Whatever 'Roma.' Every word I wrote is true. Fuck this cause or that cause.

The Right Wing is in the process of destroying all that is good about our country. And you are either with the forces of good, or with Bush and his evil minions. Wait, Bush is the minion. The evil ones are in control.

Deal with it.

I just have this bad feeling that this country truly is on its way to become the Empire as depicted in the Star Wars films -- and I don't typically like to read too seriously into popular culture and its connection to our times.

I have very mixed feelings about all of this. On the one hand, I am impressed, awed and proud of the military might and power of this nation, but at the same time I am becoming frightened of it. I can't shake the feeling that in the near-future this country will truly become the world's ultimate Bad Guy. Demons are, after all, angels who have fallen.

brian, your reply didn't fit my post. i was explaining that the unedited speech was worse than moore's edit, and you replied that the timing was incorrect. i hadn't said anything about the timing.

rich: hang in there. it'll get better someday.

I am impressed, awed and proud of the military might and power of this nation

"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington

How can you possibly be proud of the fact that 50% of global military spending is by one nation (no, it wasn't Germany in the 30's) and that said military is now beating up the little be-specticled kid on the block? The same kid you've been beating into submission for the last 12 years? What is there to be proud of?

"Shock and awe"? More like inspire fear and hatred. America, say hello to the next generation of terrorists. You'll need daddy Bush to protect you even more so soon, so welcome the police state while you are at it.

Rich Gibson's post nicely sums it up. This is a battle of good vs. evil and little things like *lying* about one's opponent simply don't apply in such a battle.

So if you want to take two speeches that Heston made a year apart, and splice them together to make it look like it's a single speech he gave in Colorado right after Columbine -- hey, Heston's evil, what's the big fucking deal?

If your thesis is that Heston came to Colorado to shove the NRA in people's faces, and you need to edit out a portion of his speech where he notes that the NRA cancelled almost all of its events there in light of the tragedy -- hey, who gives a fuck. The guy's evil, remember?

And if you need to lie and say he came to Michigan right after a Feb. shooting when in fact he didn't come until October for a pre-election rally -- Moore power to you! We need more people like Michael willing to do what it takes to confront EEEEVVVIIILLLL and not let pesky things like honesty and integrity impede their way. Much better to manipulate video and audio so you can attack a caricature of your opponent than deal wih him head on.

And, of course, nobody's going to object when the NRA does the same thing to gun control opponents, right? A misquote here, a lie there -- what's a bit of dishonesty between opponents after all?

The entire world seems in the process of being Coulterized -- I guess it's time to stop fighting it.

"How can you possibly be proud of the fact that 50% of global military spending is by one nation?"

Some facts:
The US accounts for 43 percent of the world's economic production, 40 percent of its high-technology production, and 50 percent of its research and development.

US military spending--even after the increase post 9/11--is only about four per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

As for Saddam being nothing more than the poor "little be-specticled (sic) kid on the block," that's just...uh...breathtaking. Way to go, troll.

Keefy your reference to America as "beating up" on Saddam for 12 years is laughable. By displaying any sympathy for this bloodthirstry tyrant, you are in fact supporting him. Supporting his payment to suicide bombers, suppporting his torture chambers, supporting his death squads, supporting his oppression of his people. they are starved, uneducated and without any say about their own country because of HIM.
I don't know how you derive any pride out of "your own opinion" when it's just cliched "if the administration is for it, i'm against it" contrarianism.

well, maybe i DO get it -- there's a moral superiority gained from "standing against The Man" -- but you know what? it's a childish pose.

I don't take any great pleasure out of allying myself with Bush & Co. on a million different issues, they're repugnant. it certainly would be easier to just sit back and rally against the war with everyone else -- but you know what? the things we've seen, the arguments we've heard convince us they're right on this.

it amazes me that after years of clamoring for human rights and against totalitarian regimes, the Left is now refusing to get behind the US doing the right thing solely because it's Bush making the argument. talk about being blinded by ideology. in fact, it's completely reactionary.

that's why there are recent pro miltary action articles by Hentoff and Hitchens -- they're long-time principaled critics who realize that the war on Iraq is worth doing -- and completely consistent with the moral standards they've espoused all along.

