From across the lake, the Madison skyline seemed to project a memory of the lost New York City skyline.
September 11, 2010
A reflected memory.
From across the lake, the Madison skyline seemed to project a memory of the lost New York City skyline.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 237 of 237Sixty Grit,
There's been a powerful change in attitude. Suddenly, Americans are emerging from their stupor - due in part to the Cordoba mosque at Ground Zero and its defeatist supporters, and the blind vilification of Reverend Jones.
For a week now I've been hearing it even in casual conversations, the formerly resigned now speaking like war mongers. Americans have finally realized we've been living on borrowed time, thanks to 9 years of appeasement.
And I believe the breaking point came when Imam Rauf appeared on CNN and threatened full-scale retaliation if prevented from building his mosque.
Brace up, the war has just begun.
Mike, in your view, what is the purpose of news media and what role is it supposed serve in a democracy? Is it supposed to cover up events and activities that challenge the ruling elite's claim to uncorrupted administration of power?
Seriously.
How much information regarding Abu Ghraib should NYT have, er, censored - in what unfortunately seems to be your somewhat militaristic understanding of a free society?
I saw the second tower struck live and could not believe it at first-- how was this possible to record the event, but no interceptors to stop it? I think we all could taste the debris and smoke from the burning pyre as it curled down the streets out of the screen and into our homes;it was a bitter taste. But the more I learned more about Atta and the others ,who seemed more like a pick-up team that got lucky, than a country, the more I questioned the tin cry of war and the hype of fear. It seems that smart strikes against this small minority of terrorist, have reduced Osama to hiding in a cave, and his followers to wearing explosives in their underwear. To call this a war gives to much power to a cripple in a cave.
@Beth, I find it impossible to accept that there were no fundraisers scheduled by Democrats today. Ergo, I think the names "Beck" and "Palin" had a lot more to do with your uneasiness than the fact that politicians and political commentators were conducting a fundraiser.
It always hits me that we were so lucky "only" 3,000 were killed. It could easily have been 30,000.
Religious fanaticism tends to burn itself out, and hopefully there won't be a muslim version of the Soviet Empire still fighting us when it does.
Or the 30 Years War of the 16th century, for that matter.
17th century: 1618-48.
Big Mike,
From what I see after a quick search, there's a Dem Senate candidate in Ohio holding a fundraiser tonight, too. He's appearing at a memorial earlier in the day. He ought to leave it at that and campaign tomorrow, I agree. That too strikes me as crass. Since I'm not following Ohio politics, and he's no national celebrity, I haven't paid attention to him.
Mike, in your view, what is the purpose of news media and what role is it supposed serve in a democracy? Is it supposed to cover up events and activities that challenge the ruling elite's claim to uncorrupted administration of power?
I have no problem with a news media that exposes information that the allegedly "ruling elite" wishes weren't exposed.
I have a great deal of problem with a news media that cooperates with a Democrat administration in burying information that the administration wishes to have buried, and which correspondingly overplays events that are embarrassing to Republican administrations. That is news as propaganda.
I have trouble with a news media that doesn't feel that it has to fact-check information that reflects badly on Republicans, but is oh so very careful with information that reflects badly on Democrats. That is news as propaganda.
I have trouble with a news media that publishes made-up "facts" as though they were real.
I have trouble with a news media that distorts statistics to minimize data that is embarrassing to Democrats and/or to suggest that data which is friendly to Republicans is actually unfriendly to Republicans.
I have trouble with a news media that credulously publishes junk science.
Any other foolish questions, foolish one?
@Beth, I'm really surprised that there aren't more fundraisers going on, given that this is a Saturday and it's less than two months to the election.
Any other foolish questions, foolish one?
Yes. Why do you have a problem with everything Fox News does, but only when you accuse the NYT of doing it?
I'm really surprised that there aren't more fundraisers going on, given that this is a Saturday and it's less than two months to the election.
Oh Mike. Any bit of speculation to deny that Garage Mahal might have had a point will do, right?
Any bit of speculation to deny that Garage Mahal might have had a point will do, right?
The only point garage has is the one on top of his pointy little head.
God, angrily clarifies "don't kill" rule
There's the integrity, Mike.
Beth said: "That too strikes me as crass."
