 500 yards from the intended target, are really accidents. ....

Almost all of them.  The only people who do that on purpose to civilians Fred are Arab terrorist.  YOu once again are trying to transfer the morals of a civil society to those of an uncivil one.  Accidents happen in wartime when you are trying as hard as you can to hit an enemy that puts itself in civlians areas.  That uses civilians as human shields. 

Stuff happens.

I dontknow why the IDF attacked the LIberty.  I've read all the conspiracy theories and few of them make sense...

EVentually history will figure out why...they are just figuring out the mysteries about Pearl Harbor!

Robert

Egad - what a grammar violation! but you know what I was saying :-)
~~ ~ ~

Good post Fran, and great work!

Charles in Montana
Sun, 11/26/06
10:09 pm

Yeah...the problem there is that I was oppossed to sending troops to Iraq.  I got most of what is happening correct...and I am correct now about what will happen if we listen to people like you!

Robert

Supporters of this war are at this late date are stone cold evil.

 "I got most of what is happening correct..."Woohoo.At best 50/50  That wouldn't be most.

In terms of the Iraq situation, however, the American people fairly early arrived at the same place where most so-called experts are now:  There is no immediately obvious, clear-cut  solution to the situation in Iraq.  Americans as a group neither believe that immediate withdrawal is the way to go, nor do they believe that the U.S. should “stay the course” with no changes.   

At the same time, the data show that the American people do have a clear cut message to send to their representatives:  Spend your full time and efforts focusing on Iraq until something new and constructive is done about the situation there.

A quick review. A majority, but not a supermajority, of Americans measured using our classic Gallup Poll question on wars believe that involvement in Iraq was a mistake. 

A slightly different question asked by the Pew Research Center finds that just over half of Americans believe that it was the “wrong” decision to use military force against Iraq, while 41% say it was not.  (Key point here:  It is important not to overstate the degree to which Americans question the fundamentals of the Iraq incursion.)

Fewer Americans believe that the U.S. is “winning” the war, and almost two-thirds say that it is not going well. Over half of Americans say they know a close friend, family member or coworker who has served in Iraq, and 11% of Americans say that they know someone who has been wounded or killed in Iraq.

--Gallup Guru

Ferocity of Attacks Leaves GIs Helpless  Another Bloody Sunday: 148 Iraqis, 2 GIs Killed Baghdad Braces for More Reprisals Crowd Stones Iraqi PM as Govt Calls for Calm US Report: Iraq Insurgency Financially Self-Sustaining Canadian Allegedly Leading Iraq Insurgency Iraq Tribe Says It Kills Dozens of Qaeda FightersIt's Official: US in Iraq Longer Than WWII  Rumsfeld Okayed Abuses Says Former US Army General Dems Warn Iraq Government: No Rubber-Stamp Support Pentagon Documents: 'Veterans for Peace' a Threat Gates Pushed for Bombing of SandinistasGaza Cease-Fire Appears to Take Hold  Lebanon PM in 11th-Hour Overture to Pro-Syrian Opponents Gemayel Killing Weakens Syria and AlliesPakistan: US Was Behind Madrassa Bombing  NATO Running Critically Short of Combat Troops in Afghanistan Bomb Kills 15 at Restaurant in Afghanistan NATO Forces Say They Killed 55 Taliban in Clashes Taliban, Convicts May Be Among Afghan Army RecruitsHeadlines @ Antiwar.com

what will happen if we listen to people like you

Since when is listening harmful?

It is true that a majority of Americans appears to want troops to be withdrawn from Iraq eventually, but that’s essentially a no-brainer.  

Given three choices in our latest Gallup Poll, we find:

20% say that troops should be withdrawn immediately,

34% within a year, and

35% over time, but with no deadline.

Nine percent in our latest poll say send more troops.

A post-election CNN poll asks about the situation there a little differently.  Their data find that:

33% want to withdraw “all” troops,

27% withdraw “some”, 21% keep the same number and

16% send more. 

A post-election Pew poll simplifies it down to a binary choice: 

46% say keep troops there until the “situation has stabilized” while

48% say send bring troops home “as soon as possible”.

--Gallup Guru 

Rocky Jones
Sun, 11/26/06
9:52 pm

Reply to this

Almost all of them. The only people who do that on purpose to civilians Fred are Arab terrorist. YOu once again are trying to transfer the morals of a civil society to those of an uncivil one....

---------
That's your opinion, but I disagree with that pretense. Human nature has both good and bad, regardless of whether a society is defined as "civil" or "uncivil." I have observed that many of the "uncivil" were driven to do such acts, because of what "civil" societies have done to them.

Being more technologically, or militarily advanced does not make people morally better. History is full of examples, like the Donner Party, and fiction like "Lord of the Flies" where civil people were driven back to their beastly roots by the conditions imposed, or happened upon them.

