QUOTE=dpatten;25430]Excuse me? The Soviet Union "contended for the approval of the world's people"? The communist bloc had to put up barbed wire to keep people in! Where disagreeing with the state got you 9 millimeter hole in the back of the head? Please. However, if by "Contended for the approval of the world's people" you mean propagandized among ivory tower academics and weak minded leftists you might be right.
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However bad, they were they were a world power that tended to restrict the depredations of the US on 3rd world countries since those countries could reject the US and opt for protection by the Soviet Union. The apartheid regime in South Africa was supported for many years by the US and Israel supplied them with arms as a surrogate of the US. Moishe Dayan an Israeli general was given a heroes welcome in SA which is well documented by Life magazine. He later became head of the Israeli state. Many African and mid-east states benefitted from this contest.
Of course you don't even consider that the treatment of blacks within the US was even comparable. The gated neighborhoods aren't to keep whites out and the poverty of most US blacks are what spawned the "gangstas" Possibly 1/3 of US blacks have criminal records and hence have little or no chance of a steady job. There are so many statistics available if you bother to look.
The US has been guilty of condoning thru thier puppet states genocides that equal the Natsis. 1 million Javanese and other Indonesian "communists" within 1 month of the installation of the US-supported Suharto regime. A well-documented slaughter of 100,000 Guatamelan "rebels". by the US-supported Chavez regime. Not here-say. A friend of mine who now supports the Mexican Chiapa rebels and teaches in the Austin campus of the Uof T worked for the US embassy has documentation and was appalled and disillusioned by the US-supported carnage .
The assassination of the democratically elected president of Chili and the installation of the Pinochet regime there to protect Anaconda Copperwhich resulted in thousands of deaths. The university of colonels in the US that trained the majority of death squads in Latin America, Rockefeller's eradication of hostile native tribes in northern Brazil back in the 50s, to ensure the safety of his oil exploration crews. Any honest person that wants to look can find a mass of documentation. USA<>CPSU neither one was very nice.
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DP
Oh, how clever, America is the New Roman empire. Can't daft leftists think up anything new? Are you even slightly aware of the history of the Roman empire?
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Not an especially new concept, even by non-leftists.
And yes I am very conversant on the history of the Roman Empire. Are You ? Other than the Hollywood or biblical versions.
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DP
When has the US sown the ruins of a nation with salt after we have defeated them, As the Romans did to Carthage after the last Punic war?
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Mind you there was this chemical called Agent Orange
in Viet Nam, cluster bombing in many other wars, chemical agents supplied to Saddam to suppress the Kurds so he could be unimpeded in his war with Iran back when he was the US man and was feted in Chicago as was well reported in the US press.
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DP
Last time I checked, my taxes were building schools, power plants and roads in Afghanistan and Iraq. When has the US looted the religious treasures of a nation as the Romans did after the destruction of the Jewish temple in 70 AD?
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You're kidding, right? Where exactly are these schools, power plants and roads(not meant to be used by armored vehicles) being built? In the somewhat less turbulent Afghanistan, in any case, these supposed scools would have to be male only, whether under the Taliban or the Drug-purveying Northern War-lords since both oppose female education.
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DP
Did the US line the roads leading to Baghdad with crucified women and children as the Romans did to Jerusalem after the revolt?
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No they simply shoot them. To crucify them would take too much time.
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DP
Were the Iraqis so terrified of American soldiers that they committed mass suicide including women and children as the Jews surrounded at Masada did before the Romans could capture them?
No they were more hopefull than that
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I guess they decided they would rather take some of the invaders with them. Suicide bombing is much more effective than mass suicide for an oppressed people.
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DP
When I hear someone comparing the US to Imperial Rome It lets me know two things, They slept through history class and they absorbed to much Marxism in their freshman poli-sci class.
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You are obviously referring to yourself here, since you know little about either. You might benefit by even a glance at Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The dissolution of the values of the empire preceded like most other empires long before their fall.
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DP
Yep, that's us, greedy Americans. America wants all of your wealth and we want you to kiss our feet while you're at it.
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You said it. But of course that is not the fate of most Americans nor Romans for that matter. Only for the tiny ruling hierarchy.
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DP
Ahh, yes we've gotten to Israel. Yes, Israel has nuclear weapons.
