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That bumpersticker mantra is older than you imagine.<br>
<br>
"Kick their ass! Take their Gas!" was on the t-shirt of the
horn-tooting protagonist in R. Crumb's "It's the Ruff Tuff Creampuff", <br>
<br>
(who appeared in [Fall into the Depths of] Despair Comix, 1969)<br>
<br>
"The best solution anyone has found is to sit and do nothing".<br>
<br>
On 10/21/2010 11:08 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4CC05773.4000703@illinois.edu" type="cite">
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
That quite remarkable contempt for the political perspicacity of your
fellow citizens is all too typical of the political class in this
country, but it's not very democratic. <br>
<br>
The federal government doesn't quite agree with you. That's why it
spends so much time and money on "the manufacture of consent" (and why
snake-oil salesmen like Obama get ahead). The public has to be
managed, not indulged, they think - it's their only real enemy, as
Vietnam showed.<br>
<br>
That after all was Jefferson's view: he thought that people "are
naturally divided into two parties: (1.) Those who fear and distrust
the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the
higher classes. (2.) Those who identify themselves with the people,
have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest
and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public
interests."<br>
<br>
I'm a democrat, so not a Democrat. --CGE<br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/21/10 9:51 AM, Gregg Gordon wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:965451.22337.qm@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com"
type="cite">
<style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style>
<div
style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">
<div>I don't disagree with any of that. So what? And as for wars
for oil, maybe you better hope they <em>keep</em> lying about it,
because if Americans were confronted with that stark reality, most of
them might be down with it. When Alan Greenspan said so publicly,
there was no big outcry. Barely lasted a full news cycle. I remember
seeing a bumper sticker when the Iraq war started: "Kick their ass.
Take their gas." I think that's basically where most Americans are on
the issue, and the main reason the Iraq war has become so unpopular
(people were 2-1 in favor at the time, if the polls can be believed) is
that the cheap gas never materialized. We're still paying through the
nose. Most people support resumed drilling in the Gulf right now.
They don't care if it turns into the Rancho La Brea tar pits. They
want gasoline for their cars. I saw a poll just within the last week
-- can't remember exactly, but something like, would you be willing to
pay an additional 4 cents a gallon for, I don't know -- lower CO2
emissions or something. The majority said, "No." So that's where you
need to start -- not with the Democrats. I think the Democrats
are about the left party that the American left deserves right now.
We've been ineffectual and inept. That's our reward.<br>
</div>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><font
face="Tahoma" size="2">
<hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b>
C. G. Estabrook <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu"><galliher@illinois.edu></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Gregg Gordon <a
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:ggregg79@yahoo.com"><ggregg79@yahoo.com></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Jenifer
Cartwright <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com"><jencart13@yahoo.com></a>;
Peace-discuss <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"><peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thu, October
21, 2010 9:03:01 AM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re:
[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fw: Money Can't Vote<br>
</font><br>
On the Carter administration, see the famous interview his National
Security Adviser gave to Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998: <a
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html"
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html></a>
(in English)...<br>
<br>
"Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic
fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?<br>
"B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or
the collapse of the Soviet empire? <i>Some stirred-up Moslems</i>
[sic] or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold
war?..."<br>
<br>
It's true that the US has been committing crimes in order to control
Mideast oil since the Truman administration, when we saw that we could
displace an exhausted Britain in the region. First, British oil
companies were replaced with American ones, and concomitantly the US
began the policy - which Obama continues - of controlling the countries
of the region by alliance, subversion, or aggressive war (= what we
were busily condemning German leaders for, at Nuremberg). <br>
<br>
Benchmarks are our destruction of democratic government in Iran (1953),
which Americans have forgotten but the Iranians haven't; adoption of
Israel as our "cop on the beat" (as the Nixon administration said)
after they launched their 1967 war to destroy secular Arab nationalism;
our sponsorship of Saddam Hussein in the Iraq-Iran war, 1980-88; our
covert sponsorship of the religious-based Hamas to undercut the secular
PLO; and Clinton's murderous sanctions on Iraq (by which he killed as
many people as Bush did, many of them children whose deaths were "worth
it," according to Clinton's Secretary of State).<br>
<br>
The US has consistently demanded control of Mideast energy resources
since WWII, not because we need them - the US was a net exporter of oil
until recently, and now imports less than 10% of the oil we use at home
from the Mideast, mostly from our ally Saudi Arabia - but because
control of world hydrocarbon supplies gives us an advantage over our
real economic rivals, the EU and East Asia (China and Japan). That's
what Obama (and other presidents) is sending Americans to kill and die
for, so it's obvious that he like the others has to invent excuses,
especially when two-thirds of the US public, even though they're being
