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rubysue
Skeptic Friend
USA
199 Posts |
 Posted - 10/09/2001 : 18:30:57 [Permalink]
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Hey, Gorgo -
One of your friends made a statement to the news today. Go under the "Day of Terror" folder and see my new topic addressed to you!
rubysue
If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
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rubysue
Skeptic Friend
USA
199 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2001 : 18:42:06 [Permalink]
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Garrette -
Thank you for your two posts from above and your sense of honor and decency. It's too bad people like you have to protect the rights and lives of someone like Gorgo, but that's what makes America great - every fool can mouth off and his rights are protected, but only a few can make a real difference by caring about other people in their own communities, instead of rabidly following the absurdist opinions of ivory tower pundits.
rubysue
If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun.
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 04:16:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
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If so, then maybe I was wrong and you are an idiot of the type that academic institutions seem to breed so readily.
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Your need to call other people idiots tells me more about you than it does about them. I attended about a half year of college.
I don't have a 'need' to call anyone an idiot; some people are, and some people deserve to be called such. But in any case, here's the apology I said I might give you later. I apologize for calling you an idiot. You are not.
quote:
Your Irish is always up, and I had nothing to do with that decision.
Actually, my Irish is rarely up. I've walked away from more than one fight (physical and intellectual) I could have easily won simply because the fight was not worth it or was not 'just.' On one of those occasions, I walked away even after being punched knowing without a doubt I could have wiped the floor with the jackass concerned.
But you are correct: the decision to let my Irish get up is my own. "You've got my Irish up" is just an expression.
quote:
These are fine stories, sincerely they are, but they have little to do with what we're talking about.
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I don't get the comparison between funerals, which is helping all of us to celebrate life, with the waving of a military standard. I'll even go to church if I think it will help someone celebrate life, although I avoid it like the plague.
They are both quite relevant and analogous.
You claimed that flag-waving is superstitious and is akin to waving a magic wand. The rituals associated with funerals/wakes/etc. are the same; they serve no concrete purpose but to "celebrate life" (actually, I think most do no such thing, but instead help the survivors let go of past attachments); flag-waving celebrates life just as much.
The stories I told were not meant to garner praise but to illustrate a few things, though perhaps not so well as I'd hoped:
There are times when action is called for.
There are times when action is desired but failure to act is not an assumption of responsibility for another's problems.
There are bad things and there are good things. There are no perfect things.
Unexpected good things come out of necessary but unpleasant actions--the redneck chess player. But good things do not come out of good wishes or the avoidance of the necessary.
I don't remember for sure, but I think it was former House Speaker Tip O'Neil who said "Think globally; act locally." Meaning, essentially, get out of your towers and DO something.
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It is taking sides in a football game. Cheering on your team at the expense of others.
Laughable. Cheering on your football team is done at someone else's EXPENSE? Expressing pride in one's country is done at someone else's EXPENSE? What expense, exactly? What is taken from another when I wave the flag? What do they lose? What are they prevented from doing?
My oldest son is a New York 'football' Giants fan. I am a Dallas Cowboys fan (and Broncos, and Colts, but Cowboys first). He never seems to feel lessened when we root for our own teams at the 'expense' of each other. In fact, the good-natured teasing we do over football brings us some of our closest moments.
I've been told by several 'enlightened' liberals that I'm a racist because I sometimes use terms like 'chink' and 'spic' and 'wop' and 'dago' and 'raghead' and 'frog' What they fail to notice (frankly, I think it's an intentional failure) is that I use those terms with my friends who are from the backgrounds associated with those terms and they in turn rib the hell out of me. Woe betide the outsider, though, who uses those terms about my friends...
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I'm sure. I have a great deal of respect for those who've served in the military. I also have a great deal of respect for those who refused.
Glad to hear it. So do I, including SOME who have refused. I haven't looked for a link, but if you want an example of one of the most impressive Medal of Honor winners try to find the write-up for a conscientious objector-turned medic in WWII during the invasion of one of the islands in the Pacific.
