Between Obama's stimulus plan, the housing plan, to Eric Holder utterances, the Obnoxious American is wondering what's happening to this country.
I'm outraged about what's happening to America. Just typing that once sentence, I can already feel the slight breeze generated from the collective eyerolls of the liberals reading this. They wouldn't understand, in fact they think what's going on in this country is "a refreshing break from the Bush administration" — a comment which boils down to yet another dig at the prior administration, while excusing any action of the current administration so long as it is different. While I'll be the first to agree that Bush has made more than his share of mistakes, I don't believe that merely differing from Bush (or more often a Bush "strawman") is the right metric to judge things by. It seems that the days of ideas standing on their own merits is gone forever, and instead the only analysis is whether the previous administration might have proceeded similarly or not.…
Article comments
126 - Cindy
I'd like to think that the effects were unintentional.
You'd like to think that understandably. And you would be wrong.
Welfare should have been systematically replaced with get-to-work programs, but it hasn't.
Allow me a moment to show my distaste for solutions that hold people prisoners and then blame them for not being "good" prisoners.
You can't ignore the systemic problems...
Now there are some true words. (Although people have been ignoring them for so long that it is way late in the game to tell them---hey your whole system is fucked up*.) And more to the point, the systemic problems are entirely caused by the systemic flaws of the system itself.
*Note: I'm not angry, I just think the English language is so apparently limited for conveying ideas, why censor valuable and colorful words?
127 - Dr Dreadful
Some welfare programs have been tied to back-to-work incentives, but very haphazardly.
For example in California, in order to get TANF you have to comply with a series of requirements including looking for work/pursuing further education (or demonstrating a good reason why you can't), making sure your kids stay in school, and staying out of trouble with the law. I don't believe such is the case in all states.
Of course there are always ways to game the system and some people would do so whether there were conditions attached or not. For instance, a parent might deliberately not look for work. They will be cut off from TANF - but their kids won't. For whatever reason, the parent reckons it's worth taking that hit because at least there will still be some income.
128 - Cindy
I merely despise the idea that is suggested--"get-to-work", as if people would refuse to work and are lazy, rather than what turns out to be the general truth...one cannot find a job that pays enough to support one's family.
I had a friend go through a help oriented program and she did very well. She left an abusive husband when her baby was an infant. She had the infant and a preschool child. She got help that included rent, training for school, etc. then she was able to get a job that could support them. Of course there was work then.
129 - Roger Nowosielski
Well, I hate to say it but the Great Society program instituted by LBJ did create for a great many government dependency. It's kind of hard to undo the damage that's been done over the decades - especially in these economic times.
130 - Cindy
It is nearly impossible to undo all the damage of government and Capitalism. Some people understand that.
131 - Cindy
And especially in these hard economic times caused by ...government and Capitalism.
132 - Dave Nalle
"specially in these hard economic times caused by ...government
andmeddling with Capitalism"Fixed it for you, Cindy.
Dave
133 - Roger Nowosielski
Well, Dave. Apparently someone had decided to edit my original comments addressed to Doc. Shit happens.
134 - handyguy
A delayed response to Pablo's #48:
I think the film The Power of Nightmares is a masterpiece, but as I mentioned I believe it's best taken as a movie of ideas, an intellectual essay -- not an exact, actual history of events.
Adam Curtis, the filmmaker, certainly does not posit any 9/11 theories per se. He doesn't say bin Laden didn't do it.
He says that the Islamists who trained in the Afghan camps in the late 1990s were primarily interested in bringing down the governments of their home countries [mostly Arab Muslim countries], and had little interest in anything approaching world domination. They were locally focused.
He says that the Arab 'street' had been continually rejecting the call for revolution from bin Laden and Zawahiri â€" their movement was failing. Their willingness to cause civilian casualties among Muslims was widely and rapidly losing them support.
At this juncture, when they were at the end of their rope, the 9/11 attacks happened. The aftermath of the attacks would give them new opportunities to expand and grow â€" though the attacks themselves may have been the desperate gesture of a failing movement, not the awakening of a large 'network of terror.'
In the US, conservatives were also fading in influence, during and after the Clinton presidency. There was nothing -- yet -- to fill the void left in their propaganda by the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The emotional devastation of the 9/11 attacks, followed by surging patriotism, gave them an opportunity to reassert themselves politically. We know the results all too well: Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretapping, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In drawing parallels, from the 1950s onward, between neoconservatives and Islamists, the film is deliberately provocative â€" even mind-expanding â€" but it is not about alternative explanations for who committed the 9/11 atrocities.