Rich, I knew your studied, reasonable persona was a facade from the moment I first engaged with you a couple of months ago. All that raging dogma, hovering just below the surface, straining, gnashing, wanting desperately to be let out.

It pleases me to no end to see you now, up to your public eyeballs in your knee-jerk, partisan wallow.

Just like Moore! You must be so proud.

Hey Ian...whatever.

You think that your view that America is blessed by 'God' is an objective truth.

I happen to think that the whole right wing crapfest is bullshit.

I stand by my words. Bush is an evil evil man who uses 'Christianity' to criminalize people with beliefs and sex lives that he doesn't like.

Bush is a fucked up evil evil person who used the non-threat of a petty tyrant in order to destroy the only institutions of international law and order that stood between the rule of law and the Bush rule of empire.

You call that good?

You want them faggots put in jail? Fine.

You want women to be pregnancy slaves? Fine.

You want a world with no laws but force? Fine.

I don't.

You want to vilify Michael Moore because he calls you on this crap? Fine.

But don't call it 'Dogma.'

Ian...you are one of the more whacked and evil representatives of this whole fucked up right wing tribe...go back into your theocratic hole and back to beating off over the war porn.

Brian...

Yeah...fuck you as well. Michael Moore made a hell of a movie. A movie that actually raises issues. You and your nutjob right wing ditto heads call that 'lying.'

And yet you support criminal lying Bush? What a strange world.

> Hitchens -- they're long-time principaled critics

Hitchens? Principled???
BWaaaa-haa-haa-ha!!!!!!!
This is the best display of "Green Sky" Right-wingers outside of Yahoo! message boards!

From The Japan Times:

Note this line:
(the US) "...who are doing what evil people do: starting a war, invading another country without provocation, even -- unthinkably -- "reserving the right to exercise the nuclear option.""

Hey Look at me! I'm George Bush! I'll start a fucking war and create the doctrine of 'preemptive war.' That means if I see a country I don't like, I'll declare war on them. Maybe I'll muke 'em.

What a whacko!

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?ed20030330a1.htm

"Somehow, every book you pick up seems to presuppose an elemental conflict between good and evil -- the very terms in which U.S. President George W. Bush has long cast this strange conflict."

"Why is that a problem? Because while there is no doubting the evil of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, it is his foes, Japan's democratic allies, who are doing what evil people do: starting a war, invading another country without provocation, even -- unthinkably -- "reserving the right to exercise the nuclear option." It's the effort to square this intractably round hole that has proved, over the past few months, so exhausting. And it is why this war just will not seem to go away, no matter where one turns."

Edited by author 03-31-2003 06:04 PM
moore is what lenin would call a 'useful idiot'

I take back what I said some posts ago. Rich Gibson is the Left's Anne Coulter :-)

"Where human rights and freedoms flourish, terrorists and tyrants do not thrive and conflict and chaos do not reign," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday at the rollout of the report. "America's democratic values, our national interests and our obligations to the international community demand that the defense and promotion of human rights are an integral and active part of our foreign policy."

Let's face it: More people in this country voted against GDub... it's that simple. Moore's films play to THOSE people. I understand it can be difficult for some people (namely, the Rush and Hannity crowd) to grasp that not everyone agrees or likes GDub. Yeah, a lot of people jump on his band-wagon during times of war, but lets face it, the majority of the country, and the world, still see this guy as kind of a boob... and Moore's films play to those people. Moore's films aren't Un-Patriotic, quite the opposite. It is people like Moore, in one way or another, that keep the politicians from just being COMPLETE 100% liars.