Iowa Caucuses Today!

[A Black Falcon]

Current results show Huckabee and Obama winning, though their leads are not large.

http://www.iowacaucusresults.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/3/2...154/430047
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primari.../state/#IA

[A Black Falcon]

And now Dodd and Biden have dropped out. Good candidates (and senators) but under 1% isn't good enough... will Richardson and his 2% continue on or will he drop out too?

All the Republicans except Rudy got at least 10% and Rudy wasn't really running in Iowa, so I don't know if any of them will drop out... Thompson maybe? We'll see.

[N-Man]

Like I said, if that religious right poster-boy Huckabee gets the nomination, I'm converting to the Democratic party. I'll even cheer for Hilary if I have to.

[A Black Falcon]

Huckabee 35%
Romney 24%
Thompson 13%
McCain 13% (hoping for New Hampshire to push him to victory)
Paul 10%
Giuliani 4% (focusing on Florida, but he's probably done... or at least I hope he is...)

Obama 37.6%
Edwards 29.75%
Clinton 29.47%
Richardson 2%
Biden 1%
Dodd/Kucinich/Gravel 0% each

Very close between Hillary and Edwards, but Edwards won't do anywhere near as well anywhere else because of how much focus he put on Iowa. Edwards not winning is probably the end of his campaign, really...

It'll be interesting to see what happens now in New Hampshire. Hillary has had a lead there for a while: will it hold up? As for the Republicans, McCain is well out in front in New Hampshire, followed by Romney; Huckabee is in fourth, because unlike Iowa New Hampshire doesn't have many of the religious right ultra-Christian types that are his base...

[Great Rumbler]

Like I said, if that religious right poster-boy Huckabee gets the nomination, I'm converting to the Democratic party. I'll even cheer for Hilary if I have to.

How can you say no to a politician who plays bass guitar in a band called "Capitol Offense"?

[N-Man]

How can you say no to a politician who plays bass guitar in a band called "Capitol Offense"?

Oh nice, maybe I'll let that obscure the fact that he's the antichrist

My man Rudy isn't done, hopefully he gets a strong showing in NH then goes on to win Florida.

[alien space marine]

Huckabee 35%
Romney 24%
Thompson 13%
McCain 13% (hoping for New Hampshire to push him to victory)
Paul 10%
Giuliani 4% (focusing on Florida, but he's probably done... or at least I hope he is...)

Obama 37.6%
Edwards 29.75%
Clinton 29.47%
Richardson 2%
Biden 1%
Dodd/Kucinich/Gravel 0% each

Very close between Hillary and Edwards, but Edwards won't do anywhere near as well anywhere else because of how much focus he put on Iowa. Edwards not winning is probably the end of his campaign, really...

It'll be interesting to see what happens now in New Hampshire. Hillary has had a lead there for a while: will it hold up? As for the Republicans, McCain is well out in front in New Hampshire, followed by Romney; Huckabee is in fourth, because unlike Iowa New Hampshire doesn't have many of the religious right ultra-Christian types that are his base...

Ron Paul is doing well all considering that he doesn't get as much tv coverage and has fox spouting BS lies about him whenever he is covered; But he broke fund raising records and has his own private blimp.

Of all those big wigs ; I wouldn't mind McCain as u.s president.

Who the fuck is huckabee?

Romney is so plastic how is he getting that kind of poll number ?I thought the evangelicals didn't like Mormons.

[Dark Jaguar]

I lost any confidence in Ron Paul the moment he decided science was secondary to placating religious extremists by saying he doesn't think evolution "matters" (a PR movement on his part most likely). Well, anyone who thinks that they can play it safe by not having an opinion and just saying the safety phrase of "how we got here isn't important" is an idiot. Yes, it does matter. A massive chunk of modern biology is directly based in evolution. Ditching evolution damages as much of our current understanding of biology as ditching GRAVITY damages physics.

Case in point? Our current method of developing vaccines is directly tied to evolutionary theory. Every single year, scientists have to develop a new flu vaccine. The flu mutates every single year. Evolutionary theory has a complete enough picture of the process that the methods of defense more likely to adapt in the flu can be predicted, and a vaccine can be developed ahead of time for this most likely flu strain, and it is. Evolution directly ties into our ability to survive the flu each year. That's just a small example. A politician that ditches any part of science just to cater to the masses loses any interest I have in them, as it is science and technology that is most important to us.

Another clear example are those people that refuse to acknowledge general and special relativity as having any merit (the GPS network WORKS, this is evidence enough that those two things are true as the GPS satellites have to be programmed to take time dilation effects into account in sending their data, if that correction was based on something inaccurate, our GPS systems would be woefully inaccurate in giving us our position). Yet another, quantum physics. Now granted, very few lay people know anything about quantum physics compaired to the wide knowledge of newtonian and relativistic stuff, but this is largely due to frauds who don't know anything about it just saying quantum physics as a buzz word for "my crazy thing works because quantum". However, the reality of it, such as the nature of certain metals at an extremely small scale actually acting as a resistor instead of a conductor, are how iPod hard disks work, hence iPods are evidence of quantum physics (though maybe not string theory).

So when people say that this or that well established scientific bit of knowledge "doesn't matter" or that this or that thing should be "thrown out" because of some insane controversy, I get mad. I get mad because it does matter and they don't seem to have researched nearly enough to find out that these things are NOT disconnected, that all of it is interconnected to the point that saying this or that bit of physics or biology is wrong is really saying that the majority of the modern world doesn't exist.

[alien space marine]

Ron Paul was good buddies with Ronald Reagan when he was younger that explains some things; His view on evolution inst uncommon with republicans.

