Night-Gaunt, October 8 at 12:31 am

Next comes caps, bold face and italics…quite a vocabulary heh?

Every time you give a non committal grunt of a answer shows us you are a shallow pool indeed of intellect. No heft. Prove it again, please?

ardee, October 6 at 7:35 pm,

Blah.

Sharper than a serpents tooth, this “bah”.....Oh wait, duller than the village idiot methinks this poster.

Night-Gaunt, October 6 at 11:50 am,

Blah.

Summation for ThomasG is “blah.”

ardee, October 6 at 6:16 am

Blah.

Night-Gaunt, October 6 at 1:19 am,

Blah.

ctually one might consider being grateful for a post containing only the word,“blah”. When he/she gets more wordy he/she also gets more boring.

Aah! He cuts me to the quick methinks! Doth thou have any more to say other than a tautological round robin with yee self? A verbal 69 as it were, a yin/yang of semantic ditto if I may? You do, I don’t.

So far ThomasG you gave a very nice non-committal amorphous response without responding. Have you thought of going into politics?

My intellect has been slain by your incisive wit and unparalleled logic. Sorry, I feel the snark coming on and it is big.

Night-Gaunt and Leefeller,

Ditto from another thread——Sophist outrage and indignant annoyance is the very foundation of Right-Wing amorphous nonsense and subjective drivel; get used to what I do as I am left with no other choice but to tolerate your amorphous nonsense and subjective drivel.

What seems most unfortunate to me, is if Thomasg is allowed free speech and no one else was afforded the same opportunity, what this world would be like.

Night-Gaunt, Ardee October 4 at 12:39 am,

“Blah, amorphous nonsense.”-ThomasG

Thank you for showing me the limits of your intellect. A sixth grade reader at best centered on how to hammer you point relentlessly. Probably how you were taught, maybe at home, eh?

I would be interested in feedback from others on whether his analysis, if you could call it that, was correct or just above his education level.

It would help our country if our gov’t would think in other than black or white terms. The world is made of far more than yes/no, off/on and us/them.

Night-Gaunt, October 4 at 12:39 am,

Blah, amorphous nonsense.

ardee, October 5 at 6:22 am

Amorphous nonsense.

ardee, October 4 at 8:42 am

Read your own post——your own posts are proof writ large on numerous threads of Truthdig.

OzarkMichael, October 3 at 11:33 pm,

Read your own post——your own posts are proof writ large on numerous threads of Truthdig.

Night-Gaunt, October 4 at 12:39 am #

Such mechanical thinking is curious to me. I would almost say it is of a computer or some kind of rout learning with special emphasis on repetition to literally hammer in the point.

MarthaA/ThomasG once noted, when asked about his/her penchant for caps and bold that it was exactly what you note, a way of enforcing propaganda and hammering home into the consciousness of the reader his/her political points.

This person is a peculiar sort, at the very least.

ThomasG, October 3 at 8:37 pm

Alas, no building upon anything huh?  I ask you now to put up or, (please) shut up. Show me one single example of my “right wing sophistry”.

You hurl charges at those who disagree with your disjointed and phony analogies and statistics, illustrating perfectly, not that they are the enemy, but that you are mentally unstable.

Well I think it an honor when ThomasG slaps you in the face with your own kudos to him!

Such mechanical thinking is curious to me. I would almost say it is of a computer or some kind of rout learning with special emphasis on repetition to literally hammer in the point. But he human mind gets tired of repetition and moves on. Just something to keep in mind MarthaA & ThomasG.

I certainly have disagreements but I like to articulate them as one intelligent being to anther. Not the linguistic version of a rock dashing the brains out of a rival considered less then themselves. Boarders on hubris to me. Now that is a dangerous road to go down.

ardee, October 3 at 7:24 pm,

What does praise from a Right-Wing sophist mean?——Nothing at all.

ThomasG, October 3 at 6:41 pm

As one who has been critical of your efforts in the past I would applaud this one as logical, rational and insightful. Further it contains no excessive use of caps or bold, only when necessary for emphasis…congratulations and I hope you build upon this success….

Andress, September 30 at 1:44 pm and all on this blog,

The choice is NOT between Capitalism and Communism; this choice is fallacious.

The choice is between Socialized/Communized Capitalism and Privatized Capitalism.

From reading the posts on this thread, they sound like minds that are ossified into the propaganda of the 1950’s, and don’t seem to get it that socialized/communized resources in the tens of trillions of dollars has been used to bail out Privatized Capitalism in the current economic collapse, that this has been the case since the advent of Capitalism in Britain and that the masses of the population that provide the socialized/communized resources NEVER HAVE, and NEVER WILL get their money back from Privatized Capitalism.

This is socialized responsibility for privatized benefit.  What is needed is socialized/communized benefit for socialized/communized resources and the only way that will happen is with socialized/communized Capitalism.

61,000 lobbyists? When Obama clears the decks from all those lobbyists scurrying around the halls of Congress like rats, maybe a bailout is on the agenda?

Leefeller - interestingly, according to Paul Volker, when he was a DC functionary, K Street didn’t even exist. 

What never gets talked about and what are probably the most influential elephants in the room?  There are presently 61,000 lobbyists, and counting, in DC:  500 American companies have permanent offices in DC:  Business financed lobbyists are the single largest group, by far.  By contrast, AFL-CIO has 6 paid lobbyists - environmental protection, child welfare and human rights lobbyists don’t even make the lobby ‘list.’

Xntrk, October 1 at 7:02 pm

Thanks for the response, and yes, I do understand the reasons you enumerate, and am guilty as well.

