1. One of the things he did after college was "a carpentry business with a few other guys in New York":
It was called Creative Carpentry, and [an old friend] says that it was accurately named: “They advertised in the Village Voice, but didn’t know much about carpentry. They’d go to the hardware store to buy supplies, and ask the clerk how to do the repairs they’d been hired to do.”2. When Sanders was in his 30s, he bought land in Vermont, and "sometimes camped out in the new property’s only shelter: a maple-sugar shack."
He had devised his own equivalent of Sterno, which his friends dubbed Berno. “It was a roll of toilet paper soaked in lighter fluid inside a coffee can,” [the old friend] said. “He’d cook over that.”
Posts
137 comments:
Free Shit!!!!!
Morons.
What, exactly, is the style Althouse discerns in the cited exerpts: "Make it up as we go along"?
"How, exactly, does Bernie Sanders intend to run the country?"
Short answer: badly.
Long answer: like a socialist. Like any socialist.
See the illustration that goes with the story.
Egg-breaking for Lenin's omelette begins on day 1.
So, making it up as he goes along. Got it.
#1 sums it up.............that to me is a classic.
Re #1: I bet they actually tried stealing the supplies first.
Many years ago, I was working the midnight shift. I had one other guy working with me. He was "Democrat lite" I like to say.
One night, we are watching the news and here comes Hurricane Katrina up from Cancun Mexico. A few days later and destruction and rumors are everywhere. My partner on the midnight shift says to me, "This is stupid. If I were running things, we'd go down there and fix it. In a week, it'd all be fixed."
I said, "How would you do that?"
His answer was, "With all the money and power of the government? We'd just do it!"
Bernie Sanders strikes me as that type of guy. He thinks things just happen as long as he says for them to happen, even though he's been in the government all these years. He's convinced himself that things don't happen because Republicans. But if he gets the Presidency, why, things will happen! Because he will say so.
Step 1: Raise taxes and start handing out free stuff.
Step 2: Blame the bad economy on the free market. Start taking peoples stuff to pay the bills.
Step 3: Blame the free market for the bad economy then start printing money to pay the bills.
Step 4: Beg people to come back. Blame the problems on them when they don't. Print some more money.
Step 5: Blame the world economy for your problems and demand transfer payments from countries that don't take their peoples stuff.
Step 6: Run out of toilet paper.
This has happened in a dozen countries just in the last few decades. Not hard to predict.
The last time major world governments were organized by the recommendations of a Jewish Socialist, we ended up with Bolshvism, Nazism, and a hundred million dead.
Sometimes I think that Karl Marx's evilness outweighs the tremendous positive contributions that Jews have otherwise made to civilization over the past hundred plus years.
I of course left out that they have to disarm the populace. It is way easier to nationalize an economy and take peoples stuff when they don't have guns.
Model ourselves after those wonderful Northern European countries..without embracing our oil rich potential like they have.
Smell what the Berno is cooking...
Bernie's plan? Let's wing it.
Igor Shafarevich wrote The Socialist Phenomenon (with forward written by Alexander Solzhenitsyn). All the basic principles of socialist ideology derive from the urge to suppress individuality. He identified the three persistent abolition themes in socialism - the abolition of private property, the abolition of the family, and the abolition of religion. We have seen this played out many times before. Bernie Sanders is an idiot.
Karl Marx had nothing to do with Judaism. He turned away from God deliberately and completely. If a Christian proclaims himself to be an atheist is he still considered a Christian? I don't think so.
College students generally grow up after years out in the real world. Sadly, lefties seem to cling to their college fantasies. Evil rich, evil business people, tax the snot out of everybody, mother earth is our god (small g), government will save us .... Bernie's platform.
As an aside, is Bernie too cheap the get a haircut? Barbers are working class.
R. Chatt..
'Crude may return to speak for him/her self..but I suspect he's referring to "Jew" in the cultural/ancestral sense...not whether he was practicing Judaism. A distinction fully embraced by many "Jews".
Walter- thank you.
R Chatt- I read the New Yorker article. Bernie is a cultural Jew, not religious/observant. Bernie has not deliberately turned away from Judaism the way Karl did, but they both come from the same tradition, and they both believe that they and a small group of elites know better than the masses how to run the lives of the masses.
Historically, that leads to gonocide.
It takes a crazy person with a gun to kill a few dozen people. We call that intolerable.
It takes a government to kill millions or tens of millions.
Another one of Karl's followers called that a statistic.
As per Crude Marx is the evil genius Jew genius who is directly responsible for the actions of his fellow Jews: Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, the Kims and the rest of the lesser Communist dictators. They were brainwashed into blindly following Marx, they are to be held blameless for their enthrallment. The things one learns from the comments on this blog. Next he will explain how the Nationalist Socialists and the Fascists are also spinoffs of the Jew Marx and that Hitler and Mussolini were also Jews.
We have three presidential candidates who present as "outsiders": Sanders, Trump, and Fiorina. Sanders isn't as much an outsider as the others, because he's served in the Senate for many years. Still, in the unlikely event that Trump or Fiorina were elected president, I'm pretty confident he/she would have a program in place to commence on inauguration day -- not necessarily a good program, but a program. I'm fairly confident that Trump or Fiorina would adjust his/her program if it weren't working. Still not necessarily a good program. In the case of Sanders, if he's REALLY a socialist and not just a liberal pretending to be a socialist, then he'll certainly have a program, but not one that would be likely to be adopted by Congress (and I doubt that he has the balls to carry out the executive action approach that Obama has used in his lame duck years). I think anyone who feels kindly toward Bernie should vote against him to save him from colliding with reality.
Sanders has no intention of running anything
" "With all the money and power of the government? We'd just do it!"
This reminds me of a crazy lefty medical student I had on my service in the late 60s, when the goofy lefties got to medical school. I have a number of stories but this one is about this kid who was hanging around the ward when a friend came by to tell us he had just been through the oral exams for his internal medicine board exam. The examiner met him right after lunch, asked what he had had and then, as his oral exam, said "Tell me about the digestion and assimilation of that meal."
We were all commiserating with Earl about the tough question when the student piped up and said, "What's so hard about that ?"
He had no idea about digestion, absorption or metabolism and he was fourth year. Bernie 50 years later.
I think the orals have been really dumbed down since then, of course.
The same student did a history and physical on a patient coming in for an aortic valve replacement and then announced he wanted to do the surgery. When we told him that medical students didn't do open heart surgery, he went in and told the patient not to have the surgery.
It was a wild time.
Cubanbob-
Nice try.
I don't think Marx (or Bernie) brainwashed anyone. The vast majority of Bernie's followers are nominal Christians who follow no religious path.
