Wolf Blitzer is moderating in New Hampshire, and he asks the entire crop of potential GOP candidates for ’08 to raise their hand if they believe that gays should be allowed to serve in the military. Not one hand went up. This is called ‘stroking the Republican base like it needs to be stroked’. There is no other way to arouse the voters who show up to cast ballots in a Republican primary, but with a dominant grasp of the issues, along with the magic words that’ll bring them to attention. It is a formula that can only be ignored in those rare instances when the voter is faced with star-fucking as an alternative.
If you hope to circumvent the reality of what it actually takes to make it through this gauntlet of intolerance, then you’d better be famous. Because nothing else to an ‘up is down’ right-winger is nearly as potent as the thrilling dynamic of feeling akin to someone on TV. And when it’s the most irrational right-wing subset of them all, this phenomenon is taken to the absolute limits. Hence the natural partnership established between former Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez and the brain trust over at a blog called ‘Right Wing News‘. Anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Sanchez, can bone up on his story with a few lines from something I posted on 4/12/07:
12/4/2006 – On this date the New York Post publishes a column written by marine Corporal Matt Sanchez concerning harassment of the military on the campus of Columbia University (3)
2 – Number of times Sanchez subsequently appeared on Fox News (Hannity and Colmes – VIDEO) (The O’Reiley Factor – VIDEO)
3/2/2007 – On this date the American Conservative Union honored Matt Sanchez with the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at the 34th annual CPAC (4)
200 – Dollar amount required for a man to pay Sanchez for sex (5)
3 – Number of gay porno films Sanchez is known to have starred in
12,000 – Amount of money the Marines have accused Sanchez of stealing from various donors to fund a fictional deployment to Iraq (6)
After finding out about his past, it is obvious what happened next. The show-biz folks who turned him into something he wasn’t – pumped him up for their own sake – proceeded to drop him like his name was Foley and pretend he’d never existed. Only problem was, in the process of creating this fictional character, nobody ever bothered to let the poor guy know that he wasn’t real. It is a hallmark of the star-fucking cannibalistic nature at play here, that the most relevant ones (Coulter, BillO), those who can actually create these characters, are sharks in the ocean, forever moving forward, feeding and forgetting.
In the subsequent interactions I’ve had with Sanchez this week, on deadissue and Right Wing News, it has become clear that this is what happened. And although it sounds bad, I can assure you that it is getting worse by the day. As his star was falling so rapidly, he had the misfortune of crossing paths with his mirror image, and the cycle began once more. Only this time the podium and network studio is a laptop in Fallujah, and the audience of millions is a delusional collection of right-wingers on a blog where “the truth” = “civil war in Iraq is a myth created by the liberal media”.
Stephen Colbert on one of his best nights doesn’t even come close to a couple hours at ‘Right Wing News’. And while liberal blogs like Firedoglake are turning into juggernauts, this blog (like most of its right-wing brethren) has moved in the exact opposite direction. An exclamation point to this observation is the periodic post containing nothing but a handful of advertiser links (unlabeled, just posted as ‘Link #1, Link #2, etc.) with a request that readers give each of them a few clicks. With that in mind, you can imagine how excited they became when a crumb from show-biz table named Sanchez fell their way and agreed to post exclusively on ‘Right Wing News’ from within Iraq.
Insomnia plagued my post-Sopranos Sunday night on through to Monday morning. Along the way I came across “Exclusive To Right Wing News: Embed Matt Sanchez Reports From Fallujah“. Naturally, I signed up for an account and started posting comments. Hours later I check in and continue commenting, only to get abruptly banned from the site. Not surprised by it, as experience has taught me that for a right-wing blogger, Monday mornings are sacred. Another battle I had a while back was with the owner of ‘Right Thinking From the Left Coast‘. He’d lined up a scathing hit piece on Cindy Sheehan on a Monday morning, and even though I’d tore this guy up a number of times in the past, it wasn’t until I called him on timing the Sheehan post along with other bloggers for that morning that he was compelled to block my IP address. Swarms of storm troopers descended upon deadissue that same day, furiously flinging feces for what seemed like forever.
This thing with Sanchez was much easier going than that episode, as I simply created a new username and continued on. Before that happened, I posted to deadissue what I wasn’t allowed to post to ‘Right Wing News’ in response to one of his comments:
~~~
Matt Sanchez is a blogger in Iraq, and he’s posted a rant about how the mainstream media is too chicken-shit to leave the Green Zone (he apparently is notified of the activities of the entire media apparatus in the country on a regular basis)…stop me if you’ve heard this one before from a right-winger…and so he is debunking news articles, one in particular about a suicide bombing that was reported by the Wall Street Journal, without facts or a follow-up to the news division or even a single word from the article itself. You’re just supposed to take his word for it, and that is precisely what 99/100 readers of Right Wing News are prepared to do.
I was able to post comments up until I submitted this (went into moderation and so I posted a comment that showed up on the site – meaning that, I wasn’t banned until they read the following):
Right Wing News – Fair enough, I’ll disregard the particulars regarding such and such, and simply debate Mr. Sanchez on the points he makes. If “street cred” is necessary for everyone here to take what I have to say seriously, then let me say up front that I’m an Army veteran, currently doing all I can to assist fellow veterans and soldiers who are still in the system. This consists of letter writing on their behalf, advice on how to address grievances within the system (trying to prevent people who need help into just going AWOL, as unfortunately a number of soldiers end up doing before they reach me or one of my colleagues).
