Does not religion often seem a yoke around the necks of Presidential candidates?
I'm sorry, but is it just me, or does being associated with religion in an American election seem contentious to the point of stupidity?…
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments76 - Bennett
"So your argument does not hold water, my opinion of your response it that you are racist..."
I don't see that at all. Baronius is simply applying the accepted ethnic pigeon-holing label based on outward appearance, to a man he knows is much more than just superficial label, for conversation's sake.
But what I do see is that you are a nut job.
77 - REMF
"Clearly you had a desperate need for the special kind of naval training you get on the volleyball court in Hawaii."
- Dave Nalle
Actually I was a RM at NavCommStaHono near Wahiawa. And as I've said many times before, very lacklustre, mediocre service.
...Although it was more than anything you've ever done.
78 - Baronius
REMF - What does this article have to do with military service? Yours, Wright's, or Limbaugh's? Just answer that. And if you can't, you should probably ask yourself why you always bring it up.
79 - REMF
Baronius;
You have referred to Reverend Wright as a "nutjob." I don't agree with Wright's more divisive comments. However - unlike many of the phony bellicose conservatives - he earned the right to voice his opinions by honorably serving his country during time of war.
80 - Pablo
And I sir, was born with the right to voice my opinions, and am also proud of the fact that at age 12 I was out on the streets protesting an illegal war, based on a lie (Gulf of Tonkin Incident) that caused the deaths of countless human beings needlessly. In case you didnt notice Baronius, the Vietnam war was won by the North, what ever happened to those dominoes? Today Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. I bet you didnt lose any sleep over all those lives lost for NOTHING did ya Baronius?
81 - Clavos
"he earned the right to voice his opinions by honorably serving his country during time of war."
Read the Constitution. Our rights are not conferred by the government; we are BORN with them, no one has to "earn the right" to speak their opinion.
And no one has to agree with anyone else's opinion...
Military service (or the lack thereof) has nothing whatever to do with our rights.
82 - REMF
"Our rights are not conferred by the government; we are BORN with them, no one has to "earn the right" to speak their opinion."
- Clavos
Good. Than in my opinion Billy Calley was a cold-blooded, scumbag murdering coward.
83 - handyguy
The speech today was pretty remarkable. Believe the hype: some people are calling it among the most important political speeches ever given. I've just now watched it twice through.
An honest speech...by a politician trying to defuse a controversy? And about the subject of race, so rarely discussed with candor in this country? Great stuff.
84 - Baronius
Clavos beat me to the punch. We don't have to earn the right to speak in this country, particularly political and religious speech. This is exactly the stuff that the Founders sought to protect. However nutty I may find Wright's views, he hasn't *earned* the right to speak them. He *has* the right.
These rights are part of our Constitution. REMF, when you enlisted, you swore to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. But you've become one of those enemies. It's time for you to rethink where this militaristic thinking has led you.
85 - Clavos
"Than in my opinion Billy Calley was a cold-blooded, scumbag murdering coward."
...and John Kerry said the rest of us were too.
86 - Baronius
Pablo, you're a bit older than I am. I won't hold a 12-year-old's politics against him, but I'm surprised you don't look back on those protests with shame.
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia suffered immensely under communism. Millions of humans died from starvation, slaughter, and trying to escape. The dominoes fell, even worse than had been predicted.
87 - Pablo
How right you are Baronius, millions of humans died, however you forgot to mention the napalm, MyLai, the massive 24 hour bombing of civilians in Hanoi. As to the dominoe theory, aside from Laos, which I have personally been to, there is no other communist governments in Southeast Asia today. Most of the people trying to escape were trying to escape being bombed into oblivion by my government sadly.:)
You are a typical revisionist Baronius, and your arguments do not hold water. Not only that but your so called conservative heroes that you have mentioned for the most part are barbaric facists.