After reading the start of "The Iron Wall" the hypothesis that Israel did not want to appear the instigator, if in fact, they were, would be quite feasible. The Israelis are incredibly ingernious military strategist, political lobbyists, and public relations manipulators. They've done similar things in their past.

Charles in Montana
Sun, 11/26/06
10:22 pm

people who are unwilling to stand for right and wrong, particularly when they personally have nothing at stake are cowards.

If the troops on the gunlight, if the Marines were having problems then we would have a problem.  The main people who are screaming "evil" are those who have nothing personally at stake in teh fight!

Cowards

Robert

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/article2018772.ece

Once upon a time, the so-called misery index was a good predictor of political fortunes. By adding together a country's inflation and unemployment rates, you got a rough-and-ready idea of the population's wellbeing: the higher the value of the index, the greater the misery. Not surprisingly, the misery index worked best in the 1970s and 1980s, when inflation was rampant and unemployment was excessive. Governments who managed to tame these sources of misery often did well. Those that failed tended to get booted out.

Today, the misery index in most countries is encouragingly low. In the UK, unemployment is not the problem it used to be and the Bank of England has kept inflation under control. In the US, unemployment has been falling since the end of what proved to be a very modest recession in 2001 and the labour market is now regarded as being rather too "tight". US inflation has picked up a bit recently but, compared with previous inflationary periods, there's not much to be miserable about. On either side of the Atlantic, therefore, we have reasons to be cheerful.

Or do we? The exit polls during the US Congressional elections revealed that concerns about jobs and the economy came second only to worries about the war in Iraq in persuading people to vote Democrat. Yet, according to the misery index, people have (almost) never had it so good. Add to this a level of GDP per capita higher than ever before and you might think that voters have been a little harsh in raising concerns about economic conditions.

The truth, though, is that our economic concerns are no longer best reflected in crude statistics like the misery index. We still have worries, but they're not related to price pressures or to the numbers out of work at any one time. These days, our concerns are more likely to be related to our relative position within society and the frequency of occasions we perceive ourselves to be economically vulnerable.

Three-quarters of the way through George Bush's tenure in office, four-fifths of Americans are still significantly worse off than they were back in 2000. Although the top 20 per cent of income earners have seen their incomes, adjusted for inflation, more or less return to the levels seen in 2000, the remaining 80 per cent have not. Despite the rebound in the US economy over this period, the majority of people have experienced a decline in living standards. This is a decidedly odd result. After all, we used to think economic growth was the mechanism that made us all better off.

By focusing on the losses experienced by those on "median" incomes, the Democrats have been keen to seize on the perceived inequities of the Bush tax cuts, which over recent years have favoured the wealthy. But tax cuts alone do not explain why the wealthy have left others trailing in their wake.

Intriguingly, the US is not the only country in the world to be experiencing a growing divide between rich and poor.

...

Weird~

Weird~

 The blog that is

Being more technologically, or militarily advanced does not make people morally better. ..

Never said it did.  History is full of technologically advanced societies that go in for mass murder.  Try the Soviets.

Nor do I believe that the IDF is not at times justified in hitting hard at the other guys civilization including civilians.  These are my own personal comments and have not a bit of reflection on my professional policies.

There is really no such thing as limited war.  War is a beat the other guy harder then he is beating you ecause everything in your society is at stake in the venture.  War is the last act of a play which has obviously gone bad through out most of the scenes.  Being very clear.  When you start fighting, the job of the civilians who control the military is to let them completly negate the enemies ability to do whatever it was doing that started the war.

The military has the courage to do that, the civilian leadership needs to have the balls to go along with itl...and that means dealing with the breakage when it is 1) necessary or 2) when it occurs accidentaly.  I would have had no problems bombing Dresden or putting the specials on Hiroshima or Nagasaki. 

That is what happens.

I believe that the IDF is ready to defend the country of Israel to the max.  They prove that over and over again.  That is why I am pretty sure that arty round was a goofer.  They are very very disciplined in how they fight.  If they were ordered to grease something I have no doubt that they would do it to defend the country.

The target that was hit had no military value.  Their self discipline would stop them from wasting the effort.

Robert

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/26/business/economists1.php

Democratic Congress in U.S. may take new look at globalization

NEW YORK: For years, the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, exercising a lock on the party's economic policies, argued that the economy could achieve sustained growth only if markets were allowed to operate unfettered and globally.

Overcoming protests from labor unions, a traditional constituency, the Clinton administration vigorously supported free trade agreements like Nafta and agreed to China's admission into the World Trade Organization. If there was damage to workers, then the Clinton camp proposed dealing with it after it occurred - through wage insurance, for example, or worker retraining and other safety-net measures.

This approach coincided with a period of economic prosperity, low unemployment and falling deficits. Over time, this combination - called Rubinomics after the Clinton administration's Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin - became the Democratic establishment's accepted model for the future.

