If you live long enough, you can determine to what extent I am right.
**************************************************

Only in terms of precision, not accuracy.  It’s clear you are, at best, less than 5% right—that’s accuracy. 

But precision would be able to say you are only 2.4% right 2.4%, or maybe on 0.3%—determining that may take a lot longer.

Just be content knowing this: You are inevitably wrong a minimum of 95% of the time.

Where am I? What am I doing here? Martha is that you?

On Darfur: Just because I think it needs cleared up.  NYT NAIROBI,
Kenya, Oct. 16, 2007 — African Union and United Nations officials are
looking into reports of a new massacre in Darfur, in which witnesses
said Sudanese government troops and their allied militias had killed
more than 30 civilians, slitting the throats of several men praying at a
mosque and shooting a 5-year-old boy in the back as he tried to run
away.

The calculations of Darfuri deaths from massacre does not include the
de facto massacre of people dying from hunger, and disease acquired
while in the horrid living conditions imposed on them.  So perhaps a
machete didn’t kill all of them but of those who weren’t, starvation did! 
It is easier to let people die of starvation than to raise a weapon and
shoot them, for then they would have to be buried and time is money. 
When they starve to death, their bodies are left to rot where they die.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001385
Please read to the last paragraph. 
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001385
gives a few stories about the Sudan.

GFT’s small cadre forming as we breathe around the world for a new
world order, through apparently a spontaneous process of ideological,
is excessively ambitious and would take a cycle of indiction, meaning in
the Untied States impossible.  That is just a prediction of course based
on observing the amalgamation of the population and their
predilections, and any change would be For the People, wouldn’t it? 
I’ve learned that a fantasized post-capitalist society in which the
working class is liberated, empowered, is not just identical with the
existing level of struggle and reality of the people.  The people in
America are not a working class proletariat no matter how hard one
forces the shoe on that designed Cinderella.

Folktruther says that “developing a left ideology for the 21st
century, serving a similar role as the world ideology of marxism in the
20th century.”  I think it is not, or if it is to any degree, it is to that
same degree a chimera because it is a pipedream to think there is a
mass of people that would support that kind of system.  The media
first of all would be a deterrent, as well as the right-wing conservative
element and they are not to be minimized.  They have the money and
with a structure like Wall Street it would not be appropriated by any
leftist movement.

Just simply talking to people in line at the market one readily finds that
they have lost the feeling of having a right to make choices and judge
things or say something is wrong. This is part of what happens in a
propaganda age when the public is so constantly manipulated that
there is a loss capacity to think for oneself.

But is it really true that we’ve all been victimized by Washington’s legal
definition of how we should make up our minds about things such as
health care, the war in Afghanistan, so that we are told, e.g., that there
must be a smoking gun before making any decision, that we need
rules of evidence rather than evidence?  Or, have we been conditioned
to think that?  Or that Americans have been conditioned by the
corporate industry that drones over and over advertisement for the
people regardless of how little money they have to buy buy buy.  Do
people really forget they have the right to think for themselves and
make a judgment about whether they want this or that piece of national
legislation?  Or do they think more than it is thought they think?  What
would be a real test rather than corporate media managed polls?

Frankly I think the future holds capitalism very much alive in the world
in the near and long future, as just watching the world it is so apparent
the people of the world want to be like Americans.  But I think that
socialism, by necessity, will work its way into creating a synthetic world
economic system.

If you live long enough, you can determine to what extent I am right.

No chance of that, at my age…..I think I’m glad ,actually. Russia went from communism to a form of capitalism currently, at any rate Marx didnt have an elite ruling class in mind, which was what Mother Russia got.

I believe in thinking globally, and believe that the monster that is globalization will spark the rebirth of the dormant union movement, in the third world of course. This may very well give socialism its chance to take hold….

Colonialism wasn’t destroyed, it just donned a disguise. Ruling by installing puppets and using military might continues unabated, and economic slavery is rampant.

I believe that we will see, long after my demise, a world socialist govt., or maybe we will just all destroy ourselves…..

Ardee, the reason I post here is to try out ideas useful for developing a left ideology for the 21st century, seving a similar role as the world ideology of marxism in the 20th century.

I think marxism was too ambitious, and skipped a necessary stage of governence capitalism. It is true that Lenin, etc in Russia stated, and thought, that Russia had to go through a capitalist stage before a socialisst revolution.  but when the capitalist class came to power under Kerensky, they could not stop the war develop the economy.  so Lenin adopted the ‘permanent revolution’ theory of Trotsky, and initiated the seige socialism with which marxism and communism is identified.