Lenin is the only one on your list who did not have the opportunity of learning from history, to put it charitably. More realistically, they just did not care how many eggs they broke in trying to make their socialist omelettes.
I don't think that Bernie's followers want to pursue outcomes like those of the other guys you mentioned.
It's just that that is the way it always ends up. Millions of deaths, misery for the surviving kulaks/proles/peasants, and limousines and dachas for the leaders and their favored friends.
Because they know better.
Oppo research from Hillary timed for release right before the first debate.
Thanks MSM for doing Hillary's work for her!
One of the things he did after college was "a carpentry business with a few other guys in New York":
It was called Creative Carpentry, and [an old friend] says that it was accurately named: “They advertised in the Village Voice, but didn’t know much about carpentry. They’d go to the hardware store to buy supplies, and ask the clerk how to do the repairs they’d been hired to do.”
Well, that certainly is creative.
As we all know, it's much easier to tear down a house than to build one. Sanders will simply start tearing down the American house it took 200 years to build. For Leftists, that's a feature of their policies, not a bug.
I don't know why Althouse is skeptical of Sanders. Didn't he show more grit and creativity than Obama? If she's gonna tag Sanders as "skeptical" then, as a member of the revisionist party, shouldn't she find all the Obama tags and add the skeptical tag?
There's no skeptical tag on this post.
Skeptical is on the next post.
We can get a glimpse of what Bernie Sanders would do from his casual observation that "we don't need 23 choices of deodorant". He thinks that we can save money and use it in better ways if we limit the number of choices of various products that consumers can choose among.
The trouble is that we wouldn't. What I remember from the era of Nixon's price controls is that we'd spend much more (as in much, much more) first in establishing a bureaucracy to evaluate how many choices of deodorant we truly need (and I'll bet that it's more than 23) and monitoring to see to it that some pharmacy in the boondocks of Montana doesn't stock an unapproved choice. Then we'd spend money lobbying and litigation as companies try to argue that their brand ought to be included because there's some way in which it's special and distinct from the others. That's money that could go to finding cheaper and better ways to eliminate BO in favor of wining and dining Congresspeople and paying lawyers.
So Bernie S. is BS, and his ideas stink worse than underarm odor.
Crude just what is it you are getting at? Bernie's fans are no different than any of the fans of the others that I mentioned, they all want something for nothing-you know that classic M-TV song "Money for nothing and chicks for free". They don't give a crap how many eggs get smashed as long as it isn't them and theirs getting smashed. Here's a tip: Marx didn't invent that con. That's one of the oldest cons ever. Marx prettified up a bit but there is nothing really new to the con that he added. And all of those boys I mentioned understood one thing really well, the con is a fantastic way of getting power and keeping it. What is stinky is your insinuation that the con is a Jewish invention and by inference Jews are the master con men. Its an equal opportunity con, a con practiced in some form or another by almost all ethnic groups and proponents of the various religions. Ask His Holiness The Pope. He is in favor of income redistribution and that requires State force. In your worldview that would make him a Jew as well. Imagine that, the head of the Catholic Church is a Jew.
If it came down to Bernie or Hillary, I know which I would choose. Bernie has actually had an executive role back when he was Mayor of Burlington. It was from soon before I lived there, but by all accounts, he got the job done. Hillary had executive positions in the health care task force and as Sec. of State--she failed miserably at both. As for the socialist bit, I don't think he is any more (or less) socialist than Hillary, just more honest about it.
Just about every Republican running would be preferable to either of them, but if a Democrat gets in, Bernie will do less damage than the amoral and incompetent Hillary.
How would the Bern govern? Just look to Venezuela over the past 10 years. 1st dramatically increase social spending (free stuff) then bail when you can't pay for it. Oh shit, that's what Obama has done
Ann to answer your question Sanders intends to run the country with magical thinking and cargo cultism. The schmuck actually believes in what he is saying. His followers are also magical thinkers and cargo cultists. I need. I want. I'm owed. You owe me. The only difference between Sanders and the other Democrats is not only is he sincere in what he believes and is open about it. Naturally if actually elected (God forbid) then he will either become a Obama/Clinton and use the power of the State to implement his utopia despite the resistance of the wreckers with that as a justification or just do nothing as he faces resistance from the sober and sane.
And then there's this.
Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true
Feel the Bern!
"How, exactly, does Shithead intend to run the country?"
Borrow and steal. The same as all Democrats.
Dear WTI:
I'm one of the 23% or whatever of American Jews who votes Republican. Thanks for the sick taste in my mouth, buddy. Should I off myself, or just head for Israel to go with the rest of my kind when you betray us to the Arabs for a bowl of soup?
It's been said that only four hundred families in this country run it. What percentage of that number do you think are Jews, or were a hundred years ago? How many of our Presidents have been Jews? How many non-Jews have been tyrants? How many Jews have been killed by tyrants?
WTI, WTF are you saying, and who do you think you're talking to? For the record my father and my grandfathers were in the Army. My mother's father was at Normandy. I don't know if anybody was in the military back in Eastern Europe. I hope not, you would have had to be insane to allow your sons to join the Russian Army.
If you made these remarks in my presence I would slap your face. Then I'd wait to see what guys with big hats from Texas do when New York Jews slap them in the face.
Not actually because I am so angry, but because there are things you should think about before you say.
...
TL;DR: Fuck you.
@Nichevo:
How can an American Jew be betrayed "to the Arabs?"
"How can an American Jew be betrayed "to the Arabs?""
Same as the rest of us: hope and change.
I'm one of the 23% or whatever of American Jews who votes Republican.
Buy a rifle.
Buy a handgun.
Buy ammunition.
Buy several bags of rice.
Live like a Mormon.
"Us" in this case would then be me in Israel, which is evidently where I should go, because I'm a big Jewy Jew just like that apikoros Karl Fucking Marx, that cancer on mankind, and so I shouldn't be a person like !
What the fuck do I mean? What the fuck does he mean? What's the fuck do you mean? What's the fucking difference between that, and calling me Christ-killer or blood-drinker? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. When did you last have people chasing you with fucking swords like my great-kin? Who the fuck are you?
Glad I wasn't the only one with the instinct to smack the feck out of WTI on principle.
That garbage is pure poison. Thought it was the return of Cedarford for a second, only WTI lacks the IQ or worldliness of that particular cur.
Madashell, no arg, but tough in New York Fucking City :-) they need a compact takedown version of that in a single case for studio apartments, mot to mention Where did my rights go? Outside the 5 boros is better. I'm actually thinking of moving soon.
I concentrate on water and keeping my truck in shape. And making friends.but yes, with all my heart.
Godfather,
You forgot Carson?
One bright spot would be that Sanders would bring on the revolution that Ritmo thinks I want.