There is a compulsion in me, born of patriotism and a desire to see a nation better than we now have, for my grandchildren to inherit. Thus I continue to fight the battles.

Night-Gaunt, October 2 at 12:00 am #
If we could ever start dismantling the gigantic
imperial force amassed by the crypto-fascists and start
saving money I know what we could do with the
decommissioned soldiers! Send 500 of them to Cuba to
get that medical training. Then the next 500 when they
are done to return to help their country. We so
desperately need hospitals, ER’s, doctors and nurses
stat!
===============================================
Now that’s a stellar idea.

If we could ever start dismantling the gigantic imperial force amassed by the crypto-fascists and start saving money I know what we could do with the decommissioned soldiers! Send 500 of them to Cuba to get that medical training. Then the next 500 when they are done to return to help their country. We so desperately need hospitals, ER’s, doctors and nurses stat! But that is a wish I don’t see happening in this universe we live in probably in some alternate realities many parameters away. [It wouldn’t be distance in space just in cross dimensional travel.]

Now that would be something that would eventually end the diplomatic deamons thus created over the last century.

Ardee, I have quit posting, unless it is something I cannot resist. I just got tired of the circular arguments and the ‘He said; she said’ stuff. We are faced with so many important issues today, whether YOUR hot button is the economy, health care, Global Warming, or the Empire’s Endless Wars.

Wasting my life reading comments that I either agree with totally, or totally disagree with is bad enough. When the conversation degenerates into baseless arguments between 2 or 3 curmudgeons, it’s time to work in my garden. Or harass my County Council Rep, or read a good book…

Sometimes I even play with my dogs, they make more sense than most people. They really are very bright and only argue with strange cats and people walking on their road.

A friend of mine at a message board I frequent brought this to my attention today:
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259

It’s entitled “Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’: the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US”, by Dmitry Orlov.

Whether you agree with this or not, I recommend y’all read it ...

My seemingly increasing disappointment in Obamas performance may be because he has little performance so far, it has been 8 months and from what is being offered, and what is happening, does not seem all that different than the predator he replaced.  His selection for assistance or his aids seems to be the problem, for change to happen, one should, it would seem, not select lobbyists from the problem to correct the problem.

Obama attacked lobbyists during his campaign then commenced to sleep with them, sort of like inviting Parana’s into ones hot tub while holding a fishing pole.

In the end,  the people are screwed again by business as usual, does my feeling of toothless Republican jubilation seem warranted?

Xntrk, October 1 at 4:13 pm

Good to read a post from you again, its been a while I think. Thank you also for the in depth reporting of what I merely skimmed the surface.

What we fear from Cuba has been a mystery to me. Had we welcomed the revolution, which replaced a pig of a ruler who ran Cuba as a brothel and gambling den, both our nations would have benefited.

Sheer said—

(”“What we need is for Barack Obama to pull a Nixon and attempt to cut a deal
with Tehran as well as with competing forces in Afghanistan that meets their
nationalist aspirations and our security interests. That won’t be easy, since he
is a Democrat and the Republican hard-liners will not allow him the slack given
to Nixon. It is also true that the Iranian leadership can veer into outrageous
behavior, making the international pursuit of peace extremely difficult. But
does anyone believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can hold a candle to Mao
when it comes to provocative rhetoric?”“)

What are you, in some kind of dream? What exactly do you wanta “deal” cut for?
A deal for what? Why are you in someone else’s country? You want a “deal” for
Israel? A deal that says Israel can have as many nukes as they want but Iran can
not? They are just fine with their nationalist aspirations. And, as we ALL know
they do not or EVER HAVE threatened America’s security interests. In fact,
because they have acted in such an open and honest way thus far, they are the
only stabilizing influence over there. What the hell do you think would happen
if you invade and bomb them? Chaos, death, poverty, hopelessness. But Israel
and its shills care nothing about that. All they know is to kick cats like some
sick, immature little brat. Israel supports an opposition candidate in Iran that is
suspected of bombing American troops. Care to comment on why that might
be?

And if you think Iran can “veer into outrageous behavior”, what the hell do you
call what the US and Israel have been doing around the world? Actually, the US
as Israel’s proxy, since Israel can’t do anything but “invade” people already
suffering in slums. They can’t fight a real war and wouldn’t know a just cause if
it slapped them.

Obama, the nutjob, is talking about forcing them to do things they already
agreed to do. They are not now or ever have been in violation of anything.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is honest, eloquent, hopeful, peaceful, and
entertaining in a great way.

And by the way, NO ONE should EVER accept a the “Jewish” state of Israel.
There are many people living in Israel that are not Jews. That would be like
making the America an “Evangelical United States” that can deny rights to
anyone they like. THAT is apartheid. Its also racist. It is also illegal.

Mr. Sheer, I hope you examine the “demonology” contained so deeply in your
head that you seem unaware of your own preconceptions of who is good and
bad.

I have read that Adam Smith saw clearly the flaws inherent in laissez-faire capitalism - primarily that some would amass great wealth while others would be relegated to lives of extreme poverty.

Apparently he was a good and decent man, naive is more like it, as he believed that the wealthy could not tolerate the poverty of their fellow men and would therefore act to alleviate it.

Towards the end of his life he realized his error in judging his fellow men (wealthy) and tried to include in his system safe-guards which would prevent great inequities in incomes - like regulations preventing massive trusts, cartels, monopolies…(Today’s purveyors of laissez-faire doctrine conveniently fail to mention the inevitable down-side of the system - and we’re presently living the down-side in spades.)