I LOVE these people! The individual stories are horrendous, and for the most part transcend politics entirely. I could go on, but to blog-whore this one time and point you to ‘deadissueMilitary‘, you’ll find many actual accounts from soldiers and marines who are there today, as well as others who aren’t. Up front let me say that on a philosophical level, I believe the side-plot of media-mania in politics is detrimental in a situation like we have in Iraq. To flatly accuse reporters from the WSJournal of not getting a story right is something that should be confirmed with a request to their news division. A few months back there was an AP story about worshipers being doused with kerosene and set on fire outside of a mosque, to which a blogger decided it was fake, and that post was copied throughout the blogsphere.
It had to do with a source that the blogger felt did not exist, but after AP confirmed that he certainly did exist, as was proven (to the detriment of that source btw, as policy in Iraq for the police is to not provide information to the press, and so, this man could be dead by now over this)…what then? Perhaps in the instance Matt is pointing out here, there was more than one suicide bomber attack, and he is confusing that one with the one he describes here. How can we know if that is the case? Sadly, we have to dig up those stories ourselves, as Mr. Sanchez hasn’t bothered to compare the WSJournal article with his own recollections…nor has he leveraged his fan base here to track down an authority in the WSJ newsroom that can provide more details on the article and how it originated.
My main point here being…that Mr. Sanchez expects us to take his reporting at face value, yet besides a “trust me because I’m in Iraq”…bottom line, disregard MSM reporting because it is false and biased, but don’t apply that skepticism to what I write.
Matt: The reporting is, indeed, atrocious. The Washington Post report about the Green Zone running out of food, or members of the military not being able to blog were flat out lies.
The item regarding soldiers not being able to blog was based on an Army policy, of which, a copy was disseminated to the public through the media. It pertained to all electronic communication (including email), with each having to be approved by the command prior to it being sent, or else it is considered “unauthorized”. This isn’t about a “liberal media bias”, it’s the policy. Here is that document – Army Regulation 530-1.
Matt:I’m currently one of FIVE embeds in all of the Al Anbar Province. A province roughly the size of South Carolina.
And what about regional media? Iraqi media? You point out the fact right here that you are but one individual in a land that is vast in size, yet in your piece, the way you take a large brush to the media’s role in Iraq makes it seem like a small place. If one person (you) can single-handedly prove that a news organization like the WSJournal is making up their stories, then Iraq must be a small place after all.
Matt:I’m surprised that the people who are most opposed to Iraq are the people who want to know the least about Iraq, and just don’t have the guts to come out here.
I take this with a grain of salt. There hasn’t been a day gone by where the right-wing passed up an opportunity to pretend that only their side was invested in Iraq and/or had the “guts” to even be there, and I honestly attribute this posturing to a Napoleon complex. With the amount of journalists killed in this war already, it is insulting to read, in 2007, that they are all cowards, fabricators, etc.
Hence the reason why this piece by Mr. Sanchez is propaganda, and should not be taken seriously by anyone. If this one man is more capable than entire media outlets operating within Iraq…well, how likely is that? Let’s be real. We can admire someone for their bravery, but if they have to gain their relevance by assaulting the bravery of others – ironically (or not) the people he is competing against – it presents ethical questions that cannot be overcome by simply saying “trust me, I’m in Iraq and you’re not”.
~~~
My new persona ‘kent_brockman’ posts this same text to RWN, and rather than respond to these points I make, the brain trust is mostly concerned with protocol, “Trench Raider: Morever (sic) if you look at the comments section of the lastest post on the site deadissue.com, you will see were he admits to acting as a proxy for the banned user of the same name by posting material for him…(moderators take notice)”
The moderators are adamant about booting anyone who brings up Sanchez’s dicey past as a gay prostitute, and in full-on star-fucker mode, they’ve decided suddenly that gay people aren’t so bad after all, and even if they serve in the military, it’s alright as long as they allow themselves to be exploited by the right-wing in some way. They’ve got to insist that the man is legit, or else resort to posting the exact same thing without the famous name attached to it. Sanchez seems to be reveling in his celebrity.
Matt Sanchez (12:53PM) I’m one of five embeds and if I’m not right the MSM could NOT contradict me–they’re just not here. I’ve been out on the streets of Iraq where we’ve been greeted like saviors. The people of Fallujah know the military is protecting them from a group of people who are trying to kill them.
Matt Sanchez (2:13PM) The US is NOT an occupier. We’re the ones helping this government stand up on its own.
Matt Sanchez (2:43PM) I’ve been RPG’ed, shot at and saw the remnants of a suicide bomber after he(?) blew himself up. I’ve had an IED go
off in front of me. Do you really think I’m afraid of the Pink Press, or people like you Kent-Brockman?