So you fail to acknowledge that Beck donating the proceeds to charity isn't crass. Good to see you're sticking to your guns despite the introduction of contradictory information your reflexive bullshit.
Ritmo,
Ahhh, good to come back to see you back your usual form of inundating the thread with pretentious, pseudo-intellectual bullshit. And then you top it off with a disingenuous call for peace after your usual leftist projection thinly disguised as your usual juvenile rant against the right.
Didn't want to answer the war profiteer question eh? I wouldn't either, since your non-argument hinges on it.
I see you haven't given up on your Sean Hannity impersonations, GMay.
What a muckraker that Hannity is. Such an inspiration to aspiring young propagandists like GMay!
Seriously, though. You might want to actually try bringing forth an argument of your own before opining on what constitutes one. Despite what Rush led you to believe, journalism ain't all just about bombast and name-calling, you know.
Ask O'Reilly. He's actually won a Peabody award. Or was it a Polk award?
"Brace up, the war has just begun."
No, it hasn't.
But, assuming the two catastrophic criminal wars of mass murders we've been fighting these last years aren't enough to make you sick of war, (or just to make you sick), if you want more: more deaths, more destruction, more torture, more waste of money we don't have to continue the killing...you are seriously ill.
But then...I guess I can't be surprised. It seems a good number of ignorant and deluded Americans think a resolutely middle of the road mediocre Bush-lite is a foreign-born, America-hating, non-citizen usurper of the throne--er, the White House, who is determined to visit socialism/communism/sharia law on this blessed land of red-blooded, shit-brained dicks.
Why should the open lust for more mass murder and devastation surprise me?
... journalism ain't all just about bombast and name-calling, you know.
You might wish to point that out to Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, the editorial staff of the Times, the editorial staff of the Washington Post, etc.
You picked the fight with us, not us with you. Now eat your vegetables like a good little boy.
Almost Ali -- I sent your link to some family and friends today. A couple sent their thanks....
Here is one response:
Thanks for sending this. One of the most beautiful and moving presentations I have ever seen. As you may know, my Office of Naval Intelligence Department lost 9 of our co-workers when the aircraft hit the Pentagon. The memories of that day, 9 years later, are still indelibly engraved in my memory and always will be.
Bill
@Robert, it still hasn't dawned on you that you are a parasite? To paraphrase Orwell, you are only alive because only because rough men stand ready to do violence on to keep you alive.
"How much information regarding Abu Ghraib should NYT have, er, censored - in what unfortunately seems to be your somewhat militaristic understanding of a free society?"
What they chose to *censor* was any indication of the truth that the Army had the events under investigation long prior to the pictures being released by, IIRC, the family member of one of the guilty parties who committed the offenses and took the pictures. The family member was trying to put the blame on the military to get some of it off the sadistic soldier WHO WAS ALREADY INVESTIGATED BY THE ARMY... again, IIRC.
Instead what we got was "Brave New York Times Journalists Break News of Army Scandal."
On the scale of "journalism" this ranks right up there with the National Inquirer running "Rachelle Welch Nude Photo Scandal" while reporting that someone photoshopped her onto a nude body. (Which one of the tabloids did do... I remember it.)
Blackfive did a list of Abu Ghraib myths, about the timeline, who was involved, etc. Anyone not a compulsive consumer of military blogs WAS NOT INFORMED.
What I would like the NYTimes to do, Ritmo, isn't to censor the news, but to actually tell the news - to tell the truth.
Why are folks continuing to play with this . . . stuff?
The ONLY thing to do with it is to flush it down the toilet, not to pull it out of the bowl and play with it.
To paraphrase Orwell, you are only alive because only because rough men stand ready to do violence on to keep you alive.
And to paraphrase what Orwell would have said to fascists and others on the right today, the only reason their society is free and worth defending in the first place is that there are people around to question what society and the conservative establishment blindly accepts as if it were merely a continuum of the fictional, transcendent one-truth that they constantly fantasize about.
It's not a one-way relationship, Mike. Big Big Mike. BIIIIG MIKE. John Locke was not a conservative and without him the tradition of political freedom as a moral imperative in the West would not exist. Locke changed everything and the political tradition he founded is still alive and well in all that you loathe about America. The conservatives are in denial about this. But during the Revolution, they would have preferred the status quo of remaining good Tories and allied with King George - as did a third of Colonial society. What indeed would conservatives have conserved if it were not the relationship with Britain as it stood?
