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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Apr 23, 2007 - 01:31pm PT
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I am not a liberal or a right. I don't really believe in the term "liberal," in fact. Christ was a great liberal, I think. These are simply terms used to hurt, to spread immaturity and anger. The word itself, in a truer sense, means freedom. Abe Lincoln was a liberal, though in his day he probably was a Republican, if I recall. Christ certainly saw what was wrong with the established authority and all those in power and their corruption. He pointed out their hypocrisies. My first thought is that many here have not really done their homework, have not studied out these issues with any sort of honest, scholarly dedication. Emotions, immaturity, blind political or religious loyalties... and other things seem to be the driving force of many of these diatribes, rather than honest, open logic. Our country is in serious trouble. Only an idiot would contest that. We are in trouble because of evil in high places and because of a fundamental lack of intelligence and lazy ignorance, with regard to what we are told by our leaders. Most halfway intelligent Christians, for example, have by now figured out that few of Bush's promises to them were ever important to him beyond getting their vote or intended to be kept. They were a tool, which the Christian right took hook, line, and sinker. I applaud those who believe in God or Christ who never bought into anything he had to say. I like what one Christian minister had to say not long ago, when he said Christ turned the other cheek and was willing to lay down his life for the principles of love, etc., and that to take up the sword one must put down the cross. That's a hard one to reconcile, even among believers, when there are enemies who would destroy us. Yet I sense real integrity in such a doctrine. Sometimes it seems war is necessary, but those in the arms business and oil buisnesses make a huge amount of money with war. There certainly are other motivations for war than that we have an immediate threat. Our current President had not given any reason to believe he really cares about life or the sacredness of live, either American, Iraqi, or otherwise. His photo-ops at Walter Reed, etc., are made to look as though he cares. His legacy, though, and he has admitted as much, seems very important to him, and that seems to be his main motivating force for continuing in the Iraq quagmire. Do you think he cares about the many thousands of innocent Iraqis who have died in the line of fire? "You have to make sacrifices for freedom," he says. True. But should that be a catch-all for every kind of brutality and excess that war is capable of bringing? I do not believe a person could look objectively at the current administration and not see it as the worst presidency in the histroy of our country. As open as I have tried to be, these men and women seem almost under some kind of evil spell, utterly clueless on any of the most important issues of our time. Did you see the documentary where all those leading scientists, our best scientific minds, came forward and complained that the white house had altered their writings on global warming? That's a fact. It happened. Rather than truth, Bush and his people seem to want something else. They don't, for some reason, want the world to think there is any possibility of climate change. I hope this doesn't strike up another thread debating climate change. That issue has been treated well by the world's leading scientists. Yet Bush seems clearly the last to admit there might be a problem with anything he does or decides. That we need to move from oil to less destructive fuels is obvious, but would those in power, in the oil business, agree? Of course not. Is is curious to us that everyone, down to a man, in the current administration is in some way connected to the oil business? Does it surprise us that for decades we have had the technology to produce cars that do not run on oil or gas? Does it surprise us that the oil industry has for decades spent many billions suppressing, buying out, impeding... such non-oil movements? The information is there to show that this indeed has happened. It's all about money and greed, folks. Christ told the rich man to go and give all he had to the poor. How far from that kind of thinking are those in power? How far from that are those who profess to be Christian? Because of such people, of course, "Christianity" has come to take on a very worldy connotation. The Savior said it himself, when he said many would come in his name and will have never known him. In the last days, as the scripture tells us, many will claim to have been followers. And (as the scriptures also say, in so many words) not everyone -- but in fact probably few -- blurting the name Christ and attaching themselves to that name will be happy at the last day. Amen to that one.
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bachar
Trad climber
Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Apr 23, 2007 - 01:39pm PT
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In Moloch we trust...
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L
climber
NoName City and It Don't Look Pretty
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Apr 23, 2007 - 01:48pm PT
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JB--You're posting some of the best reality show photos I've ever seen! Between you and WB, my Monday has turned into a LaughFest. Please keep 'em coming!
