quote:Replacements needed: First, referring to members of the military as replacements, and secondly the disrespect shown to dead members of the military, and lastly (this is the big one) the use of military deaths to achieve a political point.
I'm not sure how to respond to the last part -- I think the Administration is using past military deaths to promote future ones; a tactic that never has made much sense to me. The old "if we don't continue the war, all these prior lives would've been lost 'in vain'" rings hollow to me. I'm told their sacrifices made sense at the time they made them. If I ascribe to that, the next death is independent of the prior deaths. It either has meaning or it doesn't. Now that I think of it, that's a lesson from Vietnam, though. We have to make sure every life or death has meaning.
I'm not going to defend the "replacements needed" other than to ask if maybe they got that label from the military itself? I recall the word "replacements" being used to talk about how the soldiers in the Reserves and National Guard were being used to replace regular troops. Of course, the hardship of long deployments overseas on people who joined the Guard especially (not so much the Reservists, I imagine) came as kind of a shock. They anticipated mostly (if not entirely) Stateside duty and maybe being used to fill billets in Command & Control or support operations if a war broke out. Not being sent into combat situations. I think there's a lot of pent up resentment over being used as combat replacements.
Whether that's what the "replacements needed" thing is highlighting, I can't say, but that's what leaped to mind when I saw that first link.
quote:Maimed for lies: It's not the Code Pink lady being interviewed that I'm upset with, although her tacit approval of Code Pink people with Maimed for Lies signs is despicable. It's the people with those signs. Outside Walter Reed hospital. It's a cheap and vile stunt to drop the morale of the military. It would be different if they were doing it outside the White House (I'd still dislike it, but it's several orders of magnitude less), but the choice of venue is the telling thing, for me. The amusing thing for me is the reaction of the maimed soldiers - those with fingers left flip them off whenever they go by them. I think it's pretty obvious to the soldiers how the protestors feel about them.
Yep, I think this tactic is truly deplorable. It may be effective, but they should at least have thought about the feelings of the wounded soldiers and their families that go to Walter Reed to visit them. This is truly nasty and they shouldn't be doing it.
quote: Counter Recruiters - The military isn't perfect (far from it), but an attempt to keep people from joining screws over those of us in the military. Every one of those people "counterrecruited" is one less person in the foxhole beside me.
Um...aren't you basically saying that replacements ARE needed then?
quote: Get off campus - I remember talking with the Marine recruiters on campus at CSUN, and they said that things like this happen fairly often and they just have to take it. I've stated earlier in another thread that the recruiters are us - there isn't any special Recruiter Corps, they're just average joe Marines (and soldiers, etc) who have been assigned to recruiting duty for a couple years. People might disagree with what they are doing, but the disrespect shown them is wrong, and kicking us off campus like we're recruiting for the KKK is also wrong.
I know some of the arguments that can be made for the other side - Replacements Needed is "trying to raise public awareness" and thinks that extreme methods are acceptable, same thing for maimed for lies, the counter recruiters and get off campus guys, well, we've discussed them in other threads. I can come up with several arguments, claim it's a matter of point of view, etc. I reject those arguments categorically. (I realize that I just used a strawman argument, but I'm close anyway) I do not believe that the ends justify the means, and these are vile means.
It may surprise you to hear that I agree with you about this. If a school takes Federal funds, I believe it has ipso-facto opened the door to Federal programs (including the military and the CIA) recruiting on their campus. I don't just mean this from a philosophical perspective. I mean that I think the rules for those grants actually state it. And the protesters are, IMHO, doing a disservice to their fellow students who may truly wish to join the military.
The bit about anti-discrimination is a smoke screen, IMHO. While I abhor the "don't ask/don't tell" fakery and wish our military would just grow up regarding homosexuals who also serve as soldiers (as they have grown up about minority service personnel, and women in combat roles), I don't believe for an instant that the campus protests are really about trying to force that change upon the military. I suspect that if the military were friendly to openly homosexual men and women, these protesters would still not want them recruiting on campus. That's fine, but they should be protesting the schools' acceptance of Federal funds, then.