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You are the only one using the words blame and demons.
Yes, I used the words and you did not. But your implication has been clear from the beginning; I'm not putting words in your mouth; I'm just condensing them.
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All that I've said is that if you care about bringing terrorists to justice, you'd better start with Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton and the Bushes George.
Kissinger was never a decision-maker and so could not be held responsible for any terrorist actions of the Nixon administration even if you proved they existed, which you haven't.
As I've already said, Gorgo, you are obviously intelligent and capable of critical thought, but when it comes to Iraq you are a broken record. I have read your links and told you why they do not convince me. Your tactic is simply stating that anything produced by the US State Department is lies, and you conveniently ignore it when reports from non-US agencies support my position. Fine, then. We've chosen our beliefs.
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Yes, and Hiroshima was a military target.
In the broad sense, yes, in that the blow to the collective Japanese will would lead to surrender. And in the long run, it caused less damage and fewer casualties (to the US and Japan) than a non-nuclear campaign would have. And in the short run, it caused fewer casualties than the conventional bombing of Tokyo, Dresden, and Hamburg.
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 04:47:40 [Permalink]
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Garrette, you're mixing my reply to Trish and you. I think. I have to go to work. I'll check later.
quote:
Your Irish is always up, and I had nothing to do with that decision.
[/quote]
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 05:28:28 [Permalink]
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I guess I was more tired than I thought last night. I thought your post was from Trish. My apologies. Her Irish is always up. You at least attempt to appear to be reasonable.
(0:
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Garrette, you're mixing my reply to Trish and you. I think. I have to go to work. I'll check later.
quote:
Your Irish is always up, and I had nothing to do with that decision.
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org
[/quote]
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 05:33:21 [Permalink]
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If I'm reading this correctly, and you are who I think you are, then it was not me that said anything about the Taliban getting the food.
The U.S. sealed off the borders making it impossible for relief to get to millions of people. It may not be the U.S.'s responsibility to feed them, and maybe they wouldn't get fed without the U.S. However, it is the U.S. that is keeping them from getting it now.
quote:
Untrue. The Taliban are in power because they won the Afghan Civil War. The US did not prevent the Taliban from coming to power, but neither did Iran or Pakistan. Some of the refugees are refugees because of the fear of the bombings, not the bombings themselves which do not necessitate such wide-scale flight. And I do wish you'd be consistent and at least allow that there does exist ONE course of action that would satisfy you: if I recall correctly, you have said we do not do enough on the humanitarian side for the Afghan people; when the food drops began you complained that the Taliban would get the food and not the people who need it; you say it's our fault the Taliban is in power yet you complain that now we may get them out of power. According to NPR this morning, a convoy of 800 tons of food to the refugees on the Pakistan border and in the town of Hatar (sp?). It's marked UN, but it's nearly all US wheat, and it won't go near the Taliban.
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 05:48:08 [Permalink]
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I've never said that. I've simply said that the corporate media generally reports uncritically what the State Department tells them to report. I've simply asked that people read something besides State Department handouts when talking about these things.
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Your tactic is simply stating that anything produced by the US State Department is lies, and you conveniently ignore it when reports from non-US agencies support my position.
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org |
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Garrette
SFN Regular
USA
562 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 06:18:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
If I'm reading this correctly, and you are who I think you are, then it was not me that said anything about the Taliban getting the food.
My bad.
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The U.S. sealed off the borders making it impossible for relief to get to millions of people.
Wrong on both counts. Pakistan sealed the borders, not the US, and Pakistan is not by the remotest stretch a US puppet. And the 'sealing off' is one-way, meant to keep the refugees out of Pakistan; it is not meant to keep aid from the refugees, and it does not.
quote:
However, it is the U.S. that is keeping them from getting it now.
No. We're the ones supplying the food, and we're the ones--through the air drops and through the UN-manned ground convoys of US-supplied wheat--who are doing our damnedest to make sure they get it.