Ardee mentioned the scholarship Cuba provides for Medical School. I was not going to post, but this has become a pet project of mine!

Cuba set aside 500 scholarships specifically for US students. Only a pittance of these are ever used. They provide room and board, books, plus a small per-diem to the students. The classes are all in Spanish, so there is also an immersion Spanish program for those who are not bi-lingual. I think transportation is up to the student. The graduates have to take the licensing exams just as any other new doctor would, but from what I have read, that is not a major road block as the classes are very comprehensive. I am fairly sure any residency would have to be arranged after graduation, and Specialties would be post-grad.

There have been recent articles in the Houston Chronicle about the program. I have never googled it, but I assume there are reams of information available.

I do not know what the chances are that a poor minority student in your own community could get a full six year scholarship to Med School are, but here in Hawaii, they are poor to zip. Nada! And yet, we are so short of Primary Care Doctors that often there are none available. Kaiser employs 6 month temps to cover their ass, but that is about like taking grab and growl at the emergency room.

I have been talking to the Professors at UH at Hilo, and some are getting the word out. I tried to get the County Council and my Congressional Reps on board, but the minute ‘Cuba’ is mentioned, the shutters come down and the guns are locked and loaded. Of course the entire State and University systems are busy chasing the Chinese Yuan, in spite of the Communist taint…

But then, Castro never crawled on his knees begging for forgiveness, or kissed our collective asses. Nor did Nixon send ping-pong players to visit. The CIA was too busy sponsoring fully funded trips by their own specially trained assassins and terrorists to do anything like build a bridge, or open a door.

Don’t even get me started on the biased or non-existent news out of Latin America. Have you read anything recent about the Honduras Coup? Did you know the peasants and unions are still in the streets in support of Zelaya despite the media lock-down and the 45 day suspension of all civil liberties? Check it out, Al Jazeera is still paying attention…

Awhile back Barack Obama offered to a joint session of Congress, theamericanpeople, and the rest of the world a cliche-ridden exceptionalist riff on theallamerican “character” in which he admitted, rather tentatively, to a few faults no more serious apparently than a relatively mild case of adolescent acne….one theamericanpeople and their privateering overlords should eventually just ‘out-grow,’ someday.  What Robert Scheer suggests here, though, in his own rather antiseptically oblique description of what certain papered professional experts might call a chronic paranoid/schizophrenic CONdition of the allamerican psyche, is a fundamental character flaw much deeper and more degenerative….one lurking at the very core of america’s CONstruction, and exerting a CONtrolling influence on every aspect of its presence and behavior in the virtual world-o’-hurt it still seeks self-righteously, here in these latter days, to dominate “by any means necessary.”

Even granting the hackneyed excuse that “nobody’s perfect,” it does seem less than helpful, when CONfronted with self-inflicted predicaments of the magnitude prevalent today, to gloss glibly over those CONgenital elements in the collective domestic “character” that would be quickly assumed (if discovered in any “individual”) to be at the very root of that particular unfortunate’s “problems.”  Somehow, though, wrapping-up such things in a national symbol makes it taboo to discuss them in-public….the one place where such examination might offer some chance for finding some genuinely remedial communal response.

Instead (and this is no-doubt yet another San Andreas-sized crack in the happy-face facade), it all is CONtinually funny-papered-over, and projected religiously onto “enemies” out-there somewhere.  Meantime, of course, kept “by common scheme” sealed-off from either SunLight or Air, this complex of lethal flaws in america’s own “character” can only fester and rot, until finally forcing their way out into the open with catastrophic CONsequences for all CONcerned….and cornered, as it happens.

There are a number of columnists and commenters here on this site, and elsewhere, who make sincere efforts to peel-away the masks and wipe-off the ‘lipstick’ CONcealing the real state-of-affairs here now.  Without exception, however, these good-faith attempts come up short because of a perhaps too squeamish reluctance to admit to each other that the ‘subject’ of the examination is actually….well, a corpse, to mince no words.  After all, most feel they have their life-savings tied-up in keeping-up the half-life-like appearances so essential to sustaining the gone-“global” CONsensual cluster-fuck to which the sub-species homo domesticus is auto-sclerotically CONsigned (and CONfined) these days.

The party is over, tame Sisters and Brothers.  Cleaning-up the mess means having to admit mistakes, sustain bruises to refined sensibilities, get hands dirty and clothes torn.  It requires letting-go the silly illusions of “individual”-ity, aggregated to lethal dimensions in the “modern” nation-state, and giving-up those false comforts and crippling CONveniences that sucked you into fantasies of “self”-sufficiency in the first place.

This isn’t any ‘test’ or a rehearsal or an exercise.  This IS the actual Emergency.  Let’s see who among you will wake-up in time to join us First Responders….or who’ll be among the casualties.

HokaHey!

Hi ender,

You wrote: “We’ve tried again no less than 30 times since (Castro) has been in power.”

You might have an interest in “638 Ways to Kill Castro”, a UK Channel 4 documentary vetted by and featuring the head of Castro’s security team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/638_Ways_to_Kill_Castro

Never underestimate the willful criminality of the U.S. government. William Blum, the author of “Killing Hope” has estimated that our secret government’s various covert operatives engage in over 100,000 illegal acts across the planet…. per month.

ender,

I agree.