Not only do I not look back on those days with shame, I do not for one second regret actively demonstrating against the first gulf war, nor the second. I do suggest to you Baronius as you seem to say that you believe in the rule of law, that the next time your government decides to invade another country, particularly one that has not invaded or threatened us, that you demand of your leaders that they obey the rule of law, i e the constitution that stipulates that only Congress can Declare War, as opposed to the AUMF, authorization to use military force. A resolution is not an act of congress bucko, it is a resolution that has no binding legal force of law, and was unconstitutional on its face.
88 - Pablo
Oh and Baronius?
On the subject of Kampuchea (Cambodia) of which I too have personally visted you might want to take a look at this article showing how the US government actively supported Pol Pot.
One of its chief proponents of supporting them was none other than Zbigniew Brzezinski CFR Trilateral Commission, and Obamas leading national security expert.
89 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Not only do I not look back on those days with shame, I do not for one second regret actively demonstrating against the first gulf war, nor the second.
Paul,
Let me give you something to chew on. Looking back, one can argue that the moral point of view - the correct moral thing to have done - was NOT to have gone to war in Vietnam, or later, not to have double-crossed the Iraqi dictator and attacked Iraq.
By and large, that would be right.
Vietnam was a morass that ensnared Americans in a culture of cynicism. And the cynicism that developed in Vietnam allowed the Americans to betray the Kurds and Shi'a who revolted against Saddam Hussein in 1991, anticipating an American advance on Baghdad, and finding, as the Cuban refugees did thirty years earlier, that the American government was not willing to back up people seeking freedom.
Looking back, one could say that you were right.
But now comes the kicker. The war in the Gulf was foreseen thousands of years ago by an evil seer named Bila'am. Immoral as it has been in its origins, it was going to be pursued anyway. And therefore, the culture of cynicism needed in America to wrongly pursue it was going to emerge anyway.
This war that has emptied America of its resources was foretold long ago. I could not have told you in 1990 that the Americans would pour all their resources into the Tigris and the Euphrates. But I can honestly tell you that sitting in my car in St. Paul, listening to the news on NPR in early 1991, while waiting to pick up the infant (who is now 19 years old) from daycare, I felt a sense of doom on me - a sense that only shifted when the first reports emerged from Baghdad that Americans were bombing the city. The sense of doom did not lift. It shifted. I sensed, for reasons I now understand, that Destiny was waiting to occur. After this, I went to the daycare lady, took my son and went back to our Chevy Cavalier and drove home, listening to the news as I drove.
90 - Baronius
Pablo, you provided a link to an article from Covert Action Quarterly about how the US secretly supported Pol Pot, and I'm the revisionist?
91 - Dave Nalle
As to the dominoe theory, aside from Laos, which I have personally been to, there is no other communist governments in Southeast Asia today.
Most informed students of international affairs would argue that the reason that there are so few communist countries there or elsewhere today is that our policy of containment to prevent the success of the domino effect was largely a success. In that context even the Vietnam war, which delayed the process and exhausted so many resources for the forces of communism in that region, could be viewed as a success.
Dave
92 - Pablo
Baronius,
Yep you are the revisionist, perhaps you take your news source from the mainstream lying press, I do not.
Dave,
I think what you may have meant to say is that most informed right wing facists agree that communism was contained by the war in vietnam. I think you and Baronius should wed. I can almost picture you guys cuddling together. LOL. What an image.
93 - Pablo
Oh and Baronius,
Here is another source that you might not find so objectionable given your hysteria at reading something out of the mainstream press. In 1981 Brzezinski revealed that he encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. This was part of a wider policy of forcing the Vietnamese out of Cambodia by funding anti-Vietnamese guerrilla groups that the U.S. helped create.[17] Between 1979 and 1981, the World Food Program, which was strongly under US influence, provides nearly $12 million in food aid Thailand. Much of this aid makes its way to the Khmer Rouge.[18] In January 1980 the US started funding Pol Pot while he was in exile. The extent of this support was $85m from 1980 to 1986.[19]
As you may or may not recall Mr. Brzezinski was the National Security advisor for Carter, and a member in good standing at the Trilateral Commission and the CFR. His book "The Grand Chessboard" is a must read. A thouroghly disgusting example of a human being at his worst imho.