(But be prepared for the Clown Troll...we know she's lurking.)
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Apr 23, 2007 - 03:10pm PT
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Too, sadly, funny, Bachar.
Hi-ddj, remember, those guys were not elected.
L, I get along with my daughter, though she has green eyes and mine are blue?
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L
climber
NoName City and It Don't Look Pretty
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Apr 23, 2007 - 05:04pm PT
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Jaybro--You are...well...I mean...this is so abnormal...you must admit it's just not...I mean...for all of recorded history...but how...I mean...it's contrary to...WAIT A MINUTE.
You have green eyes! That's the wild card! Green eyes are the blending of blue and brown and therefore neutral. You pose a threat to neither eye color, thus can get along with both. Whew! Had me worried there for a minute...that break with tradition.
Jaybro, you may be a great peacemaker one day...who knows?
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Apr 23, 2007 - 05:18pm PT
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L - whatever you have in that bottle, pass some over here please. I like it.
So, anyone want to weigh in on the discrepencies in Iraqi civilian body counts? I ask because earlier in this thread (back in 2003) war supporters were crowing that the "tens of thousands of deaths" the war protesters screeched about never materialized. Well, they have now.
US official civilian body count: __.
"Independent" organization I just heard of earlier in this thread http://www.iraqbodycount.net/ : 62,000 - 68,000.
Disputed Study says 655,000 Iraqi dead.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Apr 23, 2007 - 05:42pm PT
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jeff wrote:
"perhaps if we started to burn Baghdad and all villages on the way to Damascus, this clash with Islam might end before going nuclear"
ok, i have mainly avoided get into it w/ you for some time, including the other night, but i just have to wonder what kind of hateful, ignorant, and intollerant person would actually post something like that?
there are so many things wrong with you, and people like you, and the way that people like you think, that i seriously do not know where to start.
you are a jewish man, are you not?
and you are aware of the history of the jewish people, are you not?
you are aware of the gruesome details of the holocost?
and nevertheless, now you are advocating (once again, as this is anything but an unusual or atypical post for you) for our nation, our proud country with it's tradition of freedom and fairness and opportunity for all, to finally come full circle from our historic and righteous success in WW2, where we were the driving force behind the defeat of hitler and the nazis, and you want now us to become the invasive military power who tries to impose upon the world, with superior military force and extreme violence, our (read: your) vision of world order, and you even suggest that the willful devestation and destruction of as much of "their" civilization, acompanied by the murder of as many of "them" as possible.
that's sick.
there's no debate or discussion to be had.
i have no interest in sharing a beer with you, i really think you are gross.
someday your 11 year old daughter will cry her eyes out when she googles you and finds all this stuff. it's not normal to advocate for the slaughter of people who cannot defend themselves, nevermind the idiocy of the strategey itself. you are as close to amoral as anyone i have ever 'met'.
obviously i find the above post by you offensive, but the truth is that stupidtopo users are all but desensitized to your blood-thirsty calls for the obliteration of arab communities and the wholesale slaughter of arab families, and dozens of your posts have been equally or more offensive as that one. i would simply point out to the peanut gallery that this schmuck's posts ought to be considered from another point of view- that of the people he advocates slaughtering.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Apr 23, 2007 - 06:02pm PT
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the ONLY good thing to come from this war will be that people who think like you do will have a hard time talking the rest of us into sh#t like this for at least a couple of decades.
...oh, and i am quite sure you meant to add that all the accomodating, highly compliant and friendly arabs ought to be safely bussed to an approved fema trailer park/ tent city, so that their towns and villages could be burnt down in a safe and culturally sensitive fashion (idiot).
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 23, 2007 - 06:18pm PT
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A limited military strike actually worked in the old Yugoslavia, possibly because the mindset of the region was somewhat in keeping with the Western European mindset that fashioned this country. Once the true mademen and butchers were rendered powerless, Serbia could (somewhat) self-correct to what we deemed was a kind of homeostasis.