For Andress:

We destroyed Cuba.  We supported a Mafia chieftan who kept Cubans dirt poor and whored them out to the Western World.  When Castro appealed to the American People and Gov’t for help for the Cuban people we trained mercenaries to assasignate him.  We’ve tried again no less than 30 times since he has been in power.  Like Hugo Chavez, he had to isolate himself and arm his nation with any help possible to stop the US from replacing him with a dictator.

Cuba has hardworking people and very good soil and climate.  They would be a model of socialist success were it not for 60 yrs of sanction, embargoes and money mechanations to stop any chance for developing an economy.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has been the only player in Central and South America to help support those that stood against the bloody dictators we’ve installed, and as other posters mentioned provide medical care and education all over the hemisphere for those we would watch die.

Is Fidel a dictator?  Surely, but did we ever give him any choice if he was to resist American might that would have installed another Mafioso in the employ of United Fruit Co.  And we left him and Cuba with no one to turn to for aid but Russia.

Montanawildhack:
  You would be better off taking the insight of Charlie Freak rather than attempting pseudo-sarcasm.  For the most part, nations and their peoples just want to be left alone - minus external interference.  There has never been a period in Chinese history devoid of despotism - even when Swun Jung San (Sun Yat Sen) declared a republic. Jyang Jye Shr (Chang Kai Sek) was never a democrat in any western sense for sure - ask the Taiwanese. The Chinese rank and file are generally better off than at any prior time.  Whether it’s Iran or Iraq or JungGwo, it’s not up to Americans to impose a vision upon them; in fact, if you actually believe in self-determination, people must choose and change in their own way over time - it’s the human way. 
    The only reason any US President is remotely
interested in the mid-East is to keep the flow of petroleum predictably steady - at least until
the US has developed sufficient alternative sources of energy…. Or did you think Mr. Obama
suddenly took an interest in palm dates and pounded sand?  His efforts are in YOUR best interests.
  There are plenty of folks (including me) who have read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and believe it to be highly offensive in tone, especially in the way Ms. Stowe portrays phony “black” patois.  Maybe you also loved the way Joel Chandler Harris presented such dialogue in “The Song of the South”.  Again, outsiders (e.g. whites portraying blacks) is truly suspect.  A so-called “total idiot” is offended by bigotry, even when framed in inept and unsuccessful “sarcasm”.
  Go wave your degrees at someone who lacks one Yang Gwei Dze.

If Cuba is all that “dangerous”, Andress, I think that the USA is making a HUGE mistake, wasting its military power overseas in futile imperalist wars reminiscent of 19th-Century Britain at its worst. I advocate ending the foolish bent towards interventionism/imperialism and re-orienting this country’s military towards a genuinely defensive policy. No more big air force, army, or navy; abolition of the National Guard and a return to the old state militia system; the US Navy being primarily a riverine and coastal-defense force—and controlling the bombers (which will be armed solely with anti-shipping missiles); the USAF being made up solely of fighter-interceptors and fighter-bombers; the Army being a small force which would, in time of national emergency, be reinforced by the state militias; abolition of the Department of so-called “Homeland Security”; and reduction of the US Marines to a mere fraction of its present size, if not its disbandment and folding into the Army.

Do this, and make this country start living by the Jeffersonian ideal of “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none”, and I guarantee we can defend the USA with a mere fraction of what it costs today to have a world-girdling, wasteful imperial military. Defense, after all, is the stronger form of war, and no nation has ever benefitted from a protracted war (I’m paraphrasing Clausewitz and Sun Tzu there).

ardee and Paul_GA: OK… our “government” has done evil, horrible things.  Things I am ashamed of as an American (after all, it is my government).  Things that I do not defend in any way.

Now that I have made your compulsory mea culpa, will you accept the point that we had good reason to “demonize” communist “governments” (whose explicit credo was to export violent communist uprisings across the globe)?  Now will you accept the point that Cuba is not the peaceful, harmless, benevolent country Scheer makes it out to be?

Paul_Ga….Sorry, but We the People let these self serving interest stay in power. Ignorance of the law, international or otherwise, is no excuse.  Americans are addicted to conspicuous consumerism and toys and use the Earth’s resources at a level that has no relationship to our contributions.  We as a people seem to consider it ‘divine right’ to take the rest of the world’s oil, food, energy and labor at basement(slavery) prices while we produce almost nothing tangible except death to any nation that doesn’t want to give us what we want.  Our mothers send their husbands and sons off to kill for our empire just as proudly as any Spartan or Roman matron.  And gladly avail themselves of the largess provided by the power colonialism provides us.  We have 1/20th of the worlds population and consume half of it’s resources, one third of all energy(was half until China’s last 10 yrs) and keep third world nations poor as cheap labor pools by proping up dictatorships and bypassing local labor and environmental law with NAFTA and CAFTA. We are everything the Soviet Union was to it’s colonize, while pretending some moral high ground that doesn’t and never has existed.

“We have met the enemy, and he is us”....Pogo

Many good comments but I didn’t see the true reason that Dick Bush was determined to bomb Iran, and Pres. Obama has not made great strides in backing away from…Iran began a Euro based oil Bourse, or commodity trading exchange, that only accepts Euros.  Saddam had done the same thing during the sanction period of the 90s but his volumn was relatively low.
US money is vaporware.  The only reason there was enough is circulation to allow the dirivatives trading market to reach the litterally unreal $trillions was that the dollar is supported by the oil commodities market.  Those dirivative blocks have sucked most of the outrageously inflated value of the dollar out that raised its ugly head in the huge oil commodity speculative trading that lead to the record high oil prices of a few years ago.