135 - Dave Nalle
It wasn't me, Roger. Not my bailiwick.
Dave
136 - pablo
134 Handguy
Interesting that you didnt care to really address the point made in the Power of Nightmares that Al-cia-da was a creation of the FBI for the purposes of prosecution under the RICO statutes.
It was not a hypothetical assertion Handguy, but a stated fact by the maker of the documentary. Are you suggesting that this movie that you liked so much was not true?
Also Robin Cook, former British Foreign Secretary is on record as having said to The House of Commons shortly before his death:
"Robin Cook told the House of Commons that "Al Qaeda" is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan."
Now thats pretty clear eh Handguy?
Roger:
I want to recommend a free ebook to you that I very much like by David Livingstone:
TERRORISM AND THE ILLUMINATI A THREE THOUSAND YEAR HISTORY
Of particular note the following chapters:
The Rothschild Dynasty
The Muslim Brotherhood
The CIA and Operation Mockingbird
Iran-Contra Affair
BCCI
Mena, Arkansas
The Mujahideen
The Wahhabi Lobby
I personally subscribe to most of the premises of this book, having done political research on some of these subjects for over 25 years.
In my opinion the whole war on terror is nothing but a scam and the new boogeyman created to supplant the Cold War, and in conjunction with this is being used to usurp our constitutional guarantees as free humans.
Nalle of course will assert otherwise, and spoon feed his readers with garbage from the powers that be, from the MSM.
Handguy I would like to see you publicly refute the claim made in The Power of Nightmares regarding the creation of Al Ciada. I suspect that you will, being as such that once you accept the premise that Al Ciada is a myth, the rest of the bullshit comes tumbling down, ie the war on terror, the patriot act, the war in Iraq, etc.
Again for the record the Bin Laden family was doing business with the Bush family for over 25 years, yet osama became a rogue agent. Sure he did, and there is an easter bunny too.
137 - handyguy
Pablo, I regret for the sake of others reading this site that I bothered to answer you.
We [or at least I] will have to agree to disagree. I see no need to discuss it further with you.
I've seen The Power of Nightmares 4 or 5 times and I probably know as much or more about it than most other Americans. My interpretation is at least as valid as yours.
Plus I can spell and type.
138 - Roger Nowosielski
I didn't mean it that way, Dave (#135). Someone had "edited," and you "reedited."
139 - Roger Nowosielski
Thanks, Pablo (#136)
140 - pablo
Handguy RE 48 & 137
An interesting interpretation at best, followed by one of your usual derogatory remarks. Allow me to refresh your memory regarding what I was referring to, which is not a question of interpretation but what was said in the documentary The Power of Nighmares. On page 3 of the transcript is the following:
"VO: In January, 2001, a trial began in a Manhattan courtroom of four men accused of the embassy bombings in east Africa. But the Americans had also decided to prosecute bin Laden in his absence. But to do this under American law, the prosecutors needed evidence of a criminal organisation because, as with the Mafia, that would allow them to prosecute the head of the organisation even if he could not be linked directly to the crime. And the evidence for that organisation was provided for them by an ex-associate of bin Laden’s called Jamal al-Fadl.
JASON BURKE , AUTHOR, “AL QAEDA” : During the investigation of the 1998 bombings, there is a walk-in source, Jamal al-Fadl, who is a Sudanese militant who was with bin Laden in the early 90s, who has been passed around a whole series of Middle East secret services, none of whom want much to do with him, and who ends up in America and is taken on byâ€"uhâ€"the American government, effectively, as a key prosecution witness and is given a huge amount of American taxpayers’ money at the same time. And his account is used as raw material to build up a picture of Al Qaeda. The picture that the FBI want to build up is one that will fit the existing laws that they will have to use to prosecute those responsible for the bombing. Now, those laws were drawn up to counteract organised crime: the Mafia, drugs crime, crimes where people being a member of an organisation is extremely important. You have to have an organisation to get a prosecution. And you have al-Fadl and a number of other witness, a number of other sources, who are happy to feed into this. You’ve got material that, looked at in a certain way, can be seen to show this organisation’s existence. You put the two together and you get what is the first bin Laden mythâ€"the first Al Qaeda myth. And because it’s one of the first, it’s extremely influential."
This is very clear Handguy, and all I did was to ask your view on it, particularly since you liked the show so much, and seem to insist that alciada is an organic real group. Instead of offering me your views on alciada you evaded the question by using some bs on interpretation, followed by your mean statement to me. You must be taking lessons from the Dave Nalle school of political debate. It suits you even less than it does him btw.
see ya
wouldnt wanna be ya :)