Um who gives a shit. Terri Shiavo probably doesn't care whether she is alive or dead, if anything she would rather be dead because at least then she would have a chance to be in heaven and not just in a mindless vegetable state.
But in no way should the controversy over her life received the national attention that it has. The only reason that this case has reached the amount of attention that it has is because politicians like to use issues like this to get votes. Simple as that. Same as the abortion issue, politicians are never going to do anything important about the issue but they are going to use it as a rallying cry to get people sympathetic to either side of the issue to vote for them.
It is one big magic trick, look at this profoundly emotional issue that has hardly any relevance on anyones life, instead of looking at my policies that are actually effecting you in a negative way. Instead of politicians dealing with important substantive issues the debates focus on "you are evil cause you are killing this person," "you are evil cause you won't let this person die."
Why don't we have national attention on poverty, minority issues, healthcare, anything that actually affect the average American lives. Why? The answer is simple because when people actually start paying close attention to what are politicians are doing, they get angry and fed up with those politicians.
As I alluded to earlier before the abortion issue is the exact same thing as the Shiavo case. Why? Because the Republican Party is never going to outlaw abortion eventhough they constantly preach about how horrid abortion is. What they are doing is just getting catholics, women, impoverished, farmers and many others who don't tend to agree with the Republican economic policies to become republicans because of this highly emotional issue. It creates a fictional divide between people that irrationalizes politics and creates unnecessary polarity.
We should be more aware and immune to this kind of bull shit magic tricks that politicians use for their political gain. We need to focus on substantive issues that profoundly affect the majority of American lives.
-Andrew Gross
Anyone remeber the days of Atimes when the posts had enough content and some semblance of thought that one had to actually try and rip them apart . . . but now the posts rip themselves apart without any outside help.
Lets try and get some level of intelligence back here instead of "hey I am bored . . ."
Peace
Alright first Jesse . . . you always astound me with never ever looking anything up or researching jack shit, Yeltsin was not elected, he assumed power. After the coup that failed he took over simple as that. Also if you actually look at the Soviet Union they were damned long before Reagan took office. If you want to give credit where it is due, you should credit either Ike or the Pope because both of them did much more than Reagan. Also democracy has never flourished in Russia especially if you look at the Oligarchs that are now running the country in Russia and the incredible corruption in Russian politics. If you look at the recent election where Putin was elected by huge margins and where was the contender, "Um yeah I took a vacation for awhile and didn't let anyone know" in other words he defintely had an encounter with Putin's officials. Also with the propoganda thing . . . wow! As I said before Yeltsin initially took over(and Yeltsin looks a lot better in a tank than does Duhkakis), and then won the election by a land slide, why? Because the corruption in the system and not something from the USA. I don't know where you got your facts, but I would advise kicking your sources ass, cause they are just plain liars. And besides driving this country into horrible debt, ignoring aids, and his wonderful activities down south I guess you could say that Reagan wasn't the wourst president of all times.
Paul - I have had this discussion with you before. Here is the arguement that I am going to make, and I already have an image of your reaction to it (it is quite funny actually), but Michael Moore is a breath of fresh air. He is asking questions that that horridly "liberal" media does not ask and that no one else does in a public manner. Sure there are inaccessible pieces of literature and so forth that say the same thing as Michael Moore but the reason that he is so liked is because people can view his ideas at widely accessible venues. Also you are going to have to give reasoning behind Micheal Moore not being a man of the people. And him being rich doesn't cut it. The reason that I am saying this is because he is defintely considered to be a man of the people so in order for you to discredit that popularly held belief we need some shred of evidence, because your word over the masses . . . well lets just say neither are very credible.
Left Win . . . Always!
Alright I have to do some Catholic explaining. Paul you are correct in saying that Gibson is an uber Catholic, but I would say that he is so uber Catholic that he isn't really Catholic. The Catholic faith was reformed in Vatican 2, but Mel like some other freaks resisted and really aren't apart of the Catholic Church, but rather their own little pre-Vatican 2 Catholic Church. To put it into context when Mel went to Rome to shoot the movie, he had to fly in his own priest because all the other priests in Rome didn't suit his worship style.
I would also like to clear one thing up for you guys, the Hierarcy of the Church especially the Catholic Church in the United States, serves mostly a guidance/symbolic position, and that when the Pope or an archbishop says something, people don't drop everything so they can accomodate the words of that person. Basically on the Drudge Report I saw a thing critizicising Kerry for taking communion because he is pro-choice. Umm that is perfectly fine according to Catholic Dogma and just because some conservative Bishops and others are anti-Kerry doesn't meen that Catholics feel that way. What this further shows is the prejudice we have in our system against Catholics. There is a thin line Catholics have to walk when they run for office because they get critisized either way. If they are too religious people say they are controlled by the vatican, if they aren't religous enough, people accuse them of not being religous and not right for president.