Not anymore. With the Democrats a majority in the incoming Congress, and disquiet over globalization growing, a party faction that has been powerless - the economic populists - is emerging and strongly promoting an alternative to Rubinomics.

The populists argue that the national income has flowed disproportionately into corporate coffers and the country's wealthiest households, and that the imbalance has grown worse in recent years.

They want to rethink America's role in the global economy. They would intervene in markets and regulate them much more than the Rubinites would. For a start, they would declare a moratorium on new trade agreements until clauses were included that would, for example, restrict layoffs and protect incomes.

"We are at a point where the Reagan era might finally be over, including the eight years of Bill Clinton," said Jeff Faux, a fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research group partly financed by the AFL-CIO. "The historic juncture here is whether the Democrats can come up with policies that get to the level of the problem."

The split is not over the damage from globalization. Rubin and his followers increasingly say globalization has not brought job security or rising incomes to millions of Americans. The "share of the pie may even be shrinking" for vast segments of the middle class, Rubin's successor as Treasury secretary under Clinton, Lawrence Summers, recently wrote in an op-ed in The Financial Times. And the populists certainly agree.

...

It is no longer a question of "cut and run."

It is now a question of "cutting our loses.

The longer you wait the faster you have to run.

77.

Rocky Jones
Sun, 11/26/06
10:43 pm

The target that was hit had no military value. Their self discipline would stop them from wasting the effort.

Robert
---------

Neither is a pizza parlor that gets suicide bombed in Tel Aviv, but the public reaction is the reason they do it.

Vica versa "accidents"

The "all fair in war" disposition is legitimate, but Israel has always relied on its public image when courting the super powers. This is what concerns them, not the immorality of war.

Also, don't forget, there was a cold war in 1967 and the USSR was being courted by the Arabs.

It is now a question of "cutting our loses..,..

Babble.  It is about the far left not being able to summon the courage to deal with reality.  That is a common leftie trait.  Get pregnant because one is irresponsible, simply kill the result. 

Our troops have not lost their courage.  The Marines on the gun line have not.  Why Charles have you?  You mention the deaths endlessly, but the troops dont do that.

Our "losses" if the mideast goes up in flames because we cut and run, will include the US economy, not to mention stability in the region.

All because the far left has no courage!  And they are not in the fight.  They are stay at homes.

Robert

Don't feed the asstroll.

Neither is a pizza parlor that gets suicide bombed in Tel Aviv, but the public reaction is the reason they do it....

Yeah because that is the bad guys tactics.  They seek to win by fear.

They seek to terrorize moral people into giving up what is theirs because they seek to make stopping the violence more important then the freedoms which are surrendered.

That Fred is why planes number 2 and 3 went to their doom with the passengers, some military (cant figure that out) knowing that the WTC had already been crashed. The passengers were terrorized because the bad guys had killed one female flight attendant and had another tied up...and the thought of that person dying in front of them froze the group into inaction.

Western culture has evolved to be fairly soft.  We have those people on this blog.  The "post the names of the dead" people.  They have no realtionship to these people and they are more in nash in terms of what it means THEN THE ACTUAL COMRADES OF THE DEAD...but they are soft.

Their theory is "we will surrender if the killing can stop". And in this country they can do that because they think that it wont affect them whatever is given up.  Or they will just go on complaining about something else.

ARab cultures is not that pansy. They deal with death all the time.  Heck live births in SAudi Arabia are not even recorded until age 5...so frequent are the deaths.

The terorist terrorize because they are pretty sure that western civilization consist of more people who were on plane 2 and 3, then were on plane 4.

That is their objective.

Robert

As my mother would say: Good Lord, and little catfishes!

Charles in Montana
Sun, 11/26/06
11:02 pm

if the Marines on the gun line in Ramadi and Anbar in general have a problem with the deaths that would tell them it is time to leave then we have a problem.

Just because you and the other lefties have a problem with them, a problem that their comrades do not have...only says that the lefties have lost their courage.

And who really cares about the courage of stay at homes. 

Robert

Well Puddle, your mother may have said that, but mine never did! Login on your own ID will ya! ROFL!

Feeding

I'm not a troll. Phew, I still can eat.~

Sombuddy sneaked in and stole my login. . . .

New Threadlette! 

HeHe - i sneaked in and used that computer earlier. My oops to not have logged out :-)

Howdy sunlight!

84.

Rocky Jones
Sun, 11/26/06
11:04 pm
-----------

Whoa! you are jumping from Palestine to the WTC, NY. Too much generalization to be fair.

Having established the fact, that "war has no morality" Could it not be that the "accidents" of Israelis have the same objective as the Palestinian suicide bomber?

We don't want to believe this but a detective has to consider what is possible, not what we want to believe, besides nobody likes being called a neo-nazi or anti-semite.

85. and 87.