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Golly, good thing Israel isn't an outlaw terrorist state and is on Amerikas side.
Simply that it has defied hundreds of UN resolutions should be no cause of censure.
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DP
However, Israel isn't a theocracy. Israel is a democracy. Its the only democracy in the whole stinking area.
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It's a democracy if you're jewish. Just like Iran if you're Islamist. If you're arab, you have limited rights. In some case none. One of Israels great fears is that the arabs that had the courage to stay despite the terror of the Zionist gangs will one day outnumber them thru larger families and will demand equal rights.
Some Israelis even have "A Final Solution".
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DP
Israel has Arab Muslim citizens. In fact the two soldiers that Hezbollah captured, starting this shitstorm, are Druze not Jewish. Druze are offshoots of Shia Islam. Hmm, imagine that, Muslim soldiers fighting for "theocratic" "terrorist" Israel.
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Since Israel has a draft that is not surprising. All citizens must serve in the army. Your ignorance is showing. The Druze are Sunni muslim BTW "like Saddam" heh,heh.
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DP
While we are on Theocracies, do you mind telling me what "Hezbollah" translates to? It means "Party of God" Now, do you mind telling me who the nascent Theocracy is? Who supports Hezbollah again? Oh that's right, Iran and Syria. You remember Iran, just last year they executed two young gay men who were caught having sex. They also hanged a girl who was raped for not "defending her honour strongly enough."
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Kind of like the US south not so long ago. But Theocracies, no matter what the religion are intolerant. Could Nebraska go that route in the future ?
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DP
Is Israel a repressive Theocracy? Well, they cancelled the annual gay pride parade in Jerusalem. Then again that was because they were afraid some suicide bomber nutjob would blow it up.
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Of course even Israel has gays but they are circumcised. Canada, however even passed a gay marriage law just to pxxx-off Dubya and the fundamentalists. Obviously we're godless commies.
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DP
The first thing this statement tells me is that someone either doesn't understand the definition of imperialism or perhaps they learned it from their little red book. When Britain took over control of India in the 1840's, that was imperialism. When Japan took over Manchuria in the 1930's, that was imperialism. Yes, the US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike the British or Japanes and their "colonies" we intend to leave as soon as we can.
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And you are obviously ignorant of any sort of analysis or definition of imperialism, whether the new form which depends on the dominance of Capital nor the old form which depended on force of arms. You offer England and Japan calling them Imperialist in the early form then quickly skip by to Iraq and Afghanistan. What charlitanry.
Virtually all conquerors maintain they will leave when they can. Meaning when the occupied country is a vassal State.
Have you ever heard of the Monroe Doctrine which basicly claimed Latin America as US turf. (Or colony) And when any LA state showed signs of independance the US decended on them. All those "Banana dictators" were maintained by the US. Some of the nastiest dictatorships in history were vassals of the US and the CIA was their preisthood. And the historical documentation is there easily available if you were honest. You're a charlitan masquerading like so many nowadays under the mask of
a "Patriot"
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DP
Ahh, yes Saudi Arabia, the US "client state" that hasn't had any US troops in it since 2003. The country where the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from. But I bet you consider those guys brave freedom fighters too. No, wait, lemme guess, you believe Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and the Mossad blew up the towers to facilitate a war?
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Ahh yes, Saudi Arabia, the democracy of a type preferred by the US since the princes allow no dissent and mutually enrich the US corporations and hierarchy. Such nice guys they even funded the son the former head of the CIA and president of the US in an ill-fated oil-company venture. And when the 9/11 thing went down even whisked all the top Saudis out of the country, tho most flights were grounded.
How could it be that so many Saudi-Arabians were part of 9/11 and that the leader of this organization was the son of one of the most wealthy Saudis and is also still using his fortune for his own ends. This "freedom-fighter" was of the elite in fighting to rid Afghanistan of the godless Soviet Union, supported by the US-armed fundamentalist Taliban.
Of course when you dance with the devil he comes back to haunt you.
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DP
Now we are on to Venezuela and Hugo Chavez. Or as Fidel Castro likes to call him, Mini-me. Chavez is currently in the process of turning a fairly well developed country into the same kind of 3rd world shithole that Cuba is now. I assure you the US won't invade, we wouldn't need to even if we wanted to. Chavez is going to scare off all the foreign capital and will have his Bolivarian paradise of beggars and uneducated peasants scrabbling in the ruins that only a communist command economy can produce. Think Ukraine, 1930's. (You'll probably have to look that one up.)