I am afraid that Ron Paul is a bit of a let down; What attracted people was that he was down to earth and always tackled questions pretty good;He was unconventional and his views on the war on terror being a result of American foreign policy.

Evolution has many enemies in America and the world at large anywhere were Allah and Jesus are popular;I think its largely due to poor education and misinformation and just deluded denial.

[N-Man]

I lost any confidence in...

From what I gather, Ron Paul is a libertarian (or classical liberal, if you prefer). From that standpoint, you could probably indeed say that evolution is irrelevant. You can teach your children that, in the beginning, the world was vomited by the primordial god Koopa if you want, it's not really anybody else's business.

[alien space marine]

The flying spagetti monster made the universe.

[A Black Falcon]

My opinion of Ron Paul:
http://www.tcforums.com/forums/showpost....stcount=25

On Ron Paul...
http://www.mainecampus.com/home/index.cf...af1ad39a08

Editorial from the college paper here, anti-Ron Paul. There are several long responses that attempt to "defend" Ron Paul, but reading their defenses to me is like reading a long list of all the reasons why I so, so strongly disagree with Republicans and Libertarians.

To put it simply, Democrats believe that government can be a good thing. Libertarians believe it cannot be a good thing beyond the absolute most basic minimum level. Republicans believe that it is mostly a bad thing, but is useful on subjects relating to security. This is really a key difference -- Republicans and Libertarians are constantly trying to reduce the size of government, downsize it, destroy international alliances like the UN (because they "don't work"; my position on the UN is the exact, utter opposite of that -- I think it is an incredibly important and often quite successful organization that we should be strongly supporting, not attempting to disband... yes, many there disagree with us, but our reaction there doesn't exactly help our chances of convincing many people to change their opinions on us now does it?), get rid of vital federal departments because "the private sector can do it better" (this is ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE! Just look at the army vs. the mercenaries in Iraq or Medicare/Medicaid/the Veteran's Authority versus HMOs. Which works better and is more cost effective? That's right, the government-run healthcare agencies, not the private ones. Etc, etc.), et cetera. I agree with libertarians on the danger of infringing on civil liberties and on not wanting to get into bad wars like Iraq, but on a lot of other issues I totally disagree. Government is not evil or unnecessary.

Oh yes, and he's as much a Republican as he is a Libertarian. That's why he's anti-abortion, seems to question evolution, etc. He's not a pure libertarian.

Rudy Giuliani... ugh, he's horrible. While he's liberal on social issues, he's a neocon on military, foreign policy, and domestic security issues. Essentially, he thinks that the only thing wrong with Bush's foreign policy is that he didn't go far enough... or at least all of the advisers around him sure think that, but Rudy's record of supporting the Bush administration is long and clear. He has also never seen a restriction of civil liberties he didn't like. The attached image is entirely appropriate... "Rudy is a fascist" is a pretty minimal exaggeration, to say the least. (if you don't know it, The American Conservative is a magazine funded by Pat Buchanan, so it's very much a traditional, isolationist-style fiscal conservative mag and can't stand the neocons who run the Republican party now)

http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_14/cover.html

As for the Democrats, I definitely prefer Kucinich because he's the most liberal, but between Obama and Hillary I prefer Hillary. More experience in politics, more experience facing the Republican smear machine that will hammer down on whoever the Democrats nominate, very similar politics (though Hillary's probably a bit better on health care and Obama slightly better on Iraq, they're both quite moderate and not too far apart on the issues)... Obama certainly would make a great candidate too, but is he ready?

Anyway, Giuliani, or "9iu11ani" as some are calling him now. This is such an awesome image...

[Dark Jaguar]

From what I gather, Ron Paul is a libertarian (or classical liberal, if you prefer). From that standpoint, you could probably indeed say that evolution is irrelevant. You can teach your children that, in the beginning, the world was vomited by the primordial god Koopa if you want, it's not really anybody else's business.

But it is. The child's. It's a betrayal and the fact is, children don't belong to their parents.

[Great Rumbler]

I don't much care for any of the cadidates. I'll probably end up voting for Ron Paul in the primary because he seems okay at least.

[N-Man]

But it is. The child's. It's a betrayal and the fact is, children don't belong to their parents.

Listen, I completely agree that children ought to be taught evolution rather than whatever crackpot creationist story, but it's a defensible point of view. A child's education does depend on the parents, and if the state contradicts their views, that can be seen as infringing on civil liberties. Now, public education is a democratic system, and if you send your kids to a government-funded school you agree to submit to the views of the "majority". Ultimately though, it's up to you to decide whether you want them to be in the public system or not.

[N-Man]

You can hardly say that Giuliani is a "fascist" considering his stance on most social issues. He simply believes that Iraq can be (and Vietnam could have been) won with enough perseverance. I tend to think that the only viable exit from Iraq is victory - anything else will simply aggravate the situation in the ME. Ergo, viva Rudy.

[DMiller]

I'm supporting Obama so I was pretty happy with the Iowa results. To me, Hilary would be way too polarizing if she were elected. I can't even trust what she says half the time and it always seems that she is manipulating her emotions and message whenever poll numbers change. Obama, and to a lesser extent McCain, is the only one who has been pretty consistent and I feel like I can trust. Since Obama isn't too different from Hilary in terms of policy I decided to go with the one I would think is better at bringing the country together. After 8 years of one of the most polarizing presidents in history we really need someone who can work with everybody. Hilary is definitely not that person.

[Sacred Jellybean]

I'm probably voting democrat in this election, but none of the top 3 candidates seem strong enough to stand out to me. I'll probably just vote for whoever wins the primary. I was in the Ron Paul camp for a while because I like his social stances and foreign policy stances (not to mention his honesty and consistency), but he has other beliefs that I don't like, like returning to the gold standard, the Fair Tax act, believing that things like the FDA and Department of Education should be abolished, etc. I tend to agree with libertarians socially but disagree economically, where I'm more liberal.

