loved "bunkerfaust" and snakes eating tarantulas-otherwise, what the world needs now are more sifters "staying the course"..."going all the way"...

Question: on which inner thigh is your, "Hope for Change" tattoo, and how much is the campaign paying you for gratuitous tea-bagging???

Congrats, Sea of Fermented Soybean Cake!!

I don't understand the US Military, you guys seem rather willing to enter the meat grinder without really questioning Why? in lieu of idealism formulated around duty and honor that mean nothing to the politicians who push you around like pawns.

Bush is a CIC yes, a terrible one at that, all he sacrifices is a few show biz tears and gives away a folded flag to a devastated family. Oh wait he doesn't even do that... can't think of a single funeral he went to...

Reminds me of Black Adder.

Then we are supposed to stay the course because pulling out would mean the sacrifices of the soldiers were for nothing. WTF kind of logic is that?

Your points are fair and valid, I was only poking fun at you for the little passive aggressive "p.s." at the end which was essentially saying "you people probably beat your wives because you don't agree with conservative viewpoints".

No, that wasn't my intent or message. Sarcasm noted BTW.

As far as the last bits I left below this comment, replace the word Liberal with Conservative and you have pretty much the same argument.

I can't agree with that assessment because conservatism factors in something liberalism doesn't: facts. For example, it's been fairly well proven that every time the minimum wage is raised, prices go up and businesses hire fewer workers and still fewer inexperienced workers, such as teens entering the job market. But the genius of liberalism is people are emotional animals. What graph or chart is as colorful or loud as one "activist" screaming about hungry children, even if it has nothing to do with the issue at hand? So, the minimum wage goes up, prices go up, and once again, the media can blame higher prices and unemployment on...well...whatever's handy at the moment.

Republicans have failed to properly emotionalize their arguments, and even if they did, they'll always have a harder battle to fight, because there are no solutions, only trade-offs. Liberals don't believe that because they're selling what they believe to be permanent solutions.

Look, I was raised in a Republican household and I am still a registered Republican despite having moved left of center over the past 4 or 5 years. I've learned that someones morals and viewpoints are subjective and vary wildly based on where and how they were raised and by whom. Some peoples emotions and thought processes run differently and they see things differently. Sometimes they evolve over time when they engage in free-thought and tune out what everyone else says or thinks for a while. That's fine.

We are entitled to our own opinions but not our own facts. You're young yet and will have to find your own answers, of course. Being raised in a Republican household might very well have been a handicap, because the family unit is communistic by nature and now you're out there, seeking knowledge for yourself as you make your way through life. Conservatism and other -isms are being cross-examined by you, put through your tests and yes, through the filters of your experience.

Personally, the acts of the Bush administration have left me in utter disbelief and ashamed of what the Republican party has become, but of course a great many Americans disagree and feel the bogeyman is real and we have to assert our might lest our stature in the world degrade any more than it already has. Giving up is for sissies even if staying the course leads to economic and social ruin.

I'm not a fan of Bush myself, and could probably match your laundry list of what's wrong with him. It's all ebb and flow, and there are going to be low points, for the party and the nation. Research what America was like during Jimmy Carter's presidency.

If the R's want to survive, they'll find a way to get back to what matters. Or they'll die out. It may take people like you leaving for greener pastures for them to wake up. Hell, maybe you won't come back. I believe that things balance out, eventually. The Soviet Union, as bad is it was, fell because it was beneath human dignity to live like that. Hopefully China will also lose the Red.

Oh well, what I have ultimately learned is that after a certain age, opinions are pretty firmly cemented not withstanding a severe paradigm shift (like what if irrefutable proof came out that 9/11 was orchestrated a la Crassus and Spartacus or the Reichstag Fire in order to further a political goal; how then would you feel about this country and government? Just a hypothetical of course).

If it could be proven 9-11 was an inside job, my first reaction would be to find out how the conspirators managed to keep the silence and complicity of thousands of people, many of them government workers that can't even deliver the mail (a line from Maher). The problem with conspiracy theories is that when there's no evidence, the theorists say, "That just proves how good the conspirators really are."

