Civil Discourse
This quotes fairly well known by now:
"They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it’s a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another," Robertson said.
Check out this one from a "questionnaire" given to local law enforcement and County Commissioners here in my valley:
"It is the duty of the Sheriff to form and command a County Militia composed of all able-bodied Citizens 18 years or older. (Note: Women must serve,but not in a combat capacity unless the men are in danger of being over-run.)
Or this:
"...prohibit all Federal Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) employees as such entrance into-------County without permission from the Sheriff-no exceptions.Note: This strict provision is based on two indisputable facts: 1) The EPA is not a Constitutional arm of the Federal government nor are its functions Constitutional. 2)Much of the so-called support for environmental regulations is based upon the dubious assumption that there is such a phenomenon as global warming when, in fact, the majority of scientists globally agree that we are not experiencing global warming. Local governments have the duty to furnish valid and reliable data necessary to evaluate and provide safe water,waste disposal and clean air in the County."
So I guess the question is, given these starting points, these particular coordinates, how might a "civil discourse" proceed? Where might it progress and what might be accomplished? Should I write a letter to the editor questioning the local governments ability to collate such data? Ha!
In my mind, wresting meaningful dialogue out of these expressions of popular sentiment is not only impossible, but dangerous and destructive. Much more healthy would be a hearty "burst of laughter".Unfortunately for society and the very concept of governance, we've already started down the rabbit hole and so the Spectacular media is buzzing with "rational" response to Pats Tourrettes and I'm sure the local phone lines around the Bitterroot are lit up as well.
My point is that all this blather about a "national discussion" or "civil debate" are fictions designed to help us believe a healthy democratic process exists ( or could with some minor tweaks). Donald Duck would make a fabulous President because we could finally put fowlism behind us and the Dreams of His Gander would assure a "progressive" approach to expansive rights for quail and partridge.And after all the "able-bodied" roosters went down the chickens could be set loose. I especially like all the implied and expressed "facts". Ha Ha.
posted by troutsky @ 9:39 PM
30 comments
30 Comments:
Lets start this off slowly because as a death cultist you are slow of mind and devoid of thought.
Robertson is a theologian and has expressed a crude and embarrassing traditional dismissal of Native African religion. He is not a bad sort just blinded by his faith and arrogant. Left to his own devices he serves the poor as a religious calling.
While Robertson may be quaint and chauvinistic, he is not a political
criminal. Robertson builds orphanages and your kind fills them. He serves the poor as his calling while you exploit them for power. His kind venerates life and your kind purposely starves it to death. He talks of utopia in the next world and your kind butchers millions for a Utopia in this world
that is as real as a three dollar bill.
Hell is a real place created and made by Commies. Hell is a place where life is cheap to be traded for some power mad scam. Hell is a
place where the deranged thoughts of a power mad leader who is the death cults God on earth decides he is the law.
In every measure that counts Robertson is your superior. He may be goofy and say wacky things but he is far more reality based than the sons of treason and death.
One thing working in your favour Troutsky, is that these sort of lunatics - yes, even in the USA - are a minority, albeit a frightening large minority, of the population. This is one of the reasons why they are so rabid. In the same way that religious "fundamentalism" only develops in a society that is questioning religious orthodoxy, a politics that is in the process of rejecting racism, misogyny, war, corporatism etc. creates its own kind of political "fundamentalist" opposition. In the recent past this was called fascism...
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Pat Robertson used airplanes from his charity, to help dictator Mobutu of the Congo, with the blood diamond business. When Mobutu lost control, Robertson cuddled up with his Maoist opposition. He was also close with Charles Taylor. Later he praised the Chinese Stalinists, for their granting religious freedom, while Falun Gong was oppressed. He also was friendly to the death squad leader, who killed Arch Bishop Romero in El Salvador. I'm sure he loved Papa Doc.
I think this year, there will be no ambivalence about the right, now that immigration reform is approaching the discussion table in government. The Tea Party took offense to being considered an arm of the GOP. Most analysis of the Tea Party, are uncertain which faction rules. Open white supremacists are a faction. How much influence they have is open for debate. We'll know soon enough.