94 - Dave Nalle
Pablo, I wouldn't know what right-wing fascists would say about Vietnam, but what you attribute to me in #92 isn't what I said. I said that informed students of foreign affairs believe that containment worked. Containment is not just the war in Vietnam, there's a lot more to it. And that it worked really, really isn't in dispute.
Dave
95 - Pablo
If YOU say so Davey. After all your the expert on umm EVERYTHING.
96 - Dave Nalle
Pablo. How many topics have you actually seen me write on with any profession of expertise? If a well educated and experienced person can't be informed on more than one or two things, or get themselves informed, then the world is in serious trouble.
Dave
97 - Baronius
Pablo, the mainstream press largely backs your reading of the Vietnam War. The US was wrong to be there; we left because of the earnest protests on US campuses; SE Asia happened to collapse when we left, but it was just a coincidence. I guess you'd disagree with that last part. Either way, you're describing me as a mainstream revisionist, which doesn't make any sense.
98 - Clavos
"doesn't make any sense"
You expected sen...
Nah. Too easy.
99 - Pablo
It is the way that you come across Davey. And I am quite sure that I am not the only one that feels this way about your posts. It frequently comes across as not only condescending, but arrogant in the extreme, with a hint of WFB's snobism. Thats just my two sense worth. As to some of the positions that I may agree with you on, there are a few. That being said I find most of what you have to offer in terms of political acuteness to be almost always on the side of using military muscle when it is not called for.
In my OPINION, your understanding of what Socialism is, and those that financially back it it elementary at best, and not even close to the truth. The topics that I do agree on you with are the second amendment, your views on the drug war, and perhaps a few more of your more libertarian views. For the most part however I find you quite ignorant on such things as 9/11, third world countries, and their sovereignty, the CFR, Rockyfeller and company, JP Morgan, the FED, and numerous other issues which do not come to mind at the moment. In reference to your recent article about YOU supporting terrorism, I found that to be very repugnent and thus my numerous posts for you to renounce terrorism, by condeming the illegal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings. I suspect howeve that goes over your head, and it probably does not bother you that so many lives have been needlessly lost, and maimed for NOTHING. I also disagree with you vehemently on the so called war on terror, which in my view is nothing more than a witch hunt, or a sniper hunt, which has been perpetrated by UK and USA intelligence agencies to replace the Soviet Union as the enemy of choice to perpetuate the military industrial-homeland security apparatti.
I just loved McCains snafu in Jordan yesterday, did you catch it Dave. About Al Qaeda in Iran, with Liebermann at his side correcting him. That was rich!
100 - Pablo
Clavos
YAWN
101 - Clavos
Heh.
102 - Pablo
Baronius
When you have something interesting to say (I do not mean something to which I agree with), I will debate you on the issues of the day. For the most part I find your arguments to be a rehash of the Weekly Standard and its ilk. Your choices of conservatives that you openly admire only further my views of you as nothing more than my image of the ugly american. I suggest you go back to the founding documents and get a grip on what a constitutional repbulic is as opposed to a democracy.
103 - REMF
"If a well educated and experienced person can't be informed on more than one or two things, or get themselves informed, then the world is in serious trouble."
- Dave Nalle
And if a presidential candidate insists three different times in two days that Iran is training Al Qaeda, than well educated and experienced know-it-alls might be in serious trouble as well.
104 - Pablo
SPOT ON REMF
105 - Dave Nalle
It is the way that you come across Davey. And I am quite sure that I am not the only one that feels this way about your posts.
If the fact that I have some knowledge and can articulate it clearly arouses their feelings of inadequacy I'm sorry.
It frequently comes across as not only condescending, but arrogant in the extreme, with a hint of WFB's snobism.
I guess I can take that as a compliment.
Thats just my two sense worth.