For the sake of fun, let's say it was a conspiracy. If so, it backfired in several ways. If Bush was seeking to become a tyrant, his perceived inability to protect New York was not an asset. People like me, already pissed-off at the size and power of pre-9-11 government didn't suddenly relax now that there was going to be more bureaucracy to protect us.

Second, if Bush was seeking the tyrannical power that the left claims he has now, he failed to go far enough. There was no mass censorship or government seizure of media and Homeland Security did not suddenly have thousands of stormtroopers at its disposal. The message was, "Live your life like always, in spite of the attacks."

Lastly, Bush united an opposition that, if they agreed upon nothing else, could blame Bush for everything. He was still in trouble with leftists before the attacks due to the 'stolen' election, and he couldn't placate the left fast enough spending OUR money.

That having been said, going into a place where a majority of folks disagree with you politically and essentially poking the lions is generally a wasteful gesture. Nobody is going to suddenly think Olbermann is wrong and O'Reilly has it all right, or that Obama is the anti-christ and McCain will save this country from the failed policies of the Bush administration.

True on all counts. Thus my new policy. There's enough going on at VS not to bother with it anymore.

Ultimately, history is the best educator and can truly open ones eyes to the way the world works because in all honesty not much has changed in the last 2000 years as far as how men control other men and how power asserts itself. I highly recommend delving into the history of the Roman Empire, particularly the way Crassus used the gladiator revolt and paved the way for the Triumverate and God-Emperors of Rome, and the way the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire, a staged act of 'terrorism', to increase their power and further their agendas. There are many precedents throughout history for governments creating enemies or events in order to tighten their grip on a population, solidify power, engage in wars, and strip away freedoms.

The American form of government is unique in world history and remains one-of-a-kind today. The 3 branches make it extremely difficult for any one individual or group to consolidate too much power, too quickly. It "survived" Bush and if Obama gets in, democracy will hobble his efforts at trying to change things overnight.

The creation of an "Other" for government to consolidate power is a given throughout history. However, when there are not imagined barbarians at the gate, there are real ones.

Our opinions differ on the war. I happen to think history will show taking out Saddam was the right thing to do, but no, I can't "prove" it any more than scientitians now can prove with climate models that global warming is man-made.

I get the subtext of your message.

We all like to believe that the people who disagree with us are unread, inexperienced, missing obvious truths, buying into lies, etc. It's simply not so. There exist people on every side of the issues that are intelligent, well-read, etc. But being human, we will be biased toward one side: ours.

It all goes back to Patrick Moynihan's timeless saying: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.

Ancora Imparo.

"I've spent so much time with spiritual advisors, so much money on crystals and weird drugs. To think Cthulhu had been living in Hollywood Hills this whole time. He's saved my career."
--W. Axl Rose











In reply to this comment by uhohzombies:
Your points are fair and valid, I was only poking fun at you for the little passive aggressive "p.s." at the end which was essentially saying "you people probably beat your wives because you don't agree with conservative viewpoints".

As far as the last bits I left below this comment, replace the word Liberal with Conservative and you have pretty much the same argument. Look, I was raised in a Republican household and I am still a registered Republican despite having moved left of center over the past 4 or 5 years. I've learned that someones morals and viewpoints are subjective and vary wildly based on where and how they were raised and by whom. Some peoples emotions and thought processes run differently and they see things differently. Sometimes they evolve over time when they engage in free-thought and tune out what everyone else says or thinks for a while. That's fine. Personally, the acts of the Bush administration have left me in utter disbelief and ashamed of what the Republican party has become, but of course a great many Americans disagree and feel the bogeyman is real and we have to assert our might lest our stature in the world degrade any more than it already has. Giving up is for sissies even if staying the course leads to economic and social ruin.