Oh and lastly I would like to remind people that we can't refer to Catholics as a voting block, there are so many Catholics and there is no trend in their voting pattern (that is substantial) to refer to a "Catholic Vote." There is no such thing and Fox, Yahoo, CNN and the Drudge Report have to get it together.
I don't mean to sound as though I think the capture of Saddam is a bad thing, by all means I am glad that he was captured, I am also glad that he was living with the rats because that is his rightful place. The only problem with the capture of Saddam is that it is going to give Bush a reason to get out of Iraq. Bush like his father might say, oh well, our mission is completed I can just pull out now. The problem is that we have to rebuild Iraq and ensure that a stable government takes over, unlike what we have done in Afgahnistan. If we are to pull out now, ever soldier that died has died in vein because we will have done nothing. Iraq is looking for a leader, to rebuild their nation, to bring peace, and to bring freedom . . . the first dictator that comes into Iraq will be heralded as a hero, and will have Saddam two. Bush the senior already pulled out on the Iraqi people, which left many dead as kurds revolted against Saddam and were brutally supressed.
So basically my point is this, we can rejoice in the fact that Saddam will hopefully meet the same fate as Milosovic and that one of the world's greatest evil will be punished in this world, but we can not forget, in our rejoicing, that Iraq is still very explosive and if we forget about it, as we have with Afgahnistan or as Bush senior did, we will be back in Iraq in about 10 more years. Bush has to take seriosly the fact that hundereds of US soldiers have died, and he has to honor their deaths by finishing the job, and hopefully bring peace and hopefully a true democracy to Iraq.
I am not very good with this whole economy thing, but hey Ben is it still Clinton's economy or does that only end when the bulls starting beating the bears in some one on one?
We all know that I am not a Bush supporter, but one event has gotten me very upset. In the STU speech that Bush made about the Iraq being supported by the African nation Liberia (?) (too late fo me) was fine. So what Bush got bad intelligence and embelished some intelligence to make it seem more severe than it was, as all politicians do. In all seriousness this small little detail would not have effected whether America went to war with Iraq or not. But here is what makes me angry at Bush, he refused, for three weeks to take any blame for this action. Kennedy took all the blame for the Bay of Pigs, which was probably less his fault than this was Bush's, and what happend? His ratings rose significiantly, because American's realized their pres. was in control. Bush refused to do that for us and it raised the question in my head, where does the buck stop? If our president is blaming other people for the mistakes in the office, it raised another question, who has the control? When we vote for Bush who are we voting for, because this incident defintely makes it seem that Bush is not in charge.
As Americans, and maybe even broader as humans we need enemies. The line from Kubrick's movie FMJ referring to a soldier in nam is the perfect example of this. A loose dictation goes something to the extent of "All he needs is someone to be chucking grenades at him for the rest of his life." This line was referring to the character "Animal Mother" who is very unintelligent, but is a great soldier when he is getting grenades thrown at him. To prove my point look at the Cold War. America grew by leaps and bounds during that era, for better or worse. Education, exploration, technology, what else was improved during that era. . . it is almost countless. The reason is that we had a enemy that we had to beat, the Russians. Look at all war for that matter, the majority of all major technological advancements occured for no other reason but war. Arms and bombs are created to kill, while medicins are created to heal the soldiers so that soldier can go out and kill more soldiers. As Americans and humans we need an enemy. Well the question that has popped into your minds, is who gives a shit? Actually this ties in to Mike's post in that I believe that the government is most defintely profiting from Sadam being on the loose. What is interesting is that this theory goes against what I have heard a lot of people on the tele saying. But hear me out. If Americans are constantly reminded that Saddam is out there and is a threat, we (as history dictates) should become more productive. And at this stage of the economy any improved productivty is going to be a huge bonus for this administration.
We know em we love em, and I would like to comment on a couple of them.
The sign that we see the most often is the "I support our troops" sign which was pro-war. To me something seems really odd about this, maybe someone can figure it out for me, the sign suggests that in order to support our troops we have to send them off to Iraq in hostile terrority where about 5 a week are getting killed. And how is saying "go troops" supporting them. True support would be designing new technologies, or working in a program that will teach how to invent new products (robotics), or giving food and supplies to the troops. Here is how I will support the troops, by telling the president that he can't send them over to Iraq, that is true support. If I ask you guys for support please don't send me into south minneapolis with a ferrarri, a rolex, and a tutu, I just wouldn't to happy.
The other sign that I saw that I really liked was one that said "Dissent is patriotic" with the american colors in the background. I totally alleged with this bumper sticker and I am srue most of yall would have to, because being patriotic to a government founded on protest, rebellion, and revolution is only possible through dissent. Dissent is the most vital piece to democracy that once we have no more dissent, we will have no more democracy, it is needed.
And why don't they ever teach you that in school, lousy education system that is what it is! HAHAHAHA!