Which we'd take seriously if you knew the difference between 'cents' and 'sense'. Oh, I'm sorry, was that arrogant and condescending?
As to some of the positions that I may agree with you on, there are a few. That being said I find most of what you have to offer in terms of political acuteness to be almost always on the side of using military muscle when it is not called for.
Which shows that you really, really aren't paying attention and just seeing what you expect to see.
In my OPINION, your understanding of what Socialism is, and those that financially back it it elementary at best, and not even close to the truth.
Then your opinion would be of little value. I've had more first-hand experience of socialism and communism than just about anyone on here except for some of the Chinese shill posters.
The topics that I do agree on you with are the second amendment, your views on the drug war, and perhaps a few more of your more libertarian views.
As if you even understand libertarianism.
For the most part however I find you quite ignorant on such things as 9/11, third world countries, and their sovereignty, the CFR, Rockyfeller and company, JP Morgan, the FED, and numerous other issues which do not come to mind at the moment.
All areas in which you hold beliefs firmly based in unreality.
In reference to your recent article about YOU supporting terrorism, I found that to be very repugnent and thus my numerous posts for you to renounce terrorism, by condeming the illegal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings.
Demonstrating that you both don't even understand what terrorism is, nor do you have a basic familiarity with the actual facts of the situation in Iraq.
I suspect howeve that goes over your head, and it probably does not bother you that so many lives have been needlessly lost, and maimed for NOTHING. I also disagree with you vehemently on the so called war on terror, which in my view is nothing more than a witch hunt, or a sniper hunt, which has been perpetrated by UK and USA intelligence agencies to replace the Soviet Union as the enemy of choice to perpetuate the military industrial-homeland security apparatti.
As ridiculous conspiracy theories go this one is a bit more credible than most of those you subscribe to.
Even if it were true, of course, it would be largely irrelevant. Though I do find the idea of mounting a fake war on terror which accidentally preciptiates the very real and inevitable war with islam mildly amusing.
I just loved McCains snafu in Jordan yesterday, did you catch it Dave. About Al Qaeda in Iran, with Liebermann at his side correcting him. That was rich!
I missed it. I do think that associating with Lieberman is a terrible mistake for McCain. McCain himself has admitted that he's weak on foreign policy. He needs to quickly get himself some help from someone qualified in that area, which would not be Lieberman. The troubling aspect of that is that it probably means turning to the Neocons out of convenience, though maybe they've been discredited enough that he'll look for advice from some other more reputable source - perhaps retired military like Colin Powell.
Dave
106 - Cannonshop
Pablo: I work with a fairly large number of people who fled S.E. Asia's "Worker's Paradise" both before, and after 1975, they don't share your appraisal.
(odd enough, maybe it's a regional thing-lots of Viet, H'mong, Cambodians up here in W. Washington, enough that I've started learning the language so I'm not AS confused by my co=workers' conversations...) It seems that something on the order of two million Vietnamese fled south when the french pulled out in 1956, and a couple million risked their lives in leaky boats after Saigon fell in '75. There isn't much record of people taking those kind of risks to get IN to Vietnam after that-though I suppose some U.C. Berkeley types might have tried it. One of my Inspectors on the production line was wounded at Xiao-Loc, can you dig it? I was TWO when that went down, and it was pretty much AFTER the U.S. had pulled out. According to HIM, the North and the South were about as much one people as Austria and Germany are-shared language, nothing else.
107 - Dave Nalle
Not to mention the ethnic minorities within Vietnam which the VC oppressed and persecuted for years in the most brutal possible way. Groups which had been protected under both French and US occupation.
Dave
108 - Clavos
Almost the entire Gulf Coast (especially in Texas, Dave) fishing industry has been taken over by Vietnamese.
A lot of them settled here in South Florida and are working in boat building and repair.
There's also a substantial colony of Hmong in and around Minneapolis.
All of them came seeking better opportunity and/or fleeing persecution.
All the traffic between Cuba and the USA is one way, too.
