god bless america

[juju]

We are as much interested in getting to know you as a person as we are your arguments. Therefore, there is no point in reading an extremely long post written by someone who isn't even here.

[Elspode]

And in the end, Chomsky is, after all, a dissident. He tends to disagree with much of popular opinion, governmental policy, etc. He is a useful individual in our society of free-thinkers because he is the small voice crying in the wilderness, urging us to have a conscience.

However, none of that, nor his Linguistics skills, necessarily make him a statesman or military strategist. His opinion is no better founded nor more valid than mine, or yours, or anyone else's.

Originally posted by Rucita
Oh, pleeeeeaseeee, Dave, read it!

As a rule, I don't read anything that I have to scroll 3 times or more. I run at 1600x1200 resolution on my monitor and that still was over three screen lengths. It's not just too long; it's <b>way too long</b>.

If you had written it, I'd probably read it. Like juju said, I'm interested in knowing you. But I've read enough Chomsky to know that I'm not interested in knowing him.

[russotto]

Originally posted by bennyhill
Noam Chomsky , University Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, founder of the modern science of linguistics and political activist, is a powerhouse of anti-imperialist activism in the United States today.

No, he's not anti-imperialist. He's anti-American. Anything the US does or doesn't do, he's against it and he'll have a whole book full of the US's nasty motives for doing it. Anything bad done to the US, he'll have another book of why the US deserved twice as bad.

[bennyhill]

Originally posted by dave


As a rule, I don't read anything that I have to scroll 3 times or more. I run at 1600x1200 resolution on my monitor and that still was over three screen lengths. It's not just too long; it's <b>way too long</b>.

If you had written it, I'd probably read it. Like juju said, I'm interested in knowing you. But I've read enough Chomsky to know that I'm not interested in knowing him.

Chomsky...ummm, isn't american?

Is a traitor?

Je, je, je

[smoothmoniker]

Why Iraq and not Saudi Arabia, Cuba, North Korea, Canada, Iran, or Detroit?

I think there are two reasons.

1) We believed there was a high probability that the interests of Saddam intersected with those of the millitant Islamic terrorists who have demonstrated the intent and ability to do harm to our people. We believed it in our national security interest to preempt Saddam's ability to deliver horrible and powerful weapons to these people, increasing their ability to commit acts of violence against us.

2) Perhaps the unstated, but more important reason. Having demonstrated our resolve regarding Iraq, I believe it is the fervent hope of this nation that we will not have to demonstrate it again. Perhaps the formerly isolated dictators in other regions of the world will recognize the necessity of policing their own nations, severing their ties with millitant terrorist organizations, and disarming themselves in accordance with UN resolutions. When we say that our diplomatic intent has teeth, they will know that it is so.

Perhaps the best justification for taking up arms against Iraq will be it's potency in obviating the need for armed conflict in a dozen other places across the world.

-sm

[juju]

Originally posted by bennyhill
Je, je, je

In English, the 'J' is pronounced differently. Therefore, it is "Heh heh heh".

[wolf]

Originally posted by dave
is María a common guy's name in Spain? Because it sure as hell isn't here in the States.

I think it's a euro-thing Dave ... you run across it in Germany from time to time too ... Rainer Maria Rilke (whose poetry you should check out if you have a chance ... fantastic. Don't read it in translation) and Klaus Maria Brandauer, the actor. And darnit, wasn't the "All Quiet on the Western Front" guy another one? (quick search on amazon) ... yah, Erich Maria Remarque.

[bennyhill]

Originally posted by juju

In English, the 'J' is pronounced differently. Therefore, it is "Heh heh heh".

I laugh in Spanish!

[richlevy]

Originally posted by Undertoad


To diplomacy!

I'd agree with you there, but I read a very nice article which argues that the current administration has pretty much gutted the State Department in favor of the Pentagon. After all, for the right people, war is much more profitable than peace.

For my next president, I want a social moderate and fiscal conservative, either someone who actually thinks first before applying force, or someone who has really seen a real war from ground level.

Bush, IMHO, is the worst of both worlds. Since he wore a uniform at some point, he believes that he has military experience, but has never been in the fire. At least Gore, while not front-line, had the guts to get close to it.

I either want a competent civilian who knows he is a civilian, thinks like a civilian, and can 'win the peace', or a real warrior who can delegate and manage competent civilians.

The first person I know of who used the phrase 'military industrial complex' was Eisenhower. Stacked up against a President like Eisenhower, who fought in the toughest war mankind has ever known, and who found the concentration camps maintained by the country of his ancestors, who warned against the use of war when diplomacy becomes merely difficult, Bush comes up a little short.

Even 40 years later, Eisenhower's warning is right on time.


Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.

[elSicomoro]

Hey, cleaning that plane in the Texas National Guard was important!

Hmmm...I could tolerate a president such as you specified. Keep the social issues on the same levels for the moment while we trim up the deficit.

[bennyhill]

Now Siria?

Bush go to the sh-it!

[smoothmoniker]

Originally posted by bennyhill
Bush go to the sh-it!

I have no idea what this means, but I think I'm gonna start using it in everyday conversation

sm: "have you seen the remote?"

roomate: "for the TV?"

sm: yes for the TV, dumbass

roomate: Oh, I ebayed it for extra spending cash

sm: Bush go to the Sh-it! what'd you do that for?

-sm

[Whit]

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Thanks SM, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one that didn't get it.

[slang]

Originally posted by smoothmoniker
roomate: "for the TV?"
sm: yes for the TV, dumbass

Thats *really* funny! I'm shortening the new phrase though.

Bush-ee-it

This is quicker and easier to say.

Bush-ee-it, I hate filing tax forms!