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"Diplomacy is the art of Internationalising an issue to your advantage"

Field Marshal Military Project
http://fieldmarshal.virtualave.net

(sorry, couldn't resist, I swear, I WON'T post again)

Would someone care to name me the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats?

Richard Nixon bombed two countries
Bill Clinton bombed four countries

George Bush bombed a whole bunch of countries (oft under the guise of Reagan) and whoever is President next will too.

Hawkish conservatives? Like the Democrats who prosecuted a war against the Serbs? Or like the Democrats who prosecuted a war against the Iraqis? Or like the Republicans who prosecuted a war against the Iraqis?

You're all quibbling over such minor issues. Democrats? Republicans? Whigs? Show me the differences, then I'll become convinced.

THIS was my last post, I'm sure of it.

Yay!!

Good to have ya back DT.

Our war with Iraq was fully justified. Kuwait was (and presumably still is) our ally. We were obligated to defend them. Protecting Kuwait gets the US something in return, and we're therefore protecting our own interests. We had a prior agreement to defend them, and Iraq knew that we would honor that agreement.

And one difference is that Republicans in general aren't COMPLETE hypocrites. You have Clinton saying that "We must stop the politics of personal destruction", which is something the Democrats invented in the first place, and while he personally continues to assault the Republican party. You have some Democratic congressman (whose name escapes me) saying that we need campaign finance reform, but doing all the things he wants outlawed all the while. You have the same Democrats saying that Clinton doesn't have to answer questions about his past, while "W" does. Yes, you do have Republicans going back on their promises occasionally, like "HW"'s "no new taxes" bit, or our esteemed governer Sunquist saying in January that an income tax simply funds "the easy and unlimited expansion of government", then ten months later blackmailing senators to pass a graduated income tax. But it's nowhere near as common as Democrats, and the rest of the Republican party usually disowns anyone after a major offence. Take Nixon There IS a difference, DT. The Republican party still has some honor left to it.

Not that I'm defending partisan politics, by any means. But it does exist, and we have to choose sides to be effective, so I pick Republican.

I'm bowing out of this one, it should be cool enough to witness without my involvement.

Cry havoc!!!

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Calvin: "No efficiency, no accountability... I tell you, Hobbes, it's a lousy way to run a Universe." -- Bill Watterson

Let the games begin...

Still, after all the fun Clinton's done in the past year or two, it's a bit sad when the most shocking thing Tony Blair has done is get a woman pregnent. His wife no less.

Still, I too await the fun of DT and Omega. I propose a new forum just for the two of them, with topics ranging from:

"Why evolution sucks" to "I want all my KFC to just have left-wings".

First: I much like that term, may I use it? Ubersocialist sounds better than Trotskyist.
Incidentally, you and I should agree more now that I've developed an almost equal dislike of religion.

Omega: Nixon bombed Indochina.
Reagan/Bush bombed Iraq, Grenada, Libya, Panama (bombed is the generic term I used for any military action).
Clinton bombed Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan and Sudan.

I've gone over the Iraq thing so many times I don't want to get into it again, cause it'll just be a rehashing of the same old stuff. I'm not saying that I would be entirely opposed to such a debate, but it's not wise for me to enter into said diskutieren.

Keep in mind, this is the new, mellower DT. I'm more than willing to lose a battle so as to keep myself calm enough to win a war.

Liam:

You sure Clinton didn't do that too?

(hmm, should I go through the trouble of bringing back a signature...?)

It does not surprise me in the least that it is Polish, as the Polish ruling class has long been quite reactionary. For example, their actions following Versailles. Instead of helping their Slavic brethren throw off the shackles of Tsarism, which had opressed the Poles as well, they prosecuted a war against the Russian workers. This resulted in a great blow to international socialism. Particularly at the Battle of Warsaw which, had we won, would've led to a socialist uprising in Poland (which happened anyway, but was brutally supressed).

BEGIN TANGENT Leon Trotsky was able to, within four years, form a mass of workers in a backwards nation which had spent three years being pounded in WWI into a fighting force that defeat counterrevolutionary Whites, Poles, and the imperialist intervention of the US, France, Japan and England. Impressive. END TANGENT

The defeat of the workers outside Warsaw would be a fatal blow to internationalism. Without the revolution succeeding there, or in Germany in 1923 (which almost certainly would've succeeded had their been a worker's state bordering it) it led to the defeat of the Trotsky socialist and rise of the reactionary Stalinist regime.

Let us consider the opinions of Stalin and Trotsky as to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Regime

Shortly before Hitler's rise to power, the Germany Communist Party (KPD) and Social Democrats (SPD) commanded the votes of over 13 million voters, more than Hitler's fascists. However, instead of combining their efforts for a united front, the KPD stood with the Stalnist line that the SPD was a variety of fascism, social fascism as they called it, and that it should be opposed and no agreements made with it.

In 1930, Trotsky wrote that a successful defensive struggle against fascism, he wrote, "means a policy of
closing ranks with the majority of the German working class and forming a united front with the Social Democratic and non-party workers against the fascist threat."

On January 27, 1932, Trotsky made this reply to the Stalinist line that the victory of Hitler would be beneficial for the ComIntern.

"Fascism is not merely a system of reprisals, of brutal force and of police terror. Fascism is a particular governmental system based on the uprooting of all elements of proletarian democracy within bourgeois
society."

In April of that same year, Trotsky made this statement as to what MUST be done by the Soviet leadership if Hitler gains power.

"Upon receiving the telegraphic communication of this event, I would sign an order for the mobilization of the reserves."

Now, unfortunately, it would be the Polish workers who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Yet, one cannot find it somewhat kharmic that the destruction of the Polish state occured by the Stalnist and Hitler regimes. Of course, I don't believe in kharma, so I can only blame it on the short sightedness of the ruling class and the destructive policies which they push.

Just a thought...

I don't care what it's called as long as the people retain (and hopefully use) the right to vote, and retain their rights as citizens.

I am uncomfortable with the concept that corporations have (some) rights as individuals.

I believe the U.S. Constitution had the aim of protecting the citizen not only from excessive government interference, but also to prevent the majority from tyrannizing the minority (example: restricting freedom of speech when there is no threat to public safety¹).

I believe it's past my bedtime and I should go get some Z's.

--Baloo

¹Example: pulling a fire alarm when there is no fire poses a threat to public safety.

Burning an American flag does not (unless it is burned at a gas station). (I don't believe in passing legislation to prevent people from saying things that piss you off just because it pisses you off!)

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"There are some upon this earth of yours, who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."
-- The Ghost of Christmas Present (A Christmas Carol -- Charles Dickens)
http://members.tripod.com/~Bob_Baloo/index.htm

Wow, the second quote I've mangled and stolen tonight. I need a vacation.

And this is all a joke, mind you. Nobody go accusing me of being a...hmm...Platonist.