So far, China has refused to join Iran’s Bourse, even though they buy their oil(second hand) because the yen is tied so closely to our dollar that a collapse of one would collapse the other.  However, China has been moving rapidly to placing it’s investments in other markets, and if it reaches a ‘critical mass’ where it can survive a monetary collapse of the US they can make it happen by leading the eastern world into a Euro based oil market.

Andress, it’s not *the country* that’s horrible and evil about the USA; it’s *the government*—**the State.**

ardee, October 1 at 6:26 am #

Not only trained but Cuba trains for free any person,
from any nation, that agrees to work for three years
after graduation in the poorest parts of their own
countries.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I didn’t know that.
==============================================
Does this make Cuba a model nation, of course not,
but does this make andress motivations suspect, you
betcha.
==============================================
Agreed. Our government has a penchant for hypocrisy which is downright embarrassing. It also eliminates all our credibility for moral leadership.

Ouroborus, September 30 at 10:15 pm

Cuba has trained hundreds of doctors who are sent all over the world to give free medical care.

Not only trained but Cuba trains for free any person, from any nation, that agrees to work for three years after graduation in the poorest parts of their own countries.

Does this make Cuba a model nation, of course not, but does this make andress motivations suspect, you betcha.

Andress, September 30 at 10:25 pm #

ardee, the reason I “forgot” to write about our foreign excursions was that the subject of the article I commented on was our alleged misguided demonization of communist countries.

Please do not insult the intelligence of this forum by pretending your rant was anything resembling accuracy or fairness. This nation is guilty of everything you accuse the communist bloc of doing, yet you condemn one and omit mention of the other….Pot meet kettle.

From a man who should know—

“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Mussolini

That’s what we got!

hello. Mr. Kissinger running Shuttle diplomacy when the USSR threatened global nuclear annihilation (in our minds) balanced power with the Chinese, but resulted in the Khmer Rouge slaughtering millions of people with conventional communism. communist global expansionism was real, and very unlike the radical Islamic threat today. that the Chinese may be unwilling to hold our paper, is a giant leap to: all Iranians are radical Islamic, and bent on global domination. American interests of oil barons are questionable, and full disclosure is prerequisite to any involvement. global currency issues are not settled with mass human slaughter, so what does this have to do with our democratic republic? why is Red China being replaced for the real demon USSR? socialism. when the wealthy return all their monies to the public, then i will support socialism. otherwise it lacks the motivation to succeed.

ardee, the reason I “forgot” to write about our foreign excursions was that the subject of the article I commented on was our alleged misguided demonization of communist countries.

I am not in the habit of latching on to any tangential excuse that I can find in order to write about what a horrible evil country we are (as, apparently, you are).

ardee, September 30 at 8:32 pm #
Good and valid point. I would add, regarding Cuba; that
was then and this is now; Cuba has trained hundreds of
doctors who are sent all over the world to give free
medical care. “We” are still sending death all over the
world.

The truth is that Cuba sent troops as far away as Angola in its contribution to the violent overthrow of other countries’ governments.  Cuba trained thousands of communist guerrillas who then led violent communist uprisings in countries like Colombia, Peru, and El Salvador.

What Andress would conveniently rather forget is the troops the USA has sent at least as far, or the number of govts the CIA has toppled, and the number of military dictatorships they helped install..

I think Iran is harder to crack than China. Why do we have good relations with Vietnam and China? Because they were nationalist Communist forces who although independent, were willing to inject capitalism into their systems and be friendly with imperial powers. The article mentions Cuba but forgets to mention that Obama has not softened the US stance towards Cuba at all and has just renewed the blockade. Why? Because Cuba remains independent, like Chavez in Venezuela. Iran will continue to be seen as a threat as long as it refuses to follow orders and sets a “bad example” in the region on how to behave when Uncle Sam comes for a visit.

montanawildhack,

You wrote: “If this dispatch has failed to offend anyone, I apologize from the bottom of my heart…whatever the hell that means… ”

I’m as always delighted to see the “political correctness” crowd coming out to attack you. It’s so reassuring to see that there is an essential naivete that will never die among the do-gooder set.

Far from taking offense at your oh-so-obvious satire, I found that it tended toward egging me on. Oh, well, let’s see if I can deflect some of the hostility here from your shoulders to mine by introducing you to “Barack’s Ain’t Gwanna Whistle Dixie No Mo Band and Dancing Society” http://bit.ly/1XRVwC

Is this the band that Barack will take with him on his party jet to Copenhagen to pimp for Chicago in front of the Olympic Committee? And just what scandalous offerings will the Windy City offer the members of this illustrious set of bribery seekers this quadrennium? http://tinyurl.com/ydbdqs4 Recall that Gucci bags and spa vacations were very much in demand in the Salt Lake Round. http://bit.ly/emtRz

Barack Obama has already proven that he’s mitochondrially-speaking a belligent Scot-Irish cavalier. Is that a racist thing to say? Or is it an astute observation that instead of Obama critics on the Left being labeled KKK aficionados, we ought to be castigated for saying Barack isn’t black enough to suit at least this observer’s tastes. Gimme a Malcolm X, Elijah Mohammed, Harry Belafonte, Fred Hampton or Larry Holmes any day. The white folks can keep their own very Barry. He’s no W.E.B.DuBois, if you catch my drift.

Felicity, as unappealing as capitalism may be to the idealistic, up to now it has proven to have worked much better than the alternatives in raising the standard of living of the poorest segments of society. 

In China, alone, capitalism has lifted some 600 million people out of subsistence-level poverty since it was adopted in the last few decades.  It appears to be doing the same in India.

