Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

I don't think Genghis Kahn ever had congressional support.

While I don't think the Middle East unimportant, I do think its a quagmire.  As long as Russia, Iran and Turkey are backing their local proxies, nothing is apt to change.  It is just cheaper and easier to play defense given the type of conflict.  I keep asking Powell's Questions.  As we don't have a clean set of answers, I don't anticipate an all out commitment by the US of many boots on the ground.  Trump claimed he knew more about the Middle East than the generals and implied he could and would use the US military to good effect.  While he is kinda sorta trying to keep many of his domestic promises, he hasn't changed Middle East policy.  I don't know if he will commit the US knowing he hasn't got answers to Powell's Questions, but if he does I don't anticipate he will do any better than Bush 43.  Borrow and spend economics doesn't provide enough dollars to expand the US ground forces sufficiently to occupy enough foreign territory to make a difference, not without crashing the US economy.  Republicans simply can't stabilize the Middle East.  Democrats know better than to try.

It is easy for you to rattle a saber sitting safe as you are on the sidelines, but would you care to answer Powell's Questions?  Knock knock.  Reality calling.

As for when we'll get another blue president, we're a month in and Trump has things in a mess.  It seems too soon to be sure of where the country will be in 2020.  As there are no good answers to Powell's Questions, I don't anticipate much change in the Middle East, which will make domestic issues front and center in 2020.

(02-20-2017, 04:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 04:34 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 01:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-18-2017, 03:55 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Appalachia? I don't live in Appalachia (Hill Billy territory). I live near a couple of big stinky, hazy and more polluted  blue cities that's loaded with people who believe that they are more important than those who live around them. Big city liberals/rural liberals  don't seem to give a shit about those in Appalachia based on the liberal  views of the people who currently  live there and those who  still view the region  as their home and their negative views of the region, the use of it's primary resource (coal) and all the American industries (American companies, American products and American jobs associated with all of them) that are closely  related to them  in general. Did you see the environmental  mess that the so-called environmentalist groups  left behind for others to clean up in North Dakota?

1. As I suggest to fellow liberals, quit using such regional slurs as "hillbilly", "redneck", "peckerwood", and the like to describe people in the Mountain South. I see little reason to believe that you see them as anything more than cheap labor or cannon fodder. Such people to you might as well be something that rhymes with triggers, and the shared characteristic of such people is (to you) their expendability.

2. The Mountain South has not kept pace with the progress in the rest of America. It went deeply into consumerism when there was good money in coal or lead mining (Missouri), but it did a poor job of making the choices to improve infrastructure and invest in formal education. This is not simply a cultural choice: it also happened to a certain extent in Michigan and Ohio in which state and local politicians chose to keep taxes down and not spend on education that would be necessary with the decline of the auto and tire industries. This is already going on in Louisiana, which has a surprisingly-high per capita income but extreme inequality.

When the coal seams get worked out, when lead becomes a dangerous substance, when the automotive industry is no longer a growth industry concentrated in one state, and when oil wells go dry, failure to put something aside in good times as a hedge when economic realities get more difficult is a blunder.

It is unwise to commit everything to a dying, doomed, or even declining industry unless one has a life expectancy short enough to justify such. But what have I said about blunders? They first seem obviously right.

3. People are free to have negative views of the communities in which they live. I have cultural values inconsistent with a place in which I find myself stuck -- a place where culture is to be bought at Wal*Mart. Cultural life here is cable TV and whatever happen to be in one's book, video, and music collection. My musical taste suggests that I pronounce the letter w like a v or that I have a hacek or umlaut in my surname.

M&L should take a stroll through largely uneducated "nigger, spick, gook, neo-Nazy " inner city culture to see if the issues are  worse than lesser educated "pecker wood, hillbilly, redneck" culture that the two of you are so embarrassed to be associated with. Do you see many drive by shootings, large scale riots and major interruption in people's lifestyles    where the two of you live? I'm sure the two of you wouldn't mind dying of a heart attack because Black Lives Matter or some other fucked up (fucked up values wise) liberal group shut down a road which delayed your ambulance? Why are so-called liberals viewed by themselves as being  so special? Who teaches so-called liberals to believe that they're so special? Who teaches/taught/led  them to believe  that the blue halo's that were given to them by some so-called liberals were permanently attached to them? Who disproved that foolish liberal belief/ideal a long time ago?

Oh, we know we're special because we're so well-informed, well-educated, well-intentioned people of conscience while you hillbillie wood-pecked fools are lost in your prejudices and fears. I am proud to wear my blue halo, and think it looks good on me. You ought to try it on!

And I think our values of caring for the less fortunate and for the future of our country and planet with abundance and peace for all are pretty good ones, as opposed to yours that consist of selfish greed and superstition. And I suppose the white folks in Appalachia and other red states would not be so placid if some black cops started shooting them down in the streets for no reason. And at least in the blue states we can call on an ambulance or other health facilities and we'd have them available, unlike the folks in the backwoods who vote Republican and thus vote themselves out of any health coverage at all.

You are so wrapped up in your own prejudices and fears associated with your own race that you'll believe anything that Van Jones tells you. Van Jones wouldn't interview someone like me because I could challenge him, attack his character, attack his motives and basically turn him instead out on national TV. That wouldn't be good for him, the fake image of himself, the fake image of liberals in general or CNN's ratings. It's a bad sign when half the country places more value on it's dog than it places on the other side. I think you side should double down and feed more hatred.

(02-20-2017, 10:59 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 04:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 04:34 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 01:35 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-18-2017, 03:55 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Appalachia? I don't live in Appalachia (Hill Billy territory). I live near a couple of big stinky, hazy and more polluted  blue cities that's loaded with people who believe that they are more important than those who live around them. Big city liberals/rural liberals  don't seem to give a shit about those in Appalachia based on the liberal  views of the people who currently  live there and those who  still view the region  as their home and their negative views of the region, the use of it's primary resource (coal) and all the American industries (American companies, American products and American jobs associated with all of them) that are closely  related to them  in general. Did you see the environmental  mess that the so-called environmentalist groups  left behind for others to clean up in North Dakota?

1. As I suggest to fellow liberals, quit using such regional slurs as "hillbilly", "redneck", "peckerwood", and the like to describe people in the Mountain South. I see little reason to believe that you see them as anything more than cheap labor or cannon fodder. Such people to you might as well be something that rhymes with triggers, and the shared characteristic of such people is (to you) their expendability.

2. The Mountain South has not kept pace with the progress in the rest of America. It went deeply into consumerism when there was good money in coal or lead mining (Missouri), but it did a poor job of making the choices to improve infrastructure and invest in formal education. This is not simply a cultural choice: it also happened to a certain extent in Michigan and Ohio in which state and local politicians chose to keep taxes down and not spend on education that would be necessary with the decline of the auto and tire industries. This is already going on in Louisiana, which has a surprisingly-high per capita income but extreme inequality.

When the coal seams get worked out, when lead becomes a dangerous substance, when the automotive industry is no longer a growth industry concentrated in one state, and when oil wells go dry, failure to put something aside in good times as a hedge when economic realities get more difficult is a blunder.

It is unwise to commit everything to a dying, doomed, or even declining industry unless one has a life expectancy short enough to justify such. But what have I said about blunders? They first seem obviously right.

3. People are free to have negative views of the communities in which they live. I have cultural values inconsistent with a place in which I find myself stuck -- a place where culture is to be bought at Wal*Mart. Cultural life here is cable TV and whatever happen to be in one's book, video, and music collection. My musical taste suggests that I pronounce the letter w like a v or that I have a hacek or umlaut in my surname.