It got old and I eventually informed them that kent_brockman was deadissue, then called it a day. The tone of my comments changed greatly from the beginning of the day, as over time I honestly felt bad for the guy. He was telling these people what they wanted to hear…that the war was being misreported by the mainstream press, and the state of things over there is exaggerated. For some reason he went to Iraq as a civilian to prove this first hand. Fast forward past the final banning from RWN – Sanchez ended up on deadissue later on that night and it wasn’t pretty:
Matt Sanchez: As for “being co-opted” Give me a break. The leftist, liberal “progressive” biased monopoly on distorted press is a bane on this country. I know liberals believe feeling sorry for others makes them feel superior but I don’t need your “care”.
deadissue: Sanchez, after being famous, then going all the way to Iraq to make it in punditry, to be posting exclusively on “Right Wing News” is a bad sign. That was my main point in all of this. Tell me that Malkin, Coulter and all the other GOP heavies you rubbed elbows with a few months ago are quoting your reporting from Iraq…no? Not really?
Keep on living the conspiracy theory out Matt…fact is, you decided to land onto the Titanic 3/4 of the way down, and you’re wearing out the bullshit that was already old in 04-05. Guaranteed, the likes of Right Wing News will toss you a bone, but if you ask anyone in the know, I’d imagine they’d consider both you and the site equally fucked at this point, so why not combine forces and sink even faster…
Just be warned, that once you pile up a few more entries like the one today, you will be picked up by the people, only more of them will be on KOS than any of the right-wing sites. And if you’re cool with all of that, you’ll still have to face up at some point with the fact that these people you’re hoping to inspire on the right, are the same ones who deem homosexuality immoral and use the community as a wedge issue whenever they can.
So you’re turning your back on the military and the gay community…all so you can become a product in right-wing world, which is a fantasy that died the second your past came to light. Just like Tillman, they’d gotten what they needed out of you, and now they’re done. I fear that you started believing in the hype, but I did my good deed for the week. Good luck Matt!
Matt Sanchez: Ok, the emotional left is being dismissive of what they don’t want to understand. Good luck in the prozac-bliss.
deadissue: “The emotional left”…Wasn’t it the pro-war GOP house minority leader Boehner who was crying two weeks ago on the floor?
Look, I’m not the one in Iraq sucking down kool-aid. That is where your emotions got you. Now you’ve got a wing-nut fanbase that still isn’t clued in on the fact that a civil war is taking place over there.
They send out the delusional self-hating gay guy, because no one else was so desperate for relevance that they’d actually put their fairy tales to the test over there…until they found you. A suitable mark.
So there you have it. Another gay Republican. Unfortunately, this one in particular appears to be searching for something in the worst possible place on earth a person could be right now. If and when he returns…for there to be no redemption, and in spite of his sacrifice, no hope of ever reattaining that peak which initially led to the creation of his persona…it will be devastating I imagine. Who will be around from the crowd hoisting him up now?
Well lets confess…Sanchez is looking for the spotlight, he’s a media whore.
A liberal gay Marine who has a porn star and male prostitute past would be hung in effigy by the conservatives.
Michael Savage would rip him…
Ann Coulter would destroy him, but secretly desire to turn him straight…
But since he’s conservative, he’s a media darling that gets an award for courage.
That’s one Dirty Sanchez!
I like how RWN calls him and embed, his history, according to the Marine Times, indicates he cannot be trusted for his word. Was he truly embedded? Did he just make this shit up?
Only in the conservative world does this cat have credibility!
If Sanchez gets together with Ann Coulter would that really make him straight?
Al, you keep hitting low hanging fruit. as previously stated, if you want embed reports go to michael yon or bill roggio’s site. also, the fact that liberal blogs may be more popular on the web than conservative may very well have to do more with demographics than anything.
bmili:
Some people certainly have more credibility and do better reporting than Matt Sanchez and Micheal Yon may be one of those people, but when you look at who the conservatives look to for their information it is guys like Matt Sanchez. In fact wasn’t Micheal Yon somewhat blacklisted by conservatives when he referred to the situation in Iraq as a “civil war”?
The reality of the situation is that conservatives get their news from people like Bill O’riely, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, powerline blog and Matt Sanchez. You are right that these people are low hanging fruit but these are the people that conservatives choose to believe. When conservatives find grown up news services maybe they will be more difficult to make fun of but right now the party of Matt Sanchez deserves to be the butt of some jokes.
I don’t dispute that Sanchez is “low lying fruit”, but I really think that the story of his rise and fall is one worth telling. He was championed in an instant, and why? Because he wrote an op-ed piece in the NYPost that matched up with the storyline the right had been beating to death for decades now, about a liberal/anti-american/anti-military/communist control over academia and how unfair it is. They found an instance of it, and immediately this guy was their poster child.
Didn’t know anything about him…but that didn’t matter because “this is show business”. Then when the truth is revealed, and this guy is actually a real-life embodiment of everything the right-wing gets votes for demonizing, he’s dropped like a bad habit.
Only now you have a person who still believes he’s as wonderful as they said he was at first, and why? Because the fantasy-world fringe of the GOP has no scruples, and as a result, Matt Sanchez is suddenly more reputable to them than NBC, the WSJournal, Al-Jezerra, and the BBC all put together.
