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I think it was Ann Coulter who recently said that one thing Obama could do to keep Democrats from getting trounced in November would be to start a war with Iran.
I believe that was Sarah Palin, speaking to the Palinized.
Quote:
While Republicans are anxiously counting seats they plan to gain this fall, there is something in the air that is on every ones mind, how far will Obama be willing to go towards a confrontation with Iran.
Aah, republicans and their wet dreams. It is all about elections and regaining control, and waging wars to support the military industrial complex, do as Israel desires ("Gods chosen people"), even if it comes at the expense of alienating the rest of the world.
It ain't happening. Obama is far more conservative about his foreign policy than he gets credit for. He won't go about it unless Iran directly threatens America.
Even my dog knows better than Pat Buchanan, McConnell and Palin (or Coulter) that you don't attack a dog that just barks at you, unless...
We don't do long-term planning well because we don't have long-term administrations. Even when a President is fortunate enough to serve two terms, the administration's planning is hampered by vision that extends in 4-year increments.
And it makes our government and our society more reactive rather than proactive. Rather than envisioning the future we want, planning how to get there, and steadfastly sticking to the plan, we don't know how to wait for results. We are a nation that is constantly changing course, so it is no wonder that we sometimes seem to be lost.
Ok, you managed to place a detour sign between some neurons. Now I'm going to have to ponder this line of thought further. I mean Kennedy managed to at least get America to think a decade ahead, so I know it can be done. There is a lot to this, so I'll have to digest a while and get back with you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EinsteinsGhost
I believe that was Sarah Palin, speaking to the Palinized.
Aah, republicans and their wet dreams. It is all about elections and regaining control, and waging wars to support the military industrial complex, do as Israel desires ("Gods chosen people"), even if it comes at the expense of alienating the rest of the world.
It ain't happening. Obama is far more conservative about his foreign policy than he gets credit for. He won't go about it unless Iran directly threatens America.
Even my dog knows better than Pat Buchanan, McConnell and Palin (or Coulter) that you don't attack a dog that just barks at you, unless...
Palin, Coulter, Limbaugh, whomever... one of those shock jock types.
I wrote a whole thread several months prior to the election in which I stated the Obama was far more conservative than people were suggesting. Even the folks over at the American Conservative magazine dedicated a few articles to the subject of Obama's "conservatism compare to...."
Obama may be making the hard left spitting mad, he is positioning himself very center and on some issues right of center and pretty much removing the whole vein of soft on terrorism from the rights usual rhetoric. I mean people have started using the term George W Obama for pete sake and either they are saying Obama is right of where folks thought or George W Bush was in fact a leftist. (I think it is a little of both)
In any event, the issue of war with Iran has some very vocal proponents and media support. CNN, Fox, and even MSNBC to a lesser degree have "warned the public that civilization will end if we don't act right now". All they have done was change the Q to an N from the old graphics.
To be quite frank, I'm half grateful for this economic trouble we are having because I think it is a good part of the reason the bombs haven't been dropped yet.
Ok, you managed to place a detour sign between some neurons. Now I'm going to have to ponder this line of thought further. I mean Kennedy managed to at least get America to think a decade ahead, so I know it can be done. There is a lot to this, so I'll have to digest a while and get back with you.
Palin, Coulter, Limbaugh, whomever... one of those shock jock types.
I wrote a whole thread several months prior to the election in which I stated the Obama was far more conservative than people were suggesting. Even the folks over at the American Conservative magazine dedicated a few articles to the subject of Obama's "conservatism compare to...."
Obama may be making the hard left spitting mad, he is positioning himself very center and on some issues right of center and pretty much removing the whole vein of soft on terrorism from the rights usual rhetoric. I mean people have started using the term George W Obama for pete sake and either they are saying Obama is right of where folks thought or George W Bush was in fact a leftist. (I think it is a little of both)
In any event, the issue of war with Iran has some very vocal proponents and media support. CNN, Fox, and even MSNBC to a lesser degree have "warned the public that civilization will end if we don't act right now". All they have done was change the Q to an N from the old graphics.
To be quite frank, I'm half grateful for this economic trouble we are having because I think it is a good part of the reason the bombs haven't been dropped yet.
If Obama starts a war with Iran, like Bush he'll make up a really great excuse or his minions will doctor up some "evidence". Liberals will be mad, but who else are they going to vote for? Obama and the Dems believe they will gain more moderate/leftist RINO votes than lose stay-at-home-on-election-day liberal votes. Some liberals might even try to convince themselves the evidence is substantiated. Even one poster on this thread said "Obama should only go into Iran if there is UN cooperation". Already we're seeing the Obama-bots warm up to the idea under certain conditions, like a frog in boiling water.