M&L should take a stroll through largely uneducated "nigger, spick, gook, neo-Nazy " inner city culture to see if the issues are  worse than lesser educated "pecker wood, hillbilly, redneck" culture that the two of you are so embarrassed to be associated with. Do you see many drive by shootings, large scale riots and major interruption in people's lifestyles    where the two of you live? I'm sure the two of you wouldn't mind dying of a heart attack because Black Lives Matter or some other fucked up (fucked up values wise) liberal group shut down a road which delayed your ambulance? Why are so-called liberals viewed by themselves as being  so special? Who teaches so-called liberals to believe that they're so special? Who teaches/taught/led  them to believe  that the blue halo's that were given to them by some so-called liberals were permanently attached to them? Who disproved that foolish liberal belief/ideal a long time ago?

Oh, we know we're special because we're so well-informed, well-educated, well-intentioned people of conscience while you hillbillie wood-pecked fools are lost in your prejudices and fears. I am proud to wear my blue halo, and think it looks good on me. You ought to try it on!

And I think our values of caring for the less fortunate and for the future of our country and planet with abundance and peace for all are pretty good ones, as opposed to yours that consist of selfish greed and superstition. And I suppose the white folks in Appalachia and other red states would not be so placid if some black cops started shooting them down in the streets for no reason. And at least in the blue states we can call on an ambulance or other health facilities and we'd have them available, unlike the folks in the backwoods who vote Republican and thus vote themselves out of any health coverage at all.

You are so wrapped up in your own prejudices and fears associated with your own race that you'll believe anything that Van Jones tells you. Van Jones wouldn't interview someone like me because I could challenge him, attack his character, attack his motives and basically turn him instead out on national TV. That wouldn't be good for him, the fake image of himself, the fake image of liberals in general or CNN's ratings. It's a bad sign when half the country places more value on it's dog than it places on the other side. I think you side should double down and feed more hatred.

Ha ha! I've been a liberal semi-hippie longer than Van Jones has been alive, probably. No, I think he would do that to you. That's not too hard.

Your side depends on hatred; our side depends on love. Guess which is more powerful?

Aside from my ongoing argument with Classic Xer, I was thinking about my statement that no-one should identify with their country. I realize now, if I hadn't already, that this also applies to my ideological preference, race or ethnic group, political party, religion, or cultural movement or style (like hippies, rednecks, etc.). I may have had some very minor impact in promoting the new age movement. Other than that, things would have happened as they have without me. So, why do I need to identity with these groups or trends, any more than I identify with the USA, or The West. I don't. I just like some more than others, and I know the liberal side works better than the other one, so I root for it. But I don't have to be too attached to the groups I belong to.

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 08:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 08:37 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 06:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 02:44 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]The boomer establishment is tyrannical: if you think Assad, for example, is a monster; why don't you selfish boomer do-gooders permit a vote on whether Assad is villain or not and allow decisions on whether to take action against him be determined by the vote of the American People.

Foreign policy by popular vote would indeed be a new thing.  Lately, the president pretty much determines foreign policy with congressional approval required if force is to be used.  There is currently a Republican president and a Republican congress.  How is it that the blue boomers are supposed to have a major say in the matter?  Other than your personal prejudice which leads you to blame blue boomers for anything you don't like, how are they involved at all?

Can you give an example of when the United States has held a vote on whether or not to go to war?

Do you have even a passing familiarity with reality?

Who said I'm Primarily against blue boomers only? No I consider the enemy to be Bourgeois Neo-Liberalism and Globalism in general of whom Hillary Clinton and John Mccain are the most prominent representatives of said value system. Trump whether you like him or hate him was right regarding his statement regarding mccains war record.

Examples of strong leadership Throughout History:  (Snip)

You're still going with the Adolph Hitler / Genghis Kahn style of leadership by genocide?  No thank you.  So long as you are promoting genocide, I'm not agreeing with your style of leadership.

Tell me, did any of your strong leaders hold a popular vote on whether they should go to war or not?

Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

Blatant nonsense.

Waging the Iraq War in 2003 in the first place was among the greatest blunders our country and its president has ever made; easily. One result of this unnecessary war was the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq, because the chaos and opposition to America provided the opening for this radical Islamic terrorist group. After the "surge" in 2006, Bush made an agreement to pull out, with an Iraqi regime whose sovereignty had been returned. The date for the final pullout was 2011. Obama fulfilled the agreement, leaving behind a militantly pro-Shia regime under Malaki (which insisted the agreement be honored) that fomented the renewal of Al Qaeda in Iraq, now calling itself the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, in Syria, under a pro-Shia regime of the tyrant Assad, climate change created a huge drought which impelled the people to rebel once the Arab Spring had encouraged the revolutions in North Africa and the Near East in 2011. Assad would not allow his people to petition him for relief. He shot and bombed them, forcing the people to organize the Free Syrian Army. This had nothing to do with Obama's pre-arranged pullout of Iraq at all. Once Al Qaeda in Iraq (the Islamic State) had rebounded, it was able to take advantage of the civil war in Syria to gobble up some territory in Eastern Syria too in 2014, where it already had a presence since the mid-2000s.

Are you following this history yet, Classic? Or do you refuse to see it because you'd rather blame it on Obama and liberals?

The greatest humanitarian crisis of our time has little to do with the Islamic State or Islamic terrorism. The refugees are fleeing Assad's genocide, which has killed 400,000 and tortured thousands of Syrian citizens. Millions have been forced out of what used to be Syria. The IS has killed a tiny fraction of the people that Assad has murdered. If Obama had sent more support to the Syrian free rebels, perhaps they might have been in a better position to negotiate Assad's removal from power. But for now, it's up to Turkey and Russia.

The red president Drump's election had more to do with xenophobia, mostly concerning Mexicans, and about decline in the Rust Belt, than the war with Islamic terrorism. Obama made more progress in that than Dubya ever did, because Dubya was too busy arousing more of it with his useless and deadly invasion of Iraq. Blue voters realize most of this history, and won't be fooled by your nonsense. I just hope by 2020 we'll be able to edge out your side because Drump will have failed so badly at everything.

Of course, all that won't make any difference to voters like you, Classic Xer. Just like you ignored the facts about Iraq, you'll ignore the blunders and their results that Drump makes. You red voters would follow a blind pig off a cliff, and-- you do.

(02-20-2017, 10:55 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

I don't think Genghis Kahn ever had congressional support.

While I don't think the Middle East unimportant, I do think its a quagmire.  As long as Russia, Iran and Turkey are backing their local proxies, nothing is apt to change.  It is just cheaper and easier to play defense given the type of conflict.  I keep asking Powell's Questions.  As we don't have a clean set of answers, I don't anticipate an all out commitment by the US of many boots on the ground.  Trump claimed he knew more about the Middle East than the generals and implied he could and would use the US military to good effect.  While he is kinda sorta trying to keep many of his domestic promises, he hasn't changed Middle East policy.  I don't know if he will commit the US knowing he hasn't got answers to Powell's Questions, but if he does I don't anticipate he will do any better than Bush 43.  Borrow and spend economics doesn't provide enough dollars to expand the US ground forces sufficiently to occupy enough foreign territory to make a difference, not without crashing the US economy.  Republicans simply can't stabilize the Middle East.  Democrats know better than to try.

It is easy for you to rattle a saber sitting safe as you are on the sidelines, but would you care to answer Powell's Questions?  Knock knock.  Reality calling.