Meanwhile, the occupation of Iraq continues to not exist as a cartoon, and the dead bodies continue to pile up…apparently constituting a real need for propaganda to make the children over at Right Wing News happy. It’s like believing in Santa Claus. But these are Americans we’re talking about, and they feel entitled to a fairy tale concerning a humanitarian crisis they’ve championed since day one.
If Iraq is a mess, it’s the media’s fault, and we know this because Matt Sanchez says so. THAT’S where they’re at right now. And while I’d much rather have been watching the Red Sox last night, I thought it was important to document this. Because the biggest insult of them all is Sanchez and his readers (and John McCain) constantly claiming to speak for the military personnel who are over there. The audacity of this is stunning, yet the sentiment is given a pass for the most part in our society.
I think that anyone claiming to know what 100,000+ individuals in Iraq believe is an asshole. If I posted something to the effect of, “the soldiers want to get out of Iraq”, then I’d be an asshole as well. The only proper thing to do is quote the person directly and provide a link to the source. Understanding that this is one voice…just present it and let their OWN WORDS do the talking!
The idea that Sanchez is somehow representing the military sentiment within Iraq is as crazy as it gets. The idea that the types of voices over at Right Wing News are championing a person who hid the fact that he was a prostitute who stared in gay porn is only a little less crazy.
Just a little. I’d still say that Sanchez and McCain thinking they have the right to pretend that they know how “the troops” think is even more crazy.
Karl
you make a fallacious argument when you attempt to assume the conservative news outlets/commentary is on par with guys such as Matt Sanchez (who is apparantly a fraud). To make the same contrast of liberal outlets using the inverse of your assumption (liberal= bad, conservative= good) is childlike and argument-wise is intellectually bankrupt. i am not aware michael yon was “black listed” because early he stated Iraq was in a civil war; he may have, he may have not. but to what committee or council “blacklisted” him I do not know, nor do care.
Al
I think you did good work on Sanchez, Al, I do. but alot of your other posts seem to cater to left hardliners and when you do that, you end up doing the same thing you accuse the Right of doing. I like reading your site to gain perspective and insight but I sometimes get turned off. And when I say you go after “low hanging fruit” it would be me attacking Cameron Diaz, Al Franken, Alec Baldwin, Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton. Each side has their own caricatures. But does Bill O’rielly, Matt Sanchez (i never heard of him until today), or Ann Coulter (can’t stand her) have any sway over the conservative populous? no, except for o’reilly in small part. same goes for both sides. both sides of the aisle attempt to speak for the general population (pelosi and other dems constantly “speak” on behalf of the troops and it is equally as false as Sanchez).
bmili:
Are you saying that Bill O’riely AKA falafel boy or Sean Hannity are better than Sanchez. Or that Rush Limbaugh gives all the facts. The entire realm of conservative news is really in the realm if infotainment, it is not serious news.
Ultimately that is why conservatives should not even be taken seriously the base is so misinformed that they cannot make reational decisions, so any republican politician that trys to do the right thing gets skewered by the misinformed base. No wonder the republican party has become nothing more than a conduit to enrich their donors; any attempt to actually govern would be met with resistance from a gruop of people that get all their misinformation from guys like Lou Dobbs.
The best part about the current situation is watching the current group of republican candidates try to outcrazy eachother all so they can appeal to the fox news watcher.
karl, based on your last comment i have come to a point where i have no hope for you to think logically or exercise reason. you are unfortunately making yourself a caricature of the left, a stereotype made true. I wouldn’t even know how you would spin the fact that more people watched Fox News programming during prime time than watched the Republican Debate on CNN(1.2 mil Fox 7pm, 2.29 mil Fox 8pm vs Cnn 1.97 7-9pm). actually I probably could, you would find a theory that denigrates conservatives, bash Fox, and pat yourself on the back for making you somehow feel smarter. The arguments and your rhetoric are hollow and devoid of facts. You spew talking points yet at the same time decry conservatives as lemmings running off a cliff. The Irony is dripping off of you like hot summer sweat.
as for the debate stat, i thought it was interesting, have no idea what it means, but theoretically if all republicans watch fox then the debate would be huge and fox would suffer. thats the point I was trying to make.
bmili:
The conservative mantra is that Iraq is going better than you think, at least I think that is what most conservatives are trying to argue and you keep saying that the MSM is not giving an accurate portrayal of the war, at least I think that is what you are getting at. As evidence you offer Micheal Yon, and the only other source I can find for anything you say are places like FOX news.
My question is why would all the other news sources lie? Papers like the new york times the washington post are they all making stuff up and really Iraq is safer than a market in Indiana?
As for my hot summer sweat, please stop looking through my windows, it is kind of creepy
im not sure where there became a burden of proof weighing on my shoulders concerning my view of the Iraq war, which is not all cheery and rose colored btw. Nor am I sure how Fox news keeps becoming part of the conversation. I don’t watch the news, let alone cable news, its all hyperventilation in general (cable news that is). Lying is a word for some reason that gets thrown around without anyone even citing that. In the same way you read my words that I type, Karl, you are making an assumption based on your perception of what I am saying. I am not sure how me, in challenging the depth of a “soft” news report (specifically the LAT story I have commented on this site).