I'm sure you'll imagine some way to deny this or avoid addressing it, of course. I know how painfully it gets in the way of your simple-minded and insanely politicized understanding of right and wrong. If only history and reality could change to fit what you'd like to believe about morality, Mike. If only.
The shorter way of explaining this is to note that Mike would prefer a rule where respect for the military is the highest value, but where any questioning of the status quo is seen as dangerous. In other words, a junta. Juntas have devolved into proper democracies before, but not by themselves. They can just as easily be used to enforce a police state. But when they do successfully devolve, it's usually into something necessarily more liberal.
There's nothing free about life in a junta.
Mike can take his "Love My Junta" attitude and be reminded that freedom might be defended by the military, but not created by it. Not by a long shot. It's created by the people who question authority, and not by those who love it, admire the discipline, structure and absolutist thinking it provides, and pine for it in so many institutions outside the military to which it is not at all suited.
The truth, Synova, is that torture was authorized at the highest levels and that there is nothing wrong or inherently illegitimate in its interpretation as a contravention of the Geneva Conventions.
You note one, single "sadistic soldier" in the scandal of Abu Ghraib. This is false.
As for the rest of what you write, I'll believe it when you tell me how military blogs accounted for the outrageous death (if that's a strong enough word) of Pat Tillman, its horrible cover-up and subsequent fictionalization to suit the shameless exploitation of someone who died under circumstances shadier than an erased figure in a Stalin-era photograph.
Anyway, national independence is what the military defends. Not freedom.
Name me one junta where the objective was widespread personal freedom, rather than freedom for the military or their powerful allies in charge of the state.
Countries made famous by the dictatorships they instituted under military rule include North Korea and Iraq under Saddam Hussein.
Very martial values. Instilled into every citizen as the essence of patriotism.
Mike would love it.
You are an idiot, Ritmo.
Do you really think that Tillman was assassinated? Bottom line, that's the only alternative to friendly fire. Are you sure that's going to support the veracity of your claims on the unrelated thing we were actually discussing? That's in "Obama isn't a citizen" or "Sarah Palin's uterus" territory you know. Almost up there with "fire doesn't melt steel" or "no one noticed a hundred men hauling tons of explosives up the freight elevators, attaching them to walls and running all the detonations wires under the desks in the World Trade Center" territory.
Do you really think that the order to put a dog collar on a prisoner or any of the mistreatment of general criminals, not even persons of interest, was ordered at the highest levels to be carried out, unsupervised, by enlisted? The mistreatment had been (rightly) reported, an investigation well underway, and some of those responsible had been arrested before the thrill-photographs were even given to the press.
But that would ruin the "Press as Heroic Hero" narrative, wouldn't it.
I suppose next you're going to suggest that the General (now Colonel) in charge of the prison and the operations there was scapegoated because "orders from the top" went right around her to the lowest enlisted in her command? When the truth was, she was a peacetime administrator and her war time command was a mess from top to bottom with a reputation for never seeing her, not ever, and generally being left to try to function without leadership?
But she's a hero... went on the talk show circuit to complain about her mistreatment and how everyone was picking on her and all the bad stuff she knew about happening in Iraq and, as an Army General, was entirely helpless to do anything about.
I always figured that was pretty much an admission of guilt... I knew a woman died of dehydration because she didn't dare pee at night, "And I did nothing." I knew about rapes, "And I did nothing." I knew I had a prison I was supposed to be responsible for, "And I did nothing."
"And then those meanies demoted me to Colonel and cashiered me."
Makes me ashamed to be female.
Robert Cook said...
Why should the open lust for more mass murder and devastation surprise me?
Maybe this will help.
And this: Islam, a primer.
...
"On September 1, 2004, [Muslims] stormed a school in Beslan, Russia, and perpetrated one of the most heinous terror attacks in history. Though many people may have heard of this attack, it is very likely that most do not know what really happened there. The reality is so dark that few dare speak of what went on."
...