If Obama starts a war with Iran, like Bush he'll make up a really great excuse or his minions will doctor up some "evidence". Liberals will be mad, but who else are they going to vote for? Obama and the Dems believe they will gain more moderate/leftist RINO votes than lose stay-at-home-on-election-day liberal votes. Some liberals might even try to convince themselves the evidence is substantiated. Even one poster on this thread said "Obama should only go into Iran if there is UN cooperation". Already we're seeing the Obama-bots warm up to the idea under certain conditions, like a frog in boiling water.
I expect many on the left to rationalize the case for war, just as those allegedly fiscal conservatives rationalized it on the right. To me, this is little more than partisan party politics, support your guy no matter what type of mentality.
I shudder at the thought of some pencil pushing geek in the basement of the Treasury running upstairs and saying, "I've crunched the numbers for the 10th time and there is no way to improve our economic situation". Giving rise to the scapegoat of war. We had to go to Iran and that is also why our economy sucks so bad, but we had to go.
The failure of both political party establishments to make a central point of how costly our wars actually are. We seem to have this disconnect that the only money we are wasting is on things like new health care programs, stimulus, bail outs etc... while everyone ignores the massive expense of our foreign policy in both economic terms as well as our national credibility.
As far as boiling frogs slowly, well, after witnessing how we ended up in Iraq, absolutely nothing would surprise me as an excuse to enter into another. People who fell for that line will just as easily fall for another.
Ok, you managed to place a detour sign between some neurons. Now I'm going to have to ponder this line of thought further. I mean Kennedy managed to at least get America to think a decade ahead, so I know it can be done. There is a lot to this, so I'll have to digest a while and get back with you.
.
I think you have to consider in this detour how much faster we live today than we did in the 1960's. One of the characteristics of the industrial revolution was that the pace of discovery and innovation increased at a startling rate. The technological revolution now makes that pace of discovery and innovation look like a blind slug feeling its way up Mt Everest. My great-grandmother owned one washing machine her entire life. My grandmother had three. My great-grandmother never lived more than 150 miles from her birthplace. I bring these points up because things we do in one aspect of our lives bleeds into others. We talk about Americans having a consumer economy, and about the nature of consumerism. Consumerism isn't separate from the rest of our lives. When you toss out appliances rather than repairing them, when you think each year you have to buy a new wardrobe, when you trade in your car for a new one just because you don't want to drive an old car around, when you have to update your phone, your computer, your TV, your stereo system every year, you become accustomed to changing things in a way that we didn't in the 1960's.
And when change becomes the norm in the everyday details of your life, it changes the way you see the world. There is a social scientist, his name will come to me, who classifies motivation in terms of achievement, affiliation or power, and who studied countries to see if the motivation characteristics were national characteristics as well. And his study revealed at the time that as a country, the United States fit the achievement motivation profile, while some Northern European countries fit the power motivation, and many third world countries were motivated by the affiliative motivation. I think it would be interesting to see how that has changed, because I suspected then, that affiliation motives might be related to an inability to control the changes in the world around you. When changes accelerate, so that even the most advanced countries can no longer anticipate changes, does the motivation profile of even the most advanced countries shift to affiliation? Is that part of what we are seeing in our country today? The tea party movement, the climate change denial, the short-term thinking? Affiliation is a strategy to deal with the unpredictable, isn't it?
I think you have to consider in this detour how much faster we live today than we did in the 1960's. One of the characteristics of the industrial revolution was that the pace of discovery and innovation increased at a startling rate. The technological revolution now makes that pace of discovery and innovation look like a blind slug feeling its way up Mt Everest. My great-grandmother owned one washing machine her entire life. My grandmother had three. My great-grandmother never lived more than 150 miles from her birthplace. I bring these points up because things we do in one aspect of our lives bleeds into others. We talk about Americans having a consumer economy, and about the nature of consumerism. Consumerism isn't separate from the rest of our lives. When you toss out appliances rather than repairing them, when you think each year you have to buy a new wardrobe, when you trade in your car for a new one just because you don't want to drive an old car around, when you have to update your phone, your computer, your TV, your stereo system every year, you become accustomed to changing things in a way that we didn't in the 1960's.
And when change becomes the norm in the everyday details of your life, it changes the way you see the world. There is a social scientist, his name will come to me, who classifies motivation in terms of achievement, affiliation or power, and who studied countries to see if the motivation characteristics were national characteristics as well. And his study revealed at the time that as a country, the United States fit the achievement motivation profile, while some Northern European countries fit the power motivation, and many third world countries were motivated by the affiliative motivation. I think it would be interesting to see how that has changed, because I suspected then, that affiliation motives might be related to an inability to control the changes in the world around you. When changes accelerate, so that even the most advanced countries can no longer anticipate changes, does the motivation profile of even the most advanced countries shift to affiliation? Is that part of what we are seeing in our country today? The tea party movement, the climate change denial, the short-term thinking? Affiliation is a strategy to deal with the unpredictable, isn't it?