@Nichevo:
"Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. When did you last have people chasing you with fucking swords like my great-kin? Who the fuck are you?"
Who am I? Someone without a chip the size of Nebraska on his shoulder, apparently.
oh frabjous joy, and I can look forward to the bloc committees, are they really going to go for Corbyn's twin,
Sanders is as left as uber wasp Yeargh Dean, Latino Julian Castro, or 'native american' Elizabeth Warren, you can have a candidate in any color. . .
I think all the Sanders candidacy does is demonstrate to me, once again, how utterly useless and devoid of meaning words like "socialism" and "socialist" have become. Socialism, at its core, is an ideological attack on private property and advocates in its place collective ownership. It is a massively bad idea that can really only work in very small, homogenous communities. Otherwise, it is simply anathema to human nature. But leftists like Sanders aren't really offering socialism, even if they are attempting to rebrand the term. They are simply offering a larger welfare and regulatory state within a system of market-based crony capitalism, which is the dominant economic system globally. Oddly, in relative coherent nations like Japan and Northern Europe, such a system can function quite well. In the delusional multiculti ideology that infects much of the Western world, it's a flop.
I beg your pardon, Farmer. If you have no honor, you are probably hard to insult. I note you don't seem to want to actually answer the question, though.
Let's try it another way. Robert Cook. Karl Marx ain't got nothing on our Bob. And as he will tell you he is a Midwestern Protestant product with no Jew in him. So I'm under suspicion by WTI's 'Murica for my heredity and or beliefs, but Bob the Red is what, innocent? my puppet? A crypto-Jew?
And you arch a delicately manicured eyebrow and inquire after my chip? What does that even mean?
I don't think it's healthy for Jews to have a hair-trigger towards perceived anti-semitism. I feel the same towards accusations of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, misogyny, etc.
Ann,
If you vote for this fool like you did for Obama....
well it was Talbott who called him a prophet, instead of crazy old man, which is what he is,
"beg your pardon, Farmer. If you have no honor, you are probably hard to insult. I note you don't seem to want to actually answer the question, though."
Oh..you mean "who the fuck are you.."?
Feel free to question him..but really. Who the fuck are YOU?
Walter, are you talking to me?
Anyway busy day, good night. Althouse, your posts lately have been Billy Madison level, everybody is dumber for having read them.
Yessir..quoting you and all.
Kind of reminds me of a joke that Seth Macfarlane told at the Charlie Sheen roast: “Charlie learned you can trash hotel rooms and do prostitutes. But don’t you dare call a Jewish guy by his real name.”
It's a pretty rare occasion that charlie "Tiger Blood" Sheen offers any worthwhile contribution, this instance included, Farmer.
But Nichevo,
"It's been said that only four hundred families in this country run it. What percentage of that number do you think are Jews, or were a hundred years ago? How many of our Presidents have been Jews? How many non-Jews have been tyrants? How many Jews have been killed by tyrants?"
Are you able to connect those notions to what was posted previously here?
@walter:
The joke was told by Seth Macfarlane about Charlie Sheen. And the point of the joke was that despite all of Sheen's "bad boy" behavior, his referring to Chuck Lorre as "Chaim Levine," a stereotypical Jewish first name combined with Lorre's original surname, garnered a huge amount of attention and condemnation.
Sure..but no shortage of fake names in media.
"...garnered a huge amount of attention..."
YUGE! LOL...
No more games, I'm a change what you call rage
Tear this muthafuckin roof off, like two dogs caged
I was playin' in the beginning, the mood all changed
I've been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage
But I kept rhyming, step writing the next cypher,
best believe somebody's paying the pied piper
All the pain inside, amplified by the
fact that I can't get by on my 9 to 5
and I can't provide the right type of
life for my family, cause man, these god-damn
food stamps don't buy diapers
and this is no movie,
there's no Mekhi Phifer,
this is my life.
And these times are so hard, and it's getting even harder
trying to feed and water my seed, plus teeter totter
caught up between being a father and a prima donna
baby-momma drama's screaming all it's too much!
For me to wanna stay in one spot
another day of monotony's
gotten me to the point, I'm like a snail - I've got
to formulate a plot
or end up in jail or shot
success is my only muthafuckin' option
failure's not!
Mom, I love you but this trailer's got
to go.
I cannot grow old
in Salem's Lot.
So here I go, it's my shot
Feet fail me not
This may be the only opportunity that I've got!
Somehow the Brain Trust of Althouse's comments section will identify the Marxist Jews who supposedly run Sweden, Denmark, etc., etc., etc., etc., blah blah blah and turned those places into gulag riddled hellholes like the USSR and PRC.
Model ourselves after those wonderful Northern European countries..without embracing our oil rich potential like they have.
Oh, I know it! Before the oil discoveries they were like living in Tijuana, Detroit and East L.A. combined!
Ah..nice try R&B ;)
But par example,
https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/energy/oil-and-gas/norways-oil-history-in-5-minutes/id440538/
WCIC is not an "elite". Just a well-read expert when it comes to revealing the ways of the Illuminati! Poor, foolish souls that we are, we seek his wise counsel in uncovering how the former mayor of Burlington VT and senator of one of America's smallest states will bring about the NWO and the downfall of civilization.
Must have been the carpentry background that cued him in.
here
Hey..he can burn toilet paper..alternative energy etc
Touche, walter! But he's usually referring to THIS economy, not THAT one, anyway.
Or THIS one.
What's the difference, anyway? We're richer than they are. His point is how government attention is allocated, not the income generated. Neither Sweden, Denmark or Norway are tricking their poor and middle class into thinking that lowering obligations on their chief executives and millionaires will decrease the travesty of what's done to America's working poor so it's a red herring to pretend that one certain type of export makes the crucial difference. It didn't in Iraq, either. But it does in human capital-poor Arab Gulf states, so maybe that's the model you're looking for.
But America doesn't have to be that way.
"Before the oil discoveries they were like living in Tijuana, Detroit and East L.A. combined!"
Before their oil discoveries, what was the "like" size and socio-economic and cultural diversity of their country?
"His point is how government attention is allocated, not the income generated."
That's it, R&B. focusing on slicing the pie vs growing it...
Another red herring. Our working poor work as hard (regardless of ethnic background) as and are as productive as theirs. They're just given less in return. What's so hard to get about that? You're seriously going to play the card of getting me to pretend that Mexican-Americans are bad employees, and therein lies the difference? That's shameful. Try harder.
The problem is with a government that lavishes favor upon the top of the economic ladder and tells the bottom 2/3rds that they're horrible people, who aren't doing enough to recognize how horrible they are. You know it. And you know it's a crock.