Oh well, what I have ultimately learned is that after a certain age, opinions are pretty firmly cemented not withstanding a severe paradigm shift (like what if irrefutable proof came out that 9/11 was orchestrated a la Crassus and Spartacus or the Reichstag Fire in order to further a political goal; how then would you feel about this country and government? Just a hypothetical of course). Most political arguments are just that... heated arguments which lead to nothing. True debate is almost nonexistent because usually one person or both are just completely incapable of objectively examining someone else's viewpoints. That having been said, going into a place where a majority of folks disagree with you politically and essentially poking the lions is generally a wasteful gesture. Nobody is going to suddenly think Olbermann is wrong and O'Reilly has it all right, or that Obama is the anti-christ and McCain will save this country from the failed policies of the Bush administration.

Ultimately, history is the best educator and can truly open ones eyes to the way the world works because in all honesty not much has changed in the last 2000 years as far as how men control other men and how power asserts itself. I highly recommend delving into the history of the Roman Empire, particularly the way Crassus used the gladiator revolt and paved the way for the Triumverate and God-Emperors of Rome, and the way the Nazis used the Reichstag Fire, a staged act of 'terrorism', to increase their power and further their agendas. There are many precedents throughout history for governments creating enemies or events in order to tighten their grip on a population, solidify power, engage in wars, and strip away freedoms.

In reply to this comment by quantumushroom:

I'm thinking about the psychological makeup of the submitter. Let's go inside their head: they've just posted yet another lopsided fake newsman like Colbert or Maher or the despicable Keef Overbite, bashing Bush or criticizing the war in unproductive fashion. The same 5-10 kudos arrive and everyone's in agreement.


Liberals take their worldview very, very seriously, to the point there are no other valid points of view. So, I says to myself, I says, even if you're trying to "educate" among the fun-poking, none of these people signed up to hear from you. And so I says to myself, "Self, you're right."

And that's where we are today. I don't expect anyone after these few comments to even bother. Another month and no one will know I was there. There's enough music and tech and stuff not to bother with election '08 and beyond.

I'm still around and my views remain the same. But just as I wouldn't walk around Target or the (hated) Wal-mart telling strangers what I think of Bush or Colbert, now it has its place. That's all.

I disagree. If the babies died in the name of the war on terror, that would be a noble sacrifice. But only so long as we stay the course. To leave now would mean that we shot those babies out of cannons in vain.

QM, it's not too late for you to enlist. Still waiting for you to put your big butt on a plane.

Also, last time I checked, the majority of child molesters in recent news have been elected Republican Congressmen and state GOP party leaders. Coincidence?

jwray, I hope you never join the service, even for a just war. You're untrustworthy and maybe even treasonous if you encourage anyone in our military to desert because of disagreeing with the cause. When I was in the service, I knew I had to do whatever was legally asked, whether I believed in its purpose, or not.

I've also been against the war longer than most people, but I still have a deep respect and thankfullness for our military. So I'll agree with Montel. But ironically I wouldn't expect much from ratings-based, commercial tv, not to mention I don't care what fox news does. Fox is the last place I'd go for anything "fair and balanced". I've decided!

Praise be unto NPR, and the News Hour. And by the way, almost 4000 people per month die in car accidents, and that's *never* a big story. We spend over 10 Billion dollars per month in Iraq. Just think of all the lives we could be *saving* here every freakin' day with that kind of money, besides saving soldiers' and civilian lives.

But to stay on topic... I want to THANK again our troops. I also wish Bush/Cheney et al (which consists of a *large* group of Fundamentalist Idiots) can "stay the course" until their road paved with good intention takes them all the way to hell. Pray that the rest of America gets a course correction from the next president. (Man, did I go off topic again!?)

wake wrote:

What returning to the gold standard would do to the economy.

Right...and the course we are on now, borrowing billions of dollars from foregn countries, and printing paper money out of thin air is never going to come back to bite if we stay the course...the U.S. dollar is too powerful....or at least it was.

wake wrote:

Check out the Ron Paul survival report for some really great stuff about his views on other races. "If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be." - Ron Paul

That's a distortion of the truth. Those "words" appeared in a newsletter of his from 1996. His explanation is that those words were not written by him. How do we know if he is telling the truth? We don't...but we can look at his record. We can look at things that we know he actually has said, things that he has done and things he has promised to do and they are not supportive of the racist you want us to think he is.