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This really bugs the behind of the right-wing ideologues.
How dare he offer low-cost fuel to innercity US communities. Heh, heh Venezuela is the 3rd largest supplier of oil to the US. Like Saudi Arabia and the Royal Emirates they don't need the supposed benefits of US capital. But unlike the mid-east kingoms have kicked out the guys that pocketed most of the profits and are using it to help the poor as well as their long-time US capital dominated neighbors. Latin America is slowly but surely throwing off the yoke of US domination. So eat it. One of the benefits of the Iraqui war is it prevents the US from attacking another country. Unfortunately it is at the cost of thosand of Iraqui lives.
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DP
Ahh, this old chestnut, "America uses black troops as cannon fodder." Well, pal, I hate to tell you this, but the majority of US infantry troops, Marine Corps and Army both, are white kids, looking for adventure. Yes, there are blacks and hispanics serving honorably and bravely in infantry units too, but many, if not most minorities join the military to learn technical skills and are in units that don't see combat. Your comment reveals a profound lack of knowledge of the US military and race relations in the US in general.
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Sounds like a recruitment drive promo to me and I've heard the Army is about to offer hookers(camp followers) as an inducement due to the falling results of recruitment efforts. Where's your patriotism you kids ?
I and the majority of the world have a much more jaded view of the US military than that coming out of Hollywood. As do many people in the ghettoes who lost so many in Viet-Nam and now Iraq from sons who joined to escape poverty.
Katrina was an excellent indicator of the state of US race relations. Some have called it an efficient inner-city clearing project. "they were told to get out". How do you get out if you can't afford a car or the gas it takes. But Haliburton and the other big constuction companies will make out as they put up new condominiums and hotels in the old quarter.
I could write 3 books on race relations, honky, to your one sentence.
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DP
Ah yes, those bloodthirsty fundamentalists. Why just last week I heard Jerry Falwell suggest we topple stone walls over on homosexuals to kill them. Oh, wait, I'm sorry that was the Taliban. Well, Still, Pat Robertson said that we should destroy synagogues and mosques. No, that was Ayman al-Zawahiri and he was talking about churches and synagogues.
The only fundamentalists thirsting for blood are in the middle east and they mostly wear turbans or a keffiyeh. Jerry Falwell can't even get a good head of steam going about Hurricane Katrina being a judgement of God before he's shouted down by his co-religionists. Every time I hear the comparison of an evangelical Christian to a Taliban coming out of the mouth of a lefty, it only lets me see their ignorance and group-think.
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Or possibly the influence of the rabid fundamentalist right on you has now become
an accepted. Of course if you have been born again, you will be accepted at the right hand of god "soon" like Ashcroft, when the lord rains down destruction on the rest of the world's "unbelievers" at the Dawning. In that context even the fundamentalist Islamists seem tame.
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DP
And when I read drivel like this it makes me wonder about the Canadian psyche. What happened to the psyche of the people who stormed the majority of the beaches at Normandy and fought fascism from hedgerow to hedgrow beside their American and British cousins? What happened to the grandchildren of the Canadians who fought in Flanders field? How did they degenerate to the point where many left-wing Canadians take their greatest pride in simply not being Americans, yet pule about us as they hide in our shadow from the middle-eastern nihilists determined to destroy western civilization and replace it with an Islamic death-cult.
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Well of course our neighbours in the US were a little slow in entering both WW1 and WW2. Wilson campaigned and won on a platform of not taking the US into a European Imperialist war before WW1, possibly to his credit.
Canada, entered the war against fascism in 1939 and my brother was on the beaches of Normandy. The US didn't enter until Pearl Harbour happened. Some conspiracy geeks have even suggested that the FDR administration knew Japans plans and saw it as a way of getting the US into the war against the axis since many prominent USers, such as Henry Ford who funded a pro-Nazi journal in Dearbourne, MI, a prominent charismatic catholic priest who had a popular national radio program and mounted pro-hitler demonstrations in support(his name escapes me) and many other wealthy USers including Dubya's grandfather, who was in a joint deal with the Krupp Corp to benefit from the slave labour camps, were fans of Hitler.