USA Today definition– “Soft” news refers to feature stories — news that you’ve chosen to do. When “hard” news breaks, the news and a reporter’s agenda are decided by the events. The reverse applies when a reporter decides to pursue news of interest to readers — a profile of a person, a social trend, a groups of people making an impact.
Soft news stories are chosen ahead of time and are not particularly objective, they are not meant to be. What sells the story is the human element of it. In my critique of the article, I noted that the reporter in question had only spent 6 days with the 2/4 cav. I openly commented I do not question what the soldiers said, I only mentioned that in the grand scheme of things, 6 days is a very, very short period of time, especially in an emotional roller coaster of being in a war (referring to soldiers). So that is why I take “soft” stories with a small mound of salt. Take a journalism course, you will understand the nature of media much better. If I am going to get “hard” news, I will get it from Bill Roggio, Michael Yon, Stategy Page, the Counterterrorism Blog…esentially people that specialize in this. I can literally follow what happens every day throughout Iraq via the Daily Iraq Report on Bill Roggio’s site. The major news outlets get their info from say a correspondant from the AP bureau in Baghdad or Reuters, with little background or detail in them. Reuters/AP have had pretty big credibility issues in their Mid-East reporting, mainly because they don’t have very many people there and they have a tendency of not fact-checking or doing due diligence before publishing (ie- Turkey didnt invade Iraq yesterday). At one point the number of embed reporters numbered only a dozen or so in the past year as well. The internet is the modern day equivalent of the printing press, the media no longer has a monopoly on information. If you want to read my thoughts on Iraq, it is here:
http://capitalismfreedom.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-if.html
The editorials I rely on tend to be from RCP, they have already filtered out the trash and picked the best of the day for me.
i am not sure how in me challenging a “soft” story is accusing the LAT of lying, no edit button for my previous comment
http://www.fumento.com/military/brigade.html
an embed reporter comparing his experience with baghdad reporters
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/16/africa/ME_GEN_Iraq_Embedded_Journalists.php
article about number of embeds
In defense of karl – he and I crossed paths amidst constant 20:1 wingnut to liberal ratio on a right wing site, and if he’s still kicking around such environs, the world can seem awfully black and white after a while. My adventure on Right Wing News the other day was a reminder of what that felt like…gratifying in a way, but bound to get you wound up as only those types of idiots really can.
Some spill-over here and there is one of the reasons why I just stopped dialing that crowd up altogether. It makes me nuts.
I’m feeling like a jerk being so backed up on reading, but I’ve got to get cracking on a project for school before it’s too late. Peace – Al
dont worry about it, study away; i can imagine for me trying to try to have an honest debate with the daily kos crowd. and yes there are mindless idiots on the right, they make me cringe too, ann coulter is one of them.
Bmili:
If you want an honest debate you would have to openly state an opinion.
So I will start, the Iraq war is an unmitigated dissaster, and no amount of paint on burned out schools changes that. Do you agree or disagree?
If you disagree why would you call it a success?
If you agree that it is a dissaster then I guess I misinterpereted your comments on the validity of news reports regarding the Iraq war
Al:
Unfortunately I still kick around on the right wing sites, my new favorite is polipundit.com. It probably does contribute to my somewhat jaded view of conservatives not to mention the fact that I have just spent most of the last 2 months in one of the poorest counties in KS(Washington county) not only does it have an average household income of under $13,000 per year it also voted almost 80% for Bush.
when you see conservatism up close complete with 14 year-old mothers and factory farm lagoons you realize pretty quickly that conservatism is not only a failure it is dangerous to the rest of us.
Bmili:
My challenge to you is to find any aspect of conservatism that actually makes things better.
Karl, can you find any aspect of liberalism that actually makes things better?
Napoleon:
How about Social Security? Or government services such as libraries parks and public schools. Regulations for the proper disposal of toxic waste. Enviromental laws, the endangered species act. The national park system. You know almost everything that makes a America a great place to live.
Here is a good example of the republican party at work:
From TPMelection central
In Alabama, Republican State Senator Charles Bishop punched Democratic Senator Lowell Barron during a heated argument about a matter of legislation. Bishop is unrepentant, claiming Barron called him a “son of a bitch.” “I responded with my right hand,” Barron said. “I hit him wherever I could get my right hand on him.” And while Bishop apologized for the violence taking place on the Senate floor, he did not apologize for the punch itself: “If he calls me that again, it will happen again.”
Conservatives are not a serious party they are just a sideshow to the legislative process.
umm…actually social security is not overall a good thing, FDR himself stated it was only a short term solution. The size of social security payouts has nothing to do with merit, if you hit certain criteria, you get paid more than someone else, ie- if you are working you dont get the same benefits if anything at all, despite the fact you paid for it all your life. To compare a county that voted 80% republican and blaming it for its economic woes is absurd. Not only is that evidence anecdotal, it makes no sense whatsoever when other counties that are overwhelmingly conservative are propserous. Karl, it kills me that you dont understand basic politics. those on the left and the right generally want the same things, the difference is how they wish it to be obtained. those on the left favor government intervention, those on the right favor the individual/private market to solve those problems. The simplest form of economic conservatism states that you know how to spend your dollar better than the government (and spend it better as well). I refuse to argue with you when you can’t apply, understand, nor see how another idealogy seeks to solve a particular problem.