With the destruction of colonialism and the development of the developing third world countries, it is possible to develop a theory and conceptual structure that encompasses the world rather than the capitalist West.  No one person can develop such a theory of course, but it is currently in the process of ideological formation around the world. 

By insulting the belief system of Americans, who are ideologically backward compared to most countries, it is possible to generate emotional outbursts that display what must be overcome in an earthperson ideology, as I refer to it. It is my opinion, a minority one, that part of general conceptual structure can be institutionalized historically in Western social science, if not in the US, which is higly repressive ideologically.

If you live long enough, you can determine to what extent I am right.

FT,
I’m sorry you are disappointed. You’ll just have to deal with that.

Since your “research” also tells you Ahmadenijad legitimately won a landslide, and the protesters in the streets are all paid shills,
and
you repeatedly state (knowing it’s false) that I’m a dogmatic follower and adorer of Ayn Rand,
then
excuse me for doubting your “research” that Darfur is a big phony.

Tell you what: if Jimmy Carter comes out and says Darfur is a fake and there’s no massacre there that was engineered by Bashir, THEN I’ll give your assertions serious consideration.

Until then I see you as simply defending someone because the US doesn’t like him.  And you’ll have to get over your disappointment.

I am not an ally of Folktruther, excepting insofar as those political goals and methods he espouses coincide with my own, and sometimes they do to varying degrees. As do those of many folks here.

In contrast, there are those posters whose goals and political beliefs are anathema to me, as are their methodologies. Those who lie, who express bigotry, whether religious or otherwise, as a part of their political belief system, those who take what one posts as honest belief and distort it to their own purpose get short shrift from me. You might have noticed…;-)

I do not see FT in that light, nor do I care whether or not he is a communist, socialist, or any other ‘ist’. I see him as passionate about his beliefs certainly, frustrated at his inability to convert one to those beliefs, but essentially honest.

I come here to read the comments of honest posters, to bounce my own ideas and ideals off the minds of others and perhaps subject my own ideology to the light of the thoughts and perspective of those others.

There are people here I think worthy of vilification, certainly and have done my best to actually expose them. But then , by contrast, there are those who honestly differ from my own positions and with those I try hard to continue to maintain a dialogue .

Are we , some of us, not here for the same purpose after all, to find a way to make our nation and our world a better place?

I was diasapointed with your response, Inherit.  My daughter was required to write an essay on the Darfur Genicide for her beginning semester in college so we researched it together. 

It’s simply a hoax, like the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Distruction or The Irani Stolen Election.  The Sudan regime there is quite brutal, Bashir, but the carnage is largely caused by the US and the West over oil, as is the case in Iraq and Iran. I don’t know what Israel’s relations are with Sudan.

I went to the trouble of providing such facts as we winkled out.  Apparently it did no good at all.  I won’t do it again.

Hello ITW, so glad to see you are well and as feisty as ever.  While I
didn’t know the particulars about GFT (Gassy FT), I suspected it was
something aberrant.  But a best friend whispered that he was a
communist!  So it is hard to equate that with his being an anti-
communist.  Maybe he is just an Anti. Which is what you seem to be
saying.  Actually he and I have been clashing for a very long time and I
would feel uncomfortable if he were to be civil.  We had a bit of a
hiatus for a short time, like a couple of weeks, but he couldn’t control
himself any longer and lambasted me in his usual manner.  Oh well, as
you might notice, I hit back….. with grrreeaatttt pleasure.  He probably
needs locked up to protect him from himself, but that is kind of
impossible on the Internet so we do the best we can to help him out of
his misery.  Your description seems just about right.  It’s a keeper.  He
is the epitome of the BlackKnight syndrome.  Yeah, sometimes I
ROFLMAO too! 

So he should feel smug that you and I each spent a whole post on him. 
hahahaha

See,She, FT is a reverse 50’s anti-communist.  In those days, it didn’t matter HOW bad and corrupt a dictator was as long as he espoused hating Communists (Locking ‘em up, torturing and executing ‘em without a trial was a bonus).

FT’s just the opposite.  No matter HOW evil a dictator is, no matter how much of a liar he is, as long as he’s anti-American and/or anti-Israel, FT will defend him to the bitter end.  He’ll make up “facts”, discount blatantly clear evidence, call people zionist-fascists, anything other than admit the obvious.

As I said, if the MSM said there was a thunderstorm in FT’s neighborhood, he’d claim it was a lie even as he got struck by lightning!

That kind of dedidcated self-delusion is almost kinda admirable—once I get past ROFLMAO!