Larry G: There is no material basis for fascism, even if they have rotten ideology.
Ren
Robertson is your superior even if everything you state is true. He has no need to hide who he is. His kind has never betrayed the USA or committed crimes against humanity in any large numbers.
You falsely claim that Tea Party types are racial supremacists. Even if that were true, that would make them superior to commies. That
is also fiction as I have never seen one iota of bigotry at a Tea Party event. Hatred of commies is
not bigotry but a wholly rational reaction to your criminality.
In fact one is apt to find more bigotry in a group of commies than
Tea Party gatherings. Commies are rabid anti-semites and are patronizing to racial minorities.
The Rowan Williams fiasco shows that Africans are only allowed to talk if they are fellow commies like Desmond Tutu.
Your kind are the lowest of the low
on a par with but not better than Nazis.
Discussion of "National Discussion" is akin to tree ornaments at Xmas time. They are meant to deflect therealization that the tree is dead... it has been severed from its roots... it is dried out and wilting.
That is the state of our democracy; any voice to thecontrary... would sound like "a man with a paper asshole."
"When the myth becomes bigger than the truth, print the myth."
--- John Ford, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence"
That's pretty much the nature of our "discourse", trout. The trade in facts and reportage is at an all time low and we have a media that allows the loonies considerable voice.
Larry, one of the aspects of American government is that a minority can bring it to a halt. The far right may not be a majority but they have the media and resources to manage the agenda.
You find them everywhere supporting human filth like Pat Robertson and his mining operations in west Africa that were funded by his "ministry" (LMOA).
But kultur, don't we need to develop a political economy that offers something better even if it's just for the pragmatic value of maintaining our sanity?
That would be my argument as well Ducky. If designed properly it might even give us space to reconsider meta notions like time and geography through an authentic dialogic ( dialectic) process. People are yearning, of that there is no doubt.
Larry, There is a struggle under way in our community with these very forces and the liberals are sideways.Interesting times, eh?
Beak, the gulags are long gone, chill.
"Just as the 'goofies' poured out when the domestication of animals broke the balanced genetic systems of their wild progenitors, a thousand 'goofy' ideologies have been exploding since agriculture shattered the life ways of hunter-gatherer clans." Paul Shepard, The Tender Carnivore.
Troutsky and Ducky -
I think Shepard's quote above is an adequate summary of the challenge. The Neolithic 'revolution' led by agriculture, had a profound impact on the human psyche (and perhaps, the genome); it altered, our basic mode of sociability, our means of communication, our values, small- group habitation, our food collection techniques(economics), our temporal focus (away from the present and towards thefuture).
And the 'goofy' ideologies spawned by such a transformation will never succeed in bringing the human-animal back into balance with his environment or his own kind.
Can we have dialogues? Of course! Will we reach agreement on the way forward? Of course not!
I am a pessimist... through and through. I find it easier to live that way; it is lessanxiety producing andless time consunming.
Troytsky
Are the gulags gone. Political prisoners are still being held by your death cult regime.
Have the usual suspects demanded Daniel Ortega be tried for genocide for his crimes against Indians.
The path to criminality flows directly from Marx to death. It is time to arm Contras and eliminate Chavez and Castro.
Nazism is invariably tied to the Holocaust. Communism is tied to the Gulag, Kulaks, Killing Fields, Terrorism and treason.
Duncy
Being that you are an apologist for the most despotic regimes on the planet pointing your finger at
Robertson is humorous.
I agree Ren, it isn't fascism, it is a form of reaction that has grown out of present conditions. Swastika-wearing types are only an irritant and have no hope of influencing power, though the state may use them as terrorists against progressive movements.
Also Ren, what do you think is the material base of the present reactionaries? For fascism it was the petty bourgeoisie, lumpen elements and the landowner class. There isn't much of a PB left in the US and the landowner class was defeated in the Civil War, so the material base has to be different.
Indeed what drives lunatics like Beak? Should we even consider looking for a rational basis for his hatred and fanaticism? Aren't such people more to be explained through social psychology than Marxism - as valuable a tool as it is?
