Obama's Afghanistan Policy
The president’s proposed Afghanistan policy is not a product of intelligent rethinking so much as it is a predictable Obama preference for an imaginary centrism.
On the one hand, he is sending 30,000 more American troops, who have been dying at a current rate of more than 500 per year.
On the other hand, he is attempting to placate growing anti-war sentiment by pledging to limit the duration of the war.
As with all compromises, this one will satisfy only the few. It is what President Bill Clinton called kicking the can down the street.
The antiwar movement will continue to support Rep. Barbara Lee’s bill cutting off funds for the troop escalation and Rep. Jim McGovern’s resolution calling for the administration to offer an exit strategy.
Sending 30,000 or more American soldiers to die for the Karzai government is a waste of valuable American lives, which at the present rate will exceed 1,000 in two years of bloody battles under President Obama. Spending one million dollars per American soldier will mean a waste of one trillion dollars on this war by the end of the President’s term of eight years.
These costs in human lives and tax dollars are simply unsustainable.
The president is tragically jeopardizing his domestic agenda by this expenditure of tax dollars without any tax increases. Like President Johnson before him, President Obama is squandering any hope for his progressive domestic agenda by this tragic escalation of the war.
As I committed myself during Vietnam, I am committing myself to do everything possible to turn our nation’s priorities around and make President Obama’s domestic agenda a possibility. Just as President Johnson could not pay for guns and butter, President Obama cannot possibly pay for Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Pentagon’s projection of a “long war” of fifty years duration.
I am afraid to say that President Obama is even risking his presidency by this decision. From this point forward, he will lack the support of the rank and file Democratic majority and become dependent on the very Republicans whose highest priority is to defeat him in 2012.
ZNet Articles
ZCommentaries
ZVideos
Glen Ford Agrees
By Kershner, Harry at Dec 17, 2009 16:36 PM
“Progressives For Obama” Change Name To Omit the President by Glen Ford, http://blackagendareport.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=560629#
It has taken almost a year for “Progressives for Obama” to make a partial break with their former object of adulation, proof that groupie-love is a powerful emotion. “Two of the founding members, Bill Fletcher and Tom Hayden, are making uncharacteristically loud anti-Obama noises and acting as if they played no role in convincing Obama that he could make war and serve corporate interests to his heart’s content, without fear of any trouble from the Left”...
Bill Fletcher and Tom Hayden stuck with Obama like little sorcerer’s apprentices as the president methodically savaged virtually every item on the progressive agenda. What else could they do? To break with Obama would amount to an admission that they were wrong about the progressive “potential” of their candidate; that he had always been a thoroughly corporate politician who would lurch to the Right as soon as he took office; and that, by failing to criticize Obama early in the campaign, they were guaranteeing that he would disrespect and ignore Blacks and progressives, once in office...
Fletcher and Hayden now say it’s time to crank up the people’s Movement machine and get back to the business of speaking Truth to Power. Which is all perfectly true. However, Tom Hayden and Bill Fletcher and the rest of the “Progressives for Obama” clique should first demonstrate that they have recovered their faculties before assuming any leadership role in a revived Movement. The last time they were near a Movement, they shut it down, and went to the Obama party, instead.
Reply this comment
Re: Glen Ford Agrees
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 18, 2009 14:43 PM
Criticism from Glenn Ford is lighter than a feather, and a bit silly.
Our approach to Obama was clear for all to see, and remains so. We've put out critiques of him from day one. Remember, the name wasn't Leftists for a Progressive Obama. We tagged hima as a 'liberal speaking to the center' in the initial call, and opposed him on Afghanistan all along.
But I would still vote for him over McCain-Palin, even if Ford wouldn't. Ford hasn't changed either--same 'left' Teabagger stuff he's be running all along.
But for serious citrioque of Obama aimed at rallying forces to compel him or his replacement to do what needs to be done, some of the best stuff is still at http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com and http://progressivesforobama.net
Reply this comment
Obama's policy is evil, but let's support Obama
By Kershner, Harry at Dec 10, 2009 15:05 PM
Here's what Hayden said in Obama Announces Afghanistan Escalation, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091214/hayden:
"It's time to strip the Obama sticker off my car." (Wow, what a radical position.)