To my knowledge it is the US, GB and a tiny scattering of other troops to try and give legitimacy to the forces of the willing(sounds a bit obscene somehow-"we raped them but they were willing") to disguise this unilateral action, against UN rules originally
established with the help of the US administation after WW2 to prevent such acts, who are in the middle-east, with "Freedom" as thier mantra, destroying the way of life of mid-eastern people, no matter how the US spin-doctors label the why of thier actions.
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DP
It seems to me the country more likely to fall into fascism is Canada. All the ingredients are there. Weak governments, governmental corruption, seperatist groups, large non-integrated blocs of foreigners, populist politicians preaching economic redistibution and then pointing over the border to explain all of their problems. Let me know how you like Canuckistan. It is coming.
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You obviously have no concept of what fascism is nor that many intelligent people in the US view developments there as I do . Our main danger is from it being imposed from south of our border.
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DP
For the US to be embroiled in an imperial war, we would have to have an Emperor, like the Japanese did in 1930 or as the Brits titled Good Queen Vic in the 1800's. Like him or not, in January, 2009 George Bush wil give up his office and he will be replaced by his elected successor as the US has done continuously for over 200 years. Seriously dude, when you use imperial as an adjective in relation to the US it lets everyone know you studied Das Kapital far too long and intensely your freshman year.
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You also obviously have no concept of what an empire is. Almost pathetic. And you my friend obviously skipped any history or philosophy classes so you could be in a Conservative 101 course with Anne Coulter. Like a poisonous snake she is fascinating but also deadly. Fortunately I do have faith enough in the american people that this too like McCarthyism will pass.
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DP
As an American with many Canadian friends and neighbours I hope that Canada can wake up from its bizarre flirtation with political correctness bordering on newspeak and its holier-than-thou attitude towards its neighbour to the south. I hope Canada can get back to its roots as a sensible, strong country that the West can count on. I hope Canada doesn't become a country of doped up hippies in birkenstock and Che Guevara t-shirts firmly convinced the US and Israel are evil because we defend ourselves, and by extension them, from the true tyranny of the new century, Islamo-fascism
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Wow. that's like a direct line from the Bush spin-doctors. In the first place, the US is not a synonym for the "western powers". It has adopted a unilateral position, (and now finding how expensive that can be). The phrase about "defending" was taken from Bush's stock answer to the US-supplied bombs and missles raining down on Lebanon
"The Israelis have a right to defend themselves" which I am ashamed to say our Quisling Prime Minister Harper who is head of a minority government echoed exactly numerous times. He will undoubtably pay for that in the next election as the polls seem to say.
Islamo-fascism is the newest creation of the Bush spin-doctors and while it may sound good to such as DPatten it is totally nonsensical as a political term, however abhorent the actions of the Muslim fundamentallists. But as the new buzz-word you can expect to hear it often coming from the mouth of Dubya. I've seen it 4 times in the last few days in his speeches. Helps divert attention from some of the actual fascist policies they are adopting.
To paraphrase a line of Benjamin Franklin.
Those who would give up liberty in the name of security deserve neither.
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Dennis
PS. I know that Erik put this category here, but posts like Micom's, calculated to piss people off are not conducive to discussing and working on vintage computers. If you want to post crap like this please do it it on Indymedia or Democratic Underground or whatever the Canadian analogue for rabid moonbattery is.[/QUOTE]
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Of course !
Like most right-wingers you give token acceptance to free speech but when it comes down to it really want it suppressed. Any quick perusals of the I-net can find innumerable sites of the rabid right that are strictly loonie tunes but not couched in the supposed reasonableness you would project. Same ideas, different presentation.
Similarly on many of the forums one can find right-wing spewings aping those of your ilk who figure that since it's on FOX it must be a common view. But not all those on these forums are from the US, which I would remind posters. Most of the time I tend to bite my lips and ignore the idiots. However at times, like my anger at what is now happening in Lebanon and the mid-east in general, events overweigh my discreetness :^) and I vent what is the view of a majority of Canadians (but not all) and most of the rest of the world.
. It would be good for them to ask their parents who freed them from the clutches of Hitler amongst others. Talk about media bias...