What a fucking moron.

For the past four years he's been telling us that Iraq was nothing like Vietnam (a war that his rich daddy helped him dodge and go AWOL from just the same).

Suddenly, Iraq is like Vietnam.

Ergo, Bush got America into another Vietnam.

Q ...Mr. President...some people are comparing Iraq to Vietnam and talking about a quagmire. Polls show that support for your policy is declining and that fewer than half Americans now support it. What does that say to you and how do you answer the Vietnam comparison?

THE PRESIDENT: I think the analogy is false. I also happen to think that analogy sends the wrong message to our troops, and sends the wrong message to the enemy. Look, this is hard work. It's hard to advance freedom in a country that has been strangled by tyranny. And, yet, we must stay the course, because the end result is in our nation's interest.

Source

Arrest that fool.

SilentPoet says: "That doesn't make sense. Most of the time, two canidates will get the majority of the votes. That is to say that most of the votes are split between two canidates. How do I end up with someone worse than the two canidates by voting for someone who I believe would make a better canidate?......How is choosing the canidate whom you believe would serve best irrational? That seems to simply go against the very meaning of democracy to me."

It makes perfect sense; you've just misunderstood the point. You don't end up with someone worse than the 2 candidates. Rather, you end up with the worst of the 2 candidates that have an actual chance to win, and the one farthest from your optimal outcome. Nader can't win, whether you vote for him or not. Hell, SP, he couldn't win even if everyone who was a true Green disregarded my advice and voted for him TWICE. There just aren't enough people as yet who support his ideas.

Given that fact, a vote for Nader is a vote to facilitate making the world more crappy (by your own lights) than it is right now. It purposely endorses the worst outcome--a Republican victory--over a better outcome, where the outcomes are ranked only by reference to your own values. Worse, it does so out of a misguided belief that somehow that's what the "meaning of democracy" requires. How is that NOT irrational?

Think of it this way: Say you have 3 choices, A, B, & C. You like A better than B, and B better than C. Thus, you like A better than C (by transitivity). Now, imagine that an evil wizard comes up to you and says, "You can choose A, but if you do, I will make it immediately disappear, and you will be stuck with C. If you choose B, you will get B. If you choose C, you will get C. Which do you want?"

It is obvious which choice you should make. You should choose B. You could choose your favorite choice (A), but you know if you do you will not get it anyway, and in fact will be stuck with the thing you like the least (C). You don't want to choose C right off, because then you'll get it, and you'd rather have B. If you choose B, though, you'll get B (and avoid C). B isn't perfect, but at least that way you end up with your second ranked outcome instead of your last ranked outcome.

Now, replace A with Nader, B with the Democrats, and C with the GOP, and you see why voting for Nader is irrational. It is the equivalent of choosing A in the thought experiment described above (the evil wizard is, of course, the American 2 party system).

Now, the argument above is based on 6 assumptions:

1) That Nader can't win.
2) That voting for him knowing he will lose will not make for any significant structural/institutional changes, even in the long term (and may even result in a regression away from your admirable political goals if the Republicans are helped to win by your so voting).
3) That the Democrats--while shitty--are not NEARLY so shitty as the GOP, and will not get alot of people killed by staying the course in Iraq, bombing Iran, etc.
4) That the Democrats are not MORE corrupt than the Republicans.
5) That your politics are closer to Nader's than, say, Fred Thompson's.
6) That the next presidential election will be close enough that if a good number of people follow your advice, we could see a repeat of the 2000 Nader/Gore/Bush debacle.

I think the first 4 are all indisputable. The fifth one is reasonable given that you are advocating a vote for Nader instead of a different "3rd party" candidate. Number 6 is a guess, but I think it's a decent one. Anyway, vote for who you like. I just hope you won't kid yourself into thinking that you are doing anyone but Nader a favor. You won't, if my argument is correct, even be doing yourself a favor.

"I admit that I usually have to read his comments several times before I figure out what he is saying. Like I said, he rambles a bit, but there may be some method in that madness."

