So, he's a fascist. There's lots of 'em in America today. Anything the warrior class wants, right? Morality? What's that? "Just keep me safe, Dubya, I'm sooooooo scared."
I don't recognize Americans anymore, you know that? When did they become so frightened, so immoral, so sadistic? All in the name of fighting Goldstein, er, Bin Laden and the evil forces of Eastasia, er, Al-Qaeda.
I know, I know, we really are in danger.
The enemy nowadays is so much more powerful than the old cold war days. When the opponent had 8000 WMDs, an army as big as our own, and leadership determined to bury us. Back then we didn't need to torture, or surrender our rights.
But today, with an enemy rumored to be looking for a single WMD, and with leadership determined to kill infidels, we need to torture, and to suspend the right of habeas corpus.
Sure, it all makes so much sense. Right? Just, not to me. And it wouldn't have made any sense to my dad, either, believe me.
Well said, Blue. How anyone buys this War on Terror crap and the return to the Dark Ages morality is beyond all comprehension. What tends to happen to states that accept torture? What kind of direction are such states going in? WHile the masses are dumbed down with the most execrable excuse for culture ever devised. "How good for the governments of the world that their people don't think." Adolf Hitler
Though it's not just about what direction such states are going towards; it's about the nature such a state already is in. Who'd have thought the US would be running a concentration camp like Guantanamo(yes, it is a concentration camp), and supposedly civlized people would feel the need to argue about its legitimacy; Truth having become such a stranger to people that it actually needs debating. If Jesus came back now, he'd be a hell of a lot more likely to end in one of a victim of rendition than holding hands with the political leaders of this world. But then again, he made plenty warnings about the children of evil, didn't he?
Charles and Blue: How would answer the question Flynn poses: "'If you could turn back the clock one week [before the September 11 terrorist attacks], would you want Zacarias Moussaoui to have been interrogated by waterboarding?'" I am sufficiently barbaric - probably because I'm the son of a cop - to not regard waterboarding, however unpleasant it is, as torture in the strict sense. If we're talking about the rack or the screw or the sorts of things the Soviets did to people like Osip Mandelstam and what Castro and the Argentine junta among many, many others have done, then I'm easily as opposed as either of you. Of course, I don't think the war on terror is crap and I don't go around using the term fascist lightly, as a way of tarring those I disagree with. Also, you may rest assured that, if the next president is named Clinton, the administration in Washington will not regard the war on terror as crap either. I would mention Sarkozy and Merkel, but I guess they're fascists.
Then you're losing your humanity, Frank. There is no more subtle and sure way of losing truth and descending into the arms of welcoming arms of evil than via the way of 'politics.' Absolutely nothing can be believed in this era of lies, and that most certainly includes the insult to intelligence of the Reichstag Fire events of 911.
I'd just like to include what I think is a extremely apposite and important talk by Naomi Wolf, perhaps slightly misleadingly titled The End of America, about a kind of blueprint for how a parliamentary democracy is shut down: Here, including of course the necessity of an external enemy that justifies one's internal procedures. "
Family Betrayal - Mark 13:12
"Brothers will turn against their own brothers and give them to be killed. Fathers will turn against their own children and give them to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and find ways for their parents to be killed."
I'd still like to hear your answer to the question Flynn posed, Charles. In comparing the events of 9/11 to the Reichstag fire, may I assume you think it was a put up job? If so, Bill Clinton has already given my answer.
I will not kill his son today even if I'm told it might save the lives of a thousand sons tomorrow for the act.
I won't trade away my humanity solving a puzzle designed by transparent men posturing on both sides of an imaginary line.
I will not become my enemy to defeat my enemy.
And I don't go around using terms like 'fascist' lightly, either. I was taught that rogue governments are the ones that torture people, lie to their citizens, believe in 'pre-emptive' war. I was taught that a long while ago, by people I admired greatly. I don't believe abandoning American principles is the way to win a war on terror. In fact, I think that's the quickest way to lose.
I remember something I was told by some old man when I was in my twenties:
"Power will do all the same things to a blond-haired man that it will do to a black-haired man."
It was delivered as a warning that, at the time, I thought would never be needed inside America. I was wrong.
So, he's a fascist. There's lots of 'em in America today. Anything the warrior class wants, right? Morality? What's that? "Just keep me safe, Dubya, I'm sooooooo scared."