He simply believes that Iraq can be (and Vietnam could have been) won with enough perseverance. I tend to think that the only viable exit from Iraq is victory - anything else will simply aggravate the situation in the ME. Ergo, viva Rudy.

Regardless of whether that's the case with Iraq, I don't want another president who's so strongly against terrorism that he's willing to invade countries. Even though Democrats have a majority in Congress, I'd be worried about a repeat performance with Iran.

[DMiller]

Regardless of whether that's the case with Iraq, I don't want another president who's so strongly against terrorism that he's willing to invade countries. Even though Democrats have a majority in Congress, I'd be worried about a repeat performance with Iran.

I think it depends on the situation. Obviously invading Iran would be a step in the wrong direction, as was invading Iraq, but the invasion of Afghanistan had a purpose and a noble goal. The country actually was harboring terrorism and if we would have focused on the country it might have done a lot of good. The invasion of Iraq, though, screwed that up and we forgot about Afghanistan for awhile until things started going bad recently. I want a president who is willing to make tough decisions to fight terrorism but isn't going to invade or attack a country on a whim or based on bad intelligence. The next president needs to put people in his cabinet who aren't going to simply tow the party line and will be willing to challenge him when he wants to make a decision they don't agree with.

[lazyfatbum]

*doesn't care about any of this*

*steals N-Man's pants*

[alien space marine]

I think it depends on the situation. Obviously invading Iran would be a step in the wrong direction, as was invading Iraq, but the invasion of Afghanistan had a purpose and a noble goal. The country actually was harboring terrorism and if we would have focused on the country it might have done a lot of good. The invasion of Iraq, though, screwed that up and we forgot about Afghanistan for awhile until things started going bad recently. I want a president who is willing to make tough decisions to fight terrorism but isn't going to invade or attack a country on a whim or based on bad intelligence. The next president needs to put people in his cabinet who aren't going to simply tow the party line and will be willing to challenge him when he wants to make a decision they don't agree with.

The American public doesn't realize how much Canada has sacrificed in Kandahar fighting Taliban and foreign fighters;There inst a week that goes by that we don't hear about casualties ; we've suffered the most losses in servicemen since Korea.Canada was less equipped for securing the dangerous southern regions but was the only one willing to do it unlike the French and Germans who choose only safe areas; Instability in Pakistan jeopardizes the Nato forces and the Canadian forces are especially vulnerable.Had it not been for Iraq the situation in Afghanistan could be dealt with more easily with more committed American forces.

[Dark Jaguar]

Listen, I completely agree that children ought to be taught evolution rather than whatever crackpot creationist story, but it's a defensible point of view. A child's education does depend on the parents, and if the state contradicts their views, that can be seen as infringing on civil liberties. Now, public education is a democratic system, and if you send your kids to a government-funded school you agree to submit to the views of the "majority". Ultimately though, it's up to you to decide whether you want them to be in the public system or not.

One must consider the child's civil liberties, and if condoning brainwashing by parents is in the best interests of them.

However, this is beside the point. The real issue is if something with zero evidence should be taught in school as though it has evidence. Creationism should only be taught in a mythology class if at all. Anything else, and it's government endorsement of a religion.

[Dark Jaguar]

*doesn't care about any of this*

*steals N-Man's pants*

Listen Tom Bombadil, you may not care much about what happens outside your forest but if that ring gets in the hands of Sauron do you really think your woods will survive it?

[A Black Falcon]

You can hardly say that Giuliani is a "fascist" considering his stance on most social issues. He simply believes that Iraq can be (and Vietnam could have been) won with enough perseverance. I tend to think that the only viable exit from Iraq is victory - anything else will simply aggravate the situation in the ME. Ergo, viva Rudy.

Rudy "9/11" Giuliani is a neocon advised by people who think that the only thing Bush did wrong was that he didn't go far enough. Electing him would be like asking for more Bush, but even worse on everything except social issues. Civil liberties? He's all in favor of pretty much abolishing them. Bush has shredded civil liberties, and a Giuliani administration would do the same but worse... and given how horrific Bush is on the issue,, that's a huge problem. It's incredibly disturbing that people don't seem to care what this administration has done to our civil liberties and the Constitution... at this rate will there be any of it left? Giuliani is a fascist because of how strongly he supports restrictions of civil rights and liberties and the Constitution in favor of the impossible goal of perfect security. He (or at least his advisors) also think, just like the Bush team, that talking with people he doesn't like is a waste of time; that the war in Iraq was good idea; that we should seriously consider invading Iran; that Cheney made a great Vice President; etc, etc, etc.

Oh yes, and he also has had three marriages, had cancer, has children who can't stand him, was often an incredibly nasty person as mayor, used taxpayer dollars to fund getaways with his mistress(es?), supported his good buddy and indicted felon Bernie Keric and recommended the guy for Homeland Security chief (oh yes, and Keric also used taxpayer money to fund a love nest for him and his mistress...), is surrounded by the hardest of neocons, says "9/11" in EVERY SINGLE SPEECH HE GIVES while really he didn't do all that much on or after 9/11 except give nice speeches... he's a pretty unpleasant guy and a Giuliani administration would be a disaster just like the Bush administration is. We've suffered through over six years of Neocon rule now, and there will be one more, but four more after that would be so, so awful...