This is proof that you are more intelligent than me. I cannot figure out what choggie is talking about. Ever.

i really wanna watch this, its dead as of now and i dont know what it is in the youtube jungle
http://www.videosift.com/video/Weve-never-been-Stay-The-Course-huh

The Right is having trouble attacking this man clearly. They go back years to find a clip to try to pass him off as a flip flopper?

Please.

Let's see now... Since 2003 Bush revised the way he refers to the war...

March 2003 - Operation Iraqi Freedom:
"This will not be a campaign of half measures, and we will accept no outcome but victory."
TROOPS : 90,000

May 2003 - Under Mission Accomplished banner:
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended."
TROOPS : 146,300

April 2004 - On Staying Course:
"These killers [terrorists] don't have values. They want to shake our will... But we will stay the course."
TROOPS : 138,100

November 2005 - Strategy for Victory in Iraq:
"Every man and woman who volunteers to defend our nation deserves an unwavering commitment to the mission - and a clear strategy for victory."
TROOPS : 154,000

July 2006 - Operation Together Forward:
"Obviously, the violence in Baghdad is still terrible, and therefore there needs to be more troops."
TROOPS : 131,000

January 2007 - New Way Forward Iraq Strategy:
"This violence is splitting Baghdad into sectarian enclaves, and shaking the confidence of all Iraqis... Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."
TROOPS : 132,000


The military itself says Bush's surge plan is a foolish political compromise, that introduces too few troops to secure the situation but just enough to get more Americans killed. Bush doesn't listen to his own generals, dismissing the advice of the Chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, who wanted the increase to be just a few thousand men.

As sympathetic as I an toward the plight of the North Korean people, there are always the complexities of multi-national geopolitical realities to deal with.

How would one make a case for attacking NK? It could be done, but what would be the premise? Humanitarian...preemption...weapons of mass destruction?

In response to Choggie's post...simply for the sake of beating a dead horse, You could take every instance of North Korea and and replace it with Iraq and we would have exactly the same situation.

What if Bush says we're going to invade NK under the premise that we're going to take them out before they can use their WMD's on us? Is it a just cause or do we get politics as usual, like war is bad...what right do we have to impose our will on others...America is a fascist, imperialist nation bent on controlling the world...no blood for rice?

And if we do go in and knock over Kim Jong Ill's government and oops, we don't find any WMD's? Do we say 'my bad' and leave or do we get the same stay the course policy and fight bands of communists insurgents from Russia and China while CNN counts the death toll?

funny, I hadn't seen that. hmm, now the question is, do I change the title, or Stay The Course?

It's up for debate of course, but IMHO the Daily Show recognized the absurdity of Iraq long before the MSM. ("Stay The Course"/"We've never been stay the course").

Another interesting thing looking at your list: is there a narrative thread organizing the videos? Chronological? I wonder if the playlists have enough context/metadata to be a useful compound document. Your playlist only has a single word, which is borrowed from TDS. Or maybe the ambiguity is a feature..

I was thinking the other day how interesting it is that writing can now quote videos. The ability to quote video within a written argument is a style of writing enabled beginning 2006 by YouTube's semilegal content.

I don't understand why you would down vote something like that. While inherently you and I might know about this issue that is occurring in Iraq, suppression of this information and the sheer shock value of seeing something like this needs to get out there. For most people don't know the actual conditions there, offering a glimpse into that to wake people up is needed against the stay the course rhetoric.

Furthermore I wanted to ask you generally, why you take this very aggressive argumentative stance when dealing with Republican GOP troops, I always feel a lot of personal anger? Just morbidly curious...

In reply to your comment:
“Wow.
They can hit an empty sand dune.
And innocent civilians.
My heroes.”

Enzo, I hear what you're saying. But something is badly broken. Bush lied to the American people and lost their trust. Rumsfeld is incompetent and Bush won't fire him -- it'd be an admission of failure. This is a stubborn inept administration led by chickenhawks.

These guys are going through established procedures.. it's not like they're going AWOL. The system is broken and it's important that everyone speak up and not accept the lies like "stay the course". I'm sure this guy expects his career to be destroyed- at least. Kudos to him for speaking up.