And that's not gonna happen because no-one could afford ANY education if the Federal money weren't being poured in. Without it most of those campuses just would close.
Posts: 22497 | Registered: Sep 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I agree with that, Mr. Squicky. However, that was not the point Silkie was making.
It was the point, to a point. As I wrote, the council who invited us to leave also made the distinction between legitimate resistance and killing civilians or people who were going about their normal lives. They are telling their resistors to concentrate on fighting the Americans and their allies instead of each other.
In other words, we are no longer wanted there.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: [QB] Why isn't the leader of one nation-state plotting and attempting the assassination of the former leader of another justification for war?
I'm just curious. I could understand the "it's just personal" argument if, say, Saddam had tried to murder Bush Sr. and he wasn't ever a President, just the sitting President's father.(snip)
Is a personal family vendetta worth going to war over? Is it worth killing and maiming untold thousands? Over the centuries wars HAVE been fought over such things - but we Americans were presumably more civilized than that.
Our new diplomacy - preemptive war - changes that.
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I would argue that those 'personal' vendettas of the past have shaped our continents, countries, and governments. I would not like to see what would have come to pass without wars based on vendetta.
Preemptive war? It's a good thing if you know it's coming. If...
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The WP is reporting the leak of a classified document in which a conversation between President Bush and British PM Tony Blair included Bush expressing the thought the he'd like to bomb the Arab news network Al Jezeera (located in the friendly-to-US nation of Qatar).
Blair reported told him it was a bad idea.
Unfortunately, the document probably can't clarify whether Bush was joking (as the Administration claims) or if he was serious (as others have claimed and as some in the British Government fear since it has implications for re-opening investigations regarding bad things happening to non-embedded reporters.
Tern, as a purely hypothetical at this point, would you support the President if it turned out he actually HAD said this in seriousness? Would you be okay with it if it turned out that past "accidental" bombings or shootings involving Al Jezeera locations were not actually accidental, but deliberately ordered by someone in the chain of command?
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quote:Is a personal family vendetta worth going to war over? Is it worth killing and maiming untold thousands? Over the centuries wars HAVE been fought over such things - but we Americans were presumably more civilized than that.
Our new diplomacy - preemptive war - changes that.
Is attempting to assassinate a former president because of what he did while he was president really just a "personal vendetta"? Of course not.
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quote:Is a personal family vendetta worth going to war over? Is it worth killing and maiming untold thousands?
Yes, absolutely. I would supported using that as a formal justification for war. It's a clear casus belli. It's a shame we settled on the wrong reason.
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quote:Tern, as a purely hypothetical at this point, would you support the President if it turned out he actually HAD said this in seriousness?
Oh, yes. As far as I can tell, Al-Jazeera is the propaganda wing of Al-Qaeda, which makes it a legitimate military target.
By the way, not to cut and run , but I've got some fairly pressing commitments in RL and I've got to stop getting sucked in to these threads for a while. It's been an interesting discussion, however. When I have time, I'll write up a more comprehensive answer, which I may or may not post. Laters!
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By the way Sen. Joseph Lieberman is in the chow hall! He did not even try to take my Assault Rifle, how out of character! I had Turkey, Lobster, Crab and Apple Pie Al La Mode, War is Hell on all of us, I need some pepto!
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It's a little unusual to think that most people are pro-GOP, seeing as how, well, elections are close and stuff.
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Other than the fact that they broadcast tapes sent to them by Al Qaeda, what makes you think Al Jezeera is any different from any other news organization throughout the world?
It seems to me that there's at least a 50:50 chance BBC News would broadcast those tapes if they got them.
I'm pretty sure most of the news outlets in our country would as well. Or at least they'd consider it, or show some edited version of them. (since the obviously have done so with snippets of the Al Jezeera tapes in the past).
So...evidence before we blow up their headquarters?
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Attacking Al-Jazeera would be a wonderful way to anger and alienate the entire Arab world even more.
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Ah, but a man can dream, can he not? Heh, you didn't ask me what we should do with Al-BBC. No, there's a difference between "it would be nice" and what one really can do.
'appy Thanksgivin' to y'all as well.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Bean Counter: That is just good marketing since most people are pro GOP. Soon CNN will be just like the BBC!
