by rogerhb » Tue 04 Oct 2005, 21:11:51
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'J')immy Carter was on track with energy. When PO comes largely understood, there will be another Carter type voted in. Just like Roosevelt was.
Or they will want another Reagan to make all the bad things go away.
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
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by bruin » Tue 04 Oct 2005, 21:22:26
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'J')immy Carter was on track with energy. When PO comes largely understood, there will be another Carter type voted in. Just like Roosevelt was.
Or they will want another Reagan to make all the bad things go away.
Carter was about big government and regulations. Reagan was about small government and free markets.
Americans vote with their pocket books, when PO gets ugly, people won't be voting for a free market or another Reagan.
by rogerhb » Tue 04 Oct 2005, 21:26:43
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bruin', 'J')immy Carter was on track with energy. When PO comes largely understood, there will be another Carter type voted in. Just like Roosevelt was.
Or they will want another Reagan to make all the bad things go away.
Carter was about big government and regulations. Reagan was about small government and free markets.
Americans vote with their pocket books, when PO gets ugly, people won't be voting for a free market or another Reagan
So voting for socialism then.
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
by cornholio » Tue 04 Oct 2005, 22:21:54
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'O')r they will want another Reagan to make all the bad things go away.
Regan (and 20/28 years of neo-conservative leadership) should be seen as contributing to our pending problems rather than as a potential solution ... Reganomics (with it's neglect of debt and deficit spending and "trickle-down" theory) and shortsighted deregulation of industries (financial institutions, energy) brought us to where we are today ( Deficit, Enron...). These policies "worked" during a period of increasing abundant resources, but at a great expense that will have to be painfully delt with and hopefully undone in future years.
The sad thing is that a Reganesque platform ("It's morning in America" "Don't worry") will probably always win out over candidates with more practical and realistic platforms.
Verbal: The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist...
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by Starvid » Wed 05 Oct 2005, 10:25:54
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBean', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')he Helsinki commitees didn't do sh*t. It was only a Soviet pr-trick But sure, some people were fooled by it.
That's not what the human rights and pro-democracy activists in ex-Soviet camp say, the people who eventually pulled down the regimes - only to have neoliberalism stuffed down their throats.
Protesters didn't pull down the Soviet Union. Or well, they did, but they were just the symptoms of the disease "planned economy" and military overspending. At the end the USSR spent about 25 % of it's GDP on the military.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBean', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'W')hat Reagan did was recognizing that the Soviet Union never wanted detente (at least not after Kruschtov), but world domination.
Pot calling kettle, at best. Or what do you thing the Reaganick PNACsters are trying to do? Why take side with either of the evil empires?
by Starvid » Wed 05 Oct 2005, 10:26:17
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'M')y god, there is some unbelievably ridiculous history revisionists on this post. Reagan's people agreed to provide the Iranians arms in their fight against Iraq as long as they held the hostages beyond the election. The Iranians had been negotiating with Carter's people, but two things - Carter really didn't want to provide weapons unless he had to, and Casey convinved the Ayatollah's people that Reagan was going to win the election, and the Iranians could get arms and spare parts for their weaponry, lots of which was American from the years of the Shah. The release of the hostages on Reagan's inauguration was done to embarass Carter. Carter had his faults, as all of us do, but to blame the Iranian situation squarely on him is akin to blaming high gas prices on George Bush.
The Iran-Contras affair was of course very stupid, but the worst thing was that insane rescue attempt. So embarrasing.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'I') don't know what Reagan did at home in the US, but at least he saved our European asses from the Soviet Union, something for which I will be forever grateful.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')omehow, regardless of the location of "Uppsala, Sweden", I have to think this quote is an American abroad, incognito. For two reasons: the style of speaking in the posts sounds far too "American", and it seems nothing short of bizarre that a native of another country, thousands of miles away, would feel so connected to an event that involved some other country and a rescue attempt that they would get "so p*ssed". It would be like me being "pissed" about some Swedish fiasco in Finland. After reviewing some of their other posts, I have to conclude that Starvid is really a right-wing neoconservative American dressed in Swedish clothing. Of course, my apologies if I'm wrong....And I will agree that Europe does owe a great deal to the United States, more than once.
