I think you have far too little faith in a unique political system which is well into its third century of robust, if somewhat cumbersome, glacially-paced performance. The record mitigates against panic ... the course of The Ship of State was set long ago, and is peculiarly unamenable to significant deflection.
timber
I like your posture...straight of back, firm of jaw, with muscled forearm raised and just hauling down on that steam whistle (and you look terribly smashing in that engineer hat), but sooner or later, some passenger is going to point out that the tracks are evident out the window ("Uh
Myrtle...shouldn't we be ON those?") and that you are heading for some poor Dakota farmer's new red barn...
Quote:Third, while Ideals are laudable, even things to which to aspire, often they are not realistic Goals. Pragmatism necessitates no endorsement of reality, pleasant or otherwise; it simply and dispassionately recognizes and acknowledges reality, thereby establishing a framework from with which to deal realistically with reality, and to perhaps facillitate effort to effect change. Wishes and hopes are intellectual condiments. The meal is effective action, which rarely comes pre-packaged.
No less than Machiavelli, Osama is a pragmatist. Lola and I think this isn't quite high enough re standards.
Quote:I think you have far too little faith in a unique political system which is well into its third century of robust, if somewhat cumbersome, glacially-paced performance. The record mitigates against panic ... the course of The Ship of State was set long ago, and is peculiarly unamenable to significant deflection.
The notion that deflection ain't gonna happen comforted Myrtle until she looked out that window.
Timber,
You keep responding to my points by saying, "oh yeah, so there's a conspiracy, silly girl." But you haven't really addressed some of my points. For instance, what do you think about that 2002 Texas Republican platform? or the fact that Linda Tripp had already testified in four other Office of the Independent Council investigations? Filegate, Travelgate, The Vincent Foster suicide, and Whitewater? Do you think this is just a coincidence?
Or how about this?
Quote:"The Fifteen Percent Solution: How the Christian Right Is Building From Below To Take Over From Above": by Greg Goldin was originally published in the Nation in 1993.
Quoting moderate Republicans from Goldin's article, "What the Christian right spends a lot of time doing, " says Marc Wolin, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress from San Francisco last year, "is going after obscure party posts. They try to control the party apparatus in each county. We have a lot to fear from these people. They want to set up a theocracy in America."
"They have acquired a very detailed and accurate understanding of how political parties are organized, " says Craig Berkman, former chairman of the Republican Party in Oregon. "Parties are very susceptible to being taken over by ideologues because lower party offices have no appeal to the vast majority of our citizenry. Many precincts are represented by no one. If you decide all of a sudden because it's your Christian duty to become a precinct representative, you only need a few votes to get elected.
"Increasingly, they have the key say-so on who will be a delegate at the national convention, and who will write the party platform and nominate the presidential candidate. In a state like Oregon, with 600,000 registered Republicans, it is possible for 2000 or 3000 people to control the state party apparatus. If they are outvoted by one or two votes, parliamentary manipulations begin, and after two or three hours of discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, the more reasonable people with other things to do leave, and in the wee hours of the morning, things are decided. That's how they achieve their objectives."
[/b]
http://www.4religious-right.info/religious_right_dominion_gov2.html
nah, Myrtle just sees the siding ... those tracks don't go anywhere. As for Machiavelit, he merely observed that pragmatism trumps idealism, and Osama is consumed by his own particularly nasty idealism, as are his kind, regardless of religion or ideology. Other idealists are far more benign ... even beneficial.
timber
Pshaw. You are just idealizing pragmatism and you know it.
Now here's the story of the day! To quote Jerry Falwell, "Theeeannnk yu Jeeeesusssss!"
Quote: Rush Limbaugh reportedly involved in pill investigation
BY TRACY CONNOR
New York Daily News
NEW YORK - (KRT) - Talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh is being investigated for allegedly buying thousands of addictive painkillers from a black-market drug ring.
The moralizing motormouth was turned in by his former housekeeper - who says she was Limbaugh's pill supplier for four years.
Wilma Cline, 42, says Limbaugh was hooked on the potent prescription drugs OxyContin, Lorcet and hydrocodone - and went through detox twice.
"There were times when I worried," Cline told the National Enquirer, which broke the story in an edition being published on Thursday. "All these pills are enough to kill an elephant - never mind a man."
Cline could not be reached for further comment on Wednesday, but her lawyer, Ed Shohat of Miami, said his client "stands behind the story."
The New York Daily News independently confirmed that Limbaugh is under investigation.
His lawyers, Jerry Fox and Dan Zachary, refused to comment on the accusations and said any "medical information" about him was private and not newsworthy.
They said Limbaugh - who has a top-rated syndicated radio show but resigned early Thursday from a weekly ESPN football segment amid criticism of racial comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb - was traveling and had no comment.
The Palm Beach County state attorney's office, which is running the probe, said it could not confirm or deny the allegations.
Cline told the Enquirer she went to prosecutors with information about Limbaugh and others after four years of drug deals that included clandestine handoffs in a Denny's parking lot.
She said she wore a wire during her last two deliveries to the conservative commentator and gave the tapes to authorities.
