dagblog - Comments for "Giddy up, Horse"

No banners, just little

Funonymous — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 05:34:42 +0000

In reply to Too much nuance - can I have

No banners, just little stickers. They Cover a

verage sized of bumper ok.

Too much nuance - can I have

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 02:17:07 +0000

In reply to Giddy up, Horse

Too much nuance - can I have a banner please?

No, I do not discount

A Guy Called LULU — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 17:22:09 +0000

In reply to Putting aside the national

No, I do not discount business being a legitimate reason to interact around the world. What I do assert is that doing that business in a bullying way in the Middle East has created the situation which we are hoping we can deal with to our advantage now. That bullying has played out in many ways that I am sure you are aware of. It started with western powers arbitrarily setting boundaries of most of the countries there and supporting those leaders we liked and replacing those who we didn't like with no thought being given to the fair treatment of the average citizens of those countries. We supplied weapons and training to our 'friends' to be used to crush any dissent. When direct intervention to advance our interests, which was controlling resources to our financial benefit, was deemed too expensive or too politically risky we have used other methods such as crippling sanctions and the support of both sides in local feuds. [That is going on right now in Syria, for instance where plan A didn't work out to replace Assad and we will not send in our own forces to directly remove him so we are giving just enough support to the dissidents to enable them to slowly destroy the country as a viable power in the region while the smart guys in the [war] room hope he stays in the position of much weakened power rather than the rebels being successful in his overthrow] At the base of all those actions is the desire to continue to profit economically in one way or another.
Business in principle is not bad but obviously business can be carried out in ways immoral, un-ethical, and illegal and harmful to many who are affected by the methods. Business can be carried out peacefully but staying in control of far off places requires power plays.
I also did not say that events in the ME will not affect the U.S. much economically. The economic benefits of controlling influence in that region was/is the very reason I laid out for our resort to bullying methods.
I would also like to avoid an economic recession. Our military is the biggest single enterprise in the world in its use of and need for oil. It is argued in the attempt to deify Reagan and give his expansion of our military all the credit that the Soviet Union dissolved because it was bankrupted by the cost of trying to keep up with the U.S. militarily. I think that is somewhat simplistic as an explanation but it was certainly a factor. We have continued to pour way to much of our wealth into our military and I feel that is an economic anchor even as it benefits a small percentage of Americans economically. Those benefitted the most are in position to push us to keep on keepin' on. The global economic freak out that worries you is likely to happen because of our past policies that have brought us to this point. I doubt that continuing those policies will be the way to avoid one.
The main point of blog which I described as a rant is in the last paragraph. [Rant, by definition, is not quite accurate because even though I expressed my views with anger I do not think that they are unreasonable or expressed in an unreasonable way although some will be offended by my use of the freakin' 'f' word instead of maybe 'flippin' or 'frakin' or 'fudge' or some other way of politely saying the exact word I used] My list of names was certainly not all inclusive but is there anyone on it who is not on a power trip, many of whom are just at least as much so as Putin, and who does not have an economic incentive even if they actually buy into the ideology which they push?
Anyway, thanks for the response. For the last year or so I have often been impressed with your contributions.

Putting aside the national

Elusive Trope — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 14:28:29 +0000

In reply to Giddy up, Horse

Putting aside the national security concerns at home (i.e. preventing another 9/11 like attack), you push aside the the argument of the "USA has no business being there as an influential power except for the business of business" as if it has no real legitimate value for the involvement of the US in the region.

Whether we like it or not, we live, work, and participate in a global market. Even if one buys into the argument that chaos in the Middle East may not directly the US too much economically, it does effect our European and Asian trading partners, not to mention gives crazy-for-power Putin more leverage in the market of energy.

Personally I would like to avoid going through another massive recession like the previous one, where we teetered on the edge of going into an actual depression. If you want the good old US of A to make some progress on, say, moving away from coal toward more clean energy sources, that ain't going to happen if there is a global economic freak out.

All I got sometimes is the f

Richard Day — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:21:38 +0000

In reply to Giddy up, Horse

All I got sometimes is the f word.

We cannot as a nation, prosecute former Presidents and Vice-Presidents for murder and mahem

And yet we have those folks or folks speaking in their behalf who defend defenseless

positions. But, what do I know? What is a defenseless position?

As Salon points out today, we are fighting the Vietnam debacle all over again.

Oh, if we had not been pussies, Vietnam would be a free and democratic society.

38,000 Americans are dead and another two hundred thousand? are screwed forever with PTS or missing legs or arms or.....

All idiots like me can do is argue.

Hell, do we need to send another 200,000 or 300,000 or a million US soldiers to 'complete the job' in Iraq?

This is silliness.

And the same DOD contractors would JUST LOVE ALL THIS!