lied to, thinks the war a bad idea. <br>
<br>
When Al Qaeda launched their criminal raids on US cities in 2001, they
were clearly and consciously staging a counter-attack to more than a
generation of US crimes in the Mideast. They said at the time that
there were three reasons for their counterattack: (1) the sanctions on
Iraq, called "genocidal" by successive UN overseers; (2) the
suppression of h the Palestinians by America's chief client, Israel;
and (3) the occupation of Saudi Arabia (and the Muslim holy places) by
American troops after Bush I's Gulf war, in 1991. <br>
<br>
It's not just those who point out that the Obama administration is, by
and large, Bush's third term who note the continuity of US policy in
the Mideast, which Obama if anything has intensified - as he said he
would, as far back as his campaign for the Senate, when he discussed
"surgical strikes" on Iran, still I think a real possibility, along
with open war with Pakistan. BHO is down with the program, and only a
few are criticizing it - of course many more in the country that in
Congress.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/21/10 8:05 AM, Gregg Gordon wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">
<div>Well, that strikes me as quite a stretch to lay
responsibility for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on the back of Jimmy
Carter. I could take your logic just a small step further and put it
on FDR. Or William McKinley. Or James K. Polk. Plus it ignores the
question of why three subsequent Republican presidents failed to end
it, as your premise indicates they should have done. It is a sad fact
that since the disastrous and misguided McGovern campaign (God bless
him), Democrats have been so bullied and intimidated by charges of
being anti-military (not that there's anything wrong with that) that
they too often feel compelled to prove they have gonads. I thought
Clinton kept Saddam around just to have somebody to bomb when he needed
to look tough. That's murderous and deplorable and certainly won't get
him into heaven, but that's the political landscape we find ourselves
in. Deal with it. Anyway, wealth and power breed arrogance.
Americans, like the British, Spanish, Romans, and every great empire
before us, think we should have our way just because God obviously
loves us so. (If He didn't, we wouldn't be an empire.) That's human
nature, and liberals are just as susceptible to it as conservatives.
More often than not, Democratic militarism just takes the form of
seeing to it that veterans actually receive the benefits they've been
promised, for which they get no credit whatsoever. And "spineless" is
not the same as "evil" in my eyes. The "spineless" need to be
encouraged. The "evil" need to be stopped. Who can blame the
Democrats for being spineless? Who's got their backs? The left?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I'm a Bernie Sanders kind of guy. I don't really consider
myself a Democrat, but I caucus with them because I think the
alternative is so much worse. But if you <em>really</em> can't see <em>any</em>
difference between, say, Karl Rove and Dennis Kucinich, I'm not going
to waste any more time arguing with you. You're not serious.<br>
</div>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><font
face="Tahoma" size="2">
<hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b>
C. G. Estabrook <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu"><galliher@illinois.edu></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Gregg Gordon <a
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:ggregg79@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:ggregg79@yahoo.com"><ggregg79@yahoo.com></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Jenifer
Cartwright <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com"><jencart13@yahoo.com></a>;
Peace List <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net"><peace@lists.chambana.net></a>;
Peace-discuss <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"><peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wed, October
20, 2010 11:09:24 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re:
[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fw: Money Can't Vote<br>
</font><br>
First, Iraq and Afghanistan are both part of what the Pentagon calls
"The Long War" (for oil) in the Mideast. So far, the US has killed a
million people in Iraq under Clinton (whose Secretary of State said
that the tens of thousands of dead children were "worth it"); a million
under Bush; and apparently hundreds of thousands in AfPak under Bush
and his third (Obama) term.<br>
<br>
That falls short of the perhaps 4 million we killed in SE Asia, but of
course Obama's escalated murders in SW Asia are in no way justified by
being fewer in number than Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon's in Vietnam. <br>
<br>
It's difficult to determine when the Long War begins, but it takes a
tick up in the Carter administration when Carter (and Obama's) adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski sends Osama bin Laden and friends into Afghanistan
(before the Russian invasion) "to give the Russians a Vietnam of their
own," as he said at the time, in the most expensive CIA operation to
date.<br>
<br>
If a Republican administration after 2012 brings Obama's AfPak war to
an end, then we'll have a third example of a Democratic war concluded
by Republicans in as many generations. But that may not be likely. The
news suggests that the Obama administration is looking to expand the
war with an attack on Pakistan and/or Iran. It certainly isn't looking
to abandon the world's greatest energy-producing region.<br>
<br>
Control of Mideast energy resources has been a cornerstone of US
foreign policy since 1945. Obama is simply lying when he says the war
is to "stop terrorism" - it obviously increases terrorism - but he has
to lie, because the only Constitutional authority he has to wage war in
the Mideast is Congress' "Authorization for the Use of Military Force"
of September 2001 - which is directed against terrorism. <br>
<br>
Something positive to do: years ago, there was a great debate in
America, "How do we get out of Vietnam?" The best answer was given by
Herb Caen: "Ships and planes." Load up the troops and bring them home.