If there is anything on this planet I detest, it is those trotskyist neoconservatives. They combine the zeal of "doing the right thing" with total incompetence.
I can promise you I am Swedish. I am even a member of the Swedish Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), and I am an avid supporter of the welfare state and other pseudo socialist ideas. If I lived in America I would be perceived as wacko Berkeley leftist. Hehe, nowadays liberal even means leftist in the US. Oh the irony...
But thank you for the compliments on my english. I have only been to the US once (in San Francisco and LA during the 2000 election when I learnt the phrase "to close to call" )
edit: Not trying to be an a**hole, but what did you find especially "American" in my other posts? Not trying to be uppity, just interested.
Well, back to the Carter issue. I got absolutely pissed because the US is the main representant of the West. When the US fucks up it makes us other westerners look stupid. And I detest incompetence, no matter what. For example, Hitler was an awful person, but he also was a total incompetent which makes him even worse.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', 'B')ack to the original post - Carter was right. He was one of the greatest men to ever hold the presidency, but was doomed by circumstance. There have been few men as honest and moral as Carter ever elected president, and certainly none since Truman. A lot of his ideas were simply ahead of his time. People weren't ready to accept that energy issues were coming to a head. As someone already mentioned, that was one thing that doomed him in the election. People wanted a "feel good" guy, and you can't deny that Reagan was a feel-good guy. Carter told everyone to conserve fuel and wear sweaters. Reagan told everyone to toss caution to the wind, morning in America has broken. Well, hell, after 15 years of turbulence (JFK, Vietnam, social movements, OPEC, Watergate, etc), people were ready to hear good, touchy-feely things. Reagan was happy and grandfatherly; Carter was dour and sour. No matter that many of Reagan's legacy movements continue to cause suffering today (the end of city revenue sharing, for example).
by MrBean » Wed 05 Oct 2005, 12:37:22
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'P')rotesters didn't pull down the Soviet Union. Or well, they did,
Nough said.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'b')ut they were just the symptoms of the disease "planned economy" and military overspending. At the end the USSR spent about 25 % of it's GDP on the military.
And about 50% of US Federal budget spending is military related. Neither Empire taken over by the military-industrial complex will be missed.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')he PNAC-people want world domination, sure. But they never intended invading Sweden.
Neoliberal ideology is trying to invade the world, Sweden included. And aren't you part of their fifth column?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Soviet Union did. The US protected us. We could not afford our own nuclear armaments.
by Starvid » Wed 05 Oct 2005, 18:53:59
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBean', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'P')rotesters didn't pull down the Soviet Union. Or well, they did,
Nough said.
No. Reread my last quote and you might understand.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBean', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'b')ut they were just the symptoms of the disease "planned economy" and military overspending. At the end the USSR spent about 25 % of it's GDP on the military.
And about 50% of US Federal budget spending is military related. Neither Empire taken over by the military-industrial complex will be missed.
by jdmartin » Thu 06 Oct 2005, 00:16:15
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')he Iran-Contras affair was of course very stupid, but the worst thing was that insane rescue attempt. So embarrasing.
Well, of course something had to be done, and that was one of those "all or nothing" risks. If they had come out with the hostages, it would have been another Cuban Missile Crisis PR bonanza (well, maybe that's a stretch but you know what I mean).
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'I')f there is anything on this planet I detest, it is those trotskyist neoconservatives. They combine the zeal of "doing the right thing" with total incompetence.
I can promise you I am Swedish. I am even a member of the Swedish Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), and I am an avid supporter of the welfare state and other pseudo socialist ideas. If I lived in America I would be perceived as wacko Berkeley leftist. Hehe, nowadays liberal even means leftist in the US. Oh the irony...
But thank you for the compliments on my english. I have only been to the US once (in San Francisco and LA during the 2000 election when I learnt the phrase "to close to call" )
edit: Not trying to be an a**hole, but what did you find especially "American" in my other posts? Not trying to be uppity, just interested.