That's it, R&B. focusing on slicing the pie vs growing it...
If people want to invent things, they will invent them. As for small businesses, the Netherlands now has a more favorable environment for that than does the U.S. You're right that the focus is on slicing the pie. America will always be able to grow it. It will also be able to get the growers to slice it lopsided so that everyone else gets a fraction (in terms of QOL) of what they got in the past. There's no reason not to change that. People are already getting labor from China, anyway. But then, there's another part where Bernie berns you: Opposing inequitable trade deals. But then, so does Trump.
You are afraid of the man with a similar message who simply isn't deluded into thinking the hatred will resolve as much as a fool like Donald Trump does.
R&B: I'm not sure how you are drawing the "Mexican-American" quotient into this discussion, at least at far as what I've posted...
But for thhose not able/willing to track links, here is an excerpt to what I referred to previously:
"Petroleum activities have contributed significantly to economic growth in Norway, and to the financing of the Norwegian welfare state. Through over 40 years of operations, the industry has created values in excess of NOK 12 000 billion in current terms. In 2012, the petroleum sector accounted for 23 percent of value creation in the country. This is more than twice the value creation of the manufacturing industry and around 15 times the total value creation of the primary industries."
I'm not sure how you are drawing the "Mexican-American" quotient into this discussion, at least at far as what I've posted...
From the way his chief competitor (Trump)'s message resonates with this:
"Before the oil discoveries they were like living in Tijuana, Detroit and East L.A. combined!"
Before their oil discoveries, what was the "like" size and socio-economic and cultural diversity of their country?
But for thhose not able/willing to track links, here is an excerpt to what I referred to previously:
"Petroleum activities have contributed significantly to economic growth in Norway, and to the financing of the Norwegian welfare state. Through over 40 years of operations, the industry has created values in excess of NOK 12 000 billion in current terms. In 2012, the petroleum sector accounted for 23 percent of value creation in the country. This is more than twice the value creation of the manufacturing industry and around 15 times the total value creation of the primary industries."
Again, you're focusing one one (uno) country. Not the ones that Sanders usually references. The one that he doesn't.
Norway is a smaller and less "complex" (in whatever way) country than Sweden.
And still, we're back to you're focusing on income as a distraction against services and working conditions. America could generate ten times that income per capita and you'd still talk about how less of it should benefit the 99% so that they could be taught important and humbling lessons in how to adulate and emulate their wealthier betters of the society.
"Norway is a smaller and less "complex" (in whatever way) country than Sweden.
And still, we're back to you're focusing on income as a distraction against services and working conditions. America could generate ten times that income per capita and you'd still talk about how less of it should benefit the 99% so that they could be taught important and humbling lessons in how to adulate and emulate their wealthier betters of the society."
Oh..really...
Oh..really...
Prove me wrong, then.
Show me how rich America has to be, before you'd stop opposing improving working and living (and family-raising) conditions for those who aren't as rich.
Show me the point at which that balance kicks in. When it's ok for the government to say the needs of the 99% are worth some of the attention it gives the top 1%.
I'll wait.
Whenever you're ready.
"Show me how rich America has to be, before you'd stop opposing improving working and living (and family-raising) conditions for those who aren't as rich."
You start with ambiguous derogatory assumptions..and don't identify a monetary marker/threshold that would satisfy you.
So..how do I possibly satisfy you, R&B?
Start with the graphs showing the tremendous increase in productivity over the last few decades, and the stagnant or declining purchasing power or mobility benefits or wealth accrued to three fifths of the workforce. That's a start.
Whatever the "threshold" etc., is, America knows that it's being shortchanged. The government cares more about the people paying it (through lobbying at least as much as through taxes) than it does about those simply trying to get paid enough and treated with enough balance to live decently.
So my answer is: Any threshold. Any marker. Just tell me one thing you'd endorse doing for the poor or middle class. How about parental leave? Our example on that is atrocious by industrialized standards... Can you at least get on board with that?
That's what the people want. Just tell me one thing you'd do to help them as if they mattered at least as much as the billionaires paying for every other candidate's campaign.
One thing.
We're talking about real issues here. Not an ideological war. America is tired of the ideological war on 19th century writers. Or the war on the Soviet system. We're not at war with that either.
We're talking about an America that every American has a stake in. And where no amount of prosperity is too "small" to tell the unimportant people that they can't share in it.
this might also be helpful
Dropping the "climate change" schtick is pivotal to end users and industrial job producers as well. If you voted for a prez committed to "skyrocketing electricity" costs...STFU about the economy and the common man.
Right. And Monsanto's GMOs aren't just a way to squeeze profits from patents and sell more of its Round-Up weedkiller for use on resistant crops, but a way to feed the world! (Because somehow 90% of America's corn would be inedible/unaffordable if it wasn't genetically patented). Come on, tell it to someone who didn't already read The Lobbyist's Playbook. Your politicians are already bought out by them (which is why Trump trumps them), so you might as well stop being a Secret Corporate Lobbyist in a Voter's Clothing. It's keeping your party from going anywhere. Clean energy and real science OTOH, isn't. Learn to focus and stop thinking that pretending to be an unnecessary additional board member for is helping America. It's not. Those companies already have their own board members, doing their own work. They don't need you to pretend to be doing the same at the ballot box. Our corporations will not fail if the government stops coddling them and telling the working poor that they need to eat cake if the bread is insufficient.
i.e. non-sequitur. Not surprised.
"So my answer is: Any threshold. Any marker. Just tell me one thing you'd endorse doing for the poor or middle class. How about parental leave? Our example on that is atrocious by industrialized standards... Can you at least get on board with that?
That's what the people want. Just tell me one thing you'd do to help them as if they mattered at least as much as the billionaires paying for every other candidate's campaign.
One thing."
My one thing would be to stop printing/borrowing 2 trillion dollars a year so that inflation stops causing wage deflation. That would require democrats and republicans to stop funneling money to cronies though.
You don't even know what the inflation rate is, so thanks for that non sequitur. But it's good to know you care more about an inanimate idea than about the people who are not benefiting from it at all. And all for the great cause of making sure that hedge fund managers pay a lower tax percentage than you or I do.
Dunno, R&B..
But it seems you are mixing responses here..
Has Bern deviated significantly from O's promise to skyrocket electricity costs? Has nothing to do with hedge funds..but lots to do with upcoming heating bills and industrial jobs..
@R&B
Every new regulation Obama has passed has been a sop to the giant corporations. Every time government has grown it has been to the benefit of the giant corporations. Dodd-Frank is crushing small banks to the benefit of the big 5. Obamacare eliminated all but a small number of insurance carriers. The top 10% have increased their share of the pie massively during the Obama administration. Everyone else has suffered.