Oh yeah, and if you're wondering why "World War IV" is on that stone tablet next to Giuliani, it's a reference to Norman Podhoretz (father of the Neocons and major Giuliani adviser)'s recent book "World War IV", which rails against that nonexistent "Islamofacist" thing. (Note: Islamic people are about as far from being fascists as you can possibly imagine. The connection makes absolutely no sense.)

That article I linked does a good job of examining many of his Neocon ties
http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_01_14/cover.html


As for "won" and "perseverance", I absolutely believe that those are totally wrong terms. In both Iraq and Vietnam, our biggest, crucial mistake was getting in in the first place. In Vietnam in 1945, the Vietnamese government, led by Ho Chi Minh (who was a Communist, but was a nationalist above that and had helped the US in Vietnam during WWII), but involving many groups, wanted independence from France. They requested American support for their effort at the end of World War II. Ho Chi Minh wrote the Vietnamese declaration of independence deliberately in the model of the American one, in fact. We refused them, having no real understanding of East Asia, and instead supported French efforts to suppress the Vietnamese nationalists who we dubbed 'Commies'. This pushed the North Vietnamese into the hands of the Soviets, a relationship which over time moved them more and more clearly Communist. Had we had anyone who actually understood East Asia in a position of power in 1945, and had decided to not support France's efforts to reclaim its colonies despite the fact that they were our ally, the whole thing in Vietnam could have been avoided... it's really a tragedy that it did not, because it took 49 years (US opposition to the Vietnamese government lasted from 1945 (when we supported French efforts to reclaim it) all the way until to 1994 (when we finally ended the crippling economic sanctions that had destroyed Vietnam's economy)) and caused millions of deaths, virtually all of them Vietnamese.

Of course by the 1960s, when the "Vietnam War" started (really, all that happened was that the war that had been ongoing since 1945 entered a new phase as the South needed more assistance in holding off the North and the internal rebels we called "Viet Cong" but who called themselves the National Liberation Front, so American "advisers" started entering). The French had given up in 1954, but we wouldn't let the Communists win because of "domino theory" (which of course proved to be a completely bogus theory) and other suspect considerations so we escalated and escalated and escalated and bombed and bombed more and killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians before finally realizing that we couldn't win after all, and we left. The North took over; certain groups who had supported the US were persecuted or sent to "re-education" camps, and forced collectivization of agriculture ruined the southern economy for a while, but considering the crushing pressure of the US blockade, or in comparison to China, they didn't do so badly... of course a few years later the Vietnamese economy collapsed because we refused to trade with them and they were being isolated by China too because they'd sided with Russia against China in the rivalry between those two nations that grew up in the early '70s, but that was okay, because we wanted the Vietnamese economy to collapse. I mean, think about it: if their economy collapsed it would show that Communists couldn't govern, right? We'll show them! No trade! And hence the boat people, created by anti-Vietnamese US policies.

As a note there, the North Vietnamese government, from even before they took over the south, had been trying to come to terms with the US and open trade again. They offered a slow, gradual reunification of the nation that would have slowly integrated the two very different halves together, lowering of trade barriers between the US and the new nation, etc... but the US would have none of it and said no way, so the North Vietnamese simply took over the South to worse effect. But like the US-supported Chinese invasion of North Vietnam in 1978-79 or the US-supported Khmer Rouge mass murderers of Cambodia (sorry, the China-supported Khmer Rouge mass murderers who we just happened to be supporting China in supporting), that was okay, because anything that hurt Vietnam was good American policy.

Since the final end of the trade embargo in 1994, of course, American-Vietnamese relations have become very good. The US finally realized that China and Vietnam were natural enemies, not natural allies, and being (rightfully) nervous about the Chinese, looked towards Vietnam for help... and now the US is by far Vietnam's largest trading partner. It is still authoritarian and a one-party state, though, and there are plenty of human rights abuses. But China is worse... a lot worse, really.

Anyway, the point is, we pretty much, through ignorance, manufactured the whole situation in Vietnam. Leaving was the only thing we could have done; "winning" was impossible. The NLF and North Vietnamese weren't going to give up. We could not "win", all we could do was kill more people with no gain. They wanted independence and their own government and were going to fight for it until they got it, no matter the cost. Saying that we could have "won" if we'd stayed longer is a very common neocon thing to say, but it's just so ridiculous... we could not have won, if "winning" even had any definition. What would be "winning" anyway, destroying North Vietnam? Couldn't do that, China threatened to invade if we went too far into North Vietnam (they threatened the same thing in Korea. We ignored them and took over all of North Korea. They followed up on their demand and invaded, setting off three years of pointless and bloody warfare that was most of the Korean War. The next time they threatened us like that, we listened...). So that's out. "Winning" must mean crushing the resistance in the south, then. This would reflect American policy, for most of our bombing actually fell on South Vietnam, the part we were supposedly ruling, and not the North. We did manage to totally destroy rural South Vietnam and either kill or dislocate (to refugee camps/cities) essentially the entire rural population of South Vietnam, but stopping the resistance? That we had absolutely no success at... and why should we have, when the people we had in power as the "South Vietnamese Government" were even worse than the guys in charge of NORTH Vietnam, policy and abuses-wise? The whole thing was just totally ridiculous, and leaving was the only thing we could do. And despite the decades of war and sanctions after we left in 1972, the lives of the Vietnamese people were improved overall by our action... and once the Cold War ended and we realized that the Vietnamese were actually potential allies, not enemies, things got even better. But could we have "won" the war if we had stayed? Absolutely not. It would simply have continued on until we finally admitted defeat and left. Either that or we'd have had to fight a war with China... which would obviously be a very bad idea.