How provocative of you Folktruther, the Granddaddy of TD Flamers, to
put words in my mouth and beliefs in my head.  These are your own
beliefs and words, not mine!  Try typing with your fingers instead of
your toes.  Not one other asks for evidence except Shenonymous, not
one other asks for truth except Shenonymous.  You and all the rest just
offer ill-founded opinions.  Birds of a featha flock togetha. 

If you want to ignore the common people of Iran that is your option
and by that you show very little in the way of morals, but then that is
your preoccupation, to not have any morals, right Folktruther?  Nor any
truth, as you are the great receptacle of artificial trooth.  You are the
biggest violator that never gives evidence!  Just pompous opinions and
intentional fabrications about others here who post.

Funny how with all the terrorist group support by the US in Iran, how
Ahmadinejad has offered an olive branch, albeit a very thin one, to the
United States.  But is the size important?  What an interesting set of
circumstances.  Nothing is ever as it seems.  And definitely not your
version of trooth is truth.  The Greenshirts in Iran have been harboring
monumental discontent for decades.  They have had the epiphany that
they are not free people, that they are an oppressed people.  They feel
suffocated, and they want to live in the 21st century, not the 7th.  And
upsetting as it is to you, they want to be like Americans!  They have
said so.  Too bad, go sit in a corner and lick your wounds for you are
bleeding all over the place.

Your sloppy writing is telling of a sloppy mind.  The name is
Shenonymous and what the f’ do you know about what I prefer to
believe?  You make up lies so you can make yourself look intelligent
but you show ersatz truth, called trooth and sound like a puffed up
turkey, gobble gobble folksytruttthhher gobble gobble. 
“Shenonymous does not believe in logic or evidence because she is in
favor of oppressive Western power rather than the people ruled by
power.” This is as absurd a statement you have ever made.  Lies do
not make you look very cool, try truth for a change instead of your
once removed edition.

Aren’t you the one supporting the massacres in Sudan by denying that
they existed?  Aren’t you the one who is glorifying those savages who
are murdering the innocents in Africa by denying they slaughtered the
Darfurans?  I certainly have not been!  And you perjure yourself if you
say that I do!  Why would you invent so?  So you can make yourself
look like someone who possesses the truth?  Yes, of course!  But you
do not possess the truth, you have only small-minded observations. 
You read only half of what anybody writes here then you make lies up
to make yourself sound clever but you really sound like a pompous
flatulant asshole.  Thank gawd we cannot smell over the Internet!  At
least you can claim to be pompous, I’ll give you that.  I guess we can
call you Gassy Folktroother from now on.  Let’s hear it for the Martyred
Gucci-ites!

Inherit- the Dafur Genicide is the same kind of Big Truth as the Iran Stolen Election or the Weapons of Mass Destruction, big lies repeated in the learned and mass media to delude the American population.  Sheromyous prefers to believe the Patriotic delusions rather than the reality based truth, but you are more amenable to historical truth, even if it subverts American media delusions.

there has been civil wars in Sudan for the past half century, the southern Christian rebels being funded by the US and possibly Britain.  The second civil war killed a milliion and a half people and was led by John Strang, trained in Fort Benning, Georgia. 

the rebels use tens of thousands of child soldiers who they don’t feed, and who must therefore forage in the villages and starve. Cannobalism has occurred. Clinton destroyed a pharmaseudtical plant there that produced medicines for malaeria, etc, which Chomsky says was responable for the deaths of hundreds of thoussands of people.

there is oil in the southern Sudan, origninally developed by Chevron which has been replaced by the Chinese.  bush declared a Genocide in Sudan in 2004, the alone consider the conflict there a genocide.  A UN comminssion in 2004 stated that while there was massive carnage and war crimes, there was no genocide.

The term is important because if a genocide was declared, the US could send troops to get the oil, under either Nato or the UN.  But the Africans were so leary of the US that its African Military Command could not even be based in Africa, and is located in Stuttgart, Germany.  The current civil war, which killed 300,000 people, is largely over, according to the UN general, and has degenerated into small groups of bandits.  there is a piece in the Asia Times called FORGET GENOCIDE, ITS THE OIL, written in 2007, which gives the historical details.

the US strategy now is to separate the oil provemce in the south from Sudan, just as the attempt was made a fee decades ago to separate Biafra of the Ibos from Nigeria.  the lies about Africa are typically even more outrageous than those about Asia, like the Mau Mau rebellion which was a total fabrication.