For information purposes, this would be a typical Canadian take on the US media, whoring for the right-wing See
http://harveyoberfeld.ca/blog/brainwashing-america/
Kultur
Your entire world view is upside down. You can argue the hunter gather cliche but it is not factual.In fact you can look on the web for a speech by Pinker. In fairness the Hunter Gatherers in the Amazon and New Guinea were known to be very violent. You may have a coherent argument about sampling methodology.For example a sample taken from the members of the Bloods and Crips would not match society as a whole.
The evidence suggests that hunter gatherers were every bit as violent if not more so.
Do note that the presentation points out that where warfare exists today it is often in situations of loose governmental control ar anarchy. It seems reality does not fit fashionable cliches.
Scratch the noble savage bit or Mazzola Marxism into the dust bin of silly ideas.
... anyone know exactly what "Mazzola Marxism" is and does Max Baucus practice it?
The evidence suggests that hunter gatherers were every bit as violent if not more so.
-------------------
Every bit as violet as the Bloods and Crips?
Often your prose doesn't scan smoothly, Beak?
Kultur, your thesis of a "recovery of the ecstatic" is not pessimistic, has some objective relation changed since writing? I have trouble conceiving of one ancient crucible that could forever doom our resilient species,not to diminish it's importance.
Larry, this particular element is that modern blend of property owning working class and corporate pimps funneling resources.
Duncy
Kultur is the founder of the latest fad of Marxism Mazzola Marxism. Man is corrupted by civilization and by turning back the clock we can reach a collective utopia and commune with nature as depicted in Mazzola commercials.
Wrong on all counts.
Kultur will grasp the point about improper sampling. The points about Bloods and Crips were for you lesser loonies like the senile anarchist clown Gamboner Pyle.
Kultur
"Man is corrupted by civilization and by turning back the clock we can reach a collective utopia and commune with nature"
Obviously the Big Beakster does not read well; must be a learning disability.
Troutsky, you understand that my pessimism is not regarding self fulfillment (a personal recovery of sorts), but only regarding the redemption of civili society. As I have said over and over -- the conditions for the possibility of a return to pre-agricultural modes of subbsitence and social arrangements are gone; and I believe that all 'political' solutions are incapable of achieving anything because they are a product of a psychopathological process of 'reasoniing.'
I guess mine is a modified Old Testament view; man exists in a fallen state after the transition of the Neolithic, the birth of agriculture and the domestication of animals (Abel and Cain) and cannot be redeemed of his own accord. Nor do I hold out any salvific hope as in Christianity. Man makes his choices and lives or perishes with the consequences.
Beakerkin: Robertson is your superior even if everything you state is true. He has no need to hide who he is. His kind has never betrayed the USA or committed crimes against humanity in any large numbers.
You are right about the part that everything I said is true.
Did I forget to tell you, I was politically Trotskyist? Hiding?
You seem to be saying you approve of crimes, if committed in low numbers. His record is dirtier than the socialist movement.
You falsely claim that Tea Party types are racial supremacists. Even if that were true, that would make them superior to commies. That
is also fiction as I have never seen one iota of bigotry at a Tea Party event. Hatred of commies is
not bigotry but a wholly rational reaction to your criminality.
My position is we'll see how much they are influenced by the white supremacists when immigration reform comes up. I'm precise on my position.
In fact one is apt to find more bigotry in a group of commies than
Tea Party gatherings. Commies are rabid anti-semites and are patronizing to racial minorities.
The Rowan Williams fiasco shows that Africans are only allowed to talk if they are fellow commies like Desmond Tutu.
I never experienced antisemitism from communists. Many are Jewish themselves.
What part of workers of the world unite, don't you understand?
I have to look up Rowan Wiliams. I don't know what you're babbling about. I do know in Minneapolis a group of Zionists, tried to get Tutu banned from speaking.
Your kind are the lowest of the low
on a par with but not better than Nazis.
Not true. Trotsky was Hitler's first and main nemesis. The first one to say prepare for war.
Lucky the Russians, fought harder than the French. The difference between Hitler and Stalin, was Hitler believed in, and was based on capitalism.