Funny thing about all those Commie "workers paradises:" nobody ever heads TO them; only AWAY from them.
109 - Silver Surfer
Australia had the largest number of Vietnamese refugees fleeing by boat of any country in the region, and took on 140,000 initially.
Most of the other refugees went to the US, Canada, France and Britain, but Australia remained a prime destination for those heading south in overcrowded, rickety, leaky boats simply because of its location.
They continued to come to this continent in their thousands, along with many more from Cambodia and Laos; they are still here, too, and they and their kids (and in many cases their grandkids) are now proud Aussies.
None that I've met, and that's quite a lot considering they are now part of the colourful fabric of this country, have ever expressed any desire to return to live in the workers' paradises of south-east Asia, or even the now-reformed Socialist Republic of Vietnam (which is now a prime tourist destination for Australians).
Nup. All those boat people and their offspring were happy where they are. Wonder why that is??
Not hard to guess, is it? They're free, that's why.
It's also worth remembering in any discussion of this that roughly half of the Vietnamese were opposed to the communist attempt to take over the country, so it's a moot point as to who was really waging a war of aggression.
110 - Silver Surfer
The best bit: apart from the range of Vietnamese food available in Oz, they run many of the bakeries - one of the good legacies of colonial France.
It means in Sydney I can get the best baguettes this side of Paris or Hanoi.
111 - Christopher Rose
Clavos, Vietnam is actually being touted as the new Thailand and is actually quite an interesting destination, not only to tourists but also for expat living as property is so affordable there.
I flew over the Vietnamese coast a few years back en route to Hong Kong and saw literally hundreds of miles of beautiful beaches. Certainly a lot more appealing than living in an LA parking lot as increasing numbers of Californians are!
112 - Clavos
You're absolutely right as to the beauty of the coastline, Chris. I remember thinking when I was there, that it was one of the prettiest coastal areas I had seen anywhere. The South China Sea is as beautiful and clear as anything in the South Pacific islands or the Caribbean.
I especially like the areas of Vung Tau (briefly used as an R&R destination), Nha Trang, Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay. The latter is one of the largest bays in the world, and was a HUGE naval base during the war.
I also was briefly in the Highlands, which were equally beautiful.
It always saddened me that such a gorgeous area was so torn and ravaged by the war...
Many of my fellow vets are traveling to VN these days. I receive several veteran's publications; all of them have numerous ads for travel packages to VN.
If my wife were able to travel, we would go.
113 - Baronius
Pablo isn't embarrassed around me, a youngish conservative. That's fine. I'd think he'd be embarrassed around Clavos, a Vietnam vet who was in all likelihood treated with contempt by the protestors of the era.
But you guys raise an interesting point. The US has a lot of SE Asians now. How must it feel to be a former anti-war activist, and meet the people that the US betrayed? That has to be mortifying. It's like Joe Kennedy meeting Holocaust survivors.
114 - Dave Nalle
Baronius, you forget that the idea of shame is not part of the mentality of the morally self-righteous, whether their politics are of the left or the right. The aging hippy feels no more shame over our betrayal of the Vietnamese than the denizens of a megachurch do when they learn that the child of a friend is dying of AIDS. The self-righteousness overwhelms their better instincts in both cases.
Dave
115 - REMF
"I'd think he'd be embarrassed around Clavos, a Vietnam vet who was in all likelihood treated with contempt by the protestors of the era."
- Baronius
You're not forgetting that Nalle also protested against that war?
116 - Dr Dreadful
The central San Joaquin Valley in California also has a large Hmong population - the second largest in the US behind the Twin Cities.
We had a fresh influx of them a few years ago from the refugee camps in Thailand where many of them still live - because they're still fighting the Laotian government, more than 30 years after the 'end' of the war.
117 - Pablo
Baronius,
I might have more respect for Clavos's service, had he respected the Constitution of the USA. As he obviously did not, and went even though there had not been a formal declaration of war, he gets only contempt from me. That goes for the rest of the Vets.