Shenonymous does not believe in logic or evidence because she is in favor of oppressive Western power rather than the people ruled by power.  In Iran Rafsanjani, the billionaire mullah, and his allies, want to privatize the oil and buy it allied with the West.  There is no question that many of the Gucci protesters genuinely beleived that the ‘Reformers’won the election, since the US has allocated, openly, 400 million dollars for regime change.  And DO pay leaders of the protestsrs, who have meetings across the bay in Bairain, where US military and intellegence organs are located.

In addition the US is sponsoring two terrorist groups to attack Iran, one in the north and one in the south.  they blow up mosques, etc.  Under Obama it appears thate has been a change of strategy in many of the oil Muslim states from positional military war to subversion and terrorism.  It was effective in Iran but now decreasingly so as the Gucci protesters realize how they have been duped.  And American yuppies are beginning to realize it as well.

The work ethic is extraordinarily high in America and Americans in
general work their asses off. They don’t have much leisure time to
protest and have to rely on a messiah to rise from the working rabble
to organize protests, as do most of the Truthdippers whose form of
protest is to rant on Truthdip.  The Republicans have got the idea most
recently but they are wealthy and can afford the time off to traipse
around the nation in their RVs, and the gays will do it in October and
they are well-heeled too and can afford, as in surfing, to make a 10th
wave or two now and then.  Did you know that big waves are rare and
that 80% of all waves are less than 12 feet high?  And 45% of those are
only 4 feet high?  The Democrats don’t have a whole brain amongst
them to get anything started but they are working, those who have
jobs, because they know they may not have a f’n job if they don’t. 
Yeah, I know it is Truthdig

I find it the height ( or depth) of irony that a nation like Iran that cracks down hard on protests finds itself enmired in many such. Yet a nation like ours, in which protest is a guaranteed right sees none…..

It is without a doubt that Ahmadinejad was elected by a landslide.  That really is not the
question.  It is the massive number of people who protested who are suppressed,
beaten and killed because they dared and continue to dare to speak out.  It is moot
whether or not he is the “most powerful leader in Iran” when the clergy who are the
most powerful allow him to be their public mouth.  He is their puppet.  If the Irani
government did not want the corrupt billionaires in Tehran they would long ago have
gotten rid of them. But it is only logical to assume there is something the Irani
government is getting for allowing Western imperialism to continue to exist right in the
major city of Iran.  It is a totalitarian government and its acts are not to be questioned. 

An interview on BBC news of Star Iran contestants the other night was most revealing. 
Going against the repressive Islamist regime, these young people are following their
bliss.  When asked what they think of America, they all, each and every one, said they
“love” America, they love the freedom in America.  I’m sure some of these talented
youth will be critically “taken care” of by the traditionalists.  But it is now on record that
all Iranis do not hate America.

Yes, let the Gucci Protestors die in the cause of freedom and reform.  They will then
transfigure into Martyred Gucci-ites, not easily forgotten by the families of the
murdered nor the youth who will inherit the country someday, unless they are all
murdered.  We can be on the watch for a genocide in Iran.  There is now a wedge in the
extremist Islamic government and it has arisen within the heart of the Irani people. 
That is exactly how a movement becomes a permanent and poisonous thorn.

FT,
I went too far with the last sentence.  My apologies.
ITW

Folktruther, September 19 at 6:39 pm #

The picture above the piece is from the demonstrations in JUne, and by such misleading effects implant the deceit needed to implement US imperialism.  And increase the possibility of war.
*******************************************

It’s posts like this that show your frequent episodic disassociation with reality.  If the MSM said it was storming in your neighborhood, you would deny as a Zionist plot even as you were standing outside in the rain!

Unlike the USA, protests in places like Iran involve enormous personal risk of violent or even deadly response by the government.  You can’t BUY that kind of protest like you can here. “Here, we’ll give you a hunnerd buck to march—an another fitty if you get shot.”  Doesn’t work that way.

The Darfur genocide being a phony puts you on the same level as Holocaust deniers.

Good post of the facts, commune.  But consider godswaddles comment.  He prefers to believe the American mass media rather than the evidence.  this is common among Americans.  The first media implantation of the Big Truth, such as Iran’s Stolen Election, takes years to erode with the facts, even if they are openly admitted in the media and publically displayed.  Which of course usually they are not.

so the American people continued to believe in Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Distruction long after it was revealed that they had none.  It’s because people want to believe what authorized power says.  The powerful delude the population to rule and the people want to be deluded.  Freud maintains that this has a biological origin, and its a strong argument.  So it has to be overcome by cultural means, and this is a historical process.

Americans bent over and grabbed their ankles for the stolen election of 2000.  Good to see Iranians showing that old American spirit.

Folktruther, you are welcome to steal anything I post my friend!