"To be clear: I'll support Obama down the road against Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs or any of the pitchfork carriers for the pre-Obama era. But no bumper sticker until the withdrawal strategy is fully carried out. "
In other words, Hayden (and the oxymoronic "progressive Democrats") pledge to give unqualified support to Obama in his next election run without making any demands on him that can be deal-breakers. Except, of course, that they'll leave the bumper stickers off their cars.
Let's recall that McCain was the first choice of the John Kerry "progressive Democrats" for a running mate in 2004. McCain, who was a terrible candidate, but who was principled enough to decline Kerry's invitation, then was labelled a neo-fascist when he ran against the neo-fascist Obama in 2008.
Shame, shame, shame on you Democrats for your continuing collaboration with evil.
Reply this comment
Re: Obama's policy is evil, but let's support Obama
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 11, 2009 07:23 AM
Wow, collaboration with 'EVIL' yet! Well, I'm no Democrat, but even if you look at the political landscape in 'good vs evil' terms, some 500 years ago St Thomas wrote a decent polemic on the topic, arguing that when confronted with two evils with no realistic options, choosing the lesser was no sin. I've heard lots of assertions against St Thomas's point, but never a good argument. So if it's Obama-Biden vs McCrystal-Palin in 2012, are you saying vote Green or stay home? Even more important, in 2010 do we have a stake in defeating Teabaggers, Blue Dogs and GOPers in general? Or are these matters beyonf the pale?
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Obama's policy is evil, but let's support Obama
By Kershner, Harry at Dec 12, 2009 14:28 PM
Nice job of avoiding my main point, Carl, which is that you can't give support to corporatists and militarists without qualifying demands unless you are a sold-out corporatist/militarist yourself.
To say NOW that you will support Obama regardless of what he might do because you think that it will be less evil than what McChrystal, who was Obama's choice, might do is a bizarre and morally bankrupt argument. (I'm surprised you didn't add Gates, Geithner or Summers to your list of possible Republican candidates.)
I'm not a Democrat or a Christian, so I don't care what St. Thomas or St. Barack may say about supporting the lesser of evils. There is always an option to evil, although I don't doubt that your religion (Obamaism, apparently) fails to provide one.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Obama's policy is evil, but let's support Obama
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 12, 2009 16:30 PM
'Sold-out corporate militarist' -- Goodness, that's a new one to add to my collection, low-income socialist retiree that I am.
In any case, Harry, I usually a journey by taking account of where I am.
In the case of electoral matters, we Americans start with the most back electoral system and ensuing set of rules in the Western world. We should work to change it, especially in the periods between elections.
In the meantime, you have several choices: Ignoring the whole electoral thing, working for a third party and its candidates, developing an oppositional force within the major parties, or some combination of these.
Since ideas have consequences, no matter what choices you make in our existing setup, to borrow a concept from Sartre, you're going to wind up with 'dirty hands.'
Which brings us back to St Thomas, or at least simply the bare-bones of his argument, which you'll find in any secular Ethics class minus its Catholic trappings. You're still going to have to come up with the best of a range of bad or poor choices, either in their content or their consequences.
So yes, there's always an option to any given evil. It's just not always a positive good. I usually try to pick a course that helps the more progressive workers and their allies in the community become more independently organized and united after an election than they were before, regardless of the outcome.
In any case, I'd never make the claim that one should vote for someone 'regardless of what he might do.' Conditions can change rapidly sometimes. But at the moment, it's fairly clear that progressive votes would do well to organize to defeat Blue Dogs and GOPers where they can in 2010. You can not bother, but that's a choice that helps or doesn't help someone, too.
Reply this comment
Getting the Job Done
By Barkdull, John at Nov 29, 2009 13:17 PM
Obama pledges to get the job done, but most of us are in the dark as to what 'the job' is. The short answer is the Bush Doctrine is alive and well. MacChrystal has proposed a COIN strategy modeled on Petraeus' approach to Iraq. Of course, the most well remembered element of the strategy was the 'surge,' but that increase in troop strength was adopted only to support the political and economic parts. If Obama does indeed announce an increase of 30,000 or more, the administration will have signaled, even with a likely commitment of less than MacChrystal has requested, that it intends to pursue the same goals in Afghanistan. Thus, more military efforts will be directed against active fighters. More money will flow for various 'development' projects. Efforts to buy off tribal leaders and Taliban fighters will increase. The hoped-for outcome is that Afghanistan will be a stable, more or less modernized country that is friendly to US interests. Some semblance of democracy would be a bonus, not required. A plausible case for improved human rights would help as well, again not necessary, but more important than democracy. 'Free markets' - essential.
