Today's column by Katherine Kersten illustrates my contention from earlier in the week that conservative pundits are losing their minds. Vietnam and Iraq are two completely different countries and to make the assertion that Iraq would fall into chaos if we left, just as Vietnam did, is fucking moronic. Do these conservative pundits just make up a bunch of shit, ignore basic facts, and then print it as truth?
A 5th grader will tell you that Iraq and Vietnam are about as different as night and day. Not to mention the fact that it was our fault that the violence escalated regionally in Vietnam because we stayed to long, not because we left too soon. And aren't we doing quite a bit of trade with Vietnam now? Isn't the country more or less stable because we left?
You know, it's a nice pleasant fantasy when I am told to just ignore folks like Katherine Kersten and maybe they'll go away but people read what she is saying and think it's true.
And they can't see that they are being lied to by what is, without a doubt, the greatest propaganda machine in the history of the world.
13 comments:
I know several people that work at the Strib and all of them know that Kersten is there just to piss people off. The more people get pissed, the more read their paper. And most of them are liberals.
The editors at the Strib know that Kersten is a moron. That's why they hired her. To say a bunch of dumb ass shit to increase readership.
Well, a dialogue on this line will obviously go nowhere. But, just out of curiosity, do you oppose the presence of US troops in Korea?
Dave, I could write long paragraphs on my views of communism, the domino theory, and where American foreign policy has gone wrong since Aug 13, 1945. That might be a conversation best had over several beers.
To answer you question as simply as I can, though, no, I don't oppose the presence of US troops in S Korea.
Interesting, is it not, that each side picks the analogies between Iraq & Vietnam that suit them best? Liberals were all about pointing out how Iraq was turning into a quagmire, another Vietnam, yada, yada, yada, and the right fought that analogy. But now the right comes out w/ its own list of similarities and the left cries foul. So is it selective association or is one side seeing things more clearly? Doubtless, we’ll both choose the opposing view, but reality is probably a bit closer to the middle.
(Hot news item…)
…going back to a conversation from a while back on smokers’ “rights” and the slippery-slope analogy… I see that in a town in California, it is now forbidden to smoke in your own place of residence (in some circumstances). The left has always said they want the gov’t out of their homes & bedrooms, but it seems that the left is the one invading individual’s privacy more than the right. The right might be listening in on your phone conversations if you’re talking to a (probable) terrorist, but the left is invading your home for something as simple as smoking. Which is more troubling?
I think that the smoking laws have gotten to be ludicrous. Yes, it is true, the left can be just as invasive as the right.
"reality is probably a bit closer to the middle."
Agreed. And Dave, I just want to thank you very much for being a rational conservative. I disagree with you on a lot of things but you are nowhere near the insanity of some other conservatives with which I have recently debated.
It is comforting to know that there is some hope.
Does that mean I can count on your vote when I run for Congress?
If you run in the third, and I think you should :), you can rely on it!!
To the comments by The Eye, I hardly think that getting 1 conservative writer on the staff will increase readership. The recent shake-up at the Strib has everything to do with the economics of a changing industry. The fact is that hiring kids to toss newspapers onto front steps is an archaic method of delivering information, only presenting very liberal editorials and competitors like Ebay and Craig's List taking away most of the newspaper's traditional cash cow (classified advertising) don’t help either and those things all add up. But Ebay and Craig's List don't make a very satisfactory enemies list so it's probably more rewarding to blame changes at the newspaper on K Kersten no doubt.
I posted this a while back on here but I'll repeat it because we are talking about Vietnam. I’ve noticed that those who opposed the American war in Indochina are pretty humble in the face of the appalling aftermath: a form of genocide in Cambodia and horrific tyranny in both Vietnam and Laos. I’m sure it was all too easy to concentrate on the corruption and incompetence of the South Vietnamese and their American allies while ignoring (to an extent) the inhuman Hanoi regime, and protestors seemed all too willing to believe that a victory by the Communists would provide a better future. But after the Communist victory came the refugees to Thailand and the floods of boat people desperately seeking to escape the Cambodian killing fields and the Vietnamese gulags.
Cambodia under Pol Pot’s control was reduced to a classless society. Family associations were forbidden, forced labor, inadequate food, The Khmer Rouge arrested, tortured and eventually executed anyone suspected of connections with the former government or with foreign governments, professionals, intellectuals as well as ordinary Khmer people who breached their rules. Ethnic Vietnamese, Cambodian Christians, Muslims and the Buddhist monkhood were also targets of persecution. A conservative estimate of 1.5 -2 million people were killed or starved to death between 1975 and 1978. That’s 20% of the total population.
The barbaric nature of the Communist Khmer Rouge was painted over in soothing tones by much of the American press. In one dispatch in the New York Times, its correspondent Sydney Schanberg described a ranking Khmer Rouge leader as a "French-educated intellectual" who wanted nothing more than "to fight against feudal privileges and social inequities." A bloodbath was unlikely, Schanberg reported: "since all are Cambodians, an accommodation will be found." As the last Americans were withdrawn, another upbeat article by Schanberg appeared under the headline, "Indochina Without Americans: For Most, a Better Life." In short order, the Khmer Rouge proceeded to march nearly two million of their fellow Cambodians to their deaths in the killing fields. Also in short order, Schanberg went on to greater glory and a Pulitzer prize. Go look all that up.
"Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupies no enviable place in life or in history. Better for him, individually, to advocate "war, pestilence and famine," than to act as an obstructionist to a war already begun. The most favorable posthumous history the stay-at-home traitor can hope for is---oblivion."
US GRANT, PERSONAL MEMOIRS
No offense intended gangbang, but on this issue Grant's quote does not apply. Grant fought in wars that had defined enemies that fought more or less face to face on agreed terms and conditions. This is a shoddy excuse to continue a war that cannot be won through military might. The so-called enemies we are fighting cannot be conquered without destroying whole populations, something that will NEVER happen.
Well, I'm totally offended by your post and I demand an apology! : )
I didn't put it up to advocate continuing the war, just putting opposition to the war in perspective.
Just pulling a couple names off the top of my head...who is looked at in a better light these days...Rick Monday or the guy trying to burn the flag on the baseball field?
Yes, Rick Monday. But I don't know if the same can be said of a comparison to Vietnam/Iraq. I view dissenters to both wars as being as patriotic as Rick Monday.
Umm, if I recall, it was the libs that started with the Vietnam comparison, most notably that prick Kerry...
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