Well, then my apologies. As for "American", starting a post "not trying to be an a**hole" is as American as it gets. I'd have to go back and re-read all your posts, but I'd say it was the overall "tone" of your demeanor. You've got an excellent mastery of conversational English, then...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell, back to the Carter issue. I got absolutely pissed because the US is the main representant of the West. When the US fucks up it makes us other westerners look stupid. And I detest incompetence, no matter what. For example, Hitler was an awful person, but he also was a total incompetent which makes him even worse.
I disagree. It only makes you look stupid if you've hitched your wagon to our mules. Otherwise reasonable discord can make you look smart. Whether we "win" or "lose" in Iraq, most reasonable people will agree that it's been a cluster, to date. Those I know that are non-American certainly don't look at Germany, for example, as being stupid, because they opposed the war in the first place (whatever their reasons). I think countries are too complex to simply be known by the company you keep. Otherwise, it might be hard to like us at all these days - Nicaraguan and El Salvador civil wars, support to Al-Qaeda precursors against the Soviets, support for Hussein as he was gassing the Iranians, etc. Even with these bruises, many people still look fondly upon us (though we have been squandering that good will lately).
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ell I agree with Carter on the energy issues (except about reprocessing of nuclear fuel). He knew we had to conserve and change to other energy sources. I hate him for losing Iran (for this most of all) and for the subsequent fuckup and for not protecting us Europeans more (we can't protect ourselves because we are pussies).
Maybe he did lot's of good things in the US, but I am no American (promise!) and I wouldn't know.
After fueling up their cars, Twyman says they bowed their heads and asked God for cheaper gas.There was no immediate answer, but he says other motorists joined in and the service station owner didn't run them off.
by Starvid » Thu 06 Oct 2005, 09:07:42
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'T')he Iran-Contras affair was of course very stupid, but the worst thing was that insane rescue attempt. So embarrasing.
Well, of course something had to be done, and that was one of those "all or nothing" risks. If they had come out with the hostages, it would have been another Cuban Missile Crisis PR bonanza (well, maybe that's a stretch but you know what I mean).
True, something had to be done, but that rescue was doomed from the beginning. Let me quote from my original rant.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gary Brecher', ' ')Carter's braintrust started dreaming about rescue raids, like the Israelis had pulled off in Entebbe. That's how Charlie Beckwith's pitiful "Operation Eagle Claw" was born. Carter wanted a plan that would snatch the hostages from safe houses scattered in an enemy city of four million people.
Stupid. American Special Forces missions have less than a 50% success rate, and the odds on this one were much, much worse than that. The only way to get the hostages out was to hurt Iran enough to make them GIVE the hostages back, screaming "Take them! Take them!" and Carter had ruled that out.
His Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, who looked like a Cub Scout leader, knew it wouldn't work. Even Beckwith, the mission Commander, knew it was hopeless. He calculated the risk of failure at 99.9%, but the poor bastard followed his CINC's orders and devised a plan.
It was maybe the worst plan in history. Eight RH-53D heavy-lift choppers-not the best ones we had either, but so-called "hangar queens" were used because their commanders weren't warned of the seriousness of the mission-would take off from the USS Nimitz and rendezvous with six C-130 transports at Desert One, a desert point near Iran's southern coast. After being refueled, the eight choppers would take Delta Force to Desert Two fifty miles outside Tehran, where they were supposed to hide for a full day before being infiltrated into Tehran in trucks.
So that's two big, loud landing strips inside Iran that we were supposed to manage without getting spotted. Plus a full day of trying to hide out.
If you've read Andy McNab's book Bravo Two Zero about what happened when his SAS team tried to hide out in rural Iraq during Gulf War I, you know how crazy that was. McNab's guys, the best soldiers in the world, were spotted by an old man herding goats before they even got unpacked.
If the Delta guys had somehow managed to go undiscovered and make it into Tehran in those trucks-another big "if"-and if they somehow found and rescued the hostage-an "if" the size of Shaquille O'Neal-the plan was that they'd take the hostages by truck to a downtown Tehran soccer stadium. Choppers would fly them from there to Manzariyeh air base 40 miles SE of Tehran, where C-141s would land, pick up the Delta operators and hostages and fly them home.
With some plans, you can find the flaw and say, "Aha! There's the problem!" But this plan was so hopeless, so complicated, with so many impossible stages open to so many obvious disasters, that you can't even isolate a single flaw. It was all flaws, and no logic.