This may seem obvious. But it means that the notion that the US presence in Afghanistan is about destroying Al Qaeda is hardly even used as a pretext any longer. It also indicates why the Taliban, who had no part in 9-11 and are not global jihadists bent on establishing a new Caliphate, are the enemy. They are the enemy of outside, western domination of their country. They are the enemy of plans to incorporate Afghanistan seamlessly into the US-led global order. Thus, they must go.
The wider implication is that Afghanistan is not the last chapter. Just as 'withdrawal' from Iraq was simply redeployment to Afghanistan, so 'withdrawal' from Afghanistan will be redeployment to some other theater in the greater Middle East. Any remaining nationalist, independent regimes will have to go. The idea that Islam can constitute an alternative to the neoliberal order has to be smashed. Clearly, this implies that the ultimate target is the theocratic regime in Teheran. Toppling the Iranian regime was likely the main objective all along.
Reply this comment
Tom Haydon and Afghan war
By Khan, Nasir at Nov 28, 2009 17:24 PM
Tom Haydon says: 'Sending 30,000 or more American soldiers to die for the Karzai government is a waste of valuable American lives, which at the present rate will exceed 1,000 in two years of bloody battles under President Obama. Spending one million dollars per American soldier will mean a waste of one trillion dollars on this war by the end of the President's term of eight years.'
Such a formulation seems to contradict what the real aims of the U.S. imperiaism in Afghanistan have been all along. Those objectives are being purused by the Obama adminstration even more vigorously than those under Bush the Junior. The' valuable American lives' sent to Afghanistqn are there for imperial objectives, killing and destroying all those who oppose the American occupation of Afghanistna being the prime objective,
Reply this comment
Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Kershner, Harry at Nov 26, 2009 18:17 PM
I find it interesting that Hayden, who has recommended unqualified support for Obama for some time, fails to note that our primary moral constraint should be ending the slaughter and torture of our victims, whom he doesn't even mention. Like most DP/RP elites, Hayden is apparently concerned only with the costs to US.
Our response to Obama should be exactly what it would have been to McCain: a demand for defunding of the wars/occupations (not just the escalation) and for impeachment of all war criminals, chiel among them the Dear Leader. (We don't need an "exit strategy" any more than we would require one from a foreign power that had invaded us.
Furthermore, we should be demanding the deconstruction of our 1000+ foreign military bases and the return to home (not for reassignment elsewhere) of all personnel.
Reply this comment
Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Davidson, Carl at Nov 27, 2009 05:31 AM
Hayden has never offered unqualified support to Obama, or anyone else, so far as I know. the 'Progressives for Obama' is still up. Go read and see for yourself. He's written some of the best critiques of Obama's war policies before, during and after the election. He did urge people to vote for Obama, but that's another matter. Many of us did.
You can raise whatever demand you like, The problem of ending the wars, however, is a tad more complicated. Offering a path forward on that is more difficult. I'd suggest putting people into the streets and pressing Members of Congress to sign on the Barbara Lee's HR 3699, for starters.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Kershner, Harry at Nov 27, 2009 14:27 PM
There's a difference between criticizing someone and withdrawing support from them. Nazis may well have criticized the Fuhrer for his "mistakes" in Russia, but they never withdrew unqualified support.
Hayden has consistently asked his followers to refrain from blaming Obama for his war crimes and crimes against humanity. (Hayden himself has blamed "the zionists" for his own complicity in U.S.- Israeli crimes against Lebanon, but that's another story.)