BC
As touched on above, the last Presidential election was a neck and neck race, with Bush's so called "mandate" only a few percentage points. Before you classify me as a dyed in the wool Democrat, let me clarify: I vote independently.
Right now MOST people in the US, by fairly large margins, whether Republican or Democrat, or otherwise:
are against the Iraq War
consider both Bush and Cheney to be untrustworthy
don't believe what they were told about the reasons for going to war
are dissatisfied with the performance of the Republican Congress
The atmosphere at this time is very much like the atmosphere during Clinton's second term. If things keep going the way they are going now, the congress could conceivably change majorities in the next election.
In my opinion that would be a good thing. We need the checks and balances of Congressional diversity to keep the extremists in line and to achieve moderation through compromise.
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quote:Right now MOST people in the US, by fairly large margins, whether Republican or Democrat, or otherwise:
are against the Iraq War consider both Bush and Cheney to be untrustworthy don't believe what they were told about the reasons for going to war are dissatisfied with the performance of the Republican Congress
Actually, they just did a Pew study showing that 48% of the public still supports the war, and 45% is against it. Hardly a "fairly large margin" against it. Regardless, public opinion is not a measure of whether or not a cause is moral.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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I have a friend here who delights in cutting together our little films with elaborate sound effects and cutting to stock images of dead bodies and such to create fake "reality" videos that we all laugh our asses off at.
An ordinary day of us doing a mounted patrol turns into a shooting gallery full of screams and gunfire...
I saw a clip on Arab TV that was almost as bad as that, supposedly an Apache gunship firing on a crowd of peaceful protestors.
My point? With any significant percentage of people protesting the war loudly it is easy to give the impression that it must be everyone. In fact it is to the point where creating a news story full of imagery and meaning that supports an agenda is so easy that there is no need to show anything else. That means that without controls in place to keep news from having an agenda all news is suspect. Until people regain a reverence for truth audiences will hear the news they look for. A daily dose of validation to keep self image intact. It will also leave them pathetic chumps, one more sucker born every minute.
quote:Right now MOST people in the US, by fairly large margins, whether Republican or Democrat, or otherwise:
are against the Iraq War consider both Bush and Cheney to be untrustworthy don't believe what they were told about the reasons for going to war are dissatisfied with the performance of the Republican Congress
Actually, they just did a Pew study showing that 48% of the public still supports the war, and 45% is against it. Hardly a "fairly large margin" against it. Regardless, public opinion is not a measure of whether or not a cause is moral.
Polls are only as good as the impartiality of the sample group of people, and the unbiased interpretation of the data.
Here are three polls - actually more than that since the middle one is a site which shows a compilation of poll data from many sources - that support my staement MSNBC
quote:Originally posted by Bean Counter: That is news you can count on!
BC
Bean counter, I am sorry that you are over there, facing enemy fire and terrible conditions. In myu opinion you and your fellow soldiers should be home with your families.
As for honest news, I read most of my news online. I read from many sources, because some of them will have a slant, intentional or otherwise.
Try reading your news at MSNBC or CNN as well as your hometown paper, which probably has an online site. I do that. I also get a compilation of news sent to me, which I admit has liberal bias in their editorials, but it still has - for better or worse - honest news. Much of what I read there never makes it to the Mass Media news, and it is news from across the world, which gives a better perspective of what is really happening.
Pre-digested edited news is propeganda, and we have had too much of that since the current Administration took control.
posted
Well, given that the Iraqis, themselves, have asked for a timetable, it's pretty clear that there's almost no way the Bush administration can't honor that request without stepping on all kinds of land mines.
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quote:Originally posted by Storm Saxon: Well, given that the Iraqis, themselves, have asked for a timetable, it's pretty clear that there's almost no way the Bush administration can't honor that request without stepping on all kinds of land mines.
So far they are ignoring that request, which is a slippery way of not honoring it.
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Silkie, Google News (news.google.com) is a great way to compare and contrast how various news agencies report the same story. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I checked out your truthout.org, it seems about as balanced as WND. At least there aren't as many ads, but it's something I would take with a small boulder of salt.