I see two distinct themes, both of which qualify for some excellent abstract discussion on each count.
As to this applies to a consistent version of US foreign policy, I honestly shudder to think.
Ultimately, Bacevich eschews the partisanship of current debate about American foreign policy as short-sighted and ahistorical. Instead of blaming only one President (or his advisors) for contemporary policies, Bacevich sees both Republicans and Democrats as sharing responsibility for policies which may not be in the nation's best interest.
In March 2003, at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bacevich wrote in The Los Angeles Times that "if, as seems probable, the effort encounters greater resistance than its architects imagine, our way of life may find itself tested in ways that will make the Vietnam War look like a mere blip in American history."
On a slight detour of the detour... A discussion on Bacevich's views on foreign policy led me to Reinhold Niebuhr, a person he quotes on several occasions and suggest being one of the most important philosophers of our day. I think Obama and McCain both have cited him. In any event, after a cursory look at the man, 'change' is the first thing that comes to mind when discussing his life.
The study you mention reminds me of someone who personified other nations as a means of characterization. The premise being, that human beings conceptualize 'personalities' far easier that raw statistical data and game theory like information. After some analysis, it was found to be surprisingly accurate and while national personalities changed in time with changing government officials, cultural dynamics, economics, etc... they changed over all at a much slower pace.
However, this is a hearty meal for the mind and in order to give it due justice, I'll have to get my mind around it a little better and start a new thread. Ah, how I love a good steak.
*Sigh* When will we ever learn just why so much of the rest of the world hates us? Starting a war to boost political popularity- seriously? It's that kind of self-centeredness and lack of concern for other nations and people in other nations that puts us on that hated list by so many out there in the world! Bush learned this the hard way (OK, he never actually comprehended it but it was right there in his face) and I'll be livid if Obama makes the same stupid moves with Iran.
*Sigh* When will we ever learn just why so much of the rest of the world hates us? Starting a war to boost political popularity- seriously? It's that kind of self-centeredness and lack of concern for other nations and people in other nations that puts us on that hated list by so many out there in the world! Bush learned this the hard way (OK, he never actually comprehended it but it was right there in his face) and I'll be livid if Obama makes the same stupid moves with Iran.
Don't wait for Obama to make a stupid move, act now with just a few moments of your time.
Let your representatives know how you feel while they are out floating this balloon and fingering the winds of public opinion.
On a slight detour of the detour... A discussion on Bacevich's views on foreign policy led me to Reinhold Niebuhr, a person he quotes on several occasions and suggest being one of the most important philosophers of our day. I think Obama and McCain both have cited him. In any event, after a cursory look at the man, 'change' is the first thing that comes to mind when discussing his life.
The study you mention reminds me of someone who personified other nations as a means of characterization. The premise being, that human beings conceptualize 'personalities' far easier that raw statistical data and game theory like information. After some analysis, it was found to be surprisingly accurate and while national personalities changed in time with changing government officials, cultural dynamics, economics, etc... they changed over all at a much slower pace.
However, this is a hearty meal for the mind and in order to give it due justice, I'll have to get my mind around it a little better and start a new thread. Ah, how I love a good steak.
It's McClellan motivational theory system I'm thinking of.
*Sigh* When will we ever learn just why so much of the rest of the world hates us? Starting a war to boost political popularity- seriously? It's that kind of self-centeredness and lack of concern for other nations and people in other nations that puts us on that hated list by so many out there in the world! Bush learned this the hard way (OK, he never actually comprehended it but it was right there in his face) and I'll be livid if Obama makes the same stupid moves with Iran.
Are you being serious?
Obama wouldnt start a war to boost political popularity. Hed start a war against Iran (hopefully) to wipe their nuclear program off the face of the earth. Do you seriously not know how big of a threat Ahmadinejad is? I suggest you really spend some time researching that madman. Dont think for one second that he wouldnt hesitate selling a nuke to a terrorist network, who in turn would use it on us. Your neighbors. Your friends. Your family. One nuke launched into this country would cripple it beyond belief. Think of what 9-11 did to the world and our economy. Now multiply the damage 10,000 times, maybe more. The world economy would collapse, the US economy would collapse even further, radioactive waste would pollute a large area, etc. If you think the world is hurting now, imagine what a nuke going of in NYC would do to the world's economy. Its no joke.
You truly dont understand Islamic militants/hardliners. They PRAY for our destruction on a daily basis. They even do it here in our own country. Theyll get a nuke, theyll use it. Its best to stop them now before its too late. And to think Obama would start a war for a popularity boost is assinine.
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