"One by one, females were targeted. The sex killers looked for the perfect victims, and after zeroing in, they grabbed and disrobed the little girls in the middle of the gym. There were muffled cries as the girls were humiliated in front of everyone. They were stripped, raped, and sodomized by several men. Not content to simply rape, the terrorists used their guns and other objects to penetrate the screaming victims while the other hostages were forced to watch. And the terrorists laughed. They laughed as they violated the children and made them bleed. What few people know is that some of the girls died as a result of being raped with objects. The internal damage was so severe that without immediate medical attention, the girls bled to death."
What it means to be a Muslim:
"Of course every culture produces rapists and child molesters, but in non-Muslim societies these are usually isolated loners. In contrast, Muslim rapists and pedophiles are well-organised and these predators often hunt their prey in rape-gangs in a tradition of Muslim razzia going back to the 'prophet'. The reason for this cultural difference is that pedophilia and rape are abhorrent in civilised societies, but are socially acceptable to Muslim communities because the perps are dutifully following Mohammed's example - and Mohammed is the 'Perfect Man' . Kuffar women and children (uncovered meat) are there for the taking.
From the days of Prophet Muhammad, sexual terror has been an integral part of Islamic Jihad. The siege of the Beslan School by Islamic Jihadis in 2004 was no exception.
Child-rape, as well as being a permitted means of satisfying the jihadists' religiously repressed lusts, also degrades, violates and humiliates the hated 'najis kafir' children and their parents, thus asserting the supremacy of Islam and Muslims. Forcing them to drink urine reinforces their filthy 'najis' status , as does feeding their minced up flesh to other unwitting kafirs..."
Link
Who knows what really happened to Tillman? Does his family? Does the military? Given the sheer number of details that they've concealed and claimed not to remember, how do you know what they do or do not continue to refuse to release? Have you looked at the lack of closure the military's afforded them? Have you been able to account for the following details, which the army won't:
There has never been evidence of enemy fire found on the scene, and no members of Tillman's group had been hit by enemy fire.
The three-star general, who withheld details of Tillman's death from his parents for a number of months, told investigators that he (the general) had a bad memory, and could not recall details of his actions on more than 70 occasions.
Army attorneys congratulated each other in emails for impeding criminal investigation as they concluded Tillman's death was the result of friendly fire, and that only administrative, or non-criminal, punishment was indicated.
Army doctors told the investigators that these wounds suggested murder and urged them to launch a criminal investigation.
It has been revealed that there were never-before-mentioned US snipers in the second group that had encountered Tillman's squad.
You don't need to be insulting. That's not the way I spoke to you.
Big Mike gives unwarranted credit to our military machine:
"To paraphrase Orwell, you are only alive because only because rough men stand ready to do violence on to keep you alive."
Nope, not at all. I was born post-WWII, the only foreign war in our nation's history that could be said to be a necessary war, a war of defense of our country, of Western Civilization.
No war we have fought in my lifetime, not one, has been necessary, or has done the slightest thing to protect my life...or yours.
Libtard: No war we have fought in my lifetime, not one, has been necessary, or has done the slightest thing to protect my life...or yours.
No way you could know that, even ignoring the fact that you dont know what you are talking about.
Shorter Robert: "no need for a fire department, the city has never been at risk of burning down..."
Leftists. They really are this stupid.
"Shorter Robert: 'no need for a fire department, the city has never been at risk of burning down...'"
Not analogous at all. While it's very unlikely an entire city will burn down, buildings burn do down in every city every day.
However, we were never at any threat by the Koreans, or the Vietnamese, or the Iraqis, or the Afghans, or any of the other peoples we've made war against for our own purposes, (customarily, access to resources and land...as has been the case historically when nations go to war).
No war we have fought in my lifetime, not one, has been necessary, or has done the slightest thing to protect my life...or yours.
You, sir, are a fool or a liar.
Or both.
Ritmo,
Sorry, my computer crashed, so I missed giving you a timely response and now the thread is long dead.
But perhaps when you put up your own substantive argument, you'll get one from me. Since all you put up are the ramblings of the silly little caricatured hobgoblins running around in your mind (4 conservative pundits you apparently listen to more than I since I listen to none of them), there's little to rebut.
Of course there are the detailed and lengthy arguments I've given you that you conveniently ignore, but that's another story.
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