But if you look at military interventions in Africa, or Arab countries, where the mindset is totally diferent than our own, taking out the "big men," no matter now corrupt and rotten, semms only to forment chaos and carnage. In other words, force does not seem to actually work in these places, so far as fostering positive change. It is one thing to help or assist a nation develop along the path that they have choosen for thmselves. It's another thing to choose a path for another country and try and force them fall in step. Is there anything to suggest, anywhere on present day earth, that this strategy will actually work?
Direct military intervention/invasion in another country is not sustainable over the long run. You can keep an occupying force in a place for decades (much as the Russians did in the old Red Block), but look what happened once the Soviet Union crumbled and the soldiers went home. Talk to East Europeans (I have). The Russian soldiers influence left the moment they did.
Have we learned anything from Iraq? Anything at all? Who amongst us still believes that change can be imposed upon a totally diffrent culture, and that that culture will embrace the imposition as necessary, good, and divine. Who believes this is even possible in today's world?
JL
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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Apr 23, 2007 - 06:31pm PT
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fatty - "No where did I suggest the slaughter of people."
Sounds like you did to me! - fatty - "if we started to burn Baghdad and all villages on the way to Damascus, this clash with Islam might end before going nuclear"
Statements like this show why your speech is so dangerous and ignorant fatty. You completely fail to realize the consequences of war, or the common human experience as a whole. The only way you can come close to eliminating civilian casualties, i.e. a SLAUGHTER, under the scenario you suggest is to, as Matt suggests, get the people of Iraq to board busses and get out of the area.
I'm sure that all Iraqi's are going to line up, get on a bus and move so their home can be burned to the ground.
If "we" did do as you suggest, nuclear war is a foregone conclusion.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Apr 23, 2007 - 06:47pm PT
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it'a actually a very bush/cheney-esque position to take (perhaps you ought to be proud of yourself fatty), to suggest that we ought to channel sherman's scorched earth policies and be 'more ruthless in our prosecution of the war', and yet to simultaneously claim to have as your 1st priority the interests of the local population. maybe we'll just call the new and improved, somewhat more orwellian version of you, "fat brother".
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 23, 2007 - 06:57pm PT
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"What I was suggesting is a full scale regional military intervention."
An invasion, in other words. And my question remains: what is tehre to suggest that this will ever work. I will readilyadmit that from my point of view I'd like to believe the results would be good if a massive invasion and occupation COULD work. But what is there to suggest it WOULD work, or that we could actually do it. From what I've heard (read the recent report in the New Yorker, a mag with a pretty sound repuation for objectivity), our forces are barely hanging on as is. If we sent in five times as many, for ten times as long, what makes anyone think the result would be anything other than twenty times as bad as it is now? Or are we saying things aren't really that bad in Iraq.
In sort, I can understand why you continue to believe that force, and moe force, and more force still, might work to change a culture, but what is there suggest that it actually would?
JL
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Apr 23, 2007 - 06:57pm PT
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fatguy- if we are there for another generation, i have no doubt that god will send you back as a poor arab child, in the next life (werner, can yu check in w/ shiva and see what jeff is penciled in for, should he get run over by a peace-lovers VW vanagon?).
largo- just ask anyone who has even a minimal cumpulsory familiarity w/ the cultures in the region and you'll be told that they hold grudges for a thousand years. combine that w/ the obvious truth that our deployment will necessarily end, eventually, and all they have to do is wait it out, and perhaps the better question becomes, by occupying a middle eastern country, are we making things better, or are we making things worse? then check and see who it is that advocates the war, the 'surge', etc., and ask yourself if they really want an appocolyptic showdown...
finally, and most telling IMO, ask yourself how long it would take an invading/occupying arab army to 'moderate' american society and change our point of view (on anything) to one that reflected theirs, and spend a few unicycle shuttle rides trying to figure out how it ouhght to be any easier to do it there.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 23, 2007 - 07:23pm PT
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". . . finally, and most telling IMO, ask yourself how long it would take an invading/occupying arab army to 'moderate' american society and change our point of view (on anything) to one that reflected theirs, and spend a few unicycle shuttle rides trying to figure out how it ouhght to be any easier to do it there."