The wonders of Adam Smith’s invisible hand’s ability to create wealth is lost to many in the glare of the unequal distribution of that wealth.  While free market capitalism lifts all boats, it doesn’t lift all boats the same: some individuals amass fortunes (some of them outrageous fortunes).

Many of us cannot accept such inequality and prefer to have everyone live in equal poverty to the alleviation of poverty for the majority while a minority lives in oppulence.

Andress,

You wrote: “Robert Scheer conveniently leaves out of his article the fact that communism expressly and loudly advocated the violent overthrow of all governments in an inexorable march towards communist rule of all countries in the world.”

Sorry, you just don’t know much real history. While a certain attitude about “permanent revolution” evolved in the thinking of intellectuals like Leon Trotsky in response to the attacks upon communism by the capitalists, for the most part the movement inspired by Marx and Engels felt that it should try to use democratic means and the majority status of the working class in much of Europe as the basis for a non-violent transformation of society.

When Krushchev said “we will bury you”, he was not referring to the use of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal against the capitalists of the West. This is how it was widely mis-reported by the propagandistic press of that era, but what Krushchev said, in context, was that he felt that the U.S.S.R. would become the dominant consumer goods manufacturer on the planet, and he’d bury us in barbie dolls and happy meal toys. Of course this is one of life’s little ironies, because it is in fact the People’s Republic of China which has done so as the U.S.S.R. becomes merely the largest producer of export petroleum on the planet.

“Are you a complete and total idiot or what?? Can you not figure out sarcasm????  I’ve got a master’s degree and am not a member of the KKK…”—montanawildhack

Hmmmm…  How many master’s degrees must one earn before we can be sure he/she is not a member of the KKK?  Goebbels held a Ph.D, yet many have suspected that he was a Nazi.  And Dr. Mengele was, well, a doctor but some say he didn’t like Jews.  Then there’s Nathan Bedford Forrest, the O-riginal Grand Wizard hisself.  He held a Ph.D in knife fighting and gettin’ rich.

Let me ask you this:  Did you earn your masters degree online while wearing pajamas?  Because a Pajama U. diploma won’t convince anyone you’re not a Klansman.

Unified or not, anti-capitalist movements are viewed as a threat by the U.S. elite.

andress - thank you for reminding us that according to communist doctrine, communism would only work if the whole world was communist because I had forgotten that the advocates of capitalism also said, and are working very hard to make it happen, that capitalism would only work if the whole world was capitalist.

At this point, the purveyors of capitalism seem to be winning - nevermind that the uncapitalized world doesn’t seem to be profitting from the system.

As peace loving as the good old USA is who needs communists?

Ruling the world seems important to some, so in the scheme of things, one should always make sure to always leave out the people.

Spreading Democracy or Communism must be a hard job, seems Cuba in taking over the world has done so while the USA took care of it’s people, yes, USA the peace loving nation, it shows so well.

Robert Scheer conveniently leaves out of his article the fact that communism expressly and loudly advocated the violent overthrow of all governments in an inexorable march towards communist rule of all countries in the world.

He makes Cuba out to be a peaceful country interested only in being left alone.  The truth is that Cuba sent troops as far away as Angola in its contribution to the violent overthrow of other countries’ governments.  Cuba trained thousands of communist guerrillas who then led violent communist uprisings in countries like Colombia, Peru, and El Salvador.

And this is just little Cuba.  Multiply one hundred-fold Castro’s contributions to violent communist uprisings to get a sense of what the Soviet Union attempted in its drive to lead world communism.

It is no wonder, therefore, that the Communists were labeled as the “bad guys”.  They were!  Wherever Communism has won, millions of people (civilians) have been killed by the regime.  “Cultural revolutions” have wiped out the educated classes. Re-education camps have indoctrinated the population. Neighbor has been turned against neighbor, and children have been turned against their parents.  Communism has proven itself to be an evil, pernicious system that has contributed immeasurably to the suffering of mankind.

And now that China has abandoned communism and morphed into a capitalist dictatorship, Robert Scheer and other communist sympathizers have the brazeness to say that the “communist regime” in China is not the evil regime we were all led to believe by our government.

Please look up yourselves the crimes of the Chinese communist regime against its own people.  There are estimates of up to 60 million (MILLION!) people killed by the communist government.

All communist regimes have engaged in the widespread imprisonment and killing of its population.  If that is not evil, then evil does not exist.

And just as communism threatened to take over the world, so is islamofascism threatening the same thing now.  Islamofascists are screaming at the top of their lungs that the Western world must be wiped out (starting with Israel and the USA, of course).

We were right to be afraid of communism then.  We are right to be afraid of isoamofascism now.

