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philo
Trad climber
boulder, co.
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SUP, a little heavy on the conjecture aren't thee?
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jstan
climber
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"we all know how liberals feel about capitalism and Christianity!"
SUAP
May I ask;
Is there anything at all, which we all know? Seriously.
Can we all come to agreement on what “liberals” feel?
Can any of us prove beyond a doubt a given individual is a “liberal?”
The above question is one of those “Have you stopped beating your wife yet” questions using the words
Liberal
Christianity
Capitalism
As an appeal to emotion.
Coming from a "conservative" whom we are informed, uses logic and never emotion.
Largo’s point that an attempt is being made by person or persons unknown to herd us like sheep using our psychological weaknesses is clearly correct.
If such an attempt is being made
what are they after?
What are .........THEY................... after?
Do you suppose this poster could be...............a Muslim?
What do you suppose he looks like?
Has anyone seen a photo of SUAP?
He could be a..............child molester!
He is not one of ...........US!
You get the idea?
That's how this schtick works.
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corniss chopper
Mountain climber
san jose, ca
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The 'If you can't beat them join them" option: in the sense of gearing our culture towards wacking them before the get us.
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jstan
climber
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I really have no idea what all Muslims feel. If you picked a Muslim in the street and asked if he wants to live long enough to get home tonight with the food to keep his family alive one more day, what would he say? I dunno. What do you think?
The only longer term question I could address would be to ask whether they are pissed off that the US's CIA acted to overthrew their elected leader, Mossadegh, and put in a new government.
Here again I simply can't say how all Iranians feel. (The fuss after their recent election suggests quite a number value their personal freedoms.)
I can hazard a guess that at least a few might be kinda pissed off.
If the people in the US were all to start running around, screaming and going so emotional that we just fell into their lap
would they decide to accept the US as a gift?
Who knows?
Stay tuned.
As I said above. If you feel there are people trying to get us all emotional you have to ask.
What are they after?
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Weapons ...Wars...and said without a trace of irony...Can people really be that myopic.
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apogee
climber
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Why the hell do you guys even respond to that suap idjut? He logs in and leaves repeated hyperbolic sh*tballs, and never responds to any question that is asked of him, or engages in any meaningful dialogue. Some of you, on the other hand, will respond to something in one of his posts (which demonstrates you actually read them, to my utter amazement), as though he has any f*cking idea as to what he is talking about. Your response validates him.
Ignoramuses are best ignored. You can quote me on that.
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Bob D'A
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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The greatest country in the world was almost bought to knees by a man who lives in cave because the man in the White House acted like a caveman.
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jstan
climber
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"Why the hell do you guys even respond to that suap idjut?"
I agree Apog. Here is what I was trying to do.
Largo has pretty clearly showed that in SUAP there is no person to whom we
may talk. You look at the statistics of his six or seven hundred posts and you
see about 20-25% come after delays of a minute or two. In one case three came
all withing one minute or less. Too little time even to type them. It has to be a
paid blogger with much of his stuff just lifted from neocon blogs, maybe even
posted automatically.
But Largo also suggested this pap has been carefully constructed to prey on the
psychological weaknesses among us.
Now my reply responded to the kind of appeal to emotion and fear, about
which public schools used to educate kids. That so many fall for it now
suggests this educational hole has been targetted as a window of attack.
The present thrust is an attempt to identify a group, in this case something
called liberals, as "not being one of us." As being in many ways very different.
Like "they" don't think logically. In Korea we called them Gooks and it was
alright to shoot Gooks. Nothing new here.
It is a divide and conquer thrust. Get us fighting with each other and we will be
a pushover.
The adversary we faced these last few years is still present.
If anything more determined than ever.
We get the most dramatic results when we attack their sources of money. All
the talking points suddenly move in totally new directions. Just watch and see.
There are real people responding on ST. We need to respond to them as we
would like to be responded to. That's the golden rule (not Hillel's version as of
a few thousand years ago) but the more recent one with which we have become
familiar.
In the protracted struggle for our freedom that lies ahead we need to heed what
Robert E. Lee did during our Civil War. To his staff he always referred to the
adversary as "These people." He did not marginalize them. You do that and you
begin planning your actions under the assumption the adversary is stupid.
That actually is stupid.
Lee had the successes he did because he was able to predict what his adversary
was going to do.
That was smart.
Largo has identified a turning point in our struggle for our freedom.