ReplyDeleteI don't recognize Americans anymore, you know that? When did they become so frightened, so immoral, so sadistic? All in the name of fighting Goldstein, er, Bin Laden and the evil forces of Eastasia, er, Al-Qaeda.
I know, I know, we really are in danger.
The enemy nowadays is so much more powerful than the old cold war days. When the opponent had 8000 WMDs, an army as big as our own, and leadership determined to bury us. Back then we didn't need to torture, or surrender our rights.
But today, with an enemy rumored to be looking for a single WMD, and with leadership determined to kill infidels, we need to torture, and to suspend the right of habeas corpus.
Sure, it all makes so much sense. Right? Just, not to me. And it wouldn't have made any sense to my dad, either, believe me.
-blue
Well said, Blue. How anyone buys this War on Terror crap and the return to the Dark Ages morality is beyond all comprehension. What tends to happen to states that accept torture? What kind of direction are such states going in? WHile the masses are dumbed down with the most execrable excuse for culture ever devised.
ReplyDelete"How good for the governments of the world that their people don't think."
Adolf Hitler
Though it's not just about what direction such states are going towards; it's about the nature such a state already is in. Who'd have thought the US would be running a concentration camp like Guantanamo(yes, it is a concentration camp), and supposedly civlized people would feel the need to argue about its legitimacy; Truth having become such a stranger to people that it actually needs debating.
ReplyDeleteIf Jesus came back now, he'd be a hell of a lot more likely to end in one of a victim of rendition than holding hands with the political leaders of this world. But then again, he made plenty warnings about the children of evil, didn't he?
Charles and Blue:
ReplyDeleteHow would answer the question Flynn poses:
"'If you could turn back the clock one week [before the September 11 terrorist attacks], would you want Zacarias Moussaoui to have been interrogated by waterboarding?'"
I am sufficiently barbaric - probably because I'm the son of a cop - to not regard waterboarding, however unpleasant it is, as torture in the strict sense. If we're talking about the rack or the screw or the sorts of things the Soviets did to people like Osip Mandelstam and what Castro and the Argentine junta among many, many others have done, then I'm easily as opposed as either of you. Of course, I don't think the war on terror is crap and I don't go around using the term fascist lightly, as a way of tarring those I disagree with. Also, you may rest assured that, if the next president is named Clinton, the administration in Washington will not regard the war on terror as crap either. I would mention Sarkozy and Merkel, but I guess they're fascists.
Then you're losing your humanity, Frank. There is no more subtle and sure way of losing truth and descending into the arms of welcoming arms of evil than via the way of 'politics.' Absolutely nothing can be believed in this era of lies, and that most certainly includes the insult to intelligence of the Reichstag Fire events of 911.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to include what I think is a extremely apposite and important talk by Naomi Wolf, perhaps slightly misleadingly titled The End of America, about a kind of blueprint for how a parliamentary democracy is shut down:
ReplyDeleteHere, including of course the necessity of an external enemy that justifies one's internal procedures.
"
Family Betrayal - Mark 13:12
"Brothers will turn against their own brothers and give them to be killed. Fathers will turn against their own children and give them to be killed. Children will fight against their own parents and find ways for their parents to be killed."
Truth is an absolute.
I'd still like to hear your answer to the question Flynn posed, Charles. In comparing the events of 9/11 to the Reichstag fire, may I assume you think it was a put up job? If so, Bill Clinton has already given my answer.
ReplyDeleteFrank,
ReplyDeleteI would answer his question like this:
I will not kill his son today even if I'm told it might save the lives of a thousand sons tomorrow for the act.
I won't trade away my humanity solving a puzzle designed by transparent men posturing on both sides of an imaginary line.
I will not become my enemy to defeat my enemy.
And I don't go around using terms like 'fascist' lightly, either. I was taught that rogue governments are the ones that torture people, lie to their citizens, believe in 'pre-emptive' war. I was taught that a long while ago, by people I admired greatly. I don't believe abandoning American principles is the way to win a war on terror. In fact, I think that's the quickest way to lose.
I remember something I was told by some old man when I was in my twenties:
"Power will do all the same things to a blond-haired man that it will do to a black-haired man."
It was delivered as a warning that, at the time, I thought would never be needed inside America. I was wrong.
-blue