As for when we'll get another blue president, we're a month in and Trump has things in a mess.  It seems too soon to be sure of where the country will be in 2020.  As there are no good answers to Powell's Questions, I don't anticipate much change in the Middle East, which will make domestic issues front and center in 2020.

Trump has encountered more resistance/political slow downs early on than I've ever seen up to this point. Does he even have his cabinet in place yet or are the Democrats still committed to stalling the appointment of as many of them for as long as possible? You can pretty much write off the Trump voters and the Republicans can decide whether they prefer to feel as they do now or feel like the Democrats do now in four years. As far as Powell's questions, there are no definite answers therefore no good answers as far as the blues are concerned. The blues have no control over radical Islam because radical Islam doesn't give a shit about people or give a shit about the large sums of money that blues influence/control most of the civilized world. BTW, domestic issues were already placed front and center by a Republican candidate who is now your President who will placing a lot of pressure on the Democrats to begin representing those whom they've always claimed to represent or accept the fear of being challenged and eliminated by a Republican who has similar views as Trump.

(02-21-2017, 12:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:55 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

I don't think Genghis Kahn ever had congressional support.

While I don't think the Middle East unimportant, I do think its a quagmire.  As long as Russia, Iran and Turkey are backing their local proxies, nothing is apt to change.  It is just cheaper and easier to play defense given the type of conflict.  I keep asking Powell's Questions.  As we don't have a clean set of answers, I don't anticipate an all out commitment by the US of many boots on the ground.  Trump claimed he knew more about the Middle East than the generals and implied he could and would use the US military to good effect.  While he is kinda sorta trying to keep many of his domestic promises, he hasn't changed Middle East policy.  I don't know if he will commit the US knowing he hasn't got answers to Powell's Questions, but if he does I don't anticipate he will do any better than Bush 43.  Borrow and spend economics doesn't provide enough dollars to expand the US ground forces sufficiently to occupy enough foreign territory to make a difference, not without crashing the US economy.  Republicans simply can't stabilize the Middle East.  Democrats know better than to try.

It is easy for you to rattle a saber sitting safe as you are on the sidelines, but would you care to answer Powell's Questions?  Knock knock.  Reality calling.

As for when we'll get another blue president, we're a month in and Trump has things in a mess.  It seems too soon to be sure of where the country will be in 2020.  As there are no good answers to Powell's Questions, I don't anticipate much change in the Middle East, which will make domestic issues front and center in 2020.

Trump has encountered more resistance/political slow downs early on than I've ever seen up to this point. Does he even have his cabinet in place yet or are the Democrats still committed to stalling the appointment of as many of them for as long as possible? You can pretty much write off the Trump voters and the Republicans can decide whether they prefer to feel as they do now or feel like the Democrats do now in four years. As far as Powell's questions, there are no definite answers therefore no good answers as far as the blues are concerned. The blues have no control over radical Islam because radical Islam doesn't give a shit about people or give a shit about the large sums of money that blues influence/control most of the civilized world. BTW, domestic issues were already placed front and center by a Republican candidate who is now your President who will placing a lot of pressure on the Democrats to begin representing those whom they've always claimed to represent or accept the fear of being challenged and eliminated by a Republican who has similar views as Trump.

Drump represents the kind of people he has appointed: billionaires and millionaries who are dedicated to destroying the work of the same agencies to which they were appointed; agencies who job it is to protect the public from just the kind of people he has appointed. You think electing and appointing wolves to guard chicken coups is what the folks whom Democrats represent want. You think they might support another Republican who lies to them, and thereby vote for "a Republican who has similar views as Trump." But a few more people might get wise enough to see that Trump's so-called "views" mean nothing, and that his only concern is his fellow wolves-- who are just the ones who "influence/control most of the (not so) civilized world." But you will believe the big lies instead, and not see that the blues represent the people, while the reds are in cohoots with the old reds who together rule the world and keep us all down.

(02-20-2017, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 08:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 08:37 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 06:50 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]Foreign policy by popular vote would indeed be a new thing.  Lately, the president pretty much determines foreign policy with congressional approval required if force is to be used.  There is currently a Republican president and a Republican congress.  How is it that the blue boomers are supposed to have a major say in the matter?  Other than your personal prejudice which leads you to blame blue boomers for anything you don't like, how are they involved at all?

Can you give an example of when the United States has held a vote on whether or not to go to war?

Do you have even a passing familiarity with reality?

Who said I'm Primarily against blue boomers only? No I consider the enemy to be Bourgeois Neo-Liberalism and Globalism in general of whom Hillary Clinton and John Mccain are the most prominent representatives of said value system. Trump whether you like him or hate him was right regarding his statement regarding mccains war record.

Examples of strong leadership Throughout History:  (Snip)

You're still going with the Adolph Hitler / Genghis Kahn style of leadership by genocide?  No thank you.  So long as you are promoting genocide, I'm not agreeing with your style of leadership.

Tell me, did any of your strong leaders hold a popular vote on whether they should go to war or not?

Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

Blatant nonsense.

Waging the Iraq War in 2003 in the first place was among the greatest blunders our country and its president has ever made; easily. One result of this unnecessary war was the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq, because the chaos and opposition to America provided the opening for this radical Islamic terrorist group. After the "surge" in 2006, Bush made an agreement to pull out, with an Iraqi regime whose sovereignty had been returned. The date for the final pullout was 2011. Obama fulfilled the agreement, leaving behind a militantly pro-Shia regime under Malaki (which insisted the agreement be honored) that fomented the renewal of Al Qaeda in Iraq, now calling itself the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, in Syria, under a pro-Shia regime of the tyrant Assad, climate change created a huge drought which impelled the people to rebel once the Arab Spring had encouraged the revolutions in North Africa and the Near East in 2011. Assad would not allow his people to petition him for relief. He shot and bombed them, forcing the people to organize the Free Syrian Army. This had nothing to do with Obama's pre-arranged pullout of Iraq at all. Once Al Qaeda in Iraq (the Islamic State) had rebounded, it was able to take advantage of the civil war in Syria to gobble up some territory in Eastern Syria too in 2014, where it already had a presence since the mid-2000s.

Are you following this history yet, Classic? Or do you refuse to see it because you'd rather blame it on Obama and liberals?

The greatest humanitarian crisis of our time has little to do with the Islamic State or Islamic terrorism. The refugees are fleeing Assad's genocide, which has killed 400,000 and tortured thousands of Syrian citizens. Millions have been forced out of what used to be Syria. The IS has killed a tiny fraction of the people that Assad has murdered. If Obama had sent more support to the Syrian free rebels, perhaps they might have been in a better position to negotiate Assad's removal from power. But for now, it's up to Turkey and Russia.

The red president Drump's election had more to do with xenophobia, mostly concerning Mexicans, and about decline in the Rust Belt, than the war with Islamic terrorism. Obama made more progress in that than Dubya ever did, because Dubya was too busy arousing more of it with his useless and deadly invasion of Iraq. Blue voters realize most of this history, and won't be fooled by your nonsense. I just hope by 2020 we'll be able to edge out your side because Drump will have failed so badly at everything.

Of course, all that won't make any difference to voters like you, Classic Xer. Just like you ignored the facts about Iraq, you'll ignore the blunders and their results that Drump makes. You red voters would follow a blind pig off a cliff, and-- you do.