118 - Pablo
Cannonship,
Nice try there bucko, I have been to Vietnam, and I know very well how most of them feel about being invaded and occupied. That being said they also are extremely hospitable, and have let bygones be bygones, and do not hold grudges. I suggest next time you want to tell me about South East Asia you show a bit more respect. I have personally lived there for the most part of the past 8 years, including Thailand, Kampuchea (Cambodia), Laos, Vietnam, and Myanmar (Burma).
Frankly Cannonship you do not know what you are talking about.
119 - Pablo
Dave post 105
A Typical Dave response. Arrogant in the extreme, condescending to boot, and ill informed. As to my two sense worth it is a pun, and obviously goes over your head, I cannot apologize for the Davey boy.
You are so ill informed that you recently said that David Rockefeller was dead! You make me laugh Davey, you are so out of touch with what is really going on in this world and more particularly our country it is mind boggling.
You act as if you are the end all and be all of information, and you for the most part have no idea of what you are really saying. My own hunch is that you say it so that you can feel important about yourself in this forum, which is why you hardly ever let a comment about you go by.
I am glad you took it as a compliment my reference to your effete snobism being like WFB. It sums up in one sentence what I feel about both of you.
The only right wing consevative that I can understand is one that is very wealthy, for suckers like Baronius it never ceases to amaze me how or why they would ever subscribe to such idiocy, not to mention inhumatnity.
Just my two SENSE there Davey Boy
120 - Pablo
And one other thing Clavy. In my opinion the Vietnam war was done for one purpose. That was to ease the shipment of Heroin into this country. Check out Bo Gritz if you have the courage. The most HIGHLY decorated Vietnam vet. He says in no uncertain terms thats exactly what the Vietnam war was about. People such as Richard Armtitage were intimately involved in this effort. So was Colin Powell. Not to mention Operation Phoenix, which target human beings for kidnappin, torture and murder by the CIA.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
121 - Irene Wagner
Last line of the article:
"I don't think I would even recognize a Presidential election without the ecstatic madness of religious extremism."
Yeah, but I'm praying for one anyway.
122 - Pablo
Irene,
I feel like expressing myself, this is HOW and WHY I feel about the Vietnam War. I could frankly give a damn if I get contempt from Clavos. He has done nothing but disparge me since I started writing on this site. As Jesus said "spread the other cheek".
123 - Baronius
Dave, I disagree. I think the sense of shame has got to be strong in people like Pablo. He can spend time in Cambodia and come away feeling like communism wasn't so bad, that the dominoes didn't fall too hard. That those bone piles were the result of some national unrest, or maybe the CFR. People only lie to themselves that blindly when they're trying to silence a very loud voice inside.
But I could be wrong.
124 - Cannonshop
#118 Okay, so you went on a sanitized state tour and didn't get off the bus, that's nice. I tend to believe people who aren't in danger of being shot or dragged off to re-education camps over people who're under those conditions or have close family under those conditions. Lots of people who've gone to Cuba, or visited the Soviet Union during the cold war say the same things, but it doesn't change what is there, or what happens to people who dare to dissent from the current party line.
125 - Pablo
Baronius,
I hate communism, however it is not up to ME as an american to decide for other countries how they decide to live, even if they are exploited. It is up to THEM as it was to us to cast off oppression. Democracy at the point of a gun, as demonstrated in Irag will always fail.
If you were really to study the roots of communism and who financed it, you would find that it was financed by Wall Street. Should you have the open mind about it, I would be glad to supply referencing URL's to support that argument. From the days of Leon Trotsky, when he was given a great deal of money by Wall Street insiders to start the Marxist revolution. I am more informed on this movement than you can possibly Imagine
Baronius. I cant stand Marxists, the same goes with Socialists. I believe in the sovereignty of the INVDIVIDUAL, and a constitutional republic, with a bill of rights, that protects the minority, that being ME from the tyranny of the majority.