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I've simply asked that people read something besides State Department handouts when talking about these things.
A fair request, and one with which I've complied. Yet my position has not changed.
My kids still love me. |
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Tokyodreamer
SFN Regular
USA
1447 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 08:45:57 [Permalink]
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quote:
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If I'm reading this correctly, and you are who I think you are, then it was not me that said anything about the Taliban getting the food.
My bad.
Ah, I was wondering this too. I think I found the reference you might be thinking of. Espritch said this in the "Taliban wins the Darwin Award" thread in the Day of Terror forum:
quote:
Of course, since the Taliban control most of Afghanistan, I wonder who they think is really going to end up with the food and medicine we drop? I'm betting it won't be widows and orphans.
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And if rain brings winds of change
let it rain on us forever.
I have no doubt from what I've seen
that I have never wanted more.
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NubiWan
Skeptic Friend
USA
424 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 10:39:44 [Permalink]
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As a sidenote to these interesting exchanges, have ran accross a few recent heartning news blurbs. Perhaps my faith wasn't completely misplaced...
quote:
A communique issued at the end of an emergency meeting of foreign ministers of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said member countries representing 1.2 billion Muslims strongly condemned the September 11 attacks.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov dismissed in comments published on Wednesday suggestions that cooperation with the United States was likely to increase the threat of attacks by Muslim fundamentalists.
"There are those who worry our closeness to the international anti-terrorist coalition will bring a jihad (holy war) on us," Karimov said in an interview with the state news agency published in the Uzbek language daily Khalk Suzi.
"But we well know that threats, fear and libel are terrorist weapons," he added.
JAKARTA, Indonesia, 5:46 a.m. EDT Osama bin Laden's call for a holy war against America found little resonance in much of the Muslim world today.
Some 600 Indonesian Muslim students tried to force their way into the parliament complex in Jakarta to protest against the U.S.-led strikes against Afghanistan after burning American flags and an effigy of President George W. Bush.
But the anti-American demonstrations of recent days, while vocal, have been relatively small compared with some of the protests in volatile Indonesia in the past few years.
"If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities." -Voltaire |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 10/10/2001 : 12:29:49 [Permalink]
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I saw some interesting comments on Charlie Rose last night relating to this.
First they talked about why some of the leaders in the middle east have not come out so strongly against the attacks. The guest said(I forget his name) this is because some of the leaders have brutish regimes that are US backed(Saudi Arabia,Egypt) and that the leaders there fear what their respective populations would do. He went on to say how much people in Iran and Assyria love Americans now that we are not meddling in their affairs. I found that interesting because I generally thought Americans are not well loved there either.
The guest also had some disturbing things to say about trying to win a "war" against terrorism. His point was that even though Israel has such a solid anti-terrorism campaign, some get through. he didn't see it as a war that we could win...ever. No one has been able to stop it so far, why should we? He listed as examples where terrorism hasn't been won: Ireland, Israel, Morroco. Terrorists were fought there for years and while the terrorist acts may have been reduced they were never stopped completely. All a british leader could hope for were "acceptable levels of violence."
He also mentioned how dangerous it is to focus so much on bin Laden when he is but one of many terorists. So what is the US going to do after the bin Laden threat is neutralized?
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2001 : 08:46:10 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
quote:
The U.S. sealed off the borders making it impossible for relief to get to millions of people.
Wrong on both counts. Pakistan sealed the borders, not the US, and Pakistan is not by the remotest stretch a US puppet. And the 'sealing off' is one-way, meant to keep the refugees out of Pakistan; it is not meant to keep aid from the refugees, and it does not.
It is my understanding, and my understanding is limited, that the U.S. told Pakistan to seal their borders. They are not a puppet, but they have some obligation to do what the U.S. tells them since the U.S. has decided it is judge, jury and executioner in all matters of international law.
quote:
However, it is the U.S. that is keeping them from getting it now.
quote:
No. We're the ones supplying the food, and we're the ones--through the air drops and through the UN-manned ground convoys of US-supplied wheat--who are doing our damnedest to make sure they get it.