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quote:Originally posted by tern: I checked out your truthout.org, it seems about as balanced as WND. At least there aren't as many ads, but it's something I would take with a small boulder of salt.
I agree that truthout has a Liberal Bias in their editorials.
BUT
IF you click on the "go to original" links you will find that every article is from a completely legit news source. Frequently what they print is news that was "left out" of the corporate mainstream news for political correctness. They also have reporters that submit news from foreign language news sources, mostly european.
I'm sure Google has an excellent news page too. Slate.com is another good source. I read Discovery News too.
My point is to please read ALL of the news, not just the stuff stressed by your favorite political party's choice. Each additional source gives more information, and fills in the gaps left out by the other one's slant.
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The "original" is biased too. I'm well aware of the bias in what I read, on both sides, and I adjust for it.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by tern: The "original" is biased too. I'm well aware of the bias in what I read, on both sides, and I adjust for it.
I'm curious, what do you mean by "biased"? Do you consider the Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, etc. biased sources?
Posts: 337 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Yes. I have read the Los Angeles Times for over 12 years, CNN.com for six years. The articles I read in the Washington Post (usually referred by blogs) are also biased.
What do I mean by bias? Simply put, a slant towards one side or another. In the case of these sources, the Left, but in general I would say that the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal are mildly biased towards the Right, but not to the extent that the others are to the Left.
How do I determine bias? Word choices that present a certain point of view, facts included or left out (usually, when I read these articles, I have other sources of information that supplement them).
In general, it seems that the editors and reporters have personal agendas and they slant their articles to push people towards their agenda. One example is how anytime a Republican congresscreature does anything bad, they're always identified as a Republican, but if a Democrat congressthing does anything bad, you've almost got to look it up on the Internet to see what their affiliation is, because you won't find it from the article.
One thing that amuses me is Leftists accusing Fox of being conservative. Well, being conservative, they're not exactly conservative, but they're more in the middle than most. But the frothing attacks on Fox are hilarious. It's like, you guys have CBS (Communist B.S.), NBC (Nothing But C***), ABC (Always Bashing Conservatives), and if that doesn't satisfy your jones for an echo chamber, there is always the Voice of Soviet Union, NPR. (Sure, it's "National" Public Radio...but they don't tell you what nation) So even if Fox was as conservative as it is accused of being by the MoveOn crowd, so what? Let us have our one station, while you guys get the other 4. Well, 5, including CNN (Communist News Network).
I think that one can judge one's political orientation by how one reacts to the major news networks. If you think Fox is a little too much to the Left, you would be a staunch conservative like myself. If you think CBS is a bastion of moderation, you're definitely on the Left. Whatever your affiliation may be, you've got to look for the bias in your news source.
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Although I feel like I've got to issue "hyperbole warnings" everytime I say things like this...
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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[snip] I think that one can judge one's political orientation by how one reacts to the major news networks. If you think Fox is a little too much to the Left, you would be a staunch conservative like myself. If you think CBS is a bastion of moderation, you're definitely on the Left. Whatever your affiliation may be, you've got to look for the bias in your news source.
That's interesting, thanks for answering.
I find FOX way too Conservative for me, but I was surprised by their coverage of the NOLA Flood. They told the truth that they saw. That surprise showed me a little of MY bias.
My personal slant (at this time, subject to change as I go along the highway of life) is that they all try, to a point. BUT Corporate interests limit what they are allowed to say on the air, at least sometimes. For instance, I stopped watching NBC Evening news for a long while, because I saw Brocaw being used as a mouthpiece of the Bush Administration. I find all of the network news slanted to some extent toward Conservatism. They have all 'left out' important news stories that I read about online. It's interesting how differently you perceive their news slant.
And while much of the time I don't agree with O'Reilly, sometimes he is right on. Michael Moore is just as extreme, and just as biased, but in the other direction. He has his truths too, and I think they are both sincere. As Move On is also sincere. Whether any of them are perceived as misguided is a matter of personal bias, IMHO.
The main thing I want from a Journalist is the TRUTH, without their thoughts and feelings interspersed as part of the truth. If they are giving me opinion, at least tell me that. In reading many different sources, I hope to wade through the BS and come out with a fair grasp of the story.