If you are implying that the (un)Christian-right is benevolent, I would beg to differ. For example, my (some where to the right of Musollini) brother in law begins each day with good old Pat Robertson, so I usually get an earful as I am leaving for campus in the morning. The other morning, Pat had someone on describibg how awful it was that in the new Afghan Constitution, funds were being made available to pay for the running of religious schools (which sounds far better to me than having them paid by the Saudis!). Old Pat railed against "Christian money" going to pay for the "worshippers of a false moon God (I wonder who the true moon god is?)" and ordered his followers to call the white house (800 number provided) and demand that funding be revoked for aid to Afghanistan. The next segment was a call for support of Roy Moore in his continuing legal battels,and again the 800 number to the WH to demand that the 10 commandments be pulled from the closet, and that the Supreme court recognize that America is a "Christian Nation."Neither Pat or my Brother in law saw the irony in those segments appearing back-to-back.
the fact that the religious right can mobilize folks like my Brother in law to call the WH on command should be rather disconcerting to those of us who believe in rational thought.
And, the simple fact is, this stuff goes on each day. Today the topic as I was headed out the door was how the State Dept. is a traitorous institution,and should be replaced with the Defence Dept. Again the WH phone #. Again he dutifully called. If the elected officials (and he, like many others, dutifully writes our elected officials) hear from enough of these wackos, they tend to do what they ask. Does this not bother you?
Thank you Hobitbob. I thought I was the only one with family members who go for this stuff. A few years ago, after the Waco shindig and some other incidents had taken place and there was talk about gun control, I was visiting my sister. I was expecting to go out to dinner as we had planned but when I came home from a meeting I was attending in her town, my sister and her friend were watching a video tape featuring a man, I have tried to forget his name, who was explaining that the government was making up these stories about Waco, etc, in order to trick Americans into willingly giving up their guns. But that's not all.....no, this man was telling (with no evidence to support his claim) that there was a conspiracy of The New World Order. The conspiracy involved (now get this) all political parties, the press, our government and the governments of every nation in the world (you're getting the picture.) All these people were conspiring to force God fearing Christians into concentration camps which were secretly being prepared in the closed Army posts and Air Force bases around the country. Those people who refused to give up their guns voluntarily, would be sent to these concentration camps. When I pointed out that the man on the video tape was suffering from a psychiatric disorder and that I didn't think the press and all political parties, much less all world governments could possibly be getting along so well that they would be able to cooperate in this endeavor, she and her friend simply tried harder to convince me. Finally I had to say, "I give up, I'm not talking about this any more."
Now you may think that my sister is a crazy person. But she's not. Nor is her friend. They are simply members of my sister's husband's church and believe what they're told because they fear giving up their literal vision of the world around them. Now this video was one distributed by Pat Robertson, the same Pat Robertson who is John Ashcroft's pastor and mentor. The same people who, a few years later, began to publish and promote books about Bill Clinton committing murders and raping innocent women.
Otherwise, my sister is a very sweet, intelligent wife and mother. She is tender and kind with her children, even though she's over protected them and allowed her otherwise nice husband to dominate them to the extent that none of them can function very well on their own.
These folks give money and listen to Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh. They vote, yes they vote religiously.
If the far right have their way, yes. We are.
Perhaps timber and george and sofia haven't had the exquisite pleasure of the company of such fellows and felloweses. I love them just for the vitality of imagination demonstrated in their explanations for dinosaur bones.
Lets not forget their explanation for the impact craters on the moon, mars, etc...
Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Here we go:
the craters are there because during the war in Heaven, when Lucifer rebelled (perhaps becasue he demanded the right to a better wardrobe) the angels threw meteors at each other as artillery,and the impact craters were caused by this artillery!
I figure The Radical Left is just horrified that the Radical Right would stoop to the same tactics the Radical Left perfected. All in all, the fringes of both camps serve a valuable function. Comic Relief is good ... even if The Left is better at it.
You know, I haven't even seen a radical leftie for some years now. Remember, they used to hang out near the train stations trying to flog "The Worker" or "The Marxist Bugle" or whatever those titles were. Usually goateed fellows, scruffy jeans and nicotine-stained fingers.
ps
and I expect you guys caught the little news item on Arnold trying desperately to suppress the Maplethorpe photos? Is that not too funny for words.
The Radical Lefties don't need train stations anymore, they've got the Internet. Have you checked out the Democratic Underground website?
Yeah, Ah-nuld's discomfiture may be epected only to increase over the coming few days ... after all, his prime opponent is Gray Davis, an artful, accomplished, and acknowledged dirty trickster if ever there was one. The only thing surprising about October Surprises is that folks continually are surprised by them.
the universe is unfolding as it should
blatham wrote:the universe is unfolding as it should
Quite. Isn't the inexorableness of it all positively maddening?
Timber, give us a link to the Democratic Underground.........
The only thing is, the religious fanatics are actually doing it. They're taking over the government. They have only the courts to go, unless the voters get wise enough to throw them out. As everyone knows, the courts are not subjected to change in four years. This is it, this election. We'll be set back at least 50 years.....and worse I do believe.
Do you really want Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Ricahrd Mellon Scaife and John Ashcroft running this country? And the rest of the world isn't safe from them either. I think I'll sing Blatham's refrain. We are doomed if George Bush is re-elected. Doomed I tell you.
Timber,
That web site is hilarious! You'll have to admit it. At least the lefties have a sense of humor.
Quote:The Maddening Double Standard
October 2, 2003 · Democrats have a character problem: an insistence on objectivity, truth and moral consistency. The problem is that when facing an enemy that respects no trait other than winning, it puts all those who exhibit these character traits at a distinct disadvantage. By Dylan Otto Krider
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