Far from their damndest, but as I said, my understanding is limited, so I will not further comment until my understanding is less limited.
quote:
I've simply asked that people read something besides State Department handouts when talking about these things.
A fair request, and one with which I've complied. Yet my position has not changed.
My kids still love me.
You have to a small extent, but you are one of those that are trained to believe certain things, or you wouldn't be where you are. At least you're trying. So am I.
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org
Edited by - Gorgo on 10/11/2001 08:42:23
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2001 : 09:20:31 [Permalink]
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quote:
They are both quite relevant and analogous.
You claimed that flag-waving is superstitious and is akin to waving a magic wand. The rituals associated with funerals/wakes/etc. are the same; they serve no concrete purpose but to "celebrate life" (actually, I think most do no such thing, but instead help the survivors let go of past attachments); flag-waving celebrates life just as much.
The stories I told were not meant to garner praise but to illustrate a few things, though perhaps not so well as I'd hoped:
There are times when action is called for.
There are times when action is desired but failure to act is not an assumption of responsibility for another's problems.
There are bad things and there are good things. There are no perfect things.
Unexpected good things come out of necessary but unpleasant actions--the redneck chess player. But good things do not come out of good wishes or the avoidance of the necessary.
I don't remember for sure, but I think it was former House Speaker Tip O'Neil who said "Think globally; act locally." Meaning, essentially, get out of your towers and DO something.
By the way, if you'll check out the New York Times on Sept. 16, "Washington has also demanded [from Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies,...and the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's population." On September 27 you'll see that officials in Pakistan "said today that they would not relent in their decision to seal off the country's 1400-mile border with Afghanistan, a move requested by the Bush administration because, the officials said, they wanted to be sure that none of Mr. bin Laden's men were hiding among the huge tide of refugees," (John Burns, Islamabad)
Second, your stories tell me how you see the world, and how you react to it. Admirable, I'm sure. However, this has nothing to do with a war against people who had nothing to do with the crimes for which some are demanding "justice." Slaughtering "innocents" and doing nothing are not the only two options. Another option would be to first pursue legal options. In fact, had the U.S. first pursued their legal options while preparing to slaughter Afghans, they might have had a little credibility when the bombing started if negotiations didn't work.
"Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed" - Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy, referring to "Operation Infinite Justice."
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org
Edited by - Gorgo on 10/11/2001 09:26:25 |
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Trish
SFN Addict
USA
2102 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2001 : 10:16:53 [Permalink]
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quote:
I guess I was more tired than I thought last night. I thought your post was from Trish. My apologies. Her Irish is always up. You at least attempt to appear to be reasonable.
And I believe I've demonstrated in the past a willingness to admit or point out my own errors. I too have read your information - I just happen to agree with much of what Garrette says. He says it much better than I - so I let him say it.
I asked for information on what happened in Panama - without bias - yet what you send is extremely biased information. I know little about what happened in Panama, I as much as said that. Yet, you assume that my position is unreasonable when it does yet not exist. Why? Is it because I won't fall in line like a *good little girl*?
This is my first response to this thread - yet a brilliant rant by Garrette is assumed as mine. I'm trully flattered. I only wish I'd the wherewithall to come up with that peice of brilliance.
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider the capacity for it terrifying." ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 10/11/2001 : 10:29:28 [Permalink]
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I don't know what information you think I've sent that's biased, or what information you think you have that isn't biased.
quote:
I asked for information on what happened in Panama - without bias - yet what you send is extremely biased information. I know little about what happened in Panama, I as much as said that. Yet, you assume that my position is unreasonable when it does yet not exist. Why? Is it because I won't fall in line like a *good little girl*?
Stop the murder of the Iraqi people.
http://www.endthewar.org |
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