I almost listed that point myself. My pointis that much as some would like this to be possible in today's world, there is nothing to suggest that it actually is anything but a huge wast of lives, time and money.
Another thing - I think where many pople lose their way (Fatty) is when they get an idea or belief (force will and should work to chage a culture) and believe that it has practical value (based on the past, not the present). My ramblings and ranting on all of this are not on moral grounds (though I could go there). I just don't believe that what Fatty is suggesting is remotely possible. At all. In any way shape or form. I think the turning point in all of this -- when force no loger worked as it sometimes had in he past-- is when the Soviets tried to take control of Afghanistan.
The fact is, what we want to work and what actually works are often two different things. It's like the difference between the way we want people to be and the way they actually are. Welive in denial about what reality is, and from mhy own experience, it takes years to come out of really deep denial about anything. We're just not up for changing our beliefs that easy becasue they are basically hard wired into our thick skulls. So we try and force the impossible and muck up everything in he process, including our own sanity.
And all the while our beliefs stay basially the same . . .
JL
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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Apr 23, 2007 - 07:29pm PT
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Fatty,
Screw Sherman and his march, it is what you are suggesting now and for the future.
How can you state something like - "if we started to burn Baghdad and all villages on the way to Damascus, this clash with Islam might end before going nuclear" and not expect anyone reading your post that you are for wholesale-extermination of any living thing in Baghdad and villages along the way to Damascus, which is genocide pure and simple.
Performing the actions you suggest will only further radicalize the "population", 180° from where you want to be. Or do you want the perpetual state of war to continue?
Quote from fatty - "We failed to fully integrate the African American community after the civil war and we are still paying the costs (much improvement after 1968)."
WTF?????? Please clarify this statement so my impression of you as a complete racist-ass does not go any further.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Apr 23, 2007 - 07:38pm PT
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UD- clearly what he meant was that if we'd gone in and burned all of chicago's slums to the ground in the 20's or 30's, we wouldn't have as many crack addicts as we do now, cause they'd have moderated and got w/ the program, isn't that right jeffy?
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UncleDoug
Social climber
N. lake Tahoe
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Apr 23, 2007 - 07:43pm PT
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Matt,
You are probably right. Which is very sad.
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Matt
Trad climber
places you shouldn't talk about in polite company
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Apr 23, 2007 - 07:58pm PT
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let's you and me go together to some family friendly pub with a nice sunny outdoor patio, and i'll let you buy me that beer you say you are so psyched to buy me, and we can each print about 20 of th eother's posts over the last few years, and we'll critique them for eachother, what do you say?
...of course, i am a wise ass liberal, so naturally there is a catch-
you hafta bring the 11 year old, and i will tell her what you have to say about war and death and burning out all the brown people, and you can defend yourself by saying that i such an extremist and that there is no grey area for me, meanwhile i will be reading her the other 19 posts that i print out for the occasion.
sounds like a plan?
how about tuesday?
ok then, wednesday?
maybe thursday?
didn't think so.
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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Apr 23, 2007 - 07:58pm PT
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My sense of this is that Fatty is actualy trolling, or at any rate he's trolling himself.
Perhaps the key thing here is the ideas of integration and diversity. These are complicatd issues that seem to have a life of their own and seem especially resistant to force. There's also the issue of accepting your scope of influence, and that some things--no matter how many lives and dollars you throw at them--are simly not going to change anytime soon. When you're totally addicted to willpower you believe in the power of changing anything, anywhere. You simply force the thing through. A huge part of growing up is realizing that this strategy does not always work.
JL
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mooser
Trad climber
seattle
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Apr 23, 2007 - 08:07pm PT
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So fattrad...in all seriousness...are you just messin', or do you really mean the stuff you post? I ask, because I love how Colbert pretends to be a conservative, but ends up mocking conservatives with hyperbole, etc. Is that what you're doing, or are you sincere in what you suggest?
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