I've been following history the whole time. Bush invaded Iraq, eliminated Saddam and his regime, answered the question relating to the possibility of a secret WMD program that may or may not have existed at the time, established a democratic system while fighting an unconventional war with remnants from the old regime and Al Qaeda terrorists who were eventually defeated in Iraq and who escaped across an open boarder into Syria. Obama was elected and took over at that point. I don't claim to know what was going on inside Obama's head at the time of his decision to pull out of Iraq or claim to know who or what going on with his ability to make sound decision on behalf of America at the time. If you haven't figured it out yet, red voters are more individualistic and independent than the blue voters. Red voters aren't likely to follow a blind pig off a cliff. Blue voters??????

(02-21-2017, 12:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:55 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

I don't think Genghis Kahn ever had congressional support.

While I don't think the Middle East unimportant, I do think its a quagmire.  As long as Russia, Iran and Turkey are backing their local proxies, nothing is apt to change.  It is just cheaper and easier to play defense given the type of conflict.  I keep asking Powell's Questions.  As we don't have a clean set of answers, I don't anticipate an all out commitment by the US of many boots on the ground.  Trump claimed he knew more about the Middle East than the generals and implied he could and would use the US military to good effect.  While he is kinda sorta trying to keep many of his domestic promises, he hasn't changed Middle East policy.  I don't know if he will commit the US knowing he hasn't got answers to Powell's Questions, but if he does I don't anticipate he will do any better than Bush 43.  Borrow and spend economics doesn't provide enough dollars to expand the US ground forces sufficiently to occupy enough foreign territory to make a difference, not without crashing the US economy.  Republicans simply can't stabilize the Middle East.  Democrats know better than to try.

It is easy for you to rattle a saber sitting safe as you are on the sidelines, but would you care to answer Powell's Questions?  Knock knock.  Reality calling.

As for when we'll get another blue president, we're a month in and Trump has things in a mess.  It seems too soon to be sure of where the country will be in 2020.  As there are no good answers to Powell's Questions, I don't anticipate much change in the Middle East, which will make domestic issues front and center in 2020.

Trump has encountered more resistance/political slow downs early on than I've ever seen up to this point. Does he even have his cabinet in place yet or are the Democrats still committed to stalling the appointment of  as many of them for as long as possible? You can pretty much write off the Trump voters  and the Republicans can decide whether they prefer to feel as they do now or feel like the Democrats do now in four years. As far as Powell's questions, there are no definite answers therefore no good answers as far as the blues are concerned. The blues have no control over radical Islam because radical Islam doesn't give a shit about people or give a shit about the large sums of money that blues influence/control most of the civilized world. BTW, domestic issues were already placed front and center by a Republican candidate who is now your President who will placing a lot of pressure on the Democrats to begin representing those whom  they've always claimed to represent or accept the fear of being challenged and  eliminated by a Republican who has similar views as Trump.

In these days of extreme partisanship, you're going to get resistance and slow downs.  It's hard to day if Trump is getting more or less resistance than Obama, but both got / are getting more than enough to make it hard to govern.  The difference is that Trump hasn't got the people skills to hold together a coalition.  He's having almost as much trouble from the Republicans as the Democrats.  There is a saying that if your opponents are self destructing, don't interfere, stand back and watch.  I'm thinking this is a good time for the Democrats to remember that.

If you can't answer Powell's questions and still want to rattle sabers, I can't respect where you are coming from.

No one has control over radical Islam as many in the region have been oppressed by both capitalists looking for cheap oil and the sort of autocratic state terror focused dictators of the broad Hitler / Stalin / Genghis Kahn style that you advocate.  They have had enough and are going to be advocating for something better until they get it.  Alas, there are enough foreign powers backing the autocratic dictators and theocratic tyrants that nothing is apt to change.  Sending more people, guns and explosives into a troubled region, if you don't send in enough for a clean victory, isn't going to help.  One only increases the body count and destruction.  See the Middle East since Bush 43's invasions.

Oh.  Sorry.  You don't do reality.  I forgot.

And trickle down borrow and spend isn't compatible with your Hitler / Stalin / Genghis Kahn style of government.  Such people require a fully mobilized military to satisfy their bloodlust and egos.  One requires a certain number of boots on the ground to suppress an insurrection.  Bush 43 demonstrated that the US can't raise sufficient troops to control the Middle East on a trickle down borrow and spend economic policy.  One collapses the economy if one tries.

Of course, helping the people on a borrow and spend trickle down economy is also implausible.  This is not so much a problem for the Republicans, though.  They have little desire to help people.

(02-21-2017, 02:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 08:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-19-2017, 08:37 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]Who said I'm Primarily against blue boomers only? No I consider the enemy to be Bourgeois Neo-Liberalism and Globalism in general of whom Hillary Clinton and John Mccain are the most prominent representatives of said value system. Trump whether you like him or hate him was right regarding his statement regarding mccains war record.

Examples of strong leadership Throughout History:  (Snip)

You're still going with the Adolph Hitler / Genghis Kahn style of leadership by genocide?  No thank you.  So long as you are promoting genocide, I'm not agreeing with your style of leadership.

Tell me, did any of your strong leaders hold a popular vote on whether they should go to war or not?

Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

Blatant nonsense.

Waging the Iraq War in 2003 in the first place was among the greatest blunders our country and its president has ever made; easily. One result of this unnecessary war was the rise of Al Qaeda in Iraq, because the chaos and opposition to America provided the opening for this radical Islamic terrorist group. After the "surge" in 2006, Bush made an agreement to pull out, with an Iraqi regime whose sovereignty had been returned. The date for the final pullout was 2011. Obama fulfilled the agreement, leaving behind a militantly pro-Shia regime under Malaki (which insisted the agreement be honored) that fomented the renewal of Al Qaeda in Iraq, now calling itself the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, in Syria, under a pro-Shia regime of the tyrant Assad, climate change created a huge drought which impelled the people to rebel once the Arab Spring had encouraged the revolutions in North Africa and the Near East in 2011. Assad would not allow his people to petition him for relief. He shot and bombed them, forcing the people to organize the Free Syrian Army. This had nothing to do with Obama's pre-arranged pullout of Iraq at all. Once Al Qaeda in Iraq (the Islamic State) had rebounded, it was able to take advantage of the civil war in Syria to gobble up some territory in Eastern Syria too in 2014, where it already had a presence since the mid-2000s.

Are you following this history yet, Classic? Or do you refuse to see it because you'd rather blame it on Obama and liberals?

The greatest humanitarian crisis of our time has little to do with the Islamic State or Islamic terrorism. The refugees are fleeing Assad's genocide, which has killed 400,000 and tortured thousands of Syrian citizens. Millions have been forced out of what used to be Syria. The IS has killed a tiny fraction of the people that Assad has murdered. If Obama had sent more support to the Syrian free rebels, perhaps they might have been in a better position to negotiate Assad's removal from power. But for now, it's up to Turkey and Russia.

The red president Drump's election had more to do with xenophobia, mostly concerning Mexicans, and about decline in the Rust Belt, than the war with Islamic terrorism. Obama made more progress in that than Dubya ever did, because Dubya was too busy arousing more of it with his useless and deadly invasion of Iraq. Blue voters realize most of this history, and won't be fooled by your nonsense. I just hope by 2020 we'll be able to edge out your side because Drump will have failed so badly at everything.

Of course, all that won't make any difference to voters like you, Classic Xer. Just like you ignored the facts about Iraq, you'll ignore the blunders and their results that Drump makes. You red voters would follow a blind pig off a cliff, and-- you do.