Larry: Also Ren, what do you think is the material base of the present reactionaries? For fascism it was the petty bourgeoisie, lumpen elements and the landowner class. There isn't much of a PB left in the US and the landowner class was defeated in the Civil War, so the material base has to be different.
I think the movement is old southern people. Much smaller than portrayed to be.
Indeed what drives lunatics like Beak? Should we even consider looking for a rational basis for his hatred and fanaticism? Aren't such people more to be explained through social psychology than Marxism - as valuable a tool as it is?
His main characteristic is lying, which is a sociopathic disorder.
Kultur
Your notions about hunter gathers aredead wrong. They are multiple times more violent than developed man with the exception of communist savages.
The real savages are commies and there is nothing noble about them.
As for learning disabilities, the good Professor is unable to string a coherent thought together.
People more likely to die from violence in hunter gather societies than in capatalist NYC.
Mazzola commercials are not the basis for utopia. The good professor is less reality based than Beavis and Butthead.
Renegade Liver
You are not Jewish. The second you signed onto Marxism you converted to a death cult. One can not be a Jew and a Communist. The view that Communism is a religion is advanced
by many including Toynbee. Real Jews considered Commies to be non Jews. Ask my relatives who fought for Poland. Even Ethel Rosenberg's father shunned her long before she betrayed the United States.
There is no toleration of racial supremacy at Tea Party functions. Hatred of Communists is rational and deserved given your propensities for terrorism, treason, theft and advocacy of global hegemony. If we had a depoliticized mental health field it would be treated as a form of mental illness.
Trotskyite cultists do hide their presence and are well known for entryism.
Robertson never built a single gulag. He didn't purposely starve people to death. Robertson feeds the poor, provides health care and educates the masses. He does this as a religious calling and acts within the framework of the political system.
Commies have commited treason, espionage and every crime under the sun in the USA alone.
Commies practice free speech for themselves but create gulags where only commies can speak. David Horowitz has had way more events canceled than Desmond Tofu. Funny, I do not recall the planets most well known anti Semite, endorsed by Ren despite zero scholarship and fired four times, Maoist Norman Finkelstein ever having similar problems speaking.
HEY BEAK - shove Pat Robertson up your phony Jewish ass; stop whining for once and be a real MAN!!!
IN HIS PUBLISHED WRITINGS, especially his 1991 book The New World Order, Pat Robertson has propagated theories about a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Michael Land raised the issue in February in the New York Times Book Review, and in April Jacob Heilbrun, writing in the New York Review of Books, cited chapter and verse of Robertson's borrowings from well-known anti-Semitic works.
By Jeffrey Goldberg
The Forward, March 10, 1995
NEW YORK — Overlooked in the controversy surrounding allegations that the evangelist Pat Robertson traffics in anti-Jewish conspiracy theories is another accusation — that the Rev. Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, is an active supporter of groups that are targeting Jews for conversion to Christianity.
These groups, Christian missionary organizations that operate under names including Jews for Jesus and the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, are disliked by mainstream Jewry because they target Jews in particular for conversion to Christianity, evoking memories of past Christian attempts to destroy Judaism through conversion.
Jewish anti-missionary groups say the Rev. Robertson, who claims among his supporters a number of politically conservative Jews, including several right-wing members of the Knesset, has a long history of meeting the Jewish community on two fronts — he is an ardent supporter of Israel, but he also supports groups the Jewish community condemns as cultish and anti-Jewish.
“We can’t just look at Pat Robertson’s words,” says Mark Powers, the national director of an anti-missionary group, Jews for Judaism. “We have to look at his actions. I believe his actions speak very, very loudly. Supporting these missionary organizations smacks of anti-Semitism.”
Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Forward that he is “aware in general terms that Pat Robertson and his institutions are involved in missionary work, but it comes as a major surprise to me the extent to which they are supporting groups that target the Jewish community. It flies in the face of having respect for other people’s beliefs.”
Well folks, the New York Times is carrying the story that we knew was coming.
Obama is announcing a commission to "review" Social Security and Medicare.
Remember, this is the guy who had Kapital's darling Pete Peterson as a keynote speaker at his "Fiscal Responsibility Conference" last year.