As far as Iraq, I do not believe it to be a mistake. I believe that exreme Islamic radicalism is our main enemy and Saddam was a part of that. Militarily, the conquering of Iraq is one, if not the most resounding victories throughout all of history. Unfortunately, counter-insurgency has not been a US forte (the British are the best) and its tactics are slowly being learned (Petraeus knows what he is doing). The rebuilding of Iraq was been bungled by bureacracy and poor decision making. However, things are beginning to be cohesive from the bottom up, the top however has still yet to get it together. Counter-insurgency on average takes 10-12 years. From Sept 12th and on, it was always my understanding that this would be a very long campaign similar to the Cold War, the President made that clear from the beginning as well (dont give me hogwash about “mission accomplished” either, thats not what I am referring to). Whether you agreed with the invasion or not, there is without a doubt that Iraq is the central front against Al Qaeda. That comes not just from me, nor DOD, nor Bush but from the lips of Bin Laden himself. I also have a stake in all of this, I have two younger brothers in the army. They are in special ops. A man in one of my brother’s platoon died in a helicopter crash, due to a couple distinct events, my brothers were not on that flight though they very easily could. So spare me any rhetoric about how republicans this or republicans that, support the war at the expense of the military. Its plain bullshit and you know it.
karl, check your facts, washington county has a median income of $38k
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_County,_Kansas
the figure you were attempting to use is per capita income, which takes into the account babies and people in nursing homes. this is the last time I respond to any of your posts, they are simply void of any truth.
Bmili:
Are you saying that Social Security is a bad thing because what you pay in is not directly proportional to what you get out?
Social Security is good in that it keeps senior citizens from being homeless and also protects people with disabilities, it provides a safety net for the less fortunate and a extra source of income for seniors with other means. I realize that I will probably pay more into the system than I will see out of it, but I recognize that I have been very lucky in my life and I don’t have a problem helping people that have been less fortunate, even if they are less fortunate due to bad decisions that they made throughout their life. One thing that people don’t seem to realize is that Social Security provides fianancial assistance to people who are fully disabled. While I don’t plan on becoming disabled it could happen to anyone and paying into the system helps insure that if something happens I will at least have some sort of financial support. In other words you definitely get your moneys worth out of Social Security.
As for Iraq, Al Quaida was not a problem there until Bush and co decided to destabilize the government by toppeling Saddam Hussein. Yes Hussein was a tyrant but he was not sponsoring terrorism and he did not have the means to give anyone WMD’s. Didn’t Cheney say that the troops would be greeted as liberators? I don’t think anyone said it was going to be a long war, or even mentioned an insurency in the run-up to the war.
The Iraq war has distracted from a place that truly foments Jihad, Afganistan. At this point Afganistan is a poppy growers dream and the Taliban is making a comeback all becuase Bush and co wanted to go into Iraq. Not only was Iraq the wrong war but Bush and his conservative principles have lost it. When i say that Bush’s conservative principles have lost the war I mean that te complet failure to govern or provide services that a competent government might provide has led to a void that people like Al Sadre are happy to fill.
As for Republicans supporting the war at the expense of the milatary, by overstretching the armed forces and refusing to draft the Bush administration has gutted the milatary, not to mention the poor treatment of wounded soldgers at places like Walter Reed. I am sorry that your brotrs find themselves in a quagmire, maybe the next president will figure out a way to get them home.
dont patronize me nor my family and go f*ck yourself
Bmili:
At this point the best thing anyone can do for the service people fighting in Iraq is get them out of an unwinnable situation, it is sad that right now not enough of our leaders understand that. I can see why you might get emotional about their situation. Good luck
thats the part that makes you asinine, you make assumption after assumption, they are not in Iraq, nor have yet to go, they were in the other country we are fighting in. Karl, i hope that one day you could possibly try to relate to someone, seek to learn more than you know, or even try to gain a new perspective. i have tried in a way to bring at least a sense of moderation in a way to try to truly discuss what is going on intelligently, with reason, and with facts. but all that i see and have come across is the very same blind allegiance and hypocrisy that you claim to battle against on the right. and to again attempt to patronize my family situation again is tasteless and classless. because karl, you dont know shit about me, all you know are preconceived assumptions. for you maybe hard things are impossible, but i didnt get to where i am by believing that. goodbye.
Like many liberals, Karl apparently doesn’t believe in personal responsibility. That’s obvious from his reference to “the less fortunate.” It’s also obvious from his belief that hard things are impossible. Karl, maybe some rich people get that way by inheriting their wealth (i.e., Ted Kennedy), but most well-to-do people don’t. They get that way by working hard and working smart.
“Personal Responsibility” = “Every man, woman and child for itself”
Conservatism has for years, relied on ‘personal responsibility’ as an explanation for why the the government should provide nothing to anyone. The underlying theme at play though, is this – “People have to step up…Corporations need help if they’re going to survive”
Is this untrue? Because in recent years I’ve noticed more self-described conservatives coming around to the fact that industries doing great do not need government handouts, but it always ends up being less offensive than the notion of universal health care.