The republican base is revolting against the corrupt leaders in their party. Boehner is a piker next to Pelosi. Reid makes McConell look like a pillar of virtue. Your front runner is possibly the most corrupt politician ever both in the volume of graft and the number of laws she has broken. Is there any question Hillary will do everything she can to make the wealthy people who give her money wealthier?
When is the democrat party going to stop serving the super wealthy and throw their bums out?
Rhythm and Balls said...
"You don't even know what the inflation rate is, so thanks for that non sequitur. But it's good to know you care more about an inanimate idea than about the people who are not benefiting from it at all. And all for the great cause of making sure that hedge fund managers pay a lower tax percentage than you or I do."
I shop in grocery stores. I know what actual inflation has done. Not the cooked numbers that come out of our government.
"Why I'm voting for Hillary" by Mrs. Althouse. Exhibit 85.
Aside from the empty shell that is Bernie Sanders, what I found disturbing but explicatory:
"A 2011 Pew Research Center survey found that, among voters under the age of thirty, forty-nine per cent had a positive view of socialism. (Only forty-six per cent had a positive view of capitalism.)"
Wonderful.
@JCC:
I think that Pew poll tells you a lot less than you think it does. The basic error in the presumption is that words like "socialism" and "capitalism" are well-defined constructs. I doubt, for example, that 49% of Americans are in favor of abolishing private property. That said, big government entitlement programs are rather popular.
Walter, perhaps my mind is elsewhere, May I ask what is your point?
Nichevo-
Please settle down while your eyes stop bulging, as I wipe your spittle from my face.
Nobody here wants to send you anywhere. Nobody thinks you killed Christ.
What I have observed from decades of personal experience and reading books and newspapers, and blogs, is that it is true that “Jews earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans.” You are commendably not one of the 77% (your number) of Jews who reliably vote Democrat/leftist/Progressive.
Jews are by far higher income, higher intelligence, higher producers than random distribution suggests. Israel is a blessing to humankind, a beacon of freedom and hope to all who view it honestly (not least of all to neighboring Arabs and Muslims). It’s fortunately, completely optional for American Jews, not so much for too many in the Middle East, and, now, France and other European countries.
What you have inferred as a personal attack is actually my observation that accepting the collective Jewish political view (again, by your 77% number), is demonstrably unwise. Both of us could easily rattle off a list of Jewish political thinkers that we agree with- the Kristols, Krauthammer, Horowitz, just about the entire staff of Commentary magazine- but, again, there is the pesky 77% who have done so much to get us into this mess.
So, if I want a doctor, lawyer, scientist, investor, teacher, author, I’ll gladly look for one of the Tribe. If I wanted a short list of accomplished Jews, the Nobel Prize list would be a good place to start, at least the science prizes. If I want a political leader, Jewish Socialists (the phrase that apparently set you off) are categorically rejected. 100 million dead, and all.
As to your threat to slap my face in response to my opinion, I would do everything in my power to avoid a physical confrontation- as the song goes, you ain’t worth the whiskey. If you pursued me and forced the issue, the most likely result would be your disability. Temporary or permanent would be determined by the degree of your foolishness.
Don’t mess.
"May I ask what is your point?"
That you're kind of touchy, foul-mouthed, and thin-skinned? I guess that describes most commenters here, though.
Rhythm and Balls said...
"You don't even know what the inflation rate is,
You could go by the CPI, but a more realistic indication is the increase in the money supply. The only real cause of inflation is the government printing money.
Poverty, like wealth, isn't a zero sum game. The poor today baren't always the poor of tomorrow. Unless, of course, the poor rely on government welfare. Then they will stay poor for generations.
Nichevo: What the fuck do I mean? What the fuck does he mean? What's the fuck do you mean? What's the fucking difference between that, and calling me Christ-killer or blood-drinker? Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. When did you last have people chasing you with fucking swords like my great-kin? Who the fuck are you?
Sheesh, Neech, over-react much? You sound like you actually did, personally, kill Christ, stuff him in the trunk, and are having a hard time maintaining your sang-froid around the detectives. Get a grip.
(For the record, a lot of people have great-whatevers, and rather more recent-whatevers, who got chased around and run down with fucking swords, or the equivalent thereof. Tough planet out there.)
@West Texas Intermediate Crude:
"Israel is a blessing to humankind, a beacon of freedom and hope to all who view it honestly (not least of all to neighboring Arabs and Muslims)."
I think your commendable efforts at conciliation have led you into extreme overstatement here.
Poverty, like wealth, isn't a zero sum game. The poor today baren't always the poor of tomorrow. Unless, of course, the poor rely on government welfare. Then they will stay poor for generations.
Are you listening? Google images of "productivity versus wages" over time and let me know how unalloyed Republican power over the last four decades has been such a great boon to this trend by which real Americans (not your candidates' corporate donors, the ones you're shilling for) take stock of the job their government has done.
You don't care about Americans or how they are doing, and you need to admit it. That's why Trump is leading your pack.
(For the record, a lot of people have great-whatevers, and rather more recent-whatevers, who got chased around and run down with fucking swords, or the equivalent thereof. Tough planet out there.)
Well, for the other record, Jews never had to convince themselves that those sword-wielders were wonderful co-nationalist caretakers simply enforcing some "necessary" social pecking order, the way the gentile serfs did of their lords back then and the way they do for their corporate lords in America nowadays. Which is probably why only 20% of Jews bother seeing any point of voting for the Party of Corporate Lordship (i.e. Republicans) today.
@R&B:
I take your point regarding corporatism. However, two of the biggest predictors of poverty in America are (1) failure to finish high school and (2) single parenthood. How do you finger "corporate lordship" for these problems?
What you have inferred as a personal attack is actually my observation that accepting the collective Jewish political view (again, by your 77% number), is demonstrably unwise. Both of us could easily rattle off a list of Jewish political thinkers that we agree with- the Kristols, Krauthammer, Horowitz, just about the entire staff of Commentary magazine- but, again, there is the pesky 77% who have done so much to get us into this mess.
But the 50% of the rest of America? They're cool. Gentiles we can excuse for protesting corporate feudalism. Jews however, should give to Caesar's business parters what's theirs.
So, if I want a doctor, lawyer, scientist, investor, teacher, author, I’ll gladly look for one of the Tribe. If I wanted a short list of accomplished Jews, the Nobel Prize list would be a good place to start, at least the science prizes. If I want a political leader, Jewish Socialists (the phrase that apparently set you off) are categorically rejected. 100 million dead, and all.