I've been following history the whole time. Bush invaded Iraq, eliminated Saddam and his regime, answered the question relating to the possibility of a secret WMD program that may or may not have existed at the time, established a democratic system while fighting an unconventional war with remnants from the old regime and Al Qaeda terrorists who were eventually defeated in Iraq and who escaped across an open border into Syria. Obama was elected and took over at that point. I don't claim to know what was going on inside Obama's head at the time of his decision to pull out of Iraq or claim to know who or what going on with his ability to make sound decision on behalf of America at the time. If you haven't figured it out yet, red voters are more individualistic and independent than the blue voters. Red voters aren't likely to follow a blind pig off a cliff. Blue voters??????

The answer to "the question relating to the possibility of a secret WMD program that may or may not have existed at the time" was that there was none. So, there was no justification for the war, and there was never any proof of such WMD. It was a ruse and a lie. In any event, even if Saddam had WMD, that still was not a basis for our invasion. It was entirely illegal. And the Iraqis fought against it.

The only alternative to Obama's decision to abide by Bush's agreement with Iraq to pull out in 2011, was to, in effect, establish another invasion and stir up opposition to it again. The "time of his decision to pull out of Iraq" was when he decided to run for president in 2006; "what was going on inside Obama's head" was his realization and statement that it was "a dumb war;" which it was.

Voting for blind pigs that take us off cliffs, as red voters do, is not individualistic. It is blind allegiance to an authority that has no basis in fact. It is not independent thought; it is ignorance.

I cannot Speak for Classic-Xer as he seems to be more of a standard Xer conservative, my own views are quite different than his on certain political matters. However on the subject of boomers, especially blue boomers; if anything Classic is far more moderate and restrained than most millies including myself. You selfish boomers want to destroy everything that makes civilization great and impose your disgusting idealized version of the 1950s. I say "idealized" because this boomer utopia would be denuded of everything that kept the actual 1950s from being a complete bland write-off of human activity. The boomers desired 50s style utopia but without such things as Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, The various Latin American, Asian and southern European regimes both on the right and on the left, as well as the segregationist state governments of the deep south: those were challeges but also opportunities for human struggle; Everything that allowed from human struggle throughout human history would be removed if the boomers are allow to triumph in the 4T. It would lead to a so-called "utopia" created by boomers that exemplifies blandness resembling the 1950s but denuded of everything that made the historical 1950s and early 1960s worth experiencing. Anti-boomers both on the right and on the left are fighting to preserve the human condition and unaltered humanity in the fullness of the human experience and will not allow boomers to destroy civilization in their attempt to change Human Nature.

(02-21-2017, 01:07 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: [ -> ]I cannot Speak for Classic-Xer as he seems to be more of a standard Xer conservative, my own views are quite different than his on certain political matters. However on the subject of boomers, especially blue boomers; if anything Classic is far more moderate and restrained than most millies including myself. You selfish boomers want to destroy everything that makes civilization great and impose your disgusting idealized version of the 1950s. I say "idealized" because this boomer utopia would be denuded of everything that kept the actual 1950s from being a complete bland write-off of human activity. The boomers desired 50s style utopia but without such things as Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, The various Latin American, Asian and southern European regimes both on the right and on the left, as well as the segregationist state governments of the deep south: those were challenges but also opportunities for human struggle; Everything that allowed from human struggle throughout human history would be removed if the boomers are allow to triumph in the 4T. It would lead to a so-called "utopia" created by boomers that exemplifies blandness resembling the 1950s but denuded of everything that made the historical 1950s and early 1960s worth experiencing. Anti-boomers both on the right and on the left are fighting to preserve the human condition and unaltered humanity in the fullness of the human experience and will not allow boomers to destroy civilization in their attempt to change Human Nature.

Yeah, but in youth the blue boomers reacted against the 1950s and early 60s and delved into the civil rights movement and the counter-culture to create a new society that unfolded the fullness of the human experience. It was the late 1960s and 1970s that were "worth experiencing," beyond anything humans had experienced before. Liberation, imagination and spiritual unfoldment took the blue boomers into realms of relationship, awareness and passion for life unknown before in America. The bland 1950s were what was not worth experiencing. The 1960s and 70s blue boomers were not seeking to change human nature, but to unfold the essential human nature that already exists, and were guided by many enlightened late-cohort GIs and Silents and even some Lost in that quest.

Xers and millies have simply forgotten or deny this quest, or view it as having interfered with their desire for survival, since they (especially Xers) felt neglected or abused by their elders during the quest, which did have its indulgent downsides. Many Millies in addition, to some extent (those who vote Democratic), see the neglect of social duty and civic virtue due to the prevalence of laissez faire during the Unravelling, which was established also by people from all generations and not just by red boomers.

(02-21-2017, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 01:07 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]I cannot Speak for Classic-Xer as he seems to be more of a standard Xer conservative, my own views are quite different than his on certain political matters. However on the subject of boomers, especially blue boomers; if anything Classic is far more moderate and restrained than most millies including myself. You selfish boomers want to destroy everything that makes civilization great and impose your disgusting idealized version of the 1950s. I say "idealized" because this boomer utopia would be denuded of everything that kept the actual 1950s from being a complete bland write-off of human activity. The boomers desired 50s style utopia but without such things as Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, The various Latin American, Asian and southern European regimes both on the right and on the left, as well as the segregationist state governments of the deep south: those were challenges but also opportunities for human struggle; Everything that allowed from human struggle throughout human history would be removed if the boomers are allow to triumph in the 4T. It would lead to a so-called "utopia" created by boomers that exemplifies blandness resembling the 1950s but denuded of everything that made the historical 1950s and early 1960s worth experiencing. Anti-boomers both on the right and on the left are fighting to preserve the human condition and unaltered humanity in the fullness of the human experience and will not allow boomers to destroy civilization in their attempt to change Human Nature.

Yeah, but in youth the blue boomers reacted against the 1950s and early 60s and delved into the civil rights movement and the counter-culture to create a new society that unfolded the fullness of the human experience. It was the late 1960s and 1970s that were "worth experiencing," beyond anything humans had experienced before. Liberation, imagination and spiritual unfoldment took the blue boomers into realms of relationship, awareness and passion for life unknown before in America. The bland 1950s were what was not worth experiencing. The 1960s and 70s blue boomers were not seeking to change human nature, but to unfold the essential human nature that already exists, and were guided by many enlightened late-cohort GIs and Silents and even some Lost in that quest.

Xers and millies have simply forgotten or deny this quest, or view it as having interfered with their desire for survival, since they (especially Xers) felt neglected or abused by their elders during the quest, which did have its indulgent downsides. Many Millies in addition, to some extent (those who vote Democratic), see the neglect of social duty and civic virtue due to the prevalence of laissez faire during the Unravelling, which was established also by people from all generations and not just by red boomers.

I don't thin you understood what I was trying to say in the last post. What I mean't is that boomers are trying to suppress the aspects of Human nature that allow for mass struggles to take place. I mentioned the 1T but without the various regimes mentioned in the previous post, I mentioned those various 1T era regimes such as Stalin, Mao, etc because those governments represented aspects of human nature that the boomer is trying to suppress. Xers and Millies resist the boomer quest because we regard those aspects of human nature to be crucial to human development.

(02-21-2017, 03:00 PM)Cynic Hero 86 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 01:07 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]I cannot Speak for Classic-Xer as he seems to be more of a standard Xer conservative, my own views are quite different than his on certain political matters. However on the subject of boomers, especially blue boomers; if anything Classic is far more moderate and restrained than most millies including myself. You selfish boomers want to destroy everything that makes civilization great and impose your disgusting idealized version of the 1950s. I say "idealized" because this boomer utopia would be denuded of everything that kept the actual 1950s from being a complete bland write-off of human activity. The boomers desired 50s style utopia but without such things as Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, The various Latin American, Asian and southern European regimes both on the right and on the left, as well as the segregationist state governments of the deep south: those were challenges but also opportunities for human struggle; Everything that allowed from human struggle throughout human history would be removed if the boomers are allow to triumph in the 4T. It would lead to a so-called "utopia" created by boomers that exemplifies blandness resembling the 1950s but denuded of everything that made the historical 1950s and early 1960s worth experiencing. Anti-boomers both on the right and on the left are fighting to preserve the human condition and unaltered humanity in the fullness of the human experience and will not allow boomers to destroy civilization in their attempt to change Human Nature.