Those of you who worked for Obama and claimed that he was "anti-war" or "anti-corporatist" must be feeling guilty by now. Yes, for you it's "complicated". For those of us who tried to warn Democrats and their allies that Obama was, as Matt Taibbi put it, just "the same old deal dressed up in black skin and a natty suit," it was obvious.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Davidson, Carl at Nov 28, 2009 06:50 AM
Where are you getting this stuff from, Harry? Do you just make it up? 'Progressives for Obama', which Hayden launched, offered only critical and qualified support against McCain. It claimed Obama was antiwar in that he had opposed the invasion of Iraq, which is true, but always held his views on Afghanistan as problematic. Nor did we claim anti-corporate status; we said he was a liberal speaking mainly to the center. And Hayden, to his credit, has published his own self-criticism for his dealings with pressure from Zioniists in his early political career.
If you think Obama and the coalition that put him in power is simply 'the same old deal dressed up in Black skin,' you understand neither the present not the past. Wh have serious problems with the Obama White House and the rest of the political landscape at the top, from the left neo-Keynesians through the neoliberalism in both parties to a revenge-seeking rightwing populism.
Time to end the circular firing squads vs Hayden and PDA. If you want to criticize, fine, but make it over what they have actually said and done rather than what you make up about them. Hayden offers an approach here and elsewhere to dealing with the wars. If you don't like them, tell us why and spell out an alternative. That's fair game, and needed. But these snarky spitballs don't help at all.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Kershner, Harry at Nov 30, 2009 15:34 PM
Carl: Congratulations on your inclusion of just about every DP Rovian talking point in your response. Just what "stuff" do you think I'm making up? Hayden has cautioned progressives not to attack Obama, who was a war criminal by his first week in office.
If you "progressive Democrats" (a concept as bankrupt as "compassionate conservatives") had joined with real progressives and supported a candidate who represented progressive values in the last election, we would have gained significant traction against the regressives who dominate your party. As it is, every four years, the DP moves further to the right while the Reich calls you more socialist. When will you guys learn that doing the same thing over and over again is insane?
Re: "Obama was antiwar in that he had opposed the invasion of Iraq":
Obama never saw a war "supplemental" he didn't like. Being "anti-war" should mean more than saying he wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place. What is his position on the 1000+ military bases? Why has he increased military spending above the level of Bush? You Democrats have very low expectations, and that's why you always get what you really want.
Re: "we said he was a liberal speaking mainly to the center"
The center is US! Read some Chomsky. Noam has many times pointed to the fact that, on the issues, progressives ARE the center, and Democrats/Republicans are far to the right of the public.
Re: "If you don't like them, tell us why and spell out an alternative."
You need to re-read what I've written in my last 2 posts. Like most Democrats and Republicans, you don't read very well when it comes to those to the left of you.
Listen to Adolph Reed, Jr.:
"What makes the Dems every four years 'better' is always something that the hacks and yuppies are likely to imagine getting if they win, and their disgusting moralizing about the imperative to vote for their 'lesser evil'...means 'I may get what's important for me, but you have to recognize that what you need is naïve or impractical' -- is all about bullying the rest of us into believing we have an obligation to vote for what's good for them." (Where Obamaism Seems to be Going)
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 01, 2009 08:22 AM
>Carl: Congratulations on your inclusion of just about every DP Rovian talking point in your response. Just what "stuff" do you think I'm making up? Hayden has cautioned progressives not to attack Obama, who was a war criminal by his first week in office.<
Hayden needs no defense from me, but 'Progressives for Obama'' published his critiques and opposition to the wars all along. Go read them--on our site, his, here or at The Nation.
>If you "progressive Democrats" (a concept as bankrupt as "compassionate conservatives") had joined with real progressives and supported a candidate who represented progressive values in the last election, we would have gained significant traction against the regressives who dominate your party. <
Without and against labor and the Black community? What have you been smoking? PDA, which is independent, has only a little traction, but far more than the Greens. This sounds like, 'if we had eggs, we could have bacon and eggs, if we had bacon...'
>As it is, every four years, the DP moves further to the right while the Reich calls you more socialist. When will you guys learn that doing the same thing over and over again is insane?<
First, i'm a socialist who supports PDA. I make no case for the Democratic Party, nor do I think it can be reformed. As we gather strength, they''ll either purge us or split the party. But our organization will remain intact, but far stronger. It can then ally or merge with whatever worthwhile 'outside' groups that may be around. But I have zero interest in tactics that elect Republicans or worse.