Well, it’s nice to know that Scheer still remembers the correct answers from his schoolboy lessons, unfortunately, since they seem to have informed much of his worldview ever since. “Any notion of an international communist conspiracy with a timetable for the takeover of the world (the correct answer on more than one social studies test I took as a kid) was rendered absurd by”…America’s vast arsenal of WMD. And vice versa.  “Yet that obvious fact did not stop Nixon from continuing to kill millions more in Vietnam and Cambodia in the name of combating “… indigenous insurgencies that could free themselves from existing ‘world orders’, old or new. “All communists in the Cold War era” were never assumed to be a monolithic whole, in fact there were numerous schemes to drive wedges between different faction, including the Russians and Chinese, who were always wary of one another. “And the Chinese, as the Iranians now, were thought to be the worst of the pack. Incapable of change and therefore the fit object of unrelenting hostility, they needed to be confronted militarily”…and were so confronted during the incredibly savage Korean ‘conflict’ (Congress never formally declared war) which probably claimed roughly as many casualties all tolled as in Vietnam. Unable to defeat the Chinese in Korea and unwilling to risk nuclear confrontation, the U.S. settled for a standoff and eventually, 20 years later got around to accepting the “communist” government of a major military power. “What Nixon recognized was that the Chinese Communists were, like their Soviet counterparts“…and had evolved into “apparatchiks”, just like the American ruling class, more interested in hanging on to power for their own benefit than any true broader revolutionary aims. “Communism once was, as the Islamic terrorist threat is today, presented as an undifferentiated revolutionary impulse that could never be diplomatically accommodated without sacrificing our own security or, indeed, our freedom” – presented, that is, to gullible schoolboys and the ductile American public for ideological purposes but never believed in so simplistically by the ruling class and it’s publicists themselves. It serves to frighten the public into obedience and justify imperial predations against weaker foes but no one in the ruling class ever seriously wanted to risk it all for such an ideological contest, despite the public saber-rattling. So the lesson to Iran, as well as other smaller nations should be obvious - if you want the world’s leading imperial power to “cut a deal” with you, then you’d better have some powerful ‘bargaining chips’ like a nuclear arsenal or the kind of military capability that made “President Richard Nixon suddenly decide that we could do business with Mao Zedong.” “It is also true that the”…Israeli…. “leadership can veer into outrageous behavior, making the international pursuit of peace extremely difficult.”  “But does anyone believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can hold a candle to Mao when it comes to”…nuclear brinkmanship?  “That won’t be easy, since he is”…bent on changing the status quo in the M.E. and the “Democrat and the Republican hard-liners will not allow him the slack given to” Netanyahu.

Well Hulk2008 being ruthless is perfect for being a despot or corporate honcho. See their near effortless stransformation from communist dictatorship to fascist dictatorship. Just that in the latter many more people will suffer and die younger. No safety net means you fall hard to the ground all broken up if you don’t have the money.

You will notice that the rich class won’t change too much with just some few additions. Unless they want a middle class they won’t get one otherwise. [True and full Ludwig von Mises lassiaze faire there. We could get that here too.]

Montanawildhack, this wasn’t “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the way you did it could just as well have been printed without change in any of the white racist mags out there. So you failed. Try again. [Don’t blame we the audience if we don’t get it. Don’t be so superior that you don’t think you make mistakes. What you displayed is called hubris.]

Communist nations seem to be better at using capital than capitalists in the United States.

The choice between Capitalism and Communism is a false choice.

Capital is an asset that provides a revenue stream and assets that provide a revenue stream are being most effectively used in today’s world by Communist nations; the real choice is between whether or not minority private interests benefit from “assets that provide a revenue stream” and whether or not majority interest for the greater good benefit from “assets that provide a revenue stream”, capital.

Socialism/Communism uses “assets that provide a revenue stream”, capital, for the greater good of the society.

Capitalism uses “assets that provide a revenue stream”, capital, for privatized benefit of an exclusive select minority that is NOT inclusive of the greater good of the society.

The choice between Capitalism and Communism is a false choice, the real choice is whether we as a society want “assets that provide a revenue stream”, capital, used to serve the purpose of the greater greed, Capitalism, or our greater good of the society as a whole, Socialism/Communism.

The choice between Capitalism and Socialism/Communism is a false choice —— capital is indifferent as to who owns capital.

A socialist/communist can own and benefit from capital as well as socialist/communist institutions.

The REAL choice is the choice of who owns capital, private interests or socialist/communist interests.

Those who perpetuate the myth that the only choice is that choice between Capitalism and Socialism/Communism are doing nothing more than diverting the dialogue away from private ownership of capital as opposed to socialist ownership of capital——private ownership of capital that is in the best interest of the greater greed of a minority of the population or socialist ownership of capital that is in the best interest of the greater good of the majority interest of the population.

What is CAPITAL? ——answer this question and then ask yourself, why does an asset that provides a revenue stream have to be owned by private interests, rather than socialist/communist interests?

I think by now that anyone not residing under a rock, without ever coming out into the light of day, knows that socialist interests bear the responsibility of maintaining the value of capital owned by private interests, why on earth, when socialist/communist interests are responsible for maintaining the value of capital would socialized interests not be interested in direct ownership of the “assets that provide a revenue stream” for which they are made to be responsible for maintaining the value of?

Hey Hulk2008, 

Are you a complete and total idiot or what?? Can you not figure out sarcasm????  I’ve got a master’s degree and am not a member of the KKK…  Have you read “uncle tom’s cabin”?  Maybe then you might be able to figure out my post… Obama is a Uncle Tom and a Judas Goat…  Just because he is literate and has a nice smile doesn’t make him any less evil than Bush…  And I’m not supposed to call him out because he’s half black??? Now that’s racist….  Now go back to watching Entertainment Tonight hulk..

Paul_GA and ardee have made salient points. 

And I find it remarkably (maybe tragically) ironic that, as we required Saddam to prove he didn’t have WMD’s, we are requiring Iran to prove it doesn’t have something/isn’t building something.

Since the fact that proving you don’t have something is impossible, either our lobotomized military or other practitioners of alchemy believe it possible or their intention is to repeat Iraq in Iran - and we all know how well that has worked out.

I live in Shenzhen, China, and I can tell you (on the
eve of the 60th anniversary of the PRC) that Chinese
people are not interested in invading any country. The
history of China is of assimilation, not invasion. Very
often it was foreigners, such as the Mongols or Manchus
who invaded China who ended up being part of China. I
think western people just don’t understand this.

