The WoT is over; the GSaVE begins...

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The "global struggle against violent extremism": a sign that the Bush admin is changing it's tune and adopting a more political approach, or yet another meaningless attempt at spin?

 

Or C, changing the name changes the subject. It's a strategy employed when you have no tangible results.

Wonder if we should start taking bets on what the next catch phrase will be, when things keep inevitably going down hill.

The catch-phrase will continue to get more and more vague until it's watered down to "the galactic struggle against things that make us cranky." You know, until it looks like something BushCo is actually capable of handling. In that case, we may have to settle for something like "The Universal Conflict Against Athlete's Foot." Coming to a bumper sticker near you, 2007.

 

Sadly, it's comments like these that give even more credence to the other side. That is, those of us who don't support Bush, but still understand the difficulties of running a country in a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" atmosphere, just shake our heads at rhetoric such as this -- like THIS is what the other side has to offer. And you wonder why Bush got re-elected.

 

@ Spelly,

I don't know why, but for some reason my sarcasm is always completely lost on you. While there is true sentement behind my largely - and I thought obviously - sarcastic post (Athlete's Foot...come on!), you seem to have missed my point. That's probably my fault. Let me explain where I'm coming from.

For starters, I don't oppose the Bush administration because they're the "opposition." I oppose them because I've personally come to the conclusion that they're completely incompetant. I would LOVE having a Republican administration in office as long as I felt they were capable, accountable and deserving of the position. IMO, the Bush Administration is far from any of those virtues, hence my overall opposition. I appreciate the fact that running this country is an extremely difficult task, but given their penchant for ignoring sound advice from people who know better than they do, and then shunning the responsibility when the sh*t eventually hits the fan, then I think it's fair to say they've earned more than a little scorn.

Second, I criticize their new catch phrase and mock their need to always come up with new ones because it mirrors a pattern of theirs for drawing attention away from their failed policies by, for lack of a better term, "putting a different spin" on the issue rather than correcting their flawed policies and acknowledging that what they were doing isn't working.

A good example of this was the war in Iraq. In the beginning, among multiple reasons that were mostly trivial to the American public, by far the biggest was "There is no doubt Iraq has, and is ready to use, WMD." But sir, it turns out that there weren't any stockpiles of weapons, as you claimed. "No no, see that doesn't matter. See, Saddam had the capability to make them. THAT'S why we invaded." Oh. Umm...sir, actually his weapons manufacturing capabilities were greatly overstated. "No no, see, that doesn't matter either. See, we went there to bring democracy and freedom to the region. THAT'S why we invaded." But sir...Etc. etc.

My problem is that they keep doing what they're doing until their poll numbers dip too low on the issue (like now), and instead of evaluating their flawed policies and seeking out a means to correct them, they simply assign a new catch phrase that isn't quite so lofty in hopes that people don't seem to notice that they can't deliver on their promise. Their poll numbers have dipped drastically in their handling of the "War on Terror," so their superficial change in focus doesn't seem to be anything more than an attempt to put a diluted and fresh spin on an issue where they've clearly bitten off more than they can chew. Not to mention lost credibility and public confidence.

Bottom line is, their policies are still deeply flawed. Calling it something else to devert attention away from their failure to achieve their goals isn't what I would call leadership - it's incompetance. A fat kid who calls himself "big boned" still needs to stop hitting White Castle every day and start exercising in order to fix the problem.

My opinion, of course. And sorry if I wasn't terribly clear.

 

DR -- I knew precisely what you were trying to say AND I did see it as sarcasm. My point was that it's this kind of "sarcasm" that puts all of us Dems or anti-Bush people in a dim light. I guess my feeling is that sarcasm gets very insulting to people -- even the Bush's of the world -- and I don't like to see it -- it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I don't care for his policies (never have) -- but I reserve myself one step back from insulting his intent.

I'm probably not explaining myself very well -- it's hard to put into words -- it's just when I read that, it makes me feel not very well -- for that specific target, or anybody really.

 

Rep intimidation must be massive to finlandise the entire opposition to such a degree. 'Liberals' must be still reeling from the 'stab in the back' in the Vietnam war accusations of the right.

It is right not to repeat the follies of the past, many times the Vietnam anti-war movement went over the line with 'Baby Killers' and such follies. The U.S. right wing does their best to push into the same corner anti-war activists from then and now, and portray they as traitors to the troops.

The bad thing is: That sh*t works.