The political achievements that have benefited actual people in the last century…napoleon, here’s a list that cannot be brushed aside by simply uttering the phrase ‘personal responsibility’:
* 1933 Unemployment Relief
* 1935 Social Security
* 1938 Minimum Wage
* 1944 GI Bill
* 1945 United Nations
* 1947 Marshal Plan
* 1949 NATO
* 1964 Civil Rights Act
* 1965 Medicare
* 1965 Voting Rights for all
* 1965 Head Start
* 1965 Federal Aid to Education
* 1967 Freedom of Information Act
* 1993 Family Leave Act
* 1990’s Federal Aid to Education
* 1990’s BUDGET SURPLUS
(Source)
Napoleon:
What about someone who worked hard their entire life but put all their retirement funds into Enron, does this person deserve to be homeless because their retirment funds are now worthless? I don’t think so and at least Social Security keeps this person off the streets.
What about the case of a kid whos parent dies when they are under eighteen, this kid is eligible for survivor benifits and has a chance to afford college because of it. thanks to social Security. What is wrong with providing a safety net for people? Social Security provides this safety net. It is not about personal responsibility it is about trying to help other people and I don’t see why that is so bad.
Hey Chris:
Sorry for pissing off the conservatives, but what can you do when the facts are biased.
karl – no worries
I’ve really been out of it this week with school…just finished something up and got to wondering what this was all about, but as long as it’s not just…you know, like trying to argue with drumwaster (remember that guy?), I’m alright with it. Not as worried about stuff like that now. Everybody being able to express how they feel is more important.
And while in the past I’d be worrying about younger readers…fuck ’em…not enough hours in the day to worry about any of that.
Which reminds me…I downloaded an N.W.A. bootleg two days ago and haven’t even listened to any of it yet. The notes say that following this gig, there was a full blown riot. Should be good.
Hey Chris:
Maybe you know the answer to this, who did Gangsta Gangsta? I have an ongoing argument with a friend of mine, I say public enemy did it he says it was NWA. Who was it?
Speaking of Drumwaster and that crowd, Lee at Right thinking is on Hiatus, I guess they had a flame war over torture, he was looking for a guest blogger, you should help him out and do a few posting over there.
It has been interesting to watch the various conservative factions at right thinking duke it out, it seems sort of like a microcosm of the republican party. In fact I thnk the first big falling out there was during the Terri Chiavo debate and nationally that was when the republican leadership first started to look pretty silly, trying to pander to their base, who can forget Bill Frist diagnosing Schiavo from a picture. It has just gotten more sublime ever since.
karl – can you act as a conduit…my agent so to speak? I’ll post on his site some pre-approved stuff, but I don’t want to reach out personally. With time constraints, and the fact that we were at each others’ throats so often…
The implosion was in full swing last time I was over there, only for a couple hours, a pure hit and run job…didn’t even chime back in to see responses, as it wasn’t going to score me any karma points to be kicking around some folks who were sad enough already.
Maybe some of my stuff would get them all focused on a common enemy, and it can be enjoyable once more.
I knew it was only a matter of time before the meticulously long-winded and contradictory righty bloggers would end up eating their own words, or pissing off their readers for being too reasonable. I re-read that ‘Stormtroopers Attack’ post for the first time in more than a year, and Lee’s king solomon impressions on Cindy Sheehan were a sign of what was to come.
Plus, it’s always been about getting hits on the site and making $$ for a lot of the old guard, so once such and such is budgeted, when it’s gone, and ‘personal responsibility’ has been your mantra…oh, that sucks.
Glad you asked! ‘Gangsta, Gangsta’ was indeed an NWA song, and it featured an especially irrational and young Ice Cube from start to finish.
Al and Karl,
Somehow, the country managed to survive and prosper without all your wonderful social programs for about 160 years. Many other great nations survived and prospered without those social programs during and before that time. For those who really cannot take care of themselves, there are private charities, friends, and families, and they do a much better and more efficient job than the government does. As for NATO, it is the federal government’s primary responsibility to defend this country, and NATO is part of that. Most of the other social programs you listed, I disagree with, with only a handful of exceptions. To better understand where I’m coming from, you can read this post I wrote some time back http://napoleon15.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-political-profile.html
I read once that if all the tax-dollars the government spends on welfare every year were really paid to poor people, every poor family of four would receive about $80,000 dollars per year. Obviously, the poor never see most of that money. Where does it go, then? To line the pockets of politicians and their special interests. There’s government efficiency for you!
Thankfully napoleon, you didn’t have to survive during the great depression. Nor were you beaten and hung from a tree for trying to exercise your right to vote.
I know, the tiny violin here…but if you read the history of one of these acts, like the plight of workers throughout the time leading up to and after the first two on that list, and the blood that had to be spilled by millions of workers in this country just to be able to organize and form unions, it wouldn’t seem as easy as you describe.
The government served as an extension of industry, a tax collector and representative of the people to the rest of the world for a lot of years. What began to develop over time was a recognition of the fact that inequality and exploitation were only getting worse over time.