Right. But not Chinese communists, nor Vietnamese communists, nor Soviet communists (not a Jewish premier among the lot of them). And Swedish socialists? Danish socialists? Or even the Jewish Palestinian socialists (i.e. "ZIONISTS") who established Israel in the first place? Somehow their nationalism overshadows their successful collectivist economy and kibbutzes, which as everyone knows were somehow a blight on mankind, only rescued from eternal disrepute by virtue of that other socialist endeavor: Universal conscription.
Don’t mess.
...with Texas. Yes, because it's easily confused.
In more civilized parts of Europe we would at least have been fleeing gunfire. To be killed by such brutes! Yes and in Cambodia it would have been bludgeons. The insanity in Cambodia was it's own very special hell to be sure.
OK, Crude. I admit that in IRL I would have asked you for an explanation, and also IRL, my face turning purple would have probably clued you that your words were perhaps not having the effect you intended. So let me try this again.
You said that (the very nice things you said about Jews) might be outweighed by the harm done by one person who was, by birth, a Jew, who had extremely pernicious ideas, which became popular and led to widespread evils perpetrated on the world.
This is like negating the contributions of Irishmen, say, by pointing to the misdoings of certain Irishmen, or the same for Norwegians, Frenchmen, Chinese, etc. Yes, chopsticks and hoisin sauce, but on the other hand, Genghis Khan and footbinding!
So 1, I reject, aggressively, the collective guilt aspect that you may not have intended, but which is always there, not in my imaginings, but in lots and lots of history for which I'll presume you don't need a Cook's tour.
Also, was there something in Judaism, culturally or genetically, that argues for a totalitarian control of all life, and killing anyone or anything that doesn't serve that need?
Were other historical tyrants informed by this creed or heritage? Hitler, Mussolini, Napoleon, Rousseau, Pol Pot?
Speaking specifically of Russia and communism, that all gets laid at the feet of Jews? Was Stalin Jewish? For that matter, did Jews in Russia have any reason to overthrow the Imperial form of government?
The French overthrew their decadent king for an arguably worse result of Red Terror followed by a short guy from Corsica. Lots of their enthusiasm relates to fellows like Rousseau, but also you can point to the American revolution as a source of much inspiration. Patrick Henry dabbled in that mess and barely escaped with his life.
I guess my point is, what does being Jewish have, in your mind, to do with anything? Catholicism seems far more leftist and commie than Judaism, to be quite honest, certainly seems to place less value on human life IMHO, seems to love misery in its service. But I also deeply and vocally resent some people here who seem to like nothing better than to blame Catholics for the weather.
Islam, now, IMHO is rotten front back and sideways, and between the inherent qualities of that heretical pastiche of religion, and imposing it on the worst place on earth, now there's a source of some human misery, consistently and by design, largely unrelieved by essential contributions to civilization. I am dubious of claims that depend upon them sharing stuff they stole, ie. ancient Western writings, "Arabic" numerals. Even so I try avoid "nits make lice" thought and rhetoric, many fine people are in the grip of that terror. I could never be angry at Omar Khayyam. But then, would he last a day with the people now running the joint?
So again, TL;DR: What does Marx's connection with Judaism have to do with anything? If he had been the grandson of priests instead of rabbis he would have been different how, better how?
I will accept your explanation that you meant no offense with your words, but I'd like you to consider that your words were nonetheless offensive.
As Glen Campbell said to John Wayne, you should be careful about assuming you can shade someone you've never met. I might not be able to best you, you may be seven feet tall and have adamantium claws, but you wouldn't go home that night looking like you did when you left in the morning. If we did it like gentlemen and had morning pistols for two and coffee for one, I'd like my chances. (I'm not much with a sword.)
If I wasn't clear enough, I reject statism and all its works. I merely refute the conflation of Judaism with socialism or any other ism.
Farmer I don't even worry about. He is who he is and he is on his own trip. I can't imagine the world he wants but I'm pretty sure he won't get it.
I take your point regarding corporatism. However, two of the biggest predictors of poverty in America are (1) failure to finish high school and (2) single parenthood. How do you finger "corporate lordship" for these problems?
I take your point as well, and don't let any factor off the hook - especially cultural as well as individual. Failure to finish high school is endemic in a black American culture that proclaims learning to be uncool, and I'm sure single parenthood doesn't help either - but I put less blame on that. Maybe I shouldn't, but I don't intuitively buy that. With more evidence however I'd be open to changing my mind.
The other pieces of the puzzle are a complete neglect of any promotion of the trades, where ironically now people can earn more than they used to. But they don't go into them because we've made that pathway uncool and told parents (and their kids) that only by going to college - any respectable curriculum or reason for doing so be damned! - will the next generation have any hope of out-earning the last, which is a true American religion. With the perverse effect of helping to further weaken the unions, which completes the cycle of denigrating the trades once again.
And we were sold a bill of goods and told that this was all ok, because we would instead grow China's manufacturing base and reap some type of rewards in the form of stockmarket growth and lower prices (and less Chinese militarism!) - as if those things make up for the pride and well-being of the people who would prefer to be making America, in the literal sense. But they don't, as we've painfully found out. And Trump and Sanders both know it. And they're the only ones with the credibility and freedom to say it.
I agree the voting like Puerto Ricans part is apt, and troubling, but even if only to overcome it, you need to understand it.
@J Farmer
Thank you, but I'll stand by my comment re Israel.
From an admittedly long distance perspective, and based only on what I read and learned from people who have first hand experience, I believe that Israeli Arabs and Muslims, whether native born or immigrants, have an overall better life than the person who would be the statistically average Pakistani, Iranian, Egyptian, or Iraqi.
I don't think we even have to mention Syrians- how many of them wish they were in Israel now?
Not to include all Muslims, of course- Indonesians are probably OK where they are, unless they have doubts about the Prophet, homosexual identity, or are women who want to have sex before or outside marriage.
Similarly, I think that black Americans, even though in many ways de facto second class citizens, are better off here than they would be in their African "homeland."
Your mileage obviously varies.
R&B, I find very little to dispute in your first two paras. The third, I honestly don't know-you may be putting cart before horse. But why do you think it's so hard for American workers to compete on a level playing field?
...hard for American workers to compete on a level playing field?
No. It's not hard for them to compete on that playing field (which people usually take to unfortunately mean at the lowest wages and working conditions between the two, etc., as well) But the thing is it's a whole system. The Chinese government is invested in manufacturing in a big way. The U.S. government is not. This goes all the way to what's promoted at schools, the viability of decent systems of apprenticeship, and obviously, a political promise to at least offset those lower wages with better stability. In the past, there was more employee loyalty, and for good reason. But this is no more. We have a whole system of labor in America that puts the students and laborers at the onslaught of the economic wolf pack, tells them they're on their own (and criticism of trade deals is relevant here, also), and then wonders why that important part of the economy languishes and doesn't see a point in attracting applicants. Because of the way everything economic in America has been stacked against it, that's why.