>Re: "Obama was antiwar in that he had opposed the invasion of Iraq":
Obama never saw a war "supplemental" he didn't like. Being "anti-war" should mean more than saying he wouldn't have invaded Iraq in the first place. What is his position on the 1000+ military bases? Why has he increased military spending above the level of Bush? You Democrats have very low expectations, and that's why you always get what you really want.<
He was an IL state senator then, and not in a position to vote on supplementals. I was on the committee that invited him to speak at our mass rallie then in Chicago, to oppose the invasion beforehand and just afterwards, which he did in both cases. Later, I was not happy with him, and worked for Kucinich and then Richardson, who had better postions. They dropped out, and when it came to him vs. McCain-Palin, it was a no-brainer, even as we continued our opposition to the wars all through the campaign and afterward.
>Re: "we said he was a liberal speaking mainly to the center"
The center is US! Read some Chomsky. Noam has many times pointed to the fact that, on the issues, progressives ARE the center, and Democrats/Republicans are far to the right of the public.<
The center is us? We live in different political worlds. There's not five percent of the working class in my Western PA blue collar township that would identify as socialist, not even that. Half identify as Dems, the other half as GOP voters, and half of them as Rush-Beck fans. It's tilted a little more our way among under 30 workers, but not all that much.
>Re: "If you don't like them, tell us why and spell out an alternative."
You need to re-read what I've written in my last 2 posts. Like most Democrats and Republicans, you don't read very well when it comes to those to the left of you.
Listen to Adolph Reed, Jr.:
"What makes the Dems every four years 'better' is always something that the hacks and yuppies are likely to imagine getting if they win, and their disgusting moralizing about the imperative to vote for their 'lesser evil'...means 'I may get what's important for me, but you have to recognize that what you need is naïve or impractical' -- is all about bullying the rest of us into believing we have an obligation to vote for what's good for them." (Where Obamaism Seems to be Going)<
I've known Reed and his writings a long time. Thanks, but no thanks. He took a very odd position: oppose Obama on the campuses, but give him a pass in the Black community.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By McGehee, Michael at Dec 01, 2009 10:15 AM
"Without and against labor and the Black community? What have you been smoking?"
This is a problem of yours that you refuse to even acknowledge, Carl. You make all kinds of excuses for your death kneels. You claim practicality and accuse others of being high, young or not serious. But closer examinations warrant asking if you are high; why you are such an old cynic; and to question your seriousness.
BUT!
What good does having the support of "labor and the Black community" if it's going to be predictably wasted?
Carl, I could go off on the same criticisms I have had of you but I will just point out that PDA has been of no value whatsoever. All PDA has done successfully is to funnel leftist support AWAY from revolutionary organizing and to be a tool for the election of a disappointment.
Congratulations. What a way to waste needed time, energy and resources. And what a way to defend it. "Hope" youre proud.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Kershner, Harry at Dec 01, 2009 15:08 PM
Carl, carl, Carl.
Your attempts to obfuscate may work with the secular mystical worshipers, but it won't work here.
The center of U.S. opinion on the issues, not on ideology, as Chomsky and David Sirota (In search of the American 'center', http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/18/EDFM11R4V2.DTL) have so often noted, is far to the left of the DP, socialist or not. As Sirota said:
Day after day, smiling anchormen, blow-dried correspondents and silver-tongued congressmen follow the Big Lie theory of indoctrination, taking to our televisions, radios and newspapers insisting that crazy is normal, the majority is the minority and - most importantly - the fringe is the "center." This is no accident.
These voices of the status quo do not want the status quo challenged. They deliberately broadcast messages crafted to get us - the mainstream - to question our mainstream-ness, while convincing politicians that the Establishment's extremism represents a responsible middle ground.
More Aldous Huxley than George Orwell, these are the methods of modern propaganda, with the celebration of Obama's "centrism" the latest doublespeak. In this brave new world, language is sculpted to skew the "center," intimidating the majority from demanding concrete change for fear of looking like lunatics. It is a slickly packaged process of marginalization and demoralization - one with an underlying goal: keeping the real lunatics running the asylum.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 01, 2009 19:33 PM
Harry, Harry, Harry...my organization. CCDS, bases its strategy on the concept of 'the progressive majority,' meaning, on most single issues, especially economic ones but also the war, a majority of the electorate, if not the population, takes the progressive side, especially if you measure them one by one.