When social security was passed, it was indeed the rich minority that was against it, and that crusade has been bankrolled ever since. The conservative movement has counted on its followers to do precisely what you’re doing right now, which is to sit and assume that life as you have experienced it is the same as everyone else experienced life 100 years ago. The history and rationale behind the program are never mentioned when this type of rhetoric gets thrown around.
But must importantly, when it came time to get it done, to destroy social security…even with a GOP monopoly in DC, you guys didn’t even come close. I figure that means it’s time to find a new ideology, or maybe read up on some “fair tax” bullshit and start debating that instead.
Where did you read it? You know that the budget is public information, right? Every earmark that is passed in a spending bill is available for any of us to review as well.
I’m familiar with the anti-government rhetoric…it has dominated the storyline on the right as long as I’ve been alive. I keep hearing about how sure we can all be that social programs are bad for the country, but in the meantime, those same right-wingers forgot that aside from talking shit, there was actually the job of governing that came along with it.
I read it in a book that I don’t have right now, and I’m not sure which source it quoted from. It may have been the Economist magazine, or it might have been an article by Thomas Sowell. I’ll see if I can find the original source. Shame on you for making me look for it; I’m lazy!!
Meting out justice is part of the government’s responsibility. That includes enforcing civil rights, and preventing corporations from holding their employees in a state of slavery. It does not include Medicare or any other form of welfare.
I think it’s pretty obvious that inner city ghettos haven’t been cleaned up by welfare. Nor have other welfare recipients been made better and more responsible citizens by government welfare programs. Education doesn’t improve as the government spends more money on it, either; it gets worse. The War on Poverty has been a disaster and a huge waste of money. I think a case could be made that it’s actually made things worse, since the black family has disintegrated since all these welfare programs were introduced.
We’ve got Sowell in our local paper…you agree with him? What do people in the ghetto get from the government? They don’t get schools as nice as kids in the white neighborhoods. They can’t afford private schools.
Sowell is full of shit 90% of the time by my count. And a lot of what right-wingers hated about social welfare has been gone for a long time now. I don’t notice anything getting better.
According to media matters , on Sept 16 2005 Rush Limbaugh claimed that 78 cents of every dollar spent on welfare went to administrative costs, as far as I know Limbaugh never quoted a source. Here is what media matters had to say about administrative costs and welfare:
A June 30 GAO study reported total federal and state expenditures as well as federal and state administrative costs for several means-tested government programs for FY 2004. Dividing “administrative expenditures” by “total expenditures,” Media Matters for America determined that administrative costs for Medicaid — by far the country’s largest means-tested welfare program — were 4.9 percent of total costs. For the food stamp program, administrative costs were higher: 17.1 percent. Administrative costs were 4.5 percent for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and 2.1 percent for the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF). The report notes that “[t]he specific types of expenditures that are considered administrative differ considerably across the programs.”
Again this goes back to the innacuracy of the conservative media. Instead of having a discussion about the effectiveness of welfare the discussion gets sidetracked by stuff that guys like Limbaugh just make up. Welfare may have problems but administrative costs are probably not one of them.
I got this from the Heriatge foundation. and it may be the source of 78 cents of every dollar goes to admin:
The combined federal and state welfare system now includes cash aid, food, medical aid, housing aid, energy aid, jobs and training, targeted and means-tested education, social services, and urban and community development programs.2 As Table One shows, in FY2000:
Medical assistance to low income persons cost $222 billion or 51 percent of total welfare spending.
Cash, food and housing aid together cost $167 billion or 38 percent of the total.
Social Services, training, targeted education, and community development aid cost around $47 billion or 11 percent of the total.
The biggest cost mentioned here are medical expenses which may point out certain inneficiencies in the way health services are delivered in the US rather than a problem with welfare.
Napoleopn:
It seems like welfare may subsidize rural areas, one of the biggest employers in rural areas(other than factory farms and wal mart) is usually the local hospital. In fact it seems like the only decent jobs in those areas are associated with healh care in some way. I bet if you looked into it you would find that these health care facilities are subsidized by the federal government in the form of medicare and medicaid because I guarantee you the people using these facilities are not getting their health insurance through their employers.
I think you can definitely make an argument that the federally subsidized health care skews the economy and ultimately makes people do unproductive things, maybe a solution might be a single payers system rather than the hodgepodge of programs we have now. Just a thought.
I definitely took a “show me the proof” attitude towards napoleon’s claim above. That’s some good researchin’ karl!
thanks
Okay, so far it appears that the $80,000 is way high. Again, I don’t have the original source, so I don’t know how that figure was produced. As I recall, it was a credible source, though. According to my own estimates, the figure is somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 (federal spending only). I haven’t done a lot of research on it yet, though. I’ll check the Heritage Foundation stats mentioned above, and some other sources as well.
Still, I think welfare causes more problems than it solves. It encourages people to be lazy. If people really need help, they can get it from their friends, family, and private charities.
“If people really need help, they can get it from their friends, family and private charities.”
How did that work out for folks during the Great Depression? I don’t think that absolutes of this kind belong in the realm of policymaking.
Government intervention didn’t help in the Great Depression, either. The Great Depression did not end until the US entered World War II.