Iraq is quite different from Vietnam, though. The biggest place where it is different is how to end it. In Vietnam, all we had to do was leave; there was a government in place to take over after we left. In Iraq, unfortunately, there is no such thing; if we leave the Iraqi government would be as likely to fall apart as anything, and then things would be even worse than they are now. I really don't know what we should do in Iraq... what we HAVE to do is get the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds to actually talk to eachother and come to a political agreement, but they want to fight, not do that, so that's virtually impossible. Even so, it is our only option. There is no military solution in Iraq -- even the US military recognizes that fact. There is only a political solution, and as things are now NO progress is being made on that political solution. Violence is down? Sure, that's true, thanks to the fact that the Sunni tribal leaders finally decided to stop supporting Al Quaida in Iraq. But don't let that fool you into thinking that anything is settled... it is not in the least, as there have been absolutely no political settlements. The surge has totally failed at its primary objective of creating a calm in which the Iraqi factions could negotiate, as they are not willing to negotiate as such. What can we do about that? Not much perhaps, given the realities of the situation, but more than we're doing I'm sure... get UN support, first, for instance. That would help immensely. But we also just have to make them talk to eachother... getting them to finally come to an oil sharing agreement is key. It's totally ridiculous that the Bush administration has failed to get them to come to terms on this absolutely vital issue. Before that deal is made nothing else can progress.

[lazyfatbum]

*runs through the thread nude while waving N-Man's pants*

[Dark Jaguar]

His songs are stronger and his feet are faster.

[alien space marine]

The arogance of rudy

stupidity of rudy

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, Rudy has done a pretty good job of making sure that I'm not going to vote for him.

[Dark Jaguar]

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[N-Man]

*runs through the thread nude while waving N-Man's pants*

Whathafuck, how much time do I have to devote to this. Just give me my pants back.

1) Are you joking? Comparisons between people like the Taliban and fascists make no sense? Whatever Bu$hitler has done to civil liberties pales in comparison to their acts, surely you'll agree. Show me the repression of free speech, the enslavement of women, the banning of communication media. At worst, it's easier to snoop - big deal. Did you know that Arab nationalist groups like the Ba'ath are directly inspired by and have their roots in 1930s European fascist parties? Furthermore: talking to Islamists is a waste of time, invading Iraq was a good idea if poorly executed, and you should indeed consider invading Iran - if only consider. IIRC even the (socialist) foreign minister of France agrees.

2) Yes, if you could have gotten Ho Chi Minh to be on your side and not a communist that would have been pretty smart. If you could have convinced Saddam Hussein to hold free elections, also. That is neither here nor there.

3) After Tet, the Viet-Cong were exhausted. Instead of finishing them off, you caved in to popular pressure and withdrew. That is the plain truth. North Vietnam would have eventually come to the peace table - no country, no army can sustain casualties like they did forever. It took 12 years for the British to win in Malaysia, and that's in an environment where their enemy was largely withheld supplies - but in the end they won. Kissinger himself described how the US later realized that North Vietnam was much closer to caving in completely in negotiations than they thought at the time.

4) So, you don't have an idea for solving Iraq either, yes? What exactly are you saying, beyond "get the UN involved"? How would getting the UN involved help? Oh - surely Shi'ite death squads and Islamist suicide bombers will have more respect for UN negotiators than US ones, everyone knows the stability that they brought to dangerous situations in the past, like Rwanda for example.

I LMAO at how Bush is "shredding civil liberties" but how North Vietnamese concentration camps and forced collectivization are just like "oh well, they did ok". What am I supposed to say to you?

[A Black Falcon]

Whathafuck, how much time do I have to devote to this. Just give me my pants back.

1) Are you joking? Comparisons between people like the Taliban and fascists make no sense? Whatever Bu$hitler has done to civil liberties pales in comparison to their acts, surely you'll agree. Show me the repression of free speech, the enslavement of women, the banning of communication media. At worst, it's easier to snoop - big deal. Did you know that Arab nationalist groups like the Ba'ath are directly inspired by and have their roots in 1930s European fascist parties? Furthermore: talking to Islamists is a waste of time, invading Iraq was a good idea if poorly executed, and you should indeed consider invading Iran - if only consider. IIRC even the (socialist) foreign minister of France agrees.

So, so much is wrong here...

1. SADDAM AND THE ISLAMIC RADICALS HATED EACH OTHER!!!

I know that if all you watch is Fox News you wouldn't know that in fact Saddam had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 and actually was a secular leader who despised the radical Islamists, but that is how it was. So yes, Saddam was in many ways a fascist. The radical islamists, however, are on the exact opposite end of the spectrum from him. Their goal is theocracy, not fascism, and those two types of government are diametrically opposed. Republicans love to confuse secular Arab parties like the Ba'ath party with radical Islamic ones like the Taliban, but no person who has any understanding of the region could ever possibly believe such ridiculous lies. It's all just misdirection to cover the fact that there's no justification for what they did in Iraq... get people to think that Saddam was like the Taliban and you're home free! It's too bad for them that some people actually looked at the facts.

2. Yes, civil "rights" are nonexistent in much of the Arab world. Yes, women's rights there are worse than anywhere else on the planet. However, saying that as long as we aren't at their level everything's good is an incredibly, incredibly stupid thing to say. So according to you as long as we aren't holding public executions in the street we're all good? Ah... NO! America's Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights are some of the greatest statements of freedom and rights ever made. In many ways Americans have more rights than almost anyone else on earth; for instance, we have more freedom of speech than almost anywhere -- where else could groups like the KKK actually be legal? Defending this is an incredibly important task that has become much more difficult recently, as the Bush administration's goal is to destroy as much of it as possible. The administration has put a massive effort into obliterating as many of our civil liberties as they could ever since day one (or at least the days after 9/11 when they slipped the horrific Patriot Act through), and on far too many issues they have been successful.