We need to do what Lee did. Be able to predict.
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Largo
Sport climber
The Big Wide Open Face
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I have to admit to being as guilty as SUAP per not putting sufficient thought into my posts here. As I’ve said before, most of the shite I write here is just dashed off between work, is poorly thought out, plus most of the time I’m just screwing around and having fun with Blue and the boys. However what I wrote about earlier – discovering a rigid and invisible psychological pattern behind the extreme right wing blather – this suddenly made all of this real in an entirely new way. It also made it personal in a way that I could never have predicted.
One of the things that always intrigued and bothered me about the extreme right, much more than the nonsensical things being trotted out as the “truth” – was the singular energy field that wells off these people when one of their hot-button topics gets triggered. If you’ve ever been around this, you will recognize it straightaway. It has a very visceral feel - toxic, punitive, chaotic and at times, downright hostile. The extreme left can also have this feel, though this camp seems not to have the underlying guilt aversion, pathalogical scapegoating, control issues or terror of change.
Anyhow, as I described in my earlier post, when I was discussing things with a right winger during a long drive yesterday, I got a full blast of this energy, which opened up my eyes to the unconscious psychological factors driving all the seemingly crazy assertions and the whacky and toxic energy behind them. The extreme claims of these people – that universal healthcare will “ruin” our way of life and kill
people's inititive, that Chavez-style socialism is right around the corner, that free speech and basic freedoms were being seriously imperiled, that Obama was a foreign born communist, who along with other negro subversives was out to shitcan the constitution of the United States of America, that Sara Palin was the embodiment of esteemed and biblical “values,” that death panels would snuff our folks and that we’d have to stand in line for six weeks to get a flue shot, as so often happens in Canada, France, Japan – such rhetoric always struck me as so irrational and so transparently false, I couldn’t understand how anyone had reasoned their way to such untenable positions.
It was a true wake up call to realize this camp hadn’t reasoned their way there at all, that a galaxy of emotional and irrational factors determined the positions on virtually all of the explosive issues, even as they supplied a smoke screen of various “reasons” for their beliefs. Bacsically, I'm saying that their beliefs have virtually nothing to do with the issues and the reasons stated, and everything to do with the underlying fears and fixations. And most importantly, the entire thing is largely predictable so long as you understand the underlying fears and fixations. It seems to work as a kind of formula, since the underlying material is so rigid.
Understanding this woke me up to two interesting bits of new information. First, it alerted me to keep an extremely close eye on my own unconscious processes that might be short-circuiting my understanding of things. I knew that if other folks could go this far down Queer Street, so could I if I didn't keep my eyes open and get constant feedback from others.
Second, the realization that the reason this toxic, volatile, rigid, right wing style bothered me so much was that I was raised by people who had many if not all of the psychological factors I mentioned. The lesson for me was to understand the basic truth about any mechanical and dysfunctional pattern: I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it and I can’t cure it. In fact, we are all totally powerless over influencing the underlying pattern, and arguing at the level of “reasons” is a fool’s pursuit because the reasons have virtually nothing to do with the irrational beliefs and dingbat philosophies.
When pushed or challenged on any of these issues, these people basically default into “fight” mode (re: Fight of flight), hence the toxic, chaotic, irrational and hostile responses, all masking the underlying psychological factors steering the ship, so to speak. Once the person’s beliefs are threatened, there basically is no cogent, conscious agency at home, and all we’ll get is hell fire and implications that the end of democracy, liberty, capitalism, freedom, and life itself hangs in the balance lest we (fill in the blank).
This has been a valuable lesson for me, brought on by being bowed over, at close quarters, by an energy field so chaotic I had to step back and really look for reasons behind what was being said. Then the whole strange thing jumped up like a jack-in-the-box.
Now, when folks start going off about 7-11 conspiracies, how national security and my very life depends on water-boarding terrorists, and the fact that Barak Obama is out to tank America, I no longer think of these people as nutters to argue with, but people who are totally unconscious about the factors that determine their views and beliefs.
JL
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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John.....A very similar mindset was prevalent in Germany around 70 years ago....the lessons of that particular piece of history make todays reality a lot more than an academic curiosity...personally, its something that I find really disturbing.
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shut up and pull
climber
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"To kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque [Jerusalem] and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim." Osama bin Laden In fatwa entitled Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders World Islamic Front Statement, February 28, 1998.