Yeah, but in youth the blue boomers reacted against the 1950s and early 60s and delved into the civil rights movement and the counter-culture to create a new society that unfolded the fullness of the human experience. It was the late 1960s and 1970s that were "worth experiencing," beyond anything humans had experienced before. Liberation, imagination and spiritual unfoldment took the blue boomers into realms of relationship, awareness and passion for life unknown before in America. The bland 1950s were what was not worth experiencing. The 1960s and 70s blue boomers were not seeking to change human nature, but to unfold the essential human nature that already exists, and were guided by many enlightened late-cohort GIs and Silents and even some Lost in that quest.

Xers and millies have simply forgotten or deny this quest, or view it as having interfered with their desire for survival, since they (especially Xers) felt neglected or abused by their elders during the quest, which did have its indulgent downsides. Many Millies in addition, to some extent (those who vote Democratic), see the neglect of social duty and civic virtue due to the prevalence of laissez faire during the Unravelling, which was established also by people from all generations and not just by red boomers.

I don't thin you understood what I was trying to say in the last post. What I mean't is that boomers are trying to suppress the aspects of Human nature that allow for mass struggles to take place. I mentioned the 1T but without the various regimes mentioned in the previous post, I mentioned those various 1T era regimes such as Stalin, Mao, etc because those governments represented aspects of human nature that the boomer is trying to suppress. Xers and Millies resist the boomer quest because we regard those aspects of human nature to be crucial to human development.

What some millies and Xers forget is what was going on among boomers in the 1960s and 70s. That's why I bounced off of your post as a foil to mention what was actually going on. The boomers opened up a new view of human nature as already existing, assisted by mentors and fellow travellers among Silents, GIs and Lost. There was no "suppression;" it was an opening up.

But in more anxious times, and with less optimistic and more cynical young generation(s), this opening-up process is less visible. But yes, the human potential and peace movement is an alternative to the "struggle" that your neo-fascist authoritarian outlook requires. Xers and Millies do not support your struggle. Those who are progressive want to ditch laissez faire, and restore not the neo-fascism and ancient imperialism that you want, but to restore civic virtue as Obama described it and keep freedom and human rights for all people. This is among all generations, but particularly Millennials. Older red Boomers and Silents along with the red Xers and some Millies are empowering the reactionaries who want to hang on to laissez faire from the 1980s and to racial and religious uniformity from the 1950s. Just a reminder of what's really going on, cynic hero. This is the "struggle" that is happening today, and Boomers are certainly involved in it.

(02-21-2017, 02:51 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 01:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 01:07 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: [ -> ]I cannot Speak for Classic-Xer as he seems to be more of a standard Xer conservative, my own views are quite different than his on certain political matters. However on the subject of boomers, especially blue boomers; if anything Classic is far more moderate and restrained than most millies including myself. You selfish boomers want to destroy everything that makes civilization great and impose your disgusting idealized version of the 1950s. I say "idealized" because this boomer utopia would be denuded of everything that kept the actual 1950s from being a complete bland write-off of human activity. The boomers desired 50s style utopia but without such things as Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, The various Latin American, Asian and southern European regimes both on the right and on the left, as well as the segregationist state governments of the deep south: those were challenges but also opportunities for human struggle; Everything that allowed from human struggle throughout human history would be removed if the boomers are allow to triumph in the 4T. It would lead to a so-called "utopia" created by boomers that exemplifies blandness resembling the 1950s but denuded of everything that made the historical 1950s and early 1960s worth experiencing. Anti-boomers both on the right and on the left are fighting to preserve the human condition and unaltered humanity in the fullness of the human experience and will not allow boomers to destroy civilization in their attempt to change Human Nature.

Yeah, but in youth the blue boomers reacted against the 1950s and early 60s and delved into the civil rights movement and the counter-culture to create a new society that unfolded the fullness of the human experience. It was the late 1960s and 1970s that were "worth experiencing," beyond anything humans had experienced before. Liberation, imagination and spiritual unfoldment took the blue boomers into realms of relationship, awareness and passion for life unknown before in America. The bland 1950s were what was not worth experiencing. The 1960s and 70s blue boomers were not seeking to change human nature, but to unfold the essential human nature that already exists, and were guided by many enlightened late-cohort GIs and Silents and even some Lost in that quest.

Xers and millies have simply forgotten or deny this quest, or view it as having interfered with their desire for survival, since they (especially Xers) felt neglected or abused by their elders during the quest, which did have its indulgent downsides. Many Millies in addition, to some extent (those who vote Democratic), see the neglect of social duty and civic virtue due to the prevalence of laissez faire during the Unravelling, which was established also by people from all generations and not just by red boomers.

Eric I need to correct you here. We neither forgot nor denied that quest. Hell, at least in the case of us Ataris, we spent the entire freaking 1980s harvesting the fruits of that quest. We kept harvesting until there was nothing left to harvest. It helped us to position ourselves to deal with the 3T. Why do you think we didn't all OD or blow our brains out 20 years ago?

Well, you were in California, so it was less easy to ignore.

But I'm sure there were some who didn't forget, at least to some extent. What I said was a generalization which I think is largely true.

(02-21-2017, 07:24 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 12:43 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:55 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-20-2017, 10:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Show me a war that didn't have congressional support? Was completely pulling out of Iraq, further assisting with the toppling of long standing military regimes which resulted in the rise of ISIS and the greatest humanitarian crisis that the world has seen since World War II, on the ballot in or openly debated in 08'? Well, we can pretty much guarantee that we'll be killing/bombing/disrupting radical Islamic's for the rest of our lifetime and we can pretty much guarantee that there won't be a blue minded President until we are done with radical Islam.

I don't think Genghis Kahn ever had congressional support.

While I don't think the Middle East unimportant, I do think its a quagmire.  As long as Russia, Iran and Turkey are backing their local proxies, nothing is apt to change.  It is just cheaper and easier to play defense given the type of conflict.  I keep asking Powell's Questions.  As we don't have a clean set of answers, I don't anticipate an all out commitment by the US of many boots on the ground.  Trump claimed he knew more about the Middle East than the generals and implied he could and would use the US military to good effect.  While he is kinda sorta trying to keep many of his domestic promises, he hasn't changed Middle East policy.  I don't know if he will commit the US knowing he hasn't got answers to Powell's Questions, but if he does I don't anticipate he will do any better than Bush 43.  Borrow and spend economics doesn't provide enough dollars to expand the US ground forces sufficiently to occupy enough foreign territory to make a difference, not without crashing the US economy.  Republicans simply can't stabilize the Middle East.  Democrats know better than to try.

It is easy for you to rattle a saber sitting safe as you are on the sidelines, but would you care to answer Powell's Questions?  Knock knock.  Reality calling.

As for when we'll get another blue president, we're a month in and Trump has things in a mess.  It seems too soon to be sure of where the country will be in 2020.  As there are no good answers to Powell's Questions, I don't anticipate much change in the Middle East, which will make domestic issues front and center in 2020.