This is an interesting discussion, again thanks for your answer.
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quote:One thing that amuses me is Leftists accusing Fox of being conservative. Well, being conservative, they're not exactly conservative, but they're more in the middle than most. But the frothing attacks on Fox are hilarious. It's like, you guys have CBS (Communist B.S.), NBC (Nothing But C***), ABC (Always Bashing Conservatives), and if that doesn't satisfy your jones for an echo chamber, there is always the Voice of Soviet Union, NPR. (Sure, it's "National" Public Radio...but they don't tell you what nation) So even if Fox was as conservative as it is accused of being by the MoveOn crowd, so what? Let us have our one station, while you guys get the other 4. Well, 5, including CNN (Communist News Network).
Wow. Did you cut and paste that from the Free Republic FAQ, or...? Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I must be losing my touch. The only word I can possibly see in "C***" is hardly persuasion to watch Fox News instead...
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Actually, tern, the American "centre" is the rest of the Western world's right wing. America has two right wing political parties; the biggest difference between them is that on social issues, one is conservative and the other is slightly progressive.
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quote: NPR. (Sure, it's "National" Public Radio...but they don't tell you what nation)
This is simply not true. NPR has oversight committees that actually ensure its balance and report metrics of it constantly. Recently some idiots in Congress decided to push issue even further. Guess what:
- NPR is the only news service that actually measures this themselves. - They do a damned good job of doing equal time.
If anything, they blow it by ignoring the most extreme views at each end of the scale and have become sort of non-news in a way.
But I think you're completely wrong and couldn't provide anything like quatitative evidence to actually back up your biased viewpoint.
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I think that y'all are unwilling to admit the existance of your echo chamber. Attack me if you will, but the media is biased - depending on which outlet, different ways.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote: I think that y'all are unwilling to admit the existance of your echo chamber.
Most of the echoing I hear, tern, tends to be about the existence of an echo chamber. That makes for an effective delaying tactic, but that's all you can say for it.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I thought this paper was fascinating. Here's your evidence, Bob. Not that you'll accept it, of course... (smiles always make it go down nicer) Media Bias analyzed
Again, however, we're talking past each other. I think that y'all are unwilling to acknowledge the existence (Thanks, Tom, for the spelling correction - minor mispellings always mean that the point being advanced is wrong!) of a liberal media bias, and apparently, I'm an America-hating neoconservative who can't admit that the American media, where it isn't moderate, is actually somewhat conservative and I'm just putting up a smokescreen to hide it. How do I argue with that? You've got me dead to rights. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go beat an illegal immigrant and steal welfare money from people of a different race than myself, because I've got things to do, things to do. Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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I actually italicized "existence" not to point out the misspelling, but to actually emphasize the word. In other words, a great deal of effort is spent complaining about media bias -- from both sides of the aisle -- for very little reason except to distract from more important issues.
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I think that the existence of the media bias is an important issue. We use the information that we recieve to form our views and our plans of action. If our information is faulty, then every conclusion that we make is faulty. Now, for example, the Iraq War a more important issue? Sure. But if we're only getting one side of the information, we cannot make a reasonably informed opinion.
Posts: 561 | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote: I think that the existence of the media bias is an important issue.
See, I don't. I think the existence of media bias in general is an important thing to keep in mind -- although it's hardly an issue, per se -- but people spend a lot of time worrying about the media bias as if the media were biased in only one way.
Speaking as a former member of the media, that's laughable. All news media is actually biased at heart in two ways: towards sensationalism; and towards fascism (by which I mean an imagined world in which the common people are ruled by a well-meaning elite, all while scapegoating an evil, scheming underclass.)
Every single tendency of the modern media can be described in this way. Their political bias is largely irrelevant, provided you keep in mind these two philosophical biases -- which, really, ultimately only exist because they're effective marketing.
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, but I've got some fairly pressing commitments in RL and I've got to stop getting sucked in to these threads for a while. It's been an interesting discussion, however. When I have time, I'll write up a more comprehensive answer, which I may or may not post. Laters!
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