-Domestic spying -- it is now okay to spy on people in the US pretty much carte blanche. The qualification that it has to be related to "international terrorism" is a meaningless one that any sane person could drive convoys of qualifications through.

-Indefinite holding -- we can kidnap anyone from any nation on the planet (other than our own) and hold them in jail in an undisclosed location for any length of time we want without ever giving them any access to lawyers, without telling them why they are being held, and without sentencing them. We can use many techniques on them to extract whatever information they have, many of which are torture.

-Extreme rendezvous -- we can then take those people and send them to other nations such as Egypt, where they can be tortured even more extremely than we can do ourselves. We can then ask for the Egyptians (or whoever) to tell us what it was that those people said.

2) Yes, if you could have gotten Ho Chi Minh to be on your side and not a communist that would have been pretty smart. If you could have convinced Saddam Hussein to hold free elections, also. That is neither here nor there.

Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist first and a Communist second, not the other way around. We never understood that. The WWII coalition he led to free Vietnam from the Japanese and French was one with all kinds of nationalist groups in it, not just Communist ones. That changed after the war, of course, but as I said, that only happened because the US refused to support their efforts for independence and instead supported French military efforts to reconquer their colony. Oh yes, and as for elections, they were never held because we knew that Ho Chi Minh would win them, and we couldn't allow that. This was standard US Cold War policy -- we never supported holding any elections that we thought leftists would win. North Vietnam and the united Vietnam had no elections either, of course, but as far as American involvement goes, there was never the slightest shred of doubt that the vast majority of the Vietnamese people, north or south, wanted a unified government led by Ho Chi Minh or his successors.

Saddam Hussein? Totally different... for one thing, from the day he took power until 1991 we SUPPORTED him, and supported him fully. Remember that great picture of Rummy shaking hands with Saddam in the early '80s? :) We were funding his war against revolutionary Iran. Bush I and Sadaam got along. In 1991, in fact, before he invaded Kuwait, Saddam asked some American officials if they'd have a problem with his taking over Kuwait. They essentially said 'fine, go ahead', and so he did, thinking that America would not act to stop him. It was only later that Bush I had a change of mind and decided that no, he had to kick Saddam out of Kuwait.

As for elections in Iraq, what would they have done? Holding elections in a country with no political culture and no sense of what democratic politics are is totally pointless, as the elections we have held in Iraq since 2003 have shown (Afghan "elections" show this too). You can make them vote, but as long as they don't understand what democracy is and what voting or popular rule really means, it gets you nowhere -- people simply vote for whoever their tribe or faction leader tells them to vote for and that's it. An effort to build political culture in the Middle East would be a great and noble task, but it'd also be an incredibly, incredibly difficult one... not that we have ever tried to do that. We wanted Iraq as a reliable friendly nation in the '80s, so we supported its government; its record of using chemical weapons, genocide, war crimes, etc, didn't matter one bit until we'd decided that Saddam wasn't our friend anymore, and we didn't want elections until then either, knowing that Middle Eastern people are often much more anti-American than their leaders, so any popularly elected government would probably be less friendly.

For a present-day analogy here, look at Pakistan, where it is similar fears of the results of an election that provided Musharaf with years of American support.

Anyway, those two situations were totally different and have very little in common except that in both cases it was the Cold War that drove US policy, towards supporting Saddam in Iraq and opposing Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam.

3) After Tet, the Viet-Cong were exhausted. Instead of finishing them off, you caved in to popular pressure and withdrew. That is the plain truth. North Vietnam would have eventually come to the peace table - no country, no army can sustain casualties like they did forever. It took 12 years for the British to win in Malaysia, and that's in an environment where their enemy was largely withheld supplies - but in the end they won. Kissinger himself described how the US later realized that North Vietnam was much closer to caving in completely in negotiations than they thought at the time.

Tet was 1968. We "caved" and withdrew in 1972. It's pretty obvious that what you are saying did not happen. North Vietnam was being supplied by the Soviet Union and China (though later in the '70s after China and the USSR split the Chinese supplies were cut off).

4) So, you don't have an idea for solving Iraq either, yes? What exactly are you saying, beyond "get the UN involved"? How would getting the UN involved help? Oh - surely Shi'ite death squads and Islamist suicide bombers will have more respect for UN negotiators than US ones, everyone knows the stability that they brought to dangerous situations in the past, like Rwanda for example.

Iraq... yeah, Iraq is a huge, huge issue, and it is something that I think about a lot but don't know what to do about. I do think that nothing will happen until we get another administration in because of the Bush administration's proven record for not wanting to actually do anything and for hating the UN. I know that it's Republican dogma that the UN is evil and wrong and bad and useless, but I'd say that, looking at the real world, the exact opposite is true. Sure there are things we disagree with the UN majority opinion on (such as Israel) but overall the UN is an incredibly important, and very powerful and influential, organization. Once we get a Democratic president we'll have a huge, huge task on our hand making the UN like us again, but it MUST be done. UN assistance is really our one hope for improving things in Iraq...

The UN has done a huge amount of great work. They are often very, very slow to act, which is a major failing of theirs, but once they get involved things happen as long as the money and political will is there. For instance, the UN-backed sanctions of Iraq from 1991 to 2003, which were completely successful at stopping Sadaam from rebuilding his chemical and biological weapons programs. Those sanctions did have tragic side effects as hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died from lack of medicine and such blocked at least in part by the sanctions, but they did achieve their main objective.. a fact that conservatives did not believe in 2003 and that was not proven until we invaded the place and found absolutely nothing.