So this is not news to me. But there's a big difference in what you and I make of it, and what the people themselves do.
Where I live and work, a typical slice of blue-collar America, this still means the workers split 50-50 Dem and GOP, with support for socialism in lower single digits. If you measure things related to white privilege, immigrant rights or abortion rights among the white workers alone, those with progressive stands are a clear minority.
That's why our CCDS formulation of the progressive majority is also called a left-center coalition.
And in such a coalition, the 'we' means the socialists and the left, the militant minority, while the center means those with liberal-to-moderate views.
You can come up with something that makes you feel better if you like, but I'm more interested in an analysis that gives me a more nuanced and accurate picture of the relation of forces.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By McGehee, Michael at Dec 02, 2009 08:26 AM
carl,
degrading harry's (and mine and others) comments to the realms of what makes him "feel better" isnt productive or constructive. you have got to stop these insults. its one thing to criticize someones views and its another thing entirely to reduce them to an insulting cariacture. i.e., criticizing "death kneels" versus asking if someone is high/asserting someone's youth is debilitating/asserting someone doesnt take this "seriously"/asserting one is only concerned with "feeling better" and not having an "accurate picture of the relation of forces."
if you are so concerned with having an "accurate picture of the relation of forces" then why do you reject it (with petty insults) when others offer it to you? that is the purpose of criticizing markets, private ownership, PDA, Mondragon, etc. Do you not get and understand that why Harry and I criticize PDA is because of the "relation of forces"? Why do you think I asked: "What good does having the support of "labor and the Black community" if it's going to be predictably wasted?" Because I want to "feel better"? What do you think I meant by "predictably wasted" if not that I was clearly pointing to "the relation of forces"?
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 02, 2009 21:26 PM
Michael M, why don't you speak to the point? Goodness knows, I've been lambasted with more nasty labels than most--counter-revolutionary, authoritarian, Stalinist and so on. If I throw a few barbs back, what's the big deal?
The point is Harry claims WE occupy the political center, and the Dems and everyone else are on the right.
I said no, we are the left, a minority within a broader left-center coalition.
I gave my reasons, and he gave his.
So where do you stand on the subtance of the matter?
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW
By Davidson, Carl at Dec 04, 2009 06:12 AM
McGhehee, lighten up. When you say 'what have you been smokin'' in the course of a debate, it hardly means you're literally accusing your opponent of taking drugs. It means they're engaged in fanciful thinking. Ask around, if you don't believe me. And yes, pinning the 'authoritarian' label on me--someone who advocate both participatory and representative democracy, workers hiring and firing their managers, but also agrees that when a strike vote is taken, the majority rules and the minority should go along with it rather than be strikebreakers, is just a silly ad hominnem, not to mention the 'counter-revolutionary' and 'Stalinist' labels.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW
By McGehee, Michael at Dec 03, 2009 05:57 AM
carl,
are you saying that you dont see any difference between saying someone is high on drugs and that someone's views are authoritarian; between ad hominem's and legitimate counter arguments?
it is an ad hominem to dismiss an argument because they are young, because you think they are high on drugs, because you think they just want to feel better, etc.
BUT
it is not an ad hominem to dismiss an argument because it is counterproductive or authoritarian.
Reply this comment
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Exit strategy? LEAVE NOW!
By Kershner, Harry at Dec 01, 2009 15:31 PM
Sorry to hog the commentary. I read with interest the statements by Michael, John, Nasir and Lester, and I agree with what they had to say. Just one last point:
Obama is the president, and he supported his own "supplemental", which Carl seems to have missed. He also voted as a U.S. senator for supplementals, albeit under the obfuscating language that they would have a non-binding "timeline" and other non-binding conditions. Furthermore, he currently spends over a $trillion a year on the military-security complex, which he runs. Apparently this is the kind of progressivism favored by "socialists" like Carl.
And Carl: I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a mid-night toker, but I'm not fooled by the DP and its regressive allies.
Reply this comment
ALL WE HAVE TO DO...
By Shepherd, Lester at Nov 26, 2009 07:24 AM
ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS SEND MEDICINE AND FOOD. NO MONEY. NO BOMBS. NO DRONES. NO MORE MURDER. NO MORE NO MORE. NO MORE...
Reply this comment