@WTI:
I don't dispute your facts regarding the standard of living or political rights of Israel's Arab minority or black American descendants of slaves. However, the US-Israeli relationship is one of the most spectacularly lopsided ones in the history of international relations. The US pays a huge strategic price for its position towards Israel and gets practically nothing in return. Japan is a much more important ally to the US than Israel, but it's political leadership does not receive anything even remotely approaching the fawning coverage that Israeli prime ministers receive. A conservative firebrand no less than Ann Coulter was even driven to comment on the incessant paeans to Israel during the last GOP debate.
Israelis have a right to defend their borders like any other nation-state. That's a matter of political reality. But that does not change the fact that the Zionist project and the founding of the modern state of Israel is viewed as fundamentally unjust by a huge number of people, and they have a pretty good case.
A conservative firebrand no less than Ann Coulter was even driven to comment on the incessant paeans to Israel during the last GOP debate.
Thank Evangelicals, for that. Even the Israeli government know that outreach among them pays off with probably a good bit better ROI than outreach among American Jews, youth or otherwise. The image of Americans riding the same buses as everyone else to ancient baptismal sites, reciting place-names in Southern accents - without a trace of Hebrew gutturals! - is a funny one and a reality that Israeli politicians love and that Ann Coulter can't escape. I guess being a New England WASP whose snobby, passive-aggressive class antipathies are set under the surface to medium-broil just doesn't carry the cache it once did. Poor Ann Coulter.
@R&B:
Just out of curiosity, where are you on the immigration question? Do you concede that it is a detriment to low-skilled native-born Americans to compete with cheap immigrant labor?
Ann Coulter actually IIRC once dated a Jew but I guess he was soon reminded that mollusks aren't kosher, even at at 6'0".
The mere idea of Ann Coulter even having a dating life is a bit creepy, actually. I can't imagine a strand of spaghetti wrapping itself around me - especially one with the personality of a piece of pasta to match.
Ann's slippery and slimy. But taste dictates a preference for cereals that are at least a bit al dente.
Just out of curiosity, where are you on the immigration question? Do you concede that it is a detriment to low-skilled native-born Americans to compete with cheap immigrant labor?
If it is, I think it's a minor one. It's the trades where we're lagging - not a lack of enough Americans ready to clean motel rooms and pick grapes for $8 and hour.
I think immigration is a trumped-up issue. I don't have any problem with Republicans pursuing it - even though I think they do so more for emotional reasons of divisive xenophobia than economics. But they're free to go wild with it. Just don't pretend that it's the end of the story of what ails the American working classes. It's like 5% of the story.
Nichevo-
That’s better. We can talk now.
IRL, I read our hostess’ blog post several hours after I had read the New Yorker article about Sen Sanders. It’s 9 pages long, and most of a full page is devoted to his religion- one friend describes his Jewish identity as strong (page 68).
There is nothing wrong with that, and everything right. It’s just that when I read the article (again, before I saw Ann’s post), I thought to myself, “Great, another Jewish Socialist who wants to change the world.” That thought led directly to the various socialist miseries of the 20th century, and it isn’t over yet.
No, I don’t think that “there something in Judaism…that argues for a totalitarian control of all life, and killing anyone or anything that doesn't serve that need?” I do think that there is something in Judaism that leads to that pesky 77% that vote for more government control over citizens’ lives, and that control has had a tendency to lead to entirely too many dead people and too much unnecessary suffering for millions of others. That “something” apparently does not affect you, fortunately, and I find it encouraging that the Jewish vote for Obama fell from 78% in 2008, to 69% in 2012. That 69% in the face of all that Obama has done against the interests of Jews and Israel indicates to me that, whatever that “something” is, it’s powerful. Not all Jews are Socialists, but they are over-represented. Not all Socialists are Jews (probably under-represented). But when a Jew is a Socialist, he is a very effective one, and that’s bad news.
And yes, I'm well aware that Israel was organized by Jewish Socialists as a socialist state. During that time, Israel was dependent on the kindness of strangers- first France, then the US. They almost lost it all in the 1973 war under their socialist government, being saved by the horrible wretched anti-Semite Nixon. Since then, Israel has gradually embraced capitalism and entrepreneurism, and has thrived.
If you want to feel guilty, collectively or otherwise, over the ideas and results of Karl Marx, I can’t stop you. Not my intent, not my thinking. I don’t think you have done anything wrong, and given your voting habit, a lot right, for America and the world. I do think that you are a bit oversensitive.
I thought to myself, “Great, another Jewish Socialist who wants to change the world.”
Lol! Not America! THE WORLD. Perhaps he will even be a greater Jewish Socialist/Internationalist Banker Conspiracist than that last Global Jewish Socialist, Franklin Delano Rosenberg.
Someday all the Chungsteins and Tranenbergs will pay for their horrible crimes against the peaceful, corporatist peoples of China and Eretz Vietnam. As well as that atheist Georgian, Stalinowitz. All of them very "ineffective" without their obvious, well-known Jewish roots.
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and WTIC has a lot of it.
Blaming Jews for the murders and misery committed by atheist Eurasian communists is sort of like blaming Jews for all the murders and misery committed by medieval Christians. But WTIC sees a Jewish "inspiration" for one if not both, so I suppose we must do so as well.
It's a historical pattern.
Before coming up with that homemade version of Sterno, Bernie warmed himself by burning books on economics and logic.
Rhythm and Balls said...
Poverty, like wealth, isn't a zero sum game. The poor today baren't always the poor of tomorrow. Unless, of course, the poor rely on government welfare. Then they will stay poor for generations.
Are you listening? Google images of "productivity versus wages" over time and let me know how unalloyed Republican power over the last four decades has been such a great boon to this trend by which real Americans (not your candidates' corporate donors, the ones you're shilling for) take stock of the job their government has done.
You don't care about Americans or how they are doing, and you need to admit it. That's why Trump is leading your pack.
Poor. poor man.
For the last 60 years the democrats have had the majority voice over economic policy. In those short times that a sane economic policy has been used it's been generally sucessful for everyone. Kennedy, Reagan and Bush2(1/2 credit) the economy was pretty sucessful. If you were concerned about proguctivity vs wages also look at public policy vis a vis regulation. You'll find the that the reduction in produvtivity was/is a direct sorelation to the implimentation of onerous regulation. IOW don't complain about jibs going overseas. You sent them there.
Your last statement is incomprehensable.
The New Yorker article's emphasis on Bernie's Jewishness is not an accident -- remember just a few months ago when NPR's Diane Rehm stated point blank on her show that he had dual citizenship with Israel? Which is untrue, of course, but, hey, the narrative.