As for Iraq, one important step that must happen is that the oil revenue sharing agreement (between the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds, to give the Sunnis in central Iraq, who have little oil in their lands, some of the money the Kurds and Shi'ites are making from their oil fields in the north and south) must be passed. I think the fact that it still is not passed proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that this administration does not care about actually improving the situation in Iraq. No political reconciliation will happen until the money issue is worked out, and that money issue is not getting worked out.

I LMAO at how Bush is "shredding civil liberties" but how North Vietnamese concentration camps and forced collectivization are just like "oh well, they did ok". What am I supposed to say to you?

Well, I meant that relatively. We had, and in some ways at least still have, civil liberties. They are a part of our nation that we should protect. Losing them greatly hurts our nation and undermines the government and freedome we claim to have; remember Ben Franklin's quote saying that people who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither? I believe that securing our liberties is incredibly, incredibly important and, yes, sometimes does come ahead of security. Oh, security absolutely is important and where possible we should be secure, but going too far and destroying our rights in search of that impossible "perfect security is wrong. That isn't the kind of principle this nation was founded on and it isn't one that we should be pursuing.

In contrast, Vietnam never really had any civil liberties to begin with, so compared to what they had before the Communist rule in Vietnam wasn't that bad, particularly if you factor in the decades of war that killed millions. Also, as I pointed out, the civil rights situation there was perhaps even worse in South Vietnam under the American-supported dictators than it was later on under the North Vietnamese. Even so, of course you are right that it's a problem that the Vietnamese government is still oppressive, and we should work towards making it more open; we have strong trade connections with them, we could push... of course we won't, as the fact that we trade with China shows (China is almost certainly the world's #1 human rights abuser, and we do nothing about it), but yes, we probably should.

That said, if we'd been supporting the Vietnamese nationalists from the beginning I would expect that things would never have gotten that bad in Vietnam. Imagine Vietnam without 45 years of Soviet influence... that could, potentially, have happened.

[alien space marine]

fox news is total bollox

They claim that Ron Paul believes that 9/11 was a inside job; Which is totally false Ron Paul has many times refuted this ; 9/11 truthers for some reason are obsessed with Paul but he does not share there views in the 9/11 inside job conspiracy contrary to the lies that fox news is spewing.

Fox is so distorted and full of shit ; Its not worth watching except solely for entertainment.

[Great Rumbler]

Too bad Ron Paul is so far behind in the national polls that he's got basically a zero chance of being nominated...

[Dark Jaguar]

Well to be honest I don't think he's fit to lead the country anyway. I think the person in charge should, if not a good education in science, have at least a healthy understanding and respect of the methods. In fact I'd say that is one of the major qualifications.

[alien space marine]

Steven Hawkins should be in the debate

[Great Rumbler]

Well to be honest I don't think he's fit to lead the country anyway. I think the person in charge should, if not a good education in science, have at least a healthy understanding and respect of the methods. In fact I'd say that is one of the major qualifications.

Well that pretty much disqualifies everyone who's currently running.

[alien space marine]

Well that pretty much disqualifies everyone who's currently running.

My point exactly

[Dark Jaguar]

Sad isn't it?

[A Black Falcon]

The Democrats don't actively hate science like all of the Republicans do, though. I'd say that they support it fairly well...

Oh yeah, and as for Ron Paul and conspiracies, why tie something to him he didn't say when there are a dozen (at least) others that he DOES clearly believe in that are just as crazy? :)

[Dark Jaguar]

The fact is though that if I can't find one that is clearly pro-science then I will have to pick the one that is neutral or the least anti-science. Ron here is not that person.

[Great Rumbler]

I think Bill Nye is a candidate that all of us could get behind.

[Dark Jaguar]

Well actually yeah. He's actually very well educated, unlike Mr Wizard who, while still doing a good job at educating people about science, was still an actor more than anything else.

[alien space marine]

The Democrats don't actively hate science like all of the Republicans do, though. I'd say that they support it fairly well...

Oh yeah, and as for Ron Paul and conspiracies, why tie something to him he didn't say when there are a dozen (at least) others that he DOES clearly believe in that are just as crazy? :)

They were saying that he said 9/11 was a inside job which never once has he ever stated that; Fox news is infamous for misinformation and bias on many things.

As for Ron Paul ideas being crazy well the libertarian ideas are insane.

[alien space marine]

I think Bill Nye is a candidate that all of us could get behind.

Bill Nye would be sweet

[Dark Jaguar]

Have any of the candidates actually posted the in-depth details of their plans online where I could read them or do they still just say they HAVE such plans without offering anything beyond how totally sweet they are?

[lazyfatbum]

*still nude*

It's all completely erroneous (ERRONEOUS!), none of this actually matters and I dont understand why people think that choosing a different candidate actually means anything. None of them are going to do everything right, none of them offer the best choices and all of them equally suck ass. Rudy is floating his entire campaign on *popularity* because "Him's was on that there TV" and probably has a hard-on for attention that only be calmed by driving the country for a term or two. Then you have Clinton, probably the best choice out of them all but still ass because she's only going to *follow* what people want, especially the female groups who are going to pressure her in to all kinds of shit she should *not* be stepping in as a president but she'll feel obligated because she's going to become an 'icon' to all women as president.