Antiwar.com reports:

Four out of five of the 1,003 Iranian respondents interviewed in the survey released by WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO), a project of the highly respected Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) of the University of Maryland, said they considered Ahmadinejad to be the legitimate president of Iran.

Sixty-two percent of respondents said they had “a lot of confidence” in the declared election results, which gave Ahmadinejad 62.6 percent of the vote within hours of the polls’ closing Jun. 12 and which were swiftly endorsed by the Islamic Republic’s Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Three of four respondents said Khamenei had reacted correctly in his endorsement.

Commune, I really like the phrase “Gucci protesters.” I’m going to steal it.  You’re welcome to steal anything of mine.

ardee and folk truth.
Iran needs nukes to join the Mutually Assured Destruction club.  I, too, do not think invasion is on the horizon but… its the bombing of their nuclear sites that concerns me… and Bush’s TACTICAL NUKE trial balloons.  Bush’s folks (as the old saying says ‘here is the new boss; same as the old boss’ and in this case war secr. Gates, it is the same old boss) were trying to build up support for nukes to hit the Iranian nuclear sites.
We have lost our way; sad to say.  Hurry up, Iran.

When these outlets report on Iran nobody mentions the working class of the country. The Green movement, if it is truly authentic, will never be able to topple the government as long as it is composed of Gucci protesters. In every major poll Ahmadinejad still has the support of the poor and workers, without this force no “revolution” has success. Isn’t it strange also, that the new outbreak in violence happens right when Ahmadinejad will again be under the microscope as he visits the UN General Assembly?

The pseudo-Progressive media like Truthdig foments war and American imperialism by the usual lies and misleading Big Truths.  Three of the Biggest have been Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, Darfur’s Genicide, and, here, Iran’s Stolen Election. Congress in 2006 authorized 4 hundred million dollars for regime change in Iran, and the Stolen Election was part of it.

Actually the evidence shows that Ahmadinejad was relected by a landslide, but reality does not play a large part in the American mainstream truth.  He is also considered a ‘dictator’ when he is not even the most powerful leader in Iran and is beholden to a parlement. But the Westernized bourgeoise is centered in Tehran and corrupt billionaires like Ranjani fund, along with the US and Britain, privatation of the oil companies and an allainace with Wesstern imperialism.

The picture above the piece is from the demonstrations in JUne, and by such misleading effects implant the deceit needed to implement US imperialism.  And increase the possibility of war.

thelibertarian, September 19 at 2:25 pm #

Interesting commentary. I would note that the people of Iran have a history of political engagement and have hooted Amadinajhad before. I do not know whether our influence can be seen in
the current unrest but I am aware that we do indeed meddle in the internal affairs of nations for our own self interest.

The invasion of a nation like Iran, with a standing army of one million, well equipped and trained, is an undertaking I cannot see us taking. Our armed forces are stretched to the breaking point, our economy is in the toilet and the influence of our dog wagging tail, Israel, just cannot be that strong when stacked up against the cons.

from Justin:
In 2004…Rubin attacked “creeping anti-Semitism in the current discourse,” approvingly quoting Max Boot’s contention that “if neocons were agents of Likud, they would have advocated an invasion not of Iraq or Afghanistan but of Iran, which Israel considers to be the biggest threat to its security.”
“Now that Rubin is advocating draconian sanctions, to be followed by a military attack, on Tehran, one wonders if he will finally come clean and admit to being an agent of a Certain Foreign Power. Somehow, I doubt it.” 
“So let’s see if I have this straight: the very same people who funneled false “intelligence” about Iraq’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” – those friendly folks at the Office of Special Plans – are now telling us that the Iranians have WMD, and are about to join the nuclear club. Pardon me if I’m just a bit skeptical – but haven’t we been through this before?”

where is my comment?

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/09/17/the-worms-in-the-apple/
If you think Iran’s demonstrations are not being funded at least somewhat by our covet actors, think again. 
“In any case, NCEP morphed into the Bipartisan Policy Center in 2002, with money from Big Oil (Chevron) and four major left-of-center foundations. ... Its foray into the foreign policy realm is relatively recent, but here the vaguely leftist tone is abandoned, and no wonder: its top foreign policy “expert” is one Michael Makovsky, a former staffer at the notorious Office of Special Plans – yes, the same Bush era outfit that manipulated phony “intelligence” and packaged it as talking points to sell the Iraq war to a gullible Congress, a prostrate media, and a half-asleep American public.”
Don’t get fooled, folks.. keep us out of Iran.  I think we should all know the reason Iran wants Nuclear weapons—so they will not be invaded like Afghanistan and Iraq.  Did we invade North Korea and the reason is…?