Folks -- long before we invaded Iraq, and long before Bush was in power, bin Laden wanted to kill us. Yet to liberals, they make it out as if it is only since 2001 that we have been under threat by bin Laden. Wake up.
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dogtown
Gym climber
JackAssVille, Wyoming
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What do you or us know about Germany around 70 years ago....
other than what you have been told or studied ? 8000 plus posts.
This is what I want. Bring it.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Hmmm. Popping in after a couple of thousand posts I see that not a lot has changed, but the recent (last couple of pages) subject brought up by JL, that the extreme right acts out of psychological neccessity (if I can use that term) rather than out of analysis of issues, is interesting.
One group of you chants "Yeah!" in response, while the other says "Wrong! its libs that don't think!"
Largo acknowledged this response by saying that the extreme left is much the same as the extreme right in its approach, and that got me thinking about a couple of things.
First, the extreme left seems best personified by the communists of the early 20th century. Their beliefs had basis in emotion, but not in reality, and when they gained power and tried to run their part of the world based on those beliefs, they... Well I was going to say they screwed things up beyond belief, but that doesn't really do it justice. The believers were soon manouevered into the background and souless brutes took over, destroying countries and slaughtering all who stood in their way.
Second, while the loonies of the extreme left somehow gained power in Russia, they've never done that in the US. For whatever reason, the center-left has never really paid much attention to its fringe. The center-right, on the other hand, has very nearly ceded control to its fringe.
All of which is to say that it seems to me that Largo's thoughts about the mindset (or set mind) of the extremists on the right apply just as much to the extremists of the left. But for some reason, the leaders of the center right have caved in.
And yes, I can already hear the shrieks of "Obama didn't just cave in to the lunatics on the fringe, he is one of those lunatics." But if you think about it, aside from his ongoing attempt to deal with problems affecting medical care, he's mostly continued the centerist policies of previous administrations (of both parties). And in fact, even dealing with the medical issue is hardly new.
Okay, end of post. I'll check in again at 10,000
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jstan
climber
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In the 1870's when Phil Sheridan was subduing the Lakota he said publicly,
"The only good Indian is a dead Indian."
From that same time I have also seen the opinion that the Lakota were the best
cavalry the world had ever seen.
Not related to this thread but I thought I would throw it in.
Largo's observation that we are now dealing with extra-rational behavior is
central.
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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Not claiming to be an expert, but I have read quite a few books about the years between WW1 and WW2. Most recently Richard Evans "History of the Third Reich".
Mostly pretty dry historical tomes. I've always been interested in what motivated the German people during this period. Much the same reasons for my curiosity as Largo mentions above.
On a personal note, in Scotland , when I was growing up, the owner of a local delicatessen had been a german POW who stayed in Scotland after the war...he had been part of the Einstatzgruppe...wasn't exactly eager to talk about it but did tell me some bits and pieces now and then.
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Not precisely on topic, but to do with the roots of the political-military-industrial complex.
A US congressional study shows that the US accounts for about 2/3 of all foreign armaments deals in the world.
The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all
business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/07weapons.html?ref=global-home
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Jeremy Handren
climber
NV
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"the psychological underpinnings leading up to the Socialist movement in Germany":
Which socialist movement would that be?
The socialist movement in germany came to an untimely end about three months after Hitler came to power, as part of a coalition of the right wing parties.
One of his first actions? to build a series of ramshackle camps at places like Dachau...the first occupants of those camps? German socialists.
The National Socialist movement in Germany, like other fascist movements of the time, was based on extreme nationalism and Racism, the one element of german society that resisted these forces were the Social Democrats...the equivalent of our liberals today.
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jstan
climber
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Another thing you will notice among German expatriots is that they avoid each
other. A neighbor was in the Hitler Youth at 15 because they needed to press
the kids into service to release all the adults for duty at the front. An entire
generation was being killed.
Shifts in a society like that involve a lot of force, fear, and a lot of disbelief that
something that silly can actually be happening.
But silliness does not stop things from happening.
Eh?
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Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jeremy nails it - the Nazis (fascists) in Germany called themselves National Socialists
so as to portray themselves as a mass movement, which they were anything but until the early 1930s.
Similarly Russia's most aggressive communist faction called themselves the Bolsheviks (= "majority"),
again because they were anything but. George Orwell brilliantly lampooned double speak in Animal Farm
and 1984, and was savaged by both left and right for doing so.
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