‘Twas ever thus.  I can see it now: Og the cave leader tells his fellow troglodytes that the guys three caves over are evil possum-eaters and need to be stopped.  After the speech, the crowd is suitably aroused to violence, and Og winks at his cousin, Rak—who just happens to be the guy who sharpens stones and spears for a living…

Being an old peacenick, I would like to point out the one thing that all the emerging economies of the pacific rim have in commmon, they are not spending a shitload of cash on their militarys. While they practice protectionism in the name of helping their businesses and governments, we continue to spend 1 in every 4 dollars on our military industrial complex.

Once again, it has come down to guns and butter. While the east is prospering in the next 20 years, we will be trying to figure out how to eat 9mm rounds, or shotgun shells, or the wings off of an F-22.

I would like to point out however, that the reign of the east will most likely be short lived, as the earth is still running out of petroleum, it is still getting warmer, the fresh water is still running out, and the population is still out of control. If I can live to be 87, I will be around to see what will have become of us by 2050. Then again, I might be in line at the soylent green plant by then. But which line?

Priorities of fear, used to drive this bus seem very prolific, dumbing down of the population by cutting back on education adds up to what we see and what we are getting, from tea bags to town hall disruptions. 

Fear is used by entities to drive people into manipulated directions. Religion and fear of judgment, to Vietnam and the commies and now the Middle East and the Muslim stereotypes.  Sales pitches, even throwing at us in our computers from fear of viruses, so Microsoft can sell new crap.

Seems capitalism works from fear and a never ending sales pitch.

By the way, Mr. Scheer is right on about the Chinese - they may demagogue communism verbally; but they execute capitalism in practice better than US businesses do. The Chinese leaders are ultimately practical: they don’t let “-isms” get in the way of their national or personal goals.  They will do whatever it takes to dominate and they are completely patient. 
  Having lived and worked in southeast Asia, I can assure you that being “one in a million” in JungGwo is NO compliment.
  As the philospher Lau Tse said, “Chi hu, nan sya” (.... When you’re riding a tiger, it’s hard to get off.”)

The “dispatch” from montanawildhack proves that Truthdig.com is a freewheeling site and accepts comments from ALL points of view ...... including pointy heads under pointy white hoods. 
    OK, Glenn Beck, show your face. (Anybody notice how much Glenn looks like the kid from Xmas Story that almost put his eye out with his new BB gun?)

«But does anyone believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can
hold a candle to Mao when it comes to provocative
rhetoric?» Pray tell, «provocative» to whom ? To
those who, like myself, and due, no doubt to lack of
good upbringing, do not find the United States the
navel of the known universe, Ms Clinton’s threat to
«obliterate» Iran was far more «provoking» than
anything Mao Zedong or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have
written or said. Neither of these men, to my
knowledge (limited in the case of the latter figure,
somewhat more extensive with regard to the former),
have ever threatened to obliterate the United States
(the leadership of which, by the way, seems perfectly
capable of performing this act all on its own - hope
the rest of us don’t fry as well !)....

Henri

Why does America cast about, looking for “monsters” to “destroy”? Because of the military-industrial complex and the US foreign policy of interventionism and imperialism (a “soft” imperialism, but imperialism nevertheless); they are self-perpetuating. Things won’t change until the MI complex collapses and this country is forced to abandon interventionism/imperialism as its foreign policy; and by that time (IF imperial overstretch causes that collapse and that abandonment), it may be too late. But if this country cannot bring the MI complex and its imperialist bent to an end voluntarily, events will force it to. All empires fall of their own weight and size, sooner or later; the American Empire will be no different.

“What we need is for Barack Obama to pull a Nixon and attempt to cut a deal with Tehran as well as with competing forces in Afghanistan that meets their national aspirations and our security interests.”
What a remarkably silly sentence. Positive proof that the so-called liberal vision is nothing but a steaming crock of nonsense.

Despite the differing forms of govt. the real struggle between the two nations is one of market share. As it always is once a nation like China, and Russia before it, throws off the yoke of colonialism, industrializes and enters the world market on a more equal footing.

We effectively control, to a greater or lesser
extent, every country that borders Iran. The Persian
Gulf and the Gulf of Oman are treated like our own
private bath tubs, dominated by our navy. We have
effectively encircled Iran. Frankly, as a sovereign
country under siege; their behavior is not so
unexpected or irrational. I’m not buying into the
Israeli jingoistic hysteria or the jingoistic rhetoric of the
U.S. either.
IMO, this whole thing can be settled by mutual
respect, honest brokering, and a cessation of
threats. All lacking under the present climate. As to
their internal politics; we are not wholly without a
hand in that either. We are the problem because we
want a hegemonic solution.
The rhetoric has been unnecessarily hotted up. I’ll
say that; short of any aggression by Iran (which by
the way, hasn’t attacked anybody in 2 centuries), I
am categorically against any military action against
them. I include, even if they “get the bomb”, which I
don’t believe is their intent; at this time. We’ll
just have to live with it. Israel is a rogue nation
that is far more dangerous to the Middle East as has
been demonstrated by their war crimes against the
Lebanese and most recently the Palestinians. This
isn’t hyperbole, this is documented and quite serious
and seemingly; Iran is being used as a distraction
from other more important things, IMO.

The Walmart Corporation should bow down and praise the People’s Republic of China every morning. This is where the East meets West: both agree that the rights of labour are a total anathema to their combined monetary concerns.