Trump has encountered more resistance/political slow downs early on than I've ever seen up to this point. Does he even have his cabinet in place yet or are the Democrats still committed to stalling the appointment of  as many of them for as long as possible? You can pretty much write off the Trump voters  and the Republicans can decide whether they prefer to feel as they do now or feel like the Democrats do now in four years. As far as Powell's questions, there are no definite answers therefore no good answers as far as the blues are concerned. The blues have no control over radical Islam because radical Islam doesn't give a shit about people or give a shit about the large sums of money that blues influence/control most of the civilized world. BTW, domestic issues were already placed front and center by a Republican candidate who is now your President who will placing a lot of pressure on the Democrats to begin representing those whom  they've always claimed to represent or accept the fear of being challenged and  eliminated by a Republican who has similar views as Trump.

In these days of extreme partisanship, you're going to get resistance and slow downs.  It's hard to day if Trump is getting more or less resistance than Obama, but both got / are getting more than enough to make it hard to govern.  The difference is that Trump hasn't got the people skills to hold together a coalition.  He's having almost as much trouble from the Republicans as the Democrats.  There is a saying that if your opponents are self destructing, don't interfere, stand back and watch.  I'm thinking this is a good time for the Democrats to remember that.

If you can't answer Powell's questions and still want to rattle sabers, I can't respect where you are coming from.

No one has control over radical Islam as many in the region have been oppressed by both capitalists looking for cheap oil and the sort of autocratic state terror focused dictators of the broad Hitler / Stalin / Genghis Kahn style that you advocate.  They have had enough and are going to be advocating for something better until they get it.  Alas, there are enough foreign powers backing the autocratic dictators and theocratic tyrants that nothing is apt to change.  Sending more people, guns and explosives into a troubled region, if you don't send in enough for a clean victory, isn't going to help.  One only increases the body count and destruction.  See the Middle East since Bush 43's invasions.

Oh.  Sorry.  You don't do reality.  I forgot.

And trickle down borrow and spend isn't compatible with your Hitler / Stalin / Genghis Kahn style of government.  Such people require a fully mobilized military to satisfy their bloodlust and egos.  One requires a certain number of boots on the ground to suppress an insurrection.  Bush 43 demonstrated that the US can't raise sufficient troops to control the Middle East on a trickle down borrow and spend economic policy.  One collapses the economy if one tries.

Of course, helping the people on a borrow and spend trickle down economy is also implausible.  This is not so much a problem for the Republicans, though.  They have little desire to help people.

Blue partisan views are pretty extreme. I'm on the side that favors the constitutionally limited government that we have remember. I'm directly opposed to Genghis Kahn, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon style of government which I view as being more favorable by those on your side. Cynic is on your side and he share views with others who are on your side. Your side attracts all kinds of power mongers because your side is often viewed as weaker side. Republicans have no desire to help everyone and no desire in trying to please everyone and no desire to keep everyone together. BTW, when I saber rattle, I do so with the understanding that neighborhood kids (the children of friends and family members) will be the ones who will be the ones going over there while cozy blue kids are fucking around, getting high, getting laid and playing mind games like their deplorable parents/grand parents did during the Vietnam era. Are you one of them blue fuckheads who we are able to directly engage/ counter on the internet today. What do we do about those who are associated with so-called white privilege who are similar to yourself? Do we remain idle or do we get more politically involved and get in their face? You don't like nasty terms being applied to you and you don't like the feeling of being associated with the nasty terms/vile stereotypes that are applied to those who exist on your side. I agree that borrow and spend has financial limitations and I wouldn't want to be in cozy blue territory when reality hits and the social turmoil begins.

Classic Xer, you and other typical Republican voters say that it's "power monger"ing to require business to observe regulations that amount to behavior that they should do anyway: be fair to customers, pay workers a living wage and provide good working conditions, require wealthy speculators to behave responsibly rather than wreck the economy, support wars only when necessary, maintain a healthy environment and climate, not discriminate but uphold human rights, and pay fair taxes to help ourselves when the greedy and powerful hurt us. You consider that when we blues require these things of you guys, that this is power mongering like Genghis Kahn. You put out slogans that allowing business to do all these harmful things is "liberty" and "freedom." But it's not; it's only freedom for you bosses; slavery for everyone else.

You think freedom for the bosses means freedom for everyone. You think that people should be made to be obedient workers and that the purpose of work is to provide luxury for the elites. You think this luxury will trickle-down, but it doesn't. You think government can work without taxes, but it doesn't. Your way does not work for the people, and the statistics on life and human development in the blue and red states and under Democratic and Republican administrations proves this. But you choose to ignore the facts, because you are a boss, and you want all the benefits of the economy to flow to you and your buddies.

But you are a small time boss, and what you think benefits you, does not. It only benefits the big bosses.

(02-21-2017, 03:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Blue partisan views are pretty extreme. I'm on the side that favors the constitutionally limited government that we have remember. I'm directly opposed to Genghis Kahn, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon style of government which I view as being more favorable by those on your side. Cynic is on your side and he share views with others who are on your side. Your side attracts all kinds of power mongers because your side is often viewed as weaker side. Republicans have no desire to help everyone and no desire in trying to please everyone and no desire to keep everyone together. BTW, when I saber rattle, I do so with the understanding that neighborhood kids (the children of friends and family members) will be the ones who will be the ones going over there while cozy blue kids are (expletive deleted) around, getting high, getting laid and playing mind games like their deplorable parents/grand parents did during the Vietnam era. Are you one of them blue (dxpletive deleted) who we are able to directly engage/ counter on the internet today. What do we do about those who are associated with so-called white privilege who are similar to yourself? Do we remain idle or do we get more politically involved and get in their face? You don't like nasty terms being applied to you and you don't like the feeling of being associated with the nasty terms/vile stereotypes that are applied to those who exist on your side. I agree that borrow and spend has financial limitations and I wouldn't want to be in cozy blue territory when reality hits and the social turmoil begins.

We've got partisans on both sides who are very extreme.

I would like to see the constitutional limits more strictly enforced, but I see both parties as having power mongers, and as quite willing to use the currently overextended use of government power to advance their causes.  They just have different causes.

The Vietnam era was different.  There was an active draft and we were trying to support a tyranny.  After the way Hitler started, the GI were obsessed with containment, thought it necessary to not allow one inch of a tyranny expanding.  Kids were being hauled out of high school against their will and being killed for a cause they believed was absolutely wrong.  If you think we have a divided country now, imagine the above divide making things much more intense and unresolvable than things are today.

Yes, effective birth control and new recreational drugs made for a grand upheaval in society.  It seemed like a big deal then.  It is still remembered as a big deal.  It's now been mainstreamed, taken for granted to some degree, continuing to plague in another degree.  Some folks are still obsessed with the old images and feel of the awakening, and think of blue folk as if they were still young hippies.  For me that time is long gone.  Youngsters today still have problems with sex, booze and drugs.  Likely young kids, and the not so young, always will.  Society is better accumulated now to stuff that was very new then, but the problems are still with us, and not at all limited to blue areas.

And yes, I'm displeased by the insults and stereotypes thrown around by extreme partisans of all flavors.  Displeased, but hardly shocked and dismayed.  That's just what partisans do.  Rather than try to understand and coexist with those who are different, they demonize and hate.  Those who get caught up in vile stereotypes and ongoing abusive behavior are to my eyes just messed up, not worthy of being taken personally or seriously.  A lot of the 'discussion' here consists of an exchange of vile stereotypes.  Each side tries to tell the other side how awful they are and don't see the vile descriptions of themselves as accurate or relevant at all.  To a great degree, they aren't.  As I don't see either set of stereotypes as particularly accurate, it is those who spend all their time spewing that hate that deserve to be shunned and scorned rather than the people being insulted.