The Democratic Party and Senators in D.C. are so bound on not looking unpatriotic that they are pre-emptively hawkish in order to be seen as the 'loyal opposition' - making them virtually indistuingishable from the Reps and their hawks.

Speak about being effective as an opposition.

Today you're more likely to hear calls for pullout from the Pentagon or Rep rightwingers - while prominent dems call for more troops for Iraq and that, basically, Iraq just wasn't attacked *properly*. Kerry ran not on an antiwar platform, but that he would make war *better* than Bush.

A world upside down.

As I posted on the thread on the Plame affair

A long time since these issues have been discussed democratically and not by elites behind closed doors.

 

That's because the moment someone voices concern about Israel it becomes exceedingly easy to paint them as anti-Semitic (why the hell do we have to use that phrase? Can't we just say "bigots"?), pro-Holocaust, and so on. A pol's opponents would never fail to capitalize on such an opportunity.

See: political suicide

 

A point seldom made: aren't Arabs a semitic people too? If they are, are many Jews anti-Semites?

 

Arabs are by definition semitic, but the term has been modified in it daily usage to only include Jews. It would be wholly accurate to say that Muslims and Jews hate each other, and this hatred was probably set in stone in about 627 A.D. when in celebration of a great military victory in which Mohammed and his followers defended Medina from an army of proximately 10,000 Meccans, the followers of Islam decided to go out and destroy the last major Jewish tribe left in the area, the Banu Qurayzah, as punishment for their alliance with the Meccans. The Jewish men were given a choice of conversion or death, and close to 900 Jewish men were put to the sword while their wives and children were forced to watch, and their bodies were left to decay in the dry moat that the Muslims had dug to defend Medina.

Muslims have argued that the Jews deserved this fate as they had broken a treaty that Mohammed had negotiated with them (or forced upon them depending on what side of the story you believe), and Jewish historians claim that they sided with the Meccans based upon the fact that Mohammed had forced them out of the city of Medina as was persecuting them with ever increasing fervor, leading the Banu to believe that it was only a matter of time before they were eliminated, so they decided to side with the Meccans.

 

I don't think it's a matter of appearing indistinguishable, as much as it is to appear credible -- offering some kind of realistic opposition or alternative solution, grounded in sound thinking and principle -- not ranting and raving with inane quips that do nothing but anger and give the impression that there's not much substance to the message underneath. People that do that shoot THEMSELVES in their own foot and do nothing to forward their cause.

 

But Darkwolf, doesn't that make us all anti-semite by default ? Some Christians argued that it were the jews that nailed the messiahs on the cross and that pogroms would be a great sport event and for accounting matters, one could errect ghettos ?

Anti-Semitism is the hate for a particular race. The Semite one. As this, it's a sub-category of racism in general. It actually takes traditional Christian anti-Judaism on a new level, adapted to the needs and fashions of the 18th and 19th century (and 20th), where religion was constantly losing importance and "race" became a new cool justification to deprive others from equal rights or underline one one’s superiority.

Equally noteworthy is, that anti-Semitic sources usually tread Arabs and Jews as equally degenerated races.

But as anti-Semitism is actually a word made up by a racist to proudly proclaim his racism and to describe the people he hates on pseudo-scientific rambling... there are two solutions, twist the word until it means something different or accept the paradoxes that come with the territory of racism.


Edit: I found some small and minor spelling mistakes that might have impaired readability.

[ August 02, 2005, 20:39: Message edited by: Iago ]

 

Spelly,
you can also be so sensible a politician that you become a sorry lame-a** around whom his political enemies are running circles, laughing, in brief: A loser.
But that's leading us

 

I'm not sure I understand your comment, or which party it's directed at.

What I'm saying is that fighting the opposition (Republicans) with "nya, nya, nya" rhetoric does NOTHING but make the antagonists look like fools. Just look at some of the previous Dem pres candidates to see that strategy in motion. My response was to DR's original statement -- and I still maintain that those kind of comments do nothing but demean the entire situation and do nothing to make things any better.

 

Topic, please.

 

By the way, some time ago (a week iirc, certainly after the GSaVE was pushed into the light) there was a tape supposedly coming from one of Osama's lieutentants, Zwahiri (don't remember the exact name). The reply coming from the White House didn't lack the phrases "war" and "terror", it seemed to me. So don't discount the good ol' War on Terror, ladies and gentlemen. This old dog still has some fight left in it.

 

Bush has stated that it is still the War On Terrorism.