The Russians did - and survived and prospered from the end of their war.<br>
<br>
Eventually we did, but it took two presidents' being driven from office
and (even more important) a revolt of the American conscript army to
do it. <br>
<br>
Regards, CGE<br>
<br>
On 10/20/10 7:15 PM, Gregg Gordon wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">
<div>So I conclude from your statement that you don't consider
either Iraq or Afghanistan to be "major" wars. So why are you so
worked up about them? I think you're just still mad at Lyndon Johnson.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>And please, don't accuse me of being some kind of racist
who doesn't mind us murdering brown people. That is <em>so</em>
lame. It's just that not all of us see the world in as simple terms as
you seem to. Simple solutions are nice, but they're mainly for the
simple-minded.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>All I'm saying is if you're so gung-ho on stopping the
war, why don't you come up with something positive to do (as opposed to
sniping from the sidelines) that might help get us closer to that
goal? We'll all get behind you.<br>
</div>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><font
face="Tahoma" size="2">
<hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b>
C. G. Estabrook <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu"><galliher@illinois.edu></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Gregg Gordon
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:ggregg79@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:ggregg79@yahoo.com"><ggregg79@yahoo.com></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Jenifer
Cartwright <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com"><jencart13@yahoo.com></a>;
Peace List <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net"><peace@lists.chambana.net></a>;
Peace-discuss <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"><peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wed,
October 20, 2010 5:10:40 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re:
[Peace-discuss] [Peace] Fw: Money Can't Vote<br>
</font><br>
You are aware, are you not, that America's major wars since WWII -
called by synecdoche "Korea" and "Vietnam" - were started by Democratic
administrations and ended by Republican administrations. Since the
current Democratic administration has greatly expanded the killing in
AfPak, it's hard to argue that they're going to reverse their policies.
Voting for them is an acquiescence to those policies. <br>
<br>
To say of Obama and the Democrats, "Let them kill some Asians, because
they might do some good someplace else," is at best a counsel of
despair, if not an outright criminal attitude. Particularly when it
seems that they're doing precisely the wrong things elsewhere, too -
not surprisingly, because they're working for the owners of the banks,
the insurance companies, the oil and construction companies, etc. --CGE<br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/20/10 4:48 PM, Gregg Gordon wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;">
<div>Maybe because there are other important issues that she <em>does</em>
agree with him on. The only way you're going to find a candidate
you're in 100% agreement with is to run for office. If support for the
war is an absolute deal breaker for you, fine. Not everybody sees it
that way. But if you think the war will end sooner if more Republicans
get elected, I think you're out of your mind.<br>
</div>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><br>
<div
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif;"><font
face="Tahoma" size="2">
<hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b>
C. G. Estabrook <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu"><galliher@illinois.edu></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Jenifer
Cartwright <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:jencart13@yahoo.com"><jencart13@yahoo.com></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> Peace List
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"
ymailto="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net"><peace@lists.chambana.net></a>;
Peace-discuss <a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank"
rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"><peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net></a><br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wed,
October 20, 2010 4:33:52 PM<br>
<b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re:
[Peace] [Peace-discuss] Fw: Money Can't Vote<br>
</font><br>
This guy supports the war. I can't see why anyone on an anti-war list
would contribute to him.<br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/20/10 4:28 PM, Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
<blockquote type="cite">
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<td valign="top"><font class="Apple-style-span"
size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 10pt;">Another
request for help...</span></font>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">I love this guy!</span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span
class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"> --Jenifer</span></font><br>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
</div>
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</div>
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</blockquote>
</div>
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<br>
</blockquote>
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