There were other options. I wouldn't have gone as far as nuking them and invasion wasn't an option (before the Carter doctrine there were not many US troops in the gulf). But we could have jammed all Iran's communications. Then we would have seen if they really liked living in the Dark Ages like they claimed.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jdmartin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Starvid', 'I')f there is anything on this planet I detest, it is those trotskyist neoconservatives. They combine the zeal of "doing the right thing" with total incompetence.
I can promise you I am Swedish. I am even a member of the Swedish Liberal Party (Folkpartiet), and I am an avid supporter of the welfare state and other pseudo socialist ideas. If I lived in America I would be perceived as wacko Berkeley leftist. Hehe, nowadays liberal even means leftist in the US. Oh the irony...
But thank you for the compliments on my english. I have only been to the US once (in San Francisco and LA during the 2000 election when I learnt the phrase "to close to call" )
edit: Not trying to be an asshole, but what did you find especially "American" in my other posts? Not trying to be uppity, just interested.
by rogerhb » Fri 03 Mar 2006, 20:09:23
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('earthman', 'J')immy Carter was ahead of his time
Alas, no, he said it exactly when it was needed. It is the voters who were blinded by a B-movie cretin that were behind.
The Hirsch report says 20years to prepare, 1979 would have been a good place to start.
Imagine if the US had actually led the world, and we then didn't have Thatcherism or Rogernomics.
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers." - Henry Louis Mencken
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by MicroHydro » Fri 03 Mar 2006, 22:21:47
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('earthman', 'J')immy Carter was ahead of his time
Alas, no, he said it exactly when it was needed. It is the voters who were blinded by a B-movie cretin that were behind.
Yes, but the voters were manipluated by much more than a sunny old actor:
1) A corporate media empire already tilting right, which treated Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell with respect and ridiculed Carter as being afraid of a rabbit.
2) Economic sabotage by Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who decided to crush inflation by giving Carter a nasty recession as he was up for re-election. This created the Reagan democrats - laid off blue collar workers.
3) The continued captivity of the US hostages in Iran, treasonously negotiated by William Casey, 'Bud' McFarlane, and George H. W. Bush in October 1980 in Paris
For reasons that I still find apalling, TPTB chose to drive the world towards overshoot, collapse, dieoff, and a return to feudalism rather than attempt to create a sustainable free society. Bottom line, the dark ages were actually pretty bright for those with absolute power. It is good to be king. The elite think that they will continue to personally enjoy the benefits of technology in their enclaves after the collapse and dieoff - as long as they stay in power and surf the chaos by herding (and culling) the masses. Thus the huge interest in epidemic diseases, ID technology, psychopharmaceuticals, and propaganda. So far TPTB have done an excellent job. Few people, even people with advanced degrees, understand how the world is actually administered. In the future, even fewer will understand, as education has already deteriorated into warehousing and brainwashing.
PS: "Extreme liberals" Barbara Boxer and Hilary Clinton voted with the huge majority to renew/extend the Patriot Act Thursday. Heckuva Job Girls! I can't believe that anyone still thinks the D & R politicians represent different interests.
"The world is changed... I feel it in the water... I feel it in the earth... I smell it in the air... Much that once was, is lost..." - Galadriel
by rogerhb » Sat 04 Mar 2006, 02:41:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kochevnik', 'H')e was in the Navy and had a degree in engineering. I also think he was portrayed by many in the media as a bit of a weakling - and that soft southern drawl and Grandpa looks didn't help that impression.
In the UK around 1980 he was portrayed as a hick peanut farmer!
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by shakespear1 » Sat 04 Mar 2006, 15:46:13
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he thing I remember about Carter during that time is that a lot of people thought he was too smart and too logical to be a president.
Yessss, I remember this opinion being repeated about him and why he failed to be reelected. It seems so illogical that someone would think this about the highest officer of the land and yet that was something that was held against him.
Now we have someone that is at the extreme far end of the intellect spectrum and ..... And Nothing. No protest worth talking about.
I guess TV and Hollywood have done a fine job of creating a mind set of not questioning too deep or questioning the logic of a given situation
Men argue, nature acts !
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