@Lydia:
Are you actually claiming that The New Yorker article purposely emphasized Sanders' Jewishness as a dog whistle to anti-semites? What's the motive?
Your last statement is incomprehensable.
Are there any other human achievements, endeavors or understandings that you find "incomprehensable" (sic)? Any particular aspects of the natural world that are also "incomprehensable"?
Please, let me know beforehand. That way I can avoid discussing any topics that might cause your mind distress. Quantum mechanics, I'll rule that out immediately. But perhaps there are others that are best avoided. In fact, since grammar escapes you, I will avoid sentences and words altogether. From now on, it's only grunts, barks and whistles - in order to be better understood by your kind.
The humans might not be able to decipher it. But like you, none of us should have any affinity for humankind anyway.
Looks like Iran has a new balistic missile.
Heck of a deal, Barry.
No problem though eh, farmer.
dolt.
Hell of a cartoon you got goin' there, ritmo.
Rhythm and Balls said...
"I think immigration is a trumped-up issue. I don't have any problem with Republicans pursuing it - even though I think they do so more for emotional reasons of divisive xenophobia than economics. But they're free to go wild with it. Just don't pretend that it's the end of the story of what ails the American working classes. It's like 5% of the story."
I live in farm country. We used to employ a lot of Hispanics. When I was a teenager I worked with them in our orchards. You learn to work hard. I agree that isn't a big deal.
Right now it isn't the competition for work. It is the crime they are bringing. The gangs are nasty and mostly prey on other hispanics and it rarely gets reported. The crime is a big deal. We also have a lot of friends in that community. They are very well versed in the welfare game.
J. Farmer said...
@Lydia:
"Are you actually claiming that The New Yorker article purposely emphasized Sanders' Jewishness as a dog whistle to anti-semites? What's the motive?"
The democrat base is strongly anti-semitic and they are trying to take Sanders down.
"It was called Creative Carpentry, and [an old friend] says that it was accurately named: “They advertised in the Village Voice, but didn’t know much about carpentry. They’d go to the hardware store to buy supplies, and ask the clerk how to do the repairs they’d been hired to do.”
He's going to run the economy using an economic system called Creative Economics. Or socialism.
And it's going to be the same thing. Spend a lot of money buying equipment and programs. Then call some people to tell them what to do. Because they have no clue how to actually do it.
And for this they will be hailed as geniuses by liberals.
I am actually not quite sure what Sanders did in the article that was particularly reprehensible, odd yes, but so bad? He would not be the first guy (nor was he alone) to bite off more than he could chew. Does anyone have factual info on how the Creative Carpentry biz did? I agree that anytime Hillary! feels anyone us getting too close, or too high, out come the dick-punches.
While not dismissing Nichevo's closing point at all, whom among us hasn't known a socialist or three whose plans didn't, at some point, always devolve into hand waving and reliance upon an overly-benevolent universe?
@Achilles:
"The democrat base is strongly anti-semitic and they are trying to take Sanders down."
Do you have any actual support for the first half of that statement, or did you just pull it out of your ass? Did you actually read the article? If that was motivated by a desire to take him down, then it was the worst hatchet job in the history of the printed word. Do you think David Remnick is on board with the "let's whip up anti-semitic animus" plan? As has already been pointed out here, Jews tend overwhelmingly to support the Democratic Party. Wasn't it Mr. Establishment Democrat Al Gore who put a Jew on the ticket in 2000? The notion that there is enough coherent anti-semitism in the United States to constitute a "base," one way or another is laughable.
@Rusty:
"No problem though eh, farmer."
Nope, not at all. I'll go about my day like I do every day, without giving Iran barely a thought. But you? You must be shivering in your boots at this point. What are you doing to prepare for the apocalypse? Bomb shelter? Moving you and your family out to the middle of the desert? Canned goods?
If a trillion-dollar-a-year defense apparatus and two giant oceans don't make you feel safe from foreign threats, I'm not sure anything will. If we could deter Khrushchev in the 1950s and Mao in the 1960s, I have no doubt that we can deter Khamenei.
Farmer, these are the people who walked a million 10 year old boys across minefields in order to clear them, with plastic keys hung from their necks that they were told were keys to Paradise. Your judgement of their judgment of acceptable losses and what constitutes winning may not be accurate. You won't accept that other people don't think like you.
As for acceptance of anti-Semitism among Jews, it is often accepted because there is, or is seen to be, no alternative. If any Republican candidate was reported to have called his political operative a "Fucking Jew Bastard," his career/campaign would be over and that of the three candidates nearest to him by the time the dust of the mediaquake settled. Hillary!=Teflon.
Obama gives that speech for that jihadi that's still in the can in LA, you know that, trashy pandering cur that he is, in the presence of his homeboys/massas, he must've let his hair down. I bet that's one hot tape, to be locked in a vault. Despite classic press obligations to publish. Someday that'll come out. You can't wrap fire in paper. You think about what that would have affected if as should have been, it was released at the time.
@Nichevo:
This has nothing to do with accepting other people do not think like me. I specifically chose 1950s Russia and 1960s China in my example because both regimes were in the process of massive human rights violations against their respective populations. Mao's Cultural Revolution probably saw at least a million people killed and another million seriously injured. That didn't make Mao suicidal. For that matter, just how rational was it for young European men to rush headfirst into artillery and machine gun fire in trench warfare during WWI?
The Iranian regime has been in power for almost 40 years. And what has been its primary motivating factor during that time? To stay in power, not to commit suicide. A similarly named country, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, has had nuclear weapons for close to 20 years. Why haven't they unleashed them on India or Israel? Your anecdote about the children clearing minefields suggests to me a regime cynically driven by self-preservation, not a regime willing to sacrifice itself.
If a trillion-dollar-a-year defense apparatus and two giant oceans don't make you feel safe from foreign threats, I'm not sure anything will. If we could deter Khrushchev in the 1950s and Mao in the 1960s, I have no doubt that we can deter Khamenei.
9/11/2001
Didn't stop them either.
And I'm not shivering in my boots. At this point in my life very little frightens me. But like people who decide to live in the same wilderness bears live I like to know the habbits and intentions of the critters who can do me harm.
I never take for granted other peoples capacity for carnage.
Kinda like treating every gun as if it were loaded.
Common sense.
get some/
@Rusty:
What you are displaying is not common sense but irrational threat inflation. We have faced far more powerful nations with much greater military capabilities, and we deterred them. There is not a scintilla of evidence that the Iranians cannot be deterred in a similar manner.
Uh huh. Sure.
Can I get that in writing?
Uh huh. Sure.
Can I get that in writing?
Post a Comment