The economy is changing.  Fewer folk are needed to do the receptive manual manufacturing jobs once common to the Rust Belt and the hard work done in the coal mines.  There are more higher tech jobs of the sort found in the 'cozy' blue areas.  It is not hard to understand that aspect of the unrest.  Will whining and complaining fix the problem?  Do you think the new innovative companies creating the new economy will want to locate away from the well educated urban areas where rival tech companies have already half trained the work force?  Yes, those unwilling or unable to adapt to the new economy could go violent.  I'm just not sure how this helps.  If they 'win', what will that give them?  They get to seize jobs they aren't suited for by force?  From a blue perspective, the relatively healthy modern blue economy can be seen as carrying the dead weight of the rusting red economy.  This isn't optimal, obviously.  I'd like to hear positive suggestions for fixes rather than insults, childish temper tantrums and threats.

(02-21-2017, 12:39 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]The answer to "the question relating to the possibility of a secret WMD program that may or may not have existed at the time" was that there was none. So, there was no justification for the war, and there was never any proof of such WMD. It was a ruse and a lie. In any event, even if Saddam had WMD, that still was not a basis for our invasion. It was entirely illegal. And the Iraqis fought against it.

The only alternative to Obama's decision to abide by Bush's agreement with Iraq to pull out in 2011, was to, in effect, establish another invasion and stir up opposition to it again. The "time of his decision to pull out of Iraq" was when he decided to run for president in 2006; "what was going on inside Obama's head" was his realization and statement that it was "a dumb war;" which it was.

Voting for blind pigs that take us off cliffs, as red voters do, is not individualistic. It is blind allegiance to an authority that has no basis in fact. It is not independent thought; it is ignorance.

I'd like for you to explain how the so-called blind pigs are going to take you off the cliff with them.

(02-21-2017, 04:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(02-21-2017, 03:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Blue partisan views are pretty extreme. I'm on the side that favors the constitutionally limited government that we have remember. I'm directly opposed to Genghis Kahn, Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon style of government which I view as being more favorable by those on your side. Cynic is on your side and he share views with others who are on your side. Your side attracts all kinds of power mongers because your side is often viewed as weaker side. Republicans have no desire to help everyone and no desire in trying to please everyone and no desire to keep everyone together. BTW, when I saber rattle, I do so with the understanding that neighborhood kids (the children of friends and family members) will be the ones who will be the ones going over there while cozy blue kids are (expletive deleted) around, getting high, getting laid and playing mind games like their deplorable parents/grand parents did during the Vietnam era. Are you one of them blue (dxpletive deleted) who we are able to directly engage/ counter on the internet today. What do we do about those who are associated with so-called white privilege who are similar to yourself? Do we remain idle or do we get more politically involved and get in their face? You don't like nasty terms being applied to you and you don't like the feeling of being associated with the nasty terms/vile stereotypes that are applied to those who exist on your side. I agree that borrow and spend has financial limitations and I wouldn't want to be in cozy blue territory when reality hits and the social turmoil begins.

We've got partisans on both sides who are very extreme.

I would like to see the constitutional limits more strictly enforced, but I see both parties as having power mongers, and as quite willing to use the currently overextended use of government power to advance their causes.  They just have different causes.

The Vietnam era was different.  There was an active draft and we were trying to support a tyranny.  After the way Hitler started, the GI were obsessed with containment, thought it necessary to not allow one inch of a tyranny expanding.  Kids were being hauled out of high school against their will and being killed for a cause they believed was absolutely wrong.  If you think we have a divided country now, imagine the above divide making things much more intense and unresolvable than things are today.

Yes, effective birth control and new recreational drugs made for a grand upheaval in society.  It seemed like a big deal then.  It is still remembered as a big deal.  It's now been mainstreamed, taken for granted to some degree, continuing to plague in another degree.  Some folks are still obsessed with the old images and feel of the awakening, and think of blue folk as if they were still young hippies.  For me that time is long gone.  Youngsters today still have problems with sex, booze and drugs.  Likely young kids, and the not so young, always will.  Society is better accumulated now to stuff that was very new then, but the problems are still with us, and not at all limited to blue areas.

And yes, I'm displeased by the insults and stereotypes thrown around by extreme partisans of all flavors.  Displeased, but hardly shocked and dismayed.  That's just what partisans do.  Rather than try to understand and coexist with those who are different, they demonize and hate.  Those who get caught up in vile stereotypes and ongoing abusive behavior are to my eyes just messed up, not worthy of being taken personally or seriously.  A lot of the 'discussion' here consists of an exchange of vile stereotypes.  Each side tries to tell the other side how awful they are and don't see the vile descriptions of themselves as accurate or relevant at all.  To a great degree, they aren't.  As I don't see either set of stereotypes as particularly accurate, it is those who spend all their time spewing that hate that deserve to be shunned and scorned rather than the people being insulted.

The economy is changing.  Fewer folk are needed to do the receptive manual manufacturing jobs once common to the Rust Belt and the hard work done in the coal mines.  There are more higher tech jobs of the sort found in the 'cozy' blue areas.  It is not hard to understand that aspect of the unrest.  Will whining and complaining fix the problem?  Do you think the new innovative companies creating the new economy will want to locate away from the well educated urban areas where rival tech companies have already half trained the work force?  Yes, those unwilling or unable to adapt to the new economy could go violent.  I'm just not sure how this helps.  If they 'win', what will that give them?  They get to seize jobs they aren't suited for by force?  From a blue perspective, the relatively healthy modern blue economy can be seen as carrying the dead weight of the rusting red economy.  This isn't optimal, obviously.  I'd like to hear positive suggestions for fixes rather than insults, childish temper tantrums and threats.

The economy has changed and the average blue seems incapable of adjusting to the changes and require more subsidizing than the average red voter. At least, that's the message that I've been receiving from an extreme partisan associated with the blue side. He keeps approaching me as if it's my problem and the issues that blues are having with minorities is my problem too. I don't really care if he makes you look stupid when I make him look stupid by telling him how stupid he looks/comes across to someone like me and how stupid the party who represents him and appears to behind over backwards and cater to his political wants/needs looks to me as well. Why is it that Cynic and I are able to see our differences, but you are unable to see our differences? Are you stupid? Are you not paying enough attention? Are you just another blue who acts like a blue and does what blues do every time a blue gets upset?

(02-21-2017, 05:25 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: [ -> ]I buy some old / new tech sometimes. Frames and racks for use in data centers. Choices are:

1) Well built ones (most of the time), made in the Rust Belt, that have a somewhat high item cost, that can be trucked to the site in less than a week, at a relatively low shipping cost. No customs clearance, no problems with dock strikes, no pre-holiday port congestion, etc.

2) OK built ones (consistently), made in China, that have a low item cost, that ship on container ships in 2 - 3 weeks, then still need to be trucked to the site, at a high shipping cost. Customs clearances, every few years a dock strike, pre-holiday port congestion every year without fail.

Management told me, buy #2. Reason being, they are a strategic, well known source, that everyone and their uncle also use. The low material cost looks good on the books (in the short term). Some group think maybe? Meanwhile, some Rust Belt dude voted for Trump, and wants to nuke China.

How does it feel to screw your own for the sake of yourself and the communists who rule China? Don't feel bad about it, that's good, I won't feel about screwing you someday either. I don't need your money dude. BTW, companies who conduct their business with only the short term in mind generally aren't in it for the long term.