Then we have Obama, same thing as clinton except now you have the "vague muslim ties" and the whole spade issue, now he's going to have all the normal shit that comes with being big cheese with every muslim group/black group breathing down his neck looking for special treatment. "Obama denied Arkansas funding for school improvement but approved Detroit!" *Obama has to explain for a total of two hours over a period of 2 years that the Arkansas school had marginal funding issues compared to the Detroit schools that were actually made of bricks consisting of crack cocaine*

Mess, mess, mess. I say a president's name and you will come up with 3 or 4 instances that embody that president because we are horrible little judgmental troglodytes that need to label everything. Clinton! *cigar fucking chubby jewish did not have sex kiss a black baby saxaphone* Bush senior! *desert shield storm shit yellow ribbon wont broccoli Barbara vomit on pants* Put a woman or a black in office, and you BEG, beeeggggg for issues because of how undeniably retarded we are and unless they can actually walk on water we will spend the next 4/8 years finding reasons to regret the choice simply because its new and unproven.

And it still wont freaking matter because we'll still have the same unemployment, crime, etc because *NO ONE* has the ability to stand up against that stuff until there's major, and I mean like landing on the moon/nuking Japan major restructuring of our government which is never going to happen because no one wants that responsibility for if it doesn't suck our dicks from the start.

So yeah, gag. Politics make my soul vomit and debating who's going to trump who based on tag lines and catch phrases (that are always lies... remember? Remember how none of the president's ever do what they say? ...remember that part?) seems completely pointless to me but if I have to vote (and I dont) I would go with Mz Krusty Krab. We need organization and women are born with it and she happens to also be smart with it. A woman has greeted everyone entering this country for over a hundred years and it's about time we're lead by one. Perks? NO WAR. Cons? A lot of tiring sexism, chronic penii shrinkage from other male leaders in the states and ultimately, a conclusion Obama and Clinton probably both share the opinion that they have to stay as gray and boring as possible as just their presence is already rocking the boat enough on the political seas.

Other than that, expect no change, same issues, SSDP (same shit, different president)

"Clinton says no to decrease in sales tax, GOP says "Must be that time of the month."

Mark my words.

*runs away w/pants*

[Dark Jaguar]

Don't be coy, tell us what you really think.

[Great Rumbler]

Have any of the candidates actually posted the in-depth details of their plans online where I could read them or do they still just say they HAVE such plans without offering anything beyond how totally sweet they are?

What do you think?

[N-Man]

So, so much is wrong here...

1. SADDAM AND THE ISLAMIC RADICALS HATED EACH OTHER!!!

Would you like us to discuss real, actual fascism? The corporatist economic model and all? Why is it so much of a stretch to describe Islamists as metaphorical fascists, when their societal ideals are actually quite similar to fascism - if for entirely different reasons - but not so much of a stretch to call Rudy Giuliani a fascist? Do you understand your own hypocrisy - calling Bush and Giuliani **"fascists" while refusing to acknowledge the term "Islamofascist" (which is, if as uninteresting as the term "neoliberal", at least somewhat vaguely accurate)?

As for the rest, I read your descriptions of "shredded civil rights", and I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I just don't believe that the things you cited constitute much of an affront to civil rights, unless used in particularly malicious ways.

Tet was 1968. We "caved" and withdrew in 1972. It's pretty obvious that what you are saying did not happen. North Vietnam was being supplied by the Soviet Union and China (though later in the '70s after China and the USSR split the Chinese supplies were cut off).

And yet, it did. After Tet is when politicians started motioning to "bring the troops home", renewing the enemy's energy and allowing him to make outrageous demands. Of course, it didn't happen instantly.

Relations between China and the Soviet Union became cold long before the 70s. Mao started being a little bitch soon after Stalin's death, when Khrushchev acknowledged that Uncle Joe was a bit of a genocidal maniac. It has been postulated that the USA could probably have invaded North Vietnam without causing a Chinese counterattack considering that situation (which was unknown at that point to US intelligentsia).

I know that it's Republican dogma that the UN is evil and wrong and bad and useless, but I'd say that, looking at the real world, the exact opposite is true.

I guess all those people who died in Rwanda and Bosnia didn't live in the real world. Don't get me wrong, I love the concept of the UN - actually, I strongly believe in a one-world state - its problem is that it includes nations that are not liberal democracies. Those nations' governments should not be regarded as legitimate nor recognized in any way. If those governments were to be removed from the UN, then I have no doubt that it would have the moral imperative (and therefore the gumption) to act decisively.

Anyway, explain to me, in ten lines or less, what the UN, once it is "involved" will do in Iraq to solve or ease the situation.

As for Iraq, one important step that must happen is that the oil revenue sharing agreement (between the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and Kurds, to give the Sunnis in central Iraq, who have little oil in their lands, some of the money the Kurds and Shi'ites are making from their oil fields in the north and south) must be passed. I think the fact that it still is not passed proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that this administration does not care about actually improving the situation in Iraq. No political reconciliation will happen until the money issue is worked out, and that money issue is not getting worked out.

Yeah, that's a real bind innit.

That said, if we'd been supporting the Vietnamese nationalists from the beginning I would expect that things would never have gotten that bad in Vietnam. Imagine Vietnam without 45 years of Soviet influence... that could, potentially, have happened.

Maybe. Vietnam was involved with the Soviets much earlier than you'd think. Ho Chi Minh was not so much pro-American as he was a proponent of the "Third Way" - technically neutral in the conflict between capitalism and communism, but really on the Soviet side. Third Way states were usually third world nations that weren't really communist, but naturally prone to seeing the USA as the enemy. Kissinger explained this fairly well in his book I mentioned earlier - third world countries could gain more, materially, by opposing the USA, since they were less likely to become confrontational than the USSR. Nasser gave the first example when building the Aswan dam by playing off the superpowers against each other, to see who would propose the most money, then finally denouncing the Americans as imperialists to gain points with the population.

[alien space marine]

Have any of the candidates actually posted the in-depth details of their plans online where I could read them or do they still just say they HAVE such plans without offering anything beyond how totally sweet they are?

Try utube