He's playing the game well. Pretend that there is just too much right wing opposition so he can't do anything remotely constructive while he's giving you the Full Ayn Rand which was the deal all along.
He's an utter disaster and I really don't know why the right doesn't love this guy.
The Roberts court just ruled that law cannot limit corporate campaign contributions.
The hits just keep coming, very dark times.
I assume we all know that the O-man may be planning to launch a 'thought police' group in the 'homeland' to rub out all us undesireables... if he appoints Dr. Cass Sunstein, Harvard Law Professor,as head of the department of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Sunstein proposed such a 'thought police' agency in a recent (2008) article published in the Journal of Political Philosophy.
Yeah, kultur, that was operating under Bush. I forget the names of the "commentators" who were taking the dough for talking up the No Child Left Behind bill.
Pissed Cass, off ... because they got caught. He thought it was an okay idea but like everything else Bush did it was done in a rather ham fisted fashion.
That's not how Obama rolls. He'll polish it up.
Kultur
You are a person devoid of critical thought.
1) We live in a free society and Robertson has every right to free speech. His efforts to convert Jews and others are protected by our First
Amendment.
2) Judaism has always had an open door policy and people have always been free to leave. Are you suddenly going into Taliban mode and denying people intellectual freedom.
Obviously your failure to grasp our
rights is due having your already
limited IQ lowered by departmental inbreeding. Sorry, but as a second rate academic hack you are nothing more than a yes man.
Lets see if Robertson has written about Jewish conspiracies than he should be granted tenure for no scholarship and an office next to Professor Walt. In order for Robertson to get that honor he would have to join the Marxist Death Cult and lower his IQ.
Pay no attention to the stand up comedian pretending to be a scholar.
Beak: I'm Jewish. Are you saying I'm an infidel?
Logic is not your forte. Finklestein was denied tenure, because of his views. That contradicts your argument.
The Tea Party more than tolerates white supremacy. Why are you carrying water for them?
Ren
You are not Jewish. Jewish people do not recognize people who convert to other religions. The religious dimensions of Communism are noted by many true scholars such as Toynbee. Jews who practice the religion will recognize those who don't observe. The exception is that as a member of a death cult you are in another religion.
You can look to the bio of traitor
(Commie Role Model) Ethel Rosenberg for a precedent. Her father did not talk to her when she
embraced Marxism and chose to associate with a future traitor as a spouse. Jews who practice the religion do not consider you to be Jewish.
Finkelstein ( a Maoist) was denied
tenure for lack of scholarship and professionalism. He has been fired
from four Universities which is a
true feat for a card carrying Maoist in an academic gulag.
Even the genuine hack Kultur will enlighten you that the standard for judging his craft is peer reviewed articles. Finky had none and does zero original scholarship.
What he attempts to do is check footnotes.
The Tea Party does not tolerate White Supremacists. I spent a whole day discussing this and talking with participants in the DC event. I did not hear hate directed at anyone other than commies.
I have observed plenty of hate directed at Jews at so called Peace
Protests. Ask the residents of the Union Square area including a lady who survived the Holocaust and was
accosted by Commies at the anti RNC protests. Commies surrounded a clearly Jewish old lady on her way
back from the market. They were not
so brave when her neighbors including myself and the doorman and porter showed up. Police had to protect the commies.
Do you want to lie about who held the protests in Union Square on the Saturaday after 9-11 blaming the Jews, Zionists, Neocons, Larry Silverstein for blowing up the WTC.
Sorry, but the use of populist antisemitism by commies is not original. As for the legacy of Trotsky his antics gave rise to the hiwis. The popular view is to dismiss these people as simple antisemites and in some cases this was true. However, as commies abused the local population the Nazis were often greeted as liberators. The locals were to tragically learn that the Nazis were worse.
You are not an American either. You are beholden to a hostile foreign ideology that seeks the destruction of the USA. The best solution was in the era of Wilson when your type was rounded up and deported to the Soviet Union.
As a commie you are exponentially more prone to be a terrorist, traitor and criminal than the general population. The history of your kind does establish probable cause for security scrutiny. Commies should be offered denaturalization or jail when they violate the law.
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